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c 


V 


ORY     AND     CHRONOLOGY 


OF    THE 


MYTH -MAKING    AGE, 


^ 


BY 

J.    F.    HEWITT, 

LATE    COMMISSIONER    OF    CHUTIA    NAGPUR. 


Wiitb  Aap,  plated,  and  S)iaaranid. 


I     BEDFORD    STREET,    STRAND,    LONDON 

AND    27    BRQAD    STREET,    OXFORD. 


MDCCCCI. 

<  v  ' 


iT 


2555  U 


CONTENTS. 


Preface 

BOOK  I. 
Chapter      I. 

Chapter    II. 


PAGE 

.    ix. — xlvii. 

THE  AGE  (Jf*  POLE  STAR  WORSHIP. 
Introductory  Sketch    -    ^....        .  1  —  20 


I 


v^ 


The    years    of    two    seasons    and 
five-day  weeks  measured  by  the 

movements    of    THE    PLEIADES    AND 

THE  Solstitial  Sun 

A.  Birth  of  life  from  the  Mother  Tree 

B.  Date  of  the  belief  in  the  Pole  Star  parent-god 

C.  The  original  week  of  five  days 

D.  The  diffusion  through  the  world  of  the  five- 
days  week  .... 

Chapter  III.     The   year   of  three   seasons   and 

FIVE-DAY    weeks    RULED    BY     ORION 

the  deer-sun-god 

A.  Progress  of  the  Northern  emigration  of  the 
Indian  founders  of  villages 

B.  The  men  of  the  bow 

C.  Substitution  of  Orion  for  Canopus  as  the 
leading  star-god 

D.*^  The  sun-circle  of  three  hundred  and  sixty 
degrees      .... 

E.  The  southward  emigration  01  the  Neolithic 
builders  of  stone  monuments,  and  of  the 
men  of  the  Palaeolithic  age,  and  the  his- 

h  tory  of  Pottery 

Chapter   I'V^.    The  year  of  three  seasons  of  six- 

rDAY  weeks  ruled  BY  THE  EEL- 
GOD,  THE  parent-fish  OF  THE 
SONS   OF   THE   RIVERS 

A.    The  sons  of  the  rivers  . 

a  2 


0 


/ 


21 76 

23—36 
36—40 
41—47 

47—76 


77  —  124 

77—81 
81—87 

87 104 

104 106 


107 — 124 


125—199 
125  —  142 


iv  Contents, 

Chapter  IV.  (continued)-. — 

PAG 

B.  The  Antelope  race,  the  phallus  worshippers 

and  house  builders    .  .  .142  —  i' 

C.  The  Kushika  Faun  house-builders  in  Greece 

and  Italy    ....     161 — i 

D.  The  gods  of  the  six-days  week      .  .     165 — i 

E.  Immigration  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  and 

the  antelope  into  India  .  .     173 — i 


BOOK    II.     THE   AGE   OF    LUNAR-SOLAR    WORSHIP 
Chapter    V.    The    epoch    of    the    three-years 

CYCLE   AND  OF  THE   NINE-DAYS  WEEK  200 — 2 

A.  Birth  of  the  sun-god  dated  by  Zodiacal  stars  205 — 2 

B.  The  Khati  or  Hittites   .  215 — 2 

C.  The  worship  of  sexless  and  bisexual  gods    .  220 — 2 

D.  The  festivals  of  the  three-years  cycle  236 — 2 

E.  Human  Sacrifices          .                .                .  245 — 2 

F.  Incense  worship  and  international  trade      .  248 — 2 

G.  Plarft  worship  .  -259 — 2 
H.    Emigration  of  the  men  of  this  age  as  told 

by  their  monuments  .  .261 — 2 

I.  Story  of  the  tower  of  the  three-years  cycle  .  278 — 2 
J.      The  Indian  and  European  land  tenures  of 

this  age       .                 .                .                .  287—2 

Chapter   VI.     The  year  of  the  horse's  head  of 

ELEVEN     months     AND     ELEVEN-DAY  ^ 

WEEKS                      .                      .                       .  294 — I 

A.  The  genealogy  of   the    sun-god  with    the 

horse's  head  and  the  ritual  of  his  worship  296 — 3 

B.  The  Sun-physician         .                 .                 .  305 — 3 

C.  The  New  Year's  Day  of  the  eleven-months 

year           .                .                .              •.  314 — i 

D.  The  horses  of  the  sun-chariot       .                .  328 — i 

E.  The  Thibetan  year  of  eleven  months            .  330 — i 

F.  The  connection  between  this  year  and  cere- 

monial hair-cutting    .                 .                 .  338 — i 


Contents,  v 
Ihapter      VI.   {continued)  :— 

PAGE 

G.     The  Bronze  Age  in  India  348 — 365 
H.    The  story  of  the  two  thieves  who  robbed 

the  treasure-house  of  heaven     .                .  365 — 381 

BOOK    III.      SOLAR   WORSHIP. 
Chapter    VII.     The  fifteen-months  year  of  the 

SUN-GOD      OF      THE      EIGHT-RAVED 

STAR   AND   THE   EIGHT-DAYS   WEEK  382 — 492 

A.  The  birth  of  the  Sun-god  born  of  the  Thigh  389 — 408 

B.  The   story   of  Tobit  and   Jack   the   Giant 

Killer,  builder  of  the  altar  of  the  eight 

and  nine-day  weeks   .                .                .  408 — 422 

C.  The  Hindu  gods  of  the  eight-days  week       .  422 — 432 

D.  The  year  of  the  Mahommedan  Twins           .  432 — 433 

E.  The  Roman  gods  of  the  year  of  eight-day 

weeks  and  the  year  of  Lug                        .  433 — 455 

F.  The  year  of  Odusseus  as  god  of  the  Thigh  .  455 — 462 

G.  The  year  of  the  birth  of  the  Buddha  and 

Parikshit  as  sun-gods                 .                 .  462 — 490 

H.    Patroclus  as  a  year-god  of  this  year              .  490 — 492 

Chapter  VIII.     The    years    of    seven-day   weeks 

AND     seventeen     AND     THIRTEEN 

MONTHS              .                      .                      .  493  —  560 

A.  The   ritual  of  the  making   of  the   fire-pan 

( Ukha)  and  the  birth  from  it  of  the  sun-god  495 — 499 

B.  The  Vajapeya  sacrifice  of  this  year               .  499 — 506 

C.  The  Chariot-races  of  the   sun-god   of  this 

year           ....  506 — 511 

D.  Odusseus  and  other  Greek  year-gods  rulers 

of    the    seventeen    and    thirteen-months 

year           ....  512 — 519 

E.  The  thirteen-months   year   of  the   Santals, 

the  thirteen  wives  of  Kashyapa  and  the 

thirteen  Buddhist  Ther is           .                .  519 — 524 

F.  The  years  of  seventeen  and  thirteen  months 

in  the  Mahabharata  chronology                .  524 — 530 


VI 


Contents 


Chapter  VIII.  {continued): — 


G.  The  seventeen  and  thirteen- months  year  in 
Egypt        .... 

H.  The  thirteen-month s  year  of  the  Nooktas 
of  British  Columbia  . 

I.  The  May  perambulations  of  boundaries  dat- 
ing from  this  year 

J.  The  perambulations  of  boundaries  in  Gubbio 
and  Echtemach 

K.  The  ritual  of  the  building  of  the  Garhapatv a 
altar  of  this  thirteen-months  year 


Chapter 


A. 

B. 
C. 


D. 
E. 
F. 


IX.    The      years     or     kightkks     and 

TWELVE     MONTHS,     AND     OK      HVK 
AND  TEN-DAY    WEEKS      . 

The  Hindu  year  of  eighteen  months   and 

that  of  the  Mayas  of  Mexico 
The  antelope  and  snake-dances  of  Mexico  . 
Indian  history  of  the  epoch  following   the 

eighteen-months  year  as  told  in  the  Ma- 

habharata  . 
The  conquest  of  the  Bharata  merchant  kin 

by  the  Sanskrit-speaking  sun-worshippe 
The   twelve-months  year  oi    the   sun-w 

shippers     . 
History  as  told  in  the  ritual  of  the  bui) 

of  the  brick  altar  of  the  sun-bird  r 

twelve-months  year  . 


Appendix  A.     List    of    the     Hindu     Na 

Stars  by  Brahma  Gupta 

Appendix  B.     The  House  that  Jack   Bur 

English,  Talmud,  and   B? 
sions  . 

Appendix  C.     History   as  told    in    i 

FORMS     OF     the     LEG^ 

the  mother  of  M 


Contents.  vii 


FACE 


PPEXDIX  C.  {continued^  : — 

Melquarth,    the    Tvrian    Hera- 

KLES,    THE    GODDESS    OF    THE    KrE- 

DEMNON   OR   ZODIACAL   RIBBON  .      627 — 642 

CDEX  .....  643 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 
UTE     I.     The    Conversion    of   St.    Hubert, 

CALLED   IN   THE   SaMA   JaTAKA 

PiLiYAKKHA.    Froiii  the  Picture  by 

Albert  Durer    .  .     to  face  p.    92 

UTE  IL  Pictorial  Creed  of  the  Hittite 
Worshippers  of  the  bisexual 
Father  and  Mother  Plant. 
From  lasilikaia  in  Cilicia  .         „       »  259 

UTE  III.     The  Yucatan  God  of  Copan  cum- 

ahau,  Lord  of  the  Bowl,  de- 
picted as  the  Indian  elephant- 
headed  God  Gan-isha,  Lord  of 
the  Land,  seated  on  the  double 
Su-astika.  From  a  photograph  of 
the  cast  given  by  Mr.  A.  Maudslay 
to  the  South  Kensington  Museum  .         „       ,,  471 

aTE  IV.     Cross  at   Palenque,  representing 

the  bird  slain  by  the  arrow, 
its  shaft,  and  dissected  by  the 
Augur  Priest  on  the  left.  A 
variant  form  of  the  story  of  Rigveda 
IV.  27,  of  Shyena,  the  Pole  Star 
bird  shot  by  Krishanu,  the  Rainbow 
archer-god.  Drawn  from  the  Photo- 
graph of  a  Plaster  Cast  given  by 
Mr.  A.  Maudslay  to  the  South 
Kensington  Museum       .  .         ,>       »  574 

ip  or  Ancient  Northern  India       .  .        n        ^'^^^ 


*) 
f> 
»} 
>> 
»> 


ERRATA. 

Page  xviii,  line  3— ^r  with  r^^^  on. 
38,  line  2^— for  Seb  r«a</  Set. 
89,  line  21— for  Mriga-sirsha  r&ad  Marga-sirsha. 
120,  line  ^'^—for  Loblic  read  Lob  lie. 
132,  line  12 —for  sons  Ida  rAzof  sons  of  Ida. 
164,  line  22— ^r  branch  r^dT  bunch. 
173,  in  title  of  Section  'E.—for  raven  r^i^  rivers. 
191,  line  ^'^—for  Friga  read  Freya. 
„     193,  line  21— for  governments  r^^rf  government. 
„     201,  line  35— /<"*  or  read  on. 
,,    229,  line  16— /^r  Yuys  read  Ynis. 
233,  line  If)— for  Allah  read  Allat. 
239,  line  22— for  grain  read  grass. 

line  3^— for  with  the  r^'a^  with  that. 
243,  line  ^—for  Elaphebohon  read  Elaphebolion. 
244»  lines  2,  9,  i^—for  Dionysius  read  Dionysos. 
312,  line  i%'—for  a  part,  read  2^  participle. 
336,  line  2^— for  began  read  begun. 

369,  line  5— /<?r  mother,  the  sun-god  read  mother  of  the  sun-god. 
374,  line  12 — after  goose-mother  read  was. 
393»  line  21— ^r  Pitadaru  read  Pitu-daru. 
419,  line  26— for  of  read  or. 
428,  line  23— for  Mrigasirsha  read  Marga-sirsha. 
430,  line  2— for  end  read  and. 

,,    line  10— for  Mriga-sirsha  read  Marga-sirsha. 
491,  line  16— for  awning  r<'a^  aweing. 
513,  line  30— for  cup  read  cap. 
535,  line  2^— for  flax  read  fibrous. 
543,  line  i^—for  Vista  read  Vesta. 
559,  line  2%'-for  flax  r^a</ fibrous. 
>i     565*  lines  I,  10,  i/^—for  Mriga-sirsha  read  Marga-sirsha. 
,,    571,  line  6— for  Uz  read  by. 
„     574,  line  2$— after  priest  omit  who. 


I* 

»» 
»i 
f> 

» 
>• 

>> 
>> 
«> 
}« 
>> 


PREFACE. 


THE   Myth-making   Age,  the  history   of  which   I   have 
sketched    in    this    book,   comprises    the   whole    period 
from    the    first   dawn  of  civilisation,  and  the  initial  efforts 
made  in    organising  self-governing  communities  of  human 
beings,  down  to  the  time  when  the  sun  entered  Taurus  at 
the  Vernal  Equinox  between  4000  and  5000  B.C.     In  fixing 
the  dates    I   have  calculated  from  the  recorded  position  of 
the  sun  at  the  different  seasons  of  the  year  from  which  time 
was  measured,  I  have  treated  this  event  as  occurring  about 
4200  B.C.     This  I  have  generally  used  as  the  pivot  date  from 
which  I  have  deduced  all  others  similarly  calculated.     But 
I  have  not  in  any  of  the  authors  I  have  consulted  been  able 
to  find  any  exact  year  fixed  on  trustworthy  astronomical 
authority  for  this  event,  and  I  have  found  that  some  writers 
place  it  tentatively  at  4700  B.C.     It  is  a  date  which  I  am 
quite  unable  to  determine,  and  one  which  if  it  is  exactly 
soluble  can  only  be   fixed  by  astronomers.      But  it  seems 
to  be  certainly  assumed  by  all  who  have  dealt  with   the 
subject,  that  this  closing  event  of  the  Myth-making  Age 
certainly   fell   between   4000   and    5000  B.C.     It  was   then, 
as  I  show  in  Chapter  IX.,  that  it  ceased  to  be  a  universally 
observed  national  custom  to  record  history  in  the  form  of 
historic  myths,  and  that  national  history  began  to  pass  out 
of  the    mythic  stage  into  that  of  annalistic  chronicles   re- 
cording the  events  of  the  reigns  of  kings  and   the  deeds 
of  individual    heroes,   statesmen,   and    law-givers.      These 
latter  histories  were,  when  formed  into  national  historical 
records,    always   prefaced    by  a   summary   of  the   previous 
mythic   narratives  which  were  more  often   than   not  mani- 
pulated   and    distorted   from   their    original    form    by   the 
authors  of  what  may  be  called  the  Individualist  School  of 


X  Preface.  • 

History.  These  legends  were,  down  to  the  cjays  of  Niebuhr 
and  the  introduction  of  the  study  of  Comparative  Philology 
and  Mythology,  generally  believed  to  be  based,  as  averred 
by  those  who  cited  them,  on  the  biographies  of  individuals. 
Since  this  new  school  of  investigators  has  proved  that  the 
heroes  of  the  Mythic  Age  were  not  living  men  like  the 
leading  actors  in  modern  histories,  it  has  come  to  be  an 
almost  universally  accepted  article  of  faith  among  those  who 
try  to  portray  the  history  of  the  remote  past  that  the  primi- 
tive myths  of  what  is  called  the  Prehistoric  Age  must  be 
looked  on  as  inventions  of  later  times  mixed  with  small 
fragments  of  genuine  ancient  tradition.  Though  no  one 
explains  why  men  should  have  wasted  time  in  their  manu- 
facture if  they  were  useless  lies,  or  how,  if  they  were  made 
up  by  modern  authors  to  suit  the  appetite  for  local  history 
in  each  place,  they  should  everywhere  show  traces  of  being 
derived  from  some  central  and  often  far-distant  source. 

The  real  truth  is  that  these  myths  in  their  original  form 
are  surviving  relics  of  the  genuine  ancient  history  of  the 
earliest  ages  of  human  culture.  One  of  my  principal  aims 
in  writing  this  book  and  my  previous  work,  the  Ruling 
Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  is  to  show  that  the  opinion  as 
to  the  recent  origin  and  unreliability  of  Mythic  History  is 
erroneous,  and  to  prove  that  our  wise  forefathers,  whose 
initiative  ability,  perseverance,  and  foresight  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  our  civilisation  and  knowledge,  framed  these  tales 
with  the  object  of  handing  down  to  their  successors  a  true 
account  of  the  national  progress  of  the  nations  they 
ruled.  I  also  hope  to  prove  that  we  have  misunderstood 
the  true  meaning  of  the  histories  they  have  bequeathed  to 
us,  and  that  our  failure  to  comprehend  the  purport  of  the 
information  they  meant  to  convey  arises  from  our  ignorance 
of  the  true  method  of  interpreting  their  utterances,  which 
were  all  prepared  under  rules  which  I  have  tried  to  set 
forth  in  my  analysis  of  their  contents,  but  which  were 
ignored  and  forgotten  by  the  writers  of  Individualistic 
History. 


Preface.  xi 

The  rules  of  interpretation,  which  give  a  clue  to  the  true 
meaning  of  these  histories,  were  during  the  Myth- making  Age 
carefully  taught  to  each  rising  generation  by  the  national 
teachers,  and  the  oblivion  into  which  they  fell  is  one  of  the 
great  misfortunes  inflicted  on  posterity  by  the  Gotho-Celtic 
invaders  from  the  North,  who  are  now  called  Aryans.    They, 
whose   chroniclers    were   the   family  and    tribal   bards  who 
celebrated  the  prowess  of  their  foremost  soldiers,  broke  up, 
as  I  show   in   Chapter  IX.,  the   organisation   of  the   com- 
munities of  agriculturists,  artisans,  mariners  and  traders,  who 
ruled  Southern  Asia  and  Europe,  and  introduced  the  epoch 
of  military  conquests  made  by  nations  whose  leaders  were 
ambitious   warriors,   who    sought    to    substitute    their  own 
despotic  personal  rule  and  that  of  their  heirs  for  that  of  the 
previous  kings,  who  governed  as  the  heads  of  the  hierarchy 
of  the   national  councils  of  provinces,  towns  and  villages 
confederated  under  the  constitutional  customs  I  have  here 
sketched. 

In  beginning  the  elucidation  of  the  historical  riddles  of 
civilisation,  and  the  translation  into  forms  intelligible  to 
modern  minds  of  the  actual  thoughts  of  the  primitive  races, 
we  must  first  go  down  to  the  root-germ  whence  national  life 
began  to  grow,  and  start  our  survey  from  the  primary 
sources  indicated  by  the  laws  of  human  progress.  These 
tell  us  that  the  first  birth  process  in  the  creation  of  national 
life  is  the  formation  of  associated  groups  of  human  beings 
united  as  the  members  of  a  permanent  village  community, 
a  family,  or  a  tribe.  It  was  in  the  South,  as  I  have  shown 
in  the  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  and  as  I  prove 
more  fully  in  the  following  pages,  that  the  first  village  com- 
munities and  the  provincial  governments  originating  from 
them  were  founded  by  the  forest  races  of  Southern  India 
and  the  Indian  Archipelago,  and  it  was  in  the  North  that 
the  family  expanded  into  the  tribe.  Neither  the  village 
communities  of  the  South  nor  the  tribes  of  the  North  were 
able  to  exist  as  permanent  units  holding  a  definite  place 
of  their  own,  or  to  work  their  way  forward  on  the  paths  of 


xli  Preface, 

social  advance  till  they  had  framed  laws  binding  society 
together,  a  history  of  their  past  career,  and  a  national  religion. 
The  two  first  preserved  them  from  internal  dissensions  and 
showed  the  pitfalls  to  be  avoided  by  those  who  would  reach 
the  goal  as  winners,  while  the  third  in  its  initial  stages  was 
in  the  belief  of  its  expounders  the  animating  soul  of  patriotic 
life,  which  alone  saved  the  land  whence  they  drew  their 
subsistence  from  being  withered  and  depopulated  by  drought, 
famine  and  pestilence.  For  it  taught  that  the  primary 
"religio"  or  binding  duty  of  each  community  was  to  secure 
the  favour  and  protection  of  the  unseen  powers  who  ordained 
the  succession  of  night  and  day,  seed  time  and  harvest,  and 
of  the  recurring  seasons  of  the  year,  and  who  punished  the 
neglect  or  infraction  of  their  laws  by  disease,  social  ruin,  and 
death. 

Hence  one  of  the  first  tasks  undertaken  by  each  associated 
community  was  that  of  ascertaining  the  order  and  approxi- 
mate dates  when  the  seasons  followed  each  other,  so  that 
they  might  be  able  to  begin  each  season  with  the  ordained 
propitiatory  ceremonies.  Consequently  the  supreme  national 
God  of  the  earliest  organisers  of  society  was  the  Maker  and 
Measurer  of  time,  the  God  who  imparted  the  knowledge  of 
its  sequence  to  the  animals  pursued  by  the  hunting  races, 
who  gave  life,  with  its  accompanying  seasonal  changes,  to 
the  trees  and  plants,  and  fitted  the  earth  to  receive  the  seeds 
sown,  and  to  grow  and  ripen  the  crops  reaped  by  the  tillers 
of  the  soil.  He  was  the  Being  by  whose  orders  the  sun, 
moon  and  stars  rose  and  set,  and  went  daily  round  the  Pole ; 
and  the  rules  of  the  ritual  of  the  worship  of  this  Creator  of 
time,  and  the  life  to  which  it  gave  birth,  were  preserved 
together  with  their  other  distinctive  national  customs  as  the 
most  precious  of  their  protecting  observances  by  every 
section  of  the  original  social  units,  which  emigrated  to  other 
lands  as  offshoots  from  the  parent  stems. 

The  Pole  Star  in  the  North  and  the  central  starless  void 
ill  the  South,  round  which  the  heavenly  bodies  revolved, 
were  in  the  eyes  of  these  primitive  pioneers  the  dwelling- 


Preface,  xiii 

places  of  the   parent-creating  power,  the  soul  of  the  ever- 
engendering   germ   of  life,   the  Tao  or   creating  year-path 
of  the  Chinese,  as  conceived  in  the  creed  of  the  theology 
sketched    in    Chapter  VII.  p.  479.      This   is   the   year-god 
called  in  Greek  mythology,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  course 
of  this  work,  Odusseus,  the  God  of  the  Path  (pho^)  of  Time, 
whose  wife  was  the  weaver  of  its  web  (77171/17),  the  goddess 
Penelope,  who  was  in  heaven  the  goddess  of  the  Pleiades, 
called  in  India  the  Krittakas  or  Spinners,  and  her  husband 
was  the  year-star  Orion,  who,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  III., 
succeeded  in  primitive  astronomy  Canopus  as  the  leader  of 
the  stars,  headed  by  the  Pleiades,  round  the  Pole.     He  was 
the  Orwandil  or  Orendel  of  the  Northern  historical  legends, 
whose  toe  was  the   star  Rigel  in  Orion,  and  the  story  of 
whose  voyage  in  seventy-two  ships,  the  seventy-two  five-day 
weeks   of  the   year,  to  find  his  bride  Brigit,  the  Sanskrit 
goddess  Brihati,  is  told  in  Chapter  II.  pp.  64,  65.     The  seed 
germ  engendered  by  this  dual  but  united  heavenly  and  sex- 
less parent-god,  who  was  the  mother  and  father  of  life,  came 
down  to  earth  in  the  rain  and  engendered  the  mother-tree, 
which    grew,  according   to  the  belief  I    have   described    in 
Chapter  II.,  in  the  mud  of  the  Southern  Ocean.     The  rain- 
germ  ascended  through  its  trunk  and  branches  as  the  creating- 
sap  whence  the  seed  of  life  was  born,  and  this  seed  in  the 
indigenous  Southern  worship  of  the  rice  as  the  plant  or  tree 
of  life  was  the  rice  soul  which,  as  explained  in  Chapter  IV. 
p.  139,  note  3,  was  believed   to  impart  its  life  to  its  con- 
sumers. 

» 

The  God  who  disseminated  the  life-giving  rain  at  the 
fitting  times  was  the  being  whose  favour  was  to  be  propi- 
tiated at  the  festivals  held  at  the  beginning  of  each  recurring 
season  of  the  year,  which  was,  as  I  show,  reckoned  by 
different  rules  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  and  at  different 
successive  periods  of  time.  It  is  the  history  of  the  various 
and  consecutive  series  of  year-reckonings  calculated  by  the 
dominant  races,  who  ruled  the  growing  world,  in  their 
attempts  to  learn  the  laws  of  time  measurement,  which  is  the 
principal  subject  dealt  with  in  this  book. 


xiv  Preface. 

The  first  of  these  years  was  that  measured  by  the  founders 
of  permanent  villages,  who  began  their  year  when  the  Pleiades 
first  set  after  the  sun  on  the  ist  of  November.  This  was 
chosen  by  them  as  their  New  Year's  Day,  because  it  marked 
the  beginning  of  Spring  in  that  region  of  the  Southern  and 
Northern  hemispheres  which  lay  close  to  the  Equator,  and 
of  which  Ceylon,  called  Lanka,  was  the  centre.  This  central 
island  was  in  Hindu  mythological  astronomy  the  land  ruled 
by  Agastya,  the  star  Canopus,  which,  as  the  brightest  of  the 
revolving  stars  near  the  Pole  of  the  Southern  heavens,  was 
looked  on  as  the  king  of  antarctic  polar  space.  It  was 
believed  to  lead  the  Pleiades  and  the  starry  host,  their 
attendant  followers,  round  the  Pole  ;  and  in  this  daily  and 
annual  circuit  the  Pleiades  set  before  the  sun  during  the  six 
months  from  the  ist  of  May  till  the  31st  of  October,  and 
began  on  the  ist  of  November  to  set  for  the  next  six  months 
after  the  sun. 

The  year  thus  measured  was  not  reckoned  by  months, 
which  were  as  yet  unknown,  but  by  nights  and  weeks  of 
five  days,  the  number  of  the  fingers  of  the  creating  hand. 
Thirty-six  weeks  covered  each  of  the  periods  between  Novem- 
ber and  "May,  and  May  and  November,  so  that  the  whole 
year  was  one  of  seventy-two  weeks  or  three  hundred  and 
sixty  days.  This  year*  which  was  that  reckoned  by  the 
Celtic  Druids,  as  well  as  by  the  earliest  founders  of  Indian 
villages,  began  with  a  three  days'  feast  to  the  dead,  which 
survives  in  our  All  Hallow  Eve,  All  Saints*  and  All  Souls* 
Days,  also  with  the  election  of  village  officers,  a  custom 
still  preserved  in  the  election  on  the  ist  of  November  of 
English  Mayors  and  Aldermen.  It  was,  as  I  show  in  Chapter 
II.,  once  the  official  year  throughout  South-western  Asia  and 
Europe,  and  became  in  Ireland  the  year  of  Bran,  meaning  the 
Raven,  who  had  been  in  the  South  the  raven-star  Canopus, 
and  of  the  two  Brigits,  daughters  of  Dagda,  the  Indian 
Daksha,  the  god  of  the  showing  (dak)  hand,  the  Celtic  forrns 
of  the  Sanskrit  Brihati,  who  is,  in  the  ritual  of  the  Indian 
Brahmanas,  the  goddess  of  the  thirty-six  five-day  weeks  of 
each  of  the  two  halves  of  the  Pleiades  year. 


Preface.  xv 

The  revolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies  by  which  our  fore- 
fathers measured  this  and  the  other  years  they  reckoned,  was 
thought  to  be  caused  by  the  winds,  and  their  visible  leader 
was  the  black-cloud,  the  bird  Khu '  of  the  Akkadians  and 
Egyptians,  which  became  the  divine  raven.  This  bird,  the 
bearer  of  the  creating  rain,  was  in  the  early  genealogies, 
which  traced  the  national  descent  to  the  seed  of  life  it 
brought,  the  parent  of  the  Indian  trading  races,  who  used 
sibilants  as  representing  Northern  gutturals.  Perhaps  the 
interchange  was  one  made  by  both  races,  the  Northern 
changing  an  original  Southern  sibilant  into  a  guttural,  and 
calling  the  Southern  cloud-bird  Shu,  Khu,  or  the  Southerners 
may  have  reversed  the  order  and  changed  the  Northern  Khu 
into  Shu.  At  any  rate  it  was  as  the  reputed  sons  of  the 
cloud-bird  that  the  Indian  traders  called  themselves  Saus 
or  sons  of  Shu.  This  name  was  changed  by  the  Sumerians 
of  the  Euphratean  Delta  into  Zu,  the  storm -bird,  who  stole 
the  *'  tablets  of  Bel  2,"  and  he  became,  in  Egypt,  Dhu-ti,  the 
bird  (dhu)  of  life  (//*),  the  god  wc  call  Thoth,  who  had  a 
bird's  head  and  a  bird's  feather,  the  recording  pen  of  the 
time  chronicler,  in  his  hand. 

The  time-measuring  winds  of  early  astronomy  were  those 
of  the  South-west  and  North-east  Monsoons,  which  bring 
the  regularly  recurring  periodical  rains  to  the  tropical  equa- 
torial lands  at  the  ordained  seasons.  They  drove  Agastya, 
the  star  Canopus,  the  pilot  of  the  constellation  Argo,  the 
mother-ship  of  heaven,  the  Akkadian  Ma  and  the  Pleiades, 
with  their  following  «tars,  round  the  Pole,  and  distributed 
the  seasonal  rains  over  that  region  of  the  earth  on  the  shores 
of  the  Indian  Ocean  which  was  the  cradle  of  infant  civilised 
humanity. 

During  the  first  period  of  my  historical  survey,  the  age 
of  Pole  Star  worship,  the  earth  was  thought  to  be  a  station- 


'  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar  Syllabary ^  Sign  73.      Khu  is  the  Egyptian  word 
rcprc^nted  by  the  hieroglyph  of  the  bird. 
•  Ibid.,  Hibbcrt  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  297. 


xvi  Preface, 

ary  oval  plain,  resting  on  the  mud  of  the  Southern  Ocean, 
whence  the  world's  mother-tree  was  born  from  the  seed 
brought  by  the  rain-cloud-bird,  the  offspring  of  the  Cauldron 
of  Life,  the  creating-waters  stored  by  the  Pole  Star  god  as 
the  Holy  Grail  or  Blood  of  God,  and  guarded  by  his  raven 
vice-gerent,  the  god  whose  Celtic  name  is  Bran,  in  the 
watch-tower  called  the  Caer  Sidi  or  Turning  Tower  of  the 
heavens  ^ 

The  Tree  of  Life  grew  up  from  its  roots  fixed  in  the' 
Southern  mud  through  the  superincumbent  soil,  and  appeared 
on  earth  as  the  central  tree  of  the  village  grove  growing 
in  the  centre  of  the  world's  central  village,  just  as  the  group 
of  forest-trees  left  standing  in  the  centre  of  the  cleared  land 
was  the  midmost  home  of  the  parent -tree-gods  of  all  villages 
founded  by  the  Indian  forest-races. 

In  the  next  age  of  Lunar-Solar  worship  a  different  cos- 
mogony was  developed.  In  this  the  world  was  looked  on  as 
an  egg  laid  by  the  great  cloud-bird,  which  had  been  the 
monsoon  raven-bird,  which  was  now  believed  to  dwell  in 
the  Pole  Star.  This  was  the  bird  called  by  the  Arabs  the 
Rukh,  the  bird  of  the  breath  {ruakh)  of  God,  the  Persian 
Simurgh  or  Sin-murgh,  the  moon  {sin)  bird  {murgh)y  the 
Garutmat  of  the  Rigveda,  which  dwells  in  the  highest  heavens, 
its  Pole  Star  home,  and  begets  the  sun  2.  This  egg  became 
in  Hindu  historical  mythology,  as  told  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  310, 
that  laid  by  Gan-dharl,  the  Star  Vega  in  Lyra,  the  Pole 
Star  from  about  10,000  to  8000  B.C.,  from  which  were  bom 
the  hundred  Kauravyas,  sons  of  the  world's  tortoise  {kur\ 
the  oval  earth,  and  this  was  a  reproduction  of  an  earlier  birth- 
story,  telling  of  the  birth  of  the  Satavaesa,  or  hundred  {sata) 
creators  (va^sa)  of  the  Zendavestay  from  the  mother  constel- 
lation Argo,  the  Akkadian  Ma,  meaning  also  the  ship. 

This  egg  was,  in  popular  belief,  divided  into  a  Northern 


*  Rhys,  The  Arthurian  Legend f  chap,  xiii.,  *Thc  Origin  of  the  Holy  Grail,* 
pp.  300—314 

=»  Rg.  i.  164,  46,  X.  149,  3. 


Preface.  xvii 

and  Southern  half,  the  large  and  small  ends  of  the  egg 
surrounded  in  the  centre  by  the  ocean-snake,  on  whose 
waters  it  rested.  In  the  centre  of  the  Northern  or  large 
half  of  Gan-dhari's  egg,  ruled  by  her  Kauravya  sons,  was 
their  Indian  land  called  Kuru-kshetra,  or  field  {kshetra)  of 
the  Kurus,  where  the  world's  tree,  the  parent  Banyan  fig- 
tree  {Ficus  Indica),  emerged.  It  had  its  roots  in  the  Southern 
mud,  as  explained  in  Chapter  II.  p.  26,  and  on  its  top  sat 
the  parent-ape,  whose  thigh  was  the  constellation  of  the 
Great  Bear.  This  ape,  in  the  first  conception  entertained 
of  his  functions,  performed  the  part  assigned  to  the  winds 
in  the  first  cosmogony,  and  turned  the  stars  round  the  Pole 
with  his  mighty  five-fingered  hand,  the  five  days  of  the  week. 
But  in  a  further  development  of  the  belief  in  the  ape  as  the 
God  crowned  by  the  Pole  Star,  whose  thigh  was  the  Great 
Bear,  he  was  thought  to  turn  the  tree  and  the  star-flowers  on 
its  branches  by  the  pressure  of  the  Thigh  Stars. 

The  Southern  small  end  of  the  egg  penetrated  below  the 
waters  guarded  by  the  encircling  ocean-snake  to  the  mud 
whence  the  mother-tree  grew,  and  the  men  of  the  Southern 
mountain-land,  emerging  from  the  ocean,  were  in  ancient 
belief  the  race  called  by  the  Celts  Fo-mori,  or  men  beneath 
(/(?)  the  sea  {muir),  the  dwellers  in  the  land  lighted  by 
the  Southern  sun  of  winter,  the  sea-born  race  of  the  primi- 
tive historical  mythology  preserved  in  the  Arabian  Nights. 

This  cosmogony  was  developed  by  the  mixed  races  formed 
by  the  union  in  Euphratean  lands  of  the  emigrating  descen- 
dants of  the  first  founders  of  Indian  villages  with  the  Northern 
Ugro-Finn  races.  These  Finns  traced  their  descent  to  the 
egg  laid  by  Ukko,  the  storm-bird,  who  became  in  Indian 
history  Kansa,  the  moon-goose  (kans),  son  of  Ugra-sena, 
the  king  of  the  army  (sena)  of  the  Ugras  or  Ogres,  the  Ugur- 
Finns  whose  story  is  told  in  Chapter  VI.  In  this  cosmogony 
of  the  floating  egg  the  regularity  of  the  annual  course  of  the 
moon  and  sun  through  the  stars  was  thought  to  be  preserved 
by  the  watching-god,  the  boundary  [laksh)  snake-god,  the 
Gond  Goraya,  and  the  god  Lakshman  of  the  story  of  Rama, 

b 


xviii  Preface. 

as  told  on  p.  208.    He  determined  the  direction  in  which  the 
stars  should  be  turned  by  the  ape,  so  as  to  make  the  track 
of  Sita,  the  furrow  Rama's  plough  driven  with  the  ecliptic    "  > 
path  of  the  moon  and  sun,  uniform  in  all   the  revolutions 
of  the  heavens  round  the  egg. 

It  was  during  this  age  that  the  reckoning  of  time  by  the 
presence  of  the  sun  in  the  zodiacal  stars  of  the  Nag-kshetra, 
or  field  of  theNaga  snakes,  first  began.  The  evidence  I  have 
been  able  to  collect  as  to  its  date  seems,  as  I  have  pointed 
out  in  Chapter  V.  Section  A.,  On  the  Birth  of  the  Sun-god 
dated  by  Zodiacal  stars,  pp.  205  ff.,  to  show  that  the  first 
year  thus  reckoned  was  one  of  which  the  beginning  was 
fixed  by  the  entry  of  the  sun  into  Aries  at  the  Autumnal 
Equinox.  According  to  other  recorded  positions  of  the  sun 
in  that  year  it  was  in  Cancer  at  the  winter  solstice  when 
Rama  was  installed  as  ruler  of  the  Indian  year  of  the  three- 
years  cycle. 

This  three-years  cycle-year  was  begun  in  Syria  at  the 
Autumnal  Equinox  with  the  entry  of  the  sun  into  Aries, 
and  this  New  Year's  Day  still  survives  in  that  of  the  Jews, 
who  open  it  with  blasts  on  ram-horn  trumpets.  This  was, 
as  I  show  in  note  i,  p.  208,  probably  that  reckoned  by  the  early 
Zend  fire-worshippers  who  founded  the  rule  of  the  Kushika 
kings.  The  Indian  evidence  on  the  other  hand,  as  I  show 
on  pp.  207,  208,  and  the  Malay  traditions  referred  to  in  note 
3,  p.  207,  date  back  to  a  time  when  the  year  of  Rama  began, 
when  the  sun  was  in  Cancer  at  the  winter  solstice.  But  the 
framers  of  this  year,  with  true  Indian  conservatism,  preserved 
the  memory  of  the  reckoning  of  Orion's  year,  and  also  that 
of  the  sun-bird  beginning  at  the  winter  solstice,  as  shown 
on  p.  22,  for  in  preparing  their  list  of  zodiacal  Nag-kshetra 
stars  of  the  year  beginning  with  the  Autumnal  Equinox, 
they  placed  /8  Arietis  as  the  first  star  in  it.  The  list  closes 
with  Revati  f  Piscium,  the  star  marking  the  close  of  the 
month  Bhadrapada  (August — September).  It  then,  as  I  show 
on  p.  209,  ushered  in  the  New  Year  of  the  sun-ram  of  the 
Autumnal  Equinox.     He  was  the  god  born  from  the  tree 


Preface,  xix 

of  the  fish-mother-star,  worshipped  throughout  South-western 
Asia  as  the  Akkadian  goddess  Nana,  the  Syrian  Atergatis, 
Derceto,  and  Tirhatha,  whose  memory  is  preserved  in  the 
constellations     Pisces,    the    Dolphin,    and,   as    I    show    in 
Appendix    C,   of  Cetus  the  Whale.     She  was,  as  I  prove 
on  pp.  230,    231,   the  traditional  mother  of  Shem-i-ramot, 
the  bisexual   goddess  of  the  three-years  cycle-year.      The 
year  thus  reckoned  is  one  which  is  shown  by  the  position 
of  the  sun  in  Aries  at  the  Autumnal  Equinox  (September — 
October),    in    Cancer    at   the   winter   solstice   (December — 
January),  and  in   Pisces  (August — September),  to  date  from 
between    14,000    and    i5,ocx)   B.C.     The  evidence  as  to  its 
use  proves  that  it  was  the  year  reckoned   by  the  priestly 
astronomers  who  determined  the  dates  of  the  annual  festivals 
throughout  India,  the  Malayan  countries  and  South-western 
Asia,  whence  it  was  carried  to  Western  Europe,  as  is  shown 
by  the  Breton  stone  calendars  described  in  pp.  266 — 269. 
The  zodiacal  reckoning  of  time  thus  begun,  was,  as  I  show 
from  the  recorded  dates,  determined  by  the  position  of  the 
sun  in   zodiacal  stars,   regularly  continued  throughout   the 
whole  of  the  remaining  epochs  of  the  Myth-making  Age, 
including  those  of  the  years  of  eleven  and  fifteen  months, 
and  the   subsequent  year-reckonings  up  to  the  time  when 
the  sun  was  in  Taurus  at  the  Vernal  Equinox. 

The  conception  of  the  earth  as  a  stationary  floating-egg  was 
followed  by  one  which  pictured  it  as  turning  on  its  axis,  and 
thus  reversed  the  doctrine  of  the  revolving  heavenly  bodies , 
This  change  originated  in  the  brains  of  the  Northern  worship- 
I^rs  of  the  household-fire,  and  was  developed  when  built 
houses  began  to  supersede  the  caves,  rock-shelters,  and  rude 
huts  made  of  branches  of  trees  stuck  in  the  ground,  which 
^«ere  the  dwelling-places  of  the  primitive  agricultural  and  . 
hunting  races.  These  human  beavers,  sons  of  the  Twins 
Night  and  Day,  called  by  the  Greeks  Castor,  the  unsexed 
beaver,  and  Polu-deukes,  the  much  {polu)  wetting  [deukes) 
god.  were  the  first  users  of  moistened  earth  for  building,  and 
their  descendants  the  first  makers  of  sun-dried  bricks,  and 

b  2 


XX  Preface, 

of  pottery  made  on  the  potter's  wheel.  These  latter  changed 
the  polar  ape  who  turned  the  stars  with  his  hand,  and  the 
Thigh  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  into  the  Great  Potter,  the 
wise-ape  Kabir,  the  Northern  form  of  the  Dravidian  ape 
Kapi.  In  the  first  form  of  the  theology  of  the'  turning-tree, 
which  engendered  the  heat  whence  life  was  born  as  the  fire- 
drill  breeds  fire,  the  stars  turned  with  it  as  it  was  driven 
round,  according  to  Greek  belief  by  Ixion,  the  Sanskrit 
Akshivan,  the  man  of  the  axle  {aksha)^  who  was  bound  by 
Hermes,  the  god  of  the  time- recording  gnomon-pillar,  to  the 
stars  of  the  Great  Bear.  But  in  its  subsequent  development 
the  stars  were,  as  in  the  first  belief,  detached  from  the  tree 
in  which  the  Potter  ape  sat.  They  then  became  the  stationary 
lights  of  heaven,  visible  through  the  web  of  the  overarching 
heavens*  tent. 

This  tent  was  first  the  Peplos  or  bridal-veil  given  to 
Harmonia  as  a  wedding  gift  by  her  husband  Kadmus,  the 
man  of  the  East  {kedem)^  and  the  arranger  {kad^  root  of  icaXfA^ 
to  arrange).  She  was  the  goddess  called  in  Syriac  or 
Aramaic  Kharmano,  the  Chaldaic  Kharman,  meaning  the 
snake  which  encircled  as  its  guardian  mother-ring  of  tilled 
land  the  primaeval  village  grove,  and  hence  the  dialectic  forms 
of  her  name  Harmonia  and  Sarmo-bel  were  formed.  Sarmo-bel 
is  the  distinctive  name  of  the  Agathodaemon,  the  good  snake 

depicted  under  the  sacred  Phoenician  sign  ^.     It  indicated 

the  path  of  the  sun-bird  round  the  boundary  of  the  heavenly 
village,  called  in  Hindu  astronomical  mythology  the  Nag- 
kshetra  or  field  of  the  Naga  race.  The  boundary  stars 
marked  the  track  of  the  sun-bird  of  the  first  solar  year  of  the 
Indian  Mundas  described  in  Chapter  II.  p.  22,  which  began 
when  the  sun  set  in  the  South-west  at  the  winter  solstice/ 
This  sun-goddess  of  the  flying-snake  was  the  goddess  Taut, 
the  Phoenician  form  of  the  Egyptian  Dhu-ti  or  Thoth,  the 
bird  (dhu)  of  life  (//),  who  was  originally  the  Akkadian 
Dumu-zi,  the  son  {dutnu)  of  life  {zi)^  the  star  Orion,  which 
succeeded  Canopus  as  the  leader  of  the  stars  round  the  Pole 
when   the  latter    Southern    star    became    invisible    to    the 


Preface,  xxi 

Indian  emigrant   farmers  who  had  reached  Asia  Minor  as 
the  Rephaim  or  sons  of  the  Giant  (rephd)  star  Canopus. 

This  name  Tut  also  appears  in  that  of  the  Roman  god 
Tut-anus,  in  the  title  Tuticus,  meaning  supreme,  given  to 
the  Oscan  chief-magistrate  Meddix-tuticus,  and  also  in  the 
Tut-ulus  or  conically  dressed  hair  worn  by  the  Roman 
Flamines  or  fire-priests,  as  a  type  of  the  heavenly  veil 
concealing  the  hidden  creating  thought  in  the  divine  brain. 

This  veil  was,  according  to  Pherecydes  of  Syros,  who 
wrote  about  600  B.C.,  thrown  by  Zeus  over  the  winged  oak, 
the  revolving-world's  tree,  the  parent-oak  of  the  Lapps, 
Esthonians,  and  Druids*.  On  this  veil  were  depicted  the 
stars,  or  rather  they  were  seen  through  it.  Zeus  also  gave 
it  to  Europa,  the  goddess  of  the  West  {ereb\  the  sister  of 
Kadmus,  and  she  is  represented  on  the  coins  of  Gortyna  in 
Crete  as  sitting  in  the  branches  of  the  parent-oak-tree  with 
the  veil  over  her  head  ». 

This  goddess  of  the  veil  was  also  called  Khusartis,  from 

Khurs,  a  circle,  and  was  personified  in  her  male  form,  that 

of  her  husband  Kadmus,  the  arranger,  as  the  dwarf  Kabir, 

Chrysor,  or  Khrusor,  the  circle-maker  and  ordainer,  who,  as 

the  creating-wise-ape,  the  smith,  put  all  things  in  circular 

order.     She  was  also  named  Thuroh  the  Law,  the  Hebrew 

Thorah,  of  which  Doto,  named  by  Hom.  II.  Ixviii.  43,  among 

the  Nereids,  is   an   Aramaic   form ;   and   the   bridal-veil   of 

Harmonia,  as  the  goddess  Doto,  is  said  by  Pausanias  II.  i,  7, 

to  be  preserved  at  Gabala,  a  Syrian  seaport  bearing  the  name 

of  Gi-bil  or  Bil-gi,  the  Akkadian  fire-god  who  produced  the 

creating-fire  by  the  revolving  fire-drill,  the  world's  tree  3. 

In  the  house  or  tent  roofed  by  the  over-arching  veil  of  the 
firmament  the  mother-goddess,  looked  on  in  one  aspect  as 
the  guardian-snake,  and  in  another  as  the  flying  sun-bird 

»  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods,  Wearing  the  Veil,  vol.  ii.  p.  877. 

■  Ibid.,  Axis  Myths,  vol.  i.  p.  308;  Lenormant,  Origine  cU  V Histoirgy  i. 
PP*  95»  5^^»  5^9»  573  »  Goblet  d'Alviella,  Migration  of  Symbols^  p.  168  note. 

3  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  chap.  xiii.  pp.  504 — 507,  chap.  iii.  p.  103, 
chap.  xiii.  p.  658  ;  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods,  Polar  Myths,  vol.  i.  p.  ^id 


xxii  Preface, 

measuring  the  year,  was,  like  the  Finn  house-mother,  the 
guardian  of  the  Joula  or  never-extinguished  fire  of  the  house 
kindled  by  the  revolving-stem  of  the  world's  tree.  Also  it 
was  under  this  roof  that  her  mate,  the  fabricating  Master 
Smith  and  the  Master  Potter  of  the  turning  Great  Bear 
Constellation,  pursued  his  creating  trade. 

In  the  evolution  of  belief  the  trunk  of  the  world's  tree,  with 
its  three  roots  penetrating,  like  those  of  the  parent-ash- tree 
the  Ygg-drasil  of  the  Edda ',  to  the  Urdar  fountain  of  the 
circling  waters  of  the  South,  became  the  Trident  or  Trisula 
worshipped  by  the  Takkas  of  India,  as  described  in  Chapter 
IV.  p.  175.  This,  which  symbolised  successively  the  three 
seasons  of  Orion's  year  and  the  three  years  of  the  cycle-year, 
was  the  creating-weapon  of  the  Greek  god  Poseidon  and  of 
the  Japanese  twin-creators,  Izanagi  and  Izanami,  by  which 
they  raised  the  land  from  the  sea  as  butter  is  raised  from  the 
churned  milk. 

It  was  by  the  revolutions  of  this  trident  of  Creating  Time 
that  the  Indian  creator  Vasuki  raised  the  Indian  land  of  the 
Kushikas  with  its  central  mountain  Mandara,  meaning  the 
Revolving  {mand)  hill  which  emerged  from  the  surrounding 
ocean  as  the  clay  cone  rising  from  the  potter's  wheel,  and 
brought  up  with  it  the  Tortoise-land,  the  Indian  continental 
area,  the  appanage  of  the  Kauravyas  or  Kushikas,  the  sons 
of  Kur  and  Kush  the  tortoise,  and  of  Kaus  the  bow. 

This  mother-mountain  raised  under  the  heavenly  veil  is, 
in  another  form  of  the  myth,  the  central  mountain  of  the 
Himalayas,  the  crowning  summit  of  the  Pamir  plateau,  the 
Hindu  Mount  Meru.  In  the  primitive  form  of  the  Akkadian 
and  Kushika  birth  story  it  was  the  Western  peak  of  this 
plateau,  called  by  the  Akkadians  Khar-sak-kurra,  meaning 
"  the  wet  {sak)  entrails  (khar)  of  the  mountain  of  the  East " 
{kurra),  or  "the  chief  {sak)  ox  {kkar)  of  the  East  (kurra)^,'' 


*  Mallet,  Northern  AniiquitieSy  Bohn's  Edition,  The  Prose  Edda,  15,  i6, 
pp.  410—413. 

»  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  143,  note4; 


Preface.  xxiii 

It  was    from   this   mountain   that    the   parent-river  of  the 
Kushikas,  the   Haetumant  of  the  Zendavesta,  the  modern 
Helmend,    descended    to  the   Lake   Kashava  or  Zarah   in 
Seistan  ;  and,  in  the  reeds  of  this  lake,  Kavad,  the  infant- 
parent   of  the  Kavi   or  Kabir   Kush  kings,  was  found  by 
Uzava,   the  goat-god    Uz,  called   Tum-aspa,  the   horse  of 
darkness.     He  was,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  IV.  pp.  141,  142, 
the  Pole  Star  goat  ruling  the  year  of  three  seasons  *. 

But  this  mother-mountain  of  the  Akkadians  and  Kuskikas 
was  not  the  first  of  the  national  parent- mountains  worshipped 
by  the  Gonds  of  India  and  the  Kurd  sons  of  Mount  Ararat, 
for  all  these  legends  can  be  traced  back  to  the  pregnant 
mother-mountain  of  the  Northern  Finns,  round  which  the 
hunter-star  drove  the  reindeer-sun-god,  who,  as  described 
in  Chapter  III.  p.  89,  was  slain  at  the  close  of  his  year  at  the 
winter  solstice. 

In  the  form  of  this  historical  legend  telling  of  the  rising 
of  Mount  Mandara,  we  are  told  in  the  Mahabharata  that 
there  rose  with  it  and  its  fringe  of  continental  land  the  sun- 
ass,  or  horse,  who]  took  the  place  of  the  reindeer  sufi-god  of 
the  North  and  of  both  the  Southern  cloud-bird  Khu  and  the 
sun-hen  flying  round  the  heavens.     All  these,  instead  of  re- 
maining  stationary   like   the   stars   seen    through   the   veil, 
within  which   Mount  Mandara  revolved,  circled  it,  and  the 
re\'olving  world  it  took  round  with  it  like  the  rain-shedding 
cloud,  which,  in  the  original  form  of  the  myth  of  the  sun- 
year,  drew  the  cloud  chariot  of  the  female  and  male  Twins 
Night  and  Day  in  which  they  bore  the  sun-maiden.     This 
horse,   called    in    the    Mahabharata   Ucchaishravas,   the   ass 
with  the  long  ears,  is  that  called  in  the   Rigveda  Trikshi 
and  Tarkshya,  the  horse  of  the  Nahusha  sons  of  the  Ocean- 
snake  and  of  the  revolving  Great-Bear  constellation  {Nagur 

Lenormant,   Chaldaan  Magic ^  pp.  302,  308,  169 ;  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar 
Syllabary,  No.  399. 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  p  145  ;  Dar- 
mesteter,  Zendavesta  Zamyad  Yashi,  x.  66,  parvardin  Yasht,  131  ;  S.B.E., 
voL  xxiii.  pp.  302,  221  ;  West,  Bundahishy  xxxi.  23;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  p.  136. 


XXIV  Preface, 

Nahur),  This  horse,  under  the  name  Tarkshya,  meaning 
the  son  of  Trikshi,  is  called  Arishta-nemi,  the  ass  of  the  un- 
broken {arishtd)  wheel  {nemt)^  in  Rg.  x.  178,  i,  the  name  given, 
as  I  show  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  316,  to  the  horse's  head,  the  year- 
god  of  the  eleven -months  year^.  This  last  god,  whose 
genealogy  shows  him  to  be  the  son  or  successor  of  the 
ass  sun-god  of  the  three-years  cycle,  was  born,  as  I  there 
shov/,  under  the  star  Spica  a  Virgo,  the  mother  of  com, 
the  Eygptian  Min,  the  mother-star  of  the  Minyan  race.  The 
birth  took  place  when  the  sun  was  in  Virgo  at  the  Vernal 
Equinox,  that  is  between  13,000  and  12,000  B.C.,  or  about 
2000  years  after  the  age  of  the  long-eared  sun-ass  when 
the  sun  was  in  Aries  at  the  Autumnal  Equinox. 

This  primaeval  ass,  the  Vedic  year-god  Trikshi,  who  is 
said  in  Rg.  viii.  22,  7  to  traverse  the  holy  road  of  the 
divine  order,  or  the  path  of  the  god  of  annual  time,  was 
the  god  of  the  boring  {tri)  people,  the  bee-inspired  race 
of  Chapter  IV.  p.  169,  and  hence  the  year-god  of  the  Greek 
Telchines  of  Rhodes  and  Lycia,  whose  name  substituting  / 
for  r,  and  a  guttural  for  a  sibilant,  reproduces  that  of  the 
Vedic  god  Trikshi  whose  sons  they  were.  They,  like  their 
Indian  prototypes,  the  Takkas,  were  deft  artificers,  the 
first  workers  in  metal,  who  introduced  bronze  and  made 
the  lunar  sickle  of  Kronos,  that  of  the  Indian  Srinjaya 
or  men  of  the  sickle  {srinz),  the  sons  of  the  corn-mother 
Virgo,  and  the  creating  trident  of  Poseidon.  This  latter 
god  was  nurtured  by  them  with  a  nymph,  the  daughter 
of  ocean  Kapheira,  the  Semitic  Kabirah,  the  Arabic  Khabar, 
the  goddess-mother  of  the  Kabiri  and  another  form  of  Har- 
monia,  mother  of  the  sons  of  the  smith  of  heaven. 
She  was  also  the  black  Demeter  of  Phigalia,  the  goddess 
with  the  horse's  head  »,  who  was  violated  by  Poseidon,  who 
was,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  143,  originally  the  snake 
parent-god  Erectheus  or  Ericthonius,  from  whose  three 
thousand  mares  the  North-wind  god  Boreas  begot,  accord- 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  {AsHka)  Parva,  xvii.  p.  78  ;  Rg.  viii.  22,  7,  vi.  46,  7,  8, 9. 
'  Frazer,  Fausanias,  viii.  42,  i — 3,  vol.  i.  p.  428. 


Preface.  xxv 

ing  to  Horn.  11.  xx.  220 — 225,  the  twelve  horses  of  the  year. 

Hence   Poseidon,  the  god  nurtured  by  the  Telchines,  was 

the  snake-father   of  the  horses  of  the  sun,  two  of  which 

he  gave   to   Peleus,  the  god  of  the  Potter's  clay  (TriyXos), 

the  Great  Potter   and   the   father   of  Achilles ' ;    and    the 

Telchines  his  votaries,   who  were  first  sons  of  the  sun-ass 

Trikshi,  became  by    their    union    with   the    northern   sons 

of  the   sun-horse    the  ruling    artisan    race   of  the  year  of 

eleven  months  of  the  god  called  Tarkshya,  the  son  of  Trikshi, 

and  also  Arishta-nemi  or  the  god  of  the  unbroken  wheel. 

We  can   thus   by  their  genealogy   trace   their    traditional 

Wstory  from  between    14,000  and   15,000  B.C.,  to  between 

13,000  and    12,000  B.C.    These   priests  were    the   Kuretes 

whose  religious  dances  were  circular  gyrations   like   those 

of  the  heavenly  bodies  round  the  pole  2. 

In  these  cosmogonies  we  see  specimens  of  the  scientific 
and  historical    myths  of  the  men  of  the  primitive  age  of 
civilization.      They  were  originally  evolved  from  the  dra- 
matic nature-myths,  framed  for  the  instruction  of  the  village 
'    children  by  the  elders  of  the  first  village  communities,  such 
as  the  story  of  Nala  and  Damayanti,  telling  of  the  wooing 
and  marriage  of  Nala,  meaning  the  channel   [nald)  of  the 
seasonal  rains,  the  god  of  the  two  monsoons  with  the  earth 
that  is  to  be  tamed  {damayanti).     This  same  use  of  dramatic 
metaphor    which  characterised  these  primitive   stories,  was 
continued,  when    histories    telling   of   events   spread    over 
long  ages  of  time  were  added  to  the  catalogue  of  national 
literature.     Hence,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  I.  p.   10,  Chapter 
V.  pp.  217,  218,  and  in  the  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times, 
Vol.   L,    Essay   II.,   pp.    64 — 76,   the   story  of  Nala   and 
Damayanti  was  expanded  into  a  much  more  extensive  his- 
tory than  that  contemplated  by  the  first  framers  of  the  myth, 
for  it   became   the   Epic   history  of  the   Mahabharata   or 

»  Homer,  Iliad,  xxiii.  277,  278. 

'  Smith,  Dictionary  of  AntiquitieSy  vol.  iii.  p.  987,  s.v.,  Telchines;  O'Neill 
Niikt  of  th€  Gods,  vol.  ii.  p.  847  ;  Berard,  Originc  d€S  Cultes  Arcadiens, 
pp.  104—109,  183. 


xxvi  Preface. 

Great  Bharatas,  the  race  -  begetters  (Jbkri),  the  people 
formed  from  the  amalgamation  of  the  races  who  successivelf 
ruled  India  down  to  the  close  of  the  Myth-making  Agft 
and  who  called  it  Bharata-varsha,  the  land  of  the  Bharata& 
This  covers  the  whole  period  reviewed  in  this  work,  begin- 
ning even  before  the  first  date  I  have  recorded,  21,000  B.C, 
when  a  Kepheus  was  the  Pole  Star. 

During  the  whole  of  the  three  ages  of  Pole  Star,  Lunar- 
solar  and  Sun-worship  comprised  in  this  Myth-making 
epoch  all  ancient  histories  were  framed  on  similar  ground- 
plans  to  those  used  by  the  successive  authors  of  the  Mahab- 
harata  legends,  and  were  recited  to  the  people  at  the 
national  New  Years*  festivals,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  VL  pp. 
297,  298.  By  the  rules  of  their  construction,  they  only 
furnish  exact  information  as  to  the  course  of  the  national 
changes  they  describe  when  they  are  interpreted  in  the 
sense  intended  by  their  authors  to  be  conveyed  to  those 
for  whose  use  they  were  intended.  These  men  lived 
in  an  age  when  the  object  of  the  national  historians  was 
to  record  the  progress  of  the  nation  or  tribe  for  whose 
benefit  they  worked,  and  thus  to  furnish  guide-marks  to 
the  descendants  of  each  generation,  which  thus  by  these 
did  bequeath  its  experiences  to  its  children.  For  this 
purpose  the  record  of  the  names  of  the  national  leaders 
was  in  their  eyes  useless.  Hence  they  substituted  for 
the  living  actors  symbolically  named  persons  whose  names 
gave  a  key  to  the  inner  meaning  of  these  narratives,  and 
these,  when  they  had  completed  the  tasks  attributed  to 
them  in  the  historic  dramas  prepared  by  the  national 
historiographers  the  Prashastri,  or  teaching  and  recording 
priests  of  the  Hindus,  the  Zend  Frashaostra  who  became 
the  Jewish  scribes  and  the  Greek  Exegetae,  only  lived  as 
guides  to  memory,  or  were  like  the  heroes  of  the  Mahab- 
harata  transferred  to  heaven  as  stars.  They  thus  took 
their  place  in  the  historical  nomenclature  of  the  Constel- 
lations, which,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  course  of  this  work, 
tell  in  their  names  the  history  of  the  world. 


Preface.  xxvii 

Seeing  that  the  narrators  of  these  officially  prepared 
ancient  histories,  which  were  believed  to  be  divinely  inspired 
utterances  painting  in  pictorial  language  the  national  results 
achieved  in  the  course  of  ages,  always  used  the  names 
of  the  actors  they  spoke  of  as  keys  to  their  meaning, 
it  is  a  fatal  mistake  to  regard  these  embodied  symbolical 
sign-marks  of  the  primitive  form  of  history  as  indicating 
individuals.  In  these  narratives  the  actual  leaders  who 
had  been  honoured,  loved  and  followed  during  the  lifetime 
they  had  devoted  to  the  service  of  their  country,  were  only 
remembered  after  death  in  the  records  of  the  victories 
they  had  gained  over  the  obstacles  raised  by  ignorance 
and  lawless  licence,  over  human  foes  and  climatic  impedi- 
ments. This  memorial,  furnished  by  the  benefits  secured 
by  their  deeds,  was  the  only  remembrance  they  wished 
and  sought  for,  as  the  end  for  which  they  toiled  was  not 
so  much  personal  aggrandisement  as  the  continued  stability 
and  improvement  of  the  state  fabric  they  and  their  fathers 
had  reared.  This  was  in  their  eyes  a  far  more  noble 
monument  than  that  of  personal  praise,  and  one  which 
best  repaid  their  constant  devotion  to  what  they  had  learnt 
to  be  their  highest  duty. 

Under  this  system  of  oral  historical  record,  in  which  each 
generation  handed  down  its  experiences  to  its  descendants, 
each  successive  leader  became  the  reproduction  of  those 
who  preceded  him  in  the  task  of  nation-building,  or,  in 
the  words  of  the  Mahabharata,  the  son  was  the  father  reborn 
from  the  mother-sheath.  Thus  in  religious  evolution,  as  will 
be  shown  hereafter,  each  newly  deified  manifestation  of  divine 
power  became  the  successor  under  different  names  and  at- 
tributes of  the  original  creating  Spirit-God.  This  conception 
appears  in  its  most  fully  developed  form  in  the  sequence 
of  the  births  of  the  Buddha,  recorded  in  the  Jatakas  or  Birth- 
Stories,  and  partly  told  in  Chapter  VII.  Section  G.  In 
these  his  first  embodiment  as  a  God  of  Time  is  said  by 
himself  in  Jataka  465  ',  to  be  his  birth  as  the  king  Sal-tree 

*  Rouse  and  Francis,  The  JatakaSy  vol.  iv.  pp.  96 — 98. 


xxviii  Preface. 

{Shorea  robusta)^  the  mother-tree,  from  which  he  was  after- 
wards bom  as  the  sun-god.  This  tree  was  the  pillar  which 
supported  the  palace  of  king  Brahmadatta,  the  ruler,  given 
[datta)  by  the  Creator  (Brahma).  This  palace  was  the 
heavenly  vault  lit  with  stars,  which  I  have  described  above 
as  the  dome  sustained  by  the  world's  tree  with  its  roots  fixed 
in  the  mud  of  the  Southern  Ocean  and  its  top  crowned  by 
the  Pole  Star. 

A  variant  form  of  this  tree  was  the  Erica-tree  supporting 
the  palace  of  the  king  of  Byblos,  the  modern  Ji-bail,  the 
Phoenician  Gi-bal^  the  city  of  the  Akkadian  fire-god  Gi-bil  or 
Bil-gi,  where,  as  we  have  seen  above,  the  Peplos  of  Harmonia 
was  kept.  In  this  tree  Isis  found  the  coffin  of  Osiris,  the 
year-god,  containing  his  body,  which  on  her  arrival  in  Egypt 
was  cut  into  fourteen  pieces  by  Set  and  his  seventy-two 
assistants,  who  changed  the  year-god  of  the  growing  tree 
who  had  measured  the  year  by  seventy-two  five-day  weeks 
into  that  of  the  lunar-solar  god  who  measured  his  year  by 
the  fourteen  days  of  the  lunar  phases  '. 

This  doctrine  of  re-birth  survived  among  the  poet-bards 
of  the  Gotho-Celtic  Northern  sun-worshippers,  who  initiated 
the  new  history  succeeding  that  of  the  Myth-making  Age, 
and  told  of  the  deeds  of  individual  heroes  who  were  actually 
living  men.  It  was  under  this  influence  that  they  mingled 
with  their  biographies  of  famous  warrior-kings,  such  as 
Cyrus,  Alexander  the  Great  and  Charlemagne,  legends  taken 
from  earlier  records,  which  assigned  to  them  birth-stories 
told  originally  of  their  mythic  predecessors.  Thus  they 
•made  Cyrus  the  son  of  the  daughter  of  Astyages,  that  is 
Azi  Dahaka,  the  biting  snake,  the  Indian  Vritra,  slain  by 
Trita  and  Thraetaona  and  other  conquering  heroes  of  the 
Rigveda  and  Zendavesta,  Alexander  the  Great  became  the 
descendant  of  Peleus,  the  Potter-god  of  the  Potter's  Clay 
(TnyXo?),  and  of  Achilles,  the  sun-god.     And  they  associated 


'  Frazer,  Golden  Bought  First  Edition,  vol.  i.,  chap.  iii.  pp.  302,  303  ;  Hewitt, 
Ruling  Races  0/ Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  ii.,  pp.  128,  129. 


Preface,  xxix 

Charlemagne  with  the  sun-charioteer,  the  Wain  of  Karl,  the 
Great  Bear,  and   the  sun  hero  Roland.     These  bards  repro- 
duced the  old  traditional  histories  in  the  Sagas  of  the  North, 
and  in  those  on   which  the  Iliad,  Odyssey  and  iEneid  are 
founded  ;  and  all  these,  like  the  later  Shah  Nameh  of  Persia, 
the  much  earlier  Mahabharata,  and  the  still  more  primitive 
Gond  Song  of  Lingal,  make  the  sun,  moon,  star  and  atmos- 
pheric heroes  of  the  earliest  national  legends  actors  in  historic 
dramas,  which,  while  purporting  to  represent  comparatively 
recent  historical  events,  really  tell  those  of  a  very  remote  past. 
It  was  the   conquering  races,  whose  historians  were  their 
tribal  bards,  who,  on   their  amalgamation  with  their  foes, 
instituted   the   last   year  dealt  with  in  these  Chapters,  the 
year  of  twelve   months   of  thirty  days  each,  divided   into 
ten-day  weeks,  and  who  built  the  brick  altar  of  the  sun-bird 
rising  in  the^East.     The  composite  theology  of  this  new  year 
is  described  in  Chapter  IX. 

The  histories  of  the  Myth-making  Age  were,  as  will  be 
seen  in  the  sequel  of  this  work,  told  in  three  forms,     (i)  The 
verbal  histories  prepared  by  the  official  historians  of  each 
governing   state.      (2)    The   pictorial    histories   told    in    the 
engraved  bas-reliefs  and  picture  Papyri  of  Egypt,  and  of  the 
Turano-Hittite    trading    races   who   drew   the    rock-picture 
of  lasilikaia,  copied  on  p.  259.     This  is  only  one  specimen 
form  of  a  large  number  of  similar  pictographs ;   and  this 
pictorial  history  is  told  also  in  symbols,  such  as  those  on  the 
Breton  form  of  the  Hindu  Linga  altar,  described  in  Chapter  V. 
pp.  269 — 272.     (3)  The  histories  handed  down  in  the  forms 
of  the   national  ritual,  such  as  that  told    in   Chapter  V.  p. 
205  ff.,  which  recorded  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  ram  at  the  autum- 
nal equinox    the  first  measurement  of  the   year  beginning 
when   the   sun   entered  Aries  on  the  day  after  the  evening 
sacrifice  of  the  ram,  the  sun-god  of  the  dying  year ;  also  that 
told  in  the  epitome  of  national  history  recorded,  as  is  related 
in  Chapter  IX.,  in  the  ritual  of  the  building  of  the  brick  altar 
of  the  year  sun-bird  rising  in  the  East  at  the  vernal  equinox, 
the  crowning  manifesto  of  Indian  theology. 


XXX  Preface. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  the  historical  deductions  to 
be  drawn  from  these  surviving  customs,  time-reckonings, 
rituals,  histories  and  religious  beliefs,  we  must  never  forget 
that  they  must  be  looked  on  as  signs  proving  each  race  who 
adopted  them  to  be  distinct  from  its  neighbours,  whose 
customs  differed  from  theirs.  Each  stock  which  became  a 
separate  nation  had  its  own  special  customs,  traditions  and 
religion,  and  these  were  the  birth-marks  and  national  trea- 
sures which  each  emigrating  section  took  with  them  to  other 
lands  from  their  parent  home. 

I  have  traced  the  course  of  some  of  these  emigrations, 
beginning  with  the  most  historically  important  of  them  all, 
that  in  which  the  descendants  of  the  first  founders  of  Indian 
villages  made  their  way  in  canoes  hollowed  out  of  forest 
trees,  grown  on  the  wooded  coasts  of  Western  India,  to  the 
then  barren  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  on  wkich  no  ship- 
building timber  has  ever  grown.  In  these  lands,  and  others 
to  which  they  subsequently  penetrated,  the  early  wanderers 
found  large  tracts  of  vacant  space  wherever  they  settled,  and 
thus  all  countries  in  which  they  found  unoccupied  territories 
possessing  favourable  soil  and  climate,  were  studded  with 
groups  of  settlers,  each  differing  from  its  neighbours  in 
customs,  history,  the  symbolism  of  religious  belief  and 
ritual,  and  each  measuring  time  after  its  own  fashion.  Each 
group  carried  with  it  its  own  religion  for  the  personal  use 
of  its  members,  and  looked  on  the  abandonment  of  its 
tenets,  or  the  attempt  to  bring  over  proselytes  from  other 
groups,  as  gross  impieties.  Even  the  conception  of  apostacy 
of  this  kind  never  entered  into  the  minds  of  the  first  founders 
of  society,  who  looked  on  the  religion  professed  by  each 
group  as  one  which  must  inevitably  be  that  of  every  affiliated 
member.  Hence  any  one  passing  through  the  territories 
thus  peopled  in  the  early  ages,  before  tribal  wars  had  pro- 
moted distrust,  and  caused  the  national  customs  to  be  con- 
cealed from  strangers  under  a  veil  of  secrecy,  would  on  moving 
from  one  group  to  another  find  himself  to  be  traversing 
a  series  of  states  varying  from  each  other  like  the  different 


Preface.  xxxi 

patterns  of  a  kaleidescope,  but  possessing  fundamental  simi- 
larities  under   their   apparent   differences.     These    customs 
were  all    most   carefully  preserved   under  the  influence  of 
the  intense  national  conservatism  which  is  the  most  marked 
djaracteristic   of  the  human  race.     It  is  owing  to  this  that 
even  now,  after  the  lapse  of  thousands  of  years  disseminating 
their  obliterating  influences,  there  are  still,  as  in  the  primitive 
era,  affinities  to  be  found  between  those  who  have  travelled 
over  and  settled  in  regions  of  the  earth's  surface  very  distant 
from  each  other,  and  disparities  between  those  who  live  near 
together. 

Hence   under   these    distributions  of  the  population   the 
numerous  tribes  recorded   by   ancient   writers   as   dwelling 
in  each  of  the  countries  of  South-eastern  Asia  and  Europe 
must  be  looked  on  as  grouping  together,  under  each  tribal 
name,  persons  and  families  whose  ancestors  had  formed  their 
separate  unions  in   a  very  remote  past,  while  many,  if  not 
most,  of  the  groups  traced  their  descent  from  a  distant  centre 
of  (MTgin.     It  is  this   persistent   preservation   of  the   tribal 
ritual  and  history  which  explains  the  close  likeness  between 
Celtic  mythology  and  that  of  Southern  India,  which  I  have 
shown  to  be  revealed  to  us  by  the  study  of  the  year-reckon- 
ings, and   the  ritual  of  the  Druids.     These  latter  were  the 
priests  of  the  Fomori  or  men  beneath  (^fo)  the  sea  {iniiir)  and 
the  Tuatha    de   Danann,  sons   of  the   goddess   Danu,    the 
descendants  of  emigrants  who  had,  in  the  course  of  ages,  made 
their  way  from  the  Southern  lands  of  the  Indian  Archipelago, 
those  of  the  Southern  end  of  the  world's  egg,  of  which  the 
Kauravya    plain    of  Northern    India    was   the   top.      They 
preserved    in  Ireland,  Britain  and  Gaul   the  ancient  beliefs 
of  the   Indian   Danava,  sons  of  Danu,  the   mother-goddess 
worshipped  by  the  Druids. 

Each  of  these  national  units  believed  it  to  be  its  chief  duty 
to  maintain  intact  the  historical  customs  and  religion  of  their 
forefathers,  and  to  measure  time  as  they  did  ;  but  though 
they  occasionally  naturalised  members  of  other  groups,  yet 
the  naturalised  man  had  to  abandon  all  links  of  association 


xxxii  Preface. 

with  his  ancient  relatives,  unless  they  or  a  large  body  of 
them  joined  him  in  forming  a  new  group  with  an  offshoot 
from  another  tribal  centre.  This  incorporated  the  customs 
of  both  sections  in  an  altered  form,  making  a  new  code 
adopted  by  the  united  confederates.  Hence  it  is  that  we  find 
the  root-forms  whence  society  grew,  and  the  folk-tales  record* 
ing  primitive  beliefs  universally  distributed,  and  it  was,  as 
a  consequence  of.  this  patriotic  dissemination  of  national 
relics  to  all  quarters  of  the  compass,  that  I  myself  have 
heard  the  same  fairy  stories  told  to  me  in  my  youth  in 
Ireland,  repeated  by  a  naked  wild  Gond  at  the  sources  of  the 
Mahanadi  in  India,  who  had  never  seen  a  white  man  before, 
and  whose  country,  though  not  far  separated  from  more 
advanced  districts,  was  practically  so  isolated  that  the  people 
knew  of  no  currency  except  cowrie-shells,  and  I  had  to  take 
them  with  me  when  I  visited  their  forests. 

During  the  first  ages  when  the  world  was  peopled  by 
agricultural,  hunting  and  fishing  races,  the  separate  con- 
federacies into  which  they  were  divided  generally  lived  at 
peace  with  each  other,  for  war,  except  in  the  form  of  petty 
quarrels  about  boundaries,  was  almost  unknown.  All  people 
alike  lived  on  the  fruit  of  their  exertions,  and  none  of  them 
had  any  surplus  wealth  to  excite  the  cupidity  of  their  neigh- 
bours. Their  only  possessions  were  the  soil  and  its  produce, 
the  articles  they  made  from  stone,  earth,  wood,  and  animals' 
bones,  and  certain  minerals  and  shells  they  valued  as  orna- 
ments. As  crops  were  only  grown  for  home  consumption, 
the  forcible  robbery  of  the  crops  of  prosperous  neighbours 
only  led  to  the  starvation,  retaliation  or  emigration  of  the 
victims,  and  left  no  future  prey  for  the  robbers.  Hence  this 
form  of  predatory  warfare  never  became  general  among 
agricultural  communities,  and  as  military  prowess  had  not 
yet  become  an  avenue  to  personal  distinction,  the  raids 
for  heads  and  scalps  made  by  savage  tribes  of  the  later 
fighting  races  had  not  yet  begun  to  disturb  the  public  peace. 
Wars  of  the  predatory  type  first  appear  among  the  pastoral 
races,  who  frequently,  when   their  flocks   and   herds  were' 


Preface.  xxxiii 

decimated  by  drought  or  murrain,  replenished  their  ex- 
hausted stocks  by  seizing  on  the  nearest  herds  which  had 
not  suffered  from  the  same  evils. 

It  was  not  till  the  invasion  of  the  savage  sheep  and  cow- 
feeding  races  of  the  North,  who  introduced  human  sacrifices 
and  the  three-years  cycle-year  described  in  Chapter  V.,  that 
wars  of  conquest  became  frequent.     But  these  were  not  like 
the  later  wars  of  the  races  who  introduced  the  present  form 
of  history,  accompanied  by  the  enslavement  of  the  subdued 
population.     The  introduction  of  these  wars  is  marked  by 
the  grouping  of  the  frontier  provinces  occupied  by  the  de- 
fending   corps  of   the    national    army    round    the    central 
province  occupied  by  the  king,  as  described  in  pp.  192 — 194. 
These  Northern  invading  races,  like  the  agricultural  com- 
munities  of  the  South,  looked   on  the  unseen  power  who 
measured  time  by  the  returning  seasons  of  the  year  as  the 
Creating-god.     But  they  depicted  this  being  not  as  the  soul 
of  the  mother-tree  or  plant,  but  as  the  invisible  parent  of 
animal  life  dwelling  in  the   divinely   impregnated    parent- 
blood,  who  sent  on  earth  as  his  symbol  the  reindeer,  who 
marked  the  changes  of  the  year  by  dropping  his  horns  in 
autumn,  and  by  their  re-growth  in  spring.     This  deer-sun- 
god  of  the  hunting  races  was  succeeded  by  the  eel-god  of 
the  united  hunters  and  agriculturists,  who  called  themselves 
in  Asia  Minor  and  Europe  the  Iberians,  that  is  the  Ibai-erri 
or  people  (errt)  of  the  rivers  {Ibai),  the  Iravata  of  India,  sons 
of  the  eel-mountain-goddess  Ida,  Ira  or  Ila.    They  measured 
their  year  by  the  migration  of  the  eels  to  the  sea  in  autumn 
and  their  return  in  spring,  as  described  in  Chapter  IV.  Their 
confederacy  was  that  of  the  Northern  hunters  united  with 
the  Southern  Indian  farmers,  who  called  the  Iberian  mother- 
mountain  Ararat  their  mother,  and  they  became  in  Europe 
the  Basques  or  sons  of  the  forest  {paso),  who  first  brought 
wheat  and  barley  thither,  and  founded  there  on  Indian  models 
the  villages  of  the  Neolithic  Age,     In  India  they  were  the 
worshippers  of  the  forest  creating-god  Vasu  or  Vasuki,  called 
also  Lingal  by  the  Kushika  Gonds,  who  came  down  as  the 

C 


xxxiv  Preface, 

first  swarm  of  the  sons  of  the  mother-mountain,  and  in- 
troduced there  the  Sesame  oil-seeds  which  they  brought 
from  Asia  Minor,  and  furnished  the  first  holy  oil  which  has 
since  played  such  an  important  part  in  early  medicine  and 
religious  ritual.  They  also  introduced  the  millets  of  the 
sacred  oil-land,  and  were  afterwards  followed  by  the  barley- 
growing  tribes  in  the  order  described  in  Chapters  III. 
and  IV. 

These  first  Northern  immigrants  into  India  formed  by 
their  union  with  the  previously  settled  Finn  Dravido  Munda 
races  the  confederacy  of  the  Khati  or  Hittites,  meaning  the 
joined  races  of  the  North  and  South,  sons  of  the  Twin  gods 
Night  and  Day,  who,  when  transformed  into  the  zodiacal 
stars  Gemini,  became  the  gateposts  of  the  Garden  of  God, 
through  which  the  sun  entered  on  his  annual  circuit  in  the 
years  of  fifteen  and  thirteen  months,  described  in  Chapters 
VII.  and  VIII.  These  latter  years  were  those  of  the  white 
horse  of  the  sun,  the  Northern  sun-god  who  succeeded  the 
sun-deer  and  the  sun-ass,  and  the  black  horse  whose  head 
ruled  the  year  of  eleven  months  of  Chapter  VI.  It  was 
under  the  auspices  of  the  white  sun-horse  that  the  systems 
of  solar  worship  were  developed. 

It  was  from  the  intercourse  of  the  originally  alien  Northern 
and  Southern  races  that  the  changing  confederacies  described 
in  this  book  were  developed,  and  each  of  those  which 
attained  supreme  power  introduced  a  new  method  of  measur- 
ing time,  and  a  fresh  series  of  festivals  of  the  creating 
year-gods.  These  festivals  still  survive  in  Saints*  Days,  and 
have  left  their  footprints  in  all  those  modern  calendars 
which  still  reveal 'to  those  who  have  learnt  the  sequence  of 
the  successive  year-reckonings  the  order  of  the  succession 
of  acts  unfolding  the  evolution  of  the  drama  of  human 
progress.  They  thus  exhibit  to  us  the  stages  of  the  pro- 
duction of  the  final  outcome  of  the  Myth-making  Age,  the 
foundation  of  the  states  ruled  by  the  race  of  skilled  farmers, 
artisans,  mariners  and  traders,  who  covered  Southern  Asia, 
North  Africa  and  Europe  with  the  commercial  communities 


Preface.  xxxv 

founded  first  by  the  people  called  the  Minyans,  the  sons 
of  Min,  the  star  Spica  Virgo,  the  corn-mother,  who  in  their 
ultimate  development  were  the  Yadu-Turvasu  of  India,  the 
Tursena  of  Asia  Minor,  the  Tursha  of  Egypt,  and  the 
Tyrrhenians  of  Italy.  It  was  they  who  became  in  the 
countries  east  of  India  the  commercial  race  of  the  Pre- 
Sanskrit  Bronze  Age,  who  established  in  Mexico  the  rule 
of  the  Toltecs  or  Builders,  whose  Indian  affinities  I  have 
traced  in  Chapter  IX.  of  this  book,  and  Essay  IX.  Vol.  II. 
of  the  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times.  They  took  with 
them  to  Mexico  the  Indian  year  of  eighteen  months  of 
twenty  days  each,  instituted  during  the  last  period  of  the 
Pandava  rule,  which  became  the  Maya  year  of  Mexico. 

It  was  the  members  of  the  Southern  sections  of  these 
trading  guild  brotherhoods,  the  worshippers  of  the  Munda 
^  san-bird,  as  distinguished  from  the  sun  Ra  or  Ragh  of  the 
Northern  gfnomon-stone  and  the  stone-circles,  who  distri- 
hated  over  the  maritime  countries  they  visited  in  their 
commercial  voyages  the  sign  of  the  Su-astika,  the  symbol 

of  their  sun-divinity.     It  represented  in  its  female  J-j  and 

male  LC  forms,  the  annual  circuits  of  the  sun-bird  round  the 

heavens,  going  North  as  the  hen-bird  at  the  winter,  and 
returning  South  as  the  sun-cock  at  the  summer  solstice, 
as  described  in  pp.  98,  99.  This  symbol  has  been  found 
in  American  graves  in  the  Mississippi  and  Tennessee  States, 
\t\  Mexico,  India,  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
the  Atlantic  coasts  as  far  North  as  Norway. 

It  is  one  of  the  thirty-two  sacred  marks  depicted  on  the 
feet  of  the  Indian  Buddha,  whose  image  seated  on  the  throne 
of  the  double  Su-astika  is  shown  in  the  illustration  on  p.  471. 
There  it  is  that  of  the  elephant-headed  rain-god  Gan-isha, 
the  lord  {islia)  of  the  land  {gan\  who  in  the  Nidanakatha 
is  said  to  have  entered  his  mother's  side  when  he  was  con- 
ceived. This  image  comes  from  Copan  in  Mexico,  and  proves 
that  in  the  legend  of  the  sun-god  of  the  Indian  Su-astika 
known  to  the  Toltec  priests,  this  god  was  first  the  cloud-bird, 

c  2 


xxxvi  Preface. 

whose  tail  appears  at  the  back  of  the  elephant's  head.  The 
name  of  his  symbolic  throne  ought  to  be  written  Su-ashtaka, 
for  it  is  the  symbol  of  the  Indian  eighth  {ashta)  god  of  the 
eight-rayed  star,  the  hero  of  the  Mahabharataf  called  Astika 
in  the  Astika  Parva,  where  he  is  the  son  of  Jarat-karu,  the 
sister  of  the  creating-god  Vasuki,  and  Ashtaka  in  the  Sam- 
bhava  Parva,  where  he  is  the  grandson  of  Yayati,  both  his 
progenitors  being  gods  of  time^.  He  was  the  chief  priest 
of  the  sacrifice  described  in  Chapter  V.  p.  271,  at  which 
Janamejaya,  victorious  [jayd)  over  birth  (janam\  destroyed 
all  the  Naga  snake-gods  of  the  Pole  Star  era,  and  introduced 
the  worship  of  the  sun-god,  who  did  not,  like  his  prede- 
cessors, die  at  the  end  of  his  yearly  circuit  of  the  heavens. 
Ashtaka,  the  sun  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  who  was  once  the 
cloud-bird  Khu,  became  the  newly-risen  sun-bird,  whose 
image  crowned  the  last  official  altar  of  Hindu  ritual,  the 
building  of  which  is  described  in  Chapter  IX. 

The  symbol  of  the  Su-astika  is  thus  shown  to  have  been 
probably  first  used  as  a  year-sign  by  the  worshippers  of  the 
eight-rayed  star.  It  apparently  succeeded  the  Triskelion, 
the  earlier  symbol  of  the  revolving  sun  of  the  year  of  three 

seasons.     This,  which  was   originally  the  sign  ^,  became 

the  three-legged   crest   of   the   Isle   of   Man, 

which  has  on  a  Celtiberian  coin,  depicted  by 

Comte  Goblet  d'Alviella,  the  sun's  face  in  the 

centre.      It   appears   on   a  coin  of  Aspendus 

with  the  sun-cock  beside  it,  and  on  a  Lycian 

coin  the  feet  become  cocks'  heads.     The  original  sign  has 

been  found  on  a  coin  of  Megara,  on  pottery  from  Arkansas, 

on  a  Scandinavian  spear  and  brooch  of  the  Bronze  Age, 

and  on  the  gold  pummel  of  a  sword  found  in  Grave  IV.  in    i 


'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Astika)  Parva,  xlviii.  p.  140.  In  \dL\{Sambhava)  Panra, 
Ixxxviii. — xciii.,  and  in  the  Udyoga  {Bhagavat-yana)  Parva,  cxviii.  p.  347, 
he  is  Ashtaka.  For  the  Udyoga  Parva  story  of  his  birth  as  the  fourth  son 
of  Madhavi,  the  goddess  of  mead  (madhu)^  daughter  of  Yayati,  of  whom  Uie 
god  Shiva  was  the  third,  sec  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  L, 
Essay  iii.,  p.  318, 


1 


Preface,  xxxvii 

Schliemann's  Excavations  at  MycencB.  It  gave  the  name 
Trinacria  or  Triquetra,  the  three-pointed  isle,  to  Sicily, 
which  is  in  the  Odyssey  the  home  of  the  350  oxen  and  350 
sheep  of  the  sun-god,  the  meaning  of  which  is  discussed  in 
Appendix  C.  p.  634  ^.  It  is  apparently  a  product  of  the  age 
of  the  worship  of  Poseidon,  the  father  of  the  sun-horse 
begotten  of  the  horse-headed  black  Demeter,  as  the  Great 
Potter,  wielder  of  the  creating  Trident  who  raised  islands 
from  the  sea.  For  the  Triskelion,  the  three  {trt)  legged 
[viciKot)  symbol  of  the  year-god,  the  Su-astika  was  sub- 
stituted when  the  sun-god,  on  whose  feet  it  was  depicted, 
became  the  god  circling  in  his  annual  course  the  heavenly 
dome  over-arching  the  eight-rayed  star.     It  was  first  used  as 

the  female  Su-astika  ^,  the  symbol  of  the  sun-god  born 

from  the  night  of  winter,  and  beginning  its  annual  journey 
Northward  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  it  was  derived  from 

the  equilateral    St.    George's   Cross  -4-  of  the  cycle-year. 

The  date  to  which  its  origin  must  be  assigned  is  apparently 
that  traced  in  Chapter  VII.  Section  A.,  The  birth  of  the 
sun-god  born  from  the  Thigh,  pp.  396 — 399,  when  the  sun- 
god  or  sun-bird  born  from  the  Thigh-stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
who  circled  the  heavens  as  the  independent  measurer  of 
annual  time,  was  in  Taurus  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  in 
Gemini  in  January — February  about  10,200  B.C.     After  this 

he  became  the  sun-god  of  the  male  Su-astika  Lp]^  who  was 

nursed  by  the  moon-goddess  Maha  GotamI  Pajapati,  the 
nurse  of  the  Buddha,  who  tended  him  as  he  passed  through 
the  zodiac  of  the  thirty  stars  during  the  three  months 
November — December,  December — January,  and  January — 
February,  and  was  born  as  the  "  son  of  the  majesty  of  Indra," 
the  eel-god  of  the  rivers   of  Chapter  IV.,  the  conquering 

'  Goblet  d'Alviella,  The  Migration  of  Symbols^  p.  54,  Figs.  23  a  and  d, 
p.  181,  Figs.  87,  89;  NuttaU,  'Fundamental  Principles  of  Old  and  New 
World  Civilisations,'  vol.  ii.,  Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum ^  Harvard  Uni- 
Tcnity,  pp.  28,  29 ;  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods,  vol.  ii.  pp.  635  ff.  ;  Shuchhardt, 
Schiienuim's  Excavations^  Fig.  229,  p.  232. 


xxxviii  Preface.  . 

rain-god,  at  the  Ekashtaka  (p.  399)  on  the  eighth  day  of  the 
dark  fortnight,  or  on  the  23rd  of  Magh  (January — February). 
He  became  the  ruler  of  the  year  beginning  in  Greece  on  the 
1 2th  of  Anthesterion  (February — March)  with  the  Festival 
of  the  Anthesteria,  or  that  of  the  Recall  of  the  souls  of  the 
dead  ;  and  started  on  his  career  as  the  conquering  god  of 
spring,  who  was  to  become  at  the  summer  solstice  the 
victorious  god  of  the  elephant-headed  rain-cloud,  the  god 
Gan-isha,  who  was  then  to  begin  his  course  Southward  as 
the  god  of  the  male  Su-astika.  In  this  form  he  was  the  god 
of  the  year  of  thirteen  months,  whose  yearly  course  begfinning 
with  his  three-months  passage  through  the  thirty  stars  is 
traced  in  Chapter  VI I.  p.  488. 

The  sun-bird,  the  original  parent-god  of  this  long  series 
of  offspring  forming  the  historical  genealogy  of  the  sun-god, 
is  the  Akkadian  and  Egyptian  Khu,  the  Hindu  Shu  or  Su. 
It  was  apparently,  in  the  primaeval  solar  ritual,  the  red-headed 
woodpecker,  for  it  is  the  heads  and  beaks  of  these  birds  that 
form  the  images  of  the  Su-astika  found  in  the  American 
graves  in  Mississippi  and  Tennessee,  and  depicted  in  Figs. 
263,  264,  265,  pp.  906  and  907  of  Mr.  Wilson's  treatise  on 
the  Su-astika,  published  by  the  Smithsonian  Institution  at 
Washington '.  In  the  centre  of  Fig.  264  are  the  points 
of  the  eight-rayed  star  surrounding  a  solstitial  cross  in  a 


circle  <y^,  and  in  Fig.  263,  which  is  reproduced  in  Fig.  29  of 


Comte  Goblet  d'Alviella's  Migration  of  Symbols,  p.  58.  There 
the  central  circle  with  the  cross  inscribed  in  it  is  surrounded 
with  twelve  instead  of  eight  points.  Both  prove  conclusively 
that  the  woodpecker  represented  in  the  form  of  a  Su-astika 
the  bird  flying  round  the  square  in  which  the  sun-circle 
is  placed,  and  thus  completing  its  year  by  circular  course.  This 
red-headed  woodpecker,  the  sacred  bird  of  the  Algonquin 
Indians,  is  also  the  sun-bird  Picus,  the  woodpecker  of  Latin 


'  *The  Swastika.'     Report  of  the    United  States   National  Museum,  1894, 
Washington,  1896. 


Preface,  xxxix 

mythology,  who  became  the  red-capped  Leprichaun,  the 
dwarf  guardian-god  of  treasure  in  Ireland  and  Germany  ^. 
Picus  was  the  father  of  Faunus,  the  Italian  deer-sun-god, 
and  grandfather  of  Latinus.  He  is  the  god  of  the  Indian 
Lat,  our  Lath,  the  wooden  sun  -  gnomon  -  pillar  on  which 
Garuda  is  placed  in  the  circle  of  Lats  round  the  Indian 
temples.  Garuda  or  Gadura  is  the  sacred  bird  of  Krishna 
the  sun-antelope-god,  who  sits  in  his  chariot  and  is  repre- 
sented in  the  Mahabharata  as  the  egg-born  son  of  Vinata, 
the  tenth  wife  of  Kashyapa,  and  the  tenth  month  of  ges- 
tation of  the  Hindu  lunar  year  of  thirteen  months.  He 
was-  created,  like  Astika  or  Ashtaka,  to  devour  the  Naga 
snakes,  the  offspring  of  Ka-dru,  the  tree  {dru)  of  Ka,  the 
thirteenth  wife  of  Kashyapa,  and  the  thirteenth  month  of 
the  year  2. 

Thus  the  Latin  triad  :  Picus  the  woodpecker ;  Faunus,  the 
deer-sun-god  ;  and  Latinus,  the  sun-god  of  the  tree  of  the 
woodpecker,  is  exactly  equivalent  to  that  of  the  Indian 
bird  Gadura,  the  antelope-sun-god  Krishna,  and  the  Ka- 
dru  Lat  or  tree-stem  on  which  the  bird  sits.  Furthermore 
the  woodpecker  Picus  was  the  sacred  bird  of  Mars,  the 
god  Martins  of  the  Eugubine  Tables,  whose  priests,  as  I 
show  in  Chapter  V.,  Section  R,  p.  257,  wore  the  sacrificial 
cord  on  the  right  shoulder  and  made  their  ritualistic  cir- 
cuits contrary  to  the  course  of  the  sun,  thus  following  the 
ritual  of  the  Indian  Pitaro  Barishadah  of  the  Lunar-Solar 
Age,  who  sat  on  seats  (barhis)  of  Kusha-grass.  This  god 
Martius  was  the  male  form  of  the  Indian  Maruts  or  tree 
{tnarom)  mothers,  the  goddesses  of  the  Akkadian  South- 
west wind  Martu. 

Thus  at  both  ends  of  the  chain  of  Suastikas  surrounding 
the  world  from  America  to  Italy,  we  find  proof  that  the 
original  sun-bird  of  the  forest  races,  who  were  the  first 
founders  of  villages,  was  the   red-headed   woodpecker,  the 


*  Leland,  Etruscan  Roman  Remains^  Red  Cap,  pp.  162 — 164. 
'  Mahabharata  Adi  (Xstika)  Parva,  xvi.  pp.  77  flf. 


xl  Preface,  , 

typical  bird  of  the  Indian  agriculturists  whose  harvests 
depended  on  the  monsoons.  And  the  memory  of  this 
bird  survives  in  the  reddened  heads  of  the  stake-gods,  now 
worshipped  as  Bhim-sen,  the  tree-ape-god,  the  Bhima  of 
the  Mahabharata,  whose  father  was  Maroti,  the  tree-ape,  and 
who  became  the  Rudra  or  red  god  of  the  Rigveda. 

The  interest  of  the  history  thus  told  in  the  images  of  the 
sun  and  storm-bird  is  much  increased  when  we  observe  that 
there  is  no  indigenous  Su-astika  found  in  Arabia  or  Egypt, 
for  the  only  Su-astika  found  in  the  latter  country  is,  as  Mr. 
Wilson  shows,  imported  by  Greek  colonists.  The  lesson 
thus  taught  us  is  that  the  sun-god  of  these  countries  was 
not  the  sun-bird  of  the  primaeval  theology  of  the  Mundas, 
but  the  Northern  sun  and  fire-god  Ra,  Rai,  or  Ragh,  the 
god  of  the  gnomon-stone-pillar  of  the  builders  of  Neolithic 
sun-circles,  and  that  the  worship  of  this  god  was  so  firmly 
implanted  in  Arabian  and  Egyptian  ritual  as  to  obliterate 
the  worship  of  the  earlier  sun-bird,  who  was  relegated  to 
the  Pole  Star  as  the  Pole  Stars  in  Cygnus,  the  bird  con- 
stellation, and  as  Vega,  the  Arabic  El  Nasr,  the  Egyptian 
Ma*at,  apd  the  Gan-dhari  in  the  constellation  of  the  Vul- 
ture, which  was  also  called  the  Tortoise,  and  has  since  become 
our  Lyra.  It  was  the  Kushika  sons  of  the  Tortoise  who 
substituted  the  sun-god  Ra,  the  Indian  Raghu  or  Ra-hu, 
the  father  of  Rama,  whose  mother  was  Kushaloya  the 
house  {aloya)  of  the  Kushites  for  the  Munda  sun-bird. 

The  whole  history  thus  told  proves  that  the  trading 
authors  of  these  year  symbols,  established  over  the  whole 
world  to  which  their  commerce  extended  a  connected 
series  of  governments,  who  formed  their  institutions  on  the 
Dravidian  and  Kushika  models  I  have  sketched  in  this 
work. 

The  dissemination  by  emigrants  of  the  new  cult  originat- 
ing with  each  change  of  the  year-reckoning  which  marked 
the  history  of  the  Myth-making  Age,  was  continued  un- 
interruptedly from  the  early  ages  of  the  Pleiades  year  down 
to  the  close  of  the  mythic  period.     Instances  proving  this 


Preface,  xli 

are  well-known  to  all  who  study  Folklore  as  a  historical 
record,  and  among  these  I  may  quote  two  showing  the 
advent  to  England,  and  the  incorporation  into  English 
traditions,  of  very  early  rituals.  In  Chapter  V.  I  have 
shown  that  the  first  worship  of  the  upright  equilateral  cross 
of  St.  George,  as  a  symbol  of  the  creating  year-god,  dates 
from  the  inauguration  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  of  the 
year  measured  by  the  equinoxes,  in  addition  to  the  original 
solar  seasons  of  the  solstices.  This  year  began  with  the 
autumnal  equinox,  and  the  festival  of  the  finding  of  the 
Cross  on  the  14th  September,  seven  days  before  the 
autumnal  equinox,  is  still,  as  I  have  shown  on  p.  223,  cele- 
brated in  the  Lebanon.  This  survives  in  Yorkshire  in  the 
custom  of  placing  witch-wood,  cut  from  the  rowan  or 
mountain-ash-trees,  on  the  lintels  of  doors  to  preserve  the 
house  from  witchcraft.  This  must  be  cut  on  St.  Helen's 
Day,  the  14th  of  September,  from  a  tree  which  the  person 
who  collects  the  wood  has  never  seen  before,  and  the  wood 
must  not  be  cut  with  a  household  knife.  The  original 
Helen  of  this  custom  is  not  the  wife  of  Constantine,  who 
is  said  to  have  found  the  true  Cross,  but  the  much  earlier 
Helen  of  Greece,  the  immortal  daughter  of  Leda,  and  twin* 
sister  of  Polu-deukes,  the  rain-twin,  who  was  worshipped 
as  Helene  Dendritis,  the  tree-mother  Helene,  the  primaeval 
tree-mother  of  the  South. 

The  memory  of  the  age  of  the  introduction  of  the  equi- 
noctial cult  of  the  three-years  cycle-year  is  also  preserved 
in  Yorkshire  in  a  medicinal  charm  handed  down  by  the 
pastoral  races,  who  introduced  this  year  in  which  time  was 
measured  by  the  four  series,  each  of  ten  months  of  gestation, 
into  which  the  three  years  were  divided.  In  this  prescription 
the  sick  animal  is  to  be  bled,  and  some  hair  of  its  mane, 
tail,  and  four  quarters  is  to  be  placed  in  the  flowing  blood, 
together  with  three  spoonfuls  of  salt  taken  from  the  mother- 
sea.  The  cure  is  to  be  completed  by  the  concoction  of  a 
charm  amulet  made  of  the  heart  of  a  sheep,  which,  as  the 
ram  sacrificed  at  its  commencement,  was  the  sacred  animal 


xlii  Preface, 

of  the  cycle-year.  In  this  were  to  be  stuck  nine  new  pins, 
nine  new  needles,  nine  small  nails,  indicating  the  twenty- 
seven  days  and  three  nine-day  weeks  of  the  cycle-month. 
This  heart  was  then  rolled  in  the  blood,  the  consecrating 
Phrygian  bath  of  Chapter  IV.  p.  i88,  before  the  days  of  the 
baptismal  water  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers ;  and  at  twelve 
o'clock  at  night  the  heart  was  to  be  put  on  a  clear  fire  of 
elder,  rowan,  or  ash,  all  trees  which  gave  protection  against 
witchcraft  If  the  charm  is  not  successful  it  is  to  be  repeated 
at  the  new  and  full-moon  till  the  animal  is  cured  or  dead '. 

The  twenty-seven  days  and  three  nine-day  weeks  of  the 
month  of  the  age  ruled  by  the  dealers  in  white  or  healing 
magic  also  survive  in  Lettish  charms,  which  describe  ^the 
march  of  time  as  "thrice  nine  waggons  passing  along  the 
street,  thrice  nine  Perkoni  emerging  from  the  sea,  thrice  nine 
balls  of  string  in  the  basket  of  the  woman  sitting  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill,  and  the  three  servants  (the  three  years  of  the 
cycle)  with  thrice  nine  arrows  which  issue  from  the  sea»." 
In  these  observances  we  find  a  union  of  the  tree-worship 
of  the  South  with  the  Northern  worship  of  the  sun-ram, 
which  succeeded  the  earlier  sun-deer.  Also  they  give  evi- 
dence of  the  belief  in  the  mother-tree  as  a  protest  against 
the  spells  of  the  wizards  and  witches  of  the  Northern  Finn 
mythology,  and  of  the  Southern  witchcraft  brought  from 
Africa  by  the  sons  of  the  bow. 

I  must  here  also  note  the  existing  evidence  of  the  ancient 
evolution  which  transformed  the  worship  of  the  Great  Bear 
as  the  Thigh  of  the  Ape  into  that  of  the  sun  born  of  the 
Thigh,  the  sun-god  of  the  fifteen-months  year  of  Chapter  VII. 
This  is  to  be  found  in  the  measurement  of  the  Chinese  year. 
According  to  Professor  Douglas,  "  The  months  a,nd  seasons 
are  determined  by  the  revolutions  of  Ursa  Major  (the  Chinese 
name  for  which  is  Pek-tao,  the  Seven  Directors).     The  tail 


*  Atkinson,  Forty  Years  in  a  Moorland  Parish^  pp.  99,  104 — 124. 
»  Abercromby,   The  Pre  and  Proto- Historic  Finns,  Lettish  Charms,  42,  52, 
58,  vol.  ii.  pp.  26 — 28. 


Preface.  xliii 

of  the  constellation,  pointing  to  the  East  at  nightfall, 
announces  the  arrival  of  spring  ;  pointing  to  the  South, 
the  arrival  of  summer ;  pointing  to  the  West,  the  arrival  of 
autumn ;  and  pointing  to  the  North,  the  arrival  of  winter. 
This  means  of  calculating  the  seasons  becomes  more  intel- 
ligible when  it  is  remembered  that  in  ancient  times  the  Bear 
was  much  nearer  the  North  Pole  than  now,  and  revolved 
round  it  like  the  hand  of  a  clock."  Also  the  Chinese  Zodiac 
is  represented  with  the  Pole  Star  and  circumpolar  constel- 
lations in  the  centre '.  Hence  arose  the  belief  that  the 
Great  Bear  took  the  sun,  its  offspring,  sunwards  round  the 
Pole. 

The  growth  of  this  myth,  and  the  history  it  tells,  are  still 

further  illustrated  by  the  astronomy  of  the  Micmac  Indians 

of  America,  who  believed  that  the  seasonal  changes  were 

indicated  by  the  Great  Bear.     They  say  that  in  mid-spring 

the  Bear-mother  climbs  out  of  her  den,  the  Corona  Borealis. 

In  mid-summer  she  runs  along  the  Northern  horizon  ;  soon 

after  she  assumes  an  erect  position,  and  then  topples  on  her 

back  as  the  dying  bear  of  autumn.     In  mid-winter  she  lies 

dead  on  her  back,  but  then  her  den,  the  Corona  Borealis,  has 

reappeared  with  the  Bear  of  the  New  Year  invisible  within. 

This  comes  forth  again  in  spring  to  be  again  slain  by  the 

autumn  hunters,  and  to  complete  a  fresh  yearly  circuit  of 

the  Pole  2. 

A  further  historical  variant  of  this  primaeval  myth  of  the 
year  Bear  succeeding  the  sun-reindeer,  which  dropped  its 
koms  in  autumn,  is  to  be  found  in  the  myth  of  Theseus,  who 
found  his  way  to  the  centre  of  the  Labyrinth  in  which  he 
slew  the  Minotaur  of  Crete  by  the  clue  furnished  to  him  by 
Ariadne,  who  was  raised  to  heaven  as  the  Corona  Borealis, 

'Douglas,  China,  London,  1887,  p.  418;  Medhurst,  'Astronomy  of  the 
Chinese,'  Ancient  China,  Shanghai,  1 846. 

'  Stansbury  Hagar,  *  The  Celestial  Bear,'  Journal  of  American  Folklore,  vol. 
""-,  no.  xlix.  July,  1 900  ;  Zelia  Nuttall,  *  Fundamental  Principles  of  Old  and 
Kew  World  Civilisations,'  pp.  510,  note  I,  511.  Vapers  of  Peabody  Museum^ 
Hirrard  University,  vol.  ii.  1 901. 


xliv  Preface. 

after  she  had  borne  to  Dionysos,  the  wine-god,  the  two 
autumn  sons  CEnopion,  the  wine  (0*1/09)  drinker  (iritov),  and 
Staphylus,  the  bunch  of  grapes  (crTa^vX^).  She  was  the 
daughter  of  Minos,  the  measurer,  and  Pasiphaae,  she  who 
shines  (<l>aiv)  to  all  (Trdat),  the  moon-goddess,  who  was  also 
the  concubine  of  the  Minotaur,  the  bull  of  the  Labyrinth, 
who  is,  as  we  shall  now  see,  the  Great  Bear  Constellation 
of  the  Seven  Bulls  ^ 

This  Labyrinth  is  the  den  of  the  god  of  the  Labrus,  the 
Carian  name  for  the  double-axe,  the  symbol  used  at  Gnossus, 
now  being  excavated  by  Mr.  Evans,  to  denote  the  supreme 
God  2,  the  Greek  iriXeKvs,  the  divine  weapon  of  the  year-god 
lost,  as  I  show  in  Appendix  C.  p.  631,  by  Odusseus,  when 
he  was  wrecked  on  his  voyage  from  Ogygia,  the  island  of 
Calypso,  to  the  Phoenician  land  of  Alkinoos.  He  was 
obliged  to  throw  into  the  sea  the  double-axe  and  the  rest 
of  his  solar  panoply  by  Ino,  who  saved  him  in  the  form 
of  a  sea-gull,  and  gave  him  the  kredemnon  or  ribbon  of  the 
zodiacal  stars,  on  which  he  was  brought  to  land  as  the  naked 
god  of  the  new  year  of  seventeen-months  of  twenty-one  days 
each,  described  in  Chapter  VIIL  This  Pelekus  is  the  Greek 
form  of  the  Indian  Parasu,  the  double-axe  of  the  two  lunar 
crescents  of  Parasu  Rama,  the  son  of  Jamadagni,  the  twin 
(jama)  fires  engendered  in  the  mother-trees,  the  Banyan 
{Ftcus  Indicd)  and  the  Pipal  [Ficus  religiosd)  by  his  grand- 
father Richika,  the  divine  fire-spark.  He  was  the  god,  son 
of  the  bisexual  plant,  kindled  into  life  by  the  lightning  of  the 
rain-storm.  His  mother  was  Renuka,  the  flower-pollen,  and 
he,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  V.  pp.  260,  261,  recovered  the 
year-calf,  born  of  the  year-cow  after  ten  lunar-months  of 
gestation.  This  had  been  stolen  by  Arjuna,  the  son  of 
Karta-virya,  the  star-god  Orion,  the  son  of  the  Krittakas 
or  spinning  {kart)  Pleiades,  who  slew  Jamadagni.  Rama, 
in  revenge,  slew  with  his  Parasu  or  double-lunar-axe  Arjuna 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times  ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  vi.,  pp.  559,  560. 
'  Evans,    *  Mycenaean  Tree  and  Pillar  Cult.  *    Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies ^ 
vol.  xxi.  Part  i.,  1901,  pp.  109,  no. 


Preface,  xlv 

and  all  the  Haihaias,  the  men  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  and 
established  the  ritual  of  the  eleven-months  year. 

In  this  story  the  secret  is  disclosed  of  the  year  of  the 
Minotaur,  the  bull,  which,  as  the  Zend  Haptoiringas,  the 
seven  bulls,  replaced  the  Bear  as  the  title  of  the  constellation 
Ursa  Major.  The  bull  successor  of  the  bear  was  the  god 
of  the  Labyrinth  of  the  Labrus  or  double-lunar-axe,  the 
god  whose  year  was  measured  by  the  movements  of  the  Great 
Bear  and  Ariadne  Corona  Borealis.  She  was  described  as 
the  year -star  when  the  year  of  Hippolytus,  the  son  of 
Theseus,  and  the  Olenian  Poseidon,  the  constellation  of 
Auriga,  the  Charioteer,  and  the  Little  Goat  Capella,  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  VI.  Section  F.  pp.  338 — 341,  was  intro- 
duced as  that  which  measured  time  by  the  passage  of  the 
sun,  watched  by  the  guardian  charioteer,  through  the  stars 
of  the  Zodiac. 

We  find  similar  relics  of  the  old  beliefs  of  the  Myth-making 
Age  preserved  in  local  customs,  rituals  and  stories  all  over 
the  world.  Wherever  we  go  we  find  that  it  is  among  the 
villagers,  the  Latin  Pagani,  the  men  of  the  village  {pagus), 
that  the  conservative  instinct,  derived  from  the  first  founders 
of  village  communities  and  tribes,  has  led  them  to  preserve 
in  their  festivals,  games,  and  social  ceremonies,  the  rites 
of  the  dead  or  altered  faiths  of  the  past. 

As  a  surviving  instance  of  the  universal  history  told  in  the 
symbols  of  the  Myth-making  Age,  I  will  here  cite  the 
arrangement  of  the  hierarchy  of  the  Dervishes  attached  to 
the  Ka'bah,  or  Mosque  of  Mecca  containing  the  Holy  Black 
Stone,  the  original  Northern  mother  of  fire  to  the  race  who 
traced  their  descent  from  the  volcanic  fire-mountain  Ararat. 
These  Dervishes  are  arranged  in  groups  representing  the 
supporting-pillars  and  minarets  of  the  Holy  Temple  of 
Heaven,  symbolised  in  the  vaulted  dome,  the  most  sacred 
form  of  building  in  the  eyes  of  Mahommedan  architects. 
The  top  and  central  pillar  is  the  Head  Dervish,  called  the 
Kutb,  or  Pillar  of  the  Pole  Star  God,  the  keystone  of  the 
vault.    To  his  right  and  left  are  the  two  Umena  or  faithful 


xlvi  Preface. 

ones,  representing  the   two   seasons  of  spring   and  winter, 
standing  on  both  sides  of  the  central  summer,  and  also  the 
first  and  third  years  of  the   cycle-year.     Below  these  are 
the  four  Ev-tads,  meaning  the  tent-pegs,  the  four  divisions 
each  of  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation  making  up  the  cycle- 
year.     Next  to  them   come  the  five  En-var  or  lights,  the 
five-day  weeks  of  the  first  Pleiades  and  Solar  years.     Next 
the  seven  Akhyar  or  Good,  the  seven  days  of  the  week  of  the 
seventeen  and  thirteen-months  year,  who  are  followed  by  the 
eight  Nukeba  or  deputies,  the  eight-days  week  of  the  fifteen- 
months  year.     Below  all  these  are  the  forty  who  complete 
the  number  of  the  rijal-i-ghaib,  the  unseen,  the  forty  lunar- 
months  of  the  cycle-year.     At  the  base  of  the  Mount  of  the 
Congregation  thus  formed    by  the  sixty-seven  ministering 
priests,  who  claim  descent  from  the  rain  prophet-god  Elias 
or   Eliun,   are   the   seventy   Budela   or   assistants  ^     These 
seventy,  with  the  three  head  Dervishes,  make  up  the  seventy- 
three   slayers   of   the   barley-year-god    Osiris    {Orion),   that 
is   to   say   they   are   the   equivalents   of  Set  or  Hapi,  the 
ape-god,  and  his  seventy-two  assistants,  the  seventy-three 
five-day   weeks   of   the   year   of  365    days.      The    number 
seventy  may  also,  as  I  show  in  Appendix  C.  p.  636,  probably 
represent  the  seventy  weeks  of  five  days  of  a  year  of  350-}- 10 
days.     The   seventy  representing  the   350  days,  while  the 
last  ten  are  the  two  weeks  which  make  up  the  seventy-two 
weeks  of  the  year  of  360  days,  they  being  reckoned  as  a  time 
of  rest  ending  a  year  of  ten  months  of  thirty-five  days. 

In  conclusion,  I  have  to  record  my  best  thanks  to  all 
living  authors  whose  works  have  helped  me  in  my  researches; 
especially  to  Mr.  R.  Brown,  Jun.,  F.S.A. ;  Professor  Rhys, 
Principal  of  Jesus  College ;  and  Mr.  Warde-Fowler,  Sub- 
Rector  of  Lincoln  College  ;  from  whom  I  have  learnt  the 
greater  part  of  the  knowledge  I  have  acquired  of  Akkadian 
Astronomy,  Celtic  Historical  Mythology  and  Folklore,  and 
of  Roman  Ritual  as  preserved  in  the  Calendar  of  Festivals. 

'  O'Neill,  Night  cf  the  Gods,  vol.  i.,  *  The  Heavens,  Palace,  and  its  Pillar,' 
p.  229. 


Preface.  xlvii 

And  above  all  others  to  Professor  Eggeling  of  Edinburgh 

University,  whose  translation  of  the  Satapatlia  Brdhmana  in 

the  Series  of  Sacred  books  of  the  East,  has  made  the  whole 

history  of  Brahmanic  ritual  accessible  to  all  students.     This 

includes  not  only  Vedic  ritual,  but  also  ceremonies  dating 

back  to  the  most  ancient  observances  of  the  first  pioneers  of 

civilisation,  who  formed  the  years  measured  by  the  five- days 

weeks  of  the  goddess  Brihati,  and  it  may  therefore  be  looked 

on  as  a  ritualistic  history  of  Indian  theology  in  all  its  phases. 

I  have  also  to  especially  thank  Mr.  J.  A.  Frazer  for  the  great 

assistance  I  have  found  in  his  admirable  edition  of  Pausanias, 

who  has  described  the  historical  monuments  and  ritual  of 

Greece  as   they  existed  in  the  days  of  Greek  and  Roman 

supremacy. 

I  niay  also  here  note  that  all  references  to  the  Mahabharata 
in  this  volume  are  to  the  admirable  English  translation  of 
Kesari  Mo/iun  Ganguli^  edited  by  the  late  Protap  Chandra 
Rai,  CLE. 

Readers  of  this  work  who  have  also  read  or  consulted  my 
Kuling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times  will  find  that  I  have  in 
several  instances  given  interpretations  of  ancient  legend 
differing  from  those  in  the  latter  work.  These  are  the 
result  of  further  study  of  the  subject,  which  has  enabled 
me  to  replace  doubtful  interpretations  based  on  apparent 
probabilities  by  the  far  sounder  conclusions  disclosed  by 
the  actual  facts  learnt  from  a  more  thorough  examination 
of  the  successive  forms  of  ritual.  This  has  enabled  me  to 
determine  accurately  the  sequence  of  the  methods  of  measur- 
mg  the  week,  the  first  unit  in  historical  chronology,  and  the 
order  and  chronology  of  the  different  forms  of  year-reckoning 
following  one  another  with  the  accompaniment  of  funda- 
mental changes  in  the  national  rituals.  I  had  not,  when  I 
^Tote  the  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  been  able  to 
discriminate  these  so  fully  and  certainly  as  I  can  now. 


BOOK    I. 

THE    AGE    OF    POLE    STAR    WORSHIP. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Introductory  Sketch. 

ONE  of  the  objects  most  anxiously  sought  for  by  those 
who  try  to  discover  the  foundations  of  civilisation  must 
be  a  field  of  research  in  which  the  relics  of  the  past  have 
been  carefully  preserved  in   their  original   form   from   the 
earliest  dawn  of  ancient  national  life,  and  in  which  we  can 
examine  not  only  the  earliest  strata  but  also  those  which 
followed  them   successively,  and  find  each  effectually  dis- 
criminated from  those  which  came  before  and  after  it.     It  is 
only  from  observations  made  on  such  a  site  that  we  can  gain 
a  clear  idea  of  the  first  aspects  of  social  life,  and  learn  what 
manner  of  men  the  pioneers  of  the  advance  of  humanity  were- 
It  is  only  there  that  we  can  accurately  learn  their  mode  of 
thinking,   recover  their   first  conceptions  of  the  causes  of 
natural  phenomena  and  the  rules  by  which  primitive  society 
was  governed  ;   and   thus   trace   the   steps   by  which   they 
advanced  from  a  state  of  infancy  to  one  of  confident  man- 
hood.   It   is  only  by  a  studious  examination  of  the  facts 
revealed  by  this  quest  that  we  can  transport  ourselves  to 
fte  primitive  point  of  view,  and  learn  to  think  the  thoughts 
*od  see  with   the  eyes  of  those  who   began  their  task  of 
wpmisation   in   the   midst   of  the   tangled  jungles  of  un- 
tamed  nature.     The   primitive    relics    necessary   to   enable 
>B  to  reconstruct  in  a  living  picture  the  phases  of  primaeval 
Ife  are  to  be  found  more  abundantly  than  elsewhere  in 
ftc  history  of    ritual    and    of    the  local    customs    of   the 
earliest  villages.     And  the  stages   indicating   the   progress 

6 


2  History  and  Chronology 

made  by  these  infant  communities  and  their  descendants  are 
especially  marked  by  the  successive  methods  used  to  mea- 
sure annual  time  and  to  fix  the  dates  for  the  religious  national 
festivals.  The  history  of  time  measurement  is  the  leading 
subject  of  this  work,  and  each  change  in  the  reckoning 
of  the  year  will  be  treated  of  in  separate  chapters,  which 
will  review  shortly  the  social  changes  accompanying  the 
alteration  in  the  calculation  of  the  national  year.  The 
first  villages  were  founded  by  men  whose  chief  object  was 
to  join  together  the  present  and  the  past  by  a  bond  of 
customary  observances  which  required  each  succeeding 
generation  to  follow  exactly  the  customs  which  had  been 
proved  to  promote  the  prosperity  of  the  community. 

These  villages,  out  of  which,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel, 
provincial  and  national  governments  have  grown,  were  the 
rude  settlements  of  the  nomad  agriculturists  of  the  forests 
of  Southern  India  and  the  Indian  Archipelago.  They  ap- 
parently began  their  agricultural  work  on  plans  similar  to 
those  still  followed  by  the  wandering  cultivating  tribes  of 
the  Indian  and  Australian  forests.  The  country  traversed 
by  them  was,  as  the  number  of  its  occupants  increased, 
divided  among  a  number  of  communities,  to  each  of  which 
a  fixed  area  of  territory  was  assigned  by  the  local  custom 
still  prevailing  in  the  wilder  districts  of  India  and  in 
Australia.  The  boundaries  of  these  areas  are  carefully 
defined,  and  each  tribe  pursues  its  avocations  within  its  own 
limits.  The  men  employ  their  time  chiefly  inr  hunting 
animals  for  food,  while  the  women  search  for  vegetable 
food  such  as  roots,  fruits  and  edible  grass  seeds. 

It  was  among  these  women  that  agriculture  first  originated 
in  India,  for  it  was  they  who  first  secured  yearly  crops  by 
sowing  the  seeds  of  the  wild  rice  and  the  coarse  local  millets 
such  as  Murwa,  the  Raggi  of  Madras,  the  African  Dhurra 
(Eleusine  Coracana).  Evidence  of  the  preservation  in  the 
national  memory  of  this  origin  of  rice  cultivation  is  given 
by  the  bundles  of  wild  rice  which  every  peasant  in  the 
east  of  Central  India  still  hangs  up  in  his  house  in  August 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  3 

as  a  thank-ofTcring  -when  the  young  rice  begins  to  sprout. 
Also  by  the  figures  of  the  seasonal  buffalo  dance  of  the 
rice-growing  season  still  danced  in  every  village  in  Chutia 
Nagpore.  In  these,  all  the  operations  of  the  preparation 
of  the  soil  and  the  sowing  of  the  crop  are  performed,  sym- 
bolically, by  the  vromen  dancers. 

It  was  when    this    custom  of  sowing  seeds  had  been  es- 
tablished that  the   first  attempt  to  change  the  encampment 
into  a  permanent    village  was    undertaken.     Huts,   which 
were  practically    mere  bush  shelters,  were  made  of  a   few 
tree  boughs  stuck   in  the  ground  and  so  placed  as  to  give 
shelter  against    the  prevailing  winds,  and   each  settlement 
was  only  occupied  as  long  as  the  fertility  of  the  soil  lasted. 
In  India  they  were  generally  placed  on   the  higher  slopes 
of  the  hills,  ivhere   open  spaces  were   more  frequent   and 
the  forests  were  not  so  thick  and  tangled  as  on  the  banks 
of  the  streams    and   rivers.     Fire,  kindled  by  the  friction 
of  two  pieces  of  wood,  was  probably  used  from  the  earliest 
times  by  the  southern  forest  folk,  and  it  was  with  the  help 
of  fire  that,  as  they  still  do,  they  cleared  the  under-growth 
from  the   soil    and    used    the   ashes   as   fertilising  manure. 
The  first  weapon  used  in  South  India  and   Australia   for 
killing  game    was    apparently  the   boomerang,   shaped   by 
flint  implements.     This  is  still  used   for  killing   hares  and 
small  animals  by  the  Kullars  of  Paducottah  in  the  Madura 
district  of  the   Madras  Presidency  ',  and  its  returning  pro- 
perties were   not  discovered  till  a   later  period.     This  and 
the  digging-stick   were    the    only    weapons    except   stones 
which  they  could  use  for  warlike  purposes.     But  they  were 
naturally  a  most  peaceful  race,  who  like  their  descendants 
thought  agriculture  to  be  their  true  business,  and  did  not 
waste  their  time  in   invading   the  territory  of  their  neigh- 
bours, which  yielded  nothing  which  they  could  not  find  at 
home.      Quarrels  of  course  arose   from   time   to   time,  but 
these,  even   in  cases  of  boundary  disputes,  were  very  short 

'  Sewcll,  Some  Points  of  Archaolo^y  in  South  Imlia,  p.   12.     Read  before 
the  Oriental  Congress  at  Paris,  1897. 

B    Z 


4  HisUny  and  Ckrtmalcgy 

and  ended  in  a  peaceful  adjustment  of  differences^  and 
sometimes  in  a  re-arrangement  of  boundaries  or  an  amal- 
gamation of  two  adjacent  areas  when  one  tribe  wanted, 
owing  to  its  increase  in  numbers,  an  addition  of  territoiy 
which  the  other  could  spare. 

In  the  earh'est  times  little  or  no  rq;ard  was  paid  to  descent, 
and  every  one  admitted  into  a  community  at  once  obtained 
all  the  rights  belonging  to  the  older  members,  provided 
they  obeyed  all  the  rules  and  regulations  laid  down  by 
the  tribal  leaders.  And  the  memory  of  these  primitive 
times  still  survived  in  the  later  age,  when  most  rigid  ruki 
regulating  tribal  customs  of  descent  and  initiation  into  the 
national  secret  rites  were  enacted ;  for  even  then  provisIoD 
was  made  to  enable  members  of  neighbouring  tribes  to 
change  from  one  to  another.  Regulations  for  this  purpose 
still  exist  in  the  Central  Australian  tribes.  Thus  tlie 
Matthurie,  who  reckon  descent  by  the  mother's  side,  and  . 
the  Arunta,  who  observe  the  rule  of  paternal  descent^  and 
who  were  therefore,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  sequel,  originally] 
cthnologically  distinct  races,  allow  individuals,  under  niles| 
made  for  the  purpose,  to  pass  freely  from  one  tribe 
the  other*.  Also  in  India  very  many  if  not  the 
number  of  castes  are  ready  to  admit  aliens  to  all 
privileges,  provided  they  become  members  of  the 
And  these  castes  have  grown  out  of  the  original  vil 
organisation. 

In  the  early  struggle  for  existence  and  for  the  conqi 
of  the  obstacles  to  progress  offered  by  natural  forces, 
most  successful  communities  were  those  who  had 
the  dogged  determination  engendered  by  a  strict  ol 
of  ordained  custom,  and  who  had  added  to  this 
discrimination  which  made  them  ready  to  adopt  impi 
ments  conceived  by  those  members  of  the  assodatioa 
were    endowed  with    inventive    intellects.    But   in    i 
to  imprint  these  qualities  on  the  national  character,  ; 

'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Tke  Nafwe  Trihs  tf  dninfi  ApHrmi^  cha 
on.  fi«.  fio. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  5 

to  make  all  the  information  possessed  and  acquired  by  any 
community  permanently  useful,  it  was  above  all  things 
necessary  that  the  younger  generations  should  be  carefully 
instructed  in  all  the  knowledge  known  to  their  parents. 
Hence  those  who  founded  permanent  villages  were  men  who 
insisted  on  the  maintenance  of  communal  education  in  the 
widest  sense  of  sympathy  with  the  past  in  all  its  tasks, 
both  practical  and  theoretical.  This  they  looked  on  as  the 
first  primary  necessity  for  securing  the  continuance  and 
healthy  growth  of  the  community.  This  and  the  requisition 
of  absolute  obedience  from  their  associates  and  the  young 
of  both  sexes  to  all  rules  passed  by  the  ruling  elders  were 
the  key-notes  of  their  policy. 

It  was  by  a  rigid  adherence  to  these  fundamental  prin- 
ciples   that    the    character    of    the   Dravidian    people    of 
Southern  India,  who  call  themselves  the  sons  of  the  village 
ticc,  was   developed.      Like   their  congeners   the  Chinese 
they  are  exceptionally  persevering,  and  also  exceptionally 
obstinate.      They  are  perfectly  obedient  to  all  recognised 
authority,  except  when  compliance   with   the   orders  they 
receive  involves  the  transgression  of  any  of  their  cherished 
national  customs.     When  such  a  collision  occurs  obedience 
is  not  necessarily  openly  refused,  but  the  order  is  certain 
to  be  evaded  by  every  possible  device,  and  ultimately  the 
new  rule  will  inevitably  become  a  dead  letter,  unless  the 
legislator  who  has  convinced  himself  of  its  ultimate  utility 
has   sufficient    tact    and    perseverance    to    prove    to    the 
recalcitrant  people  that  it  is  a  step  in  advance,  which  when 
made  will   be  a  public  benefit.     The  difficulty  of  securing 
the  acceptance  of  anything  that  savours  of  novelty  among 
a  Dravidian  population  can  only  be  fully  appreciated   by 
those  who   have    lived    among   them   and  governed  them. 
But  one  thing  the  innovator  can  be  certain  of  is,  that  if  he 
[     gains  hearty  acquiescence  to  his  reforms  from  these  people 
1     the  consent  given  will  not  be  readily  withdrawn,  for  they 
'-    arc  entirely  destitute  of  the  fickleness  of  character  which 
niakes  the    laughter-loving  Mundas  of  the  East  so  much 

1 

I 

i 


6  History  and  Chronology 

more  unreliable,  and  so  much  more  liable  to  paroxysms 
of  popular  excitement  than  the  silent  and  self-contained 
Dravidians  of  the  South-west. 

These  two  races  were,  when  united  together  in  India,  the 
founders  of  the  Hindoo  national  ritual  with  its  accom- 
panying^ rules  for  the  measurement  of  annual  time.  These 
they  took  with  them  all  over  Asia,  North  Africa,  and 
Europe,  together  with  their  village  institutions,  and  in  this 
dissemination  of  the  Indian  village  organisation  the 
Dravidian  element  was  the  dominant  factor.  In  the  ritual 
they  founded  every  festival  was  performed  on  the  date 
fixed  by  the  national  authority,  according  to  the  successive 
measurements  of  annual  time.  These  measurements,  as 
I  shall  prove  in  the  course  of  this  work,  enable  us  to 
establish  a  chronological  succession  of  ritualistic  changes 
introduced  by  the  recurring  amalgamations  of  new  national 
elements.  But  throughout  all  these  changes  the  original 
spirit  of  intense  inborn  conservatism,  and  of  the  desire  for 
the  preservation  of  the  memory  of  the  nation's  past  history, 
as  recorded  in  its  national  ritual,  always  prevailed.  In  the 
rituals  of  India,  South-western  Asia,  and  Europe,  founded 
under  Dravidian  influence,  every  prescribed  gesture,  motion 
and  word  had  its  own  peculiar  meaning,  and  was  intended 
to  impress  some  truth  on  the  national  mind ;  and  in  order 
that  these  ceremonies  should  preserve  unchanged  the 
especial  meaning  meant  to  be  inculcated  by  those  who 
prescribed  them,  it  was  necessary  that  even  when  altered 
by  authority  the  original  teachings  should  find  a  place 
in  the  new  arrangement,  and  that  no  change  should  be 
made  except  by  the  central  ruling  power.  Hence  the  very 
smallest  iota  of  ritual,  even  the  tones  and  modulations 
of  the  voice,  became  as  soon  as  they  were  prescribed  of 
equal  importance  with  the  most  impressive  rites.  It  there- 
fore became  a  fundamental  rule  that  the  slightest  mistake 
in  any  part  of  a  religious  ceremony  rendered  it  null  and 
void '. 

'  Maine,  Ancitni  Law^  p.  276 ;    Mommsen,  History  of  Romt^  tcttDslated  \tl 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  7 

As  an  instance  of  the  practical  working  out  of  changes 
in  these  conservative  rituals,  the  history  of  the  rain-wand, 
the  magic  staff  of  office  of  the  rain-priest,  is  most  instructive. 
The  holder  of  this  wand,  which  became  as  the  last  of  its 
transformations  the  royal  sceptre,  was  the  priest  of  the 
earliest  god  worshipped  as  the  national  deity  by  both  the 
hunting  and  the  agricultural  races.  For  his  recognised 
existence  as  the  god  who  ordained  and  effected  the  season- 
able advent  of  the  life-giving  rain  was,  as  we  are  told  in 
the  Brahmanas,  the  first  conception  formed  of  a  supreme 
divine  being".  The  rain-wand,  which  was  believed  to 
possess  magical  power  over  the  elements,  was  originally 
cut  from  the  tribal  parent-tree,  which  gave  it  its  effective 
force,  and  the  history  of  this  divine  mother-tree  reaches 
hack  to  the  most  primitive  ages  of  national  life.  This 
magic  rod  became  among  the  Zends  the  Baresma  or  rain 
iffores)  bundle  of  sticks  cut  from  a  thornless  tree,  the 
pomegranate,  date-palm,  or  tamarind  tree,  of  which  the 
two  former  trees  marked,  as  we  shall  see,  epochs  in  national 
history".  In  Hindu  ritual  it  was  the  Prastara.  In  the  rules 
laid  down  for  the  earliest  elaborate  sacrifice  prescribed  in 
the  Indian  Brahmanas,  the  New  and  Full  Moon  offerings 
made  on  the  earth  altar  shaped  in  the  form  of  a  woman, 
the  Prastara  is  ordered  to  be  made  of  three  sheaves  of  Kusha 
grass  {JPoa  cynosuroidcs),  the  parent-grass  of  the  race  of  the 
Kushikas  or  Kushites,  who  ruled  India  when  the  sacrifice 
was  instituted,  the  people  led  from  Syria  to  India  by  the 
sun-antelope  whose  favourite  food  was  this  grass.  To  these 
sheaves  flowering  shoots  were  added,  and  the  whole  repre- 
sented the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  and  also  the  three  years 


W.  P.  Dickson,  vol.  i.  p.  l8l»  where  he  shows  that  ceremonies  in  Roman 
ritual  were  repeated  even  ns  often  as  seven  times  in  succession  till  perfect 
correctness  was  attained.  The  i<ame  scrupulous  accuracy  in  every  detail  was 
required,  as  Maine  shews,  in  primitive  legal  proceeilings. 

■  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  xiii.  2,  6,  14  ;  S.  U.  E.,  vol   xliv.  p.  315. 

*  Dannesteter,  Zendavesta  Fargatd^  iii.  1  ;  xix.  iS,  19  ;  S.  15.  E..  vc*). 
if.  pp.  23,  note  2,  209. 


8  History  and  Chronology 

forming  the  cycle  year  described  in  Chapter  V.  ^  But 
when  the  rule  of  these  Kushika  emigrants  from  Syria  to 
India  was  succeeded  by  that  of  the  Ikshvaku  kings,  the 
sons  of  the  sugar-cane  {iksha)y  who  called  themselves  also 
the  sons  of  the  sun-horse,  the  Prastara  used  in  their  Soma 
sacramental  sacrifice  was  no  longer  made  of  Kusha  but 
of  Ashvavala  or  horse-tail  {ashva)  grass  {saccJianim  spon- 
taneum)y  a  species  of  grass  allied  to  the  parent  sugar-cane  «. 

These  changes  in  the  ritual  of  the  invocation  of  the  rain 
recorded  a  series  of  religious  revolutions  extending,  as  we 
shall  see,  over  thousands  of  years,  beginning  with  the  time 
when  the  priest  was. the  national  magician,  the  represen- 
tative on  earth  of  the  mother-goddess  of  the  worshippers 
of  the  Pole  Star  and  the  rain-cloud  or  bird  circulating 
round  it  with  the  setting  and  rising  stars,  the  rain-bird 
invoked  in  the  prayer  for  rain  3.  The  next  change  in  the 
evolution  of  belief  in  the  divine  ruler  of  time  was  that  which 
ascribed  the  rule  of  the  times  and  seasons  to  the  moon-god 
or  goddess  to  whom  the  New  and  Full  Moon  sacrifices  were 
offered  in  the  age  of  the  Prastara  of  Kusha  grass.  This 
began  somewhat  before  10,000  B.C.,  when  Vega  in  the 
Constellation  of  the  Vulture  or  Lyra  became  Pole  Star,  and 
was  followed  by  the  epoch  of  the  worship  of  the  sun-horse, 
which  began  while  Vega  was  the  Pole  Star  before  8000  B.C. 
We  find  in  the  changing  rituals  of  the  long  historical  drama 
most  striking  evidence  of  the  continuity  of  ritualistic  tradi- 
tion maintained  in  different  countries  by  their  successive 
inhabitants,  who  though  ethnologically  altered  by  their 
union  with  alien  immigrant  stocks,  yet  still  remembered 
and  observed  the  traditional  ritual  of  their  various  ancestors. 
Throughout  this  whole  period  the  original  basic  elements 
of  belief  in  the  mother-tree,  the  ape  or  raven  parent  of  life 


'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.^  i.  8,  3,  ii— 14;  ii.  5,  i,  18;    S.B.  £.,  vol.  xii.  pp. 
240,  242,  388,  389,  note  I. 
^  Ibid.,  iii.  4,  i,  17,  18  ;  S.  B.  E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  89,  note  3. 
3  Ibid.,  i.,  8,  3,  14;  S.  B.  E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  242. 


1 

i 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  ^ 

and  ruler  of  the  year  measured  by  the  revolution  of  the 
stars  and  sun  round  the  Pole,  remained  radically  the  same 
though  the  outward  form  was  changed.     Thus  the  original 
mother-tree   of   the   village    grove,   after   passing    through 
various  phases  which  will  be  set  forth  in  their  respective 
order,  became  first  the  mother  rice  of  the  primitive  villagers  ; 
then  the  parent-grass  of  the  Kushikas,  the  favourite  food 
of  the  antelope  sun-god  whom  they  worshipped  ;  and  after 
that  the  horse-tail  sugar-grass  of  the  irrigating  Dravido- 
Turanian  farmers  who  watered  their  lands  from  the  river- 
channels   made   by  their   engineering  skill,  and  thus  cul- 
tivated and  improved  the  sugar-grass  into  the  sugar-cane 
of  commerce.     It  was  these  sons  of  Danu,  the  Pole  Star 
god,  who  afterwards  adored  the  white  sun-horse,  the  star 
Sinus,  whose  history  will  occupy  a  very  conspicuous  place 
in  this  historical  survey.     Throughout  all  the  countries  to 
which  the   Indian  village  system  has  penetrated,  the  most 
strenuous  maintainers  of  law  and  order  have  been  those  who 
have  kept  up  the  strict  discipline  first  inculcated  by  their 
Dravidian  ancestors.     It  is  owing  to  the  rule  insisted  upon 
by  the  first  village  rulers  that  the  village  elders  and  matrons 
should  train  the  young  of  both  sexes  in  all  the  practical  and 
theoretical  knowledge  possessed  by  the  community  that  the 
education    of    civilised    man   has    been   carried    on.      Oral 
instruction  was  given  in  the  form  of  stories  which  had  to 
be  learnt  by  heart  from  the  dictation  of  the   teacher,  like 
the  lessons  still  given  to  Brahmin  pupils  and  those  which 
were  taught  in  the  Buddhist  curriculum  and  in  the  village 
Patshalas  or  schools.     But  these  stories  were  not  dry  state- 
ments of    facts    or   metaphysical    precepts    like    those    in 
Brahmanic  and  Buddhistic  literature,  but  tales  which  inter- 
ested their  young  hearers,  in  which  first  nature  myths  and 
subsequently  national  history  were  depicted  as  the  work  of 
the  authors  of  natural  phenomena.     An  excellent  example 
of  these   stories   is   that   of  Nala   and  Damayanti   in   the 
Mahabharata,  which  contained,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere, 
the  first  plan  of  the  plot  of  this  great  national  history  in  verse 


10  Histcry  amd  Ckromelogy 

combined  with  meteorological  teaching  <.  This  first  draft 
of  the  later  Epic  poem  gives  us  a  detailed  account  of  the 
evolution  of  the  seasons,  and  tells  how  Nala,  the  appointed 
channel  of  the  year's  course,  is  wedded  at  the  winter  solstice 
to  Damayanti,  the  earth,  which  is  to  be  tamed  and  made 
fruitful  They  lived  happily  together  till  the  burning  hot 
season,  called  the  gambler  Pushkara,  the  maker  of  Push, 
the  moisture  concealed  in  the  black  rain-cloud,  comes  to 
interfere  with  their  felicity.  He  strips  Nala  of  his  wealth, 
that  is  to  say  dries  up  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  drives 
both  him  and  Damayanti  into  the  forests.  Thence  Nala 
passes  up  to  Ayodhya  as  the  charioteer  of  the  South  West 
Monsoon  bringing  the  life-giving  rain.  As  the  ruler  of  the 
Monsoon  rains  he  takes  service  with  King  Ritu-parna,  the 
wing  (parnd)  or  guide  of  the  customary  {ritu)  course  of 
the  seasons,  and  returns  with  him  at  the  end  of  the  rainy 
season  with  the  North  East  Monsoon,  to  be  reunited  to 
Damayanti  and  to  recover  his  kingdom  from  the  gambling 
conqueror  Pushkara. 

In  these  stories,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  numerous  specimens 
I  shall  quote  in  the  course  of  this  work,  the  names  of  the 
actors  are  never  names  of  individuals  but  symbolic  signs, 
showing  clearly,  in  all  cases  in  which  the  story  can  be 
traced  to  its  original  source,  the  meaning  of  the  tale. 

The  teaching  thus  given,  and  the  manual  work  insisted 
on,  implanted  in  the  minds  of  each  generation  habits  of 
industry  and  a  stock  of  information  and  acquired  practice, 
which  enabled  them  to  continue  the  work  of  their  pre- 
decessors, and  add  to  it  fresh  materials  contributed  by 
their  own  brains  and  experience.  It  still  survives  in  the 
Putshalas  or  schools  found  in  every  village  in  India,  and 
also  in  the  customs  still  existing  among  the  Nairs,  the 
representative  Dravidians  of  Madras,  the  Marya  or  tree 
{maronC)  Gonds^  the  Ooraons  of  Chutia  Nagpore  and  the 
Nagas  of  Assam.      In  all  the  villages  peopled  by  these 

'  Hewitt,  Rulimi  Racti  cf  rrekitt^ric  Timts,  vol.  i.,  Essay  ii.,  pp.  64—76. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  1 1 

races^  the  young  of  both  sexes  are  taken  from  their  mothers 
as  soon  as  they  can  dispense  with  her  care,  and  lodged 
in  separate  establishments  provided  for  each  sex.  That  for 
boys,  called  by  the  Ooraons  the  Dhumkuria  or  boys'  hall, 
is  superintended  by  the  village  elders,  that  for  girls  by  the 
matrons;  and  in  these  they  are  carefully  trained  in  their 
respective  duties  as  members  of  the  village  community. 
This  hall  originally  appropriated  to  the  young  men  and 
boys  was  also,  as  it  still  is  in  Burmah,  the  place  where 
strangers  were  entertained  and  waited  on  by  the  young 
pupils.  This  custom  exists  among  the  Fijis  i,  and  also 
in  the  Melanesian  and  Caroline  Islands  2,  and  it  is  a  survival 
of  the  organisation  of  the  earliest  permanent  villages,  in 
which  originally  all  the  villagers  ate  together  as  members 
of  one  family.  In  Europe  it  was  maintained  by  the  Cretans 
and  Spartans,  who  looked  upon  all  children  born  as  the 
children  of  their  native  village,  and  educated  the  boys  and 
girls  apart  under  State  guardianship.  This  custom,  which 
survived  in  Crete  and  Sparta,  was  apparently  one  originally 
observed  by  all  the  Dorian  races  of  Asia  Minor  and  Greece, 
and  by  the  iCnotrians  and  Sikels  of  South  Italy  and  Sicily, 
the  Arcadians  of  Phigalia,  the  Argives,  Megarians  and 
ancient  Corinthians,  all  of  whom  ate  together  in  the  fashion 
described  by  Aristotle,  their  food  being  provided  by  the 
public  granaries  where  the  harvests  of  each  village  were 
stored  3.  The  duty  of  public  education  was  one  recognised 
by  the  carefully  taught  Babylonians  and  Egyptians,  both 
of  which  nations  obtained  their  civilisation  and  their  earliest 
agricultural  population  from  India.  Also  by  all  the  nations 
of  the  Mediterranean  race  whose  descent  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  Turvasu  or  Turano  Dravidians  of  India,  and 


•  Abcrcrombj,  Seas  and  Skits  in  many  Latitudes^  pp.  192 — r97,  loi — 104. 

■  Codrington,  The  Mdanesians :   their  Anthropology  and  Folklore^  chap.  V. 
pp.  74 — 77.    The  information  about  the  Caroline   Inlands  was  given  to  me 
baUy  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Christian  who  know^  them  well. 

*  Hcwittp  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  297. 


12  History  and  Chronology 

who  are  shown  by  their  sculls  to  have  formed  a  distinct 
human  family '. 

This  national  education  and  the  custom  of  common  meals 
was  universal  throughout  South  Western  Asia  and  Europe 
wherever  the  village  grove  and   the  village  halls  existed. 
This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  even  in  those  lands  where  the 
later  institution  of  marriage  and  the  substitution  of  house- 
hold for  village  life  had  caused  the  discontinuance  of  common 
meals,  they  survived  everywhere  throughout  the  ancient  world 
in  the  national  religious  festivals,  for  in   these  the  people 
of  every  township  feasted  together  on  local  feast-days  on 
the  flesh  of  the  animals  sacrificed.     The  Gemeinde  Haus  of 
Germany,  the  Gemeente  Haus  of  Flanders,  and  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  in  France,  still  maintain  in  every  village  the   re- 
membrance of  the  days  when  the  Dravidian  village  system 
extended    over   the    civilised  world,   and   when,  according 
to   Greek   and   Syrian   traditions   the   coast    lands    of   the 
Mediterranean   Archipelago  were   ruled    by  the  Amazons, 
the  Rephaim  of  the  Bible,  or  children  of  the  giant  {repha) 
star  Argo.     The  villages  founded  by  the  Dravido  Mundas 
on    these    conservatively   progressive  lines  were    arranged 
in   groups   of  ten   or  twelve  villages,  each  group  forming 
a  Parha  or  province.     This  had  been  the  original  territory 
of  the  earlier  races  who  combined  agriculture  with  hunting, 
and  this  primitive  state  of  things  still  survives  in  full  vigour 
in  the  volcanic  plateaux  or  Pats  of  Chutia  Nagpore  occupied 
by  the   Korwas.     Each   of  their  tribes  has  a  certain  area 
of   plateau    reserved    to    itself   by   primaeval  custom,   and 
within  the  large  limits  thus  marked  out  they  have  always 
pursued   their   original    avocations    as    hunters,    and    have 
added   to   the   produce   of  the   chase   the   food   grown    on 
the   cultivated    clearings  which    are    almost    entirely  tilled 
by  the  women.     The  number  of  residents  in  each  clearing 
is  small,   and   the  different  settlements   are  separated   by 

*  G.  Sergi,  Origine  e  Diffusicfie  delta  Stirpe  MedUerranea  Indutioni  Anthro* 
pologiche. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  1 3 

large  expanses  of  forest  and  waste,  within  which  they  choose 
new  camping-grounds  when  the  soil  round  their  present 
residences  is  exhausted.  While  each  settlement  has  its 
chief,  the  union  of  each  tribal  section  is  preserved  by  the 
Byga  or  priest  who  makes  and  consecrates  the  tribal  arrows. 
He  on  the  Lahsun  Pat  belonging  to  the  group  of  Korwas 
I  have  most  thoroughly  studied,  lived  in  the  central  clearing 
of  the  tribal  territory. 

Property  among  these  people  is  absolutely  communal, 
and  the  produce  both  of  the  land  and  the  chase  is  divided 
among  all  the  members  of  the  tribe  living  in  each  associ- 
ated unit  The  only  permanent  superior  among  them  is 
the  Byga,  who  superintends  the  festivals  in  which  the 
weather  gods  of  the  recurring  seasons  of  the  year  are  pro- 
pitiated. They  are  almost'  literally  dwellers  in  trees,  as 
their  huts  are  made  of  a  few  branches  of  trees  stuck  in 
the  ground  with  their  tops  meeting  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of 
roof  ridge.  The  only  permanent  village  in  this  territory 
of  united  provinces,  covering  an  area  of  about  600  square 
miles  in  Jushpore  and  Sirgoojya,  is  that  of  the  chief  of  the 
allied  tribes  who  lives  in  the  south-west  corner  of  the  country 
on  the  slopes  of  the  valley  of  the  river  Maini  in  Jushpore. 

The  next  step  upward  from  these  rude  institutions, 
marking  the  first  efforts  to  form  a  nation  of  communities 
living  in  permanent  settlements,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
villages  of  the  Kols  or  Mundas  and  those  of  the  Marya 
or  tree  [marom)  Gonds.  The  Mundas  speak  a  language 
allied  to  that  of  the  Korwas  and  also  to  that  of  the  Mons 
or  Peguans,  and  the  Kambhojas  of  Burmah  and  Siam,  and 
to  that  of  some  of  the  tribes  in  Assam.  This  marks  them 
as  immigrants  from  the  North-east  into  India,  where  they 
now  dwell  as  a  separate  race  in  the  eastern  lands  of  the 
Chutia  Nagpore  plateau,  the  mountain  boundary  of  the 
Gangetic  valley  on  the  west.  But  they  were  formerly  dis- 
tributed all  over  India  as  the  Mallis  or  mountain  races 
who  were  with  the  Dravidians  the  original  founders  of 
the  national    institutions   and   the  first   cultivators   of   the 


14  History  and  Chronology 

soil.     The  Dravidian    element  is  represented   in    Central 
India  by  the  Marya  or  tree  Gonds. 

In  villages  founded  by  these  pioneer  races  the  central 
plot  is  occupied  by  the  village  grove,  called  by  the  Mundas 
Sarna.  In  it  a  number  of  the  forest  trees  have  been  left 
standing  when  the  cultivated  lands  were  cleared  of  timber. 
These  are  the  parent  trees  of  the  village,  the  home  of  the 
gods  of  life.  The  tree  looked  on  by  the  Mundas  as  that 
ensuring  the  best  luck  to  the  future  community  is  the  Sal 
tree  {Shorea  robusta),  yielding  a  most  valuable  timber.  It 
also  furnishes  a  resin  similar  to  that  of  the  pine  trees  of  the 
northern  forests,  their  original  home.  The  Indian  Mundas, 
whom  I  shall  trace  later  on  to  China,  say  that  their  home 
is  the  land  of  the  Sal  tree,  and  hence  in  founding  a  village 
they  prefer  to  place  it  in  a  Sal  forest.  In  that  case  the 
only  trees  in  the  village  grove  are  Sal  trees,  for  no  other 
tree  grows  naturally  in  the  land  they  occupy,  and  thus 
the  boundaries  of  the  Sal  forests  are  always  clearly  marked 
off  from  those  on  which  various  kinds  of  timber  flourish. 
I  remember  noticing  this  especially  in  the  forest  tracts 
of  Seehawa,  in  the  South-east  of  Chuttisgurh,  in  the 
Central  Provinces  where  the  Mahanadi  rises.  The  whole 
province,  when  I  surveyed  it  in  1867,  was  an  expanse  of 
woodland  interspersed  with  very  few  villages,  and  to  the 
north  of  the  infant  river  the  forests  contained  trees  of 
many  different  species.  To  the  south  of  this  tract  was 
a  narrow  belt  of  cleared  land  not  more  than  a  few  hundred 
yards  wide,  and  on  the  other  side  of  this  was  the  Sal  forest 
tract,  in  which  nothing  but  Sal  trees  grew.  Round  the 
Central  Sarna  is  the  ring  of  cultivated  land  separating  the 
grove  hallowed  as  the  home  of  the  mother  gods  of  the 
newly  founded  village  from  the  world  of  death  outside. 
Under  its  shade  is  the  Akra,  or  dancing  ground,  where 
the  village  dances  are  held  at  each  recurring  season  of 
the  year.  The  dances  of  one  season  are  distinguished  from 
those  of  another  by  a  distinct  step  .and  figure,  and  it  is 
only  with  reluctance,  and  as  a  special  favour,  that  the  Kol 


of  the  Myth^Making  Age.  15 

dancers  will  dance  all  the  steps  and  figures  together^  or 
any  set  of  them  out  of  their  own  season. 

These  villages  are  ruled  by  a  head  man  called  the  Munda, 

elected  by  the  community,  and  though  the  succession  to  the 

office  is  now  generally  hereditary,  yet  this  rule  was  certainly 

unknovm  in  primitive  times,  when  descent  in  families  was 

non-existent,   and   it   is  now  often   disregarded  when  the 

Munda's  heirs    prove    incompetent.     That    these    villages 

grouped    themselves    within    the    area    of    the    uncleared 

hunting  province  or  Parha  is  proved  by  their  retention  of 

the  Byga,  who  performs  for  the  ten  or  twelve  villages  into 

which  it  is  divided  the  customary  sacrifices,  including  those 

of  the  fowls  offered  to  the  sun  and  earth  gods.     Each  Parha 

IS  ruled  by  a  Manki,  who  is  generally  Munda  of  the  central 

or  chief  village,  and  this  is  sometimes  the  parent  village 

of  the  group  whence  the  dwellers  in  the  other  villages  have 

emigrated  to  form  Tolas  or  hamlets  in  the  uncleared  forest. 

These  swarmings  took  place  like  those  of  bees,  when  the 

population  increased  too  much  to  allow  the  rising  generation 

to  find  land  easily  accessible  from  the  dwellings  under  the 

shade   of   the   parent    Sarna.    To  judge   from   the    tribal 

customs   of  the   Korwas,  who  have  no  village  grove,  the 

rule  of  leaving  the  Sarna  standing  was  one  derived   from 

the  Dravidians  of  Southern  India.     It  was  taught  to   the 

Mundas  when  they  intermingled  with  the  dwellers  in  the 

land  on   their  first  arrival   in  India  by  the  Marya,  or  tree 

[marom)  Gonds.   They  are  the  aboriginal  or  southern  section 

of  the  Naga  race  of  Central   India,  the   Nagpore  country, 

whose  ruling  tribes  are  of  northern   Turanian  origin.      It 

was  these  Naga,  or  Raj  Gonds,  who  succeeded  the  confederacy 

of  Dravidians  and  Mundas,  or  Mallis,  in  the  rule  of  Northern 

and  Central    India,  which   was   anciently    known    first   as 

Ahikshetra  »,  the  land  of  the  Ahi,  or  Nag,  the  snake  parent, 


■  This  is  the  name  given  to  Northern  Panchala  in  the  Mahabharata  Adi 
lSimbha\-a)  Parva,  clx.  p.  413.  It  was  the  land  ruled  by  Drona,  meaning 
-t  tree-trunk,   the  parent  •  tree,  the  receptacle  of  the   Soma  or  sap  of  life, 


1 6  History  and  Chronology 

and  secondly^  as  Gaudia  or  Gondwana,  the  name  still  used 
in  popular  speech  which  was  given  to  it  before  it  was  called 
Kosala,  the  land  of  the  Kushikas. 

These  Marya  sons  of  the  tree  caVed  "  marom  "  in  Gondi, 
were  the  first  race  who  in  Southern  India  carved  their 
villages  out  of  the  forests.  Their  father-god  was  the  tree-apc- 
god  Maroti,  and  the  guardian  who  protected  them  from 
outside  ills  was  the  snake,  the  ring  of  cultivated  land  round 
the  Sarna.  This  is  still  called  by  the  Gonds  the  holy  snake, 
the  land  consecrated  to  the  boundary  snake-god  Goraya, 
whose  priests  the  Goraits  are  wardens  of  the  boundary  in 
all  Gond  villages. 

The  original  founders  of  villages  did  not  limit  their 
political  outlook  to  securing  the  permanency  of  the  villages 
by  the  careful  training  of  the  young,  and  the  establishment 
of  strong  internal  government,  but  they  also  made  the 
maintenance  of  friendly  relations  among  those  dwelling  in 
each  village,  and  between  all  the  villages  of  the  confederacy, 
a  principal  part  of  their  policy.  One  of  the  most  effective 
group  of  laws  enacted  for  this  purpose  were  those  regulat- 
ing the  relations  between  the  sexes.  These  allowed  any  man 
in  the  confederacy  to  become  the  father  of  the  child  of  any 
woman  in  the  Parha  except  of  those  of  his  own  village. 
And  hence,  as  it  was  impossible  that  under  this  rule  any 
woman  could  live  with  the  fathers  of  her  children,  it  was 
necessary  to  secure  the  birth  of  legally  begotten  offspring 
in  each  village  by  arranging  for  meetings  between  the  men 
and  women  of  neighbouring  villages.  These  were  permitted 
at  the  seasonal  dances  held  in  the  Akra  of  each  village,  and 
it  was  only  at  these  dances,  regulated  by  the  women,  that 
children  were  allowed  to  be  begotten.  They  used  to 
invite  the  men  of  the  adjoining  village  to  attend  these 
dances,  as  the  Ho-Kol  and  Bhuya  women  of  Chutia 
Nagpore   still   do,   and   the   children  then   begotten   under 


called  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmanay  iv.  $,  6,  7  ;    S.B.E.,  vol.   xxvi.    p.  4IQ, 
the  supreme  year  god  Prajapati. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  17 

the  shade  of  the  village  grove  became  the  children  of  the 
village  tree. 

These  were  trained  by  the  village  elders  and   matrons^ 
who  were    to    one    another    as   brothers    and   sisters,   and 
hence  arose  the  great   influence  accorded  in  ancient  com- 
munities to  the  maternal  uncle.     He  is  in  India  the  family 
priest  of  such  widely  distributed   castes  as  the  Doms  or 
basket-makers,  the  Dravidian  rulers  of  Oudh ' ;  the  Haris 
or  scavengers ;  the  Kurmis,  the  leading  agricultural  caste  ; 
the  Pasis,  guardians  of  the  date  palm,  whence  the  palm  wine 
is  made  ;  and  the  Tantis,  the  weavers  ^.     And  it  was  owing 
to  the  acknowledgement  in  matriarchal  times  of  parentage 
through  the  mother  and  not  through  the  father,  that  pro- 
pert}',  when  it  came  to  belong  to  the  family  and  not  to  the 
community,  descended  in  the  female  line,  as  it  does  among 
the  Nairs  of  Madras.     And  this  line  of  descent  was  that 
observed    by    the    Lycians,    Cretans,    Dorians,   Athenians, 
Lemnians^   Etruscans,  Egyptians,  Orchomenians,  Locrians, 
Lesbians,  Mantineans,  Babylonians^  and  many  Asiatic  nations, 
as  has  been  proved  by  Morgan  and  Bachofen  3. 

The  principle  lessons  taught  in  the  oral  instruction  of  the 
nllage  children  were  those  which  told  them,  from  a  farmer's 
point  of  view,  of  the  course  of  the  year  and  the  sequence 
of  the  seasons.  These  are  the  themes  of  almost  all  the 
earliest  relics  of  ancient  thought  which  have  come  down 
to  us  in  folk-tales,  such  as  the  stories  of  the  two  or  three 
brothers  or  sisters,  in  which  the  youngest,  the  winter  child, 
was  successful,  and  of  the  year  tasks  done  by  the  final 
conqueror.  Most  of  these  refer  to  the  year  of  three  seasons, 
but  the  earlier  year  of  two  seasons  appears  also  among  them. 
Also  the  history  of  the  year  and  the  changes  in  its  reckoning 


'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castts  of  Bengal  ^  vol.  i.,  Doms,  p.  240. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  245,  316,  532  ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  167,  300. 

^  Morgan,  Ancient  Society ^  chap.  xiv.  pp.  343,  35 1  ;  Bachofen,  Die 
Muttcrretht ;  Sayce,  Babylonians  and  Assyrians ,  chap.  ii.  p.  13,  ff.,  where 
lie  shows  that  in  Sumerian  times  the  woman  was  the  head  of  the  family. 

C 


1 8  History  and  Chronology 

are  the  themes  forming  the  plot  of  all  the  ancient  historical 
epics  of  India,  Persia,  and  Greece,  in  which  the  heroes  were, 
in  the  original  forms  of  the  story,  astronomical  abstractions 
indicating  the  successive  methods  of  year  measurement, 
which  in  primitive  history  accompanied  each  change  in  the 
ruling  race.  But  the  primitive  year  legend  has  been  in 
Greece  transmogrified  by  the  later  poets,  who  had  forgotten 
the  old  mythology.  In  Persia  and  India  the  primitive  form 
is  much  more  easily  recognised.  Each  race,  like  eadi 
village,  carried  its  gods  with  it  in  its  emigrations,  and  the 
primitive  gods  were  all  gods  of  time  who  ruled  the  ccSiirsc 
of  the  year.  It  was  the  farmers  of  the  first  settled  vills^eSi 
who  depended  on  their  crops  for  their  means  of  subsistence, 
who  first  impressed  on  the  public  mind  the  absolute  necessity 
of  an  accurate  measure  of  time,  and  in  doing  this  they  only 
intensified  a  desire  which  must  always  have  been  present 
among  the  hunting  races,  who  had  to  consider  the  changes 
in  the  seasons  which  brought  about  changes  in  the  habits 
of  the  animals  they  hunted. 

These  forest  Dravidians  who  laid  the  foundations  of  civil 
government,  and  who,  as  will  be  explained  in  Chapter  II., 
first  measured  time  by  noting  the  evidence  of  its  movements 
given  by  the  changing  position  of  the  stars,  were  also  the 
first  people  who  traversed  the  sea  in  boats,  for  it  was  only  on 
their  coasts  that  ship-building  timber  grew  near  the  shore 
in  the  whole  circuit  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  And  that  the 
people  of  the  earliest  stone  age  in  the  Southern  seas  could 
make  navigable  boats  is  proved  by  those  used  by  the  now 
extinct  Tasmanians, whose  flint  implements  continued  down  to 
their  recent  extermination  to  be  of  the  most  primitive  type  '. 
The  sea  coasts  of  North  Africa,  Arabia,  Egypt  and  Persia 
were  totally  unwooded,  and  no  good  timber  grew  near  the 
sea  in  any  of  these  countries.     It  was  only  the  forests  of 


*  Professor  Tylor,    The  Stone   Age  in    Tasmania:    a  Paper  read  in  the 
Anthropological  Section  of  the  British  Association,  Sept.  6,  1900. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  19 

the  islands  of  the  Indian  Archipelago  and  of  the  Malabar 
coast  of  Western  India  which  were  able  to  furnish  timber 
whence  boats  could  be  made,  and   it  is  with  Indian  teak 
that  the  Arabs  still  build  their  ships.     It  was  the  dwellers 
in  these  sea-side  forests  and  on  the  wooded  banks  of  the 
rivers  of  Western  India  who  first  made  navigable  canoes, 
which  they  built  without  the  use  of  metal,  as  the  Polynesian 
islanders  and  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  still  do ;  and  they  must 
have  made  them  as  strong  and  sea- worthy  as  those  now  con- 
structed with  the  same  rude  stone  implements  they  used.    It 
must  have  been  very  soon  after  the  first  canoes  hollowed 
out  of  a  single  tree  had  been  launched  on  the  ocean  that 
they  were  used  as  transports  by  those  who  wished  to  find 
new  land  for  tillage.    The  damp  equatorial  forests,  through 
^ch  pioneers  who  did  not  travel  by  water  had  to  cut 
their  way,  were  so  thick   and   so  encumbered  with   huge 
creepers  that  water  carriage  must  have  been  used  almost 
as  soon  as  boats  were  invented.    It  was  in  these  that  they 
made  their  way  along  the  coasts  of  the  Indian  Ocean  till 
they  reached   the  shores  of  the   Persian   Gulf,  where   the 
memory  of  their  arrival  has  been  preserved  in  the  legendary 
history,  which  tells  how  civilisation  and  the  arts  of  building 
and   government   were   brought  to  the  Euphratean   Delta 
by  the  god  la,  the  god  of  the  house  (/),  of  the  waters  (a)y 
who  was  clothed  in  fish  skins  and  piloted  the  mother-ship 
Ma,  the  constellation  Argo ;  that  is  to  say,  that  these  early 
mariners    steered   their   course  by  the  stars   among  which 
Canopus  in  the  constellation  Argo  was  their  mother  star. 
It  is  the  progress  and  growth  of  the  societies  formed  by 
these  primitive  discoverers  of  social  laws,  national  religion, 
the  art  of  navigation  and  the  rudiments  of  astronomy  that 
I  propose  to  describe  in  the  present  work.     And  in  tracing 
out  this   history,  I  will  also  show  that  we  possess  in  the 
changes  of  the  Pole  Star  in  the  Polar  Circle,  and  in  the  stars 
of  the  ecleptic,   chronological  evidence  enabling  us  to  fix 
approximately  the  date  of  the  period  when   each   change 
in  the  year's   reckoning  took  place,  and  by  this  means  to 

C  2 


2C    HisUftj  and  Chr^nologj  of  ike  ifph-Makimg  Age. 

determine  the  time  when  each  of  the  soccessire  races  who 
introduced  these  changes  became  the  rulers  first  of  India, 
Babylonia,  Arabia  and  Egypt,  and  afterwards  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean territories  and  the  more  distant  lands  of  continental 
Europe. 


CHAPTER    II. 


The  years  of  two  seasons  and  five-day  weeks 
measured  by  the  movements  of  the  pleiades 
AND  THE  Solstitial  Sun. 

THOUGH  the  year  measured  by  the  Solstices  was  one 
of  the  earliest  years  used  by  the  founders  of  social  life, 
yet  it  was  not  that  which  was  first  adopted  by  the  Dravidian 
makers  of  villages.     These  dwellers  in  equatorial  countries 
hated  the  sun  which  burnt  up  and  destroyed  their  crops,  unless 
the  evils  wrought  by  its  assaults  were  averted  by  the  frequent 
rains  needed  by  the  rice  crops  which  supplied  their  food. 
To  them  the  star  rulers  of  the  night  were  the  messengers 
of  a  kindlier  god  than  the  destroying  sun,  and  it  was  among 
them  that  they  sought  a  sign  to  mark  the  beginning  of  the 
equatorial    spring    of    the     Southern     Hemisphere.      This 
they  found   in   the  Pleiades,  which,  as  they  noted,  set  im- 
mediately after  the  sua  on  the  ist  November,  when  the  spring 
began.     They  continued  to  set  after  it  at  more  distant  in- 
tervals each  evening,  till  in  April  their  setting  was  no  longer 
visible  at  night.     They  reappeared  again  as  evening  stars  in 
May,  when  they  set  before  the  sun,  and  this  they  continued 
to  do   till   the  end   of  October.     Thus  the   primaeval  year 
was  one  of  two  seasons  of  six  months  each,  from  November 
till  the  end  of  April,  and  May  till  the  end  of  October. 

This  was  the  year  observed  in  Southern  and  Western 
India,  and  still  used  by  the  majority  of  the  dwellers  in 
the  Southern  Hemisphere  and  by  the  traders  of  West  India. 
Among  the  latter  every  merchant  closes  his  year's  books 
on  the  26th  of  October  and  begins  his  year  with  the  full 
moon  of  Khartik  (October — November),  the  month  dedi- 


22  History  and  Chronology 

cated  to  and  named  after  the  Pleiades,  called  the  Krittakas 
or  Spinners. 

Besides  this  year  there  was  another  year  brought  to  India 
by  the  Mundas,  the  earliest  emigrants  from  the  North-east 
They  came  from  the  mountains  of  South  China,  a  colder 
and  much  more  rainy  region  than  South  India  ;   and  they, 
instead   of  dreading  the  sun  as  an   enemy,  looked  on  the 
winter  sun  as  a  kindly  mother,  whose  fiery  rays  dried  and 
warmed  the  soil  chilled  and  sodden  by  the  constant  rains 
of  summer  and  autumn.     It  was  the  sun  which  made  their 
land  fit  for  the  sowing  of  the  seeds  of  their  winter  and  spring 
crops,  which  were  originally  chiefly  millets,  the  g^rain  called 
Murwa  in  Bengal,  and  Raggi  in  Madras  (Eleusine  Coracana), 
and  another  allied  species  called  Gundli  in  Chutia  Nagpore. 
They  deified  the  sun  as   their  national   god,  and  worship 
him  under  the  name  of  Sri  Bonga.     This  god  was  symbo- 
lised on  earth  by  the   sun-bird,  the  wild  jungle-fowl,  the 
parent  of  our  domestic  poultry.     In   their  belief  it  began 
its  annual  course  round   the  heavens  and  the  central  Pole 
when  the  sun  set  in  the  South-west  at  tlie  winter  solstice. 
Thence  it  went  northward,  reaching  its  most  northerly  point 
at  the  summer  solstice,  whence  it  came  southwards  to  its 
winter  home.    This  is  the  year  still  regarded  as  the  orthodox 
year  of  Hindu  Brahminical  ritual.     It  is  divided  like  that 
of  the  Pleiades  into  two  periods  of  six  months  each :  the 
first  six  months  from  the  winter  to   the   summer  solstice 
being  called  Devayana  or  times  (aydna)  of  the  gods,  and 
the  six  months  of  the  returning  sun  ending  with  the  winter 
solstice  are  the  Pitri-yana  or  times  [aydnd)  of  the  fathers. 
This  is  the  year  ruled  by  the  Vedic  god  Tvashtar,  the  creator, 
the  most  ancient  god  in  the  Hindu  Pantheon,  who  shows 
in  his  name  beginning  with  the  superlative  form  of  tva,  two 
{tvash),  that  he  is  the  ruling  god  of  the  most  holy  of  the 
two  years  measured  by  two  seasons.     The  existence  of  the 
first  year,    that    of  the    Pleiades,   is,   however,   recognised 
in  the  Hindu  system  of  months,  for  the  name  of  the  month 
Vi-sakha  (April — May),   which   is   the   mid  month   of  the 


of  tlu  Myth' Making  Age,  23 

Pleiades  year,  means  the  month  of  two  {vi)  branches 
(saiid)^  thus  recording  the  original  bifurcation  of  the 
year  in  the  middle  of  this  month. 

A.    BtrtA  of  life  from  the  Mother  Tree, 

But  the  division  of  time  into  periods  measured  by  months 
was  only  made  comprehensible  to  the  popular  intellect  after 
a  long  period  of  national  education,  and  the  first  time-unit 
used  as  a  fraction  of  the  year  was  that  which  marked  the 
weeks.  The  first  week  was  one  of  five  days,  or  rather 
five  nights,  for  the  equatorial  day  of  the  Pleiades  year 
b^an  at  sunset  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the 
reason  for  the  adoption  of  this  time-unit  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  their  infant  astronomy. 
They  based  all  their  calculations  of  time  measurement 
on  their  adoption  of  the  conclusion  that  the  setting,  rising, 
and  culmination  of  the  stars,  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  proved 
that  they  all  described  a  daily  circle  in  the  heavens  round 
a  central  point  marked  by  the  North  Pole  Star.  The  reason 
which  they  gave  to  account  for  this  revolution  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  is  most  clearly  set  forth  in  a  story  pre- 
served by  the  Australian  aborigines  ^  It  tells  how  Gneeang- 
gcr,  the  Queen  of  the  Pleiades,  the  star  Aldebaran,  found 
a  grub  in  a  tree,  that  is  in  the  magic  tree  of  the  sacred  part 
of  the  forest  set  apart  for  the  national  ceremonies  performed 
by  the  tribal  priest,  and  near  the  corroboree  dancing 
ground,  answering  to  the  Akra,  placed  in  the  Hindu  village 
under  the  shade  of  the  Sarna  or  central  grove.  This  grub, 
the  chrysalis  of  the  raven  parent  god  of  the  tribe,  she  took 
out  and  it  became  the  giant  raven  star  Canopus,  who  ran 
away  with  her,  that  is  to  say  dragged  her,  her  attendant 
stars  the  Pleiades,  and  the  rest  of  the  starry  host  round 
the  Pole. 

This  raven  star  of  this  Australian  story  became,  in  the 
Hindu  mythology,  Agastya,  the  star  Canopus,  whose  name 

'  Elworthy,  The  Evil  Eye,  Appendix  iii.  p.  438. 


24  History  and  Chronology 

means  the  singer  {gd)^  the  leader  of  the  harmony  of  the 
spheres.  He  appears  in  his  raven  form  in  Rg.  ii.  43,  i,  2, 
where  the  holy  raven  [Shakuni)  is  said  to  sing  the  divine 
songs  of  the  ritual  in  the  sacred  metres  which,  as  we  shall 
see,  represent  in  the  varying  numbers  of  their  syllables 
the  successive  changes  in  the  measurements  of  ritualistic 
time.  It  is  this  life-giving  raven  gifted  with  the  amrita 
or  water  of  life,  which  in  the  historical  Gond  poem  of  the 
Song  of  the  Lingal  restores  Lingal,  the  rain  -  father  god, 
to  life  after  he  had  been  slain  by  the  first  race  of  Gonds, 
the  race  from  the  North-east,  whom  he  had  settled  on 
the  land.  The  conception  of  the  raven  star  was  based  on 
the  black  rain  -cloud  which  brought  up  the  rains  of  the 
South-west  and  North-east  monsoons,  and  it  was  the 
wind  which  preceded  these  annual  rains  which  was  first 
believed  to  drive  the  stars  round  the  Pole. 

But  side  by  side  with  and  anterior  in  time  to  this  con- 
ception there  grew  up  another,  founded  on  the  belief  in 
the  origin  of  life  from  the  central  mother-tree  of  the  South 
in  which  the  Canopus  grub  was  found.  As  there  was  no 
Pole  Star  visible  in  the  Southern  heavens,  the  region  of 
the  South  was  looked  on  as  a  dark  waste  of  waters  within 
which  dwelt  the  unseen  South  Pole  goddess,  the  awful 
and  mysterious  mother  of  living  things.  She  was  adored 
by  the  Akkadians  as  Bahu,  the  Baau  of  the  Phoenicians, 
the  Bohu  or  waste  void  of  Genesis  i.  2.  She  was  called 
*'  the  mother  who  has  begotten  the  black-headed  Akka- 
dians ^,  the  sons  of  thq  father  la,  the  god  of  the  house  (/), 
of-the-waters  (a),  whose  home  is  In  the  North  Pole  Star." 
Also  as  Gula,  the  Great  One,  she  is  called  **  the  wife  of 
the  Southern  Sun."  In  another  form  of  her  mythic  history 
she  is  the  great  serpent  goddess  of  the  deep  called  Tiamat, 
the  mother  of  living  things  {tia)y  the  goddess  who  sur- 
rounded and  guarded  the  mother-tree  of  the  Southern 
world,  as  the  holy  boundary -snake   is   believed   in    Hindu 

'  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  262 — 264. 


J 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  2$ 

mythology  to  guard  the  village  with  the  Sama  in  its  centre. 
She  was  in  this  form  the  winged  snake  goddess  destroyed  by 
Marduk,  or  Bel  Merodach,  the  sun  calf  (marduk),  when 
the  sun-god  of  day  became  the  ruler  of  the  year  instead 
of  the  stars  of  night  in  the  lunar  solar  epoch  succeeding 
the  sidereal  Pole  Star  age.  And  this  mother  abyss  of  waters 
was  symbolised  in  the  latest  Semitic  ritual  in  the  brazen 
seas  or  abysses  {aisu),  which  were  first  pools  of  water  and 
afterwards  brazen  basins,  which  were  placed  in  the  southern 
outer  courts  of  the  Babylonian  temples,  and  reproduced 
in  Jewish  ritual  ^. 

The  tree  mother  born  from  this  abyss  of  waters  is  in 
the  Zend  historical  mythology  the  Gao-kerena,  G5kard 
or  White  Hom  tree,  growing  according  to  the  Dinkard, 
the  epitome  of  the  lost  Nasks,  in  "  deep  mud  of  the  wide- 
formed  ocean,"  the  sea  Vouru-kasha,  or  the  Indian  Ocean  «. 
This  tree,  with  its  roots  in  the  Southern  sea,  grew  up  on 
earth  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Daitya,  the  river  of  the 
serpents  or  parent  snakes.  This  was  the  river  Kur  or 
Araxes,  rising  in  Mt.  Ararat  and  falling  into  the  Caspian 
sea.  On  this  tree  was  the  nest  of  the  Hom  birds  3.  These 
are  the  mother  ravens,  the  birds  of  the  night  and  the  day, 
who,  in  Rg.  i.  164,  20-22,  "  sit  on  this  tree  whence  all  things 
grow  and  which  knows  no  father,  the  day  bird  eating  its 
fruits  and  the  night  bird  guarding  it  in  silence."  They 
are  the  birds  who  watch  over  the  Zend  Haoma,  the  Hindu 
Soma,  the  sap  of  life.  Haoma  and  Soma  are  derived  from  the 
roots  Hu  and  Su,  both  of  which  are  dialectic  forms  of  Khu, 

*  Saycc,  Hibberi  Lectures  for  1 887,  Lect.  i.,  p.  63  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races 
^j  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  pp.  188,  189,  with  plan  of  Sabaean 
temple ;  I  Kings  vii.  39 ;  2  Chron.  iv.  10,  where  the  brazen  sea  is  placed 
to  the  South-east. 

'  West,  Dinkard,  vii.  29 ;  West,  Bundahish,  xviii.  I  ;  Darmestcter, 
Itndavesia  Vendiddd  Fargard,  xx.  4;  S.B.E.,  xlvii.  p.  25;  vol.  v.  p.  65; 
It.  p.  221 ;  Introduction,  iv.  28;  Ixiv. 

3  LHnkard,  vii.  26 — 36  ;  Bundahisk^  xx.  13  ;  Darmesteter,  Zendavcsta  Vendidad 
Fargard^  i.  3;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xlvii.  pp.  24—26;  v.  p.  79,  note  I;  iv.  p.  5, 
notes  2  and  3. 


26  History  and  Ckronoloiy 

the  mother-bird  of  the  Akkadians  and  Egyptians,  who 
was  originally  the  bird  of  the  raven-star  nest  Argo.  It 
was  from  "  the  water,  and  vegetation "  supplied  by  this 
tree  that  the  great  Zend  prophet,  Zarathustra,  was  born 
as  the  sun-hawk,  Karshipta,  who  spoke  the  Avesta  in 
the  language  of  birds  '. 

In  the  Hindu  form  of  the  mythological  history  of  this 
tree  of  life  it  had  its  roots  in  the  ocean,  and  grew  up  on 
earth  in  the  centre  of  the  holy  land  of  Kurukshetra,  the 
land  (Kshethra)  of  the  Kurus,  the  sons  of  the  river  Kur 
of  the  Zend  legend,  who  had  come  to  India  from  Atar5 
Fatakan,  the  modern  Adarbaijan,  the  mother  land  of  the 
fire-worshippers  traversed  by  the  Kur.  The  line  of  its  growth 
passed,  as  Alberuni  tells  us,  through  the  course  of  the  river 
Yamuna  or  Jumna,  instead  of  the  Zend  Euphrates  leading 
to  the  river  Kur.  Thence  to  the  plain  of  Taneshur  «,  that 
is  of  the  god  {eshwar)  Tan,  the  father  of  the  primaeval  Hindu 
race  called  the  Danava,  the  sons  of  Danu,  whom  Indra  slew. 
This,  with  its  360  shrines  representing  the  360  days  of 
the  years,  was  the  traditional  birth-place  of  the  Kurus 
or  Kaurs^  the  Kauravya  of  the  Mahabharata  born  in  India 
from  this  world's  mother-tree,  the  great  Banyan  tree  {Ftcus 
Indica)^  the  Sanskrit  Nigrodha  tree,  the  tree  of  their  father 
Kashyapa  or  Kassapa4.  This  tree  stood  on  the  banks 
of  the  central  lake,  reproducing  the  southern  mother  sea 
traversed  by  the  mother  ship  constellation  Argo.  This  was 
the  lake  called  in  Rg.  i.  84^  13,  14,  Sharyanavan,  the  ship 
(ndvan)  of  the  year  arrow  {sharya)  or  the  mother  reed 
(sharya),  whence  the  Kushika  or  Kurus  were  born  as  the 
sons  of  the  rivers.  It  was  on  this  lake  lying  below  the 
Himalaya  mountains,  the  home  of  the  North  Pole  Star,  that 

"  West,  Dinkardy  vii.  36;  West,  BundahisA,  xxiv.  ii;  xix.  16;  Dar- 
mcstetcr,  Zendavesta  Vendidad  Fargard^  ii.  42,  43;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xlvii. 
p.  26 ;  V.  pp.  89,  70  ;  iv.  p.  21. 

*  Sachau,  Albeninl*s  Indta^  chap.  xxxi.  vol.  i.  p.  316. 

5  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  of  India^  p.  332. 

4  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories;  The  Nidanakatha,  p.  51. 


of  ike  Myth- Making  Age.  27 

Indra  found  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  Dadhyank^  which^ 
as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  VL,  was  the  ruler  of  the 
eleven  months  year. 

The  Danava  predecessors  of  the  Kurus,  sons  of  Dan  or 
Tan,   were   the  equivalents  of  the   Hebrew  Tannim,   the 
Arabic  Tinnim,  called  in  the  Bible  the  dragons  or  snakes 
of  the  deep  ',  the  Greek  Ti-tans  *,  or  sons  of  the  mud  [tan, 
Arab  tin)  of  life  (/i),  who  were  called  by  the  Greeks  children 
of  Uranos  and  Gaia,  heaven  and  earth.     This  is  an  accurate 
reproduction  of  the  primitive  genealogy,  for  Uranos  is  the 
Greek   form  of  the  Sanskrit  Varuna,  from  the  root  vri,  to 
cover,  and  hence  Varuna  is  the  god  of  the  covering  rain- 
cloud,  the   var    reproduced   in    the   Sanskrit  Varsha,   the 
Hindu    Barsah,    and    the   Zend    Bares,    all   meaning   rain, 
that  is  the  productive  seed   of  the  original  supreme   god 
of  the  first  villagers^  the  rain-god,  which  impregnated  the 
earth  with  life.     In  the   description   of  the   four  heavenly 
regions  ruled  by  the  gods  called   Lokapalas,  or  guardians 
of  space,  Varuna  is   the  third   Lokapala   ruling   the   north 
heaven,  whose  palace  is  built  in  the  waters  whence  all  the 
rivers  of  India  descend  to  fill  the  Southern  Ocean  3.     It  is 
this  rain  descending  in  the  rivers  from  the  home  of  this  god 
of  the  north  which  is  the  father  of  the  children  of  men  and 
animals  produced  from  the  nourishing  fruit  of  the  mother- 
tree,  the  offspring  of  the  southern  impregnated  earth  or  mud, 
which  conveys  the  life  derived  from   the    productive   rain 
to  all  who  sustain  life  by  the  fruit  of  the  tiee  its  daughter. 
This  mud  mother,  Tan  or  Tin,  of  the  Greek  Titans  is  the 
primitive  form  of  the  goddess  Thetis,  whose  name  is  de- 
rived from  the   Phoenician   Thith,  the  mud  4.     It  was  she 
who  with  Euronyme,  the  guardian  goddess  of  the  North,  the 
Phoenician  Astro  Noema,  first  the  Pole  Star  and  afterwards 


'  Ps.  czlviiL  7* 

'  Berard,  Originedes  CtUtes  ArcadUns^  pp.  230,  231. 

'  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Lokap&la  Sabhakhydfia)  Parva,  ix.  pp.  28— 30. 

*  Bcraid,  Origint  det  CulUs  Arcaduns,  p.  212. 


28  Histoty  and  Chronology 

the  Star  Virgo,  the  mother  of  corn,  received  Hephaistos,  the 
god  of  the  fire-drill  of  heaven,  the  smith-producer  of  fire, 
when  thrown  from  heaven  by  Zeus  ^  This  southern  mud- 
mother-goddess,  when  -wedded  to  Peleus,  the  northern  god 
of  the  potter's  clay  {irrfKAs;)^  became  mother  of  the  sun-god 
Achilles,  whom  she  placed  in  the  southern  fire,  the  home 
of  the  earth's  heat,  after  his  birth,  just  as  Purushaspa,  Za- 
rathustra's  father,  placed  his  newly-born  son,  begotten  from 
the  mother-tree  and  the  southern  mud,  in  the  same  fire, 
whence  he  was  removed  at  dawn  by  his  mother  and  arose 
as  the  sun-god,  to  bring  heat  and  light  to  the  earth  3. 
Achilles  was  the  sun-god  of  the  race  of  the  Myrmidons  or 
ants,  the  sons  of  the  red  earth,  the  Adamite  race  who  suc- 
ceeded the  sons  of  the  southern  mother-tree,  and  who 
believed  that  man  was  formed  from  the  dust  of  the  earth 
moulded  by  the  Divine  Potter,  the  Pole  Star  god,  who 
turned  the  potter's  wheel  of  the  revolving  earth.  In  this 
later  conception  the  earth  was  the  revolving  plain  turn- 
ing on  its  axis  3,  whereas  in  the  earlier  historical  imagery 
it  was  the  earth  which  stood  still  while  the  heavens,  drawn 
by  the  hand  of  the  ape-god  Canopus,  revolved. 

This  southern  mother-tree  was-the  origin  of  the  trees  which 
have  been  looked  on  as  parent  trees  by  so  many  primi- 
tive people.  The  Sal-tree  {Sftorea  robustd)  of  the  Indian 
Mons  or  Mundas,  the  oak  tree  of  the  Druids  and  of  Dodona, 
the  central  parent  tree  of  the  Volsungs  in  the  Niblunga 
Saga,  the  race  of  woodlanders  (yolr)  from  whom  was  bom 
the  sun-god  Sigurd,  the  god  of  the  pillar  {tirdr)  of  victory 


*  Homer,  Iliad^  xviii.,  394—411;  B^rard,  Origint  des  Cultes  ArcadUni, 
pp.  97.  I5i»  183. 

'  West,  Dinkardf  vii.  8 — 10;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xlvii.  pp.  36,  37. 

3  This  is  the  conception  of  the  earth  entertained  by  the  Malays  who  believe 
that  "the  world  is  of  an  oval  shape  revolving  on  its  own  axis  four  times 
in  the  space  of  one  year."  They  also  believe  in  the  tree-mother  of  life,  the 
world's  tree,  Pauh  Janggi,  growing  in  the  mud  of  the  Southern  Ocean,  and 
produced  from  the  seed  Kmi  created  by  God  and  conveyed  in  the  rain, 
Skeat,  Malay  Magic^  pp.  5,  6,  8 — 10,  4. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  29 

(jjrjf),  the  sun  gnomon  stone  '.  The  fig-trees  of  the  Syrians 
and  the  Indian  Kauravya  or  Kushika,  the  almond  or  nut- 
tree  of  the  Jews,  the  budding  almond-rod  of  Aaron  «,  the 
date-palm-tree  of  Babylonia  and  of  the  Indian  sun-god 
Bhishma  and  the  moon-god  Valaramas,  the  peach-tree  of 
China,  the  pine-tree  of  Germany  and  Asia  Minor,  the  ash- 
tree,  the  Ygg-drasil  of  the  Edda,  and  the  cypress-tree  of 
the  Phoenicians.  It  was  this  last  tree  which  was  especially 
connected  with  the  worship  of  the  god  Tan,  who  from 
being  the  mother  mud  of  the  South  became,  when  the  father 
succeeded  the  mother  as  the  recognised  parent,  the  god  Tan 
or  Danu  of  the  North  Pole. 

It  is  in  this  form  that  he  appeared  as  the  Cretan  Zeus, 
called  I-tan-os  or  the  god  Tan,  a  name  which  survives  in 
Zii\v69^  Doric  Zdvo^,  the  Genitive  of  the  Greek  Zeus,  for  d, 
t,  and  z  are  interchangeable  letters,  as  we  see  in  the  various 
names  of  the  god  of  life,  Zi,  di,  and  ti.  It  is  in  the  Creto- 
Phcenician  cult  of  the  god  I-tan-os,  the  reproduction 
of  the  Akkadian  I-tan-a,  the  house  of  Tan,  that  we  find 
the  worship  of  Brito-martis  the  virgin  (martis)  cypress- 
tree  [berut\  who  became  mother  of  the  sun-god  the  Phoe- 
nician Adonis  or  the  master  {adon),  the  Hebrew  Tammuz, 
the  Akkadian  Dumu-zi,  the  son  {duntu)  of  life  {si),  who  is 
represented  as  bom  from  the  cypress -tree  on  the  Palmy- 
rene  altar  at  Rome  4.  The  Akkadian  story  of  the  birth 
of  Dumu-zi  from  the  mother -tree  is  told  in  a  bilingual 
hymn  quoted  by  Dr.  Sayce.  This  represents  the  mother- 
tree  as  growing  in  the  "  centre  of  the  earth,"  in  the  "  holy 
place"  or  village  grove  of  Eridu  or  Eriduga,  the  holy 
[duga)  city  {erf),  the  most  ancient  port  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Euphrates,  where  the  God  la  disembarked  from  the  con- 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ,  vol.  ii..  Essay  viii.,  p.  iii. 

'  Numbers  xvii.  9. 

^  Mababharata  Bhishma  {Bhishma-Vcuiha)  Parva,  xlvii.  p.  165;  Shaleya 
[Gud-Ajmdha),  Panra,  xxxiv.,  Ix.  pp.  135,  233. 

*  Berard,  Origine  des  Cultes  Arcadiens,  pp.  281,  300;  D'Alviella,  Tfie 
Migration  of  Symbols^  p.  142. 


30  History  and  Chronology 

stellation  ship  Ma  or  Ai^o.  In  its  *'  foliage  was  the  couch 
of  Zi-kum/'  the  mother  of  life  {zi)^  the  nest  of  the  mother 
bird,  and  into  the  heart  of  '*  its  holy  house  no  man  hath 
entered."  ''In  the  midst  of  it  was  Dumuzi,**  the  son  [dutmi) 
of  life  (^{)^born  like  his  counterpart  the  sun-hawk  Zarathus- 
tra  from  the  water  and  vegetation  supplied  to  this  world's 
tree  from  the  Southern  mother  Ocean*.  This  story  of  the 
birth  of  the  stin-god  from  the  tree  is  also  reproduced,  as 
Professor  Douglas  informs  me,  in  the  Chinese  characters, 
which  were  originally  derived,  as  Mr.  Ball  has  proved, 
from   Akkadian  orig^inals  >.     The    Chinese    character  for 

the  sun  is  IS"      This  is  formed  of  the  two  elements  Hr- 

tree,  and  1^  sun,  while  the  triangle  forming  the  base  of 

the  character  for  tree  /^  is  the  sign  for  woman,  used  in 

the  oldest  form  of  the  Akkadian  script,  that  on  the 
monuments  at  Girsu.  So  that  the  Chinese  in  their  written 
speech  say  as  plainly  as  possible  that  the  sun  is  born 
from  the  mother-roots  of  the  tree,  that  is  the  tree  of  life. 
It  is  from  these  three  roots  that  the  Yggdrasil  of  the  Edda 
springs,  and  it  draws  its  life-giving  sap  from  the  sources 
whence  the  roots  spring,  the  giant's  well  Mimir,  the  Urdar 
fountain  of  Niflheim,  the  home  of  mist,  the  under-world, 
and  the  dwelling  of  the  i£sir,  the  home  of  the  soul  and 
essence  of  life 3.  This  birth  of  the  Akkadian  Dumuzi  from 
the  parent  tree,  is  reproduced  in  India  in  the  account  of 
the  birth  of  the  sun -god,  the  Buddha,  which  I  will  deal 
with  more  fully  afterwards  in  Chapter  VII.  Here  I  will 
only  point  out  that  the  Buddha  was  conceived  under  the 
Great  Sal  tree  on  the  Crimson  plain  of  the  dawning  sun 
in  the  Himalayas.  That  there  the  god  Gan-isha  with  the 
elephant's  trunk,  the  god  of  the  rain-cloud,  entered  on  her 

*  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.,  p.  238. 

•  Transactions  of  the  Ninth  International  Congress  of  Orientalists,  The 
s4kkadian  Affinities  of  Chinese^  by  the  Rev.  C.  J.  Ball,  M.A.,  §  viii. ;  China, 
Central  Asia^  and  the  Far  Easty  p.  677,  ff. 

3  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities :   The  Prose  Edda^  p.  41 1. 


pf  the  Myth-Making  Age,  3 1 

right  side  the  womb  of  his  mother  Maya^  the  witch  mother 
Magha  bearing  the  divine  rod  of  power,  the  rain-compel- 
ling branch  of  the  mother-tree.  He  was  born  from  his 
mother  when  she  stood  and  grasped  the  Sal  tree  in  the 
village  grove  between  Kapilavastu  and  Koliya,  the  village 
of  the  Munda  or  Kol  race  to  which  his  mother  belonged, 
that  is  to  say  he  was  like  Dumu-zi,  the  son  of  the  Sal  tree  <, 
and  a  rain-shower  fell  at  his  birth  <. 

All  these  originWree-mothers  find  their  prototype  in  the 
Dravidian  mother -tree  goddess  Mari-amma,  the  mother 
{amma)^  Mari  the  tree  (marom).  She  is  the  only  goddess 
in  the  Hindu  pantheon  whose  image  is  always  made  of 
wood.  It  is  she  who,  in  the  story  telling  of  the  founding 
of  the  great  temple  of  Jagahnath  in  Orissa,  was  the  mother 
goddess  of  the  primaeval  temple,  a  yojana  beneath  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  This  was  shown  to  the  founder 
of  the  later  temple.  King  Indramena,  the  god  Indra,  by 
the  mother  crow  or  raven  who  had  grown  white  with  age. 
It  was  from  these  submerged  foundations  of  the  early  ritual, 
the  depths  of  the  Southern  Sea,  that  the  earliest  form  of  the 
year  god,  .Krishna  or  Vishnu,  was  sent  by  divine  power 
as  a  log  on  the  sea-shore,  and  this  log,  the  timber  of  the 
virgin  mother-tree,  is  now  the  image  of  the  year-god  in 
the  temple  of  the  Lord  (natA)  of  Space  {/aga/i)  *. 

This  is  the  goddess  of  the  Palladium  or  guardian  wooden 
image  kept  in  the  treasure-house  of  ancient  cities.  The 
classical  prototype  of  this  image  is  the  Palladium  of  Troy, 
made  of  the  mother  wild  fig-tree  of  the  Trojan  race  growing 
in  the  tomb  of  Ilos,  the  founder  of  the  city  3.  This  goddess, 
called  Pallas,  became  the  tree-mother  of  the  Ionian  race, 
the  goddess  Athene,  the  tree-mother  of  the  olive-tree  and 
earlier  sacred  oil  plant,  the  Sesame  (Sesamum  orientale), 
the  mother  of  the  Indian  Telis,  or  oil  dealers,  of  whom 

'  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Storits:  TheNidanakaihd,  pp.  62,  63,  66,  67. 
'  Beaachamp,  Dubois'  Hindu  Manners^   Customs ^  and  Ceremonies ^  voL  ii, 
p.  589,  App.  ▼.  pp.  714—719. 
'  Homer,  Tliody  xi.  167. 


32  History  and  Chronology 

I  shall  give  a  full  account  in  Chapter  VI.,  when  describing 
the  eleven  months  year.     She,  as  the  mother-tree  of  the 
primaeval  year,  was  the  earthly  representative  of  the  stellar 
year-mother  the  Pleiades,  and  it  is  to  this  constellation  as 
her  heavenly  counterpart  that  her  earliest  temple  at  Athens 
was  oriented'.     She,   who  was  bom    from    the    head    of 
Zeus,  who  was,  as  I  have  shown,  the  mother  mud  goddess 
Tan,  and  who  was  therefore  the  counterpart  of  her  parent, 
appears  in  the  form  of  the  goddess  Tan  in  the  historical 
genealogy  of  the  Boeotians,  the  chief  agricultural  people  in 
ancient  Greece.     Their  legendary  history  tells  us  that  they 
arrived   in   Greece   as   emigrants  from   Asia  Minor  under 
Kadmus,  the  man  of  the  East  {Kedeni)^  the  introducer  of 
the  plough.     He   killed  the  snake  parent  of  the  original 
dwellers  in  the  land,  and  from  the  land  ploughed  by  him, 
and  sown  with  the  snake's  teeth,  there  were  bom  the  five 
Spartos,  or  sown  {airelpo})  men,  the  five  days  of  the  week, 
who  became  ancestors  of  all  the  Boeotians.     In  other  words, 
this  story  tells  how  a  tribe  of  agriculturists  from  Asia  Minor, 
who   measured   time   by  five-day  weeks,  came  to  Boeotia 
and    occupied    the   country,   allying  themselves   with   the 
primitive  villagers,  the  Achaioi,  or  sons  of  the  snake  Echis, 
the  Ahi  of  the  Rigveda,  the  Indian  sons  of  the  village  tree. 
At  the  place  where  Kadmus  rested  on  his  journey  from 
Delphi  to  Thebes,  just  outside  the  Ogygian  gate  of  the 
city  2,  he  set  up  an  image  of  Athene,  called  by  what  Pausanias 
tells  us  was  the  Phoenician  name  of  Onga  3.     This  name 
means,  according  to  Movers,  the  burning  or  heated  goddess  4. 
That  is  to  say,  she  was  originally  the  goddess  of  the  heated 
souths  the  underground  fire  of  the  earth,  the  mud-mother- 
goddess  Tan,  and  in  this  form  she  was  worshipped  as  the 

*  Norman  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy ,  p.  419.  He,  p.  312,  traces  speci- 
fically the  Orientation  of  temple  sites  to  stars  to  6400  B.C.  It  may  have 
begun  much  earlier. 

'  Frazer,  Pausanias^  vol.  v.  p.  48. 

3  Ibid.,  ix.  12,  2,  vol.  i.  p.  459,  vol.  v.  p.  48. 

*  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  i.  p.  643. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,,  33 

goddess  called  by  Pausanias  the  Itonian  Athene.     She  was 
the  goddess  to  whom  was  consecrated  the  land  near  Coronea, 
where  the  Boeotians  held  their  annual  national  year  festival, 
and  the  name  is,  as  Pausanias  tells  us  ',  derived  from  Itonus, 
who  was  the  husband   of  Melanippe,    the  black    {melan) 
horse  Qiippe)  mother  of  night,  a   name  of  Demeter,  who 
was,  as  we  shall  see,  the  mother-goddess  of  the  Pleiades 
year  banning  in  November.     Their  son  was  Boeotus,  from 
whom  the  Boeotians  got  their  name  of  the  people  of  the 
ploughing  ox  (fiovs).     Thus   the  Boeotians  were  the  sons 
of  the  dark  mother  of  night,  the  goddess  of  the  southern 
abyss  of  waters  and  of  Itonus.     Itonus  is  a  variant  form 
of  I-tan-os,  and  a  very  frequent  type  among  the  ancient 
coins  of  Crete  represents  the  god  Itanos  on  one  side  with 
a  fish's  tail,  holding  the  trident,  and  on  the  other  side  he 
appears   as  the  great  ocean   fish  Tan  with  his  wife,  who 
is  also  a  fish  ^.     She  is  the  fish  goddess  of  Syria,  called 
Derceto,   or    Atergatis,    names    shown    by   Movers    to    be 
variant  forms  of  Tirhatha,  meaning  the  abyss  3,  the  mud- 
goddess  Tan  under  the  form  of  the  mud-born  fish.     These 
fish  bom  from  the  mud   are  those  so  frequently  seen   in 
India,  who  appear  in  the  tanks  which  had  been  dry  mud 
in  summer  as  soon  as  they  are  filled  by  the  rains.     They 
hybernate  in  the   mud,  and  hence  they   are   regarded  as 
the. mud-born  mothers  of  life,  and   the   representative    of 
these  fish,  the  carp,  Rohu,  is  worshipped  in   India  as  the 
sun-fish,  and  guarded  and  fed  in  the  sacred  tanks. 

At  Coronea  the  statue  of  the  Itonian  Athene  is  ac- 
companied by  that  of  the  god  called  by  Pausanias  ix. 
34,  I,  Zeus,  but  who  is  said  by  Strabo  to  be  Hades,  the 
god  of  the  Southern  Ocean,  the  abysmal  home  of  the  winter 
sun  4.     It  was  at  the  shrine   consecrated  to  the  god  Tan 

'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  ix.  34,  i,  vol.  i.  p.  486. 
'  R.  Brown,  jun.,  Primittve  Constellations ,  vol.  i.  chap.  v.  p.  188. 
-^     5  LnA,  De  Ded  Syrid,  14;    Berard,   Origine  des  Cultes  Arcadiens,  p.  98; 
Miivers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  p,  594. 
*  Frazcr,  Pausanias,  vol.  v.  p.  169. 

P 


34  History  and  Chronology 

that  the  Bceotians  celebrated  the  beginning  of  their  year 
at  a  festival  held  in  September-— October,  the  tenth  month 
of  the  year  beginning  at  the  winter  solstice.  Thus  their  year 
began,  like  that  of  the  Jews,  with  the  autumnal  equinox '. 
But  this  year  and  the  present  year  of  the  Sabaeans  beginning 
at  the  same  time  is  one  which,  like  the  similar  year  of  the 
Indian  Pitaro  Barishadah,  the  Kushika  ancestors,  has  been 
changed,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapters  IV.  and  V.,  from 
a  year  which  originally  began  in  November  with  a  feast 
to  the  dead,  which   has  been  transferred  to  the  autumnal 

equinox. 

This  tree-goddess  of  the  mud.  Tan,  also  appears  in  the 
Roman  Diana,  the  female  Janus,  the  Etruscan  Tana.  She, 
the  mother  of  witchcraft,  is  the  goddess  of  the  groves,  the 
most  celebrated  of  those  sacred  to  her  being  the  grove  of 
Aricia,  that  on  the  Aventine,  and  in  the  Vicus  Patricius 
at  Rome,  into  the  last  of  which  no  man  might  enter.  Her 
festival  and  that  of  her  male  counterpart,  called  Virbius 
in  Aricia  and  Vertumnus  or  the  turner  {verto)  of  the  year 
at  Rome,  was  held  oi^the  Ides  the  13th  of  August,  and  like 
the  Panathenaia  at  Athens,  held  on  the  isth  of  August, 
it  denoted  the  mid-day  of  a  year  beginning  in  January — 
February,  the  year  of  the  sun-god  Lug,  which  will  be 
described  in  Chapter  VII.  But  the  year  which  was  sacred 
to  Diana  as  the  moon-goddess,  to  whom  cakes  of  meal,  wine, 
salt  and  honey,  shaped  like  a  crescent-moon,  were  offered, 
was  a  reproduction  of  the  original  year  of  the  tree-mother, 
beginning  in  November  with  its  mid-year  feast  on  the  ist 
of  May.  In  this  year  she  was  the  returning  tree-goddess 
Persephone,  the  unwed  goddess  of  the  tree  and  food-bearing 
plants  impregnated  with  life  by  the  father  rain-god  below 
the  earth.  At  these  mid-year  May  feasts  she  was  wor- 
shipped by  votaries  as  naked  as  the  first  of  human  beings, 
and  these  are  the  feasts  to  Tana  or  Diana  as  described 


*  Fraser,  Pausanias,  vol.  v.  p.  169. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  35 

in  the  gospel  of  the  witches,  which  Mr.  Leland  has  unearthed 
in  Tuscany.  The  materials  of  the  feast  were ''cakes  of  meal 
salt,  honey  and  water,  and  in  preparing  them  the  meal  was 
invoked  in  a  hymn  which  embodies  in  its  first  lines  the 
ancient  creed  of  the  birth  of  all  life  from  the  seed  of  the 
mother  plant.    The  lines  are  as  follows  : — 

Translation, 

Scongiaro  tCi  O  farina,  I  conjure  thee,  O  meal,  who  art 

Qie  sei  il  corpo  nostro  —  senza  our  body.    Without  thee  we  could 

di  te  not  live.    Thou  who  before  be- 

Non  si  potrebbe  viyere — tu  che  coming  meal  wert  placed  (as  the 

Prima  di  devenire  la  farina  seed)  below  the  earth,  whence  all 

Sei  stata  sotto  terra  dove  tutti  things  are  bom  in  secret. 
Sono  nascosti  tutti  in  segreti. 

The  feasts  on  these  cakes  were  accompanied  by  large 
draughts  of  wine,  and  the  orgies  of  these  festivals  of  the 
dancing  witches  and  wizards  are  shown  by  the  instructions 
in  Mr.  Leland's  manual  to  have  exactly  resembled  the 
matriarchal  seasonal  festivals  of  the  primitive  Indian  races. 
They  are  bidden  "  to  sit  down  to  supper,  all  naked,  men  and 
women,  and  the  feast  over  they  shall  sing,  dance,  make 
music,  and  then  love  in  the  darkness  with  all  the  lights 
extinguished  *.** 

In  the  Hindu  form  of  the  myth  of  the  mother-tree, 
reaching  from  the  Southern  Ocean  to  the  North  Pole  Star, 
the  tenant  of  the  tree  and  its  first-born  son  is  the  Gond 
ape-god  Maroti,  the  tree  {maront)  ape.  He,  in  his  original 
form,  was  the  female  mother-ape,  called  in  Rg.  x.  86, 
Vrisha-kapi,  the  rain  [vrisha)  ape  wife  of  Indra  the  rain-god, 
the  ape  mother  impregnated  with  the  seed  of  life  by  the 
heaven-sent  rain.  She  is  the  ape  rock  ogress  of  the 
Thibetan  Muni  kabum,  who  became  in  the  form  of  an  ape 
the  mother  of  the  six  sons  of  the  ape-father-god  Bodhisatva, 
king  of  the  monkeys,  who  was  the  offspring  of  Shenrazig 

*  Leland,  Arcadia,  or  the  Gospel  of  Witches,  chap,  ii.,  The  Sabbat,  pp. 
8—14 ;  Diana,  Encyclopadia  Britannica,  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  viii.  p.  167 ; 
W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals  ;  Mensis  Sex  tills ,  pp.  198  ff, 

D  3 


36  History  and  Chronology 

Wungch'yuk,  the  visible  light,  the  Pole  Star  god,  and  the 
goddess  Drolma,  born  of  the  tears  of  his  right  eye,  the  mother 
rain-cloud '.  The  ape-mother-goddess  became  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  belief  from  south  to  north  the  Finn  Pole  Star 
goddess  Taara,  the  Tari  Pennu  or  female  {pen)  Tara  wor- 
shipped in  Eastern  India  by  the  Kandhs  of  Oressa  and  all 
the  superior  agricultural  tribes  of  Bengal  and  Behar.  She 
represents  the  Finn  immigration,  which  made  its  way  into 
India  after  the  Mundas  or  mountaineers.  They  were  people 
of  the  same  stock  as  the  Ugro  Finn  Akkadians,  who  ruled 
the  Euphratean  countries  before  the  Semites,  and  who 
introduced  both  into  Mesopotamia  and  India  the  same 
system  of  magic  and  witchcraft  which  they  still  practise 
in  their  original  homes  in  the  north.  It  was  this  Finn 
element  which  has  made  Central  India,  and  especially 
Chutia  Nagpore,  the  country  still  looked  on  as  the  home 
of  wizardry  and  of  dealings  with  evil  spirits. 

B.  Date  of  the  belief  in  the  Pole  Star  parent-god. 

Hiouen  Tsiang  describes  the  statue  of  Tara  at  Tiladaka 
in  Maghada  as  one  of  a  triad  with  the  Buddha  in  the  centre. 
She  stood  on  his  left,  and  their  offspring  Avalokitesvara, 
meaning  the  visible  (avalokita)  Buddha,  on  his  right  2.  She, 
in  the  story  of  Rama  and  Sita,  is  the  Pole  Star  goddess, 
first  the  wife  of  Vali  the  circling  {vri)  god,  the  leading  star- 
god  going  round  the  Pole,  and  after  his  death,  when  slain 
by  Rama,  she  was  wedded  to  Su-griva,  the  ape  with  the 
neck  {griva)  of  Su  the  bird,  the  bird-headed  ape  who  had  his 
nest  in  the  Pole  Star  trees.  It  was  he  and  his  brother 
Hanuman,  the  son  of  Pavana  the  wind,  who  were  the  year 
gods  who  built   the  bridge  of  360,000  apes,  or  360  days 

'  Rockhill,  The  Land  of  the  Lamas,  app.  vi.  pp.  355  ff.,  326  ff.  ;  Muni 
Kabuntf  Bk.  ii. 

'  Seal,  'Records  of  the  Western  World,'  Hiouen  Tsiang' s  Travels,  bk.  viii., 
vol.  ii.  p.  103. 

3  Mahabharata  Vana  {Draupadi-harana)  Tarva,  cclxxix.  pp.  822  ff. 


\ 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  37 

of  the  year,  by  which  Rama  reached  the  island  of  Lanka 
(Ceylon),  the  home  of  the  southern  sun,  where  Sita  was 
confined  by  her  ravisher  the  ten-headed  Ravana,  the  god 
of  the  cycle  year  of  three  years   described  in  Chapter  V. 
This   story  of  the  wedding  of  the  Pole  Star   ape-mother 
to  the  bird-headed   ape  Su-griva  gives  us    a  reliable  date 
for  an  early  stage  of  this  legendary  history.    The  assignment 
of  the  nest  of  the  bird-headed   ape  as  the  dwelling-place 
of  the  Pole  marks  the  age  of  the  origin  of  the  tale  as  that 
when  the  Pole  Star  was  in  the  constellation  of  the  tree-ape. 
This   is   the  constellation  Kepheus,   a   Greek  form   of  the 
Indian  Kapi,  the  Greek  Kepos,  the  Latin  Cebus,  all  meaning 
the  ape.     This  name  of  the  constellation  has  been  derived 
by  Mr.  R.  Brown  from  'the  Phoenician  Keph,  a  stone,  the 
Cephas  of  the  Bible,  the  divine  stone  Baitulos  (Sem.  Beth-el) 
of  Sanchoniathon,  brother  of  Atlas  or  Atel,  darkness  ^     He 
shows,  on  the  authority  of  Achilleus  Tatius  «,  that  it  was  not 
under  that  name  a  Babylonian  or  Egyptian   constellation, 
but  quotes  L^normant,  Les  Origines  I.  573,  574,  to  prove  that 
this  constellation  of  the  Divine  Stone  was  that  consecrated 
to  the  Phoenician  god  Baal  of  Katsia  on  the  Promontory  that 
is  Mount  Kasios,  on  which  stood  the  temple  of  Baal  Tsephon, 
the  god  of  the  north,  that  is  the  Pole  Star  god  called  Zeus 
Kasios  on  bronze  coins  of  Seleukia,  on  which  he  is  depicted 
as  a  conical   stone.     This  Zeus,  called  Kassia  in  Aramaic 
inscriptions,  according  to  Pherecydes  slew  Typhon,  Tsephon 
or  Zaphon,  that  is  to  say  supplanted  his  rule  and  appro- 
priated his  shrine.     Thus   the   ousted  god  Tsephon   is  the 
Greek  Typhdn,  our  typhoon,  the  god  of  the  storm  wind,  that 
is  to  say  he  is  the  god  of  the  death-dealing  hot  south-west 
winds  which  blow  from  the  middle  of  June,  the  beginning 
of  the  Syriac  month  Cherizon,  meaning  the  pig  (June — July), 


'  R,  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations,  vol.  i.  p.  30;  'The 
Origin  of  Ancient  Northern  Constellation  Figures.'  Journal  Koyal  Asiatic 
Society,  1897,  pp.  217—219. 

•  Achilles,  Tatius  Eisagoge^  xxxix. 


38  History  and  Chronology 

to   the  middle  of  September'.      When   we  consider  this 
evidence  and  that  I  will  now  adduce  from  Egyptian  sources, 
it  will  be  clear  that  Mr.  Brown's  proofs  of  the  worship  of 
Kepheus  as  the  constellation  of  the  stone  of  light  are  really 
consistent  with  the  fact  that  the  god  of  the  stone  was  first 
the  ape-god.     He  was  a  Phoenician  god,  and  the  Egyptian 
name  of  Phoenicia  was  Keft,  and  in  an  inscription  in  the 
temple  of  Edfu  the  eight  apes  who  sing  the  praises  of  Ra 
are  four  Keftenu  or  Phoenician  and  four  Uetenu  or  apes  from 
the  green  {uet)  land  of  India,  the  only  country  on  the  shores 
of  the  Indian  Ocean  where  the  coasts   are   green  2.     The 
Keftenu   appear  in   Syrian  history  as   the   Kaphtorim   or 
Philistines,  said  in  i  Samuel  vi.  17  to  be  ruled  by  five  lords 
or  axles  {serdnzm)  the  five  days  of  their  week.      They  are 
called   in   Genesis   x.    14   sons  of   Misraim,  a   dual   name 
indicating  the  northern  and  southern  races  of  Egypt,  sons 
of  the  ape   Hapi  or  Kapi,  the  star  Canopus,  and  of  the 
barley-god  of  the  North,  Osiris  or  Orion.     They  are  said  in 
Amos  ix.  7  to  have  come  from  the  land  of  Kaphtor,  called 
in  Jeremiah  xlvii.  4  the  isles  of  Kaphtor,  and  in  Deuteronomy 
ii.  23  they  are  said  to  have  come  to  Syria  from  Kaphtor 
after  the  Awim  who  dwelt  in  villages,  the  first  communal 
villages  on  the  Indian  model  founded  by  the  Rephaim,  who 
were,  as  I  show  in  Chapter  III.,  p.  yy,  the  sons  of  Repha, 
the   star  Canopus.    This  land  of  Kaphtor  is   clearly  the 
southern  land  of  Kapi  the  ape,  whence,  as  I  shall  show,  the 
Phoenician  Tursena,  the  Indian  Turvasu,  came  from  the  island 
of  Turos  in  the  Persian  Gulfs.     The  Egyptian  Pole  Star  god 
is  the  ape-god  Seb  or  Hapi,  a  form  of  Kapi,  who  sits  on  the 
top  of  the  world's  tree  with  his  Thigh,  the  name  of  the  Great 
Bear  in  Egyptian  astronomy  4^  pointing  to  the  Pole  Star 
his   head,  and   thence  he   turns  the  stars  round  the  Pole. 

*  Movers,  Di^  PAontzierf  voL  i.  p.  224. 

*  Brugsch,  Religion  und  My thologie  der  Alien  ^gypter^  p.  152. 

3  Smith,  'Philistines,'  Encyc,  Brit.^  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  xviii.  pp.  755—757* 

*  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead^  chap.  xcix.  p.  158,  where  the  Great  Bear  is 
called  the  Thigh  of  Hapi. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  39 

Hence  his  head  is  called  Keph,  the  Greek  Kephal6,  the  Latin 
caput,  as  the  head  of  the  ape  Kapi.  These  conclusions  are 
corroborated  in  Akkadian  and  Arabian  astronomy.  In  the 
former  Kepheus  was  called  Ua-lu-zun,  the  numerous  flock  ^ 
and  in  the  latter  Al  Aghndn,  the  sheep  led  by  7  Kepheus 
the  Pole  Star  in  19,000  B.C.,  called  Ar-rai,  the  shepherd  2 
This  shepherd  was  the  guardian  ape,  the  Pole  Star  god. 
The  whole  evidence  proves  conclusively  that  the  Pole  Star 
was  watched  in  India  from  21,000  B.C.,  when  it  was  first 
a  star  in  Kepheus,  and  that  a  record  of  the  changing  Pole 
Stars  was  kept  and  registered  by  all  the  nations  living  round 
the  Indian  Ocean,  and  in  Syria  and  Egypt,  and  that  it  was 
this  national  record  which  preserved  to  later  ages  the 
memorj'  of  the  remote  time  when  a  and  7  Kepheus  were 
the  Pole  Star  head  of  the  ape,  the  watcher  of  the  heavenly 
flock.  It  is  as  a  member  of  this  flock  intimately  connected 
with  Kepheus,  that  Kassiopaea,  his  Greek  wife,  is  called 
in  Welsh  Lys  Don,  the  Court  of  Don,  or  the  Pole  Star 
goddess  Danu,  mother  of  the  Celtic  Tuatha  de  Danann,  the 
tribes  of  the  goddess  Danu  3. 

The  primaeval  history  of  the  marriage  of  the  Pole  Star 
with  the  bird-headed  ape  passed  from  India  to  Egypt,  where 
it  was  reproduced  in  the  account  of  the  birth  of  Horus,  the 
bird-headed  sun-god.  He,  whose  second  son  is  Hapi  the 
ape,  is  depicted  on  the  walls  of  the  temple  of  the  Virgin 
Mother  Hat-hor,  the  house  {hat)  of  Hor,  as  issuing  from  her 
womb  4.  And  she  is  shown  by  the  orientation  of  the  temple 
to  be  the  star  goddess  Dubha  a  in  the  Great  Bear,  which 
was  about  5000  B.C.  the  nearest  rising  and  setting  star  to  the 
North  Pole,  the  home  of  the  Pole  Star  goddess  to  whom 


'  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  ConsUUalions,  vol.  ii.  p.  20. 

'  Hyde,  Hist.  ReLyPers,  Edition,  1760,'  pp.  128,  129  ;  Smith,  Celestial  CycUy 
ii.  p.  500. 

^  Professor  Rhys'  Address  to  the  Mythological  Section  of  the  Folkloie 
Congress  of  1 891.     Papers  and  Transactions  of  the  Congress^  p.  148. 

*  Marsham  Adams,  The  Books  of  the  Master ^  chap,  vi..  The  Temple  of  the 
Virgin  Mother,  pp.  67—72. 


40  History  and  Chronology 

the  temple  was  dedicated.  The  original  foundation  of  her 
temple  at  Denderah,  which  was  rebuilt  by  Pepi  the  second 
about  3400  B.C.,  dates,  according  to  an  inscription  by 
Thothmes  III.,  from  the  time  of  the  Hor-shesu,  or  sons  of 
Hor,  before  5000  B.C.,  as  the  plan  of  Pepi*s  temple  was  drawn 
on  "  a  leathern  roll  of  their  era  found  by  Pepi  in  a  *brick 
wall  on  the  south  side  of  the  temple '." 

In  this  historical  year  drama  in  which  the  wind-driven 
rain-cloud  became  the  raven-star  Canopus,  called  also  the 
wind-ape  Hanuman  or  Agastiya,  the  Pleiades  and  her 
attendant  stars  were  thought  to  be  dragged  round  the  Pole 
Star  in  their  daily  and  annual  circuits  by  the  five  fingers  of 
the  mighty  hand  of  the  raven-headed  ape-god,  the  five  days 
of  the  week.  This  year  leader,  Agastiya  or  Hanuman,  has 
been  looked  on  by  all  the  natives  of  Southern  India  from 
time  immemorial  as  the  traditional  father  of  the  three 
Dasyas,  or  country  {desk)  born  tribes,  who  have  successively 
ruled  the  land  2.  These  are  (i)  the  Cholas  or  Kolas,  the 
Munda,  Mon  or  Malli  mountaineers  from  the  North-east, 
united  with  the  primitive  forest  Dravidians ;  (2)  the  Cheroos 
or  Northern  sons  of  the  bird  {chir,  chirya),  the  Ugro  Finn 
races  allied  to  the  Akkadians  of  the  Euphrates  valley; 
and  (3)  the  Pandyas  or  fair  {pan4u)  men,  the  later  corn- 
growing  sons  of  the  Syrian  fig  -  tree.  Their  father-star 
Canopus  controls  the  tides  in  Hindu  astronomy  by  drinking 
up  the  waters  of  the  ocean,  a  function  assigned  in  the  Zen- 
davesta  to  the  constellation  Argo,  called  Sata-vaesa,  or  the 
hundred  {sata)  creators,  in  which  Canopus  is  the  chief 
star  3. 

'  Norman  Lockyer,  D(nun  of  Astronomy ^  chap,  xx.,  The  Date  of  the  Temple, 
pp.  204 — 207. 

'  Mahabharata  Vana  (Tiriha  Ydird)  Parva,  xcix.  p.  314. 

3  Westt  Bundahish,  ii.  7,  xiii.  12;  Darmesteter,  Zendavesia  Vendldad  Far- 
gardy  V.  18,  19;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  pp.  12,  44,  iv.  p.  54;  Mahabharata  Vana 
{Tirtlia-Ydtra)  Parva,  ccii. — ccix.  pp.  324 — 340;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Pre- 
historic Ttmes^  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.  p.  257. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  41 

C.     The  original  week  of  five  days. 

As  the  star  leaders  of  the  primitive  year  were  always 
setting  not  rising  stars,  the  weeks  measured   by  the   five 
fingers   of  the  ape  father  -  star  were  measured  by  nights 
and    not   by  days.     This    reckoning   by   nights  was    that 
used,  as  Tacitus  tells  us,  by  the  Germans ',  who,  he  says, 
counted   by  nights,  and   this   ancient   custom   survives   in 
our  term  of  sennight,  or  seven  nights,  meaning   a  week. 
The  five-days  week  is  that  still    used    by  the    Shans  of 
Burmah,  the  men  ^of  the  mother  country  of  the  Mundas. 
It  is   also    that    of  Zend   chronology,  which    divides  the 
month  into  two  periods,  each  of  fourteen  and  a  half  days, 
allotting  the  fifteenth  night  to  the  first  half  of  the  month 
and  the  day  to  the  last,  so  that   the  first    half  contains 
fifteen  nights,  and  the  second  fifteen  days,  and  the  whole- 
month  twenty-nine    nights    and   days.     The   divisions   of 
the  first  half  of  the  month,  that  of  the  waxing  moon,  arc 
called  the  Panchak  Fartum,  the  new-moon  week,  Panchak 
Datigar,  the   week   of    the  growing   moon,   and   Panchak 
Sitigar,  the  full-moon  week  2.     This   month    of   five-night 
weeks  is  also  that  of  the  Hindu   Karanas  of  twenty-nine 
days  divided  into  two  periods  of  fourteen  days  each,  with  a 
fifteenth  day  and  night  called  the  Purnoma  Panchayi,  the 
completed  five  \panch)  in  the  centre  apportioned  to  both 
periods.     It  is  the  exact  parallel  of  the  Zend   month,  as 
its  light  half   contains   fifteen   nights,  and    its   dark   half 
fifteen  days  3. 

This  week  gave  to  the  earlier  cultivating  races  of  North 
India,  called  in  the  Mahabharata  and  Rigveda  the  Srin- 
!  jayas,  or  men  of  the  sickle  {srini)^  their  other  name  of 
j  the  Panchalas,  or  men  of  the  five  {panch)  claws  or  fingers 
i  [<^as\  and  the  memory  of  the  sacred  five  days  survives 
in  the  Panchayats  or  councils  of  five  elders,  who  still  retain 

'  Tacitus,  Germania,  ii.  2. 

'  Daurmcsteter,  Zendavesta  Mah  Yasht^  4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  90,  note  $. 

^  Sachau,  Alberuni's //idfiij,  chap.  Ixxviii.  vol.  ii.  p.  197. 


4^  History  and  Chronology 

their  primitive  function  of  rulers  of  the  village,  its  members 
being  the  village  head-man  and  his  four  assistants.  This 
week  is  also  that  of  the  Scandinavians,  called  by  them 
the  Fimt.  This  five-days  week  also  survives  in  the  five 
Agnis  or  parent  fire-germs,  of  which  the  names  are  recorded 
in  the  Zendavesta  and  Atharva-veda.  The  list  of  these  fires 
as  given  in  the  Gathas,  with  their  Sanskrit  equivalents, 
is  as  follows :  I.  The  Berezi  Savangha,  the  eastern  [sa- 
vangha)  fire  in  stones,  the  Sanskrit  Ashmas  or  Ashman, 
a  stone,  the  meteoric  stone  used  to  light  the  national 
fires  of  the  North.  It  was  believed  that  this  stone  brought 
from  heaven  the  spark  which  in  the  firmament  appeared 
as  the  lightning  in  the  clouds,  causing  them  to  give  up 
their  rain ;  hence  the  fire  is  called  Berezi,  or  the  fire  of 
rain  (dares)  magically  produced  by  the  rain  -  wand,  the 
Baresma.  II.  The  Vohu  Fryano,  Sanskrit  Jathara,  the 
womb  fire  creator  of  animal  life.  The  Zend  Vohu  is 
the  equivalent  of  the  Sanskrit  Vasu,  the  creator,  and  Fry- 
ano of  Viru-ano,  the  god  of  the  Viru  or  generator  of  animal 
life,  the  Norse  Frio,  the  seed.  III.  The  Ur-vazista,  in 
Sanskrit  Aushadha^the  fire  in  medicinal  plants,  the  healing 
and  most  creating  (vasu)  fire.  IV,  The  Vazista,  the  fire 
in  the  waters  of  the  earth,  called  both  in  Zend  and  Sanskrit, 
Apam  Napat,  the  son  of  the  waters.  This  is  the  Sanskrit 
god  and  Rishi  Vashishtha  said  in  the  Rigveda  to  be  the  son 
of  the  twin  supreme  gods  Mitra-Varanau  "  as  a  drop  spilt 
by  heavenly  favour  and  received  in  the  folds  of  a  lotus 
blossom"'  sacred  to  the  water-god.  Thus  it  was  the  fire 
brought  from  heaven  to  earth  by  Varuna,  whom  we  have 
seen  to  be  the  rain-god  of  the  North.  He  was  its  joint 
parent  with  Mitra,  the  friend,  originally  the  Pole  Star 
mother.  This  was  the  fire  called  in  Zend  Spenishta,  the 
most  bountiful.  V.  Naryo  Sangha,  Sanskrit  Naroshaipsa, 
praised  of  men,  the  Ydzad  of  royal  lineage.  It  was  ori- 
nally,  according  to  Rg.  x.  6i,  called  Vastospati,  the  lord 

«  Rg.  vii.  33,  u. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  '    43 

{pati)  of  the  house  (vastos),  the  household  fire  on  the  central 
hearth  of  the  house,  bom  from  the  union  of  Prajapati  (Orion) 
(who,  as  we  shall  see,  succeeded  Canopus  as  leader  of  the 
stars)  with  Rohini,  the  star  Aldebaran,  the  Queen  of  the 
Pleiades  K  This  became  the  fire  called  Nabhanedishtha, 
nearest  to  the  navel  (jndbha)^  the  central  fire  on  the  first  earth 
altar,  made,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  form  of  a  woman.  It 
was  in  the  popular  belief  born  from  lightning  clouds. 
These  fires  are  in  Atharva-veda  iii.  21,  i,  called:  I.  Those 
of  the  Earth  (IV.)  ;  II.  The  Clouds  (V.)  ;  III.  The  Man 
(11.) ;  IV.  Stones  (I.)  ;  V.  Plants  (III.) ». 

We  find  also  a  survival  of  the  five -days  week  in  the 
five  supreme  mothers  of  the  Annamese  cult  of  the  pri- 
mitive belief  represented  by  the  village  priestesses  called 
Ba-dong,  or  those  inspired  by  the  three  mother-goddesses 
Bi-Dfic-chua,  whose  wooden  images  represent  the  one 
trce-mother-goddess  in  the  form  of  the  three  seasons  of 
the  year,  described  in  Chapter  III.  The  five  goddess 
ministrants  are  all  variant  forms  of  one  original  Ba-chua, 
and  the  whole  cult  is  based  on  the  still  surviving  belief 
in  the  mother  goddess  of  the  ocean  abyss  Bahu.  Their 
names  are : — 

1.  Thay  Tinh  C5ng  Chua,  or  the  star  of  the  waters. 
That  of  the  star  mother  ship  Argo. 

2.  Quinh-Hoa  C5ng  Chiia,  or  the  Hortensia  flower. 

3.  Qu6  Hoa,  or  the  Cinnamon  flower. 

4.  Bach  Hoa,  or  the  White  flower. 

5.  Hoang  Hoa,  or  the  Yellow  flower. 

Thus  while  the  first  manifestation  of  the  great  mother- 
goddess  tells  of  her  as  the  Southern  mother-star,  the  last 
four  represent  her  as  the  seed-bearing  flower  of  the  tree 

Haog,  Aiidreya  Brdkmana^  III.  33  ;   Eggcling,  Sai^  Brdh,^  ii.  I,  2,  8,  9 ; 
S.B.£.,Tol.  xii.  p.  284,  note  I. 

^  Mill,  Zendavesta^  {>art  ill. ;  Yasira,  xvii. ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxi.  p.  258;  Max 
Mttller,  Coniribuiians  to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  toL  ii.  p.  785. 


1 


44  History  and  Chronology 

of  life  grown  from  her  ocean  abyss '.  That  this  belief  in  the 
tree-mother  goddess  of  the  Pleiades  year,  and  the  five  days 
of  Its  week,  is  a  survival  of  the  original  theology  of  the 
Dravidian  founders  of  villages,  is  rendered  still  more  cer- 
tain by  the  fact  that  it  is  stated  in  a  Siamese  manuscript 
i^iving  an  account  of  the  astronomy  of  the  country,  and 
brought  to  Europe  by  M.  de  la  Loubfere,  the  Ambassador  to 
Siam  from  Louis  XIV.  of  France,  in  1687,  that  the  civil 
year  of  Siam.  began  with  the  Hindu  month  Khartik  (Octo- 
ber— November),  the  month  of  the  Pleiades  2. 

Throughout  this  account  of  the  two  primitive  years  of  two 
seasons  each  I  have  spoken  of  these  as  being  six  months  in 
duration,  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  this  was  not  a  de- 
scription intelligible  to  the  primitive  man.  Their  first  idea 
of  time  measurement  was  to  divide  the  year  into  two  parts, 
the  productive  and  unproductive  seasons,  and  the  length 
of  these  seasons,  of  which  the  beginnings  were  marked  by 
the  setting  of  the  Pleiades  after  or  before  the  sun,  and 
by  the  positions  of  the  solstitial  sun  at  mid-winter  and  mid- 
summer was  measured  only  by  the  five-day  weeks.  These 
numbered  72  in  the  year  of  360  and  73  in  that  of  365  days, 
and  the  Egyptian  year  story,  which  tells  how  Osiris  the 
}'ear  god  was  slain  by  Set  and  72  assistants,  seems  to  show 
that  the  reckoning  of  73  weeks  forming  a  year  circle  of  365 
days  was  adopted  at  a  very  early  period.  Set  is  the  god 
ruling  the  Southern  sun  3,  that  is  to  say,  he  is  the  ruling  god 
of  a  year  beginning  at  the  winter  .solstice.  His  original 
name  was  Hapi,  the  Egyptian  form  of  the  Dravidian  Kapi, 
and  as  the  ape-god  he  was  the  ruler  of  the  Nile.  This 
year,  beginning  at  the  winter  solstice,  is  the  successor  of 
another  year,  when   the   sun-god  of  the  previous  year  is 

*  M.  G.  Dumoutier,  'Etudes  d'Ethnographie  Religeuse  Annamite  Le  Ba 
Dong.  Actes  du,*  Onzume  Congris  des  OrientalisUs  Section  d*Exirhnt  Orient^ 
pp.  297  ff. 

*  *  Notes  on  Hindu  Astronomy,'  by  J.  Burgess,  CLE.  Journal  Royal 
Asiatic  Society y  1893,  art.  xviii.  p.  723. 

3  Brugsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alten  ^gypter^  p.  451. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  45 

killed   at  the  time  when  his  successor   begins   his  reign. 

The  sun-god  thus  slain  in  this  story  was  Osiris,  whose  year's 

rule  ended  at  the  close  of  his  73  weeks.     His  body  was  then 

put  into  a  coffin  and  thrown  into  the  Nile.     Isis  set  out 

to  search  for  it,  and  at  length  she  found  the  coffin  enclosed 

in  a  pillar  of  the  palace  of  the  King  of  Byblos  or  Gi-bal, 

the  modem  Ji-bail,  a  Phoenician  city  near  Beyrut  dedicated 

to  the  Akkadian   fire-god  Gi-bil.     This  pillar  was   made 

of  an  erica  tree  which  had  grown  round   the  coffin.     She 

took  the  coffin  and  its  contents,  the  tree-trunk  into  which 

the  dead  sun-god  had  entered  as  the  vital  sap  whence  the 

seed  of  life  was  to  be  born,  to  Egypt,  but  left  it  to  seek 

Horus.     Then  Set  and  his  assistants  broke  open  the  coffin 

and    cut   up   the   body   into    14  pieces,   representing    the 

measurement    of  time   by  lunar  phases.      On   examining 

the  facts  it  is  clear  that  the  age  indicated  in  this  ancient 

astronomical  tale  is  most  remote,  and  that  it  represents  the 

changes  in  the  year  reckoning  which  took  place  when  the 

old  Pleiades  and  solstitial  years  of  weeks  of  five  days  each 

were  superseded  by  one  which  measured   by  lunar  phases 

the  year  ruled  by  Horus  the  son  of  the  Pole  Star  goddess ; 

and  it  probably  represented  the  supersession  of  the  year 

of  three  seasons  described  in  Chapter  III.  by  that  of  the 

three  years  cycle  of  Chapter  V. 

The  recollection  of  the  early  division  of  the  year  into 
72  weeks  survived  in  other  ancient  theologies  besides  that 
of  Egypt.  Thus  it  is  perpetuated  in  the  sacred  girdle  or 
kusti  worn  by  all  Parsi  fire  worshippers  of  both  sexes. 
This  girdle,  with  which  every  young  man  and  woman  is 
invested  when  they  are  fifteen,  is  made  to  commemorate 
and  impress  on  the  wearer's  mind,  after  the  fashion  of 
ancient  instructors,  the  calculation  of  the  year  and  its 
component  parts.  It  is  formed  of  six  strands,  indicating 
the  six  seasons  of  the  orthodox  Zend  year,  and  each  of 
them  is  made  of  12  threads,  or  72  in  all,  the  number  of  five- 
day  weeks  in  the  Parsi  year  of  360  days^.     This  sacred 

'  For  further  information  on  this  subject  and  for  the  proof  that  the  girdle 


46 


History  and  Chronology 


number  72  survived  also  in  the  magic  square  of  16  squares 
each  marked  with  one  of  the  numbers  from  i  to  8  and 
28  to  35.  These  two  series  of  eight  numbers  are  arranged 
in  the  square  as  follows  : — 


aS 
6 

34 
4 

35 
3 

S 

2 

32 
8 

30 

7 

31 
1 

33 

and  by  this  arrangement  the  numbers  in  every  row  of  four 
squares,  either  horizontal,  vertical,  or  diagonal,  make  up, 
when  added  together,  72.  This  square  has  from  time  imme- 
morial been  looked  on  as  most  holy  by  all  dealers  in  witch- 
craft, who  believe  it  to  be  a  protection  against  the  evil  eye. 
Other  instances  of  the  ancient  veneration  of  this  number  72 
are  shown  in  the  72  books  into  which  the  Zend  Yasna 
is  divided,  and  the  remote  descent  of  this  number  of  the 
sacred  weeks  of  the  sidereal  year  appears  in  the  division 
into  72  books  of  the  great  astronomical  work  of  the  Baby- 
lonian astronomers  called  the  Illuminations  of  Bel.  It 
was  written  for  the  library  of  Sargon  of  Akkad,  who  reigned 
3800  B.C.^ 

In  this  year  of  72  weeks  each  period  of  six  months 
contained  36  weeks,  and  this  became  the  number  most 
frequently  occurring  in  Hindu  ritual.  These  36  weeks  were 
called  by  the  Hindus  the  36  steps  of  Vishnu,  the  year  god 
of  the  people  of  the  village  ( VisK)^  and  these  appear  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  ground  consecrated  for  the  Soma  sacri- 


both  in  Hindu  and  Zend  ritual  represented  the  year  looked  upon  as  orthodox 
when  each  girdle  pattern  was  prescribed,  see  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Pre- 
historic Times^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iv.  pp.  402 — ^410,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
in  reading  these  remarks  that  I  had  not  when  I  wrote  the  Essay  I  refer  to 
realised  the  great  historical  importance  of  the  five-days  week. 
'  Sayce,  Babylonians  and  Assyrians^  chaps,  i.  and  iii.  pp.  5,  6a 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  47 

fice  which  is  said  to  represent  the  whole  earth'.  The 
priest  in  measuring  it  is  directed  to  make  it  36  steps  long 
from  West  to  East  ^,  and  in  this  direction  we  see  that  these 
36  steps  or  weeks  of  the  year  god  mark  one  half  of  the 
daily  or  yearly  journey  of  the  sun,  who  passes  from  West 
to  East  and  back  East  to  West  every  day  of  his  yearly  course, 
thus  completing  72  steps  in  the  day  and  year. 

D.  The  diffusion  through  the  world  of  the  five-days  week. 

Having  now  traced  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the  two 
national  years  of  the  sons  of  the  mother-tree  whose  mother 
stars  were  the  Pleiades,  and  of  the  Mundas  of  the  North-east 
who  measured  their  year  by  the  flight  of  the  sun-bird  round 
the  Pole,  and  also  of  the  five-days  weeks  by  which  they 
reckoned  its  duration ;  and  having  further  shown  the  wide 
diffusion  of  this  primitive  measure  of  time,  I  must  now 
proceed  to  show  that  it  is  on  these  two  years  that  all 
national  reckonings  of  annual  time  in  India,  South-western 
Asia  and  Europe  are  based,  and  that  the  conservative  Indian 
emigrants  who  cherished  their  national  customs  as  their 
most  precious  possessions  took  these  years  with  them  on 
their  change  of  abode,  as  well  as  the  distinctive  institutions 
of  matriarchal  village  government  which  I  have  described 
in  Chapter  I.  These  characteristic  marks  were  the  central 
village  grove,  the  communal  division  of  land,  the  seasonal 
dances  and  common  meals,  the  marriage  unions  between 
villages  instead  of  between  individuals,  and  the  careful 
education  of  the  young,  whose  oral  teaching  was  in  the 
form  of  tales  taught  to  them  by  the  village  elders  and 
committed  to  memory  as  the  most  binding  links  between 
the  present  and  the  past. 

The  first  western  land  after  the  valley  of  the  Indus 
reached  by  the  early  emigrants  from  India  who  were 
seeking   new   sites   for  cultivation   was  the  shores  of  the 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh.^  iii.  7,  2,  i ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  175. 
'  Ibid.,  iii.  5,  I,  4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  112. 


48  History  and  Chronology 

Persian  Gulf,  and  the  Delta  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris. 
It  was  here  that  they  landed  from  their  ships  guided  by 
Canopus,  the  Pilot  of  the  mother-ship  Argo,  as  "  the  black- 
headed  sons  of  la,"  born  of  the  Southern  Ocean  mother- 
tree,  and  founded  in  this  new  land-settled  government  and 
well-tilled  communal  villages.  They  were  a  people  ad- 
dicted to  the  study  of  astronomy,  who  measured  their  year 
by  observing  the  setting  and  rising  of  the  stars,  and  the 
changes  in  position  of  the  stars  and  sun.  They  became  the 
Sumerians  or  dwellers  in  the  low-lying  lands  of  the  Euphra- 
tean  Delta,  the  land  pf  Shinar,  Genesis  x.  10  ^  They  built 
there  the  first  city  of  which  the  foundation  is  recorded,  of  the 
city  of  Erech,  called  originally  Unuk,  meaning  the  "  place  , 
of  settlement,*'  the  Enoch  of  Genesis,  iv.  172.  Its  seaport 
was  Eridu  or  Eriduga,  the  holy  {dugd)  city,  and  it  was  i 
in  its  sacred  grove  that  the  year-god  Dumu-zi  was  born.  ! 
They  became  afterwards  known  as  the  Kalda  or  Chaldaeans,  1 
the  dwellers  in  the  marshes  of  the  Euphratean  Delta,  who, 
according  to  local  tradition,  ruled  the  country  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  studded  it  with  towns.  Berosus,  who  was 
priest  of  Bel,  and  who  based  his  history  of  Babylon  on  the 
most  ancient  cuniform  records,  states  that  the  first  Babylonian 
dynasty  after  the  primaeval  deluge,  a  reminiscence  of  the 
southern  waste  of  waters,  was  one  of  86  Chaldaean  kings 
who  reigned  34,080  years  3.  The  modern  representativ.es 
of  these  first  settlers  in  the  Euphrates  valley  are  the 
Sabaeans,  or  Mandaites,  the  sons  'of  the  word  of  God 
[Manda\  the  trading  population  of  Babylonia  and  Mesopo- 
tamia, who  begin  their  lunar  zodiac  with  which  they 
measure  their  months  and  years  with  the  Parwe,  the  con- 
ceiving {par)  mothers  the  Pleiades  4.  They  worship  the 
Pole  Star  as  the  visible  sign  of  the  one  father -god, 
and   I  have  given  elsewhere  a  full  abstract  of  the  ritual 

•  Lenormant,  Chaldaan  Magic ^  Appendix,  pp.  393 — 397. 
'  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  p.  185. 

3  Ibid.,  *  Babylonia,'  Encyc.  Brit..,  vol.  iii.  p.  184. 

*  Sachau,  Alberuni's  Chronology  of  Ancient  Nations^  chap.  xi.  p.  227. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  49 

of  their  celebration   of  his  worship  on  their  New  Year's 
Day  at  the  autumnal  equinox  <.     But  this  was  not  the  date 
of  their  original  New  Year's  Day,  for  Alberuni  tells  us  that 
they  used  to  celebrate  the  Feast  of  Tents  or  Booths,  with 
which  all  people  in  South-western  Asia  used  to  begin  their 
year,  from  the  4th  to  the  i8th  of  Hilal  Tishrln  II.  (October — 
November)  *.    It  was  then  that  they  worshipped  the  goddess 
Tarsa,  whom    Alberuni  calls  Venus.     That  is  to  say,  she 
was  the  Southern  mother-tree-god  and  goddess,  the  Sanskrit 
Vena  invoked  with    Rama  3,  whose  name  comes  from  the 
root  van,  meaning  a  tree,  and  who  is  thus  identical  with 
Vanaspati,  the  lord  {pati)  of  the  wood  {yanas\  the  central 
tree  of  the  village  grove,  the  god  addressed  in  stanza   10 
of  the  AprI  hymns  addressed  to  the  national  gods,  as  the 
mother  of  life,  the  mother-tree  crowned  with  the  Pole  Star  4. 
It  was  during  this  New  Year's  Feast  that  they  dwelt  in 
booths  made  of  tree  boughs,  to  commemorate  their  ancient 
origin   as  the   forest   children  of  the  village  grove.     Hilal 
Ayyar  (April — May),  the  mid-month  of  the  Pleiades  year, 
was  also  a  great  festival  month  among  these  people.     In 
it  from  the  7th  to  the  loth  they  celebrated  the  festival  of 
the  blind  god  Dahdak,  the  blind  gnomon   May  Pole  who 
had   once   been   the  Azi  Dahaka,   or  biting  snake   of  the 
Zendavesta,  the  snake  guarding    the   world's   tree   in   the 
waters  of  the  mother  Bahu,  who  is  the  unseen  and  there- 
fore blind  Pole  Star  of  the  South,  the  ruler  of  the  southern 
regions,  as  the  Pole  Star  of  the  North  with  the  seeing  eye 
rules  the   north.     He,   as  the   tree  measurer  of  the  year, 
afterwards  became  the  Azi  Dahaka  slain  by  Thraetaona, 
the  three-headed  six-eyed  god,  of  the  age  of  the  year  of 
three  seasons,  described  in  Chapter  III.     It  is  in  this  month 
that   Barkhushya,   the  lightning-god,   is   worshipped.      He, 
the  god  of  the  summer  lightning,  is  another  form  of  the 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.  pp.  156 — 165. 
-  Sacbau,  Alberuni's  Chronology  of  Ancient  Nations^  chap,  xviii.  p.  316. 

^  Kg.  iii.  4,  10,  V.  5,  10,  vii.  2,  10. 

E 


50  History  and  Chronology 

god  Azaf,  the  son  of  Barkhya,  who  was  Wazir  to  Solomon 
the  Akkadian  Salli-mannu,  the  fish-sun-god.  It  was  he 
who  arrested  and  confined  in  chains  Sakhr,  who  had 
stolen  the  year  ring  of  Salli-mannu,  that  is  to  say, 
had  made  himself  the  ruler  of  the  first  six  months  of 
the  year,  from  the  winter  to  the  summer  solstice,  when 
the  conquering  sun -god  resumed  the  throne  he  had 
abandoned  during  the  winter  season '.  This  Sakhr  is 
the  Akkadian  ram-god  Sakh  or  Sukh,  the  mother  of  the 
sun -god  called  Suk-us^,  the  Akkadian  for  I  star,  the 
mother  of  Dumu-zi,  who  was  born  from  the  mother-tree 
at  the  winter  solstice.  The  annual  victory  of  the  summer 
sun  is  in  the  reckoning  of  the  Pleiades  year  represented 
by  the  return  to  the  upper  world  of  the  May  Queen, 
who  has  been  buried  in  the  under-world  abyss  of  the 
Southern  sun  during  the  winter  months. 

These  Sabaeans  were  not  in  ancient  times  as  they  are 
now,  merely  the  artisans  and  traders  of  the  Euphrates 
valley.  They  were  formerly  the  rulers  of  Southern  Arabia 
called  Seba',  and  their  capital  was  the  great  city  of  Mareb, 
celebrated  for  its  irrigation  works  and  its  vast  water  reservoir. 
Its  destruction  is  spoken  of  in  the  Koran  as  a  great  national 
calamity  3,  They  are  the  people  called  in  Gen.  x.  7,  Sheba, 
the  sons  of  Raamah  or  Raghma,  the  Indian  god,  father 
of  Rama,  called  in  the  Mahabharata  Raghu,  the  name 
by  which  he  is  still  worshipped  in  Kumaon.  He  is  the 
Northern  sun-god  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  when  the  sun  was 
looked  on  as  a  day  star  circling  the  Pole.  These  sons  of 
Raamah  were  the  leaders  of  the  great  national  confederacy 
of  the  sons  of  Kush,  sprung  from  Rama,  whose  mother 
in  Hindu  historical  genealogy  is  called  Kush-aloya,  the 
house  {aloyd)  or  mother  of  the  Kushites.     They  are  cele- 

*  Burton,  Arabian  Nig/its,  *  The  Tale  of  the  Fisherman  and  the  Jinni,'  vol.  i. 
p.  38,  note  6. 

^  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar ,  Syllabary  Signs,  lOO,  loi. 

^  Palmer,  Qur'an,  The  Chapter  of  Seba,  xxxiv.    10;   S.B.E.,  vol.  ix.  pp. 


! 


of  the  Myth'Makinf^  Age.  51 

brated   by    Isaiah,   Jeremiah,   and   Ezekial    as   the  richest 

traders  in  the  East ',  and  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  speak 

of  them   as   paying  tribute  in  gold,  silver,  and   incense  to 

Tiglath   Pilesor  II.  and  Sargon,  B.C.  733 — 715,  after  they 

had  been  conquered  by  the  Assyrians.     The   ruling   tribe 

in  the    Sabxan   confederacy  were   the   Banu   Kahtan,  the 

Arabic  form  of  the  Hebrew  Joktan,   whose   thirteen    sons 

named  in  Gen.  x.  26 — 30,  are  geographical  names  indicating 

the  territories  ruled  by  these  early  Kushite  kings,  which 

extended  froni  Arabia  to  the  Mountain  of  the  East.    This 

is  the  parent  mountain  called  by  the  Akkadians  Khar-Sak- 

Kurra,  the  mountain  of  the  ox  {k/iar),  of  the  rain  {sak)^ 

in  the  East  (kurra)^.     This  was  the  spur  of  the  Himalayas, 

whence   the   Haetumant,  the    modern    Helmund,    rose    to 

descend   to  the  lake  of  Kashava  or  Zarah,  where  Kavad, 

the  first  of  the  Kushika  kings,  was  found  as  a  babe  in  the 

reeds  by  the  goat-god  Uzavas,  the  Phoenician  Uzof,  called 

Tumaspa,  the  horse  of  darkness.     Thus  the  territory  ruled 

by  the  Sabaean  Kushika  extended   from  the  home  of  the 

Kushites  on  the  East  to  the  land  of  the  Arabian  Saba  or 

Sheba,  a  son  of  Joktan.     Another  son  is  Dedan,  which  is 

shown  by  Gesenius  to  represent  the  islands  in  the  Persian 

Gulf,  whence,  according  to  Ezckiel  xxvii.  20,  15,  the  Syrian 

merchants  imported  "precious  cloths   for   riding,"  that  is, 

Persian  saddle-bags  and  carpets,  and  also  "horns  of  ivory 

and  ebony,"  the  tusks  of  Indian  elephants  and  the  wood 

of  the  Indian  Tendoo  or  Ebony-tree  {Diospyros  inelafioxulon)^ 

whence  the   carved   black    furniture   of    Bombay   and   the 

Malabar   coast   is   made.      Sheba   and    Dedan  arc   also   in 

another  account  of  their  genealogy   the   sons   of  Jokshan, 

who  was   the   son  of  Abram's   wife  Keturah,  who,   as   we 

'  K  Ix.  6  ;  Jer.  vi.  20  ;  Ezekiel  xxvii.  22. 

'  Unormant,  ChaldUran  Ataou,  pp.  308,  169  ;  Hewitt,  Rnlitu;  Races  oj 
Prehistoric  7)'m£S,  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.  pp.  142 — 145.  This  was  the  Zend  parent 
■^^Sar-saok  ;  West,  Bundahish^  xv.  27,  xvii.  4;  vS.B.E.,  vol.  v.  pp.  58,  62. 

*  West,  Bundahish^  xxxi.  23 ;  Darmesteter,  Zcudavcsta  Fati'an/in  Vas/i/, 
'31 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  V.  p.  136,  xxiii.  p.  221. 


52  History  and  Chronology 

are  told,  lived  in  the  East '.  The  name  Keturah  is  derived, 
according  to  Gesenius,  from  the  root  katar,  to  enclose, 
hence  it  is  an  exact  translation  of  the  Indian  Vritra,  the 
enclosing  snake ;  and  the  name  also  means  incense,  which 
was  originally  an  Indian  product  yielded,  as  it  still  is,  by 
the  Indian  incense-tree,  the  Salai  {Boswellia  thuriferd)^  which 
grows  on  every  rocky  hill  in  Central  India,  where  nothing 
else  will  flourish.  Therefore  the  children  of  Abram,  the 
father  Ram  and  the  enclosing  snake  are  clearly  an  Indian- 
born  race,  a  conclusion  further  confirmed  by  the  inclusion 
of  Havilah  and  Ophir  among  the  sons  of  Joktan.  The 
land  of  Havilah  is  said  in  Gen.  ii.  ii,  to  be  that  watered 
by  the  Pishon  or  river  of  irrigating  channels,  the  river  Indus, 
and  Ophir  is  the  land  whence  Solomon  brought  apes,  ivory, 
peacocks,  and  almug  or  sandal  wood  3,  all  called  in  the 
Hebrew  narrative  by  names  shown  by  Gesenius  to  be  of 
Indian -Dravidian  origin.  It  was  the^e  people  who  took 
with  them  from  India  to  the  Persian  Gulf  their  god  Rama, 
who  became  the  Babylonian  storm-god  Ram-anu,  the  Rama 
Hvashtra  of  the  Zendavesta,  to  whom  the  Ram  Yasht  is 
dedicated,  and  the  god  worshipped  at  Damascus  as  Hadad 
Rimmon,  called  by  Hesychios  Pa/ui?  o  vyfriarros  ffeos,  the 
supreme  god  Ram. 

These  Indian  Sabaean  sons  of  Rama  were  the  great 
traders  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  who  took  with  them  for  ex- 
portation to  foreign  lands  Indian  gold  and  silver,  as  well 
as  spices  and  incense.  It  is  from  this  last  industry  that 
they  acquired  the  name  of  Atjub,  or  men  of  incense  (//^), 
and  this  was  the  name  which,  according  to  Dr.  Glaser, 
became  the  Greek  ^Ethiops  or  the  Ethiopian  3.  This  trade 
in  incense,  which  was  originally  exclusively  Indian, 
was  transferred  by  these  Turano-Dravidian  Kushite  mer- 
chants to  Arabia,  when  they  finally  settled  there  and 
extracted  incense  from  the  Boswellia  Carteria,  an  indigenous 

*  Gen.  XXV.  i.  =  i  Kings  x.  ii,  22,  23  ;  2  Chron.  ix.  21.  ! 

3  Gla<;er,  Die  Ab^'ssinicr  in  Arabien  und  Africa^  P-  27.  ^ 


of  tlu  Myth-Making  Age.  5  3 

Arabian   tree   allied    to    the    Indian   Salai,   the   BoswelHa 
thurifera. 

From  Arabia  they  passed  to  Abyssinia,  whose  kings  of 
Kushite  descent  called  themselves  the  kings  of  El-Habasat, 
that  is  of  the  country  of  the  Hbsti,  the  collectors  of  incense 
and  aromatic  spices'.  It  was  by  way  of  Abyssinia  that 
they  passed  into  Egypt  when  they  established  the  rule  of 
the  Egyptian  Kushite  kings,  whose  kingly  dignity  was 
marked  by  the  sign  of  the  Uroeus  snake  depicted  on  their 
foreheads ;  and  this  was  the  signal  also  painted  on  the  fore- 
heads of  their  parents  in  India,  the  Naga  or  Kushika  kings, 
known  as  the  Nagbunsi  or  sons  {bunsi)  of  the  Naga  snake. 

The  ruling  tribe  among  the  Banu  Kahtan,  or  sons  of 
Joktan,  were  the  Ya-arubah «,  who  traced  their  descent  to 
a  female  demons,  that  is  to  say  to  the  goddess  of  the 
Southern  abyss  of  water  Ba-hu,  the  mother  of  all  living 
things,  called  also  by  the  Akkadians  Nin-lil,  the  lady  {nin) 
of  the  South-west  world  of  ghosts  or  dust  (///),  the  ocean 
abyss  where  the  South-west  monsoon  comes.  She  was  the 
Assyrian  goddess  Allat,  the  unwearied  one  who  rules  over 
the  subterranean  world  of  the  dead,  the  goddess  called  by 
Herodotus  III.  8,  Alilat,  the  chief  goddess  of  the  Arabians, 
the  goddess  called  Tursa  in  Alberunl's  account  of  the 
Sabaean  year,  the  goddess  of  the  Pleiades,  called  by  the 
Arabians  Tur-ayya4. 

This  mother -goddess  of  the  Pleiades  year  ruled  that 
of  the  primitive  Arabians  as  well  as  that  of  the  later 
Sabaean  merchant  princes.  The  celebration  of  the  com- 
mencement of  this  early  year  is  recorded  by  Alberunl  in 
his  account  of  the  great  annual  fairs  held  in  Hadhramaut 
and  El  Nejd,   the   Southern   and    Northern   provinces  of 

'  Glaaer,  Die  Abyss inUr  in  Arabien  und  Africa,  P-  *7» 

*  Burton,   Arabian  Nights,    *The  Story  of  Gharib  and  his  brother  Ajib,* 
▼ol.  V.  p.  166. 

'  Rolxirtson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Sentites,  Lect.  ii.  p.  50. 

*  Tide,  Outlines  cf  the  History  of  the  Ancient  Keligions :  Primitive  Arabian 
Religion,  p.  63. 


54  History  and  Chronology 

the  ancient  Sabaean  kingdom,  divided  from  each  other 
by  the  Arabian  desert.  The  New  Year's  Fair  of  the  year 
of  the  Turayya  or  Pleiades  began  on  the  14th  of  DhO- 
alka'da  (October  —  November),  that  is  on  the  ist  of 
November,  and  lasted  for  the  rest  of  the  month,  during 
which  time  universal  peace  was  observed  ^.  It  was  the 
annual  New  Year's  gathering  of  all  the  principal  Arabian 
tribes.  This  fair  festival  is  still  kept  by  the  Bedouin 
descendants  of  the  ancient  Himyarites,  who  resort  yearly 
in  November  to  the  fair  held  at  the  tomb  of  their  ancestral 
parent  Salah,  the  Shelah  of  Gen.  x.  24,  and  the  giant  father 
of  Eber.  It  was  their  children  who  peopled  the  Hadhra- 
maut,  the  Himyarite  land  of  Southern  Arabia,  the  name 
Hadhramaut  being  a  form  of  the  Hebrew  Hazarmaveth, 
which  is  named  as  a  province  of  the  Sabaean  kingdom 
in  the  Genesis  list  of  the  thirteen  sons  of  Joktan  ^,  The 
month  DhO-alka'da  is  called  Zu-1-ka'da  in  the  Arabian 
Nights  historical  tale  of  Kamar-al-Zaman,  the  moon  of 
the  age,  and  Badur  the  full  moon.  It  was  on  Friday, 
the  fifth  of  this  month,  that  is  at  the  end  of  the  first 
five-days  week  of  the  year,  that  the  crescent  and  full  moon 
were  united  3,  and  this  shows  that  the  original  year  of  the 
Arabian  Sabaeans  coincided  with  that  of  the  same  people 
on  the  Euphrates,  for  each  of  these  months  begins  with  the 
new  moon  Hi-lal. 

Hence  it  is  completely  proved  by  the  Sabaean  and 
Arabian  measurements  of  time  that  the  first  month  of  the 
year  throughout  South-western  Asia  was  the  Pleiades 
month  of  October — November,  and  that  it  began  with  a  great 
annual  fair  gathering  of  the  people  of  each  township  or 
province  in  booths  made  of  tree  branches  to  commemorate 
their  original  descent  from  the  central  village  grove.  It 
must  also  be  remembered  that  this  original  year  festival 

*  Sachau,  Alberunl's  Chronology  of  AncUnt  Nations ^  chap.  xx.  p.  332. 
"  Bent,  Southern  Arabia^  chap.  xi.  pp.  130 — 134. 

3  Burton,  Arabian  Nights^  *Tale  of  Kumar-al-Zaman  and  Badur,'  vol.  iii. 
P   36. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Agi.  55 

was  instituted  when  time  was  measured  not  by  months  but 

by  five-day  weeks,  as  in  the  story  of  the  Kamar-al-Zaman 

and  Badur.       This  was   before   the   age  of  the  Arab  and 

Indian  measurements  of  time  by  the  lunar  zodiac  of  twenty- 

bcven  stars,  which  will  form  the  subject  of  Chapter  V.     The 

Arabic    name   of  this    month  beginning  with   Dhu  or  Zu 

shows  it  to  be  derived  from  the  Akkadian  Zu  bird,  the  bird 

of  wisdom  who  **  stole  the  tablets  of  Mul-lil,"  the  lord  of  the 

dust  (///),  the  wind  god  ^  and  became  the  ruler  of  the  year, 

who  developed  in  Egyptian  mythology  into  the  Egypt  god 

Dhu-ti,  the  bird  of  life  (//),  whom  we  call  Thoth,  and  who 

carried  the  recording  feather  in  her  hand.     The  name  Dhu 

or  Zu  is   a  form  of  Khu,  which  is  also  the  name  of  the 

Akkadian  and  Egyptian  water-cloud  bird  which  brings  up 

the    south-west    monsoon.      This    name    Khu    became    in 

Southern  India  "shu,"  as  the  Greek  8e/ca,  ten,  became  the 

Sanskrit  dashan.     It  was  the  sons  of  this  bird  called  Shu, 

Su,  or  Sau,  who  were  the  western  trading   race   of  India, 

who  measure  time  by  the  Pleiades  year,  and  are  still  called 

Sau-kars,  or  men  who   do   the  business  {kar)  of  the   Sao. 

They  became  the  rulers  of  the  coastland  of  Guzcrat,  called 

in  Sanskrit  Sau-rashtra,  or  the   kingdom    [rdshtrd)  of  the 

Saus,  and  of  the  delta  of  the  Indus,  where  they  were  called 

the  Su-varna,  or  men  of  the   tribe  (varna)  of  the  Su  race, 

who  founded  the  Greek  port  of  Patala  on  the  site  of  what 

is  now  the  Sind  city  of  Hyderabad.     It  is  about  115  miles 

from   the    sea,   and   the  time    when    it   was   the    exporting 

seaport  of  the  Indus  valley,  as   measured   by  the  present 

rate  of  river  deposits,  may  be  placed  about  9000  years  ago, 

or  about   7000  B.C.^      Thus    in   the  years  before  that  date 

it  was  the  rival  of  Eridu,  the  port  on  the  Euphrates,  which 

is  now,  like  Patala,  far  from  the  sea,  but  it  was   formerly 

the  port  of  the  Sumerian  emigrants  and  traders  from  India 

to  the  Euphratean   Delta.     It  was  they  who  named  their 


»  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  18S7,  Lcct.  iv.  ]).  297. 
Ikwiu,  Kulinj;  Kaccs  of  rrehisiorjc  Times,  vol.  i.,  Kbsay  iii.  pp.  140.  I4» 


56  History  and  Chronology 

inland  capital,  now  called  Telloh  Gir  su,  or  the  lightning 
(^>)  bird,  and  Gir  is  apparently  the  root  of  the  Hindu  Giri, 
a  hill.  It  was  they  who  gave  its  name  of  Shushan,  or  the 
land  of  the  Shus,  to  the  province  to  the  east  of  the  Persian 
Gulf,  the  home  of  the  worshippers  of  the  great  god  Susi-nag, 
the  snake-parent  of  the  Shus  who  dwells  in  the  sacred  wood, 
the  village  grove',  and  whose  image  was  depicted  on  the 
Parthian  banners. 

The  Indian  emigrants  who  took  with  them  to  the  Persian 
Gulf,  Mesopotomia,  and  Arabia,  their  year  measured  by  the 
Pleiades  and  their  communal  villages  with  their  groves,  also 
took  with  them  their  seasonal  dances,  their  matriarchal 
customs  regulating  the  intercourse  between  the  sexes  and 
the  birth  of  the  village  children.  These  customs  survived 
in  the  dances  to  Istar  and  her  successor,  the  Babylonian 
goddess  Mylitta.  For  the  village  mothers  who  took  part 
in  these  dances  in  the  matriarchal  age  became  in  later 
times  "  the  consecrated  maidens  of  Istar,"  and  the  Kedesha 
or  temple  women  of  the  Jews  and  Egyptians  2.  Also  all 
Babylonian  wives  were  obliged  to  begin  their  marriage  by 
submitting  to  union  with  a  stranger  in  the  temple  of 
Mylitta. 

When  in  their  progress  up  the  Euphrates  they  reached 
Asia  Minor  the  dances  were  consecrated  to  the  worship 
of  Cybele,  meaning  the  cave.  She  was  the  Phrygian  moun- 
tain goddess,  whose  grove  was  that  of  the  village  placed 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  These  dances  became  in  course 
of  time  those  of  the  worship  of  Aphrodite,  Dionysus  and 
Venus.  The  village  grove  attached  to  every  village  in 
Syria  and  Asia  Minor  became  in  Greece  the  Temenos, 
the  Latin  Templum,  the  sacred  land  set  apart  for  the 
parent-god  of  the  village.     This  was  placed  on  the  Akro- 

'  Maspero,  Ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria^  chap.  xvii.  p.  316. 

•  Strabo,  xviii.  i,  p.  463,  says  that  the  Theban  priestesses  were  obliged 
to  be  Kedesha  till  they  married  ;  also  Herod.  ^  ii.  46,  tells  us  how  the  women 
who  served  in  the  temple  of  the  Mendesian  goat  used  to  prostitute  themselves. 
Movers,  Die  Phonizier^  i.  p.  42. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  5^ 

polls  or  Capitol,  the  mother  hill  in  the  centre  of  the  village 
or  township   area.     This  was   consecrated   to  the   Echis, 
snake-parent  of  the  Achaeans,  its  sons.     This   snake  was 
worshipped  in  Athens  as  the  snake  Erectheus  or  Ericthonius, 
which  lived  in  the  Erectheum,  and  on  whose  altar  no  living 
victim  was  allowed  to  be  offered,  only  cakes,  as  in  the  sacrifices 
of  the  southern  founders  of  villages  ^.    The  original  three  days 
feast  of  firstfruits  inaugurating  the  November  year  survived 
in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  in  the  festival  of  the  Thesmophoria. 
This,  according  to  Herodotus  ii.  171,  was  originally  a  Pelas- 
gian  festival  introduced  by  the  sons  of  Danaus,  the  Indian 
Danava,  and  he  says,  vi.  16,  that  it  was  held  in  a  cavern 
at  night   at   Ephesus,  one  of  the   cities   founded   by  the 
matriarchal  Amazons.     This  shows  that  it  was   a  festival 
of  the  southern  races  who,  as  the  Jews  still  do,  began  their 
day  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  when  the  equinoctial  sun 
and  the   Pleiades   set  together,  at   the  beginning   of  the 
Pleiades  year.     It  was  a  festival  in  which  only  the  women 
of  each  demos  or  village  took  part,  and  was  held  on  the 
nth,  I2th  and  13th  of  Puanepsion  (October — November), 
answering  to  the  24th,  25th  and  26th  of  October,  and  was 
accompanied  by  dances.     Also  during  its  continuance  the 
women  lodged  by  twos  in  tents  or  huts  made  of  branches 
within  the  precincts  of  the  Thesmophorium,  as  in  the  Feast 
of  Booths  in  South-western  Asia.     During  the  festival  pigs 
were  thrown  down  the  vaults  consecrated  to  the  serpents, 
and  this  sacrifice  was  apparently  a  duplicate  of  that  of  the 
pigs  offered  by  the  Dosadhs  of  Maghada  to  the  northern 
sun-god  Ra-hu.     It  was  a  northern  addition  to  the  southern 
ritual,  which  forbade  the  offering  of  any  living  victims,  and 
allowed   only  the   offering  of  the  firstfruits  of  the  earth. 
The  festival,  as  far  as  the  women  were  concerned,  was  care- 
fully divested  of  any  traces  of  solar  worship,  for  they  were 
forbidden   while   it   lasted  to   eat   pomegranates,  the   fruit 
especially  consecrated  to  the  sun-god,  and  from  which  the 

'  Fraxer,  Pausanias^  i.  26,  5  ;  vol.  i.  p.  38 ;  ii.  pp.  168,  169. 


58  History  and  Chronology 

god  Ram  of  Damascus  got  the  name  of  Hadad  Rimmon, 
the  hastening  pomegranate '. 

This  feast  was  followed  by  the  Chalkeia  held  on  the 
19th  Puanepsion,  the  ist  of  November.  This  was  dedicated 
to  Athene,  the  tree-mother,  and  to  Hephaistos,  the  Sanskrit 
Yavishtha  2,  tfie  most  binding  (yd)  god,  the  god  of  the  bar- 
ley (yavd)  bound  in  sheaves,  who  united  heaven  and  earth 
as  the  male  form  of  generation  which  kindles  the  fire  in 
the  southern  female  fire-block,  the  source  whence  life  is" 
bom.  He  was  the  god  lame  in  both  legs  (a/t^tyvi^et^),  that 
is  to  say,  he  was  the  one-legged  fire-drill  of  heaven,  the 
kindler  of  the  year  fires  of  the  earth-mother-goddess,  from 
whence  the  household  fires  of  the  fire- worshippers  who  suc- 
ceeded the  matriarchal  communities  were  lighted.  His 
mythological  history  shows  that  the  conception  of  his  divi- 
nity was  a  blending  of  the  northern  smith-god  bearing  the  fire- 
cooking  hammer,  and  the  father-god  of  the  fire-worshippers 
who  bore  the  staff  of  authority,  the  rain-wand,  which  was 
believed  to  be  shrouded  in  heaven  in  the  mists  of  the  upper 
air,  and  to  revolve  at  the  impulse  of  the  Pole  Star  god  in 
the  fire-block  of  the  southern  mother-tree. 

Between  these  two  festivals  the  village  feast  of  the  Apa- 
turia  was  held,  and  at  it  the  Phratria  or  brotherhood  of  each 
village  met  and  revised  the  annual  lists  of  the  members  of 
the  village  community,  elected  village  officers  for  the  next 
year,  and  received  new  members  entering  the  community. 
At  this  feast  the  year's  fires  in  each  household  were  lighted 
from  the  central  fire  of  the  village,  kindled  on  the  hearth 
dedicated  to  the  Greek  goddess  Hestia,  the  Roman  Vesta  3. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  ritual  of  these  Greek  festivals  of 
October — November  proves  clearly  that  they  are  survivals 
of  the  New  Year's  festival  of  the  Southern  Pleiades  year, 
beginning  on  the  ist  of  November  with  a  three  days'  feast  to 

*  Frazer,  *  Thesmophoria, *  Encyc,  BriL^  vol.  xxiii.  pp.  296 — 29S. 
=  Max  Miiller,  Contributions  to  the  Science  cf  Mythology^  vol.  ii.  pp.  801— 
803. 

^  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  pp.  517,  518. 


of  tlu  Myth-Making  Age,  59 

the  dead,  and  also  with  a  feast  of  firstfruits  ^  which  is  exactly 
reproduced  in  the  Thesmophoria,  in  which  one  of  the  three 
days  of  the  feast  was  a  day  of  mourning.  This  mourning 
of  the  women  was  made  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  feast  to 
commemorate  the  mourning  of  Demeter  for  the  loss  of  her 
daughter  Persephone,  who  was  carried  away  at  its  com- 
mencement by  the  god  of  the  realms  below  the  earth,  that 
is,  the  king  of  the  Southern  abyss  of  waters  on  which  the 
earth  floated.  This  is  exactly  parallel  with  the  mourning 
of  the  women  for  Tammuz  or  Dumu-zi,  who  in  his  year's 
festival  in  Syria  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  died  before  it 
began  and  returned  to  life  on  the  eighth  day  of  the  feast 
in  the  barley,  wheat  and  fennel,  sown  beforehand  by  the 
mourning  women  in  the  earthenware  pots  called  the  gar- 
dens of  Adonis,  which  were  found  on  that  day  with  the 
buried  seeds  springing  to  fresh  life  from  the  earth.  This 
parallel  proves  that  the  mourning  for  Persephone  is  the 
original  form  of  that  in  Syria,  lamenting  the  close  of  the 
dying  year  of  the  later  phase  of  year-reckoning  described  in 
Chapter  V.,  which  is  to  revive  in  its  reanimated  successor. 

It  will  be  made  clear  by  an  examination  of  some  of  the 
popular    folk  -  tales  of  the  Cinderella  series,  that  this  is  a 
true   interpretation  of  the  story  of  the  Thesmophoria,  and 
that  it  is  like  that  of  the  plants  in  the  gardens  of  Adonis, 
a  northern    importation  of  the  festival  marking  the  close 
of  the  year  in  the  south,  and  its  revival  in  the   first-fruits 
then  consumed.     The  oldest  of  these  tell  the  story  of  the 
year  of  two  seasons  in  that  of  two  sisters,  who  were  origi- 
nally the  goddesses  ruling  the  two  divisions  of  the  year. 
In   these    the    youngest    despised    sister    who    was    made 
the  kitchen  wench,  and  located  in  the  realms  of  the  dead, 


'  The  combined  feast  of  firstfruits  and  the  festival  to  the  Dead  are  held 
in  the  beginning  of  November  in  the  Tonga  Islands,  Ceylon,  and  by  the 
Oyaks  of  Borneo.  It  is  called  Inachi  in  Fiji,  and  Nicapian  in  Borneo.  A 
similar  festival  called  the  Janthur  Puja  is  observed  by  the  Sautals  of  Bengal 
in  the  beginning  of  November.  Blake,  AstrottomUal  Mytho,^  pp.  115 — 119, 
121,  126 ;  Risiley,  Tribes  aitd  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  ii.,  Sautals^  p.  233. 


6o  History  and  Chronology 

IS    transformed   by  her  guardian  fairy  into   the  beautiful 
maiden  clothed  in  gorgeous  apparel,  who  drops  her  glass 
or  ice  shoe  by  which  the  sun-prince  tracks  her,  and  is  wedded 
to   him   after  he  has  vowed   that  he  will  only  marry  the 
maiden  whom  the  shoe  will  fit.     In  one  of  the  simplest  of 
these   stories.  No.    lo  in   Miss  Roalfe  Cox's  collection   of 
Cinderella  variants  ^  the  guardian  and  aider  of  the  future 
mother  of  the  sun-god  is  her  dead  mother,  the  dead  year, 
who  gave  her  a  cloth  with  food  in  it,  which  would  never  be 
empty,  and  would  enable  her  to  feed  herself  in  the  hut  to 
which  she  escaped  from  the  cruelty  of  her  stepmother  and 
her  daughter.     This   food   store-chest   becomes   in  another 
story,  59,  p.  282,  a  red  bull,  which  is  placed  under  her  charge, 
and  who  supplies  her  with  food  from  his  right  ear,  an  in- 
cident which  is  repeated   in  the  Georgian  Cinderella  story 
of  Conkiajgharuna,  which  does  not  appear  in    Miss    Cox*s 
volume,  and  in  which  the  heroine  is  fed  by  a  cow  2,  a  sur- 
vival of  the  Hindoo  red  -  cow  -  star  RohinI  or  Aldebaran. 
It  is  in  the  Annamite  story  of  Cinderella  that  we  find  what  is 
clearly  the  original  form  of  the  incident  of  the  food  stored 
for  the  buried  mother  of  the  sun-god.     In   this  story  the 
two  rival  seasons  of  the  year  are  the  despised  kitchen  wench 
called  Ka'i  Ta'm,  Rice-husk,  and  her  step-sister  Ka'i  Ka'm, 
or  Rice-grain.     The  helper  of  the  persecuted  maiden  is  the 
little  fish  Bo*ng,  who  was  at  first  thrown  aside  as  worthless  by 
the  step-mother  of  Kal  Ta'm  and  her  daughter,  but  who  was 
eaten  by  them  when  they  saw  that   Rice-husk  had  made 
it  fat  and  large  by  feeding  it      His  spirit  appeared  after 
his  death,  and  told   Rice-husk  to  bury  his   bones  in   four 
jars  to  be  placed  under  her  bed,  the  seed  sown  in  the  jars 
called  the  Gardens  of  Adonis.     When  the  day  came  when 
she  wished   to  go  to  the  national   festival  of  the  opening 
year,  to  which   her  step-mother   and   sister  were  going,  it 
was  the  spirit  of  the  fish,  embodying  the  soul  of  life  dwelling 


•  Cox,  Cinderella  Variants^  No.  10,  p.  144,  published  by  the  Folklore  Society. 

-  Wardrop,  Georgian  Folk  Tales ^  xi.  p.  63  ff. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  6i 

in  the  Southern  Ocean,  which  enabled  her  to  perform  the 
task  set  her  by  her  step-mother,  and  it  was  from  the  jars 
containing  his  bones  that  she  took  out  the  horse  that  was  to 
carry  her  to  the  festival  and  the  dress  in  which  she  was  to 
captivate  the  prince.  She  dropped  her  shoe  as  she  was 
mounting  the  horse  when  she  was  leaving  the  feast,  and 
when  her  lover  came  to  search  for  the  owner  of  the  shoe 
and  found  her,  she  promised  to  be  his  bride.  But  her  step- 
mother substituted  her  daughter  Rice-grain  at  the  wedding, 
and  the  prince  did  not  find  out  the  deception  till  after 
the  marriage,  when  Rice-husk,  who  had  drowned  herself 
in  a  well,  returned  to  life  as  an  oriole  and  revealed  herself 
to  her  lover,  first  in  this  form  and  afterwards  in  her  true 
shape  ^ 

The  truths  herein  hidden,  when  translated  from  metaphor 
into  the  actual  facts,  which  the  village  elder  who  framed 
the  story  tried  to  impress  upon  the  memory  of  the 
children  he  taught,  told  them  that  the  true  mother  of  life 
was  the  plant,  and  that  the  germ  of  future  life  which  the  plant 
concealed  within  itself  could  only  be  transmitted  to  those 
whom  its  products  nourish  in  the  seed  when  protected  by  its 
capsule  or  husk.  Without  this  protection  it  would  decay 
uselessly,  and  therefore  the  true  mother  of  life  is  this  pro- 
tecting covering  and  not  the  seed  which  it  protects.  When 
the  seed  and  its  protecting  mother  are  buried  in  the  earth, 
and  thus  sent  for  a  season  into  the  land  ruled  by  the  under- 
ground mother-ocean,  the  home  of  the  fish,  the  soul  of  life,  it 
is  nourished  by  the  store  of  food  it  takes  with  it  and  emerges, 
through  the  strength  imbibed  from  this  meat,  into  the  upper 
air.  There  it  becomes  the  growing  plant,  clothed  in  the 
summer  array  provided  from  its  secret  store.  It  is  in  this 
guise  embraced  by  the  sun-god,  who  follows  the  traces  of  its 
flying  footsteps  in  the  opening  foliage,  and  who  is  deceived 
in  his  search  by  the  false  spring  maiden,  who  pretends  to  be 

*  M.  G.  Dumoulier,  EtucUs  cC Ethnographic  Religieuse  Annamite,  Actes 
du  Onzi^me  Congr^  des  OrientalistSs,  sect,  ii.,  D'extreme  Orient,  pp.  374 — 
376. 


62  History  and  Chrovology 

the  fruitful  bride  of  summer.  The  true  summer  goddess, 
when  found  and  caressed  by  the  sun,  covers  herself  with 
flowers,  which  again  reproduce  their  mother  in  the  seed 
they  bring  forth. 

We  can  see  in  this  story  how  the  folk-tale  grew  up  from  the 
poetical  statements  of  natural  facts,  and  can  understand  the 
method  of  its  production,  and  see  how  it  was  very  frequently 
the  expansion  of  the  pithy  proverbs  which  abound  in  the 
speech  of  all  Dravidian  people,  and  of  those  whose  culture 
has  been  derived  from  Dravidian  sources.  It  was  these 
proverbs  which  preserved  the  memory  of  the  story  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  had  learnt  both  together,  and  to  whom 
the  recollection  of  the  proverbs  recalled  the  story. 

Thus  the  story  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  embodied  in 
the  ritual  of  the  Thesmophoria  of  October — November,  is 
one  which  was  originally  told  in  the  Southern  Hemisphere 
of  the  rice  seed,  which  was  to  become  the  mother  of  life 
to  the  people  born  of  the  village  grove  who  began  their 
year  in  November.  It  is  the  seed -husk  buried  with  its 
enclosed  seed  in  November  which  becomes  the  May  Queen 
of  the  next  year,  the  maiden  [mother  adored  throughout 
Europe  in  the  dances  round  the  May  Pole,  which  reproduce 
those  of  the  stars  round  the  Pole  Star.  Thus  the  May- 
pole is  a  survival  of  the  mother -tree,  and  of  Southern 
Pleiades  year  of  two  seasons. 

This  year  was  that  observed  by  the  Druids  throughout 
Western  Europe.  They  lighted  their  year's  fires  on  the 
1st  of  November,  and  the  New  Year's  festival  lasted  for 
three  days  before  and  three  days  after  that  date ;  this  week 
was  called  the  Samhain  ».  This  festival  still  survives  every- 
where throughout  Europe  in  the  feasts  of  All  Hallows 
Eve,  All  Saints,  and  All  Souls  Day,  and  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  village  assembly  on  the  ist  of  November 
is  reproduced  in  every  municipality  in  England,  for  it  is  on 
this  day  that  the  mayor  and  municipal  officers  for  the 
year  are  elected. 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  p.  518. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  63 

A  further   examination   of  Celtic  Mythology  gives  still 

more  striking  evidence  of  the  close  connection  between  it 

and    Indian    historical    astronomy.      In    the    Indian    and 

Australian    history  of   the    Pleiades    year,    the    bird    that 

drags  the  Pleiades  round  the  pole  is  the  crow  or  raven-star 

Canopus,   who  appears  in  the  mythology  of  the  Cymri  as 

Bran  the  raven.     He  is  the  god  who  voyaged  in  his  star-ship 

to  the  *'  Island  of  the  Blest,"  in  Southern  Mag-Findargat, 

the  White   Silver   Plain.      This   was   the   island   in   which 

grows 

"  An  ancient  tree  with  blossoms, 
On  which  birds  call  to  the  hours 
In  harmony.     It  is  their  wont 
To  call  together  every  hour'." 

This  is  the  world's  tree  of  Rg.  I.  164,  .20 — 22,  on  which  the 
two  ravens  sit  as  guardians  of  this  time  record.  And  the 
story  told  in  the  Welsh  Triads,  III.  4,  of  the  origin  of  the 
Cymri,  proves  that  the  ravcn-star-god  and  his  followers 
were  emigrants  from  the  islands  in  the  Southern  Ocean, 
where  the  world's  tree  of  the  mud-goddess  Tan  grew. 
It  is  there  said  that  they  were  led  by  Hu  the  mighty, 
that  is  by  the  cloud-bird  Khu,  to  Wales  from  Diffrobani. 
This  is  explained  in  the  text  as  Constantinople,  but  Professor 
Rhys  has  shown  that  Diffrobani  is  the  Welsh  form  of 
Taprobane,  the  Latin  name  of  Ceylon ».  This  was  the 
island  of  Agastya,  the  star-god  Canopus,  who  was  the 
son  of  the  tree  grown  from  the  mud  of  Bahu,  the  ocean 
bird  of  the  Southern  Hemisphere.  Bran's  father  was  Llyr, 
the  god  of  the  sea,  and  hence  the  Eastern  and  Western 
raven-star  were  both  children  of  the  parent  ocean. 

Llyr's  chief  temple  in  England  was  at  Cacr  Llyn, 
the  city  Leir-cestre  or  Leicester.  This  temple,  accord- 
ing to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  was  a  cavern  hollowed 
in  the  earth  beneath  the  river  Soar.  He  was  there 
worshipped  as  the  year-god  of  the  Cymri,  who  began 
their  year   on   the    ist   of   November.     This    New    Year's 

*  Meyer  and  Nutt,  The  Voyage  of  Br  Sin  ^  Stanza  7,  vol.  i.  p.  6. 
^  Rhys,  The  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  334.  345. 


64  History  and  Chronology 

festival  was  attended  by  all  the  artisans  who  worked 
before  the  god  for  a  short  time  at  their  respective  trades '. 
This  was  a  custom  observed  at  Rome  and  also  in  India, 
where  at  the  Gond  festival  of  the  Akkadi  held  at  the 
beginning  of  their  year,  on  the  i8th  of  Baisakh  (Vi  sakAa) 
or  the  3rd  of  May,  the  Indian  May  Day,  every  cultivator 
drives  his  plough  over  the  land  in  observance  of  this  ancient 
custom,  though  the  earth  is  baked  as  hard  as  a  brick, 
and  quite  unfit  for  ploughing. 

Again  the  raven-star  Canopus,  son  of  the  tree  of  Bahu, 
was  a  god  of  the  astronomical  theology  of  Tan  or  Danu, 
the  Akkadian  and  Indian  parent  Pole  Star  god.  His 
Celtic  equivalent  Bran  was  the  chief  god  of  the  Tuatha 
De  Danann,  the  tribes  born  of  the  goddess  Danu«,  that 
is  of  the  world's  tree  grown  from  the  mud  {tin  or  tan)  of  the 
Southern  Ocean.  He  was  also  the  god  who  guarded  the 
"Cauldron  of  Life"  in  Caer-Sidi,  meaning  "The  Turning 
Castle"  of  the  Pole  Star  god.  This  was  in  India  the  Castle 
of  Agastya,  called  in  the  Ramayana  the  Labyrinthine 
Castle  of  Ravana,  the  ten-headed  god,  the  ten  lunar  months 
of  gestation  of  the  mother-ship  or  tower  of  Life  described 
in  Chapter  V. 

This  Cauldron  of  Life  in  the  Head  of  Hades  was  in 
another  form  the  vessel  of  the  Holy  Grail  guarded  by 
Bran,  and  this,  like  the  seed  in  the  rice-husk  in  the 
Annamite  story  of  Cinderella,  had  an  unlimited  capacity 
for  supplying  nourishment,  for  it  multiplied  like  the  growing 
corn  a  hundred  fold  or  more  every  food  placed  in  it  3. 

Bran,  the  god  who  guarded  this  mother-tree  and  her  seed, 
was  the  god  with  the  Wonderful  Head  (Ut/ur-Ben),  the  year 
gnomon-stone  4,  and  his  year's  voyage  to  the  southern  land 
of  the  mother-tree  is  a  variant  form  of  that  of  Orwandil,  the 
star  giant  of  the  north,  whose  toe  was   the  star  Rigel  in 

*  Rhys,  Tlhe  Arthurian  Legend ^  chap.  vi.  p.  131. 
»  lhid,,ffMer/  Lectures  for  1886,  p.  89. 
"»  Ibid.,  The  Arthurian  Legend  pp.  305 — 315. 
<  Ibid.,  ffibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  p.  97. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  65 

Orion'.  He  went  in  72  ships,  the  72  weeks  of  Bran's 
year,  to  seek  his  bride,  Bridget,  the  daughter  of  the  god 
Dagda,  and  he  was  in  short  the  year-prince  of  the  story 
of  the  year  of  two  seasons.  The  year-maiden  he  sought, 
St.  Bride  or  St,  Bridget,  was,  as  her  name,  derived  from  Brfg, 
pre-eminent  power,  tells  us,  the  renowned  goddess  of  know- 
ledge, skilled  in  smith  work  »,  and  hence  the  maker  of  the 
year  and  its  products.  Her  father,  Dagda  or  Dago-devos, 
is  the  ruler  of  heaven,  deposed,  like  the  Greek  turannos,  by  his 
son  Mac  Oc,  the  god  of  a  new  year  3,  and  as  the  first  god 
of  the  Tuatha  De  Danann  he  is  clearly  an  equivalent  of  the 
year-god  of  the  Indian  Danava. 

This  is  the  Indian  god  Daksha,  whose  name  is  like  that 
of  the  Irish  Dago,  formed  from  the  root  Dag  or  Dak,  meaning 
to  show;  hence  he  is  the  pointing  god  who  marks  by  the 
Pole  Star  the  point  round  which  the  heavens  revolve.  He 
is  the  god  who  has  the  showing  hand,  the  hand  of  power 
wth  its  five  fingers  which  takes  the  stars  round  the  Pole  and 
marks  the  course  of  the  year's  circuit.  He  is  named  in 
Rg.  ii.  27,  r,  as  the  fifth  of  the  six  Adityas  or  beginning 
gods,  that  is  to  say,  he  was  the  god  completing  the  five-days 
week  before  the  introduction  of  the  later  six-days  week. 

In  the  historical  genealogies  of  the  Mahabharata  his  wife 
is  said  to  have  been  born  from  the  left  toe  of  Brahma, 
the  primal  creator,  the  ape-god  of  the  early  speculators,  and 
his  fifty  daughters  all  represent  sections  of  time  in  different 
measures  of  year-time.  Among  these  are  the  twenty-seven 
wives  of  Chandra  the  moon-god,  the  twenty-seven  stars 
marking  the  monthly  course  of  the  moon  through  the 
heavens  in  the  three  years  cycle  year  described  in  Chapter  V. 
In  the  words  of  the  poet  "they  arc  all  employed  in 
indicating  time  and  assisting  the  courses  of  the  world  4." 

'  Vigfusson  and  rowell,  Corpus  Poeticum  BoreaU,  ii.   13;     Ker,  Notis  on 
Or fndel  and  other  Stories,  Folklore  for  1 897,  pp.  290  ff. 
'  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  i.  pp.  75,  76. 

Ibid.,  Lect.  ii.  p.  154,  vi.  p.  644. 
*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Satnbhava)  Parva,  Ixv.,  Ixvi.  pp.  185,  186,  189. 

F 


66  History  and  Chronology 

One  of  these  daughters  is  Danu,  the  third  month  in  the 
year  of  thirteen  months,  the  subject  of  Chapter  VIII. ;  and 
she,  the  mother  of  the  Irish  Tuatha  De  Danann,  is  also  the 
mother  of  the  Indian  Danava,  and  also  of  forty  sons,  the 
forty  months  of  the  three  years  cycle  year. 

Bridget  or  Brigit,  the  daughter  of  the  Irish  Daksha  called 
Dago,  was  one  of  three  sisters  all  of  the  same  name,  the 
three  seasons  of  the  year,  which  were  originally,  as  we  have 
seen,  only  two  ;  and  it  was  these  two  who  were  distinguished 
among  the  Brigits,  one  being  a  physician,  a  wise  medicine- 
woman,  and  the  other  a  smith,  and  there  are  no  special 
characteristics  assigned  to  the  third  ^.  But  in  seeking  for 
the  original  source  of  the  name  and  the  mythology  of  these 
goddesses  we  must  turn  to  the  Vedic  prototype  of  Brigit, 
the  goddess  BrihatT  with  the  same  name,  in  which  the  h  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  guttural  g.  She  is  called  in  Rg.  i. 
52,  13,  the  goddess  of  the  highest  heaven  and  of  the  Brihat! 
metre  of  thirty-six  syllables. 

This  and  the  other  Vedic  metres,  the  Gayatrl  with  lines 
of  eight  syllables,  the  Tristubh  of  eleven,  and  the  Jagat! 
of  twelve,  were  invented  by  the  Vedic  poets  as  methods 
of  perpetuating  the  remembrance  of  various  systems  of 
measuring  time  by  weeks  of  eight  days  and  by  years  of 
eleven  and  twelve  months,  which  I  shall  describe  in  their 
chronological  order.  And  we  shall  see,  when  I  describe 
in  Chapter  VII.  the  fifteen-months  year  with  its  weeks 
of  eight  and  its  months  of  twenty-four  days,  that  the 
authors  of  the  Satapatha  Brdhmana  distinctly  state  that 
the  kindling  hymn  of  this  year  with  its  fifteen  Gayatrl 
stanzas  of  three  lines  of  eight  syllables  each  is  meant  to 
describe  this  year  of  fifteen  months,  each  of  twenty-four 
days  and  three  eight-day  weeks.  The  fundamental  rule  laid 
down  in  the  Brahmanas  to  govern  the  ritualistic  arrange- 
ments of  each  year  is  that  "the  year  is  the  sacrifice V'  that 
is  to  say,  that  in  the  course  of  each  year  there  is  a  stated 

'  Rhys,  I  libber  t  Lectures  for  1S86,  p.  75. 
*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.^  i.  2,  5,  7 — 13;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  60 — 62. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  67 

order  of  sacrificial  observances  beginning,  continuing  and 
ending  the  year.  This  rule  is  further  interpreted  by  the 
statement  made  in  connection  with  the  erection  and  conse- 
cration of  the  first  official  altar,  that  of  earth  in  the  form 
of  a  woman,  that  Vishnu  the  year-god  and  his  altar  are 
enclosed  by  the  metres,  that  is  by  the  poetical  record  in  the 
ritualistic  metres  of  the  successive  historical  changes  in  time 
measurement  which  they  indicate. 

This  Brihati  metre  or  stanza  of  two  h'nes  of  eight  syllables 
each,  one  of  twelve  and  one  of  eight,  making  thirty-six  in 
all,  is  therefore  a  historical  summary  of  an  ancient  time 
measurement.    The  Brahmanas  tell  us  that  the  measurement 
indicated  by  the  Brihati  metre  is  that  of  the  easterly  line 
of  the  thirty-six  steps  of  Vishnu  passing  from  West  to  East 
over  the  length  of  the  Soma  sacrificial  ground  symbolising 
the  earth  *.    In  other  words,  the  Brihati  metre  is  an  algebraic 
form  of  the  statement  that  the  sun-year-god  who  begins  his 
journey  from  the  West  at  sunset,  according  to  the  rule  of 
time  measurement  adopted  in  the  first  sidereal  year,  makes 
the  half  of  his  annual    year's  journey  round  the  Pole   in 
thirty-six    steps    or    weeks.      This   journey,  owing   to   the 
obliquity  of  the  ecliptic,  is  never  like  the  altar-line  of  thirty- 
six  steps,  exactly  from  West  to   East,  except  at  the  equi- 
noxes ;    and   therefore   this   line   only   measures   the   sun's 
course  in  a  year  reckoned  by  the  equinoxes,  a  measurement 
used,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  age  of  the  three  years  cycle 
year,  when  the  orthodox  Soma  sacrificial  ground  was  con- 


'  Eggeling,  Sai.  Brdh.^  iii.  5,  i,  9 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  112,  113.  This 
nilc,  requiring  the  length  of  the  conscciated  Soma  ground  to  measure  36  feet 
from  West  to  East,  which  was  first  promulgated  by  the  authors  of  the  pre- 
Sinskrit  Ikshvahu  ritual,  was  continued  when  the  latest  brick  altar  of  the 
year  of  seven-days  weeks,  the  Agnichayana,  was  made  the  orthodox  altar 
of  the  Vedic  ritual ;  for  in  laying  out  the  ground  for  the  building  of  that  altar 
it  is  ordered,  **thc  builder  should  measure  a  plot  thirty-six  steps  long  from 
^Vejt  to  East,  thirty  steps  broad  at  the  West,  and  twenty-four  at  the  East 
^%  so  that  its  whole  circumference  should  measure  ninety  steps,  the  fourth 
P*rt  of  the  360,  making  the  year." — Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.,  x.  2,  3,  4  ;  S.B.E., 
^L  xliii.  p.  308. 

F  2 


68  History  and  Chronology 

secrated.  The  original  solar  year  was  one  measured  by  the 
solstices,  and  in  this  year  the  path  of  the  solstitial  setting 
sun  is  from  South-west  to  North-east  at  the  winter,  and 
North-west  to  South-east  at  the  summer  solstice.  This  ii'as 
the  original  path  indicated  by  the  BrihatI  metre,  and  the 
memory  of  this  is  preserved  in  Hindu  ritual  in  the  sign 
of  the  eight-rayed  star,  marked  by  the  sacred  plough  under 
the  foundations  of  the  East  and  most  orthodox  year-altar, 
that  of  the  brick  Agnichayana  altar  of  the  sun-bird  rising 
in  the  East  at  the  Vernal  equinox.  On  this  historical 
tablet  the  year-path  of  the  sun-bird  of  the  two  series  of 
thirty-six  weeks,  making  a  year  of  seventy-two  weeks, 
is  marked  by  the   St.  Andrew's  Cross  of  the  Flying  Bird 

^^   for  it  is  from  the  South-west  corner  that  the  plough 

begins  its  course  in  tracing  the  sacred  sign.  Therefore  the 
original  BrihatI  measurement  of  thirty-six  weeks  or  steps  for 
the  half-year  represented  a  year  beginning  at  the  winter 
solstice  with  the  setting  in  the  South-west  of  the  Brihati 
sun,  which  was  thought  to  go  round  the  Pole  as  a  star 
in  an  annual  course  of  seventy-two  and  a  half-yearly  course 
of  thirty-six  weeks. 

This  metre  is,  as  we  are  told,  consecrated  to  Brihaspati, 
culled  in  the  Brahmanas  the  High  Priest  of  the  gods, 
the  god  of  the  upper  region,  round  which  lies  the  path 
of  Aryaman,  the  Star  Arcturus  in  Bootes  ^  It  is  to  him 
that  the  central  place  is  given  in  the  Panchabila,  or  five-fold 
sacrifice  offered  at  the  end  of  the  Dashapeya  on  a  square 
allar  with  its  sides  facing  the  points  of  the  compass.  The 
offering  to  Brihaspati  is  placed  in  the  centre,  those  to 
the  other  four  gods  ruling  the  year  being  placed  at  the 

*  Eggcling,  Sat.  Brah.y  v.  3,  I,  2;  S.B.E. ,  vol.  xli.  p.  59;  Aryaman  is, 
according  to  Sachaii,  Alberuni's  Indian  vol.  i.,  chap,  xxii.,  p.  242,  one  of  the 
fourteen  stars  in  the  constellation  Shimshumara.  which  drives  the  other  stars 
round  the  Pole,  and  represents  the  West  foot  of  the  constellation.  See  Hewitt, 
Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.  Essay  v.  pp.  416—421,  for  the 
functions  of  Arcturus  as  a  star  leader. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  69 

side  dedicated  to  each  god  ^  Thus  the  Brihati  metre 
is  that  dedicated  to  the  Pole  Star  god  Brihaspati,  and  it 
is  also  said  in  Rg.  x.  181,  2,  to  have  been  brought  from 
Vishnu,  the  year-god,  whose  steps  measure  the  year  by 
Bharadvaja  the  lark,  that  is  to  say,  it  represents  the  circuit 
of  the  year-sun-bird  round  the  pole.  This  interpretation 
is  confirmed  by  the  rules  for  the  recitation  of  the  Brihat 
Saman.  This  is  a  recitation  of  the  two  first  stanzas  of 
Rg.  vi.  46,  a  hymn  attributed  to  Bharadvaja  embodying 
a  prayer  to  Indra,  the  rain-god  for  rain.  In  stanza  7  of 
this  hymn  this  god,  who  as  the  god  Suk-ra,  the  Vedic  form 
of  the  original  Akkadian  rain-mother  Suk-us,  a  name  of 
Istar*,  is  implored  to  protect  especially  the  five  nations 
of  the  sons  of  the  Nahusha,  the  great  snake,  that  is  to 
the  original  dwellers  in  India  who  adored  the  snake  as 
guardian  of  the  village.  It  is  directed  in  the  rules  for 
the  consecration  of  the  brick  altar  of  the  sun-bird  rising 
in  the  East  that  these  verses  in  the  Brihati  metre  are 
to  be  recited  at  the  left  or  North  wing  of  the  sun-bird  3. 
This  altar  was  built,  as  we  shall  see,  at  a  much  later  period 
than  the  original  earth  altar  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  and 
its  successor  the  square  altar,  and  they  all  represent  in  a 
symbolical  form  the  course  of  the  year. 

In  this  year's  history  the  representation  of  the  sun  and 
stars  as  flying  year-birds  is  older  than  all  sacrificial  altars, 
and  it  is  to  this  primaeval  epoch,  when  the  year's  course 
of  the  sun-bird  and  of  the  raven-star  Canopus  was  measured 
by  two  periods  of  thirty-six  weeks  each,  that  the  historical 
legend  of  the  two  Bridgets,  daughters  of  Dagda  or  Daksha  the 
Pole  Star  god,  belongs.  The  first  Bridget  represented  the  sun 
starting  from  South  to  North  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  the 
second  the  Northern  sun  of  the  summer  solstice  returning 
to  its  winter  home  in  the  South. 

This   latter   episode   of  the   Brihati   Saman   legend  was 

»  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,^  v.  5,  1,  i  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  120. 

^  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar:  Syllabary  Sign  101. 

'  Eggeling,  SaL  Brdh,^  ix.  I,  2,  37 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  p.  179. 


70  History  and  Chronology 

called  in  Vedic  ritual  that  indicated  by  the  Rathamtara  or 
Ratha-tur  {Grassmann)  Saman ',  that  celebrating  the  re- 
volution or  returning  {tur)  of  the  sun  chariot  {ratlia)  from 
North  to  South,  a  metaphor  reproduced  in  the  Irish  Caer 
Sidi  or  Turning  tower.  These  are  two  verses  in  the  BrihatI 
metre,  Rg.  vii.  22  and  23.  They  embody  another  prayer 
to  Indra  for  rain,  and  this  Rathamtara  Saman  is  said  in 
Rg.  X.  181,  I,  to  have  been  brought  from  Vishnu  by 
Vashishtha,  the  reputed  author  of  this  hymn,  who  is,  as 
I  have  shown  on  p.  42,  the  perpetual  fire  burning  on  the  altar 
of  the  god  of  the  summer  solstice  in  the  North  and  of  the 
winter  solstice  in  the  South,  when  her  fire  is  the  subterranean 
home  of  fire  whence  the  sun  gets  its  light  and  heat.  It 
is  these  second  BrihatI  stanzas  which  are  recited  at  the 
brick-altar  consecration  at  the  right  or  South  wing  of 
the  sun-bird  starting  on  her  southern  journey  2.  And  that 
this  meaning  of  the  two  forms  of  the  BrihatI  metre  was  that 
actually  present  in  the  minds  of  the  authors  of  the  ritual 
is  indubitably  proved  by  the  statement  in  the  Satapatlia 
Brdhmana  that  the  year  of  sacrifice  "  amounts  to  a  BrihatI," 
that  is  to  say,  that  the  year  is  measured  by  the  BrihatI 
metres.  The  Bridget  of  the  South  Queen  of  the  winter 
solstice  and  goddess  of  the  first  six  months  season  of  the 
Pleiades  year  is  in  the  southern  form  of  her  story  the  ruler 
of  the  year  and  of  the  southern  birth-land  of  life.  It  is 
she,  the  Akkadian  goddess  Ninlil,  the  lady  of  the  dust, 
the  Sabaean  queen  Bcltis,  the  lady  of  Sheba,  who  goes 
northward  to  become  the  May  Queen  in  the  North,  where 
she  is  to  meet  the  Northern  father-god,  her  partner  in 
the  star  dance.  He  in  the  Irish  legendary  history  is  Bres, 
the  war  {bres)  king  of  the  Fomori,  or  men  born  under 
[fo)  the  sea  {muir^),  that  is  the  king  of  the  Southern 
people  whose  day  was  our  night,  those  who  lived  on  the 

»  Eggeling,  Sat.  BraA.y  i.  7,  2,  17  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  196,  note  2. 

=  Ibid.,  ix.  I,  2,  ^6f  vol.  xliii.  p.  179. 

3  Ibid.,  xii.  2,  3,  I ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  155,  156. 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lcct.  vi.  pp.  591 — 593. 


of  i/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  J 1 

under  or  south  side  of  the  tortoise  earth  with  its  Northern 

mother-mountain   topped  by  the  Pole  Star  in  the  centre. 

They  were  the  men  of  the  land  of  the  mud  whence  the 

world's  tree  grew,  to  whose  country  the  sun  and  moon  gave 

light  after  they  sunk  at  their  setting  into  the  sea.     They 

are  the  sea-people  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  Tale  of  Badr 

Basim,  the  smiling  Full  Moon  {badr)y  son  of  Julnar,  the 

pomegranate   {Jul),   the    sea  -  maiden    whose    mother   was 

Fara'shah,  the  night  moth.    He,  as  the  son  of  an  earth-born 

father,  king  of  Khorasan,  succeeded   to  this  kingdom  on 

his  father's  death,  and  thus  was  ruler  of  the  lands  bordering 

the  Persian  Gulf,  those  civilised   by  la,  the  god  clothed 

in  fish-skins,   who  arose  from   the  sea.     Badr  Basim,  the 

Full  Moon,  was  wedded,  like  his  father,  to  a  daughter  of 

the  sea,  Jauharah  (the  jewel),  child  of  Al-Shamandal,  the 

Salamander,  who  dwelt  under  .the  ocean  in  the  fiery  land 

which  heated  the  Cauldron  of  Life  in  the  Southern  waters 

whence  the  sun  drew  its  heat^     She  was  the  counterpart 

of  the  Vedic   sun-maiden    Savitrl,  who  was  wedded  (Rg. 

X.  85)  to  Soma,  the  moon-god,  and  who  was  brought  to 

the  wedding  on  the  year-car  of  the  Ashvins,  as  the  bride 

of  the   ruling  god  of  the  lunar-solar  year,   which   1  shall 

describe  in  Chapter  VII. 

The  wife  of  the  thunder-god  Brcs,  king  of  the  Fomori, 
is  Brig  or  Brigit,  daughter  of  Dagda.  Their  son  is  Ruadan, 
meaning  the  red  one  {ruad)  or  the  roarer  {rud^),  the  Vedic 
Rudra,  who  was  slain  by  Goibniu,  the  smith-god  of  the 
Tuatha  De  Danann,  whom  he  tried  to  kill.  The  story 
is  one  which  marks  in  its  conception  of  the  union  between 
the  year-star  and  sun-goddesses,  and  the  men  who  dwelt 
beneath  the  sea,  its  origin  in  the  legends  of  a  Dravidian 
maritime  race  who  were  born  from  the  union  of  parents 
who  habitually  lived  apart  from  one  another  in  separate 
villages,  like  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  Dravidian  children. 


»  Burton,  Arabian  Nights,  Library  Edition,  vol.  vi.  pp.  54— 95' 
'  Rhys,  Hibberi  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  v.  pp.  388,  389,  note  2. 


72  History  and  Chronoiogy 

The  year  of  Bran,  the  raven  who  ran  away  on  the  first 
of  November  with  the  Pleiades'  mother,  the  Greek  Per- 
sephone, the  Celtic  Bridget,  who  was  to  be  the  May  Queen 
of  the  second  season  of  the  year,  reappears  again  in  that 
rich  mine  of  ancient  year-history,  the  Arthurian  Legend. 
The  captive  queen  was  the  lady  Gwenhwyvar,  the  white 
{gwen)  spirit  or  ghost  {hwyvar).  She,  like  Bridget,  was  the 
third  of  three  ladies  of  the  same  name  who  were  all  wives 
of  Arthur  or  Airem,  the  plough-god  ^  Her  father,  the 
giant  Ogyrvan,  was  the  god  said  in  the  Taliessin  poems 
to  make  cauldrons  boil  without  the  aid  of  fire,  that  is  to  say, 
he  was  the  Salamander  god  of  the  story  of  Julnar  and  Badr 
Basim,  the  god  of  the  fire  drill,  who  heated  the  Southern 
Cauldron  of  Life. 

He  was  the  reputed  inventor  of  the  Welsh  Ogam  letters 
composed  of  the  elements  represented  in  the  primitive  Celtic 
sign  of  the  parent  of  knowledge   /|\  ^.     It  is  the  equivalent 

of  the   caste   mark  of  the   Hindu  Vishnu  worshippers  QJ 

with  its  red   centre    and  yellow   lateral   lines,  also   of  the 
earliest  Akkadian  sign  for  woman  rx  on  the  monuments 

of  Girsu  3.     And  of  the  Cypriote  sign  of  the  arrow  of  life 
(//)  the    Akkadian    Zi    /1\4.     It  represents  the  converging 

two  seasons   of  the  original  year- meeting   at  the  summer 
centre,  whence  the  seed  of  future  life  was  to  be  born. 

The  Gwenhwyvar  daughter  of  this  parent  of  wisdom,  the 
white  ghost  of  winter,  was  captured  by  Medrod  the  Judge 
or  Archer  {medr'U)^  the  counterpart  of  the  Pole  Star  god 
Danu,  and    the    god   of  the    year-arrow,    in    which,  accor- 


*  Rhys,  l^he  Arthurian  Legend^  chap.  ii.  pp.  34 — 39. 

°  Ibid.,  Hibberl  Lectures  for  1886,  Lcct.  iii.  pp.  267,  268. 
3  Amiand  et  Mcchanseau,    Tableau  Comparh  des  Ecritures  Babyloniennes  et 
Assyriennes^  No.  163,  p.  65. 

*  Conder,  The  Ilittites  and  their  Language :  Syllabary  Sign  78.  This  was 
the  sign  originally  placed  on  women's  carriages  in  India  when  railways  were 
first  started.     I  do  not  know  if  it  is  still  used. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  73 

ding  to  the  Brahmanas,  the  point  represents  the  winter  ^   He 
was  also  Melwas,  the  hero  {ntdt)  king  of  the  winter  region, 
that  is  of  the  heat-giving  south.     In  the  story  of  Gwenhwy- 
var's  capture  it  is  represented  as  taking  place  in  the  month  of 
May,  and  her  original  releaser  was  Gawain,  a  form  of  the 
original  Gwalchmei,  the  hawk  of  May.     Thus  the  story  clearly 
tells  of  two  year-kings,  the  king  of  winter,  Medrod  or  Melvas, 
who  seizes  the  May  Queen  at  the  beginning  of  her  year  in 
November,  and  carries  her  to  his  southern  realm.     He  takes 
her  back  with  him  in  his  northern  progress  till  he  is  obliged  to 
give  her  up  to  her  true  husband,  the  sun-prince  of  summer  ». 
But  this  hawk  of  May  belongs  to  the  second  form  of  the  two 
early  years  of  two  seasons.     He  was  in  his  original  form  the 
sun-bird,  the  hen  of  the  Mundas,  who  starts  on  her  yearly 
course  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  thus  pursues  a  different 
path  through  the  stars  than  that  marked  out  for  the  raven- 
bird  Canopus  in  Argo.     The  course  of  the. sun-bird  began 
at  the  South-west  under  the  control  of  the  directing  ape-god, 
the  giant  form  of  Canopus.     In  this  phase  of  ancient  belief 
he  was  called  by   the  Arabians  Repha,  the  giant,  and  the 
course  of  the  sun  he  directed  was  watched  by  his  brethren 
the  two  dog-stars,  Sirius  and  Procyon.     The  former  of  these 
stars  is  that  called  in  the  Akkadian  Epic  of  Gilgames,  the 
sun-giant,  Lig  la  the  dog  (lig^  of  la,  who  embarked  with 
Gilgames    on    the    ship    Ma,    the   "constellation    Argo,    to 
cross  the  sea  of  Samas,  the  sun  stream  flowing  down  the 
Milky  Way.     The  western  side  of  the  crossing  was  guarded 
by  Procyon,  called  Pallika,  the  crossing  of  the  water-dog  3. 

It  was  from  the  crossing  place  guarded  by  these  two  dog- 
stars  that  the  sun  was  believed  by  the  primitive  astronomers 
to  start  on  her  yearly  journey  from  South  to  North  at  the 
winter  solstice,  and   thence   to   cross   the    heavens   by  the 

'  Rhys,  The  Arthurian  Legend^  chap.  ii.  pp.   38,  39;    Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah»^ 
ii-  4»  4i  14—17  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  108. 
'  Khys,   The  Arthurian  Legend^  chap,   iii.,  Gwenhwyvar  and  her  Captors, 

PP-49ff. 

^  R.  Brown,  jun.,  Eridanus  River  and   Constellation ^    p.    13  ;    Primitive 
Comidlations,  p.  279. 


74  History  atid  Chronology 

Bridge  of  the  Gods,  the  Milky  Way,  the  road  of  the  cows 
of  light.  This  mythic  route  of  the  primitive  sun-bird  is 
symbolically  marked  out  every  day  by  all  Indian  Brahmins. 
Each  of  them  before  his  daily  meal  draws  a  circle  on  the 
ground,  into  which  he  places  a  portion  of  his  food,  as  an 
offering  to  the  Vaishva-deva,  the  tree  and  star-gods  of  life 
protecting  the  circle  round  the  village  grove.  Outside  the 
circle  at  the  North-west  corner  he  places  an  offering  to 
the  dog  Shabala,  and  at  the  South-west  corner  to  the  dog 
Shyama '.  These  two  dogs  are  the  Sanskrit  Sharvara,  the 
spotted  dog  Sirius,  and  Saramaya,  the  yellow  dog  Procyon 
also  called  Shvan  the  dog,  and  Prashvan  the  fore-dog.  In 
the  Zendavesta  they  are  the  yellow  dogs  who  guard  the 
Chinvat  Bridge,  the  dogs  of  Sarama  their  mother,  who,  with 
Yama,  the  twins  night  and  day,  the  two  birds  on  the  world's 
tree  guard  the  sun's  path  in  the  Rigveda^.  Their  mother 
Sarama,  the  bitch  of  the  gods  who  seeks  the  cows  of  light 
is  apparently  from  her  connection  with  the  two  dog-stars, 
the  constellation  Argo,  just  as  this  constellation  is  in 
Arabian  astronomy  their  brother.  It  was  these  two  dogs 
who  as  Procyon  from  the  South-west,  and  Sirius  from  the 
North-west,  guarded  the  sun  as  he  started  from  the  South- 
west on  his  northern  journey  at  the  winter  solstice,  and 
also  his  return  from  the  North-west,  where  he  set  his  face 
homewards  at  the  summer  solstice. 

The  sun-myth  thus  conceived  was  originally  that  taught 
by  the  Dravido-Mundas,  the  sons  of  Canopus,  the  giant  ape, 
called  by  the  Arabians  Rcpha  the  giant.  They  became 
the  Rephaim  of  Syria,  whose  history  and  astronomy  will  be 
told  in  the  next  Chapter,  which  tells  the  story  of  the  intro- 
duction into  Europe  of  the  communal  villages  of  the 
Neolithic  age  organised  after  the  original  Dravidian  pattern. 
But  these  sons  of  Repha,  the  giant  star  Canopus,  before 
or  almost   simultaneously  with   their  settlement   in   Syria, 

*  Bal  Gungadhur  Tilak  Orion. 

•  Dannesteter,  Zendavesta  Vendidad  Fargard^  viii.    i6,   17;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv. 
p.  97  ;  Introduction,  v.  4,  pp.  Ixxvii.,  Ixxviii.  ;  Rg.  x.  14,  10,  1 1. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  7$ 

came  to  Egypt  as  the  first  founders  of  communal  villages 
and  oi^anisers  of  the  nomes  or  provinces  into  which  it  was 
divided.      In  the  Egyptian   astronomy  the  two  gods  who 
ruled  the  South  were  Set  and  Nebt-hat,  the  mistress  {ftebt) 
of  the  house  {Juxt)^  the  counterpart  of  Hat-hor,  the  Pole  Star 
mother  or  house  {hat^  of  Hor  or  Horus  the  Supreme  god, 
and  hence  the  mother-tree  or  house-pole  with  its  top  in  the 
Pole  Star.     With  them  was  their  father  Tum,  meaning  the 
end  or  completion,  bearing  the  sceptre,  the  creating  magic 
wand  ^     He  is  the  male  form  of  Bahu,  the  creating  bird, 
while  Nebt-hat  is  the  mother-tree  growing  from  the  mud 
of  Bahu^  and  Set  the  ape-god  on  it.     He  is  called  in  the 
Book  of  the  Dead,  Chapter  xcix.,  Hapi  the  ape,  and  in  the 
story  of  his  fight  with  Horus  ^  he  becomes  Suti  the  black  pig. 
As  Suti  he  is  Sutekh,  the  god  of  the  Hyksos  or  leaders  [Jiak) 
of  the  Sos  or  Shasus,  the  Syrian  herdsmen,  the  Rephaini 
of  Palestine.     A  temple  built  to  him  as  Khons  at  Thebes 
is  oriented  to  Canopus  3.     He,  as  Sutekh,  had  a  temple  at 
Memphis 4,  and  the  port  of  the  Nile  Delta  before  the  foun- 
dation of  Alexandria  was  called  the  port  of  Canopus,  the 
ape-star-father  of  the  ape-gods  of  Egypt.      It    was  when 
the  star  Canopus  could  no  longer  be  seen  by  his  votaries 
who  had  settled  in  northern  lands  where  he  was  no  longer 
visible,  that  they  looked  to  the  North  Pole  Star   as   the 
centre-star  of  heaven  which  replaced  their  Southern  father. 
This  Pole  Star  was  the  star  in  Kepheus,  the  constellation 
of  the  ape  whose  Thigh  extended  to  the  Great  Bear.     It 


'  Bnigsch,  Reli^on  und  Mythologie  dcr  Altai  Aigy^Ur^  P«  45i« 

'  Badge,  Book  of  the  Dead^  Ixii.  6,  p.  177. 

^  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy  ^  chap,  xviii.  p.  184  ;  Timplc^  1.  pp.  1S6,  187. 
There  are  also  two  other  temples  at  Thebes  oriented  to  Canopus.  Lockyer, 
^Ja7i  of  Astronomy,  p.  189.  These  temples  were  oriented  to  the  setting  of 
Canopus  {Dawn  of  Astronomy,  pp.  223,  224),  and  we  have  seen  in  the  history 
of  the  Pleiades  year,  beginning  with  the  setting  of  the  Pleiades,  that  its 
aathors  observed  the  setting  and  not  the  rising  of  the  stars.  Hence  Canopus 
is  marked  as  one  of  the  year- stars  of  the  primseval  age. 

^  Maspcro,  Histoire  Ancienne  des  peupUs  de  V Orient,  Troisieme  Edition, 

PI7S- 


j6    History  and  Chronology  of  the  Myth-Making  Age. 

ruled  both  the  North  and  South  when  Osiris,  who  was 
afterwards  the  rival  of  the  ape  Pole  Star  god,  was  the  star 
Orion  ruling  the  year  of  three  seasons  of  Chapter  III. 
Osiris,  as  god  of  Orion's  year,  the  god  with  the  two  eyes 
of  the  Northern  and  Southern  sun,  was  slain  on  the  date 
of  his  death  festival  held  on  the  26th  of  Choiak  (September — 
October),  four  days  before  that  of  the  snake-god  Nahib-ka 
on  the  1st  Tybi  (October — November),  the  first  month  of  the 
Pleiades  year*.  His  slayer  was  Set  or  Hapi,  with  his 
seventy-two  assistants,  the  seventy-two  weeks  of  the  year, 
and  it  was  to  avenge  his  death  that  Horus,  son  of  the  mother 
Pole  Star,  fought  Suti,  who  assumed  in  the  contest  the  form 
of  a  pig.  We  find  the  explanation  of  this  transformation 
in  the  history  of  the  constellation  Kepheus,  which  became 
the  Phoenician  constellation  Baal  Tzephon  or  Zaphon,  the 
Baal  of  the  North,  worshipped,  according  to  Maspero,  at 
Memphis.  He  was  the  Typhon  of  the  Greeks,  the  god  of  the 
deadly  storm,  whose  name  survives  in  our  word  Typhoon. 
This  wind  of  Baal  Zephon,  whose  temple  was  on  Mount  Kasios 
on  the  coast  of  Syria,  was  the  South-west  hot  wind  blowing 
from  the  borders  of  Egypt  over  Syria  from  the  month  of  June — 
July,  called  in  Syriac  Cheziron  or  the  month  of  the  Pig,  till 
the  middle  of  September  ^.  This  wind  of  the  boar-god  was 
that  which  slew  Adonis  at  Antioch  at  the  autumnal  equinox, 
and  the  god  who  sent  the  wind  was  the  ape-god  of  the  Pole 
Star  constellation  Kepheus.  He,  when  he  ruled  his  southern 
votaries  as  the  giant-star  Repha  Canopus,  was  the  guider 
of  the  mother-ship  Ma,  the  constellation  Argo,  through  the 
southern  heavens,  who  brought  up  the  South  west  monsoon 
with  the  rains  of  the  summer  solstice  which  fertilised  India, 
and  this  same  South-west  wind  was  that  which  burnt  up 
Syria  in  the  North  and  became  the  destroying  pig-god. 

*  Brugsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alien  ^gypter^  pp.  346,  303,  304. 
The  relation  of  the  Egyptian  months  to  those  of  our  calendar  here  assumed 
is  that  given  on  the  oldest  calendars  of  the  pyramid  builders,  recording  the 
names  of  the  months  and  the  three  seasons  to  each  of  which  four  months 
were  allotted.     Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy ^  chap,  xxiii.  p.  233. 

*  B^rard,   Origine  des  CuUes  ArcadienSy  pp.  228;    Movers,  Die  Phonitier 
vol.  i.  p.  224. 


CHAPTER    III. 


The   year  of  three  seasons  and   five-day  weeks 
RULED  BY  Orion  the  deer-sun-god. 

THE  Arabian  story  of  the  giant  -  star  Canopus,  called 
Repha,  and  of  his  two  brothers  Sirius  and  Procyon, 
of  which  I  told  the  beginning  in  the  last  Chapter,  goes  on  to 
tell  of  the  marriage  of  Repha  to  Orion  called  El  Schauza ', 
who  here  becomes  a  female,  and  of  the  breaking  of  the  necks 
of  her  husband's  two  brothers  by  the  bride.  This  denoue- 
ment, which  means  the  abandonment  of  the  astronomical 
belief  in  the  Milky  Way  as  a  'bridge  over  which  the  sun 
made  his  annual  journeys  from  South  to  North  and  back 
again,  shows  that  the  Rephaim  of  Syria,  sons  of  Canopus 
and  Orion,  changed  the  previous  methods  of  time-measure- 
ment But  in  order  to  understand  this  fully  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  the  information  available  as  to  the  progress 
of  the  Munda-Dravidians  in  their  new  settlements  in  South- 
western Asia.  They,  when  they  left  India,  had  made  such 
progress  in  civilisation  and  the  arts  of  government  as  to 
have  established  the  province  or  associated  confederacy 
of  adjoining  or  related  villages  as  the  tribal  unit. 

A.    Progress  of  the  Northern  efnigraiion  of  the  Indian 

founders  of  villages. 

These  emigrants,  who  landed  originally  at  Eridu,  distri- 
buted themselves  over  the  Euphratean  Delta  in  Parhas  or 
provinces,  each  ruled  by  its  central  village,  but  we  possess 
no  data  supplying  us  with  the  means  of  determining  the 

'  Movers,  Dif  Phonhier,  vol.  i.,  chap,  viii.,  pp.  289,  292,  chap.  x.  p.  406. 


j8  History  and  Chronology 

time  thus  occupied.  Its  duration  was  regulated  by  the 
numbers  of  the  emigrants,  and  the  more  or  less  rapid  addi- 
tion to  their  ranks  made  by  the  advent  of  new  swarms, 
the  increase  arising  from  births  and  from  alliances  with 
the  previous  inhabitants  if  any  existed. 

Each  province  had  its  own  gods,  those  dwelling  in  the 
village  groves,  and  each  had  its  own  annual  series  of  pro- 
vincial and  village  seasonal  festivals,  regulated  by  the  village 
Munda  and  the  provincial  Mankis,  assisted  by  the  provincial 
priest.      This    system   of    national   growth   prevailed   over 
the    Euphratean    Delta,  Babylonia    and    Mesopotamia,    it 
divided    the   land   of  Egypt   into   Nomes,   each    ruled    by 
its   central    city,  and   these   Parhas    or    provinces    became 
in  Syria  those  described  in  the  Book  of  Joshua,  where,  in 
the  account  of  the  conquest  of  the  Jews^  they  are  grouped 
under  the  names  of  the  ruling  cities  with  their  associated 
villages ».     The  area  of  these  Syrian  provinces  must,  like 
the  original  Parhas  of  the  Kolhan   still  existing  in   In^ia, 
have  been  very  small,  for  in  the  territory  of  the  tribe  of  Judah 
there  are  one  hundred  and  six  cities  mentioned,  excluding 
those  of  the  Philistines,  and  thus  the  average  territory  of 
each   of  these   provinces,   scattered  over  an  area  of  about 
1,200  square  miles,  was  only  about  eleven  square  miles. 

The  sandy  soil  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  where 
the  new  immigrants  first  landed,  was  not  so  well  adapted  to 
the  growth  of  rice  as  India,  and  hence  one  of  their  first  tasks 
was  to  find  a  substitute  better  suited  to  the  soil  and  climate. 
This  they  found  in  barley  and  wheat,  which  were  originally 
wild  Mesopotamian  grasses  changed  by  the  Indian  farmers 
into  profitable  crops  by  methods  similar  to  those  used  by 
their  forefathers,  who  had  made  the  endless  varieties  of 
Indian  rice  out  of  the  wild  rice-grass,  which  every  peasant 
in  Central  India  still  hangs  up  in  his  house  in  August  when 
the  young  rice  sprouts,  as  a  memorial  of  the  early  tasks 
of  the  first  pioneers  of  agriculture,  and  as  a  means  of  obtain- 

'  Joshua  XV.  21—62. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  79 

ing  from  the  parent-gods  of  both  plant  and  animal  Hfe 
prosperity  during  the  future  year. 

They  also  turned  their  attention  to  the  domestication 
of  farm  cattle,  and  these  formed  the  breeds  of  pigs,  short- 
horn cattle,  sheep  and  goats,  which  were  introduced  by  their 
descendants  into  Europe  in  the  Neolithic  age,  and  which 
were  originally  inhabitants  of  Central  Asia  '. 

Their  principal  assistants  in  these  tasks  appear  to  have 
been  the  Finn  races,  who,  as  the  Akkadians  or  mountaineers, 
came  in  contact  with  the  Indian  immigrants  at  a  very  early 
period.  The  latter  were  apparently  diggers  who  cultivated 
the  soil  with  the  digging-stick,  and  the  Finn  people  were 
pre-eminently  a  pastoral  race,  who  learnt,  in  the  icy  regions 
of  the  North  and  the  cold  of  the  glacial  age  further  South, 
to  domesticate  the  rein-deer.  It  was  they  who  introduced 
among  the  Southern  races  the  belief  in  magic  and  witchcraft 
which  is  indigenous  among  all  Finns,  and  was  commu- 
nicated by  them  to  the  Mundas  and  Gonds  in  India,  who  are 
renowned  wizards.  They  brought  with  them  the  Shamanist 
priest  and  his  magic  drum,  which  still  survives  among  the 
Lapps,  who  ornament  it  with  symbolic  figures  2;  and  this 
is  the  musical  instrument  still  most  prominent  in  the  sea- 
sonal dances  of  the  Turano-Dravidian  races.  The  population 
formed  from  their  northern  and  southern  elements  were  the 
people  described  in  the  Zendavesta  as  the  wizard  Yatus,  who 
were  created  in  the  land  of  the  Haetumant  3  or  Helmend, 
rising  in  Khar-sak-karra,  the  mother  mountain  of  the  Akka- 
dians. They  are  called  Yatudhana  in  the  Rigveda  4,  and  in 
the  Zendavesta  the  sons  of  Danu,  the  Danava  of  the  Rigveda. 
They  were  the  worshippers  of  the  goddess  Maga,  the  mother 
of  magical  arts,  who  gave  to  Sinai  the  Akkadian  name 
of  Mag-ana,  who,  in  her  male  form,  was  Al  Makah,  the  god 

'  Boyd  Dawkins,  Early  Man  in  Britain^  p.  300. 

'  Comparctli,   The   Traditional  Poetry  of  the  Finns^    English   Translation, 
p.  288. 
'  Danncstetcr,  Zendavesta  Vendldad  Fargard^  i.  14 ;    S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  8. 
*  Rg.  viii.  104,  15 — 2^. 


8o  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  Himyarite  Sabaean  Arabs '.  She  was  the  goddess  of 
the  land  of  Magog  in  the  North  -  east  of  Asia  Minor, 
the  land  to  which  the  Rephaim  ruled  by  Og,  the  king  of 
Bashan,  traced  their  origin.  She  was  the  virgin  {magd^ 
maid)  mother-tree  of  the  wizard  races,  the  pine-tree. 

These  wizard  Finns  brought  with  them  the  belief  in  to- 
temism,  as  they  called  themselves  the  sons  of  birds  and 
animals,  and  looked  on  the  mountains  shrouded  in  mists 
and  clouds  as  their  mother-goddess,  named  by  them  Is- tar, 
the  daughter  {tar)  of  heaven  {is),  the  sky-mountain.  These 
two  races  who  thus  met  in  the  Euphrates  valley  were  eth- 
nologically  far  apart.  The  Dravidians  were  a  fairly  tall 
doliko-kephalic  race,  with  noses  thicker  and  broader  than 
those  of  any  other  human  family  except  the  negro,  a  low 
facial  angle,  thick  lips,  wide  and  fleshy  faces,  coarse  irre- 
gular features,  and  little  beard.  Their  figures  were  broad 
and  their  limbs  sturdy,  and  their  colour  dark  brown  ap- 
proaching to  black  2.  They  were  the  Himyarites  or  black 
race  of  Southern  Arabia. 

The  Finns,  on  the  other  hand,  were  a  brachy-kephalic 
yellow  or  brownish  race,  with  round  heads,  low  foreheads, 
prominent  cheek-bones,  with  thick  lips,  short  and  flat  nose, 
black  hair  and  scanty  beard  3. 

It  was  from  the  union  of  these  two  tribes  that  the  Gaurian 
race  of  Girsu  was  produced.  They,  as  described  from  their 
features  depicted  on  the  monuments,  had  "  round  heads, 
low,  straight  and  wide  foreheads,  slightly  prominent  cheek- 
bones, an  orthognate  profile,  with  fleshy  lips,  a  big  but  not 
aquiline  nose,  and  hair  like  that  of  the  Dravidians,  rather 
curly  than  wavy  4.  They  thus  resembled  the  primitive  Satyrs 
of  Asia  Minor,  having  the  same  smooth  faces  and  generally 
short  stature,  but  their  hair  was  more  curly  than  that  of  the 

*  Tide,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Ancient  Rett  qions :  The  SabcsanSt  §  48,  p.  79. 
3  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  i.  Preface,  p.  32. 

3  J.  S.  Keltic,  *  Finland,*  Encyc.  Brit.^  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  ix.  p.  219. 

*  G.  Bert,  in  *  The  Races  of  the  Babylonian  Empire.'    Journal  of  the  An- 
thropological Institute^  Nov.,  1889,  p.  106, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  8 1 

Dravidians.  They  got  their  coarse  features,  large  noses, 
fleshy  lips  and  curly  hair  from  the  doliko-kephalic  Dravi- 
dians, and  their  round  heads  and  short  bodies  from  the 
brachy-kephalic  Finns. 

These  Gaurian  races  of  the  Euphrates  valley  adopted 
this  name  in  India  as  the  Gond  descendants  of  the 
goddess  Gauri,  the  wild  bison  (Bos  Gaurus),  who  is  not 
only  the  mother-goddess  of  the  Gonds,  but  a  goddess 
popularly  worshipped  throughout  Western  India.  But 
among  the  early  founders  of  organised  national  life  in 
Mesopotamia  there  also  appear  a  third  race,  that  of  the 
archers,  who  use  the  bow  which  became  the  national 
weapon  of  the  Persians.  These  appear  in  Western  India 
as  the  Bhils,  or  men  of  the  bow  (billa),  who  were  certainly 
not  an  indigenous  Indian  tribe.  The  purest  specimens 
of  the  race  are  generally  tall  with  regular  features  and 
wavy  hair,  and  they  are  intensely  devoted  to  the  dog, 
their  hunting  companion ;  and  no  Bhil  will  dare  to  break 
an  oath  made  when  his  hand  is  placed  on  the  head  of 
his  dog  I.  These  men  of  the  bow  early  obtained  a  com- 
manding position  in  Assyria,  for  the  tall,  bearded  archer 
standing  between  the  sun's  rays,  shooting  upwards  from 
the  two  oxen  beneath  his  feet,  is  the  topmost  figure  in 
the  Assyrian  standard  2. 

B.     The  men  of  the  bow. 

Neither  this  arrow- shooting  race,  who  intermixed  with 
the  Mundas  and  taught  them  the  use  of  the  bow,  nor  their 
national  weapon,  were  of  Indian  origin.  The  original  Dra- 
vidian  weapon  was  the  boomerang,  while  that  of  the  Mundas, 
who  are  called  in  the  Mahabharata  the  sons  of  the  hill-bam- 
boo Kichaka,  was  probably  the  male  bamboo  club,  the  lathi, 
which  in  the  competent  hands  of  the  Indian  lathyals  and 

I  '  Hunter,  Gazetteer  of  India  ^  Bhil  Tribes,  vol.  ii.  pp.  389,  390. 

[  *  Maspero,    Ancient  Egypt    and  Assyria,      Assyrian    Standard,   Fig.    153, 

p.  326. 

G 


82  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  old  English  proficients  in  the  use  of  the  quarter-staff, 
is  one  of  the  most  formidable  of  weapons.  This  was  the 
weapon  of  Duryodhana,  the  eldest  Kauravya  prince  and 
leader  of  their  army,  and  therefore  that  of  the  Kaur  tribes, 
who  are  the  warriors  of  Chutia  Nagpur  and  Chuttisgurh, 
and  also  that  of  the  Pandava  Bhima,  the  son  of  Maroti, 
the  Gond  ape-god,  also  called  in  the  Mahabharata,  brother 
of  Hanuman,  the  striker  {kanu)^  the  Hindu  name  of  Maroti. 
Bhima,  who  is  the  Gond  father-god,  and  the  god  popularly 
worshipped  throughout  Eastern  India,  was  in  the  Pandava 
war  waged  for  the  conquest  of  India,  the  conqueror  of  the 
East,  the  home  of  the  Munda  or  Malli  races  ^  The  bow, 
which  is  useless  without  its  string,  could  only  have  been 
invented  in  a  forest  country  where  fibrous  grasses  fit  for 
bow-strings  abounded,  for  they  must  have  preceded  animal 
cat-gut,  which  has  since  been  sometimes  used.  That  the 
string  of  the  Indian  bow  was  originally  made  of  grass  fibre 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  girdle  with  which  Indian 
kshatryas  or  warriors  are  invested  at  eleven  years  old  as 
a  sign  of  manhood,  is  made  of  Murva  {Sanseviera  Zeylanka), 
the  hemp  used  for  making  bow-strings,  and  it  is  composed 
of  three  strands  to  represent  the  three  seasons  of  the  year, 
of  which  the  history  is  told  in  this  Chapter  ^  The  race  who 
invented  the  bow  must  have  been  a  hunting  people,  ac- 
customed to  kill  quadrupedal  game  such  as  deer.  They 
could  never  have  thought  out  the  structure  and  use  of  this 
weapon  in  the  treeless  plains  of  Central  Asia,  where  the 
necessary  grasses  did  not  abound,  and  it  was  only  in  a  damp 
tropical  climate  that  these  could  be  found  ready  to  hand,  and 
exhibiting  their  tenacity  to  all  who  tried  to  force  their  way 
through  the  tangled  thickets  of  the  forests.  But  if  the  bow 
was  not  invented  in  tropical  Asia,  the  only  other  tropical 


*  Mahabharata  Shalya  {Gadayudha)  Parva,  Iv.— Iviii.  pp.  21 1 — 228.  Adi 
{Sambkava)  Parva,  xcv.  p.  286.  Vana  {Tirtha  Ydtra)  Parva,  cxlv.  p.  439. 
Sabha  {Digvijaya)  Parva,  xxix.,  xxx.  pp.  84 — 87. 

-  Biihler,  Manu^  ii.  42;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  p.  37;  Hewitt,*  AW*;/^  Races 
of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.  p.  405* 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  83 

forest   country  within  the  purview  of  ancient  geography 
whence  it  could  have  come  is  Central  Africa.    There  the  bow 
has  always  been  the  indigenous  weapon  from  time  imme- 
morial, and  it  is  among  the  Bantu  pastoral  tribes  of  Africa 
and  in  India  that  we  find  the  one-stringed  musical  bow,  the 
earliest  musical  instrument   known  ;    that   still   played   by 
the  Mundas  of  Chutia   Nagpur  at   their  national  dances, 
called  Pinga  in  Rigveda  viii.  58  (69),  7-9  *,  and  that  called 
in  the  Hindu  ritualistic  mythology  the  Pinaka  or  sacred  bow 
of  Shiva  ^.     This  is  the  three-eyed  trident-bearing  aboriginal 
god,  who  in  the  scene  in  the  Mahabharata  which  describes 
Arjuna's  visit  to  heaven   to  obtain  the  weapons  of  Indra, 
appears  before  him  in  the  form   of  a  Kirata,    or    hunter, 
accompanied  by   Uma   {flax)^  the   mother  of  the  weaving 
races,  and  crowds  of  women  dancing  to  the  music  of  his 
bow,  with  which  his  Gond  representative,  Lingal,  had  taught 
the  aboriginal  man  of  the  forest,  Rikad  Gowadi,  and  his  wife 
to  dance  3.     This  god  approached  Arjuna  as  he  was  con- 
tending with   the  boar-god  of  winter  (the  boar  who   ends 
the  year  of  three  seasons  by  slaying  Adonis  the  year-sun), 
and   it  was   slain   by   the   simultaneously  launched  arrows 
of  Shiva  and  of  Arjuna,  who  is  among  the  Pandava  brethren 
the  god    of    the   rainy   season   beginning   at    the   summer 
solstice  4. 

This  trident-bearing  three-eyed  god,  who  is  represented 
as  riding  on  a  bull,  and  who  is  the  only  Hindu  god  always 
depicted  with  a  white  faces,  is  the  Hindu  equivalent  of 
the  wild-bull,  father  of  the  Gaurian   race  of  Girsu,  whose 

sign  on  the  monuments  is  "t^^,  and  who  is  called  Gud-Ia, 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i.  p.  205,  note  I. 

'  H.  Balfour,  TTie  Natural  History  of  the  Musical  Bow^  pp.  5 — 36,  54,  64,  65. 
^  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TitneSy  vol.  i.,  Essay  ii.,  pp.  48, 49. 

*  Mahabhirata    Vana    (Arjundbhigamana)    Parva,    xxxvii.   p.    117.      Vana 
[Kairaia)  Parva,  xxxix.  pp.  1 20,  121. 

^  Slceman,  Rambles  and   Recollections   of  an  Indian   Official ^   chap,   xv., 
^-^I.  i.  p.  126. 

Amiand  et  Mechinseau,   Tableau  Comparie  dcs  Ecriturcs  Babylonitfines  et 
^iiyritnnesy  no.  49,  p.  19. 

G   2 


84  History  and  Chronology 

or  the  bull  la.  He  is  the  father-god  of  the  red  race,  the  sons 
of  RohinT,  the  star  Aldebaran,  the  red  cow,  who  was  first,  as 
we  shall  see,  the  doe-mother  who  gave  to  Assyria  its  earliest 
name  of  Gutium,  the  land  of  the  bull  {gut\  and  who  was 
the  father  of  the  Hindu  Gautama,  the  sons  of  the  cow  {go), 
who  were  first  sons  of  Gauri,  the  wild  -  cow.  This  is  the 
three-eyed  bull,  the  Semiramis  or  Samirus  of  Babylon, 
a  bisexual  form  of  Istar,  described  in  a  legend  quoted  by 
Lenormant  as  having  three  eyes  and  two  horns,  who  suc- 
ceeded Nimrod  or  Ninus,  the  hunting  -  star  Orion,  in 
Babylon,  invented  weights  and  measures,  and  the  art  of 
weaving  silk ',  which  was  first  made  from  the  tusser  cocoons 
of  the  Indian  forests. 

This  weaving-god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons,  whose  wife 
is  Uma  {flax),  is  the  god  of  the  Hindu  tribe  called  Shiva,  who 
were  the  allies  of  the  pre- Aryan  Bharata,  and  were  conquered 
at  the  battle  of  the  ten  kings  described  in  the  Rigveda  by 
the  Tritsu  or  fire-rubbers  {trit)  ^,  whose  high  priest  was 
Vashishtha,  the  fire-god  of  the  perpetual  fire  burning  on  the 
altar  of  the  later  worshippers  of  the  sun-god  as  an  inde- 
pendent god  ruling  the  year  and  marking  his  own  annual 
path  round  the  heavens  instead  of  being  dragged  as  a  day- 
star  round  the  Pole.  They  are  the  people  called  Seboi  by 
Strabo,  who  lived  on  the  Indus  north  of  the  Chinab,  and 
it  was  their  king  Sopeithes  who  gave  Alexander  the  Great 
a  present  of  fighting  dogs  3.  In  India  their  father-god  Shiva 
is  called  the  son  of  Ushlnara,  or  man  {uara)  of  the  East, 
a  name  both  of  the  parent-god  and  of  the  people  called  by 
this  name  in  the  Rigveda  4;  and  that  he  was  the  father-god 
of  a  fair  Northern  race  who  brought  to  India  the  flax  of  Asia 
Minor  is  proved  by  the  epithet  Sveta,  or  the  white  one, 
applied  to  him  in  the  Brahmanass. 

'  Lenormant,  Chaldaan  Magic  and  Sorcery^  Appendix,  p.  396,  note  2. 
^  Rg.  vii.  18,  7. 

3  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  oj  India,  pp.  157,  158. 
*>  Rg.  X.  59,  18. 

5  Monier  Williams.  Religions  Thought  and  Life  in  India^  chap.  iv.    p.  80, 
note  2, 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  85 

The  Indian   god   Shiva   or   Shiba,  father  of  the  Sebo , 
appears   in   the  Ural-Altaic  astronomy  of  the  Akkadians 
as  the  third  star  in  their  seven  Lumasi  or  parent-stars,  the 
star  Sib-zi-ana,  Arcturus,  the  shepherd  {sib)  of  the  life  {zi) 
of  the  god  {and)^  that  is  of  the  young  sun-god  cradled  in  the 
first   of  these  parent  constellations,  Su-gi,  the  Star  of  the 
Wain  or  the  Great  Bear,  and  tended  by  the  second  Lumasi 
Ud-gudua,  the  sun  {ud)  of  Gudua,  the  city  of  the  dead,  the 
Akkadian    national   cemetery.       This   is   the   constellation 
Virgo  ^,  the  mother  of  corn,  depicted  in  Akkadian  astrono- 
mical imagery  as  holding  an  ear  of  corn  in  her  hand,  and 
as  crowned  by  a  snake  whose  tail  hangs  down  her  back «. 
These   three   creating   stars   are :    The   shepherd-star  Arc- 
turus in  Bootes  and  his  virgin-wife  the  tree-mother  of  corn, 
the  constellation  Virgo,  and  the  sun-god  born  of  this  tree- 
mother  and  concealed  in  the  constellation  of  the  Wain  called 
Su-gi,  or,  the  reed  {gi)  of  the  bird  {su  or  khu).     In  this  birth 
story  the  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone  is  transferred 
to  the   North.      The  waste   ocean    void   of   the   Southern 
goddess  Bahu,  into  which  Persephone  is  conveyed  for  her 
winter  sleep,  becomes  here  the  reed-cradle  of  the  Great  Bear 
in  the  lake  filled  by  the  river  Haetumant  or  Helmend,  rising 
in  the  Akkadian  mother-mountain,  Khar-sak-kurra,  whence 
Kavad,  the   parent  of  the   Kushika  race,  was   born.     The 
lamenting  Demeter  becomes  the  watching  and  guarding  star 
Virgo,  while  the  ravishcr  of  the  summer  sun  becomes  the 
guardian  star  Arcturus,  the  finder  of  the  young  sun-god 
under  the  guise  of  the  goat  Uzava,  who  found  Kavad  3. 

This  shepherd  star-god  who  finds  the  lost  lamb  of  his 
flock  is  called  in  the  Rigveda,  Aryaman,  the  Zend  Airya- 
man.  This  star  is  said  in  the  description  in  the  Vishnu 
Dharma  of  the  constellation  Shimshu  mara,  or  the  alligator 

'  Hc«ritt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  iv.,  pp.  359 — 362. 

-  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  *  Remarks  on  the  Constellation  Virgo,'  reprinted 
from  the  Yorkshire  Archaological  Journal,  Figs.  vi.  and  vii.  p.  14,  representing 
Istar-Virgo. 

^  West,  Bundahish,  xxxi.  24  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  p.  136. 


86  History  and  Chronology 

which  turns  the  stars  round  the  Pole,  to  be  the  western  foot 
of  the  constellation  ».  It  is  the  star  of  the  ploughing  {ar) 
race  of  the  growers  of  corn,  the  Mesopotamian  barley  and 
wheat  grown  by  the  Euphratean  farmer  pupils  of  the  Indian 
emigrants.  This  male  father-star,  called  Sib  by  the 
Akkadians  and  Shiva  or  Shiba  by  their  conquerors  in 
India,  is  the  fijither  Saiv,  worshipped,  as  Castren  tells  us,  by 
all  the  Ural-Altaic  tribes  as  their  supreme  god  «.  The  ruling 
section  of  this  Akkadian  Sumerian  confederacy  formed 
by  the  alliance  of  the  Indian  farmers,  the  Finn  wizard 
races  and  the  hunters  of  the  North,  were  the  archers,  the 
sons  of  Shiva  or  Saiv,  the  god  of  the  musical  bow.  It  was 
these  hunting  warriors  who  became  the  sons  of  Kush,  the 
father  of  Nimrod  or  Orion,  the  hunting-star-god,  and  their 
genealogy  is  told  in  the  name  of  the  Kushite  or  Kushika 
race.  For  their  subsequent  parent  Kush  the  tortoise  was 
originally  the  Arabic  kaus,  the  bow,  the  Assyrian  kastu, 
the  Hebrew  kausitu,  and  they  were  thus  the  sons  of  the  bow. 
They  can  be  traced  back  in  prehistoric  ethnology  to  the 
tall  race  called  the  men  of  Cro-Magnon,  of  whom  the 
earliest  skeletons  yet  discovered  were  found  at  Cro-Magnon 
on  the  Vez^re,  in  the  Department  of  Dordogne  in  France  3. 
Their  remains  date  back  to  an  early  period  in  the 
Palaeolithic  Age,  and  they  represent  the  first  people  who 
systematically  shot  flint  arrows  from  their  bows,  though 
arrows  pointed  with  ivory  were  used  by  the  still  earlier  men 
of  the  Spy  Onoz  cave  in  Belgium.  But  bows  and  arrows 
were  unknown  to  the  later  Mesato-Kephalic  races  of  Furfooz 
belonging  to  the  rein-deer  age,  as  no  traces  of  them  have 
been  found,  according  to  M.  Dupont,  in  their  caves  on  the 
Liesse. 


'  Sachau,  Alberuni's  India^  vol.  i.  chap.  ii.  p.  242. 

'  Casiren,  as  quoted  by  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  *  Etruscan  Inscriptions 
of  Lemnos,*  p.  14,  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaology^  April, 
1888,  says  Saiv  is  among  the  Finns  an  **  Allgemeines  Gotter  epithet." 

•*  De  Quatrefages,  The  Human  Species^  chap,  xxvii.,  The  Cro-Magnon  Race, 
PP-  3I4»  315- 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  87 

This  tall  race  of  bowmen,  with  fine  open  foreheads  and 
large,  narrow,  aquiline  noses,  are  shown  by  their  skulls  to 
be  intimately  allied  to  the  Guanches  of  the  Canary  Islands, 
the  Kabyles  of  the  Beni  Masser  and  Djurjura,  and  the 
long-headed  Basques  of  North  Spain  i.  It  was  they 
apparently  who  founded  the  widely-spread  Bantu  stock 
of  Africa,  and  who  made  their  way  through  Europe  to 
Asia  Minor  and  the  Euphrates  valley.  The  aquiline  nose 
introduced  by  them  has  become  the  aquiline  nose  of  the 
Semites,  which  is  owing  to  their  Dravidian  parentage,  not 
like  the  Cro-Magnon  nose,  thin  and  narrow,  but  thick  and 
broad. 

These  confederated  tribes,  the  growers  of  barley  and 
wheat,  and  the  possessors  of  cattle,  sheep  and  goats  bred 
from  Central  Asian  wild  stocks,  distributed  themselves  over 
Elam  or  Persia  and  the  Euphratean  countries,  forming 
provincial  groups  of  allied  villages  depending  on  their 
central  capital.  Some  of  these  were  peopled  by  purer 
races,  and  some  by  those  who  were  more  or  less  mixed,  and 
each  of  these  provincial  divisions  had  its  own  ritual  and  its 
own  measurements  of  annual  time  based  upon  the  ancestral 
teachings  of  the  dominant  tribe,  with  variations  introduced 
by  the  influence  of  the  aliens  received  into  the  territory 
of  the  group. 

C.  Substitution  of  Orion  for  Canopus  as  the  leading  star-god. 

As  they  advanced  northwards  up  the  Euphrates  valley 
the  Dravidian  farmers  lost  sight  of  their  parent-star  Canopus, 
which  disappeared  from  the  night  sky  in  the  latitude  of  the 
Northern  Egyptian  coast,  and  it  was  the  disappearance 
of  Canopus  which  led  to  the  substitution  of  Orion  for 
Canopus  as  the  leader  of  the  stars,  an  event  alluded  to 
in  the  story  of  the  marriage  of  Canopus  and  Orion  quoted 
at  the  beginning  of  this   Chapter.      In  the  belief  framed 

'  De  Qaatrefages,  The  Human  Species^  chap,  xxvii..  The  Cro-Magiion  Race, 

P-335- 


88  History  and  Chronology 

on  this  change  of  the  star-leader  it  was  Orion  who  hunted 
the  Pleiades  and  their  attendant  stars  round  the  Pole, 
instead  of  dragging  them  round  as  Canopus  was  believed 
to  do. 

The  image  of  the  hunting-god,  originally  the  great  storm- 
god  who  drove  the  stars  round  the  Pole,  is  one  which 
originated  among  the  hunting  races  of  the  North,  whom  the 
Southern  farmers  met  in  Asia  Minor.  These  were  the  cave 
men  of  the  Palaeolithic  age,  the  mixed  descendants  of  the 
doliko-kephalic  Neanderthal  and  Cro-Magnon  races,  and  the 
brachy-kephalic  men  of  Furfooz  on  the  Liesse  in  Belgium. 
They  had  during  the  Palaeolithic  age  domesticated  the 
rein-deer,  which  furnished  them  with  food,  clothes  and 
implements,  and  they  had  made  the  rein-deer  sun-god  the 
ruler  of  their  year.  The  dropping  of  his  horns  in  autumn 
told  them  of  the  approach  of  winter,  and  their  re-growth 
in  spring  heralded  the  coming  summer.  The  prophet-god 
who  spoke  by  these  signs  became  the  Celtic  sun-god  Cer- 
nunnos,  whose  forehead  is  adorned  with  deer's  horns  in  the 
images  of  him  engraved  on  his  altars  found  at  Paris,  Rheims, 
Sountes  and  Vendoeuvres  en  Brenne*.  That  these  horns 
were  originally  rein-deer  horns  is  to  be  inferred  from  the 
great  antiquity  of  the  myth  of  this  god,  who  was  originally 
the  English  Heme  the  Hunter,  and  also  from  local  ritual. 
For  at  his  festival,  which  took  place  at  the  winter  solstice, 
rein-deer  horns  are  at  least  in  one  place  in  England,  Abbot's 
Bromley  in  Staffordshire,  used  to  decorate  the  head  of  the 
representative  of  the  sun-god  ^. 

This  horned  deer-god  was  the  god  Frey  oi  the  Edda,  who 
fights  with  his  deer  horns,  and  is  said  in  the  Edda  to  have 
been  with  his  father  Njord,  the  North  Pole  god,  and  his 
twin  sister  Freya,  the  sun-hawk,  taken  from  Asia  Minor  to 
the  North  in  exchange  for  Hoenir  the  sun-horse  3. 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  jor  1886,  Lect.  i.  pp.  78,  79. 

'  Miss  Burnes,  'Staffordshire  Folk  and  their  Lore,*  Folklore^  vol.  vii.,  for 
1896,  p.  383. 
3  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities.     The  Prose  Edda^  pp.  418 — 420,  460. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  89 

The  annual  festival  of  the  end  and  beginning  of  the  year 
of  this  deer-sun-god  is  celebrated  at  the  winter  solstice,  and 
in  those  parts  of  Scandinavia  and  North  Germany  where 
the  primitive  year  festivals  still  survive,  it  begins  twelve  days 
before  that  date,  and  ends  with  a  drama  acted  on  the 
afternoon  before  the  solstice  which  begins  at  six  o'clock*. 
Before  the  fatal  hour  which  ends  the  year  of  the  sun-god, 
he  is  disguised  as  a  deer,  and  courts  a  woman  disguised  as 
a  doe.  They  sing  ribald  songs  together  till  the  last  moments 
of  the  year  arrive,  and  then  the  sun-god  seizes  the  doe,  and 
as  he  attacks  her  he  was  shot  formerly  by  the  arrow,  but 
now  by  the  ball  of  the  Wild  Hunter. 

The  variant  forms  of  this  story  which  originated  in  the 
North  prove   that  it  has  been  carried  all  over  the  world 
by  the  descendants  of  the  Archer  race,  who  believed  in  the 
deer-sun-god.      It  appears  in  India  in  the  tale  told  in  the 
Aitareya  Brahmana,  iii.  33.     This  relates  that  Prajapati  the 
lord  {.pati)  of  cultivators  (prajd),  the  star  Orion  in  the  form 
of  a  deer,  pursued  his  daughter  RohinI,  the  star  Aldebaran 
(who  was,  it  will  be  remembered,  the  Queen  of  the  Pleiades) 
in  the  form  of  a  doe.     This  was  at  the  end  of  Mriga-sirslia 
(November — December),  the  month  of  the  deer's  {mriga)  head 
{sirs/ia),  ending  with  the  winter  solstice.    He  violated  her,  and 
as  he  did  so  he  was  shot  with  the  "  three-knotted  '*  arrow  of 
Rudra,  the  three  stars  in  Orion's  belt,  and  both  these  stars  and 
the  arrow  indicate  the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  the  feather  the 
spring,  the  shaft  the  summer,  and  the  barb  the  winter  ^.   From 
this  union  there  was  born,  according  to   Rigveda  x.  61,  7, 
Vastos-pati,  the  lord  {pati)  of  the  house  (vastos),  the  house- 
hold fire,  the  god  of  the  Finn  Tartar  races,  who  all  worship 
the  household  fire,  of  which  the  house-mother  is  the  priestess. 
It  was  she  who  offered  a  yearly  libation  to  the  household  fire 


1 1 


Letter  from    Professor   Kuhn  to  Dr.   Rajenchalal   Mitra,'  I ndo- Aryans ^ 
'oL  ii.  pp.  300 — 302. 

'  Eggcling,  Sat,  Brdh.^  ii.  I,  2,  8,  9,  iii.  4,  4,  14—17;  S.B.E.,  voL  xii.p.  284, 
i^ole  I,  xxvi.  p.  108,  note  2. 


go  History  and  Chronology 

at  the  festival  of  the  jonla  held  at  the  winter  solstice '.  The 
god  of  the  household  fire,  the  sun-god  born  to  replace  the 
dead  deer-sun  as  the  ruler  of  the  next  year,  became,  ac- 
cording to  Stanzas  17,  18  of  the  hymn  recording  his  birth, 
NabhI-nedishtha,  the  nearest  {nedishtha)  to  the  navel  (naiAi), 
the  central  fire  on  the  altar  ».  The  story  of  the  pursuit  by 
Orion  of  the  Queen  of  the  Pleiades  appears  also  in  the 
Boeotian  tale  of  his  pursuit  of  the  seven  daughters  of 
Pleione,  who  were  changed  into  the  Peleiades,  the  Pleiades 
doves. 

It  is  told  also  in  an  Australian  version,  related  by  the 
Kamilaroi,  a  marrying  tribe.  Their  complicated  system  of 
inter-marriage  between  a  constantly  changing  circle  of  related 
groups,  marks  it  as  a  form  modified  from  the  original  matri- 
archal marriage  of  villages.  In  the  Kamilaroi  system  the 
confederated  clans  take  the  place  of  the  matriarchal  village 
groups,  in  which  the  men  of  one  village  begot  the  children 
of  another  village  to  which  the  children's  mothers  belonged  3. 
Their  story  of  Orion,  whom  they  call  Berri-berri,  tells  how 
he  pursued  the  Miai-miai,  the  Pleiades.  They  took  refuge 
in  a  tree,  the  mother-tree,  where  they  became  white  and 
yellow  parroquets.  Berri-berri  climbed  after  them,  but  they 
were  protected  from  his  violence  by  Turum-bulum,  the  one- 
legged  and  one-eyed  Pole  Star  god,  who  here  takes  the 
place  of  the  Wild  Hunter  and  Rudra  in  the  Scandinavian 
and  Indian  variants  4. 

This  is  the  one-footed,  one-eyed  Annamite  god  called  D*6c 
CuVc,  who  slew  the  fox  of  Cu*ong  nam,  the  destroyer  of 
men,  the  constellation  of  the  fox  or  hare  Lepus  at  the  foot 
of  Orion  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  slew  Orion  when  his  year's  term, 
measured  by  the  moon-fox,  and  its  phases  was  ended. 
D*oc  CuVc  is  the  god  who  gives  rain  to  the  earth,  and  to 
whom  two  cocks  are  sacrificed,  the  cocks  sacrificed  to  the 

'  Lenormant,  Chaldaan  Magic^  chap.  xvi.  p.  249. 

■  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  pp.  169,  170. 
3  The  system  is  described   by   Elie   Reclus,   Le  Primiiif  d'^Australie^  pp. 
159  ff-  *  Ibid.,  pp.  304,  305, 320. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  91 

sun-god  of  the  solstitial  sun  by  the  Indian  Mundas  whose 
original  home  was  in  the  mountains  of  South  China,  north 
of  the  Annamite  country '. 

Another  version  of  the  shooting  of  the  deer-year-god  with 
the  arrow,  which  is  told  in  the  Sania  Jataka,  clears  up  several 
difficult  points  in  the  history  of  this  widely  distributed 
story  =*.  It  tells  how  the  Buddha  sun-god  was  born  in 
a  former  existence  as  the  sun-deer  Sama  of  the  race  of 
the  Nishadhas,  that  is  of  the  race  who  did  not  adore  the  sun- 
god  Ashadha  of  the  year  beginning  with  the  month  of  that 
name  at  the  summer  solstice,  the  history  of  which  will  be 
told  in  Chapter  IV.  The  year  of  the  deer-sun  began  at 
the  winter  solstice,  and  during  it  he  lived  with  his  blind 
father  and  mother  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Mriga-sammata, 
that  is  of  the  united  (sani)  deer  (jnriga). 

His  father  and  mother  were  ascetics  who  had  taken  the 

vow  of  chastity,  that  is  to  say  belonged  to  that  evolution 

of  the  Northern  doctrine  of  fire-worship  which  laid  stress 

on  the  merit  of  absolute  chastity,  as  an  imitator  of  the  sexless 

fire  drill  and  socket,  the  gods  creating  the  holy  fire.     Their 

son  was  begotten  by  the  father  passing  his  hand  over  the 

navel  of  the  mother,  an  idea  derived  from  the  supposed  birth 

of  life  from  the  central  navel  of  the  world,  the  Southern 

mother-tree  or  fire-block,  made  pregnant  by  the  rotation  of 

the  heavenly  fire  drill.     This  deer-sun-god  born  of  the  blind 

Northern  father  and  Southern  mother  was  shot,  among  his 

attendant  deer,  as  the  herd  came  down  to  drink  the  water 

of  the  deer-river,  by  an   arrow   from  the  bow  of  a  hunter 

called  Piliyakkha.     This  Piliyakkha,  who  takes  the  part  of 

Rudra  and   the  Wild    Hunter,   is   described   as  a  king  of 

Kashi  {Benares)^  but  his  name  gives  a  clue  to  the  origin  of 

thb  form    of    the    story   of    the    death    of   the    sun-deer. 

Piliyakko  means  in  Pali,  the  Plaksha  or  Pakar  tree  (Ficus 

*  M.  G.  Dumoutier,  Etudes  d^ EthnographU  Religieust  Annamite  Le  Genie 
^^  Pied  unique^  Actes  du  Ouzicme  Congres  des  Orientalistes,  sect.  Extreme 
Oriem  B.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  275,  276,  278,  280. 

'  A.  St.  John,  *  The  Savanna  Sama  Jataka/  or  the  liirth  Story  of  Sama 
of  the  race  [va^na)  of  the  Sus.    /,R,A,S.y  1894,  pp.  213  ff. 


9^  liistory  and  Chronology 

infectoria),  the  sacred  fig-tree  which  consecrates  the  place 
of  pilgrimage  and  sacrifice  called  Puryag  at  the  junction 
of  the  Jumna  and  Ganges.  The  branches  of  this  tree  were 
laid  as  a  covering  of  the  altar  roofed  with  sheaves  of  Kusha 
grass,  when  animal  sacrifices  were  offered  on  it'.  The 
place  of  pilgrimage  consecrated  to  this  mother-tree  of  the 
sacrifices  of  animal  victims  was  the  meeting-place  where 
the  Turanian  Gonds,  who  killed  animals  in  sacrifice,  and 
who  came  down  the  Jumna,  consummated  their  union  with 
the  previously  united  Munda-Dravido  people,  and  formed 
the  confederacy  of  the  Kushika  Naga  race,  whose  capital 
was  Kashi  {Benares). 

Sama  was,  at  the  prayer  of  his  slayer  Piliyakkha,  recalled 
to  life  as  the  sun-god  of  the  new  year  by  the  goddess  BAha* 
sundari,  the  beautiful  Bahu,  the  Akkadian  mother-goddefls 
of  the  Southern  abyss  of  waters,  the  cauldron  of  life,  and 
she  came  down  to  bring  back  the  sun-god  to  the  rule  of 
the  year  from  the  mountain,  the  mother-mountain  of  thsv 
Turanian  races,  born  from  the  Cave-Cybele,  whom  th^ 
worshipped  as  their  mother. 

This  story  is  evidently  a  Hindu  variant  of  the  European 
legend  of  St.;  Hubert  converted  by  the  deer  with  the  cross 
between  its  horns,  which  he  was  about  to  shoot,  of  which 
another  variant    is  told,  in  which  the  repentant  slayer 'of 
the  deer  is  called  St.  Placidus,  commander  in  Asia  MimW^' 
of  the  armies  of  the  Emperor  Trajan  ».      And  the  prod. 
of  the   relation    between   the    two  stories  is  given  in   tW 
annexed   picture   of  the   story   of  St.   Hubert  by  Albeit 
Durer.     Here  we  see  the  hunter  Piliyakkha,  St.  Hubert,  on* 
one  side  of   the  stream  of   the    Mriga-Sammata ;    on  the 
other   side    stands    the   deer   he   slew,   and   above   is    the 
mountain  castle  of  the  goddess  Bahu-Sundari,  who  resijus* 
citated  the  dead  deer-sun.     I  will  now  show  the  origin  of 
the    legend.     Though   this   Asia   Minor   version,   and   the 

*  Eggeling,  Sa(.  Brdh,,  iii.  3,  3,  10 — 12  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  202,  203. 
»  Gaster,  *The  Nigrodha  Miga  Jataka  and  the  Life  of  St.  Placidus,'  /./^.A.S,, 
«894.  P-  336. 


(the  nev. 

.       .    '    I    '  4       •        .        .  .  V    I 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  93 

part  taken  in  the  Jataka  story  by  the  cave-mountain  goddess 
would  seem  to  point  to  Asia  Minor,  whence  the  god  Frey 
was  said  in  the  Edda  to  go  northward,  as  the  place  whence 
the  legend  originated,  yet  this  is  not  a  conclusion  borne 
out    by  facts.     The  original  national   deer-god  was    most 
certainly  the  Celtic  god  Cernunnos,  whose  home  was   in 
Northern    France   and   North-western    Europe,  and    more 
especially  in  the  Belgian  country  of  the  Ardennes.     It  is  on 
the  Meuse,  about  twelve  miles  to  the  west  of  the  shrine 
of  St.  Hubert,  the  highest  point  of  the  elevated  Ardennes 
region,  called  the  Hautes  Fagnes,  that  we  find  the  shrine 
of    the    Eddie    god     in    the- -oavc-of    Frey,    containing 
palaeolithic   remains.      Also    trfe  ^^ay  consecrated   to    St. 
Hubert  points  to  an  ancient  connection  between  the  cult 
of  the  converted  slayer  of  the  year-deer  and  the  original 
year  of  the  Pleiades,  for  St.  Hubert'3  Day  is  the  3rd  of 
November,  the    day  succeeding  the    three    days'  festival 
beginning  the  November  year  of  the  Pleiades.    The  origin 
of  all    these   stories   of  the    deer- sun -god    Cernunnos  is 
clearly  traced  to  a  Northern  source,  whence  they  travelled 
southward   to  Asia  Minor,  by  the  story  of  Thoas,  which 
shows   how  this   originally  Northern    tale  was  thus  dove- 
tailed into  the  Southern  story  of  the  birth  of  the  sun-god 
from   the    mother-tree.     The    name   of   Thoas,   called   the 
king  of  the  Tauric  Chersonnesus,  has  been  shown  by  Dr. 
Sayce  to  be  a  form  of  the  Arabic  Ta*uz,  which  is  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Hebrew  Tammuz,  the  Akkadian  Dumu-zi  ^ 
the  star   Orion.      He,    in    whose    country   strangers   were 
sacrificed  on  the  altars  of  Artemis,  lay  twelve  nights  with 
his  daughter,  Myrrha  Myrina,  or  Smyrna,  without   know- 
ing who    she  was.     When    he   recognised  her  he  pursued 
her,  who  was  in  the  Indian  story  RohinI,  the  star  Alde- 
baran.  Queen  of  the  Pleiades,  with  his  sword  or  club   of 
Orion,  with  which  he  hunts  the  stars  round  the  Pole ;  and 
she  to  escape   him   changes  herself  into  a  cypress  -  tree, 

Sayce,  Ilibberi  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  235,  note  3,  p.  239,  note  i. 


94  History  and  Chronology 

whence  in  ten  lunar  months  the  young  sun-god  Adonis 
was  born.  This  story,  which  traces  Orion  to  the  Tauric 
Chersonnesus,  where  human  sacrifices  were  offered  to  Ar- 
temis, furnishes  further  proof  of  the  Northern  origin  of 
the  Orion  cult,  and  marks  Asia  Minor  as  the  country 
where  the  Northern  hunters  were  united  with  the  Southern 
sons  of  the  tree,  who  shed  no  blood  in  their  sacrifices. 

When  we  turn  from  the  national  mythology  of  North- 
west Europe  to  the  geological  history  of  the  Hautes 
Fagnes,  we  find  further  proof  of  the  correctness  of  these 
deductions.  It  is  clear  that  the  progress  to  Asia  Minor 
and  the  amalgamation  in  that  country  of  the  alien  tribes, 
who  united  to  form  the  population  of  the  European  villages 
founded  in  the  beginning  of  the  Neolithic  age,  must  have 
occupied  a  long  portion  of  the  latter  part  of  the  Palaeo- 
lithic age  of  Northern  Europe.  I  have  already  shown 
that  there  are  strong  reasons  for  believing  that  the  deer- 
sun  myth  originated  in  the  worship  of  the  reindeer  by 
the  dwellers  in  the  caves  of  the  Ardennes  country  and 
Northern  France,  who  had  domesticated  it  during  the 
Glacial  epoch ;  and  hence  it  is  in  the  geological  history 
of  this  country,  whence  the  emigrants  to  Asia  Minor  set 
forth,  that  we  must  search  for  information  elucidating 
the  history  of  the  movement. 

The  geological  survey  of  the  alluvial  quaternary  deposits 
of  Belgium,  lately  completed  under  the  superintendance 
of  M.  Rutot,  gives  us  what  appears  to  be  a  most  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  establishment 
of  the  most  revered  shrine  of  the  deer-sun-god  in  the 
barren  and  arid  region  forming  the  summit  of  the  Ardennes 
country.  M.  Rutot  tells  us  how,  during  the  epoch  he  calls 
Hesbeyenne,  the  third  of  those  into  which  he  divides  the 
quaternary  age,  there  occurred  a  period  characterised  by  an 
extraordinary  downfall  of  rain  caused  by  the  rapid  melting 
of  the  sinking  glaciers  formed  in  the  Glacial  epoch,  when 
the  land  was  elevated.  This  universal  thaw  was  the  result 
of  the  subsidence  of  the  country,  which  sunk  from  450  to 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  95 

600   feet,   so  that   large  tracts  of  land   which  were  high 

above  the  sea  during  the  Glacial  period  of  terrestrial  ele- 

vation,   sank   below  the  sea  level.     These  were  therefore 

overwhelmed    by  the  sea,  which   completely  covered   the 

valleys  of  the  Meuse,  Sambre,  Scheldt,  and  their  tributaries, 

and  the  only  dry  land  left  in  Southern  Belgium  was  the 

high  country  of  the  Hautes  Fagnes '.     These   inundations 

drove    into  this  elevated   and   previously   ice-bound   tract 

the  whole  human  population  which  had  covered  the  country 

during  the  previous  Mosfeene  and  Campinian  epochs,  when 

the  Spy  Onoz  men,  their  predecessors,  and  those  who  joined 

their  confederacy,  made  their  flint  implements  of  the  Mes- 

vinien   and   Mousterien   types.      Thus    this    high  country 

became   the    head-quarters  of   national  activity,  and    the 

home  of  those  who  were  saved  from  the  flood.     It  seems 

», 

very  probable  that  it  was  this  wide -spread  catastrophe 
which  originated  the  numerous  stories  of  a  universal  deluge, 
and  the  consequent  escape  to  the  mountains  of  the  saved 
remnant  of  humanity,  current  in  Babylonia,  India,  China, 
Greece  and  other  lands  whither  the  descendants  of  the 
Ardennes,  sons  of  the  sun-deer,  had  emigrated. 

It  was  these  people  who  originated  the  story  of  the  year- 
arrow  which  slew  the   sun-deer,    and    of  the    resurrection 
of  the  slain  god  as  the  sun-god  of  a  new  year.     And  this 
story,  in  its  progress  Southward,  appears  in  another  variant 
form  told  in   Rigveda  iv.  27,  and  in  the  Brahmanas.     The 
archer  in  this  version  is   Krishanu,  the    rainbow-god,  the 
drawer  {karsh)  of  the  bow,  a  reminiscence  of  the  flood  age, 
but  his  mark  is  not  the  year-deer  but  the  Shyena   bird, 
the  bird  of  frost  (shyd)^  the  sun-bird  of  the  winter  solstice. 
He  shot  her  as  she  was  flying  through  the  sky  carrying 
the  sacred  Soma,  the  sap  of  life,  that  is  as  the  rain-cloud, 
and  one  of  her  feathers  and  her  blood  fell  to  the   earth 
and  grew  up  into  the  Palasha-tree   {Butea  frondosd)^  the 
sacred  tree  of  the  Mundas,  and  the  first  tree  which  was 

*  A.  Rutot,  Lei  Origims  du  Quaternaire  de  la  Belgique^  pp.  1 21 — 124. 


96  History  and  Chronology 

worshipped  as  that  which,  supplied  in  its  sap,  partaken  as 
a  sacramental  drink  called  Soma  or  the  life-sap  of  Su, 
the  bird  (the  root  of  the  word  Soma),  the  germ  of  an 
ever-reviving  life '.  This  tree,  which  began  its  growth  at 
the  winter  solstice,  flowers  in  Central  India  at  the  time 
of  the  summer  solstice,  and  as  it  grows  there  as  a  gigantic 
creeper  spreading  from  tree  to  tree  over  the  area  where 
it  implants  itself,  it  covers  large  areas  of  the  forest  with 
glowing  sheets  of  brilliant  crimson  flowers. 

In  order  to  see  the  full  historical  meaning  of  this  story 
we  must  compare  it  with  another  variant  form  told  in 
the  ritual  of  the  festival  of  the  Rudra  Triambika,  or  that 
of  Rudra  with  the  three  wives,  of  which  Ambika  was  the 
chief.  This  is  a  very  ancient  festival  held  at  the  winter 
solstice  2,  and  the  offerings  presented  at  it  are  made,  as 
the  Brahmanas  tell  us,  to  Rudra's  arrows,  that  is,  to  the 
arrow  of  Rudra,  the  thunder-god  form  of  the  Pole  Star 
god,  with  which  he  first  shot  at  the  god  of  the  winter 
solstice,  the  year-deer.  This  deer  becomes  in  this  festival 
the  year  Shyena  or  frost  (shyd)  bird,  the  bearer  of  the 
pircumpolar  supply  of  the  moisture  of  life,  the  rain,  which 
was  to  nourish  and  keep  alive  the  living  things  on  the 
earth  during  the  coming  year.  The  bird  in  this  form  of 
the  story  is  called  Ambika,  the  chief  of  the  three  queens 
of  heaven,  ruling  the  three  seasons  of  the  year.  This 
name  shows  that  this  group  of  the  three  wives  of  the 
rain-giving  god  have  the  same  names  as  the  three  daugh- 
ters of  the  king  of  Kashi,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  Sama  Jataka,  one  of  the  shooters  of  the  year-arrow 
and  the  king  of  the  Kushite  capital.  These  three,  Amba, 
Ambika  and  Ambalika,  were  won  by  Bhishma,  who,  as 
we  shall    see  hereafter,  was  a  sexless  sun-god  of  the  age 


»  Eggeling,  Sat.Brdh,^  i.  7,  i,  i  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  1S3,  note  2,  iv.  6, 1,  3, 
xxvi.  p.  422,  where  the  Palasha  is  called  the  Shycna-hrita  tree. 

'  Max  Miiller,  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  vol.  i.  p.  228,  where 
he  quotes  Prof.  01denberg*s  description  of  tlie  feast. 

Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.y  ii.  6,  2,  3—17  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  438—442. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  97 

of  the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas,  from  the  assembled  princes 
of  India  to  be  the  wives  of  his  nephew  Vi-chitra  Virya, 
the  two  (yi)  coloured  {chitrd)  embodiment  of  male  strength 
{Vir\,  Amba,  the  eldest  of  the  three,  is  a  star  in  the 
Pleiades.  She  was  allowed  to  decline  the  royal  marriage 
because  of  her  previous  engagement  to  the  king  of  the 
magicians,  the  king  of  Saubha.  She  is  thus  marked  as  the 
star-mother-goddess  of  the  primitive  age  of  the  Pleiades. 
Hence  it  is  antecedently  probable  that  her  two  sisters,  who 
became  the  mothers  of  the  royal  races  of  the  Kauravyas 
and  Pandavas,  from  whom  all  subsequent  Indian  kings 
claimed  descent,  were  also  stars  marking  epochs  of  time. 

This   probability  becomes   all   but  a  certainty  when  we 
examine  the  story  of  the  birth  of  their  children,  and  find 
that  the  father  who  begot  them  after  the  death  of  his  child- 
less half-brother  Vi  chitra  Virya  was  Vyasa,  the  constellation 
Draco  ;  and  also  that,  as  I  shall  further  prove  in  Chapter  VL, 
the    daughter-in-law    of    Ambika,  called    Gan-dharl,    who 
married   her  blind   son    Dhritarashtra,  was   the   Pole  Star 
Vega   in   the   constellation  of  the  Vulture  from   10,000  to 
8000  B.C.     That  is  to  say,  she  was  the  Pole  Star  of  an  epoch 
of  religious  belief  which  made  the  vulture-bird-star  the  mid- 
queen   of  a  heaven  supported   by  the  blind  gnomon-stone, 
marking    the    daily  and  yearly  motions  of  the  sun  called 
Dhrita-rashtra,  or  the   upholder    [dhriia)    of  the   kingdom 
[rashtra).     This    Pole    Star   queen    of  heaven,  the  watcrer 
[dhari)  of  the  land  {gan  or  ganh),  was  the  successor  of  Tara, 
the  Pole   Star  who  wedded  Su-griva,  the  bird-headed  ape, 
in  the  age  of  the  Pleiades  year,  and    hence  Ambika  who 
intervened  between  the  two  as  the  queen  of  heaven  was  also 
a  Pole  Star.      Thus  she  was  the  Pole  Star  in  the  constella- 
tion Cygnus,  called  originally  the  Bird,  that  is  to  say,  she 
^as  the  Shyena  bird-bearer  of  the  circumpolar  rain-store 
shot  by  Krishanu  and  Rudra,  the  successor  of  Tara,  the  Pole 
Star  in  Kephcus  from  21,000  to  19,000  B.C.     Ambika,  as  the 
Pole  Star   in  Cygnus,  was    the   Pole  Star   from    17,000   to 

15)000  B.C. 

H 


98  History  and  Chronology 

The  third  wife  of  Rudra  was  Ambalika,  the  mother  of  the 
impotent  Pandu,  who  became  sexless  when  he  slew  a  Rishi 
who  had  assumed  the  form  of  a  deer'.  This  Rishi  slain 
as  the  year-deer  was,  in  the  variant  form  of  the  story  Marlchi, 
the  fire-spark,  whence  the  Kushika  race  was  born,  slain  as 
a  deer  by  Rama,  and  at  once  transported  to  heaven  as  a 
star  in  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear  or  the  seven  ante- 
lopes {Risky a),  which  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Akkadian 
astronomy,  the  cradle  of  the  year-god.  His  mother  was  the 
bear-mother  constellation,  of  which  I  shall  tell  the  history 
presently,  when  I  show  its  connection  with  this  year  of 
Orion. 

The  Rudra  Tri  ambika  festival  of  the  death  and  re-birth 
of  the  year-god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  was  held  at  the 
meeting  of  four  cross-roads  to  the  North  of  the  sacrificial 
ground.  There  was  a  mound  in  the  centre  of  the  meeting- 
place  to  represent  the  mother-mountain  of  the  Turano-Finn 
race  of  magicians.  The  offerings  were  cakes  made  of  rice 
ground  on  millstones  placed  on  the  skin  of  a  black  antelope, 
Mriga,  meaning  that  which  goes  round  {meregh),^x\A  applied 
to  the  animal  which  goes  round  the  year-circle  as  the  sun- 
bird  or  as  the  sun-deer.  The  black  antelope  was  the 
descendant  of  the  sun-deer.  The  two  rice  cakes  offered 
to  represent  the  two  original  seasons  of  the  year  were,  accor- 
ding to  the  instructions  given  in  the  Satapatha  Brdhmana^ 
thrown  into  the  air,  caught  again,  and  hung  at  the  end 
of  a  beam,  after  they  had  been  offered  to  Rudra's  arrow 
on  a  Palasha  leaf  {Butea  frondosd).  This  ceremonial  proves 
that  the  story  of  Rudra's  arrow  is  a  variant  form  of  that 
of  Krishanu,  which  brought  the  sacred  Palasha  tree  to  life. 
The  priests  in  this  sacrifice  make  two  circular  circumambu- 
lations  of  the  altar.  They  first  go  three  times  round  it 
contrary  to  the  course  of  the  summer  sun,  the  direction 

represented  by  the  female  Suastika  Jj,  which  depicts  the 

sun's  path  when  it  begins  its  yearly  journey  by  going  North 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  {^Sambhava)  Parva,  xcv.,  cxviii.  pp.  286,  343 — 345. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  99 

at  the  winter  solstice.    In  this  circuit  the  priests  are  followed 
by  the  village  maidens,  the  matriarchal  village  mothers. 
In  the  second  circuit,  which  is  made  sun-wards  to  mark 

the  path  of  the  sun  of  the  male  Suastika  U^,  going  South- 
ward at  the  summer  solstice,  only  the  male  sacrificer  and  the 
priests  officiate. 

Further  proof  of  the  correctness  of  the  historical  deduc- 
tion, proving  that  Ambika  and  the  Shyena  or  frost  {shya) 
bird  slain  by  Krishanu  and  Rudra  was  the  Pole  Star  in 
Cygnus,  is  given  in  the  ritual  of  the  Ashva  medha  or 
sacrifice  {ntedfia)  of  the  sun-horse  {ashva)^  which  was  the 
New  Year's  sacrifice  of  the  year  succeeding  those  measured 
by  the  stars  and  moon.  In  this  sacrifice,  Amba,  Ambika 
and  Ambalika  are  invoked  as  the  three  heavenly  mothers, 
who  are  to  lead  to  heaven  the  horse  slaughtered  as  the  sun- 
god  of  the  dead  year.  Ambika,  called  the  Mahishi  or  chief 
queen,  addresses  her  two  sister  stars,  telling  them  that  she 
"  renounces  the  right  to  be  the  bride  of  the  sun-horse,  and 
resigns  that  honour  to  Su-bhadr  '."  Su-bhadra,  as  we 
shall  see,  is  the  mountain-goddess  Durga,  the  twin  sister 
of  Krishna,  the  black  sun-antelope,  whose  year  preceded  that 
of  the  sun-horse. 

In  this  long  analysis  of  the  year  stories  of  the  sun-deer 
and  the  year  Pole  Star  bird,  I  have  shown  that  the  ruler 
of  the  year  designated  in  them  was  the  archer-god  of 
heaven,  called  Krishanu  or  Rudra.  He  appears  again  in  this 
character  as  Su-dharv,an,  the  father  of  the  three  Vedic 
Ribhus  2,  the  fillers  of  the  three  cups  denoting  the  seasons, 
for  Su-dharvan  means  the  bow  {dharvan)  of  Su  {khu),  that 
is  the  bow  of  the  year-bird.  They  are  the  gods  called 
by  the  Babylonians  Ribu,  the  great  divine  Akkadian  princes, 
An-nun-gal3.      They   form   the  Polar  year-circle   guarded 

'  £ggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  xiii.  2,  8,  3 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  p.  321  ;  Tait,  Samh.^ 
'^^  4»  19,  I ;  Zimmer,  AltindUches  Lebetiy  chap.  i.  pp.  36,  37  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling 
^<^ti  of  Prehistoric  Times  ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iv.,  pp.  336,  337,  note  I. 

'  %  »▼•  35»  I- 

'  Saycc,  J/ibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  p.  141,  note  I. 

11    2 


25v>511 


icx)  History  and  Chronology 

by  the  constellation  Draco  the  alligator,  the  Akkadian 
Istar  in  her  form  of  Rahabu,  who  was  the  Hebrew  and 
Phoenician  Rahab  worshipped  at  Carthage  and  all  the 
ancient  Semite  shrines  as  one  of  the  chief  ruling  gods^ 
This  alligator-god  is  the  god  Maga  or  Muggar,  worshipped 
everywhere  in  Bengal  and  Northern  India ;  the  god  called 
in  the  Gond  Song  of  Lingal,  Fuse  or  Mug-ral  the  alligator, 
who  first  saved  the  Gonds  born  from  the  caves  at  the  sources 
of  the  Jumna  from  the  flood  which  threatened  to  overwhelm 
them  till  they  were  taken  by  Lingal  on  board  his  ship,  that 
of  Dame  the  tortoise,  the  confederacy  of  the  Kushite  sons 
of  the  tortoise  {kush)  ^.  He  was  the  crocodile-god  of  Egypt, 
called  Maga-Sebek,  Maga  the  uniter  {sbk),  a  form  of  the 
year-god  Osiris,  who  as  Sahu  was  the  star  Orion,  and  as 
Sebek-Ra  the  sun-god  3. 

This  uniting-god  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  races  is  the 
Vyasa  of  the  Mahabharata,  meaning  the  uniter,  and  called 
the  priest  **  with  the  grim  visage  and  the  strong  odour." 
He  was  the  son  of  SatyavatT,  the  fish- mother  of  the  Matsya 
or  royal  fish  {matsya)  born  race,  and  Parashara,  the  over- 
hanging {para)  cloud  {shard)  begotten  in  a  mist,  who  became, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  father  of  the  children  of  his  half-brother 
Vi-chitra  Virya,  the  king  of  two  united  races  4.  He  is  the 
god  called  in  one  hymn  in  the  Rigveda  the  father  of  IndraS, 
and  in  another  the  Vritra,  the  circling-snake  Vyansa  with 
the  two  {vi)  shoulders  {an  sa),  whom  Indra  slew,  and  who 
becomes  in  another  stanza  of  the  sam^  hymn  the  god  Danu, 
the  Pole  Star  father  of  the  Danava  ^. 

The  three  Ribhus,  the  three  seasons  or  forms  of  the  encir- 
cling year-god,  are  called  in  Rigveda  iv.  33, 4,5, 9,  the  makers  of 


^  Sayce,   Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,    Lect.    iv.    p.  258,  note   I,   Gesenius, 
Thesaurus  Rahab, 
-  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times y  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  pp.  223,  224. 
^  H.  Brugsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alten  ^gypter^  pp.  105,  587. 
*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Samhhava)  Parva,  cv.,  cvi.,  pp.  317 — 323. 
5  Kg.  iv.  18,  I,  9,  10,  Ludwig's  translation,  Hymn  959,  vol.  ii.  p.  590. 
^  Rg.  i.  32,  5,  9. 


of  tlu  Myth' Making  Age,  lOl 

the  year-cow  and  her  calf,  and  are  named,  (i)  Vaja,  the  active 
or  cunning  god,  the  workman  of  the  Vaishvadeva  or  national 
village  {visK)  gods ;  (2)  Vibhvan,  the  distinguished  god,  the 
workman  of  Varuna  ;  and  (3)  Ribhu-ksha,  the  master  {kslia)  ^ 
Ribhu,  the  workman  of  Indra.  This  apportionment  of  their 
duties  marks  them  as  the  three  gods  of  the  Chatur  Masya 
year  of  three  seasons  of  four  (chatur)  months  each.  These 
are  dedicated  in  the  Brahmana  ritual  to  the  (i)  Vaishvadeva, 
the  gods  of  the  spring  season ;  (2)  Varuna,  father  of  the 
eaters  (ghas)  of  barley,  Varuna's  corn,  the  god  of  the  summer 
called  Varuna  praghasah,  dedicated  to  the  barley-eaters ; 
and  to  (3)  Indra,  god  of  the  rainy  and  winter  season  of  the 
Saka-medhah^  or  sacrifices  to  the  Saka  or  wet-god,  wor- 
shipped as  Sek  Nag  by  the  Gonds3,  whom  we  have  seen 
(pp.  50,69)  to  have  been  the  original  ruling-god  of  India,  the 
Arabian  Sakhr,  and  the  Akkadian  Sakh  or  Sukh,  mother 
of  Suk-us  the  sun-god.  This  year,  according  to  the  ritual 
of  the  years  measured  by  months  as  inculcated  in  the 
Brahmanas,  began  with  the  full  moon  of  Phalguna  (February 
—March),  but  as  the  year  of  the  Ribhus,  as  it  is  called  in  the 
Rigveda,  is  that  measured  by  seasons,  it  began  at  the 
winter  solstice,  for  it  was  at  the  end  of  this  year  that 
the  Ribhus  slept  for  twelve  days  in  the  house  of  Agohya, 
the  Pole  Star,  meaning  "  that  which  cannot  be  concealed  4." 
This  twelve  days  sleep  conclusively  marks  this  year  as 
that  of  three  seasons  which  I  am  now  describing,  which 
closed  with  the  twelve  days  revel  before  the  winter  solstice 
ending  with  the  death  of  the  deer-sun-god,  the  twelve  nights 

'  The  word  ksha,  meaning  '*  master,"  is  derived  by  Grassmann  from  kshi, 
lo  nile.  This  is  a  Bactrian  word  whence  is  derived  the  Bactrian  kh.saya, 
powerful.  The  root  appears  in  the  language  of  the  Zirian  Finns  as  khsi, 
i  iady,  the  Osetan  akshi,  and  in  the  Scythian  royal  titles  of  Leipo-xais  and 
Arpo-xais  preserved  by  Herodotus.  It  appears  in  India  in  the  name  of  ksha- 
^7a  or  warrior  {^ksha)  tribe,  who  are  thus  shown  to  be  of  Finn-Bactrian  descent. 
Abtrcromby,  Proto  and  Prehistoric  FinnSf  vol.  i.,  Iranian  Period,  p.  233. 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.y  ii.  5,  i,  ii.  5,  4;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  383 — 420. 
'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times y  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  229. 

*  Kg.  iv.  33,  7. 


102  History  and  Chronology 

during  which  Thoas  slept  with  his  daughter  the  Pole  Star, 
mother  of  the  sun-god  born  of  the  world's  tree.     There  is 
a  still  further  instance  of  this  twelve  days  sleep  to  be  added 
to  the  list,  the  twelve  days  and  nights  during  which  Ar-chal, 
the  Phoenician  sun-god,  slept   on  the  funeral   pyre  before 
he  was  recalled  to  life  as  the  sun -god  of  the  new  year  on  the 
2nd  of  Peritius,  the  25th  of  December.     It  was  the  quails 
who  woke  him  from  the  sleep  of  death,  and  it  was  in  com- 
memoration   of  this   resurrection   that   quails  were  offered 
to  the  Greek  Herakles '.    These  quails,  called  in  the  Rigveda 
Vartika,  the  turners  {vart)  of  the  year,  are  sacred  to  the 
Ashvins  or  twin-gods  of  night  and  day,  who  release  them 
from  captivity  and  from  the  rage  of  the  devouring  wolf  of 
time  2;  that  is  to  say,  restore  them  to  life  to  be  the  heralds 
of  the  new  year  when  they  arrive  in  Northern  India,  as  they 
usually  do   about  the  winter   solstice.      This  story  of  the 
quails  and  the  end  of  the  year  of  Orion  is  repeated  again 
in  the  Greek  myth,  which  tells  how  Orion  the  hunter  was 
placed  among  the  stars  after  he  had  been  slain  on  Ortygia, 
the  island  of  the  quails  {oprvye^:  Foprvyes),  by  Artemis,  the 
goddess  of  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear.     The  twelve 
days'  sleep  of  Archal  is  also  recorded  in  the  Akkadian  epic 
of   Gilgames,   which    tells    how    labani,    the    comrade    of 
Gilgames,  was   wounded   by  Istar,  and  how  he  died   after 
lingering  for  twelve  days,  and  how  Gilgames  implored  the 
'  gods  of  the  lower  world  to  restore  him  to  life.     He  rose  again 
as  the  sun  of  the  new  year  in  the  twelfth  book  of  the  poem  3, 
to  be  the  antelope  or  gazelle  sun-god  4,  the  Assyrian  form 
of  the   Hindu  black  antelope-god   Krishanu.     This  year  of 
three  seasons  of  Orion,  the  deer-hunting  sun  and  star-god, 
and  of  the  three  Ribhus,  is  one  of  twelve  months  of  twenty- 
nine   days   each,  the   Zend    year   and   that   of  the    Hindu 

*  Movers,  Die  Phanixtery  vol.  i.  chap.  x.  p.  386  ;  Athenaus^  ix.  45. 

*  Rg.  i.  112,  8,  116,  14,  117,  16,  X.  39,  13. 

3  Frazer,  *  The  Saturnalia  and  Kindred  Festivals,'  Fortnightly  Review^  Nov., 
1900,  p.  832. 

*  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  282—284. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  I03 

^  I  Karanas,  as  explained  on  p.  41  ;  that  in  which  each  month 
was  divided  into  six  weeks  of  five  days  or  nights.  But  this 
reckoning  only  gave  348  days  to  the  year,  and  the  twelve 
more  days  required  to  complete  the  sun-circle  of  360  days 
were  these  twelve  days,  which  I  have  now  shown  to  have 
been  added  to  this  year  in  Scandinavia,  Germany,  Asia 
Minor,  Greece,  Syria,  and  India. 

The  myths  which    I  have  quoted  to   illustrate  the   his- 
tory of  this  year,  show  that  it  dates  from  a  very  remote 
period  of  human  history ;  but  remote  as  this  period  was, 
apparently  about   17,000  B.C.,  when  the  Pole  Star  was  in 
Cygnus,  it  was,  as  we   see   from  the  year  -  measurements) 
subsequent  to  the  division  of  the  sun-circle  into  360  degrees. 
This  is  a  division  which  arose  naturally  out  of  the  measure- 
ments of  the  year  by  72  weeks  of  5  days  each,  a  division 
which,  as  I  have  shown,  originated  among  the  Dravidians. 
The  duodecimal  scale  on  which  it  is  based  is  essentially 
of  Dravidian  origin,  for  it  arose  out  of  the  custom  of  counting 
everything  by  Gundas  or  fours,  a  custom  which  is  almost 
instinctively  used  by  all  Indians  even  down  to  the  lowest 
coolie.     This  division  of  the  year's  time  accompanies  that 
of  the   day  into  thirty  muhurtas  of  forty-eight  and  sixty 
ghatis  or  hours  of  twenty-four  minutes  each,  which  is  uni- 
versally  used   throughout    India.     It    dates    back    to    the 
earliest   period   when    the   fractional   parts   of  the  year   of 
360  days  began  to  be  reckoned  by  the  astronomical  priests, 
for  it  appears  in  the  instructions  for  building  the  brick  altars 
of  the  sun-bird,  the  altar  of  the  Agni-chayana  ceremony 
used   in    the  final  form   of  Vcdic   ritual,  instituted   at   the 
very   beginning   of  the   age   of  the    rule   of   the   Sanskrit 
speaking  sun-worshippers.     In  the  rules  for  building   this 
altar,  given    in   the    Satapatha   Brdkmana^    10,800    bricks, 
called   Lokam  prini  or  bricks  filling  the  world    {loka)y  are 
ordered  to  be  used  in  building  the  Garhapatya  and  Aha- 
vaniya  altars,  and  the  eight  Dliishnya  hearths  in  the  con- 
secrated sacrificial  ground  ;  and  this  number,  equal  to  360 
X  30,  is  said  to  represent  the  number  of  Muhurtas,  thirty 


104  History  and  Chronology 

« 
to   each    day  in   the  year,  of  the  sacrificial   altar  ^      This 

division  of  the  fractions  of  time,  as  Alberuni  shows  in  his 
exhaustive  treatise  on  the  Hindu  system  of  measuring  time 
for  astronomical  purposes,  underlies  the  whole  system  of 
Hindu  chronology,  and  must  undoubtedly  be  very  much 
older  than  the  oldest  of  the  Vedic  poems.  In  the  Bud> 
dhist  Nidanakatha  its  origin  is  referred  back  to  the  days 
of  Kashyapa,  son  of  Marlchi,  the  deer-star,  in  the  constella- 
tion of  the  Great  Bear,  who  made  the  Banyan  tree  {Ficus 
Indica)  his  parent-tree  ;  and  this  I  have  shown,  in  p.  26, 
to  be  the  national  tree  of  Kuru-kshetra,  and  of  the  very 
ancient  race  of  the  Kaui^vyas.  The  Nidanakatha  says  that 
the  archangel  Ghati-kara,  the  maker  of  Ghatis,  who  gave  the 
Buddha  the  eight  requisites  of  a  mendicant  saint,  was  the 
attendant  angel  of  Kashyapa  2.  Among  these  was  his 
earthenware  begging  bowl,  the  symbol  of  the  seed-bearing 
earth-born  tree-trunk  of  the  early  mythology.  This  dis- 
appeared while  he  was  waiting  for  his  initiation  as  the  sun- 
god  under  the  Nigrodha  or  Banyan  tree,  sacred  to  his 
forerunner  Kashyapa,  and  it  was  not  till  after  his  last  and 
final  consecration  as  the  sun-god,  marching  on  his  yearly 
path  through  the  stars,  that  he  received  the  eight  bowls,  four 
made  of  sapphire  and  four  of  jet,  those  of  the  round  of 
day  and  night  brought  by  the  four  Lokapalas  or  angel- 
regents  of  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavens.  These  were 
made  into  one  bowl,  the  vault  of  heaven,  consecrated  to  the 
sun-god. 

D.     The  sun-circle  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  degrees. 

This  measurement  of  the  sun-circle  of  360  degrees  dates 
back  also  in  Europe  to  a  period  of  very  remote  antiquity, 
for  it  is  undoubtedly  that  used  by  the  builders  of  the 
very  ancient  stone  circles  at  Solwaster  in  Belgium,  about 
seven  miles  from  Spa.     There  are  a  number  of  stone  circles 

'  Eggcling,  Saf.  Ihah.,  x.  4,  3,  20;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  p.  360. 
=  ^hysD^Mid,  Buddhist  Birth  :Stories  ;  The  Nuianakatha,^^,  $1,^^7^,9^*110. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  105 

on  this  very  high  table-land,  which  completely  dominates 
the  surrounding  country,  and  these  have  all  been  examined 
and  surveyed  with  scientific  instruments  by  M.  Harroy,  the 
Principal  of  the  Government  Normal  School  at  Verviers. 
They  are  all  sun-circles,  and  in  the  centre  of  each  is  the 
Hir-men-sol,  or  great  stone  of  the  sun.  At  a  distance  of 
thirty  metres  from  this  stone  is  an  astronomically  arranged 
circle  of  stones  of  360  degrees  ;  a  stone  being  placed  to 
mark  each  ten  degrees  of  the  circle,  as  tested  by  M. 
Harroy 's  measurement.  Thus  there  were  originally  thirty- 
six  stones  in  each  circle,  but  none  of  them  are  now  quite 
complete.  Also  the  stones  indicating  the  rising  points  of 
the  equinoctial  and  solstitial  suns  are  larger  than  the  others. 
Thus  the  North-east  and  South-west  arcs  of  these  circles 
form,  as  M.  Harroy  says,  a  great  stone  sextant. 

Apart  from  these  circles  is  the  dolmen,  or  sacrificial 
stone  altar,  raised  on  four  supporting  stones,  on  which 
animal  victims  were  offered.  It  was  also  used  elsewhere 
as  a  burial-place,  but  not  at  Solwaster.  Its  longer  axis 
points  due  North  and  South,  and  it  is  marked  with  the 
image  of  the  ancient  plough  common  on  the  dolmens  of 
Britanny  ^ 

Besides  these  Solwaster  circles  of  36  stones,  there  is 
also  the  remarkable  inner  circle  of  16  syenite  stones  at 
Stonehenge.  This  is  placed  inside  the  great  circle  of  thirty 
sarsen  stones  denoting  the  thirty  days  of  the  month,  and 
it  is  probably  these  later  builders  who  have  added  the  four 
sarsen  local  stones  to  the  circle  of  thirty-six  syenite  stones 
brought  from  Dartmoor  2.  These  Stonehenge  stones  are  not 
like  those  of  Solwaster,  so  placed  as  to  mark  the  degree 
points  of  the  circle,  and  it  is  probable  that  they  represent 
the  original  thirty-six  BrihatI  weeks  of  the  sun's  half-yearly 
course. 

'   M.    Harroy,  Cromlechs  et  Dolmens  dc  Bcl^iquf  Le  Dolmen  ct  Cromlechs  de 
S-^l waster,  pp.  8 — 35. 

•   lie  wilt,    AW///;'    liaces  of  Prehistoric    Times,    vol.    ii.,    Essay    viii.,    pp. 
I38^i4a 


io6  History  and  Chronology 

There  is  also  a  noteworthy  assemblage  of  thirty-six  stones 
at  Kursunno  in  Britanny  near  a  dolmen,  which  has  been 
used  as  a  burying-place.  These  stones  are  not  arranged 
in  a  circle  but  placed  round  the  sides  of  a  square.  There 
are  ten  stones  on  each  side,  and  thus  the  two  sides  unit- 
ing the  two  opposite  sides  of  ten  stones  only  contain  eight 
stones  each,  so  that  the  whole  number  of  stones  is  lo  x  lo 
X  8  X  8  =  36.  There  was  no  monolith  in  the  centre,  and 
the  square  field  formed  by  these  stones  was  apparently  a 
reproduction  of  the  primitive  augur  field  of  Roman  ritual. 
The  stone  circles,  with  the  Hir-men-sols  in  the  centre, 
within  which  no  living  victims  were  offered,  were  clearly 
erected  for  the  adoration  of  the  rising  sun  of  day,  and  not 
of  the  setting  sun  of  night  of  the  Southern  races.  But  these 
circles  were  certainly  much  later  in  date  than  the  solitary 
Hir-men-sols  or  Menhirs,  such  as  that  at  Tournai  in  Bel- 
gium, and  the  gigantic  stone  menhir  at  St  Renan  in 
Britanny,  which  abound  everywhere  in  Europe  where 
megalithic  stones  are  found.  These  show  that  the  original 
cult  of  the  sun  in  the  stone  age  in  North  Europe  was  an 
indigenous  worship  introduced  into  southern  countries  by 
the  worshippers  of  the  deer-sun.  It  was  these  worshippers 
of  the  sun -gnomon -stone  who  introduced  the  custom  of 
setting  it  up  in  villages  as  the  village  god.  This  be- 
came the  Perron  or  sign  of  municipal  liberty  still  found 
in  so  many  German  and  Flemish  towns  and  depicted  on 
their  arms.  That  these  were  sun-stones  is  clear  from  the 
Pyr  of  Augsburg,  which  is  a  fir-cone,  still  borne  on  the 
arms  of  the  town,  but  on  a  Roman  monument  called  the 
altar  of  the  "  duumviri,**  now  in  the  town  museum,  it  is 
placed  on  the  top  of  a  pillar.  This  pine-cone,  like  that 
on  the  top  of  the  "  Thyrsus  "  of  Bacchus,  consecrated  the 
pillar  to  the  sun.  This  rude  stone  menhir,  which  was  the 
image  of  the  sun-god  in  the  early  age  of  Orion's  year, 
was  "  the  holy  white  stone  of  the  sun,'*  by  which  it  is  said 
in  the  Saga  of  Gudrun  that  all  Scandinavians  swore  ^ 

*  Goblet  d'Alviella,  The  Migration  of  Symbols  ^^^^  103— no;  Godrunar  Saga. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age.  107 

E.  The  southward  emigration  of  t/ie  Neolithic  builders  of 
stone  monuments^  and  of  the  men  of  the  PaUeolithic  age^ 
and  the  history  of  Pottery, 

These  menhirs  became  the  Beth-els  of  the  Jews  and  the 
Betuli  of  the  Arabians,  and  they  and  the  dolmens  and  sun- 
circles,  which  were  not  generally  sun  sextants  as  at  Solwaster, 
mark  the  track  southward  of  the  men  of  the  Neolithic  age. 
They  in  every  country  through  which  they  passed  in  Europe, 
Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  the  land  of  the  stone  cities  of  Bashan 
and  India,  have  left  these  megalithic  monuments  as  evi- 
dence of  their  rule  of  these  lands,  where  they  pitched 
their  camps.  In  Moab  these  monuments  seem  to  be  ar- 
ranged in  districts,  as,  according  to  Dr.  Tristram,  the 
stone  circles  of  Callirrhoe  are  not  associated  with  dolmens 
as  they  are  to  the  North  and  in  Ataroth,  consecrated  to 
Atar,  the  god  of  fire ;  there  are  dolmens  without  circles  ^ 

The  whole  system,  when  thoroughly  examined  over  tracts 
where  these  megalithic  monuments  abound,  shows  a  con- 
tinually changing  theology  of  sun-worship,  varying,  as  will 
be  seen  in  the  sequel,  with  the  measurements  of  annual  time. 
This  culminates  in  the  two  columns  at  the  entrance  of  all 
Phoenician  temples,  and  the  sacred  obelisks  of  Egypt  and 
Arabia  dedicated  to  the  Vulture  Pole  Star  goddess  Vega, 
the  Egyptian  Ma'at,  the  Arabian  El  Nasr,  the  vulture,  the 
Pole   Star   from   10,000   to   8000   B.C.      These   builders   of 
megalithic  monuments  were  among  the  earliest  emigrants 
from  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  to  India,  and  they  are  repre- 
sented now  by  the  most  primitive  of  the  caste-races,  whose 
marriage  ceremony  is  completed  by  the  bridegroom's  marking 
the  forehead  and  parting  of  the  bride's  hair  with  red  sindur. 
This  symbolises,  as  is  proved  by  the  actual  interfusion  of 
blood  enjoined  in  some  caste  rituals,  the  formation  of  blood 

Strophe  47.    The  ancient  pillars  of  cut  stone  set  up  in  the  centre  of  the  village 
as  successors  to  the  primaeval  menhirs  still  exist  in  the  villages  of  Garsington 
*o<l  Cttddesdon  near  Oxford.     In  the  latter  place  the  original  pillar  has  become 
the  shaft  of  a  cross. 
*  Tristram,  Land  of  Moab ^  chap.  xiv.  p.  269,  xvi.  p.  300  fif. 


lo8  History  and  Chronology 

brotherhood  between  the  alien  races  of  the  bridegroom  and 
bride,  and  as  almost  all  these  marriages  are  accompanied 
by  a  simulated  capture  of  the  bride,  the  ceremony  proves 
that  this  almost  universal  form  of  marriage  was  introduced 
by  a  conquering  race. 

The  tribe  to  which  the  origin  of  these  customs  is  assigned 
is  that  called  in  the  Gond  traditions  of  the  Song  of 
Lingal  the  Kolamis  who  captured  their  brides,  and  these 
formed  one  of  the  four  divisions  of  the  Gond  race  called  in 
the  poem  the  primitive  Gonds.  These  divisions  are,  (i)  The 
Korkus  or  Mundas ;  (2)  The  Bhils  or  men  of  the  bow  {billa), 
whose  immigration  I  have  already  accounted  for ;  (3)  The 
Kototyul  or  sons  of  a  log  of  wood,  the  aboriginal  Dravidians; 
and  (4)  The  Kolamis, 

These  last  are  the  people  who  introduced  into  India  the 
family  organisation  of  exogamous  marriages,  instead  of  that 
of  the  matriarchal  village,  and  of  the  inter-tribal  community 
of  women  common  among  the  non-marrying  Northern  races. 
These  marrying  conquerors  are  represented  in  Bengal  and 
Central  India  by  the  Mal^s  and  Mai  Paharias  of  the  hills 
of  South  Behar  and  the  Kharias  and  Kharwars  of  Chutia 
Nagpur,  who  ultimately  became  the  Chiroos  or  sons  of  the 
bird  {Chir\  who  are  one  of  the  three  Dasyu  or  country 
{desJi)  born  races  descended  from  Agastya,  the  star  Canopus. 
These  people  all  worship  the  god  Gumi  Gosain,  the  god 
of  the  wooden  pillar  {gunio)^  which  supports  the  house-roof, 
and  against  which  the  family  hearth  is  placed.  This  pillar 
is  called  in  the  theology  of  the  Mahabharata  the  blind 
king  Dhritarashtra,  he  who  upholds  {dhritd)  the  kingdom 
(rdshtra).  Round  the  central  pillar  are  placed  balls  of  hardened 
clay,  representing  the  ancestors  of  the  family,  and  on  these 
the  firstfruits  of  the  earth  are  offered,  and  the  blood  of  fowls 
and  goats  poured  over  them.  This  ritual  shows  that  they 
introduced  the  goat  as  a  sacrificial  animal  in  addition  to 
the  fowls  of  the  Mundas.  They  are  all  sun-worshippers,  and 
a  pole  consecrated  to  the  sun  as  the  god  Dharma  Gosain, 
"  the  prophet  of  law,"  is  set  up  in  front  of  each  house,  but 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  109 

they  also  imitate  the  Mundas  in  worshipping  the  god  of  the 
Sal  tree  in  the  village  grove.  These  Mal^s,  Mai  Paharias 
and  Khariis  are  still  in  the  stone  age,  for  they  manufacture 
no  metal '. 

The  first  Indian  immigrants  of  these  races  began  by 
worshipping  the  Menhir  or  sun-gnomon-stone,  still  erected 
by  the  Kossias  and  by  the  Mundas,  which  latter  use  it  as 
a  memorial  of  their  dead.  This  became,  after  their  union 
with  the  sons  of  the  tree,  the  wooden  pillars  of  the  Males 
worshipped  by  the  Jews  as  the  Asherah,  and  the  gnomon- 
stones  and  wooden  tree  pillars  of  the  northern  Eberones, 
or  sons  of  the  boar  {eber)^  the  name  assumed  by  the  earliest 
confederacy  who  ruled  in  the  Ardennes.  These  latter  people 
were  believers  in  magic,  who  claimed  the  bear  as  their 
mother  totem,  and  worshipped  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
the  mother-stars  of  the  sons  of  the  third  Hindu  queen  of 
heaven  Ambalika ;  and  they  were  the  Pandya  or  fair 
{pandti)  race,  who  formed  the  third  of  the  three  Dasyu 
descendants  of  Agastya,  the  Kolas  or  Cholas,  Chiroos  and 
Pandyas. 

These  sons  of  the  bear  seem  to  belong  to  a  distinctly 
Northern  race,  whose  original  home  was  in  North  Europe. 
In  the  Magic  Songs  of  the  Finns  the  birth  of  the  bear  is 
traced  to  the  sky-maiden  who  walked  along  the  navel  of 
heaven,  the  centre  Polar  circle,  with  a  wool  box  in  her  hand, 
whence  she  threw  five  tufts  of  spinning-wool  on  the  waves 
of  the  sea.  These  were  picked  up  by  the  forest-mother 
Mielikki,  who  placed  the  wool  in  her  bosom,  whence  the 
bear  was  born,  and  she  rocked  the  babe  in  a  cradle  of  the 
mother-pine-tree  2.  In  other  words,  the  bear-mother  was 
the  daughter  of  the  spinning  Pleiades  who  went  round  the 
Pole  Star  navel  of  the  sky  in  the  year  of  five-day  weeks,  and 


'  Risley,  Tribes  and  CasUs  of  Bengal  ^  vol.  ii.,  Maids,  p.  57  ff.,  Mai  Paharias, 
pp.  69—71,  vol.  i.  Kharids,  pp.  468 — 471. 

-'  Abercromby,  Magic  Songs  of  the  Finns,  iii.,  The  Origin  of  the  Hear, 
Folklore,  1890,  pp.  26,  27. 


no  History  and  Chronology 

of  the    mother-fir-tree.     She   was   Besla,   the  bear-mother 
of  Odin,  who  was  also  the  son  of  Bor  the  tree  ^ 

But  we  have  in  geology  and  comparative  ethnology  a  still 
more  certain  guide  than  that  given  by  tradition  to  the  great 
antiquity  of  the  bear  race  sons  of  Artemis,  called  Arktos 
the  Great  Bear.  These  people  who  were  traditionally  ruled 
by  Thoas  or  Dumu-zi^  the  star  Orion,  king  of  the  Tauric 
Chersonnesus  and  Asia  Minor,  can  be  traced  back  to  the 
race  which  has  furnished  the  earliest  human  skulls  and 
skeletons  yet  found  in  the  North,  a  race  far  older  than  that 
of  the  Furfooz  men  of  the  Hesbeyenne  deluge,  who  wor- 
shipped, as  we  have  seen,  the  reindeer.  They  are  called 
by  Quatrefages,  the  men  of  Cannstadt,  whose  skulls  are 
of  the  type  called  Neanderthal.  The  oldest  skeletons  of 
this  group,  those  of  the  Spy  Onoz  man  and  woman,  are  far 
older  than  those  of  the  other  dominant  race  of  the  Palaeolithic 
age,  the  Cro-Magnon  or  archer-men,  whom  I  have  already 
described.  These  were  found  eight  metres  outside  the  cave 
of  Spy  Onoz  on  the  Ormian,  a  tributary  of  the  Sambre 
to  the  North-west  of  Namur.  They  lay  at  a  depth  of  about 
four  metres  from  the  surface  in  the  lowest  of  four  successive 
undisturbed  layers  of  (i)  brown,  (2)  yellow,  (3)  red,  and 
(4)  yellow  clay,  the  last  of  which  was  stained  with  burnt 
charcoal  2.  The  skulls  were  ten  and  nine  millimetres,  or 
nearly  half-an-inch  thick,  long  and  narrow,  with  a  very 
receding  forehead,  so  that  the  cranial  vault  was  very  low. 
The  cranial  capacity  of  the  male  skull  was  70,  and  that 
of  the  female  75,  about  that  of  the  modern  Australians, 
Hottentots,  and  Peruvian  Indians.  One  of  the  most  remark- 
able  features  in  these  skulls  is  the  great  pent-house  formed 
above  the  eyes  by  the  eye-brow  ridges,  like  that  found 
among  the  Ainos  in  Japan,  and  the  Todas  in  South  India, 
both  of  which  races   have   abnormally  hairy  bodies.     The 

*  Prose  Edda^  chap.  vi. ;  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities ^  p.  403. 

'  Procis  Verbal^  signed  by  MM.  I.  Braconiiier,  De  Puydt,  Fraipont.and  Lehest, 
attached  to  a  report  of  the  investigations  made  at  Spy  by  MM.  De  Puydt  and 
Lehest,  the  latter  of  whom  is  Geological  Professor  at  the  University  of  Li^ge. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  ill 

ejre-orbits  are  round  and  very  large,  and  the  nasal  bones 
prominent  with  large  nasal  orifices.  The  jaws  are  large, 
heavy  and  prognathous  in  their  upper  part,  and  the  teeth 
very  large,  the  last  molars  being  of  equal  size  with  the  rest, 
and  thus  differing  from  those  of  modern  human  jaws.  The 
face  was  almost  without  chin,  and  the  skulls  much  resembled 
those  of  one  of  the  Australian  tribes  near  Victoria  i. 

Though  this  form  of  skull  and  face  is  like  that  of  a  gorilla, 
yet  the  kephalic  index  is  not  less  than  that  of  the  Indian 
Brahmins,  Dravidlans  and  Persians,  stated  by  M.  Pruner 
Bey  to  be  72  ;  and  this  peculiarly  shaped  skull  is,  as  M. 
dc  Quatrefages  shows,  consistent  with  the  possessor  of  great 
ability,  for  it  is  reproduced  not  only  in  those  of  two  gentle- 
men of  great  intellectual  attainments,  whose  names  he  gives, 
but  also  in  that  of  Robert  Bruce,  the  Scottish  king,  who 
had,  as  he  says,  a  perfect  Neanderthal  skull  ^. 

According  to  M.  Fraipont,  Professor  of  Palaeontology 
at  Lifcge,  the  Spy  Onoz  skeletons  prove  that  the  race  to  which 
they  belonged  was  short  and  squat,  that  they  usually  walked 
in  a  bowed  position  with  bent  knees,  and  their  tibia  were 
of  the  platy-knemic  type,  found  also  among  the  Ainos. 

But    however   unprepossessing   in   their   appearance    this 
low -browed,  dwarfish   race   may  have   been,  the   contents 
of  the  cavern  in  which  they  lived  and  stored  their  goods, 
arid  of  the  deposits  found  above  and  round  their  bones,  con- 
clusively prove  that  they  were  a  really  active  and  powerful 
breed  of  men,  who  more  than  maintained  their  own  in  their 
life  contest  with  the  animal  monarchs  of  the  forest,  who 
possessed  inventive  ability,  and  had  organised  a  system  of 
tribal  government  which  marked  them  as  people  who  lived 
in  permanent  settlements  and  not  as  mere  wandering  no- 
mads.    For  they  made  expeditions  to  distant  lands,  whence 
they  brought  back  property,  which  they  stored  in  their  cave 
homes.     Their   flint  implements,  weapons,  and   ornaments 

*  Topinard,   Anthropology,  p.   504;    De  Quatrefages,    The  Human  Species^ 
chap.  xxvi.  g.  307. 
'  Dc  Quatrefages,  The  Human  Species ^^  chap.  xxvi.  pp.  309,  310. 


I 


112  History  and  Chronology 

give  proof  of  their  advance  in  invention,  and  of  their  wide- 
spread trade  connection.     The  first  are  of  the  Mousterien 
type  used  by  the   earliest    men    of  the   Cro-Magnon   race, 
and  are  not  like  those  of  the  earlier  Mesvinien  and  Acheu- 
lean  epoch  made  of  local  flint,  but  of  flint  from  Champagne 
in   France,  the  nearest  source  whence   this  special   kind  of 
flint   could    be   procured.      The   obsidian,    chalcedony   and 
opal  found   among   these   remains   must    have   come   from 
the  volcanic  formations  in  the  eastern  Eiffel  and  the  Black 
Forest  country.     These  importations  tell  us  of  a  trade  with 
these  lands,  and  of  a   manufactory  of  flint   implements  in 
Champagne,  where  more  care  was  bestowed  on  the  manu- 
facture of  weapons  such  as  the  arrows  of  the  Cro-Magnon 
men,  and  the  spear-points  of  the  Neanderthal  hunters,  than 
on  the  ruder  Mesvinien  flints.     The  excellence  reached  by 
these  manufacturers  shows  a  great  advance  in  culture,  for 
the  form,  weight,  and  angle  of  the  Cro-Magnon  arrows  were 
varied   for  use  at  different  distances  of  flight,  and  for  the 
pursuit  of  various  kinds  of  game  ^      Also  the  importation 
of  stones   from    the   Eiff*el   and    Black    Forest    shows    the 
existence  of  a  mining  industry  in  their  localities,  and  similar 
evidence   of  widely   distributed    commercial    intercourse    is 
given  by  the  pierced  shells  of  Pilonculos  Pilosus,  found  in 
the  layer  above  the  Spy  Onoz  bodies,  which  must,  according 
to  M.  Rutot,  have  been  imported  from  the  shell    marls   tn 
Touraine.     Also  the  ivory  arrow  and  dart-points  found  in 
the   cave  deposits   show   that  these   Neanderthal  folk  were 
able  to  make  implements  of  their  own,  and  that  they  were 
acquainted  with  the  use  of  the  bow,  though  they  do  not  seem, 
like  the  Cro-Magnon  men,  to  have  used  arrows  for  killing 
large  game. 

The  animal  deposits  found  in  the  layer  containing  the 
skeletons,  and  those  immediately  above,  show  the  very  great 
antiquity  of  this  race.  There  were  bones  of  the  woolly 
rhinocerus  tichorinus,  the  horse,  ox  {Bos  priinigeniiis),  Mam- 

'  De  Quatrefages,  The  Human  Species,  chap,   xxvii. ,  The  Cro-Magnon  Race, 
PP-  3>6,  317- 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  1 1 3 

moth,  and  cave  hyaena.  Those  of  the  pig,  dog,  bear,  cave- 
lion  and  stag  were  less  common,  and  there  were  very  few 
bones  of  the  reindeer.  The  time  when  these  deposits 
were  formed  was  therefore  that  before  the  first  glacial 
epoch,  when  the  animals  dwelling  in  the  forests  and  prairies 
of  the  country  watered  by  the  Sapnbrc  and  Meuse  were  the 
woolly-rhinoceros,  mammoth,  primaeval  ox  and  horse,  which 
could  better  stand  the  cold,  indicated  by  the  presence  of  the 
reindeer,  than  the  hippopotamus  and  big-nosed  rhinoceros, 
who  had  dwelt  there  in  the  warmer  epoch  which  was  fast 
departing.  The  age  was  that  following  the  time  when  the 
cave  bears  were  more  numerous  than  the  cave  hyaenas, 
and  preceded  that  when  the  reindeer  and  bison  had  sup- 
planted the  animals  of  the  warm  temperate  climate  of 
the  early  Quaternary  period.  That  these  Neanderthal  people 
hunted  the  mammoth  and  reindeer  is  proved  by  the  seven 
mammoth  tusks  found  in  the  corner  of  the  cave,  and  the 
heap  of  reindeer  horns  in  another.  These  were  manifestly 
used  for  making  ornaments,  weapons,  such  as  the  ivory 
arrow-heads,  dart-points,  and  necklaces,  also  found  with 
domestic  utensils  made  of  the  same  materials. 

But  the  crowning  proof  of  the  inventive  ability  of  these 
men  of  the  Spy  Onoz  and  Neanderthal  group  is  given  by 
their   invention    of  pottery.      For    it    was    they  who     must 
have  made  the  four  pieces  of  pottery  found  in  the  red  layer 
above  the  Spy  Onoz  specimens.     This  was,  according  to  the 
froces  verbal,    drawn    up    by    M.    Fraipont,    M.    dc    Puydt, 
and  the  members  of  the  excavating  committee,  quite  un- 
disturbed, and  the  pottery  found  in  it  must  have  been  buried 
at  the  .same   time  as  the  bones  of  the    early  Quaternary 
animals  which  were  in  the  same  layer.     That  pottery  was 
invented  by  the  Neanderthal  race,  probably  at  the  time  when 
the  advance  of  the  glacial  epoch  was  changing  the  climate, 
seems  to  me  to  be  also  clearly  proved  from  an   examina- 
tion of  the  evidence  given  by  its  existing  use  in  other  parts 
of  the  globe.     Before  the    Southern    Hemisphere  was    dis- 
covered by    Europeans,    pottery  was   entirely  unknown    to 

I 


114  History  and  Chronology 

all  Australian  and  Polynesian  nations,  except  the  Fijians, 
the  Tongas  of  the  Friendly  Isles,  and  the  people  of  Easter 
Island,  where  there  are  the  only  written  inscriptions  found 
in  any  island  of  the  Pacific  ^  The  Fijians  and  their  con- 
querors in  the  Friendly  Isles  derived  their  village  institu- 
tions, as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  I.,  from  the  Indian 
Naga  races,  formed  by  a  union  of  the  matriarchal  people 
of  the  South  with  the  patriarchal  totem  races  of  the  North. 
In  Fiji  and  Tonga  all  pottery  is  made  by  hand  by  the 
women,  while  the  present  Indian  Kumhars,  who  make  the 
Naga  pottery,  divide  the  work  by  making  the  necks  of 
the  jars  on  the  potter's  wheel  of  northern  invention,  while 
the  rounded  parts  are  made  by  the  women  ;  and  these  Kum- 
hars claim  to  have  been  specially  created  by  Shiva,  the 
shepherd  god  of  the  bow  Pinaka^  at  his  marriage  ^  with 
Uma  {flax)^  the  mother  of  the  weavers,  and  they  were  thus 
one  of  the  earliest  northern  immigrants  into  India. 

In  Africa  the  Hottentots  had  no  pottery  before  they 
met  with  Europeans,  and  cooked  their  victuals  in  leathern 
jars  filled  with  water  heated  by  hot  stones  3.  Similarly 
neither  the  Esquimaux  nor  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  Siberia 
know  how  to  make  pottery ;  the  former  use  vessels  with 
clay  sides  and  stone  bottoms,  and  those  of  Siberia  leathern 
or  wooden  vessels,  like  the  Siberian  wallet,  made  of  birch- 
bark,  or  wooden  vessels  lined  with  stone  4.  Pottery  was  also 
unknown  to  the  Cro-Magnon  men  who  lived  in  the  caves 
of  Dordogne,  and  it  is  only  in  three  palaeolithic  caves  of 
the  reindeer  epoch  on  the  Liesse  that  any  pottery  of  that 
age  is  found  in  Belgium,  except  that  found  at  Spy  Onoz. 
These  caves  are  the  Trou  des  Nutons,  or  the  Hole  of 
the  Dwarfs,  the  Trou  de  Chaleux,  and  the  burial  cave 
Trou   de   Frontal.      There   are   only   broken  fragments   of 

'  Ratsel,  History  of  Mankind,  translated  by  A.  J.  Butler,  vol.  i.  pp.  78,  79. 
'  Lubbock,  Prehistoric  Times,  Second  Edition,  p.  445  ;    Risley,    Tribes  and 
Castes  of  Bengal y  Kumhars,  vol.  i.  pp.  518,  524. 
3  Lubbock,  Prehistoric  Times,  Second  Edition,  p.  420. 
*  Ibid.,  pp.  482,  483  ;  De  Quatrefages.  The  Human  Species,  p.  319. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  1 1 5 

pottery  found  in  the  first  two  caves,  but  in  the  Trou  de 
Frontal  there  was  a  complete  jar  similar  in  shape  to  those 
found  in  neolithic  graves.  The  skeletons  buried .  in  the 
Trou  de  Frontal  are  of  a  mesato-kephalic  race,  occupying 
a  middle  position  between  the  hrachy-kephalic  dwarf  Finn 
race  who  introduced  magic  and  the  doliko-kephalic  race 
of  Spy  Onoz.  It  is  in  its  flattened  receding  forehead  and 
large  superciliary  ridges  nearly  allied  to  the  Neanderthal 
race  »,  and  as  neither  they  nor  the  men  of  the  Trou  de 
Chaleux  or  Nutons  used  the  bow,  they  did  not  derive 
their  civilisation  from  the  Cro-Magnon  men  of  the  South. 

It  is  almost  impossible  that  pottery  could  ever  have  been 
invented  for  common  use  in  a  southern  forest  country,  where 
hollow  bamboos  and  gourds  were  always  available  as  water- 
vessels;  and  for  their  cooking  the  Southerners  probably,  long 
before  they  boiled  their  rice,  used  thQ  hot  stones  on  which 
the  Kurumbas  of  Madras  used  formerly  to  parch  it  ^  and 
thus  make  the  dry  rice  still  sold  in  Indian  bazaars. 

The  art  of  making  pottery  must  have  originated   in   an 

inland  country  with  a  clay  soil,  and  one  where  the  winter 

climate   was   so   cold    as   to  make  a  fire  almost  necessary 

for  the  preservation  of  life.     Its  inventors  must  have  been 

tribes  who  did  not  live   near   the  sea,  and   who  could  not 

thcrtfore  turn  themselves,  like  the  Esquimaux,  into  walking 

ovens   by   eating   enormous    quantities  of  whale  and    seal 

blubber.     As  the  inland  Neanderthal  race  could  not  warm 

themselves  with  this  heating  diet,  and  as  the  Belgian  climate 

in  the  beginning  of  the  elevation  of  the  first  glacial  epoch 

made  artificial  heat  necessary  for  those  who  had   hitherto 

lived  in  the  genial  Pleiocene  warmth,  it  is  clear  that  their 

minds  must  have  dwelt  upon  the  consideration  of  methods 

for  combating  the  effects  of  the  increasing  cold.      Hence 

we  see  how  an  inventive  genius  among  these  dwellers  in  the 

river  forests  of  Belgium,  who  found  the  clay  of  the  soil  was 

'  De  Quatrcfagcs,    The   Human  Species^    Races    of    Furfooz,  chap,  xxviii. 

P-  338. 

Elic  Reclus,  Les  PrimUifs^  p.  224. 

I   2 


ii6  History  and  Chronology 

hardened  by  the  fires  lit  on  it,  first  hit  on  the  germs  of  the 
idea  of  making  clay  fire-proof  vessels.  He  first  made  platters, 
like  those  of  which  the  Spy  Onoz  specimens  are  fragments, 
and  then  proceeded  to  make  the  jars  of  which  the  broken 
bits  are  found  in  the  Belgian  palaeolithic  caves  of  the  rein- 
deer age. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  evidence  showing  how 
the  Belgian  pottery  was  disseminated  in  Europe  during  the 
Palaeolithic  age,  but  it  must  have  been  brought  southward 
by  the  Neanderthal  people  in  their  wanderings,  and  also 
by  their  allied  neighbours  of  Furfooz,  who  emigrated  to  Asia 
Minor  in  the  reindeer  age,  and  established  there  the  worship 
of  the  deer-sun-god,  and  of  the  pine-mother  of  the  bear 
race,  the  cave-mother  Cybele.  It  was  in  these  emigrations 
through  countries  peopled  with  alien  races  that  the  pure 
Spy  Onoz  group  becg^me  absorbed  in  those  it  encountered 
in  its  travels.  Thus  mixed  races  were  formed,  partaking 
of  the  racial  peculiarities  of  the  Spy  Onoz,  Furfooz  and 
Cro-Magnon  stocks.  It  is  on  the  North-eastern  coasts  of 
Asia  that  we  find  in  the  hairy  Ainos.  of  Saghalin,  the  most 
northern  island  of  Japan,  a  people  who  apparently  reproduce 
in  their  osteology  the  original  Spy  Onoz  type  but  slightly 
changed  by  foreign  inter-mixture.  Their  skulls  show  that 
they  were  descended  from  doliko-kephalic  and  brachy- 
kephalic  ancestors,  but  their  receding  foreheads  and  pro- 
minent ridges  over  their  eyes  show  that  the  Neanderthal 
race  was  one  of  the  stocks  from  which  they  were  descended. 
Their  hairy  bodies  and  platy-knemic  tibias  also  point  to  the 
same  conclusion.  They  were  like  all  the  primitive  northern 
races,  eaters  of  flesh,  and  were  once  cannibals,  and  then 
apparently  they  were  fierce  and  warlike  conquerors,  and  not 
peaceable  like  their  present  representatives.  Topinard,  who 
connects  them  with  the  European  races,  tells  us  that 
according  to  their  native  traditions  they  came  from  the 
West,  accompanied  by  the  dog,  the  animal  sacred  to  the  Bhil 
bowmen,  and  which  was  one  of  those  found  at  Spy  Onoz, 


of  tJu  Alyth' Making  Age.  1 17 

where  it  was  probably  the  only  domestic  animal  kept  by  the 
tribes 

The  Ainos  of  the  present  day  do  not  make  pottery,  but 
it  is  found  in  the  old  hut  dwellings  of  the  people  called 
by  the  Ainos  Koro-pok-guru,  the  dwarf  dwellers  under- 
ground, whom  they  say  they  conquered,  and  who  are 
apparently  of  the  same  race  as  the  dwarf  men  of  the  Liesse, 
and  the  ancient  pigmy  races  of  Scotland,  who  lived  in  the 
underground  Picts*  houses.  Pottery  is  also  found  in  the 
shell  heaps  along  the  coast  2. 

The  Ainos  are  a  patriarchal  people  who  acknowledge 
paternal  descent  and  supremacy,  for  a  man  brings  his  wife 
to  his  father's  house ;  and  they  also  show  signs  of  affinity 
with  the  forest  races  of  Africa,  for  they  make  cloth  from  the 
fibrous  bark  of  the  mountain-elm  {Ulmus  montana)^. 

Their  belief  in  their  bear  descent   is   one   of  the  most 
remarkable  of  their  national  characteristics.     The  bear  is 
their  parent-god,  sacrificed  and  eaten  raw  by  the  Ainos,  and 
roasted   by  the  Gilyaks  every  year  at  their  national  year- 
feast  in  the  autumn  4.     The  young  bear  who  is  to  be  eaten 
at  each  yearly  sacrifice   is  caught  as   a   cub    and   suckled 
by  the  wife  of  the  captor.     When   the  day  of  its  decease 
comes  offerings  are  made  to  it,  and  the  women  of  the  tribe 
dance  before  it.     Its  skull  is  worshipped  after  death.     They 
shoot  the  bear  with  poisoned  arrows,  like  those  used  by  the 
dwarf  races  of  Central  Africa,  and  they  hang  up  the  quiver, 
which  is  looked  on  as  holy,  on  the  hedge  surrounding  the 
sacrificial   ground.      They  thus   show  their  affinity  to  the 
sons  of  the  bow  and  the  tree,  and  these  ethnological  rela- 
tionships are  also  asserted   in  the   following  national  birth 
story.     A   young  Aino,  pursuing   a  bear,   followed   it  into 

'  Topinard,  Anthropology,  pp.  350,  431,  445,  476,   505;    Hitchcock,   *  The 
Ainos  of  Vezo,'  Report  of  thi  National  Smithsonian  Museum,  1890,  p.  45O. 
Ibid.,  pp.  419,  421,  422,  435- 
'  Ibid.,  pp.  4651  451- 
*  The  feast  described  by  Mr.  Hitchcock  took  place  on  the  loth  of  Aujjust 

iniSSo. 


Ii8  History  and  Chronology 

a  cave,  where  he  found  himself  in  another  world.  He  ate 
the  fruit  he  found  there  while  pursuing  the  bear,  and  was 
changed  into  a  snake.  He  crawled  back  to  the  mouth 
of  the  cavern,  where  he  fell  asleep  at  the  foot  of  a  great 
pine-tree.  The  goddess  of  the  pine-tree,  a  variant  of  Cybele, 
woke  him  and  told  him  to  climb  up  the  tree  and  throw 
himself  down  from  it.  On  doing  this  he  found  himself  in 
his  human  shape,  standing  by  the  body  of  a  serpent  ripped 
open.  Here  we  find  evidence  of  descent  both  from  the 
mother-tree  and  the  circling  snake,  and  these  Indian 
characteristics  are  also  repeated  in  the  Aino  worship  of 
the  fox,  the  foxes  driven  by  Indra  and  the  constellation 
of  the  fox,  our  Lepus,  at  the  feet  of  Orion '. 

Though  these  Ainos  show  Indian  and  African  affinities, 
yet  they  seem  to  be  ethnologically  most  nearly  allied  to  the 
dwarf  wizard  races  of  the  North,  and  more  especially  to 
the  primitive  men  of  Spy  Onoz,  a  race  with  hunting  and 
warlike  proclivities,  who  called  themselves  the  sons  of  the 
bear,  and  looked  to  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear 
as  their  patron  stars.  A  similar  annual  bear  festival  to  that 
observed  by  the  Ainos  used  to  take  place  in  Norway  ^  and 
it  is  apparently  to  North  Europe  that  we  must  look  for  the 
original  deification  of  the  Bear  in  the  bear-goddess  Artemis, 
worshipped  in  Athens  as  the  mother  of  all  young  girls,  who 
were  called  her  bears,  and  of  the  human  sacrifices  offered 
at  her  festivals,  which  were  reminiscences  of  former  cannibal 
feasts. 

The  early  arrival  in  India  of  the  bear-descended  race  is 
shown  by  the  part  they  take  in  the  story  of  Rama  and  Sita. 
Rama  is,  as  we  shall  see,  the  ploughing  ox,  the  god  of  the 
Kushikas,  and  his  wife  was  Sita  the  furrow.  He  was  the 
son  of  Raghu,  the  Northern  sun-god  Rai  or  Ra,  and  the  ex- 
pedition made  by  Rama  to  the  South  to  recover  Sita,  who 


*  R.  Hitchcock,   *  The  Ainos  of  Yezo,'  Report  of  the  National  Smithsonian 
Museum,  pp.  476,  473,  480,  485,  472. 
'  Lydekker,  Royal  Natural  History ,  vol.  ii.  p.  23. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  1 1 9 

was    carried    off   by    the    ten-headed     Ravana,    is    a    re- 
miniscence of  the   stories   I    have  quoted   in   Chapter  II., 
which  tell  how  the  summer  sun  is  seized   and  imprisoned 
by  the   winter   god   of  darkness   dwelling   in    the    South. 
Rama's  chief  assistants   in  his  quest  were  the   ape-kings, 
the    bird-headed    ape    Sugriva,    and    Hanuman,   whom    I 
have  identified  with  the  constellations  Kepheus  and  Argo  ; 
but    to    these    is    added    in    the    account    of   the    muster 
of  the  host  Jamvavan,  king  of  the   bears,  with  a  hundred 
thousand    bear    warriors,    who    all    have     the     Tiloka     or 
bear   mark  of  descent   on  their  foreheads  ^     This  king  of 
the  bear  race  is  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear,  in  which 
their  race  parents,  Marlchi  the  fire-spark,  and  Kashyapa  the 
father  tortoise  {hush),  are  chief  stars.     His  name  Jamvavan 
means  the  Jambu  tree  (van)  {Eugenia  j'ambolana),  the  sacred 
fruit-tree  of  the   sun-god   in   the  forests  of  Central  India. 
This   was  the    tree   under  which   the    Buddha,   the   infant 
sun-god,  was  seated  on  his  first  appearance  in  public  at  the 
ploughing  match  of  the  furrow  (Sitd),  which  began  the  year 
of  the  ploughing  Kushikas.     While  the  Buddha  was  seated 
under  this  tree  its  shadow  never  moved  ^. 

This    bear    race    in    their    progress    southward    through 

Eastern    Asia   seems   to    have   been    merged   in    the   great 

confederacy  of  the  Miao  Ts'u  tribes  of  Central  China,  who 

traced  their  descent    to  the   mother   Sha-yh,  the  grain   of 

river  sand,  who  was  made  pregnant  by  a  floating  log,  the 

mother-tree,  which  became  a  dragon,  the  constellation  Draco, 

the   Northern    constellation    which    ruled    time   during   the 

^ge  of  Orion's  year,  before  it  was  succeeded    by  the  bear 

constellation  of  the  Ainos.     Topinard   connects  the   Miao 

Ts'u,  the  Ainos  and  the  Lolos  with  the  Samoyeds,  who  are 

not  hairy  like  the  Ainos  ;  and  their  connection  with  the  Lolos 

points  to  a  union  in  Eastern  China  of  the  Northern  Wizard 

races,  the  worshippers  of  fire,  with  the   Indian   matriarchal 

'  Mahibharata  Vana  (Draupadi-harava)  Parva,  cclxxxii.  p.  836. 
'  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories :  7 he  Niddnmkathd,  p.  75. 


I20  History  and  Chronology 

Dravidians.  Hence  arose  the  Amazonian  Lolo  custom  of 
the  rule  of  women,  and  the  government  by  queens.  It 
was  from  them  that  the  Lolos  of  Thibet  are  descended  ^ 

The  route  by  which  the  hairy  bear  race  reached  India 
seems  to  have  passed  not  through  China  but  Asia  Minor, 
and  thence  down  the  Euphrates.  They  seem  to  be  the 
dwarf  race  called  in  Manx  the  Fenodyree,  meaning  those 
who  have  hair  for  hose,  the  Satyrs  described  in  Isaiah 
xxxiv.  14,  as  "the  satyr  who  shall  cry  to  his  fellow,"  where 
satyr  is  translated  in  the  Vulgate  pilosus,  the  hairy  one ; 
the  attendants  in  Asia  Minor  on  the  goat-god  Pan,  who 
is,  as  I  shall  show  in  Chapter  IV.,  p.  141,  the  Pole  Star  god  ; 
the  people  represented  by  the  goblin  Loblic  by  the  Fire 
who,  as  described  by  Milton,  basks  at  the  fire  his  hairy 
strength  2.  They  are  the  hairy  race  with  aquiline  noses  de- 
picted on  the  oldest  seal-cylinders  of  Girsu,  the  race  connected 
by  Topinard  with  the  Ainos,  Tasmanians  and  the  Todas  of 
the  Indian  Nilgiris  3.  They  were  the  followers  of  the  parent 
god  Gud-ia,  the  bull  {gud),  la,  who  called  Gutium  the  land 
of  the  bull.  It  was  they  and  their  earlier  congeners  the 
menhir  builders,  who  built  the  megalithic  stone  monuments 
covering  the  lands  in  which  they  dwelt  during  their  journey 
Southwards.  They  had  united  themselves  in  Asia  Minor 
with  the  Indian  Dravidians,  and  had  there  formed  the 
confederacy  of  the  sons  of  the  sun-deer  and  the  moon-bull, 
the  male  moon  of  Northern  mythology.  In  India  they 
became  the  Gautama,  or  sons  of  the  bull-father,  called  in 
the  Mahabharata  Chandra-Kushika,  the  moon  of  the 
Kushikas4.     They  were  the  earliest  representatives  of  the 


^  Tcrrien  de'  la  Couperic,  The  Languages  of  China  before  the  Chinese^  chap, 
xii.  sects.  97—100;  xviii.  sects.  152—154,  pp.  56,  57,  88,  89;  Topinard, 
Anthropology,  pp.  475,  476;  Tcrrien  de  la  Coupcrie,  'Thibet,'  Eptcyc.  Brit., 
vol.  xxiii.  p.  344. 

'^  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore^  chap.  iv.  vol.  i.  p.  288. 

3  Topinard,  Anthropology y  The  Pilous  System,  p.  350 ;  F.  Hommel,  All- 
gemcine  Geschichte^  Babyloniens  unci  AssyrienSy  p.  292. 

^  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Rdjasuyd-ramlfha)  Parva,  xvii.  p.  55. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  121 

Brahmins  who  divide  their  caste  into  septs  called  Gotras 
or  cow-stalls. 

The  primitive  form  of  this  ancient  priesthood  is  to  be 
found  among  the  Todas  of  the  Nilgiris.  They  are  a  tall 
form  of  the  dwarf  mesato-kephalic  race  of  Furfooz,  whom 
they  resemble  in  their  receding  foreheads,  protuberant  eye- 
brows, and  hairy  bodies,  traits  derived  from  the  Spy 
Onoz  race,  but  their  noses  are  not  concave,  like  those  of 
the  Furfooz  men,  but  aquiline  ^  like  the  Cro-Magnon  and 
Assyrian  noses.  It  is  from  these  latter  that  they  seem  to 
have  acquired  their  height  and  martial  appearance.  They 
take  in  India  the  place  occupied  in  the  ethnography 
of  Asia  Minor  by  the  primitive  Jewish  warlike  herdsmen 
of  Ararat  and  the  uplands  of  Cappadocia.  They  had 
features  like  those  of  the  Todas,  and  were  born  from  a  cross 
with  the  hairy  Satyr  races  with  round  heads,  the  ancestors 
of  the  worshippers  of  the  goat-god  Pan  in  Asia  Minor, 
Arcadia  ^  and  Italy,  who  was  also  the  parent-god  of  the 
Indian  Mal^s  of  the  Kushika  race,  and  of  the  Fauns  of  Italian 
mythology,  the  sons  of  the  sun-deer.  Jle  was  a  god  of  the 
caves  which  were  his  temples,  and  he  is  a  male  form  of 
Cybele,  to  whom  oak  trees  were  sacred. 

It  is  in  the  ritual  of  the  Todas  that  we  find  the  clearest 

proofs   of  their    descent  from   the  pastoral   tribes  of   Asia 

Minor,  the  Getae,  called  by  Herod,  i.  216,  the  Massa  Gctne 

or  Greater  Getae,  who  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Araxes  or 

Kur.    Their  principal  food,  like  that  of  the  Todas,  was  milk, 

and  they  are  called  by  Ammianus  the  holiest  of  men.    These 

Todas  worship  the  sun  and  the  Pole  Star  ruling  and  lighting 

their  northern  maternal   country  Am-nor,  the  mother  {am) 

land.    They    live   in   round   houses   like  those  built  by  the 

Phrygians  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  Finn  races  who  trace  their 

descent  to  the  bear,  and  who  also  adore  the  household  fire. 

They  are  proved  to  be  a  Northern  race  by  their  endogamous 

Hunter,   Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India ^  Nilgiri   Hills,  vol.   x.  p.  309 ;    Elie 
f^edus,  Les  Primitifs^  p.  212. 
'  Frazcr,  Patuanias^  viii.  54,  5  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  443,  444 ;  ii.  360  ff. 


122  History  and  Chronology 

marriage  customs  which  are  quite  opposed  to  Southern 
exogamy,  and  also  by  their  custom  of  polyandry,  in  which 
one  wife  is  married  to  a  community  of  brothers,  a  custom 
originating  in  the  old  Finnish  national  law,  which  made  the 
wife  the  priestess  of  the  household  fire.  These  Todas  were 
the  priests  of  the  latest  immigration  of  the  Northern  pastoral 
races,  the  men  who  buried  their  dead  in  the  monumental 
earth  burial  -  mounds  of  the  Scandinavian  type  which 
cover  the  Toda  country,  and  adored  the  trident  of  Shiva, 
the  shepherd-god,  still  worshipped  by  the  Badagas,  the 
agricultural  section  of  the  Toda  tribes  ^ 

The  Toda  chief  is  the  high-priest  called  the  Palal  or  great 
milkman,  an  officer  answering  to  that  of  the  Patesi  or  priest- 
kings  of  the  Gaurians  of  Girsu.     He  is  elected  to  the  office, 
and  after  his  election  he  is  consecrated  at  the  end  of  a  long 
period   of  fasting  and   meditation.     He  lives  alone  in    the 
forest  for  a  week  on  the  banks  of  the  national  parent-stream, 
and  for  the  first  three  days  and  two  nights  he  is  perfectly 
naked  and  has  no  fire.     On  the  third  night  he  may  light 
a  fire  by  the  sacred  process  of  twirling  a  wooden  fire-drill 
in  a  wooden  socket.     Each  evening  his  Vicar,  the  Kavi-lal, 
brings  him  a  bowl  of  milk,  his  only  nourishment.     He  cuts 
with  a  sacred  flint-knife  the  branches  of  the  national  parent- 
tree,  the  nut-tree  called  Tude  [Millingtonia  Symplicifolia)  *, 
strips  off  the  bark,  and  after  bathing  in  the  sacred  stream,  rubs 
his  body  three  times  a  day,  morning,  noon  and  evening,  with 
the  holy  sap,  which  he  also  mixes  with  water  and  drinks.    At 
the  end  of  the  consecration  his  birth  as  a  reborn  divine  being 
is  completed,  and  he  becomes  the  child  of  the  sap  of  the  nut- 
tree,  born  from  the  seed  vivified  by  the  rain,  the  germ  of  life, 
which  made  it  grow  and  filled  its  veins,  the  almond-tree  of 
the  Jews.     This  child  of  the  nut-tree  and   the  heaven-sent 
rain,  the  blood  of  God,  has  been  nurtured  in  holiness  by  the 
milk  of  the  divine  mother-cow.     This  is  the  fast  milk  (vrata), 
the  only  food  allowed   during  its  continuance  to  the  par- 

'  Elie  Keclus,  Les  Primitifs^  p.  275. 

*  Clarke,  Roxburgh's  Flora  Indica^  p.  35. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  123 

takers  of  the  Soma  sacrament ».  In  this  latter^  the  sacra- 
mental cup  in  the  later  Vedic  ritual  is  not,  as  among  the 
Todas,  the  nut-sap  and  running  water,  but  the  sap  of  barley, 
the  seed  of  life,  of  the  later  ploughing  races,  mixed  with 
river  water,  curds  and  milk,  the  Vedic  ingredients  of  the 
latest  form  of  Soma,  called  the  Tri-ashira  or  three  mixings  «. 
The  baptism  and  consecration  of  the  Palal,  answering  to 
the  baptism  of  the  Soma  communicant,  follows  this  week  of 
fasting.  The  girdle  and  head-dress  of  each  new  Palal  is 
made  of  the  remnants  of  his  predecessor's  robe  of  office.  He 
is  bathed  and  rubbed  with  the  sap  of  seven  different  sacred 
trees,  and  swallows  some  drops  of  each  kind  of  sap.  After 
his  consecration  he  enters  on  his  duties  as  guardian  of  the 
national  herd  of  sacred  cows,  whom  he  alone  can  milk 
morning  and  evening.  He  also  bears,  as  the  national  god, 
the  divine  sceptre,  the  Jewish  almond-rod  of  Aaron,  the 
rod  of  the  parent-tree  which  leads  the  sacred  kine  out  to 
their  daily  pasture  3. 

The  sacred  cattle  of  the  sun-god  recall  the  350  sun-oxen 
of  the  ploughing  Sikels  of  the  Odyssey,  xii.  129,  the  dwellers 
in  Trinacria  of  the  three  (trt)  headlands,  the  Triangular 
island  of  the  god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons.  Also  the 
cows  of  light,  which  Sarama,  the  constellation  Argo,  was  to 
deliver  from  their  nocturnal  captors  4.  The  great  antiquity 
of  this  consecration  ritual  is  marked  by  the  flint  -  knife 
used  by  the  Palal. 

The  sacred  wand  or  sceptre  of  the  divine  leader  of  the  sun- 
cattle  was  the  original  Barcsma  or  rain  (bares)  wand,  cut  from 
the  parent  sun-tree,  the  pomegranate,  date  or  tamarind  5, 
which  succeeded  the  nut-tree,  as  it  followed  the  pine-tree  of 


*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  iii.  1,2,  i  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  6. 

'  Rg.  T.  27,  5  ;  viii.  2,  7  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ,  vol.  i., 
^7  iii.,  p.  242. 
'  Elic  Reclus,  Les  Primitifs^  Monticoles  des  Nilgheris,  pp.  260—262. 

*  Rg.  X.  108. 

-  Darmcstctcr,     Zendavcsta    Vcndiddd  hargaid,   xix.    19;    S.B.E.     vol.    iv. 
pp.  209—22,  note  I. 


124  History  and  Chronology  of  the  Myth- Making  Age, 

the  North.  This,  as  we  have  seen  (pp.  7, 8),  became  the  Hindu 
Prastara,  first  of  Kusha  (Poa  cynosuroides),  and  afterwards 
of  Ashva-vala  or  horse-tail  grass  {saccharum  spontaneum). 
The  Zend  high-priest,  bearer  of  this  sacred  wand  of  office, 
was  like  the  Toda  Palal,  "the  guardian  of  the  sacred  kine," 
and  it  is  to  Ahura  Mazda,  the  breath  {asu  or  ahu)  of  know- 
ledge, called  "the  creator  of  the  kine,"  that  the  earliest 
Gathas  of  the  Zendavesta^  the  holy  hymns  and  prayers  of 
Zarathustra,  the  first  high-priest,  are  addressed.  They  were 
the  religious  hymns  of  the  sons  of  the  land  of  Gutium  con- 
secrated to  the  bull-father  of  the  people,  who  were  originally 
the  Scandinavian  Goths,  the  sons  of  Got,  our  God.  The  Zend 
country  was  the  land  of  Assyria  and  Northern  Persia,  where 
the  aborigines  are  now  the  shepherd  Ilyats.  Their  father- 
god  became  Iru,  the  bull-god  of  the  Zends,  who  called  the 
Great  Bear  their  parent  constellation  the  Hapto-iringas  or 
seven-bulls,  a  name  translated  by  the  Romans  into  the 
Septem-triones  or  seven  oxen  who  draw  Charles's  Wain. 
This  name  was  given  to  the  constellation  which  was  first 
that  of  the  hairy  sons  of  ,the  bear,  when  these  Northern 
hunters  were  united  with  the  farmers  of  the  South  and 
the  pastoral  races  of  the  North-west,  the  pastoral  shep- 
herd subjects  of  the  priest-kings,  "  the  guardians  of  the  kine," 
called,  in  reminiscence  of  their  descent  from  the  cavern- 
haunting  bears,  the  mountain  their  mother  -  goddess,  and 
named  her  Ida,  Ila,  or  Ira.  She  was  the  Phrygian  mother 
Ida,  the  sheep-mother,  a  name  surviving  in  the  Tamil  Eda, 
a  sheep,  and  in  the  350  sun-sheep,  which  in  the  Odyssey  pas- 
tured with  the  sun-oxen  and  the  sheep  fed  by  Polyphemus, 
the  Cyclops,  the  one-eyed  Pole  Star  god.  It  was  to  this 
race  born  of  the  mother  Ida,  enthroned  in  the  Pole  Star, 
resting  on  the  central  earth  mountain,  that  the  ancestors 
of  the  Todas  and  the  Indian  Gautama  belonged ;  and 
they,  as  priest-kings,  ruled  the  Kurumbas  or  united  shep- 
herds and  farmers,  whose  chief  clan  is  that  of  the  culti- 
vating Kurmis. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


The  year  of  three  seasons  of  six-day  weeks  ruled 
BY  the  eel-god,  the  parent-fish  of  the  sons 
of  the  rivers. 

I  HAVE  now  in  this  historical  inquiry  reached  a  stage 
whence  I  must  begin  to  trace  the  racial  progress  of  the 
amalgamated  tribes  of  farmers,  hunters  and  shepherds,  which 
were  congregated  together  in  Asia  Minor  at  the  close  of  the 
Palaeolithic  Age.  These  people  had,  as  we  have  seen,  two 
original  lines  of  ancestry,  marking  their  southern  and 
northern  descent.  As  the  sons  of  the  South,  they  were  the 
sons  of  the  cloud-bird  Khu  and  the  mother-tree,  and  as 
the  sons  of  the  North,  the  children  of  the  deer-sun-god  and 
of  the  mother-mountain,  fertilised  by  the  rain-mist  en- 
shrouding its  top,  and  descending  to  its  base  in  the  parent- 
rivers  which  water  the  earth  with  the  seed  of  life. 

A.     Tlie  sons  of  the  rivers. 

The  central  mother-river  of  these  mixed  northern  and 
southern  races  was  the  holy  Euphrates,  called  in  Genesis 
xi.  22,  the  river  of  Nahor,  the  Nahr  or  channel  of  the  land, 
called  Naharaina  by  the  Egyptians  in  the  inscriptions 
telling  of  the  conquests  of  Thothmes  III.  This  mother- 
rivcr-goddess,  who  became  afterwards  the  male  father-god 
Nahor  of  the  patriarchal  Hebrews,  was  the  Greek  Anaitis, 
the  Zend  Ardvi  Sura  Anahita,  the  pure,  holy,  undefiled 
mother  of  life  rising  from  the  home  and  nest  of  the  bird, 
the  Zend  Hu-kairya,  the  creating  [kairya)  Hu-bird  i,  another 

'  Hu  is  the  Zend  form  of  Khu,  the  bird ;    Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Aban 
hi;/i(^  Introduction;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  52. 


126  History  and  Chronology 

name  of  Ahura  Mazda.  These  sons  of  the  mountain  and 
the  bird  belonged  to  a  different  stock  from  that  of  the 
woodland  sons  of  the  sun-deer,  but  as  dwellers  in  the  North 
they  worshipped  the  sun  as  the  giver  of  light  and  heat, 
and  looked  upon  the  sun-god  as  the  measurer  of  their  year. 
But  his  annual  course  was  not  told  to  them  in  the  shedding 
and  re-growth  of  the  reindeer  horns,  but  in  the  migrations 
of  the  eel,  which  leaves  the  mother-rivers  in  autumn  and 
returns  in  spring.  Their  southern  ancestral  history  had 
told  them  of  the  fish-mother  of  life  dwelling  in  the  abyss 
of  the  Southern  Ocean,  and  this  prophetic  mother  became 
to  the  Finn  race,  who  inherited  her  teaching,  the  eel-goddess 
Il-ja,  the  Icelandic  dll,  the  German  aal,  who  became  the 
Sanskrit  Ahi,  the  Greek  Echis.  This  eel-parent-god  has 
become  in  the  later  Finn  patriarchal  theology,  the  air-god 
Il-ma,  which  became  Il-mar,  meaning  who  {mar)  is  II, 
a  name  like  that  of  Kutsa  the  where  {ku),  given  to  the 
prophet-god  of  the  Indian  Nahusha,  called  Varshagiras 
the  praisers  (giras)  of  rain.  The  name  Il-mar  is  that  of  the 
weather-god  ^,  who  became  Il-marinen,  the  god  of  the  Great 
Bear,  the  second  god  of  the  Finn  triad  of  Vainamoinen,  the 
rain-god,  Il-marinen,  and  Ukko  the  Pole  Star  bird,  who,  as 
Taivahan  napanen,  the  navel  of  heaven,  dwells  in  Tahtela 
the  home  of  the  Pole  Star,  the  Hindu  Ushana,  who  causes 
rain  to  fall  on  the  earth  2.  It  is  this  eel-smith  who  is  the 
eternal  forger,  the  arranger  of  the  creating  weather.  It  was 
as  his  messengers  that  the  prophet-eels  left  and  returned 
to  the  mountain-rivers. 

It  was  apparently  these  Finns  who  introduced  the  god- 
name  II  or  El,  which  is  used  as  the  sign  of  the  divinity 
in  all  Semitic  countries.  This  was  the  god  Eliun,  called  by 
Josephus,  Aniiq.  xi.  8,  the  Supreme  god  of  the  Phoenicians  and 
Samaritans,  the  god  still  worshipped  in  Syria  as  El  Khudr, 

*  Comparetti,  The  Traditional  Poetry  of  the  />'>mj,.  *The  Heroic  Myth,' 
pp.  238 — 240. 

'  Mahabhanita  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixxviii.  p.  243 ;  Hewitt,  Ruiing 
Races  0/ Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  p.  155. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  127 

the  divine  {el)  water  [khudr^  Gr.  uSwp),  also  called  the 
prophet  (hasriti)  Elias.  His  temples  are  scattered  every- 
where along  the  Syrian  coast,  and  Dean  Stanley  describes 
one  which  he  visited,  which  was  devoid  of  images,  and  was 
only  marked  as  a  temple  by  the  curtain  drawn  across  the 
recess  sacred  to  the  Unseen  God  i.  His  festival  is  cele- 
brated throughout  Syria  on  St.  George's  Day,  the  23rd 
of  April,  and  Lydda,  the  centre  of  his  worship,  is  called 
in  the  episcopal  lists,  ayi,o  yeopyiov  iroXiSy  the  city  of  the 
Holy  George,  whose  temple  is  called  the  house  of  Khudr». 

Thus  the  eel-god  is  the  ploughing-god,  the  worker 
(ovpyos)  of  the  earth  (7^),  the  rain-god  who  marks  his 
furrows  in  the  earth  by  the  trail  of  the  tiny  rain-streams 
he  ploughs  on  the  surface,  which  grow  into  the  river-parents 
of  life.  He  is  thus  the  god  of  the  channel  (jtahr),  the  Gond 
Nagur,  the  plough-god  and  the  god  of  the  plough  constella- 
tion of  the  Great  Bear. 

This  eel-ploughing  prophet-god  became  in  India  the  Vedic 
Indra,  whose  name  is  derived  from   the  root   Indu.     This 
root  appears  as  Aind  or  Indu,  the  eel  totem  of  the  Kharias, 
a  semi-aboriginal  tribe   of  Chutia   Nagpur,  who  also  have 
the  sheep  for  their  totem,  as  they  may  not  eat  mutton  or 
even  use  a  woollen  rug.     They  are  almost  in  the  stone  age, 
as  they  live  in  huts  made  of   Sal  branches   stuck   in   the 
ground,   and    though    they   are    able   to   mend   their   iron- 
pointed  digging  sticks  {kuntis)  at  forges  worked  with  most 
primitive  bellows,  they  never  manufacture  but  always  buy 
iron.    They  worship   Dorho   Dubo,  known  to  the  Ooraons, 
Santals,  Kharwars,  and  other  tribes  higher  in  the  social  scale, 
as  Dharti,  the  god  of  springs,  as  well  as  Giring  Dubo,  the 
sun,  and  Gumi,  the  pole  {gtimo)  god,  who  is  the  chief  deity 
in  their  Sarnas  or  sacred  groves  3. 

'  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine^  p.  274. 

'  Garnctl  and  Stuart  Glennie,  The  Women  of  Turkey  and  their  Folklore^  chap, 
iv.  p.  125;  chap.  V.  Note  on  St.  George,  p.  192. 

^  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal ^  Kharias^  vol.  i.,  pp.  468 — 471  ;  vol. 
».»  App.  i.,  Kharia  totems. 


128  History  and  Chronology 

These  Kharias  are  the  parent-tribe  of  the  Kharwars  who 
once  ruled  Chutia  Nagpur,  and  it  is  to  this  tribe  that  the 
Raja  of  Ramghur  in  Hazaribugh  belongs.     He  holds  his 
estate  of  Ramghur   as   a  fief  vested   in  the  holder  of  his 
hereditary  office  of  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  of  the 
Chutia  Nagpur  Raja.     The  Kharwars   include  the  eel-god 
Aind  among  their  totems,  as  do  the  Mundas,  the  land-holding 
Rautias,  a  branch  of  the  Kaurs  or  Kaiiravyas,  the  Asuras 
workers  in  metal,  the  cow-keeping  Gualas,  the  Pans  weavers 
and   basket-makers,  and   the  Santals.     The  eel,  under  the 
form  Amduar,  is   a   totem   of  the   mountain   Korwas,  the 
parent-tribe  of  the  Mundas,  and  of  the  Bchar  Gualas,  and 
the  Goraits   or  boundary  guardians.      These   also  use  the 
alternative    form    Induar,  which    is   also   that    used    by  the 
Nageshars,  or  worshippers  of   the   Naga   snake,   the   Turis 
or   basket-makers,   the    Chiks   a   branch  of  the    Pans,  the 
Lobars  or  smiths,  and  the  Ooraons^     In  short  almost  all 
the  primitive  manufacturing,  mining  and  pastoral  tribes  arc 
sons  of  the   eel.     This  parent-eel  was  worshipped,   as   we 
arc  told   in   Herod,  ii.   ^2^  by  the  Egyptians,  and   it  is  in 
India  the  totem-god  of  almost  all  the  tribes  who  practise  the 
magic  and  witchcraft  learnt  from  their  Finn  ancestors.     The 
sacrifice    of    the   Copaic   eel,   crowned    with    garlands   and 
sprinkled  with  meal,  was  an  annual  sacrifice  of  the  Boeotians  a, 
descended  from  the  first  agricultural  immigrants  who,  under 
Kadmus,  the  man  of  the  East  {kedcvi),  entered  Europe  from 
Asia  Minor  at  the  beginning  of  the  Neolithic  Age. 

When  we  turn  from  tribal  totem  genealogy  and  ritual 
to  the  evidence  given  in  folk-stories  of  the  belief  in  the 
ancestral  eel-god,  we  find  that  in  two  Italian  stories  quoted 
by  Count  Angelo  de  Gubernatis  the  eel  appears  as  the 
parent  of  the  year  of  Orion,  of  the  gods  of  time,  Night  and 
Day,  and  of  the  reed-thicket  whence  the  Kushika  race  was 
born.     In  the  first,  a  fisherman  caught  an  eel  with  two  heads 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal,  vol.  ii.,  Appendix,  List  of  tribal  totems. 
'"  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  v.  p.  132.     Agatharchides  leferred  to  by  Athenxus, 
vii.  p.  297. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  129 

and  two  tails,  the  two  seasons  of  the  year.  The  eel  directed 
the  fisherman  to  plant  the  tails  in  his  garden,  to  give  his 
entrails  to  his  bitch  and  the  two  heads  to  his  wife  to  eat. 
Two  swords,  the  sword  of  Orion,  were  born  from  the  two 
tails  ;  two  dogs,  Sirius  and  Procyon,  from  the  entrails  ;  and 
two  sons,  Night  and  Day,  from  the  two  heads. 

In  the  second  story  a  maiden  in  a  tree,  the  tree-mother, 
was  entreated  to  come  down  from  it  by  a  servant  of  the 
priest,  who  was  washing  in  a  spring  at  its  foot,  the  spring 
at  the  root  of  the  ash -tree  Yggdrasil.  When  she  came 
down  she  was  thrown  by  the  priest's  washerwoman  into 
the  spring,  where  she  was  devoured  by  the  parent-eel.  It 
was  caught  by  a  fisherman,  who  was  slain  by  the  witch 
washerwoman  as  he  was  taking  it  to  the  king.  She  threw 
the  eel  into  a  bed  of  reeds,  and  it  became  a  reed,  which 
was  opened  when  it  was  taken  to  the  king,  and  from  it 
the  sun-mother-daughter  of  the  tree  was  born.  In  a 
third  story  the  year-maiden  pursued  by  a  witch  becomes, 
in  her  last  changes,  a  water-spring  and  an  eel  ^, 

Thus  we  see  that  the  eel  was  the  prophet  and  parent-fish 
of  the  sons  of  the  mother-mountain,  who  traced  their  descent 
to  the  springs  welling  from  its  sides,  which  ultimately  be- 
came the  parent-rivers  of  the  Iberian  Basques  of  Asia 
Minor.  The  name  Iberian  is  derived  from  the  Basque 
Ibai-erri,  the  people  (erri)  of  the  rivers  (ibai),  who  first 
brought  wheat  and  barley  into  Europe  and  India.  They 
replaced  the  matriarchal  system  of  village  unions  by  in- 
dividual marriages,  and  with  marriage  they  brought  in 
the  custom  of  the  Couvadc,  which  we  are  told  by  Apollonius 
Rhodius,  ii'.  lOio,  was  indigenous  among  the  Tibareni,  the 
people  of  the  Basque  country  of  Iberia.  The  new  system 
of  patriarchal  descent,  which  was  to  replace  that  from  the 
mother,  was  introduced  by  the  Basque  fathers  in  the  simu- 
lated sickness  in  which  they  asserted  their  rights  as  parents 
of  their  wives*  new-born  child.     This  custom  was  taken  by 

»  Dc  Gubematis,  Dif  Thiere,  pp.  600—602,  German  Translation. 

K 


150  History  and  Chronology 

them  to  Spain,  where  it  still  survives  among  the  Spanish 
Iberian  Basques,  or  men  of  the  forest  (baso).  They  intro- 
duced it  into  Ulster,  where  it  became  known  as  "  cess  noinden 
Ulad,"  the  Ulster  men's  nine  days  and  nights  week  of 
sickness,  and  this  week,  which  contained  four  days  and  five 
nights,  is  a  reminiscence  of  the  old  five-nights  week  of  the 
Indian  Danava,  the  Irish  Tuatha  De  Danann.  These  latter 
were  succeeded  in  Ireland  by  the  Milesians,  who  came 
from  Spain,  and  their  name,  meaning  the  sons  of  Mile  or 
Bile,  is  interpreted  by  Professor  Windisch  as  derived  from 
•  the  Irish  Bile,  a  tree  growing  over  a  holy  well  or  fort,  in 
a  word,  the  mother-tree  shadowing  the  spring  whence  the 
Ibai-erri,  the  sons  of  the  rivers,  were  born '  as  the  children 
of  Cybele,  the  cave-mother  of  Phrygia. 

The  emigration  from  Asia  Minor  to  India  of  these  patri- 
archal Basque  sons  of  the  river,  the  river- reed,  and  the 
eel,  who  were,  on  one  side  of  their  descent,  of  Indian  origin, 
can  be  traced  by  several  lines  of  evidence.  First,  by  the 
traditions  of  the  worshippers  of  the  household  fire,  intro- 
duced by  them  into  India  ;  secondly,  by  the  Indian  sacrifi- 
cial ritual  of  Orion's  and  the  Ribhus'  year  of  three  seasons, 
which  became  the  year  of  the  sun-antelope  ;  and,  thirdly,  by 
the  history  told  in  the  Gond  song  of  Lingal  and  the  Maha- 
bharata  of  the  establishment  of  the  rule  of  the  Kushika 
kings  as  the  supreme  rulers  of  the  confederated  states  of 
India.  The  history  of  the  worshippers  of  the  household  fire, 
always  kept  alight  by  the  house-mistress,  its  priestess,  which 
became  ultimately  the  perpetual  fire  maintained  throughout 
the  year  on  the  centre  of  the  altar  of  the  national  and  village 
temples,  begins  with  the  Greek  traditions  of  the  Phlegyes, 
the  Greek  form  of  Phrygians,  whose  name  was  derived  from 
the  root  Bhur  or  Phur,  meaning  fire.  They  claimed  descent 
from  the  Bru-ges  of  Thrace,  and  the  original  root  of  their 
name  was  Bhri,  meaning  to  bear  or  carry,  to  bear  children. 
Hence  they  were  by  race  the  begetters  and  the  founders 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.   p.  603,  vi.  p.  588,  Appendix, 
p.  678. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age.  131 

of  the  phallic  worship  associated  with  the  original  worship 
of  the  household  fire  in  Asia  Minor.  The  aspirate  in  their 
name  became  under  Finnic  influences  a  tenuis,  and  thus  the 
father-god  of  the  begetting  pair  of  creators  became  in  Finnic 
mythology  Piru,  who  gave  eyes  to  the  parent  Finn  snake '  ; 
and  the  sons  of  the  same  father-god  of  the  Phrygians  became 
the  Turano-Zend  tribe  of  the  Fryano  sons  of  the  god  Phur 
or  Phru,  who  were  the  intimate  allies  of  the  Zend  followers 
of  Zarathustra's  worship  of  the  "  Creator  of  the  kine  2,"  who 
are  called  in  the  Gathas  "  Turanians,  who  shall  further  on 
the  settlements  of  piety  with  zeal  3." 

The  union  of  the  race  of  the  begetters  and  of  the  wor- 
shippers of  the  household  fire  is  commemorated  in  the  first 
two  of  the  five  sacred  fires  of  Zend  ritual,  the  fires  of  their 
earliest  week.  These  are  (i)  the. fire  of  Berezi  Savangha, 
or  of  the  eastern  (^Savangha)  Berezi,  the  mother  of  the  race 
bom  of  the  Brisaya  or  sorcerers  of  the  Rigveda  4,  the  mother 
Maga  of  the  Akkadian  and  northern  dealers  in  witchcraft, 
and  of  the  fire  in  stones  (p.  42),  whence  the  northern  fire 
worshippers  kindled  their  fire  before  they  learnt  the 
southern  art  of  making  fire  from  wood.  (2)  The  fire 
Vohu  Fryano,  that  of  the  Vasu  or  creating  sons  of  Phur, 
the  father  fire-drill ;  and  it  was  as  a  result  of  the  worship 
of  the  revolving  fire  -  drill  that  the  mother  of  fire  became 
the  wooden  socket  in  which  it  revolved. 

The  name  Fryano  is  the  Zend  form  of  the  Turanian  Viru- 
ano,  the  sons  of  the  god  Viru,  the  Virata  of  the  Mahabharata 
who  ruled  the  country  of  the  Matsya  or  fish-born  people, 
whose  parent-gods  were,  as  we  shall  see,  the  mountain 
eel  Matsya  and  his  twin-sister  Satyavati,  They  dwelt  on 
the  Jumna,  where  Mathura,  the  rubbing  or  twirling  {mantk, 

'  Abercromby,  *  Magic  Songs  of  the  Finns,'  Folklore,  vol.  i.  p.  38. 

*  Mill,  Zendavesta,  Part  iii.,  The  Gathas  Yasna,  xxxi.  9  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxi. 

P-44- 
Mbid.,   Part   iii.,   The   Gathas   Gatha   Ustavaiti  Yasna,   xlvi.   12;    S.B.E., 

»oI.  xxxi.  p.  141. 

*  Rg-  »»  43»  4  ;  ▼>•  ^>»  3- 

K   2 


132  History  and  Chrovology 

math)  city  of  the  national  central  fire,  was  their  capital.  These 
are  the  same  people  as  the  shepherd  tribes  of  Southern 
India,  the  Kurumbas,  sons  of  the  mother  {amba)  Kur,  who 
are  followers  of  the  trident-carrying  shepherd  god,  Shiva, 
of  the  Pinaka  or  musical  bow,  who  came  to  India  before  the 
introduction  of  pottery  into  that  country,  as  they,  as  I  have 
shown  on  p.  115,  dried  their  rice  on  a  heated  stone,  the 
original  Northern  fire-mother.  Their  god,  as  we  learn  from 
the  Mackenzie  Manuscripts,  is  the  Viru-bhadra,  the  blessed 
Viru,  the  phallic  god,  and  they  generally  worship  the  Sakti, 
or  male  and  female  symbols  of  generation.  They  call 
themselves  Idaiya,  or  sons  Ida  or  Eda,  the  sheep,  and 
include  in  their  ranks  many  of  the  great  cultivating  caste 
of  the  Kurmis  or  Kudumbis  ^  They  are  the  Virupaksha 
or  tribe  of  Viru  worshippers,  named  in  a  list  of  snake  races 
in  the  Chullavagga  2,  who  were  in  the  Rigveda  destroyed  by 
Indra,  in  his  avatar  of  the  bull-god,  as  the  worshippers  of  the 
Shishna-deva3,  or  phallic  god,  that  is  of  Indra  as  the  eel-god. 

This  name  Viru  becomes  in  Zend  Piru,  by  the  change  in 
letters,  which  makes  the  Sanskrit  Ashva,  the  horse,  Aspa  in 
Zend,  and  this  god  Piru  appears  in  the  Veda  as  P^rum 
apam,  the  begetter  or  sweller  of  the  waters,  the  rain-god  who 
gives  creative  power  to  the  heavenly  Soma  4,  an  image  which 
shows  that  the  earliest  belief  in  the  rain-god  as  the  father 
of  life  still  maintained  its  supremacy  in  India,  and  did  not 
succumb  to  the  materialistic  worship  of  the  phallus. 

In  the  further  changes  of  the  name  of  the  fire-father, 
the  Finnic  Pir  became  in  Akkadian,  which  replaces  a  proto- 
Median  r  by  an  1,  Pil  or  Bel  5.  Hence  the  Akkadian  fire- 
god  is  Bil-gi,  the  spirit  {£i)  of  fire,  who  became  the  later  Bel, 
and  it   is  due  to   Ugro-Finn  influence   that  the  father-god 

'  Prof.   G.  Oppcrt,   Original  Inhabitants  of  Bharata  varsha^  part.   ii.    pp. 

237—239. 

=•  Rhys  David's  and  Oldenberg's  Viraya   Texts,  Chullavagga,  v.  6;  S.B.E., 
vol.  XX.  p.  79. 

3  Rg.  vii.  21,  5  ;  X.  99,  3.  4  Ibid.  X.  36,  8. 

5  Lenormant,  Chaldaan  Magic  and  Sorcery ,  chap,  xxiii.  p.  316. 


of  tlu  Myth' Making  Age,  133 

of  the  Greek  worshippers  of  the  household  fires  became  the 
king  Phlegyas,  who  ruled  the  Cyclopes,  or  men  with  one  eye, 
the  votaries  of  the  Pole  Star  god.  Greek  tradition,  as 
recorded  by  Pausanias,  speaks  of  the  Phlegyans  as  a  warlike 
race,  whose  stronghold  in  Greece  was  Orchomenos,  at  the 
head  of  the  Copaic  lake  where  the  eel  was  worshipped,  which 
they  occupied  before  the  Minyans  ^  Their  king,  the  Northern 
conqueror,  had  two  children,  Koronis  and  Ixion.  Koronis  is 
the  crow  or  raven  goddess  to  whom  birds  were  sacrificed  and 
whose  image  was  of  wood  2. 

Pausanias,  who  mentions  this  image  of  Koronis,  does  not 
say  of  what  wood  it  was  made,  but  in  one  passage  where 
he  says  that  all  the  oldest  images  of  the  gods  were  wooden, 
he  names  ebony  as  first  in  the  list  of  woods  used  for  making 
them,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  as  the  wood  of  the  oldest 
images  3.  Elsewhere  he  says  that  the  old  ebony  images 
were  brought  from  Egypt,  where  it  was  believed  to  be  dug 
up  by  the  ^Ethiopians  4,  and  that  the  statue  of  Artemis,  near 
Tegea,  which  was  worshipped  as  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  was 
of  ebony  5.  The  image  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus  was  popularly 
believed  to  be  of  ebony,  but,  according  to  Pliny,  the  Consul 
Mucianus,  who  examined  it,  found  it  to  be  of  vine-wood  ^. 

All  these  facts  taken  together  seem  to  me  to  prove  almost 

indubitably  that    the  wooden    images  which  were  the  first 

models   of   Greek   sculpture  were  originally  images  of  the 

Indian  tree-mother  Mari-amma,  growing  in  the  ocean  mud, 

hence  she  was  Artemis,  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  that  is  the 

mother-tree  sprung  from  the  Southern  Ocean  lake.    This  was 

undoubtedly  the  idea  present  in  the  mind  of  the  first  sculptors 

of  the  image  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus,  a  city  founded  by  the 

matriarchal  Amazons,  and  the  original  image  was  the  tree 

trunk,  the  form  under  which  Artemis   was  represented   as 

Artemis  Orthia,  and  which,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  31),  was  the 

'  Frazcr,  Pausanias^  ix.  36,  I — 3  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  488,  489. 
'  Ibid.,  ii.  11,7;  vol.  i.  p.  88.  3  Ibid.,  viii.  17,  2  ;  vol.  i.  p.  395. 

*  Ibid.,  i.  42,  6;  vol.  i.  p.  64.  s  Ibid.,  viii.  53,  11  ;  vol.  i.  p.  443. 

'  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  246. 


134  History  and  Chronology 

miraculously  found  image  of  Mari-amma  as  Jagahnath  the 
ruler  of  the  world  set  up  in  the  great  temple  at  PoorL 

Ebony  is  the  Indian  wood  of  the]  Tendoo  {Diospyros 
Melanoxulon\  growing  in  all  the  forests  of  Southern  India, 
and  especially  plentiful  on  the  Malabar  hills,  whence  it  has 
always  been  one  of  the  chief  exports.  The  ^Ethiopians  who 
sent  it  to  Greece  were,  as  I  have  shown  (p.  52),  the  incense 
collectors  of  Southern  Arabia  and  India,  and  it  was  un- 
doubtedly an  Indian  sacred  tree.  From  its  connection  with 
Artemis  the  Bear  goddess  and  Koronis  the  raven,  whose 
brother  was  Ixion,  the  Great  Bear  or  Draco,  it  seems  to 
have  been  especially  sacred  to  the  fire  worshippers  who 
succeeded  the  sons  of  the  Sal  tree,  and  I  can,  from  my  own 
experience,  bring  forward  one  very  good  reason  for  the  con- 
sccr.ition  of  this  tree  to  the  fire-god.  While  I  was  Settlement 
Officer  in  Chuttisgurh  I  noticed  that  ebony  trees  only  grew 
on  rich  soil,  and  that  when  trees  of  other  descriptions 
growing  on  soil  suited  to  the  ebony  tree  were  burnt  down 
in  a  forest  fire,  they  were  always  succeeded  after  the  fire 
by  ebony  trees,  though  none  had  grown  there  before, 
llcnce  the  wood  was  especially  appropriate  as  the  symbol 
of  the  mother  of  fire. 

Further  proof  that  the  tree-bear-goddess  and  her  raven 
predecessor  Koronis^  the  bird-mother  of  life,  was  originally 
the  black-goddess-mother,  the  raven  constellation  Argo,  is 
given  by  the  black  virgin  mothers  worshipped  in  Greece. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  black  Demeter  called  Deo,  whose 
temple  is  a  cave  in  Mount  Elaios  in  Arcadia,  that  is  to  say 
she  is  the  cave-goddess- mother  of  the  sons  of  II  or  El,  the 
ccl-god  of  the  parent-river.  Pausanias  tells  us  that  her 
first  wooden  image  was  burnt  in  prehistoric  times,  but  the 
epithet  bKick  attached  to  her  and  the  black  tunic  in  which 
her  later  image  was  clothed  seem  to  show  that  it  was 
one  imported  in  matriarchal  times,  and  made  of  Indian 
ebony.  Her  name  Deo  shows  her  Akkadian  origin  as  the 
gvxldcss  of  life  \si  or  di\,  and  I  have  already  (p.  57)  shown 
that  the  ritual  of  her  festival,  the  Thesmophoria,  proves  her 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  135 

to  be  the  goddess-mother  of  the  original  Pleiades  year, 
in  which  the  mother  -  raven  constellation  Argo  led  the 
stars  round  the  Pole.  This  festival,  Pausanias  tells  us, 
was  held  in  the  grove  of  oaks  round  her  cave,  and  he 
says  that  the  rites  were  performed  by  a  priestess  assisted 
by  the  youngest  of  the  three  sacrificers.  Thus  this  festival, 
in  which  men  and  women  took  part,  was  a  later  form  of 
the  women's  festival  of  the  Thesmophoria,  and  the  number 
of  sacrificers^  three,  answering  to  the  three  Drupadas  or 
sacrificial  stakes  of  the  Vedic  ritual  S  and  the  three  pits 
[gartas)  of  the  Trigartas  of  the  Mahabharata,  show  that 
it  was  a  festival  of  the  patriarchal  year  of  three  seasons. 
But  at  this  festival  of  Deo  no  living  victims  were  offered, 
only  the  ancient  firstfruits  of  grapes  [and  other  fruits,  honey- 
combs and  unspun  wool  on  which  oil  was  poured  '.  Pau- 
sanias also  mentions  a  black  Aphrodite  who  had  temples  near 
Mantinea  in  Arcadia,  at  Corinth,  and  at  Thespiae  in  Boeotia3. 
She  was  the  goddess  of  Paphos,  whose  image  was  a  triangular 
black  stone,  the  equivalent  of  the  Phoenician  goddess  Ba  or 

Baau  depicted  in  the  Hittite  sign  Ba  ^  as  the  goddess  of  the 
double  triangle  4.  This  sign  is  the  Hittite  form  of  the  Akka- 
dian sign  for  woman,  ^  and  for  the  same  goddess-mother. 

This  black  mother-goddess,  whose  Grecian  images  were 
made  of  Indian  ebony,  appears  in  India  as  the  black  virgin- 
mother  of  Krishna,  the  god  of  the  black  {krishna)  antelope, 
the  Indian  form  of  the  deer-sun-god  of  the  North,  worshipped 
by  the  Kushite  race,  and  the  father-god  of  all  the  Indian 
Brahmins  descended  from  the  Bhrigus,  or  sons  of  fire.  They 
all  on  the  day  of  their  initiation  wear  a  black  antelope  skin, 
the  baptismal  dress  of  the  partakers  of  the  sacramental 
Soma  or   tree-sap  5,  and  tie  their   girdles  of  three   strands 

'  Rg.  i.  24,  13. 

•  Frazer,  Pausanias,  viii.  5,  5,  42,  I — 5  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  379,  428 — 430. 

•  Ibid.,  Tiii.  6,  5,  ii.  2,  4,  ix.  27,  5  ;  vol.  i.  p.  380,  73,  477. 

•  Conder,  TTu  Hittiits  and  their  Language,  app.  iv. ,  Sign  6,  p.  237. 

^  Biihler,  Manu,  ii.  41,  42,  Apastamba,  i-  i,  3,  5  ;  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  iii. 
21,  I — 18;  S.B.E.,  vol.  XXV.  p.  37,  ii.  p.  10;  xxvi.  pp.  25 — 30. 


136  History  and  Chronology 

of  Mufija  grass  {Saccharum  Munjd)  round  their  waists  with 
three  knots  to  denote  the  three  stars  in  Orion's  belt ',  and 
the  three  seasons  of  his  year.  This  three-knotted  girdle 
called  the  Kamberiah  is  worn  by  all  the  sects  of  the 
Dervishes  of  South-western  Asia  2,  who  represent  the  ancient 
Kouretes  and  Dactuloi,  the  dancing  priests  who  succeeded 
the  matriarchal  women  dancers  and  danced  round  the  Pole 
or  gnomon-stone  of  the  year-god  of  Orion's  year  to  represent 
the  stars  dancing  round  the  Pole, 

This  black  mother-goddess,  in  her  form  of  Kordnis, 
daughter  of  Phlegyas,  was  the  wife  of  the  Akkadian  Ischus, 
the  Sanskrit  Ishu,  a  beam  or  pole,  the  revolving  fire-drill 
of  heaven,  so  that  she  who  was  originally  the  ocean-mother 
of  rain,  the  leader  of  the  stars  in  their  daily  and  yearly 
round,  became  in  the  new  fire  mythology  the  fire-socket 
in  which  the  ever-turning  Pole  revolves.  Throughout 
Europe  she  appears  as  the  virgin-mother-fire-tree  of  night, 
the  black  ebony-tree,  and  her  temple  on  Mount  Elaios  is  now 
the  shrine  of  the  Black  Virgin  3,  She  is  the  Black  Madonna 
of  La  Trouche  near  Grenoble,  whose  image,  originally  of 
black  wood,  is  now  one  of  black  stone  4,  and  her  festival 
is  a  May  festival  held  on  Whit-Monday.  This  was  the 
festival  of  the  black  English  goddess  Godiva  5,  also  held 
in  May.  There  is  also  the  stone  statue  of  the  mother- 
goddess  at  Quinapilly  near  Baud  in  Britanny,  called  locally 
the  Black  Virgin,  and  the  black  wooden  Madonna  of  Bally- 
vourney  in  the  County  of  Cork  in  Ireland,  and  that  of 
St.  Molaise  at  Innismurray.  Also  the  Egyptian  virgin- 
mother,  called  in  the  Golden  Legend,  Maria  Egyptica,  and 
described  as  "  all  black  all  over  her  body  of  the  grate  heat 
and   brennynge  of  the  sun  6."     This   black-goddess,  in   her 

'  Bal  Gangadhur  Tilak,  Onotty  chap.  v.  pp.  145 — 50. 
=•  O'Neill,  The  Nights  of  the  Gods,  Bethels,  vol.  i.  p.  127. 
3  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  iv.  pp.  406,  407. 
*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  p.  103. 
5  Hartland,  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  p.  85. 

^  Fosbroke,   Cyclopedia  of  Antiquities^  p.   102,  quotes  Golden  Legend,  fol 
Ixxii. ;  Crooke,  The  Legends  of  Krishna,  Folklore,  vol.  xi.,  1900,  pp.  30,  31. 


of  tlie  Myth-Making  Age.  137 

double  form  as  Demeter  and  Persephone,  the  November 
and  May  goddess,  was  originally  the  mother  of  the  Pleiades 
year.  The  southward  march  of  these  sons  of  the  phallus 
and  fire-drill  can  be  clearly  traced  in  the  history  of  the 
Bible^  the  Zendavesta,  and  local  geography.  In  the  Bible 
they  are  the  sons  of  Shem,  the  name  of  God,  the  Great 
Potter,  at  whose  command  the  potter's  wheel  of  the  earth 
revolved  when  driven  by  the  constellation  Rahab  or  Draco, 
and  created  life  by  its  revolutions.  The  son  of  the  creating 
name  was  Arpachsad  or  Arpa-chasad,  the  land  [arpa)  of  the 
conquerors  {kasidt) ',  the  potter's  wheel  of  the  race.  This 
was  the  country  of  the  mother-mountain  Ararat,  whence  the 
parent-river-channel  \{iiahor)  the  Euphrates  rose.  In  this 
land  Shelah  the  spear,  the  son  of  the  soil,  was  born  as'  the 
potter-father  of  the  weavers  and  potters  2.  The  Shelah  was 
the  Celtic  Gai,  the  Latin  Gaesum,  used  in  kindling  fire,  the 
Gaibolga  or  weapon  of  Cuchulainn,  the  sun-god  3.  His 
weaver  and  potter  sons  were  afterwards  called  the  sons  of 
Judah,  meaning  the  praised,  who  was  the  Hebrew  equivalent 
of  the  Hindu  altar  fire  first  called  Nabha-nedishtha,  nearest 
to  the  navel  {ndbha),  and  afterwards  Narashamsa,  praised 
of  men,  the  Narya  Sangha  or  Ydzad  of  royal  lineage  of  the 
Zendavesta  4.  This  spear  was  the  sacred  spear  or  fire-drill 
of  the  army  of  the  conquering  sons  of  fire,  borne  before  them 
on  their  marches,  as  the  American  Indian  warrior  tribes, 
whose  close  connection  with  the  Indian  Turano  Dravidians 
I  have  shown  elsewhere,  and  will  show  further  in  the  sequel 
of  this  work,  still  carry  this  holy  symbol  of  the  creating-god, 
which  rests  at  night  in  its  sacred  tent  5. 

The  son  of  Shelah,  the  fire-spear,  was   Eber,  the  father 


'  Gen.  X.  21—25;  ^2iyzQ,  Bypaths  of  Bible  Knau'Udge,  ii.,  Fresh  Light  from 
Ancient  Monuments. 

-  1  Chron.  iv.  21 — 23. 

3  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.  p.  381  ;  Lect.  v.  p.  441. 

*  Rg.  X.  64,  3,  X.  62 ;    Hewitt,   Kuling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  voL  i. , 
Essay  iii.,  pp.  169,  179,  189. 

5  Hewitt,  RtUing  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  ii.  Essay  ix.,  pp.  236 — 239. 


138  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  Basque  Iberians,  and  his  sons  were  Peleg  and  Joktan. 
Joktan's  children  were  the  Banu  Kahtan  (p.  31),  the  rulers 
of  the  coasts  of  the  Indian  Ocean  from  Arabia  to  India, 
and  of  the  Indian  gold-bearing  lands  of  Ophir  and  Havilah. 
Peleg,  meaning  the  stream,  the  river  descending  to  the  ocean, 
was  the  father  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  and  the  river-antelope. 
His  name  occurs  in  the  history  of  Kadmus  as  Pelagon,  who 
gave  Kadmus  the  cow  which  guided  him  to  Boeotia,  marked 
on  its  flanks  with  the  full  moon.  In  other  words,  he  was 
the  father  of  the  races  who  measured  time  by  lunar  periods, 
called  in  Greece  and  Italy  the  Pelasgi  ^  descended  from 
Pelasgus,  king  of  Arcadia,  the  grower  of  acorns,  whose 
daughter  was  Kallisto,  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear. 
He  Vras  the  ancestor  of  the  race  represented  in  the  earliest 
pile  villages  of  Umbria  on  the  lake  of  Fimon  near  Vicenza, 
containing  no  cereals  but  only  hazel  nuts,  water-chestnuts 
and  acorns,  which  they  roasted.  These  people  seemingly 
belonged  to  the  short  brachy-kephalic  and  black-haired 
Iberian  race  of  the  Ligurians  and  the  Celts  of  Auvergne 
and  Central  France  ^,  The  offspring  of  the  Bear-star-mother, 
the  sons  of  the  rivers,  traced  their  descent  from  the  grand- 
son of  Peleg  Serug,  who,  as  Dr.  Sayce  has  shown,  is  the 
father-king  and  god  of  the  Akkado-Babylonians  called 
Sar-gani,  born  of  Sar3.  His  mother  was  a  princess,  the 
goddess  Shar,  the  mother  of  corn,  called  by  the  Akkadians 
I-shara,  the  house  (/)  of  Shara  4,  the  temple  of  the  sun-god 
Adar  or  Atar,  the  sun-god  of  the  fire  worshippers.  She  was 
also  the  Akkadian  goddess  of  grass,  Shar  5,  that  is,  of  the 
grass  whence  the  sacred  barley  and  wheat  was  born,  and 
as  the  mother  of  grass  and  corn  she  was  the  withered  husk, 
the   rice  husk,  which  I   have  shown   in  Chapter  II.,  p.  60, 


^  Frarer,   Pausanias,  ix.    12,   i,  viii.    i,   2,  3 ;    vol.    i.   pp.  459,   373^376; 
B^rard,  Origine  (Us  CuHcs  Arcadiens,  pp.  245 — 248. 
"  Isaac  Taylor,  The  Origin  of  the  Aryans^  pp.  89,  ill. 
3  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  i.  p.  26,  note  I,  28,  note  I. 
*  Ibid.,  Lect.  iii.  p.  134,  note  1,  166,  note  i. 
5  Ibid.,  Lect.  iv.  p.  245,  note  6. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  1 39 

in  the  analysis  of  the  story  of  Demeter  and  Persephone, 
to  be  the  mother  of  h'fe  in  the  oldest  mythology  of  the 
South.  She  was  the  Sara  of  Hebrew  history,  who  at  ninety 
years  old  bore  Isaac,  meaning  laughter,  the  laughing  grain, 
which  marks  the  outcome  of  the  year's  labours ;  and  this  grain 
of  wheat  is,  according  to  Professor  Douglas,  the  earliest 
Chinese  character  for  the  year  ^  The  sun-god  of  the  Chinese 
year  was  the  sun  born  from  the  tree,  represented  in  the 

Chinese  character  for  sun  ^ ,  as  the  trident  of  the  year  of 

three  seasons  of  Orion. 

The  mother  Shar,  the  year-goddess  of  the  sons  of  Eber, 
was  the  Basque  goddess-mother  Sare  or  Zare,  meaning 
a  basket,  and  its  root  is  the  same  as  that  of  Sarika  or  Sarats, 
meaning  osier,  which  becomes  in  Latin  Salix.  It  was  from 
the  osiers  growing  as  reeds  round  the  sources  of  the  mother- 
rivers  of  the  Iberian  race  in  Asia  Minor  that  Sargani,  who, 
like  Dumu-zi  {Orion)^  knew  not  his  father,  was  placed  in  the 
basket  of  reeds,  to  which  his  mother  consigried  him,  in  the 
Akkadian  hymn  telling  of  his  birth.  It  was  down  the  parent- 
river  Euphrates  that  he  went  in  his  reed-boat,  the  con- 
stellation of  the  Great  Bear,  to  rule  the  black-headed  race 
of  the  South,  and  to  till  the  gardens  of  Akki  the  irrigator  2. 

This  osier  basket-mother  of  the  young  sun-god,  the  mother 
of  the  bread  of  life,  became  the  "  mystica  vannus  lacchia,"  in 


'  China f  by  R.  K.  Douglas,  p.  231. 

'  Saycc,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1 887,  Lect.  i.  pp.  26,  note  I,  27. 

^  This  sacred  basket  containing  the  soul  of  the  sun-god  born  from  the  parent- 
grain,  appears  in  Malay  ritual  as  the  basket  in  which  the  first  seven  heads 
cut  from  the  mother-sheaf  are  placed  as  the  soul  of  the  rice-child.  This  basket 
contains,  before  the  rice -child  is  placed  in  it,  a  hen's  egg,  showing  that  the 
rite  is  derived  from  the  worship  of  the  sun-hen  goddess  of  the  Malays  or 
Mundas  ;  a  nut,  showing  their  descent  from  the  parent-nut-tree  ;  and  a  cockle- 
shell, showing  their  maritime  origin,  also  a  hre-stone.  This  basket  is  carried 
by  the  chief  of  the  five  Penjawats  or  female  {pen)  bearers  representing  the  five 
days  of  the  week,  and  three  of  the  others  carry  the  three  baskets,  the  three 
seasons  of  the  year,  which  were  filled  from  the  first  rice  cut  after  that  of  the 
mother-sheaf.  The  ears  of  the  rice-soul  are  mixed  with  those  of  the  last  sheaf 
cut  and  taken  back  to  the  house  as  the  mother-sheaf.     It  is  then  threshed  out 


140  History  and  Chronology 

which  the  firstfruits  were  carried  at  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
and  her  name,  Shar  or  Zare,  proves  her  right  to  a  still  more 
ancient  origin  ;  for  as  the  goddess  of  the  husk  Sar  she  was 
the  shard,  the  wing-case  or  husk  of  the  beetle,  the  sacred 
Egyptian  scarab,  who  created  the  earth  by  rolling  it  as  the 
beetle  rolls  a  pellet  of  dung.  The  original  form  of  the  word 
shard  is  to  be  found  in  the  Low  German  Skaard,  the  Ice- 
landic Skard,  the  High  German  Scharte,  meaning  like 
sherd  in  pot-sherd,  a  piece  of  pottery,  that  is  to  say,  she 
was  the  mother)- goddess  of  the  potter  sons  of  Shelah, 
descended  from  the  first  potters,  the  Spy  Onoz  men  of  the 
first  Glacial  epoch.  This  name  *'  sherd  "  for  pottery  comes 
from  the  same  root  as  scaur,  the  mountain-rock,  so  the 
mother-star  was  not  only  the  goddess  of  the  sons  of  the 
Great  Potter,  but  also  of  those  born  from  the  mountain-rock, 
whence  the  springs  which  gave  life  to  the  eel-fish-mother 
welled  forth. 

It  was  from  this  son  of  Sar,  the  sun-god  born  from  the 
reeds,  that  Nahor,  the  river  Euphrates,  was  born,  and  his  son 
was  Terah  the  antelope,  the  Akkadian  Dara,  a  name  of  la, 
whose  ship  representing  the  original  ship  of  the  gods,  the 
Ma  or  mother-constellation  Argo,  was  called  "the  ship  of 
the  divine  antelope  of  the  deep  ^.^  This  name  of  the  ante- 
lope is  apparently  a  variant  form  of  the  Hittite  Tar,  the  goat 
which  also  meant  a  deer  2,  and  the  Hittites  were  on  one  side 
of  their  descent  the  Iberian  Basques,  whose  sacred  mountain 
in  the  Pyrenees  is  Aker-larre,  now  called  Aque-larre,  the 
pasture  (larre)  of  Aker  the  goat,  the  Sanskrit  Aja.  He  is 
the  god  presiding  at  the  witches'  sabbath,  held  by  tradition 
on  Saturday,  and  in  the  Basque  tale  of  Izar,  the  star,  and 
Lafioa,  the  mist,  it  was  this  god,  the  grey  he-goat,  who  was 
seen  on  the  mountain  as  Luzbel,  the  great  {Luz)  crow  {bel\ 
the    king   of    the   wizards,   where    Izar   was   hidden   as   an 

and  the  grain  mixed  with  the  rice-soul,  and  a  part  of  this  is  mixed  with  the 
next  year's  seed.     Skeat,  Malay  Magic^  The  Reaping  Ceremony,  pp.  235 — 249. 

'  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1 887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  280. 

"'Conder,  The  Hittites  and  their  Language^  Sign  141,  pp.  231,  156. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  141 

onlooker  in  a  hollow  tree  watched  by  his  guardian-angej. 
It  was  thence  he  descended  to  heal  the  wise  sun-maiden, 
Sophia,  daughter  of  the  king  of  Parma,  who  was  being  slain 
as  the  dying  year-god  by  the  witchcraft  of  the  witches  of  the 
goat-god,  and  in  this  guise  he  was  the  May  star  of  the 
Pleiades  year  heralding  the  return  of  the  May  Queen  from 
the  land  of  winter  darkness.  It  was  this  same  goat -god  who 
appeared  to  Izar's  brother  Laftoa,  the  mist,  when  he  entered 
the  hollow  mother-tree  as  the  god  of  the  burning  mountain 
vomiting  fire,  who  cast  down  Lafloa  at  the  close  of  the 
Pleiades  year  in  October  into  the  pit  of  darkness '.  It  is 
this  name  of  the  parent-goat  which  survives  in  the  national 
name  of  Aquitani,  or  those  belonging  to  {itani)  the  goat 
Aker  or  Aque,  given  to  the  Basques  of  Southern  France, 
the  land  of  Aquitaine. 

Thus  the  union  of  the  two  animals,  the  goat  and  the 
antelope,  in  the  symbolical  name  of  the  national  father-god 
of  the  sons  of  the  Euphrates,  marks  the  union  of  the 
primitive  Basques,  sons  of  the  Phrygian  goat-god  Pan,  from 
whom  the  Indian  Mal^s,  who  sacrifice  goats,  are  descended 
with  the  sons  of  the  sun-deer.  That  the  horned-goat,  sacred 
to  the  Akkadian  god  Mul-lil,  lord  of  the  dust  (//7),  and 
Azuga-Suga,  his  supreme  goat,  was  the  primitive  parent- 
totem  is  proved  by  the  goat-skin  dress  of  the  Akkadian 
priests,  which  is  that  of  the  Indian  Vaishya  or  villagers  who 
worshipped  the  household  fire,  and  by  the  Akkadian  goat- 
god  Uz,  who  is  depicted  as  watching  the  revolutions  of  the 
sun*s  disk  2.  This  parent-goat  was  the  Pole  Star  god,  called 
Azaga-siqqa,  "  the  highest  and  horned  one,"  and  also  Uz- 
makh,  or  the  mighty  goat  of  Mullil.  This  god,  who  sits 
on  high  in  the  Pole  Star,  and  watches  the  movements  of  the 
sun,  became  the  great  god  of  Gudua  or  Kutha,  the  city 
of  the  dead.     He  was  called  Nergal,  whose  Akkadian  name 

'  Monteiro,  Legends  of  the  Basque  People t  pp.  i8ff.  ;  Eys,  Dictionnaire 
Basque  •  Pran^ais. 

'  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lcct.  iv.  pp.  285,  286;  Buhler,  Mattu, 
ii.  46,  Apastamba,  i.  i,  3,  5  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  p.  37  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  10. 


142  History  and  Chronology 

is  translated  by  the  Assyrian  scribes  as  "  the  great  bright 
one,"  that  is,  the  Pole  Star  god.  The  temple  of  Borsippa 
near  Babylon,  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Mount,  with  its  sides 
facing  the  four  points  of  the  compass,  was  the  temple  of  the 
god  of  the  North,  called  Du-azagga,  the  temple  of  the  goat- 
god  '.  This  was  the  goat  round  which  the  witches  and 
wizards  danced,  and  that  called  Aja-eka-pad  or  the  one-footed 
goat  {flja)  by  the  Hindus,  which  was  the  dominant  star  of 
the  Parva  bhadrapada,  the  first  half  of  the  month  Bhadra- 
pada,  the  month  of  the  blessed  foot  (August — September)  «. 
The  name  of  Aja-eka-pad,  the  one-footed  goat,  is  given 
in  Rg.  X.  64,  4,  to  Brihaspati,  the  creator,  whom  I  have 
shown  to  be  the  Pole  Star  god  in  Chapter  II.,  p.  68. 

It  was  this  goat-god  who  became  the  Hebrew  Esau,  the 
Phoenician  Usof,  the  eldest  of  the  twin'  sons  of  Isaac  the 
corn-god.  This  was  the  scapegoat  Aziz  Azazel,  the  god 
of  the  winter  season^  according  to  Jewish  theology,  in  which 
the  two  goats  offered  at  the  Feast  of  Atonement  on  the  loth 
of  Tisri,  or  about  the  ist  of  October,  were  dedicated,  one  to 
Jahveh  and  the  other  to  Azazel.  The  goat  offered  to  Jahveh 
was  sacrificed  on  the  altar.  The  goat  of  Azazel,  the  strong 
{aziz)  god  (^/),  answering  to  Angra  Mainyu  or  Ahriman,  the 
evil  spirit  of  the  Zendavesta^  was  let  go  into  the  wilderness 
carrying  the  sun  of  the  people  on  its  head.  The  whole 
ceremony  was  apparently  a  survival  of  the  rape  of  Proserpine 
by  the  god  of  the  nether  world,  for  she  was,  according  to 
Suidas,  called  Azesia  3. 

B.     The  Antelope  race^  the  phallus  worshippers  and  house 

builders. 

The  sons  of  the  antelope  Dara,  who  superseded  the  goat- 
father  on  the  addition  of  the  sons  of  the  sun-deer  to  the 

»  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,   Primitive  Constellations^  vol.  ii.  chap.  xiv.  pp. 
183,  184,  189;  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  pp.  195,  166. 
'  Sachau,  Alberunl's  India^  vol.  »i.,  chap.  Ixi.  p.  122. 
3  Lcvit..  xvi.  9,  10,  29 ;  Movers,  Die  Phonitier,  vol.  i.  p.  367. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  143 

Satyr  confederacy,  were  the  great  Dardanian  race  of  Troy, 
descended  from  Dardanus,  the  son  of  the  Pole  Star  god  Zeus, 
and  his  son  Ericthonius^  the  very  fertile  {ipi)  earth  {yPiiv) 
the  snake  parent-god  Erectheus,  who  was  fed  in  the  Erec- 
theum  of  Athens  as  the  snake  of  the  tree-mother  Pallas 
Athene,  whose  image  was  the  Palladium  of  Troy '.     Erec- 
theus, who  was  identified  at  Athens  with  Poseidon,  the  same 
priest  officiating  for  both^^  was,  according  to  Homer,  the 
first  keeper  of  the  twelve  horses  of  the  year  3,  that  of  the 
twelve   months  of  Orion's  year,    begotten   by   Boreas,  the 
north-wind  of  the  Pole  Star  god.     It  was  this  god  who,  as 
Poseidon,  gave  to  Peleus,  the  god  of  the  potter's  clay  (IT17X69), 
the   father  of  Achilles,  his   two  sun-horses,   Xanthus   and 
Balios,  the  yellow  and  the  dappled   horse  4,  of  whom  the 
latter  was  the  spotted   star  Sirius,  the   Sanskrit   Sharvara. 
They  thus  show  a  later  line  of  descent  than  the  horses  of 
the  Indian  Krishna,  the  black  antelope-god  of  the  Sharnga 
or  horn-bow,  whose  horses  were   Shaivya,  the   son   of  the 
hill-god   Shiva,  the  constellation  Taurus,  in  which   Rohini 
Aldebaran,  the  mother  by  Orion  of  Vastospati,  the  house- 
hold fire,  is  the  chief  star,  and    Su-griva,  the  bird-headed 
ape,  the  Pole  Star  constellation  Kepheus  s. 

The  grandson  of  Erectheus  was  Ilos,  the  god  II,  eel-parent 
god  of  the  corn-growing  sons  of  the  wild  fig-tree,  his  parent- 
tree  shadowing  his  tomb  6,  and  he,  with  his  two  brothers 
Assarakos  and  Ganymedes,  made  up  the  three  seasons  of 
the  Dardanian  year.  The  Assyrian  origin  of  the  story  of 
descent  is  affirmed  most  positively  by  Lenormant  7,  who  says 
that  their  names  show  Ilos  and  Assarakos  to  be  the  well- 
known  gods  of  the  Ninivite  pantheon  Ilu  and  Asurraku,  the 


'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  ii.  pp.  168,  169. 
'  Ibid.,  vol  ii.  pp.  339,  340. 

'  Homer,  Iliad,  xx.  225.  *  Ibid.,  xxiii.  277,  278,  xvi.  148. 

^  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Sabhakriya)  Parva,  ii.  p.  4. 
*"  Homer,  Iliads  xi.  167. 

'  Lenormant,  Note    in    Gazette   Archhlogique,   5   (1879),   p.   239  ;    Frazer, 
Pausanias,  iii.  pp.  202,  203. 


144  History  ana  Chronology 

latter  a  name  of  Assur,  who  was  in  India  the  god  Asha<Jha, 
the  god  of  the  month  June — ^July,  beginning  at  the  summer 
solstice.  Ilos,  the  god  of  the  wild  fig-tree  growing  over  his 
tomb  at  Troy ',  was,  like  the  primitive  Soma  tree-god,  the 
Palasha  (Butea  frondosa\  the  god  of  Spring.  Assarakos 
was  the  god  of  Summer,  and  his  Assyrian  name  Asurraku, 
a  bed,  derived  from  the  Akkadian  Asurra  with  the  same 
meaning  2,  marks  him  as  the  god  of  the  bed  of  the  summer 
sun  in  the  South,  the  bed  of  Odusseus,  the  god  of  the  year 
Path  (6S69),  the  star  Orion,  made  by  him  of  the  olive  mother- 
tree  Athene,  whence  the  summer  sun  was  born. 

.This  bed  was,  according  to  the  description  given  of 
his  work  by  Odusseus  3,  placed  round  the  parent-olive-tree, 
whose  trunk  remained  as  a  pillar  in  the  centre.  This 
was  the  stand  whence  the  year-god  turned  the  world's  tree 
round  a3  the  clay  rising  from  the  potter's  wheel.  It  was 
the  forerunner  of  the  later  oil-press  in  which  the  Chakra- 
varti  or  wheel  {ckakra)  turning  {varti)  kings  of  India  were 
supposed  to  sit.  Their  seat  was  the  board  surrounding 
the  beam  of  the  oil-press  made  to  revolve  by  the  oxen 
driven  round  by  the  royal  drivers.  This  is  the  oil-press  to 
which  the  constellation  Simshumara  or  Draco  is  compared 
in  the  Vishna  Dharma.  This,  with  the  stars  that  follow  it, 
is  said  to  be  driven  round  by  the  wind  just  as  the  oil-press 
is  driven  round  by  the  revolving  oxen  4.  That  this  revolving 
bed  was  the  bed  of  the  year-god  who  dwells  inside  the 
centre  of  the  canopy  of  heaven  in  the  tree  reaching  to  the 
Pole  Star,  is  rendered  still  more  certain  by  the  dimensions 
of  two  other  celebrated  royal  beds,  those  of  Og,  king  of 
Bashan.  the  parent  of  the  Rephaim  or  sons  of  Repha  {Cano- 
pus\  and  of  Bel  in  the  astronomical  temple  of  Borsippa 
at  Babylon.  Both  of  these  measured  9  by  4  cubits,  or  36 
square   cubits ;    and    that    this    number   is    connected    with 

'  Homer,  Iliad^  xi.  166,  167. 

*  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  p.  183,  note  3. 
^  Homer,  Odyssey^  xxiii.  iQoflf. 

*  Sachau,  Alberuni's  India^  chap.  xxii.  vol.  i.  p.  241. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  14  5 

the  year  of  72  weeks  is  further  proved  by  the  70  priests 
of  Bel,  the  seventy  being  in  the  age  when  the  seven-days 
week  began  to  be  reckoned,  being  frequently  substituted  for 
the  original  72 ».  Again  the  substance  of  the  bed  of  Og, 
the  ruler  of  Bashan,  the  land  of  the  underground  stone 
cities,  marks  its  very  early  age  and  its  original  use  as  a 
revolving  measure  of  time;  for  it  was  made  of  o3T|3 
brezel,  meaning  iron-stone  or  diorite.  In  other  words,  it 
was  a  revolving  stone  of  the  age  of  the  logan  -stones,  a  stone 
supposed,  like  the  black  caaba  stone  at  Mecca,  to  occupy  the 
centre  of  the  revolving  earth  2. 

The  third  or  winter  sun  of  the  three  Dardanian  ancestors 
was  Ganymedes,  taken  to  heaven  to  be  cup-bearer  to  Zeus, 
that    is  to  say,  appointed  to  fulfil  the  office  of  the  Hindu 
Ribhus,   of  filling  the  cups   denoting   the  year's    seasons. 
But    this  god,  otherwise  called    Hebe,   was   originally   the 
goddess  Ganymcda,  whose  images  are  crowned  with  ivy- 
leaves,  and  who  was  worshipped  at  Phlius  and  Sicyon  3  as 
Dia,  that  is  a  form  of  Demeter,  the  goddess  of  life  {di\ 
Her   festival  at  Phlius,  called  the   Omphalos   or   navel   of 
the  Peloponnesus,  was,  according  to  Pausanias,  that  of  the 
ivy  cutters  4.     He  does  not  give  the  date  of  the  festival, 
but  it  was  doubtless  connected  with  that  of  Heracles,  the 
Phoenician   Ar-chal,  wedded    to    Omphalc,  which  occurred, 
as   we   have   seen,   at   the  winter   solstice   on   the  25th   of 
December.     Hebe,  the  youthful  maiden,  a  form  of  Omphale, 
was,  according  to  Homer,  the  wife  of  Heracles  s,  and  as  the 
god's  cup-bearer  was  the  regulator  of  the  seasons.     In  the 
sanctuaries  of  Heracles  cocks,  and  in  those  of  Hebe  hens, 
were  kept,  and  a  running  stream  divided  the  sexes,  mark 
ing  the  ritual  as  that  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  6.     Hence  this 

'  Also  see  as  to  the  significance  of  the  seventy,  Appendix  C. 
'  Dent.  iii.  lo,  ii  ;    Halevy,  Rn\  des  Pjudes  /uives,  xxi.  218,  222,  Bel  and 
ll»e  Dragon,  10  ;  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods,  vol.  i.  pp.  151,  152. 
^  Strabo,  viii.  p.  382. 

*  Frazer,  Pausanias^  ii.  13,  3 — 7 ;  vol.  i.  pp.  90,  91. 
-  Homer,  Odyssey ^  xi.  603. 
Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  iii.  p.  79. 

L 


146  History  and  Chronology 

winter  mother  was  Ahalyl,  the  hen,  the  wife  of  Gautama, 
and  afterwards  of  Indra,  and  she  answered  to  the  Roman 
Bona  Dea,  to  whom,  and  to  the  Fauns  or  sons  of  the  deer, 
the  beginning  of  December  was  dedicated.  In  the  ritual 
of  the  Indian  Ho-Mundas,  worshippers  of  the  sun-hen,  her 
festival  is  that  of  the  Kalam  Bonga,  when  the  rice  is  re- 
moved from  the  threshing-floors  and  the  straw  is  stacked. 
A  fowl  is  then  offered,  and  this  festival  of  the  winter  sol- 
stice represents  the  death  of  the  old  and  the  birth  of  a 
new  year.  This  solstitial  winter  month  was  in  the  creed 
of  the  patriarchal  sons  of  the  rivers  dedicated  to  the  mother 
and  father  of  life  and  their  offspring,  the  young  sun-god  *. 

It  was  from  Assarakos,  the  god  of  the  bed,  the  summer 
father  of  the  year,  that  iEneas  and  the  Etrurian  builders 
of  underground  tombs  cut  out  of  the  rock  like  the  stone- 
cities  of  Bashan,  were  descended.      It  was  Anchises,  the 
father  of  i£neas,  who  stole  six  of  the  twelve  year-horses 
of   Laomedon,  which   were    given    to   Tros  .  by   Zeus    in 
exchange  for  his  son  Ganymedes,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  sun-hen  of  the  winter  2.      This  exchange  is  parallel  to 
that  in  the  Edda,  where  Hoenir,  the  sun-horse  of  the  North, 
is   given  in  exchange  for  Frey,  the  deer-sun-god,  and  his 
twin-sister  Freya,  the  sun-falcon,  which  was  adopted  by  the 
Basques  and  Indian  Chiroos,  sons  of  the  bird  (C7«V),  as  the 
sun-bird  in  place  of  the  sun-hen.     The  story,  in  its  variant 
forms,  tells  of  the  introduction  of  the  worship  of  the  sun- 
horse  of  the  North,  and  of  the  division  of  the  year  into  six 
male  and  six  female  months  ;  for  Anchises  when  taking  the 
six  horses  of  Laomedon  substituted  for  them  six  mares,  thus 
dividing  the  twelve  year-horses   into  six  stallions  and  six 
mares.      This   is   the    division    of   the   year   spoken    of  in 
Rigveda   i.    164,   15,   16,   where   the   two   sections,   the   six 
female  months  of  night,  that  is  of  the  sun  going  northwards, 
are   separated   by   the   seventh    or   mid-month,   the   oldest 

'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  ii.  p.  79  ;  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal,  Ho, 
vol,  i.  p.  329. 
'  Homer,  Jliad^  v.  265—273. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  147 

month  Jaistha  (May — ^June),  from  the  six  male  months 
of  day,  and  both  are  called  the  Rishis  ^.  Thus  while  the 
year-herd  of  Anchises  consisted  of  six  mares  and  six 
stallions,  that  of  the  Veda  contained  six  doe  and  six  buck 
antelopes  {rishya),  and  the  age  in  which  the  conception 
originated  is  marked  as  that  of  the  rule  of  the  antelope-god 
Dardanus. 

This  theolc^y  of  the  creating  pair  was  that  of  the  Kabiri, 
current  in  Lemnos  Imbros  and  all  the  towns  of  the  Troad. 
It  was  the  theology  of  the  age  of  phallic  worship.  In  this 
belief  the  three  creating  Kabiri,  the  original  three  seasons 
of  Orion's  year,  were  duplicated  by  three  female  counter- 
parts, or  rather  the  three  male  crcating-gods  were  added 
to  the  original  three  mothers'.  These  six  year-gods,  who 
were,  as  we  shall  see,  the  six  days  of  the  week  of  the  new 
Chronometry,  were  the  offspring  of  a  male  and  female  pair, 
the  original  twins  of  the  Zodiac,  called  the  Mithuna  in 
India,  and  represented  as  a  boy  and  girl  3.     They  were  the 

'  This  mid-month  was  probably  not  originally  a  month  but  a  summer  resting- 
place  in  the  bed  of  the  summer-god,  answering  to  the  twelve  days  winter  rest 
in  the  earlier  year  of  Orion  in  the  house  of  the  Pole  Star  at  the  summer  solstice. 
It  appears  in  the  year  astronomy  of  China  as  the  season  of  the  centre,  that 
is  of  the  summer  solstice,  and  none  of  the  twelve  months  are  allotted  to  it. 
It  is  the  season  of  the  sacrifice  in  the  middle  court  when  the  Emperor  occupies 
the  grand  apartments  in  the  Grand  Fane  or  Hall  of  Distinction.  It  takes  place 
according  to  the  Li-chi  when  the  sun  is  in  Gemini  and  Virgo.  Legge,  Lt-Chi, 
Book  iv„  Supplement,  sect,  iii.,  also  Part  ii.  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvii.  pp.  252, 
note  I,  280,  281,  271  ;  xxviii.  p.  28.  If  the  Vedic  year  was  one  like  that 
in  the  Li-chi  ^depen^lent  on  a  star,  the  star  was  Antarcs  a  Scorpio  called 
Jii^tha.  One  year  in  which  the  mid-month  was  ruled  by  Jaistha,  Antares  was 
the  next  year  described  in  Chapter  V.  the  cycle  year  of  three  years,  beginning 
with  the  autumnal  equinox.  Antares  a  Scorpio  is  called  in  the  *  Tablet  of 
the  Thirty  Stars,*  the  Lord  of  Seed  of  the  month  Tisri,  beginning  with  the 
aatumnal  equinox.  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations^  *  The 
Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars,'  Star  xxiii.,  vol.  ii.  p.  88.  The  sun  was  in  Antares 
(Scorpio)  in  the  month  Jaistha  (May — ^Junc)  called  after  it  between  I4,cxx>  B.C. 
and  I3,0CX)  B.C.,  and  Antares  continued  to  rule  this  and  the  next  succeeding 
soUtitial  month  Asarh  (June — July),  up  to  about  io,cxx}  B.C. 

'  Phcrccydcs,  quoted  by  Strabo,  x.  472 ;  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods^  vol.  ii. 
p.  828. 

}  Sachau,  Alberuni's  India ^  vol.  i.,  chap.  xix.  p.  219. 

L  2 


148  History  and  Chronology 

Kami  of  Japan,  Izanagi  and  Izanami,  brother  and  sister, 
created  to  "  make,  consolidate  and  give  birth  to  "  the  land 
of  Japan,  and  for  this  purpose  they  were  provided  with 
a  churning  spear,  the  Hebrew  Shelah,  which  they  made  to 
rotate  in  the  ocean  till  the  island  rose  from  the  sea.  This 
spear  was  in  Grecian  mythology  the  trident  of  Poseidon 
with  which  he  made  Delos  to  rise  from  the  sea,  and  with 
it  rose  the  mother  Lato,  worshipped  as  a  tree  trunk,  which 
gave  birth  to  the  twin  creating-gods  Apollo,  who  was 
worshipped  in  the  Troad  as  Apollo  Smintheus,  the  mouse, 
the  burrower  in  the  earth,  and  Artemis,  the  goddess  of  the 
Great  Bear  >. 

The  original  parent-pair  of  Kabiri,  who  were,  according 
to  Epimenedes  of  Crete,  male  and  female,  were  in  Greece 
Hephaistos,  the  Sanskrit  Yavishtha,  the  most  binding  {yu) 
god,  the  one-legged  Pole  god,  the  churning  spear  of  heaven, 
and  his  spouse  Aphrodite,  the  mother-earth  born  from  the 
ocean  foam  (a<f)p6s)  he   raised   from  the  sea :   she  was  the 
mother-goddess  of  the  year  of  the  triangle,  the  Phoenician 
mother  Ba.      In  the  Trojan  history  of  these  primaeval  years, 
Anchises,  who  first  divided  the  year  into  male  and  female 
pairs,  became  the  husband  of  the  'year-mother  Aphrodite, 
and  takes  the  place  of  the  lame,  one-legged  Pole  Star  god 
as  the  potter  turning  the  creating-spear.     Two  of  the  year- 
horses  he  replaced  by  mares  were  taken  from  his  son  iEneas 
by  Diomedes,  son  of  Tydcus,  the  hammering  (tud)  god,  the 
primaeval  smith,  who  became  the  creating-potter ;  and  it  was 
with  these  horses  that  Diomedes  won  the  chariot-race  run 
at  the  funeral  of  Patroclus  =»,  which  inaugurated,  as  we  shall 
see  in  Chapter  VIII.,  the  first  year  of  the  independent  sun- 
god   steering  his  course  through  the  heavens,  the  year  of    j 
seventeen  months  of  Prajapati  divided  into  seven-day  weeks.    , 

In  considering  the  ethnology  of  this  Dardanian  or  antelope- 
race  who  believed  in  their  descent  from  the  male  and  female 

«  O'Neill,   NigAi  of  the  Gods,  Axis  Myths,  vol.   i.   31,   32  ;    Homer,  Iliad, 

i-  35—39. 
»  Homer,  Iliad,  v.  310—327  ;  xxiii.  290—292,  498—513. 


i 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  149 

creator,  we  must  not  forget  that  in  this  creed  the  father-god 
was  the  god  of  the  North,  while  the  mother  was  the  Southern 
goddess  Ba,  the  Akkadian  Bahu.     Hence  they  were  a  mixed 
race  formed  by  the  union  of  the  men  of  the  North  with  the 
women  of  the  South,  and   these  people  were  the  Pelasgi, 
the   sons  of  Peleg  the  stream,  the  sons  of  the  rivers,  who, 
according   to   Herodotus   ii.   51,  were  the   founders  of  the 
Kabirian   belief.      These  were  the  people  who   had   based 
their  system  of  governments  on  the  village  and  provincial 
organisation  they  brought  from   India,  and  who  had  when 
they  first  settled  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  measured  time 
by   the   Pleiades  year,  and  who   had   made   the   first  year 
of  Orion  merely  a  modification  of  the  Munda  year  of  the 
sun-bird.      They   were   essentially   conservative,  and   these 
conservative  instincts  clung  to  them  after  they  had  intro- 
duced the  Northern  custom  of  marriage,  and  accepted  the 
system   of  patriarchal  rule  introduced  by  the  sons  of  the 
sun-deer,  who   looked   on   the   creating-god  as  the  god  of 
the  hammer,  the  divine  smith  who  produced  the  living  spark 
of  life,  the  god  Marlchi,  the  fire  spark  of  the  Kushika,  by 
striking  with  the  stone  hammer  the  anvil  stone  whence  it 
was  to  be  born.     This  god  with  the  hammer  was  the  Greek 
dwarf-god  Hephaistos,  who  was,  according  to  Herodotus  iii.  37, 
the  equivalent  of  the  Egyptian   Ptah,  meaning  the  opener 
[patah)y  and  his  weapon   was   the   hammer,    Heb.   Pattish. 
The  gods  of  the  Kabiri  were  the  dwarf  hammer-gods  of  the 
Phoenicians,  called  Pataikoi  or  the  strikers,  which  they  used 
to  place  in  the  front  of  their  vessels,  and  the  prophet-bard 
of  this  confederacy  was  Orpheus,  whose  name  is  the  Grecian 
form  of  the  Sanskrit  Ribhus.     The  smithy  of  this  smith- 
creator,  before  he  was  cast  down   from  heaven  by  Zeus  to 
become  an  earthly  father-god,  was  in  the  mists,  where  the 
Pole  Star  god  kept  the  creating  rain-seed.      Here  was  his 
anvil,   the   Greek   aKfitav^  the   Sanskrit  Ashman,  the   stone 
which  was   the   parent  of  Eurutos  the  Centaur,  on  which 
the  fire  spark  in  the  lightning  flash  was  struck   from   this 
meteoric  stone.     Eurutos  was,  as  his  name  shows,  the  drawer 


150  History  and  Chronology 

(ipvoi)  of  the  heavenly  bow,  the  Sanskrit  Krishanu,  the  slayer 
of  the  Shyena  bird  of  the  winter  solstice.     The  father-smith, 
whose  son  was  the  lightning  god,  the  spark  of  creating  fire, 
was  the  father-god    of  the   matriarchal   theology  who  was 
looked  on  in  the  patriarchal  age  as  the  creator  of  the  mother- 
race,  and  we  have  seen  that   in  the   primaeval  creed  this 
father-god  was  the  great  ape.      This  ape,  the  Egyptian  Hapi 
who  became  the  god  Set,  was  the  god  who  sits  on  the  world's 
tree,  and  turns  it  by  the  pressure  of  his  Thigh,  the  stars  of  the 
Great  Bear,  and  thus  makes  the  stars  which  move  with  it 
turn  round  the  pole,  the  stars  being  attached  to  the  tree 
as  its  leaves.     As  the  god  of  the  constellation  of  the  Great 
Bear  he  became  the  god  of  the  potter  sons  of  Shelah  and 
Peleg,  descended  from  the  divine  potter,  the  turner  of  the 
Potter's  wheel,  the  Earth.     He  was  represented  in  Egyptian 
mythology  as  Ptah,  the  potter,  and  Khnum,  the  architect, 
and   both   are    portrayed    as   working    the    potter's   wheel. 
Hence  this  dwarf-creating  potter  was  a  second  birth  of  the 
original  ape- father-god,  and  he  thus  acquired  his  name  of 
the  Great  Kabir,  which  is  a  northern  form  of  the  Dravidian 
Kapi,  the  ape.     Proof  of  this  deduction  is  given  in  Egyptian 
picture  mythology,  where  the  god  Hai,  meaning  the  "  shining 
one,"  is  depicted  as  an  ape  with  an  ape's  tail,  and  he  who 
is  represented  as  adoring  the  light,  is  followed  by  Bes  in  the 
illustration  given  by  Sir  Gardiner  Wilkinson.     Bes,  who  has 
a  lion's  head   and   lion's  tail,  holds   in  each  of  his  hands 
a  curved  sacrificial  knife,  denoting  the  lunar  crescents,  and 
is  crowned  with  the  crown  of  five  feathers,  denoting  the  five 
days  of  the  week  ^,     That  these  two  gods  represent  gods 
of  the  year  is  proved  by  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  where  in 
Chapter   XL. 2,   under    the   Vignette    in   which   Ani,   when 
slaying  a  serpent  who  has  sprung  upon  an  ass  whose  neck 
it  is  biting,  addresses  the  god,  who  here  appears  in  serpent 

'  Gardiner  Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  vol.  iii.  p.  148;  O'Neill,  Night 
of  the  Gods,  the  Kabeiroi,  vol.  ii.  p.  813,  Axis  Myths,  The  Tat  of  Ptah, 
vol.  i.  p.  214. 

'  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead,  Transiation,  pp.  91,  253. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  1 5 1 

form  as  **  the  abomination  of  Osiris,"  and  "  the  eater  of  the 
ass,"  who,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  V.,  ruled  the  cycle  year 
of  three  years,  and  in  Chapter  CXLV.  85,  the  boat  of  Hai 
is  spoken  of,  showing  him  to  be  a  year-god  with  a  year-ship 
of  his  year.  This  ape  and  snake-god,  whose  year  preceded 
that  of  Osiris,  is  succeeded  by  the  god  called  Bes,  meaning 
fire,  also  called  Seb,  meaning  a  star  and  fire,  and  depicted 
as  the  goose  Bes-bes  who  lays  the  egg  of  life  ^  His  image 
as  the  god  with  the  lion^s  skin  and  tail,  following  or  suc- 
ceeding the  ape-god,  is  an  Egyptian  reproduction  of  the 
transformation  of  the  ape-god  on  the  banner  of  the  Pandava 
rain-god  Arjuna  into  the  ape  with  the  lion's  tail,  a  cog- 
nizance which  Arjuna  assumed  when  he,  as  the  unsexed 
sun-god  of  the  year  of  Chapter  VII.,  set  forth  in  the  chariot 
of  king  Virata  driven  by  Uttara  the  North,  the  Northern 
Great  Bear  constellation  of  the  wagon  of  the  Pole  Star  godi 
set  forth  to  fight  the  army  of  Kauravyas  under  Duryodhana, 
the  chief  who  fights  with  the  club  2. 

The  original  ape-god  Hai,  perhaps  the  god  of  the  Indian 
Haihayas,  born  like  the  Egyptian  Ra  in  the  theology  of 
Kushite  emigrants  from  India  to  Egypt,  became  the  god 
Ptah,  who  is  depicted  as  the  one-legged  fire  drill  and  the 
tree -ape -father.  He  became  the  prophet  Kabir  of  the 
Indian  Kurmis,  Koiris,  Sikhs,  and  other  tribes  who  are 
strict  monotheists.  The  Kurmis  and  Koiris,  and  the  mem- 
bers of  the  other  agricultural  castes  who  follow  their  creed, 
call  themselves  Kabir-pantis,  and  their  god  Kabir  was  the 
Pappos  or  grandfather  of  the  Phrygians,  the  god  Attis. 

The  Kabirian  Dards,  sons  of  the  revolving  pillar-bed  of 
their  ape-father-god,  turning  round  with  its  central  mother- 
tree,  were  as  the  descendants  of  the  antelope  sun-god  born 
of  this  mother-tree  ;  and  this  revolving  tree  became  the 
stem  of  the  first    form   of  the  cross  "]"   the   Tau   cross   of 

St.  Anthony,  which  represented  the  union  of  the  father  with 


*  Bnigsch,  Religion  und  MythologU  dtr  Alten  Mgypter^  pp.  172,  577. 

*  Mahabharata  Virata  (Go-harana)  Parva,  xlvi.  p.  X09. 


152  History  and  Chronology 

the  mother-earth.      This  symbol  was  the  hammer  Mjolnir 
of  Thor,  the  god  of  the  Edda,  whose  chariot  was  drawn 
by   goats.     It  was  the  phallic  phase  of  this  belief  in  the 
union    of  heaven   and  earth  which  especially  appeared   in 
the  creed  of  the  sons  of  the  antelope.     Their  widespread 
historical  and  religious  influence  is  proved  by  the  position 
accorded  to  Dardanus,  Darda,  or  Dara,  in  ancient  traditional 
history.     It  was  as  the  heir  and  representative  of  Dardanos, 
"  the  best  beloved  of  all  the  sons  of  Zeus  i,"  that  iEneas 
was  rescued  from  Achilles  by  Poseidon,  who  was  his  an- 
cestor Erectheus.     Darda,  called  the  son  of  Mahol,  that  \s, 
according  to  Gesenius,  of  the  Supreme  God,  is  named,  2 
Kings  iv.  31,  as  one  of  the  wisest  of  the  men  who  preceded 
Solomon,  or  Sallimanu,  the  fish-sun-god  of  the  Akkadians. 
His  father  is  named  in    i  Chron.  ii.  6,  as  the  fifth  son  of 
Zerah,  the  red  twin-son  of  Judah  and  Tamar,  the  date-palm- 
tree,   and   the   ethnological  difference  between  the  sons  of 
the  antelope  and  the  deer-sun  and  the  sons  of  Rai  or  Ragh, 
the  Hindu  Rama,  the  Hebrew  Ram,  is  shown  in  the  same 
genealogy  which  makes  Ram  the  son  of  Perez,  the  breach 
or  cleft,  who  was  the  twin-brother  of  Zerah.    Both  lines  traced 
their  descent  from  the  date-palm-tree,  the  tree  with  the  male 
and  female  stocks,  which  will  only  bear  fruit  when  the  female 
flower  is  impregnated  by  pollen  from  the  flower  of  the  male 
tree ;   and  its  great  historical  importance   will   be   seen   in 
Chapter  Vn.,  where  I  tell  the  history  of  the  year  of  the  sexless 
sun-god  Bhishma,  whose  cognizance  was  the  date-palm-tree. 
Of  the  two  lines  descended  from  this  phallic  parent-tree,  the 
red  sons  of  the  antelope  Dara  were  the  men  of  the  family 
denounced  as  accursed   in  Joshua  vii.   16-26,  by  the  crime 
of  Achan,  and  they  were  in  India  the  fighting  Chiroos  or 
Kauravya,  vanquished  by  the  Pandavas,  while  the  sons  of 
Ram,  the  ploughing-god,  became  the  peaceable  rulers  of  the 
country. 

The  evidence  which   I  have  adduced  marks  Asia  Minor 

*  Iliad^  XX.  304. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  153 

as  the  meeting-place  of  the  parent-stems  of  the  composite 
Dardanian  race,  which  was  formed  by  the  union  of  the  sons 
of  the  rivers  and  the  eel-god  with  the  very  composite  race 
of  the  deer-sun-god  united  with  the  sons  of  the  bear-stars 
of  the  Great  Bear.  Their  original  parent-river  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  Kur,  rising  in  Mount  Ararat,  the  river  Daitya 
of  the  Zendavesta^  and  their  progress  thence  through  the 
land  of  Elam  to  the  East  of  the  Tigris  is  shown  by  the  state- 
ment of  Herodotus  i.  189,  who  speaks  of  the  Dardanoi  as 
dwelling  in  Kurdistan  on  the  banks  of  the  Gyndes,  a  northern 
tributary  of  the  Tigris,  and  it  is  their  descendants  who  are 
now  the  Dards  of  Dardistan  in  Northern  India.  They 
belong  to  the  country  of  the  Hanza-Nagar  of  Chitral,  and 
are  wearers  of  the  Dard  cap.  It  was  they  who  with  their 
allies  came  down  to  India  as  the  Naga  race,  and  their  head- 
dress is  there  represented  by  the  pith  helmet  of  the  Chiroos, 
who  succeeded  the  Kharwars  as  rulers  of  Magadha.  This 
helmet  is  given  by  every  Chiroo  bridegroom  to  his  bride 
at  their  marriage.  This  gift  of  the  helmet  also  takes  place 
at  the  weddings  of  the  Hele  Jats,  the  oldest  tribe  of  the 
cultivating  Jats,  worshippers  of  Rama,  the  plough-god  ^ 
This  hat  is  the  survival  of  the  Tartar  hat  worn  by  the  clay 
images  of  the  mound-building  races  of  the  Toda  country, 
still  found  in  their  graves  2. 

This  line  of  march  of  the  Basque  fire-worshippers  and 
potters,  who  brought  into  India,  through  the  passes  of  the 
North-west,  the  crops  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  patriarchal 
customs  of  marriage,  is  confirmed  by  the  local  geography 
of  their  route  and  by  the  history  of  the  Zendavesta.  This 
tells  us  that  their  first  settlement  in  the  South-west  of  Asia 
Minor  was  the  petroleum  yielding  land  of  Baku,  through 
which  the  Kur  river  flows,  called  Ataro  Patakan,  the  land 
of  Atar,  the  fire-god.     Thence  they  passed  into  the  Median 


'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Chiroos,  vol.  i.  p.  201  ;  Elliot,  Sup-^ 
plementary  Glossary^  N.  IV.  Provinces^  Jats,  p.  486. 
'  Hunter,  Gaatiecr  of  India^  vol.  x.  p.  322. 


154  History  and  Chronology 

country  of  Ragha,  "  of  the  three  races  ^."  This  was  the  land 
of  the  sun-god  Ragha,  whose  name  became  in  Akkadian 
cosmological  history  Lakh-mu,  who,  with  his  female  counter- 
part Lakha-mu,  were  the  male  and  female  creators,  born 
of  Apsu,  the  deep,  or  Mum-mu  Tiamat,  the  chaos  of  the 
sea  ^  the  goddess  Ba-hu.  It  was  to  this  pair  of  two  gods 
forming  one  bi-sexual  creator  that  Bcth-lehem,  the  shrine  of 
the  sun-god  of  Palestine,  was  dedicated.  Its  name  means,  as 
Dr.  Sayce  has  shown,  the  house  {beth)  of  Lakhmu,  and  it  was 
there  that,  according  to  St.  Jerome,  £p.  19,  the  annual  death 
and  rebirth  of  Tammuz  or  Dumu-zi  was  celebrated.  From 
Ragha  and  Elani  the  fire-worshippers  went  Eastward  to  the 
Oxus  or  Ji-hun,  the  river  of  life  (//),  and  entered  the  land 
of  Sauka-vastan,  the  modern  Seistan,  the  home  of  the  Saka 
or  wet  race,  sons  of  the  Akkadian  god  Sak,  dominated  by 
the  Akkadian  mother-mountain  of  Khar-sak-kurra.  Thence 
they  entered  India,  and  for  the  records  of  their  progress 
there,  and  the  order  in  which  the  invading  bands  followed 
each  other,  we  must  turn  to  Indian  sources  of  information. 

The  earliest  Indian  account  of  this  immigration  is  that 
given  in  the  Gond  Song  of  Lingal.  Lingal,  the  Gond 
creating  god,  is  the  Indian  form  of  the  Akkadian  Langa, 
of  which  Nagar,  a  workman,  the  Gond  Nagar,  the  plough, 
is  a  dialectic  form  3.  This  god  is  the  Semitic  Lamech,  whose 
two  wives,  Adah  and  Zillah,  the  reproductions  of  the  two 
tiger  wives  or  outer  prongs  (p.  160)  of  the  Pharsi  Pen  trident, 
are  the  Assyrian  Edu  or  Idu,  darkness  or  shade,  and  Tsillu- 
Tsir-lu,  the  race  (///)  of  the  snake  {tsir).  The  former  was 
mother  of  those  who  have  cattle,  the  pastoral  Gautama 
and  Todas,  and  the  latter  of  the  artificers  the  potters  and 
weavers,  and  of  Naamah  the  beautiful,  a  name  answering 
to  Kallisto,  the  most  beautiful  Great  Bear  goddess  4.  These 
wives   of  the  father  phallic  god,  the  god  of  tlic  pillar-bed, 

*  Darmestcter,  Zendavesta  Vendidad  Fargard^  i.  i6 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  S. 

"  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1 887,  Lect.  vi.  pp.  384 — 388  ;   Lect.  ii.  pp.  xix. 
3  Ibid.,  Lect.  iii.  pp.  185,  note  3,  186. 

*  Gen.  iv.  19 — 23  ;  Berard,  Origine  des  CtUtes  Arcadiens,  p.  135. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  155 

are  in  the  Zendavesta,  Savangha-vach,  the  speaker  of  the 
speech  {vclcK)  of  the  East,  and  Erina-vach,  the  speaker  of 
the   speech  of  Ira  or  Iran.      They  were  the  daughters  of 
Yima,  the  great   shepherd,  the  twin,  the  bi-sexual  parent- 
god,  the  maker  of  the  garden  of  God  S  who  wore  the  gold 
year-ring  of  Ahura  Mazda.     This  garden  was  the  well  tilled 
fields  of  the  mixed  pastoral  and  agricultural  people.     They 
were  first  wives  of  Azi-Dahaka,  the  biting  snake  with  three 
heads  ^,  the  god  of  the  three  seasons  of  Orion^s  year  repre- 
sented as  the  triad  trident,  the  husband  father,  the  summer- 
god   of  the  pillar-bed,  between   his  two   wives   spring   and 
winter.      Savangha-vach,  the   spring,  is   the   equivalent   of 
Tsir-lu,  the  goddess-mother  of  the  fire   in   stones,   Berezi- 
Savangha,  the  witch-mother  of  the  sorcerers,  from  whom, 
in  the  genealogy  of  the  Shah-Namah  Tura,  the  Turanian 
father  is  descended ;  while  Erina-vach,  the  mother  of  Airyu, 
the   bull,   is    the    equivalent   of   Edu   or   Idu,   the   mother 
of  Jabal     or    Abel,    the    shepherd,    is    the    winter-mother 
of  the  pastoral  sons  of  the  river  and  the  eel.     The  Song 
of  Lingal  gives  us  the  genealogical  history  of  the  Turano- 
Dravidian   sons    of   the   witch-mother   of    the   artificers   or 
builders,   the   men   of  the   megalithic    monuments    of   the 
Neolithic  age,  who  came  from  Asia  Minor,  and  amalgamated 
with  the  former  dwellers  in  the  land  described  in  the  pre- 
vious chapters.     Their  history   is   told  in   the  third,  fourth 
and  fifth  cantos  of  the  Song  of  Lingal,  which  tells  of  the 
birth  of  the  second   race  of  Gonds  brought  to  life  by  the 
regenerated  Lingal,  who,  after  he  had  been  slain  by  the  first 
Gonds  he  had  established  in  the  land  and  taught  to  grow 
rice,  was   revived  by  the  Amrita  or  water  of  immortality 
given  to  him  by  Kirtao  Sabal,  the  crow  or  raven  messenger 
of  the  gods.     On  his  resurrection  he  asked   Mahadeo,  the 
creator,  the  Pole  Star  god,  for  a  new  race  of  Gonds,  but 

•  Dannesteter,  Zeitdavesta  Vtndiddd  Fargard^  ii.  2 — 19;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv« 
pp.  10— 15» 

'  Dannesteter,  Zcudavesta  Aban  Vashiy  34;  S.  B.  E.,  vol.  xxiii.  pp.  61,  62) 
note  2. 


156  History  and  Chronology 

their    release   from   the   mother-mountain   was   refused  till 
he  brought  the  eggs  of  the  black  Bindo-bird,  the  original 
cloud-bird,  Khu.     Lingal  went  to  the  Western  seashore  to 
seek   for  them,  but   found   them   watched    by   Bhour-nag, 
the   fire-snake,   the   burning  sun   of  summer,  the  guardian 
village-snake,  who  had  already  killed   seven  broods  of  the 
young  rain-birds.     He  killed  the  snake  and  was  brought  by 
the   mother-cloud-bird,  together  with  her  offspring,  to  the 
Devala-giri  mountain,  whence  the  Yamuna  or  Jumna,  the 
river  of  the  twins  (Ydma\  rises.      He  came  there  as  the 
god  of  the  South-west  monsoon,  who  brings  up  the  rains  of 
the  summer  solstice.     Hence  he  is  the  central  summer-god. 

On  his  arrival  the  new  race  of  Gonds  were  born,  who 
proceeded  to  show  their  origin  by  cooking  their  meal  of 
the  foreign  millet  brought  from  the  North  called  Kesari 
{lathyrus  sativa).  While  they  were  cooking  it  the  monsoon 
rains  began  to  fall  and  flooded  the  whole  country.  Lingal 
and  the  four  parent  Gonds  of  the  new  race  were  saved  by 
Dame,  the  tortoise  (Kaswal\  and  Fuse,  the  alligator,  called 
also  Muggar  or  Mugral ;  Lingal  by  the  tortoise,  and  the  four 
Gonds  by  the  alligator,  the  constellation  Draco  of  the 
Ribhus.  Their  saviour  tried  to  devour  them,  and  they 
were  finally  brought  across  the  flooded  country  and  down  the 
river  of  the  Twins  by  the  tortoise.  When  landed  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Jumna  with  the  Ganges,  Lingal  taught  them  to 
build  houses  (dama)y  the  family  houses  of  Dame,  the  parent 
of  the  Kushite  or  tortoise  race,  and  a  town  called  Nur-bhumi, 
that  of  the  hundred  («//r)  lands,  the  central  capital  of 
India,  which  became  afterwards  Kusambi,  the  mother-city 
(ambd)  of  the  Kushites ».  He  also  gave  them  bullocks  and 
carts,  taught  them  to  grow  millets,  Jowari  {Holctis  sorghum) 
and  Kesari  (lathy rus  sativa)^  the  latter  of  which  is  sown  at 
the  end  of  the  rains  as  a  second  crop,  mixed  with  the  rice 
grown  on  rich  upland  soil.  He  divided  the  people  into 
four  tribes,  (i)  the  Mana-wajas,  who  made   the  images   of 

*  This  is  situated  close  to  the  junction  of  the  Jumna  and  Ganges.     Cunning- 
ham, Ancitnt  Geography  of  Jndia^  pp.  391  ff. 


5. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  1 57 

the  gods  ;  (2)  Dahak-wajas  or  drum-beaters ;  (3)  Koila- 
butal  or  dancers,  and  (4)  Koi-kopal,  the  cow-keepers,  who 
were  the  ruling  tribe.  With  these  he  united  the  four  Gond 
tribes  he  had  brought  in  his  first  avatar  as  Sib,  the  shep- 
herd-god, whose  ethnology  I  have  already  described,  p.  108  : 
(i)the  Kolarian.Korkus  or  Mundas  ;  (2)  the  Bhils,  sons  of 
the  bow  ifiilld)  \  (3)  the  Kolamis,  who  marry  by  simulated 
capture,  and  (4)  the  Koto-tyul,  or  sons  of  the  log  of  wood, 
the  Marya,  or  tree  Gonds.  These  formed  the  eight  united 
races  who  peopled  the  Indian  tortoise  earth. 

The  central  kingdom  of  this  tortoise  earth,  the  bed  of 
the  pillar-king,  was  the  country  called  in  Sanskrit  Maha- 
Kosala,  or  the  great  Kushite  land  also  known  as  Gondwana. 
It  is  named  Jambu-dwipa,  the  land  of  the  Jambu  tree,  and 
called  in  the  Mahabharata  the  land  of  the  Vid-arbas  or 
double  four  {arba).  This  is  the  land  ruled  by  Rukmi, 
king  of  the  Bhojas,  that  is  of  the  race  now  known  as  the 
artisans  and  mercantile  carriers  of  India,  who  were  the 
sons  of  Druhyu,  the  sorcerer  Drah.  He  was  king  of  the 
sons  of  the  tree  {rnkli) ',  and  the  wieldcr  of  the  bow  of 
India     called    the     Vi-jaya,    or    double    thunderbolt,    the 

double  trident,  \  ( ^  the  weapon  with  which  the  Assyrian  god 


-I 


Mcrodach  or  Marduk,  the  calf-god,  is  armed  in  the  bas-relief 
depicting   his   combat   with   the  bird-mother   Tiamat  2,  the 

Dorje    If    of  the  Northern  Buddhists.     His  sister  Rukmini, 


-I 


that  is  his  female  duplicate,  was  wife  of  the  black  antelope 
god  Krishna  3. 

This  is  the  land  wherein  the  Ner-budda  or  Nur-mada 
and  the  Sone  rise  from  the  central  hill  or  navel  of  the 
primaeval    gods     Umur-kuntak,    and    flow    west    and    east 

'  The  Hindi  word  for  tree,  our  Rook  in  chess. 
^  Goblet  d'Alviella,  The  Migration  of  Symbols^  p.  97,  fig.  44. 
3  Mahabharata  Udyoga  {Sainya  Niryana)  Parva,  clviii.  pp.  458,  459,   Adi 
(Samhhavii)  Parva,  Ixxxv.  p.  260. 


158  History  and  Chronology 

as  the  mother-rivers  of  the  united  worshippers  of  the  tree- 
sun  and  Pole  Star  gods.  It  is  here  that  the  sacred  lotus- 
flower  of  Indra  in  India,  and  Ra  in  Eg)rpt,  is  indigenous,  and 
to  this  mother  country  every  Brahmin  must  devote  the 
sixth  of  the  nineteen  meditations  of  his  Sun-kalpa  or 
daily  service.  It  is  there  called  the  land  pi  the  Jambu-tree 
{Eugenia  jamboland),  through  which  the  Nurbudda  flows  from 
east  to  west,  and  the  sun-god  of  this  central  home  of  the 
gods  is  said  in  the  third  subject  of  meditation  to  be  the 
white  hog  of  Vishnu  '. 

Lingal  placed  among  the  confederated  Gonds  of  Jambu- 
dwipa  priests  called  Pradhans  or  Ojhas,  who  married  the 
new  comers  to  the  daughters  of  the  earlier  immigrants, 
taught  them  how  to  make  the  gods  of  wood  and  stone, 
the  gnomon-pillar  and  year-gods,  to  sacrifice  to  them  goats, 
cocks,  and  a  calf,  to  drink  spirits  {darti)^  and  to  dance  the 
religious  dances.  After  giving  them  his  final  instructions  he 
vanished,  bidding  them  as  his  farewell  precept  to  be  *^  true 
to  the  Tortoise  2."  The  tribes  or  castes  of  these  millet- 
growing  Kushikas  were,  as  we  see  by  their  names,  bound 
together,  not  like  the  Southern  village  sons  of  the  tree  or 
the  Northern  sons  of  animal  totems  by  an  assumed  com- 
munity of  descent,  but  their  bond  of  union,  like  that  of  trade- 
guilds,  was  community  of  function,  a  change  which  marked 
an  advance  in  civilisation,  and  the  beginning  of  active 
trade. 

It  is  in  the  gods  made  by  these  makers  of  symbols  of  the 
form  of  the  creator  that  we  find  one  of  the  most  certain 
clues  to  their  national  history.  The  earliest  god  image  was 
that  of  the  wooden  snake  Sek  Nag,  the  Akkadian  god  Sak, 
who  ruled  the  Indian  Ocean  and  the  South-west  monsoon, 
which  fertilised  the  land.  He  is  the  god  called  Bhour  Nag  in 
the  song  of  Lingal,  and  his  true  name  Sek  and  his  ritual 
are  now  at  all  events  hidden  as  profound  secrets  only  known 

*  Beauchamp,  Dubois*  Hindoo  Manners,    Customs^   and  Ceremonies^  vol.  i. 
chap.  xiii.  p.  147. 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.»  p.  223. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  1 59 

to  the  initiated.  He  is  worshipped  only  once  in  every 
seven  years,  and  then  only  by  males,  who  must  appear 
before  him  naked,  showing  that  the  ritual  dated  from 
a  time  before  clothes  were  worn.  His  shrine  is  under 
a  Saja  tree  (Jerminalia  tomentosd)^  and  seven  cocoa-nuts, 
which  only  flourish  under  sea  breezes,  and  show  that  his 
.  rule  extended  to  the  ,sea,  seven  pieces  of  betul  nut,  milk, 
and  flowers  are  offered  to  him,  but  no  animal  victims.  In 
short  he  is  the  father-snake-god  of  the  sons  of  the  tree  ^ 

The  successor  of  the  aboriginal  deity  of  the  Dravidian 
Marya  Gonds,  and  the  first  Ugro-Finn  immigrants,  was  the 
bisexual  god  still  worshipped  by  the  Gonds  at  their  ordinary 
festivals,  represented  by  the  male  bamboo  javelin,  the  Shelah 
or  Spear  of  the  Hebrew  Kushites,  cased  in  a  hollow  or 
female  bamboo,  and  coated  with  Kusha  grass  like  the  Yupa 
sacrificial  stake  of  the  Soma  sacrifice.  This  Yupa,  the 
descendant  of  the  Gond  spear-god,  was  girt  with  three  ropes 
of  Kusha  grass,  denoting  the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  at 
a  level  with  the  sacrificer's  navel  2. 

The  god  which  was  adopted  as  the  national  deity  by  the 
millet-growing  Gonds  who  swore  to  be  true  to  the  tortoise, 
was  the  Pharsi-pen,  meaning  the  female  {pcfi)  trident  (pharst). 
The  rules  for  its  construction  given  in  the  Song  of  Lingal 
are  as  follows.  The  Dahak-wajas  of  the  drummer  tribe 
were  sent  into  the  jungle  to  cut  a  female  bamboo,  and  into 
this  an  iron  trident  called  Pharsi  pot  was  fixed.  The  socket 
bamboo  and  the  trident  Pharsi  were  then  bound  together 

*  The  ritual  of  the  worship  and  secret  names  of  this  god  were  told  to  me 
by  the  High  Priest  of  the  Raj  Gonds  in  Chuttisgurh  in  the  Central  Provinces. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  day  when  he  came  to  tell  nic  this  secret,  of  which  I  had 
not  the  most  remote  previous  conception.  He  had  been  for  nearly  a  month 
in  the  habit  of  coming  almost  every  day  to  my  tent,  and  I  had  many  long 
conversations  with  him  as  to  Gond  manners,  customs,  and  creeds,  but  on  this 
day  he  came  to  me  trembling  in  every  limb,  with  the  sweat  pouring  down 
his  face,  and  when  I  asked  him  if  he  was  ill,  he  said,  "  No,  I  am  quite  well, 
but  we  have  talked  together  so  much  over  our  customs  that  I  feel  I  must  tell 
you  this  secret,  which  I  am  bound  not  to  reveal  to  any  one,  and  for  divulging 
it  I  should  be  killed  if  I  was  discovered.**    He  then  told  me  the  whole  ritual. 

*  Eggcling,  Sat.  Brdh.,  iii.  7,  i,  19,  20;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  172. 


i6o  History  and  Chronology 

by  a  chain  of  bells,  the  sign  of  the  bell-god  Ghagara  or 
Gangara,  and  consecrated  by  pouring  a  jar  of  spirits  {daru) 
over  it. 

This  trident-god,  of   which  the   prongs   were    originally 

of  wood,  was  first  the  god  of  the  typical  tree  ^  representing, 


like  the   Caducous   of  Hermes    J^^    called    by   Homer    « 


TpvneTrjko^^  or  the  three-leaved  sign,  the  three  parent  shoots  of 
the  two  cotyledons,  and  the  plumule  issuing  from  the  three 

roots   A   described  on  p.  30.      These  united  ^  form  the 

original  sign  of  the  dorje  or  double  thunderbolt,  the  six- 
rayed  star  which  surmounted  by  the  crescent  is  the  crest 
on  the  Turkish  banners  and  the  sign  for  star  in  the  Cypriote 
syllabic  alphabet.  It  shows  by  its  name,  the  female  trident, 
that  it  was  originally  the  trident  of  the  three  mother- 
goddesses.  These  were  in  stellar  astronomy  the  Pleiades 
Bahu,  the  abyss,  and  the  raven  constellation  Ma  or  Argo. 
In  the  mythology  of  these  first  builders  of  houses  {dama) 
they  became  the  parent-goddesses  of  the  years  measured 
by  the  Pleiades  and  the  solstitial  sun,  united  by  the  Pole 
Star  mother.  Hence  in  the  trident  of  Pharsi  Pen,  these 
spring  and  winter  goddesses,  its  two  outer  prongs,  became, 
as  the  Song  of  Lingal  tells  us,  the  two  tiger  wives  of  the 
central  prong-god.  They  are  there  called  Manko  Rayetal 
and  Jungo  Rayetal,  that  is  to  say,  they  were  the  mothers 
of  the  sons  of  the  tiger.  These  are  the  people  known  in 
Buddhist  history  as  the  Vajjians,  the  sons  of  the  tiger 
(Pali  Vyaggho,  Sanskrit  Vidghra),  whose  united  confederacy 
of  eighteen  tribes  ruled  North-eastern  India  and  Kashi 
{Benares),  called  Videha,  the  land  of  the  t\yo  ( Vi)  races  S 
and  also  like  Central  India  Kosala.  These,  who  were  a 
later  confederacy  than  that  of  the  original  eight  tribes  of 
the  Kushika,  were  the  nine  tribes  of  the  Mallis  or  Mundas, 
the  mountain  people  answering  to  the  four  primitive  tribes 

'  Jacobi./diiM  Sutras  Kalpa  Sutra,  s.  128;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxii.  p.  266. 

I 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  i6i 

of  the  Gonds,  and  the  nine  tribes  of  the  Licchdvis,  the  sons 
of  the  dog  (Akk.  Lig)^  the  warlike  traders  who  worshipped 
the  fire-mother,  called  in  the  Rigveda  Matarisvan,  the  mother 
of  the  dog  {svan\  answering  to  the  four  tribes  of  the  artisan 
Gonds.  The  earliest  nucleus  of  this  confederacy  was  the 
alliance  of  the  first  Gonds  introduced  by  Lingal  with  the 
aboriginal  founders  of  villages,  the  daughters  of  Rikad 
Go  wad  i,  the  village  (gowa)  son  of  the  squirrel  {Rtk) '. 

The  northern  partners  of  the  daughters  of  Rike^d  Gowadi 
were  the  Mundas  or  Mons  who  came  from  China.  They 
were  the  people  of  the  Tsu  or  united  states  of  the  southern 
side  of  the  valley  of  the  Yang-tsi-kiang  or  Yellow  River,  and 
were,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  119,  intermixed  with  the  hairy 
sons  of  the  bear  in  the  confederacy  of  the  Lolos.  According 
to  a  legend  quoted  by  Terrien  de  la  Couperie,  they  were 
bom  of  a  child  suckled  by  a  tiger,  and  were  divided  into 
the  Pan-hu  or  Pan-ngao,  the  Indian  forest  {bun)  Nagas,  sons 
of  the  squirrel,  and  the  Miao  or  cat  tribes  2.  These  last 
were  the  race  of  the  Eastern  wizards,  sons  of  the  hawk- 
mother-goddess  Freya,  whose  car  was  drawn  by  two  cats. 
These  were  the  two  seasons  of  the  solstitial  year,  as  in 
Eg>'pt  the  cat-mother-goddess  Bast,  a  form  of  Hat-hor,  the 
mother  of  Horus  the  sun-god,  bears  on  her  forehead  the 
year-circle  or  disk  with  a  snake  creeping  under  it,  and  is 
associated  with  another  goddess,  Sochit,  the  village  goddess 
of  the  high  and  low  land,  the  goddess  of  the  summer  heats. 

C.     The  Kushika  Faun  house-builders  in  Greece  and  Italy. 

It  was  these  two  tiger  or  cat-mothers  who  became  the 
mother-goddesses  of  the  sons  of  Dame  the  tortoise,  the 
Kushika  house  [dama)  builders.  They  survive  in  the  caste 
of  Doms,  once  rulers  of  Oudc  and   Behar,  who  have  left 

•  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  pp.  192,  193; 
kisley.  Tribes  and  Castes  o/Bettgal,  vol.  i.  pp.  112,  II 3. 

"  Terrien  de  la  Couperie,  The  Languages  of  China  before  the  Chinese^  pp. 
19,38-42,  61,70,  105. 

'  n.  Brugsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  den  alten  Aigypter,  pp.  333,  649. 

M 


1 62  History  and  Chronology 

traces  of  their  former  power  in  the  names  of  the  forts  of 
Domdiha  and  Domangurh.  They  formerly  ruled  the  country 
on  the  Rohini,  the  river  named  after  the  star  Aldebaran,  on 
which  Kapila-vastu,  the  birth-place  of  the  Buddha,  is  situated, 
for  Ramgfurh  and  Suhankot  on  this  river  are  Dom  forts. 
They  thus  protected  the  Gautama,  the  clan  of  the  Buddha, 
who  are  still  the  chief  landowners  in  the  Rohini  country. 
They  are  represented  among  the  Babhans,  the  caste  to 
which  most  of  the  ruling  Rajas  of  Behar  belong,  by  the 
sub-section  of  Dom-Katdr,  the  men  of  the  peculiar  curved 
knife  [katart)  of  the  Doms,  the  knife  of  the  crescent  moon. 
They  are  basket-makers  by  profession,  and  the  Chaparia 
sub-caste  builds  the  bamboo  frame-work  supporting  the 
thatched  roof  of  a  house.  Their  connection  with  the 
Kushikas  is  shown  by  their  marriage  ceremonies,  in  which 
a  thread  soaked  in  turmeric  and  oil,  and  knotted  with  blades 
of  darv&  or  Kusha  grass,  is  tied  round  the  right  wrist  of  the 
bridegroom  and  the  left  of  the  bride  ^.  The  name  of  their 
building-mother,  Dame,  marks  their  relationship  with  the 
worshippers  of  the  two  goddesses,  Damia  and  Auxesia,  or 
Azesia  in  Greece  and  Damia  in  Italy,  of  whom  Azesia  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  stated  by  Suidas  to  be  Persephone.  They 
originally  came  from  Crete,  the  maritime  centre  whence 
Indian  cults  were  introduced  into  Greece,  and  the  ritual 
of  their  sacrifices  is,  according  to  Pausanias,  the  same  as 
that  of  the  worship  of  Demeter  at  Eleusis.  The  name 
Damia,  according  to  Hesychius,  means,  like  the  Gond  Dame, 
the  "  building  goddess,"  and  their  worship  was  especially 
conspicuous  in  the  ritual  of  Epidaurus,  the  city  consecrated 
to  ^sculapius,  the  divine  physician,  son  of  Koronis,  the  raven- 
mother,  to  whom  cocks,  the  sun-birds  of  the  Indian  sons  of 
Dame,  were  offered.  Damia  and  Auxesia  were  also  local 
gods  of  Troezen,  the  city  whose  coins  are  marked  by  the 
trident,  and  of  iEgina.     The  people  of  the  island  stole  them 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Babhan,  vol.  i.  p.  31,  Dom,  vol.  i.  pp. 
240 — 251,  ii.  Appendix,  i.  p.  41  ;  Sir  H.  Elliot,  Memoirs  of  the  Races  of  the 
North-west  Provinces  of  hidia^  Dom,  vol.  i.  p.  84. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  163 

from  Epidaurus,  which  had  received  from  Attica  the  bhVe 
wood  of  which  their  images  were  made,  and  in  requital 
of  this  gift  sent  yearly  offerings  to  Athens  to  Athene,  the 
olive  tree-mother-goddess,  and  Erectheus  Poseidon,  the  snake- 
god  of  the  trident.  The  -/Eginetans,  according  to  Herodotus, 
set  up  a  special  shrine  for  them  at  Oia  in  the  centre  of  the 
island,  thus  distinguishing  them  as  the  goddesses  of  the 
central  Hir-men-sol  or  sun-gnomon  pillar.  There  they  were 
worshipped  by  two  choruses  of  dancing-women,  who,  by 
abusing  one  another,  marked  their  patrons  as  goddesses  of 
rival  seasons.  They  were  appointed  by  the  ten  superin- 
tendent priests  assigned  to  each  goddess.  These  dancing- 
women  were  clearly  the  Indian  village  women  who  danced 
at  the  seasonal  festivals,  and  these  dances  were  accompanied 
by  the  throwing  of  stones  '. 

It  is  in  Italy  that  we  can  trace  the  ritual  of  this  Creto- 
Grecian  festival  and  the  history  of  the  gods  worshipped  in 
its  rites  most  perfectly  to  their  original  source.  Damia  was 
worshipped  at  Rome  under  the  name  of  the  Bona  Dea,  who 
was,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  146,  the  Indian  Ahalya,  the  hen, 
the  Greek  hen  Hebe,  filler  of  the  cups  of  the  seasons,  and 
the  winter  goddess.  But  she  was  originally  the  May  goddess 
Persephone,  and  hence  her  festival  was  on  the  Kalends  of 
May,  that  is,  on  our  May  Day.  She  was  invoked  as  Damia 
in  Tarentum  and  Southern  Italy,  and  her  priestess  was  called 
Damiatrix  2.  Hence  she  was  a  Dorian  goddess  of  the  races 
who  adopted  the  Dorian  custom  of  common  meals.  She, 
like  iEsculapius,  was  a  healing  deity,  in  whose  temple  heaMng 
herbs  and  the  snakes  carried  by  iEsculapius  were  kept,  and 
a  sow  was  offered  to  her  at  her  festival.  It,  like  the  Thes- 
mophoria,  was  a  festival  of  women  from  which  men  were 
excluded  ;  and  it  was  said  to  have  been  held  while  Hercules 
was  driving  away  the  cattle  of  Cacus,  whom  he  had  slain, 

'  Frazer,  Pausaniasy  ii.  30,  5,  6,  32,2  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  117,  1 18,  121  ;  iii.  pp.  266, 
267 ;  V.  p.  192  ;  Herod,  v.  82—87. 

'  PauluSi  68  ;  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  yp.  105,  sect.  5, 
note  5,  104,  sect  4. 

M   2 


164  History  and  Chronology 

and  the  women  refused  to  give  him  water,  that  is  to  say, 
treated  him  as  an  alien  usurper.  As  M.  Br6al  has  proved 
that  CacuSy  called  by  Dionysius  Halicarnassus  Kaxlo?,  is  a 
form  of  the  Greek  KcuxCa^,  the  name,  according  to  Aristotle, 
of  a  wind  that  brings  up  the  rains,  that  is  originally  of  the 
South-west  Monsoon',  it  is  clear  (i)  that  this  May  Day 
festival  of  the  goddess  Damia  was  one  of  the  two  seasonal 
festivals  of  the  Pleiades  year,  of  which  the  other  was  the 
Thesmophoria  of  October — November ;  (2)  that  both  were 
brought  from  India  to  Greece  and  Italy  in  matriarchal  times, 
when  the  village  women  danced  at  the  seasonal  festivals;  and 
(3)  that  it  was  a  festival  praying  for  good  rains  to  the  rain- 
god  of  the  Monsoon,  who  was  afterwards  vanquished  and 
deprived  of  the  cows  of  light  by  Hercules.  He,  in  Italian 
mythology,  was  not  the  Phoenician  Archal,  the  Greek 
Herakles,  the  god  of  the  solstitial  sun,  but  a  seed-god,  one 
of  the  Semones,  and  guardian  of  the  household  enclosure  ', 
in  other  words,  the  guardian-snake.  In  some  forms  of  the 
Cacus  legend  he  is  called  Sancus,  and  he  was  thus  the 
Sabine  god  Semo  Sancus.  Sancus,  derived  from  the  root 
sac  or  sag,  is  a  form  of  the  Akkadian  wet-god  Sak,  the  god 
of  the  **  sagmen,"  or  sacred  branch  of  grass,  which  in  Rome 
was  held  by  those  who  took  solemn  oaths,  and  borne  as 
their  credentials  by  Roman  Fetiales  or  priestly  ambassadors. 
In  short,  he  was  the  god  of  the  sons  of  the  sacred  Kusha 
grass,  the  Naga  Kushikas,  worshippers  of  the  ploughing  and 
guarding  Naga  snake,  the  plough-god  of  the  constellation 
of  the  Great  Bear,  and  of  the  national  Ara  Maxima,  sacred 
to  Sancus,  which  succeeded  the  village  and  provincial  grove- 
altars  of  the  earlier  faith  3. 

This  May  Day  festival  of  Azesia  Damia,  the  earlier  goddess 
of  the  second  season  of  the  Pleiades  year,  became  in  the 
Gond  ritual  the  Akkhadi  or  ploughing  festival  held  on  the 

*  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  p.  102,  sect,  i  ;  Breal,  Hercule  et 
CacuSt  chap,  ii.,  La  Legende  Latine,  p.  6,  Formation  de  la  Fable,  p.  11 1. 
'  The  god  of  the  Hercus,  the  Greek  ?picos,  meaning  an  enclosed  plot. 
3  M.  Breal,  Hercule  et  Cacus y  chap,  ii.,  La  Legende  Latine,  pp.  51—58. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  165 

1 8th  of  Baisakh  (April — May),  the  New  Year's  festival  of 
the  Gond  year,  and  probably  that  inaugurated  in  the  original 
version  of  the  story  of  Hercules  and  Cacus  with  the  death 
and  dethronement  of  the  latter.  It  is  then  that  the  new 
millet  used  as  food  for  horses,  called  gram,  is  eaten,  as  at  the 
feast  of  jfirstfruits  at  the  beginning  of  the  Pleiades  year  in 
November,  the  making  of  agricultural  implements  begun, 
and  the  plough,  though  in  India  at  that  season  the  earth 
is  as  hard  as  a  brick,  passed  lightly  over  the  land.  The 
year  thus  initiated  is  that  of  a  confederacy  of  craftsmen, 
which  each  workman,  according  to  the  custom  observed  at 
Rome,  and  also  among  the  Cymri  of  Britain,  began  by 
working  for  a  short  time  at  his  trade  '. 

D.     The  gods  of  tfie  six-days  week. 

It  was  apparently  contemporaneously  with  the  institution 
of  this  new  year  with  its  inauguration  festival  that  Lingal, 
before  his  departure  as  the  god  of  the  old  faith,  established 
the  worship  of  the  six  Gond  gods,  and  thus  doubled  the 
number  of  the  three  trident  gods.  These  gods  are  :  (i)  Bhim- 
sen,  the  Hindu  Bhima,  the  god  of  the  fire  -  worshipping 
Dosadhs  of  Magadha,  the  priests  of  Rahu.  He  was  the 
Pandava  Bhima  of  the  Mahabharata,  son  of  Maroti  the 
tree  (marom)  ape-god,  called  the  brother  of  Hanuman,  the 
god  of  the  club  or  lathi,  his  weapon  in  war,  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  male-bamboo  or  fire-drill  2 ;  (2)  Mata  the  mother, 
the  Bun-di  or  forest  {6un)  mother  of  the  Dosadhs,  the  goddess 
of  the  village  grove  ;  (3)  Mata  Mai,  the  second  mother, 
the  Sokha  or  witch-mother  of  the  Dosadhs.  These  three 
form  the  prongs  of  the  trident ;  (4)  Goraya,  the  boundary- 
god,  the  encircling  snake  ;  (5)  The  ape-god  called  Hanuman 
the  smiter,  or  Maroti  the  tree-ape ;  (6)  Pandahrl  or  Mu- 
Chandrl  the  moon-goddess  3.     These  last  three  gods  are  the 

*  Elliot,  Supplementary  Glossary^  N.  W.  Provinces,  Akhteej,  p.  13. 
^  Vana  {Ttriha-Ydtra)  Parva,  cxlv.   p.  439,  Adi  {Samdhava)   Parva,  xcv. 
p.  286. 
3  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i..  Essay  ill.,  pp.  235,  203. 


1 66  History  and  Chronology 

three  roots  of  the  national  tree,  and  the  whole  six  represent 
the  six  days  of  the  week  which  was  now  substituted  for 
the  original  five-days  week. 

The  New  Year's  festival  of  the  year  reckoned  by  six-day 
weeks,   the    Hittite  week  of  creation,  was   apparently  that 
called   in  the   Rigveda  the   Tri-kadru-ka,  of  that  of  three 
trees  (drii)  of  Kadru,  the  mother-goddess  of  the  Naga  or 
serpent   race.     It   is   said   to   be   begun   on   the  day  when 
Indra  drank  the  Soma  brewed  from  barley,  before  he  went 
forth  to  kill  the  dragon  who  imprisoned  the  maiden  of  the 
year,  the  May  Queen  of  the  New  Year^     It  lasted  for  six 
days,  and  was  called  also  the  Abhi-plava,   or   that   of  the 
boat   or   water-bird    {plava),    that    is   of  the   moon-boat  or 
bird.     The  gods  invoked   in  the  orthodox  Soma  ritual  are 
Jyotih   the  stars,  Go  the   cow,  and  Ayuh  the  son  of  life, 
that  is  to  say  the  Pleiades  mothers  and    the  antelope  or 
ox  fathers  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  two  parent  constellations 
of  the   Naga  race  2,  and   the   son   of  life,  Ayuh,  born  from 
them  under  the  auspices  of  the  moon-cow.     The  first  three 
days   are   dedicated   to  each   of  these  in   the  order  I  have 
named.     They  are  also  worshipped  on  the  last  three  days, 
but. in  a  varied  order,  Go  the  cow  being  worshipped  on  the 
fourth,  Ayuh  on  the  fifth,  and  Jyotih  on  the  sixth  day ;  and 
that*  this   six-days    feast    belonged    to    a    method    of   time 
reckoning   which  assigned   six  days  to  the  week  is  proved 
by  the  statement  of  Sayana,  quoted  by  Ludwig,  that  there 
were  five  periods  of  six  days  in  the  month  of  thirty  days  3. 
Also  that  this  festival   called   the  Abhi-plava   was   one    in 
which  the  gods  ruling  the  coming  year  were  especially  in- 
voked is  shown  by  the  ritual  regulating  it,  which  required  the 
Bri-hat  and  Rathantara  Samans,  those  celebrating,  as  I  have 
shown  on  pp.  69,  70,  the  seventy-two  weeks  of  the  year,  to 
be  chanted  at  mid-day  on  alternate  days  for  the  six  days 

*  Rg.  ii.  15,  I,  7,  8;  ii.  22,  I.  • 

"  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  ii.  I,  2,  I  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  282,  283. 

3  Ludwig,    Der    Rigveda,    vol.  iii.,    Mantra    Literatur,    p.   389,  s.v.,   Tri- 
kadru-ka. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  167 

of  the  feast  ^  The  three  tree-mothers  worshipped  in  this 
festival  were  the  Sal-tree-mother  of  the  Dravido-Mundas,  the 
Fig-tree-mother  of  the  ploughing  immigrants  from  Syria, 
and  first  the  Mahua  and  then  the  Am  or  Mango  tree,  the 
parent-trees  of  the  Kurmis,  the  first  of  the  lower  agricultural 
castes,  and  thus  the  latest  immigrants  from  the  North,  who 
irrigated  their  lands  and  grew  corn  and  the  sugar-cane, 
from  which  the  Ikshvaku  kings,  sons  of  the  sugar-cane 
(iksfia),  took  their  name.  For  this  tree  the  phallic  wor- 
shippers substituted  the  date-palm-tree,  the  tree  of  male, 
and  female  stocks,  which  was  in  the  Mahabharata  the 
cognizance  of  Bhishma  the  sexless  sun-god,  and  of  Vala- 
rama  the  plough-god,  called  Halayudha,  or  he  who  has 
the  plough  {hal)  for  his  weapon  2. 

The  Akkadian  counterpart  of  this  festival  was  the  six- 
days  feast  held  at  the  summer  solstice  to  celebrate  the 
death,  rebirth  and  marriage  of  Dumu-zi,  the  son  {dumu)  of 
life  {2t),  the  Star  Orion.  This  New  Year's  Day  coincides 
with  that  of  the  Zends,  and  adds  a  further  proof  to  those 
I  shall  produce  later  on,  to  show  that  the  year  of  the  six- 
days  week  was  one  beginning  with  the  summer  solstice  3. 
This  festival  was  like  all  those  of  the  Gond  ritual  originally 
accompanied  with  the  consumption  of  intoxicating  drinks, 
the  barley  Soma  which  Indra  drank  on  this  day,  but  for  this 
was  substituted  in  later  ritual  the  Soma  of  Indra's  three 
mixings  made  of  milk,  sour  milk  and  barley  mixed  with 
running  water  4.  A  similar  change  seems  to  have  taken 
place  in  Rome  in  the  ritual  of  the  Damia  festival,  for  the 
temple  of  the  goddess  was  not  allowed  to  be  defiled  with 
wine,  though  this,  according    to  Macrobius,  was  permitted 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.y  xii.  2,  2,  I,  12  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  152,  153, 
148,  note  I. 

'  Mahabharata  Bhishma  {Bkishma-Vadha)  Parva,  xlvii.  p.  1651  Shalya 
{^Gud-^yuiiha)  Parva,  xxxiv.,  Ix.  pp.  135,  233. 

^  Lenormant,  The  Myth  of  Adonis  Tammuz  according  to  Cuneiform  Documents^ 
pp.  164,  165  ;  C.  Boscawen,  The  Academy ^  27th  July,  1878,  p.  91. 

*  liiliebrandt,  Vedische  Mythologies  p- 239 ;  Rg.  v.  xxvii.  5;  Hewitt,  Ruling 
Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ,  voL  i.f  Essay  iii.,  p.  242. 


1 68  History  and  Chronology 

to  be  surreptitiously  brought  in  under  the  name  of  milk 
and  in  a  vessel  called  the  Mellarium  or  honey-vase.  This 
points  to  a  connection  between  this  festival  and  the  cult 
of  the  dwarfs  of  the  Edda,  who  made  mead  for  the 
gods  from  the  milk  of  the  goat  Heid-run,  who  feeds  on 
the  leaves  of  the  mead-tree  Laerath.  Hence  her  milk 
became  the  mead  drunk  every  day  at  the  banquet  of  the 
gods  who  feast  on  the  flesh  of  the  boar  Soehrimnir.  But 
in  the  Roman  ritual  milk  was  the  only  libation  allowed 
to  be  offered  to  the  rural  gods  Pales,  Silvanus,  and  Ceres, 
the  last  the  Roman  form  of  Demeter  ^ 

This  evidence  marks  the  libations  of  milk  as  belonging 
to  a  ritual  earlier  than  that  of  the  mead-drinkers,  and  a  form 
of  worship  introduced  at  a  time  when  the  pastoral  races, 
the  Todas  of  India  and  the  Massagetae  of  Herodotus,  drank 
nothing  but  milk.  These  people  were  the  successors  of  the 
Mundas,  who,  to  the  present  day,  like  the  Kikatas  of  the 
Rigveda,  never  milk  their  cattle  ^  and  were  allied  to  the 
Cyclopes,  or  one-eyed  Pole  Star  worshippers,  whose  chief, 
Polyphemus,  had  never  tasted  intoxicating  drink  till  it 
was  given  him  by  Odusseus.  There  are  thus  apparently 
in  Indian  history  three  stages  marked  by  the  national  drink 
customs.  The  first,  that  of  the  Dravido-Mundas,  who,  from 
time  immemorial,  drank  the  rice-beer,  which  their  women 
still  brew  for  the  seasonal  dances.  Next,  that  of  the  milk- 
drinking  Gautamas  and  Todas,  and  the  third,  that  of  the 
mead-drinkers  of  the  North,  who  belonged  to  the  race  of 
the  sons  of  the  potter,  who  became  in  India  the  Kushika 
Gonds.  Mead  was  apparently  the  first  intoxicating  drink 
brewed  in  the  North,  and  for  its  history  we  must  turn  to 
the  theology  of  the  Mordvinian  Ugro-Finns,  now  dwelling  in 
the  upper  streams  of  the  Volga  north  of  Astrakhan.  Their 
chief  god  is  Chkai,  the  creating  potter  of  the  phallic  wor- 


»  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals ^  p.  103,  sect.  2  ;  Mallet,  Northern 
Antiquities  :  The  Prose  Edda^  38,  39,  pp.  429—431. 
*  Rg.  iii.  53,  14. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  169 

shippers,  who  made  men  from  potter's  clay^  He  is  thus 
a  counterpart  of  the  Greek  Peleus,  son  of  the  potter's 
clay,  to  whom  Erectheus  Poseidon  gave  the  first  two 
horses  of  the  sun. 

He  was  the  father  of  the  six  national  deities,  three  male 

and  three  female,  the  three  father  and  mother  gods  of  the 

six-days   week.     The   female    godcjesses    representing    the 

three    original    mothers    are  :  (i)    Nechkendi    Tevter,    the 

spring-goddess  of  the   bees,  and  mother  of  Ponquine  Paz, 

the  lightning  god.     She  is  apparently  an  equivalent  of  the 

Hebrew  prophetess  Deborah,  the  bee,  the  nurse  of  Rebekah, 

wife  of  Isaac,  thfe  corn-god,  and  the  partner  of  Barak,  the 

lightning,  who  was  buried  under  the  oak  of  Bethel,  where 

she  was  worshipped,  for  it  is  called  ^*  the  oak  of  weeping," 

that  is  to  say,  the  oak-mother  of  the  dying  and  re-rising 

sun-god  of  the  Druid's  year  2.     (2)  The  second  goddess  is 

the  queen  of  summer,  who  is  by  her  brother,  Nouziaron  Paz, 

the  mother  of  Martyr  Paz,  giver  of  fertility,  whose  home 

is  guarded   by   dogs,  the   dog-stars    Sirius    and    Procyon. 

(3)  The   third    goddess,   the   winter  -  mother  Venai    Patiai, 

was  goddess   of  fruits  and   mother  of  Varma  Paz,  god  of 

the  winds. 

The  male  equivalents  and  partners  of  these  three  year- 
mothers  are :  (i)  In^chk^  Paz,  called  also  Chi-Paz,  the  god 
of  fire  (C7//),  tlic  fire-drill  of  the  human  beehive  of  four  stories 
of  which  he,  as  the  father  of  all  the  hives,  rules  the  highest, 
the  place  of  the  Pole  Star  god.  (2)  The  second,  the  spring- 
father,  is  Vernechk^  Velen  Paz,  god  of  the  world's  hive. 
(3)  The  third,  the  summer-father,  is  Nouziaron  Paz,  god 
of  night  and  sleep,  and  also  the  moon-god,  Odh-koiiozais, 
who  receives  the  souls  of  the  dead.  He  is  the  twin  partner 
of  his  summer  sister,  mother  of  Martyr  Paz,  and  the  two 
represent  the  Fravashis  or  bi-sexual  parents  of  the  Zends 
who  arc  worshipped  at  the  annual  feast  to  the  dead,  held 
at  the  summer  solstice   when  the   Zend   year  begins.     (4) 

'  Max  Miiller,  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology^  vol.  i.  p.  252. 
"Kitn.  XXXV.  8 ;  Judges  v. 


170  History  and  Chronology 

The  fourth  or  winter-god  is  Ouet-ze  Paz,  god  of  flocks  and 
herds  ^. 

This  hierarchy  of  the  worshippers  of  the  prophet  bee, 
the  mother  of  the  mead  which  inspired  the  national  priests, 
is  that  of  the  votaries  of  the  first  of  the  three  Zend  sacred 
,  fires,  that  of  the  age  described  in  the  Zendavesta  as  that 
when  "  the  glory  went  from  Yima,"  the  twin  father  of  Sa- 
vangha-vach  and  Erena-vach,  the  two  wives  of  Azi-Dahaka, 
in  the  shape  of  a  Varaghna-bird,  that  is,  of  the  rain  {var^ 
cloud,  the  Gond  Bindo-bird  2.  This  is  the  fire  Fro-bak, 
that  of  the  Turanian  Fryano,  the  men  of  the  Viru  or  phallus, 
established  according  to  the  Bundahish  in  Khvarizem,  the 
Hvairizem  of  the  Yashts,  the  country  of  Seistan,  south 
of  the  Oxus,  the  land  of  Herat,  watered  by  the  Harahvaiti, 
the  original  Sarasvati,  and  the  tenth  of  the  lands  created 
by  Ahura  Mazda  3.  This  birth-land  of  the  Kushikas  is 
that  occupied  by  the  fire-worshippers  before  they  entered 
India  to  make  their  descent  down  the  Jumna,  and  before 
they  made  their  mother-land  Kuru  -  kshetra,  the  field 
{kshetra)  of  the  Kurus,  watered  by  the  Vedic  mother 
Sarasvati,  the  daughter-river  of  the  Harahvaiti  of  Herat. 

This  fire  Frdbak  was  the  fire  of  Frashaostra,  the  first 
of  the  three  assistants  of  Zarathustra,  who  was  the  Hindu 
Prashastri  or  teaching  priest,  whose  name  is  the  Sanskrit 
form  of  the  Zend  Frashaostra,  the  Ojha  or  man  of  know- 
ledge {pdjh)  appointed  by  Lingal.  This  Ojha,  inspired  by 
the  god  of  knowledge,  the  Odin  of  the  Edda,  is  the  priest 
still  elected  in  Chutia  Nagpur  as  the  High-Priest  of  every 
Parha,  whose  duty  it  is  to  superintend  the  professors  of 
witchcraft  and  magic,  to  see  that  their  work  is  lawful  and 
beneficial,  and  to  judge  and  punish  those  who  practise  the 
black  magic  of  the  makers  of  pestilences  and  the  causers 

*  Max  Miiller,  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology ^  vol.  i.  pp.  235  ff. 

'  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Zamyad  Yasht^  35;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  294. 

^  West,  Bundahish^  xvii.  5  ;  Darmesteter,  Zctidavesta  Mihir  Yasht^  14 ; 
Vendidad  Fargard^  i.  13;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  p.  63;  xxiii.  p.  123,  note  4, 
iv.  p.  7.        •  ♦■ 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  171 

of  national    and    domestic    calamities.      This    Frashaostra 
was  the  father  of  Hvogvi ',  the   Zend    form    of  the   Sans- 
krit    Shu-gvi,     the    coming    (gvi)    Shu  -  bird,    the    Khu 
cloud -bird,   the   Varaghna-bird,   who    bore    to    earth    the 
glory   from   Yima,  and   she  was   the   wife   of  Zarathustra. 
She    was   also  the   prophet    priestess,    who   was   originally 
inspired  by  the  mead  made  of  bees'  honey,  the  leader  of 
the  Melissa!  or  bee  nymphs,  who  nursed   the  young  Zeus 
in   Crete,  and    who   were  the   priestesses   of  Demeter,  the 
year-mother,   and   of  Damia.      It  was   she  who   got   from 
Zarathustra   the  better   and    more    holy   inspiration    than 
that  of  mead  given  by  his   unintoxicating   but   enlighten- 
ing prophet  drug  Bangha  {Cannabis  Indica)^  the   Hashish 
by  which  the   Zoroastrian  priests  were  inspired  ^.     It  was 
the  reverence  for  the  honey-drink  which  made  the  Hindu 
sons  of  the  tortoise  call  the  fire  and  boar  year-god  Vishnu 
Madhava,  or  the  god  of  Madhu  mead,  and  which   made 
them  make  the  Mahua  {Bassia  Latifolia)  their  sacred  tree. 
It  is  from  the  flowers  of  this  tree  that  the  drink  now  called 
Madhu  or  Daru   is  distilled,  but  before  the  days  of  distil- 
lation   the    Northern   immigrants   made   from   the   fermen- 
tation of  its  excessively  sweet  flowers,  much  sought   after 
by  the  jungle  bears,  a   liquor   like   their   Northern    mead. 
This  is  the  Madhu  parka  or  honey-drink  ordered  by  Manu 
to  be  given  to  kings,  priests,  sons  and  fathers-in-law,  and 
maternal   uncles,  paying  a  visit  a  full  year  after  their  last 
coming  3.     It  is  thus  a  new  year's  drink,  and  one  especially 
connected  with   the   seasonal   sacrifices,  for   it  was   not   to 
be  given   to  a  king  or  priest  unless  a  sacrifice  was  offered 
when   they   came.     This   Madhu    made   of  Mahua   flowers 
was  the   national  drink  in  the  age  of  the  Kauravyas  and 
Paijdavas  of  the  Mahabharata,  consumed,  as  the  poem  tells 
us,  at  their  religious  festivals  and  marriages,  both  by  men 
and  women,  and  by  the  goddesses  DrupadI  and  Subhadra, 

'  Darmcsteter,  Zendavesta  Man  Yasht,  98  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  77,  note  I. 
'  Ibid.,  Zendavesta  Din  Yasht,  15;  iJ.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  267,  note  3. 
»  Biihlcr,  Manu^  iii.  119,  120;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  pp.  96,  97. 


172  History  and  Chronology 

and  also  drunk  by  the  gods  Krishna   and  Valarama,  who 
were  apparently  looked  on,  like  the  gods  of  the  Edda,  as 
seeking  inspiration  in  drink '.     It  is  to  a  Mahua  tree  that 
husbands  are  first  married  in  their  own  homes  among  the 
Bagdis,   Lohars,   and    Bauris,   the   last   of  whom    look   on 
the  dog  as  sacred,  and  are  thus  marked  as  belonging  to 
the  worshippers  of  the  household   fire,   and  as   connected 
with  the    Bhil  hunters,  who   set   a   similar  value   on   their 
dogs.     After  this  marriage  they  are  united  to  their  brides  in 
the  marriage  arbour  made  of  Sal  branches  (Shorea  robusta\ 
the  Munda  parent-tree,  round  which  the  bride  walks  seven 
times  after  she  enters  in  it  before  she  sits  opposite  to  or 
beside  the  bridegroom.     It   is   also  to  a   Mahua-tree  that 
Kurmi,  Lohar,  Munda  and  Santal  brides  are  married,  and 
the  Bagdis  show  their  descent  from  the  spring  whence  the 
mother-river  of  the   sons   of  the  river  rises,  by  placing   a 
pool  of  water  in  the   marriage   arbour  between   the   bride 
and    bridegroom.      There    is   no    ceremony   of    circumam- 
bulating  the   fire   in   these    marriages,   but   the   bride   and 
bridegroom  go  round  the  tree  to  which  they  are  married 
seven  or  nine  times.     Most  of  these  marriages  are  accom- 
panied by  a  simulated  capture  of  the  bride,  and  the  bind- 
ing ceremony  uniting  husband  and  wife  is  the  tying  of  the 
clothes  of  the  couple  together,  and  that  called  Sindurdan 
or  the  marking  by  the  bridegroom   of  the  parting  of  the 
bride's  hair  with  Sindur  or  vermilion. 

The  Bauris  bury  their  dead  with  the  head  to  the  north  =, 
like  the  Mundas  and  Mallis  of  Ayodha  or  Oude,  among 
whom  the  Buddha  died  with  his  head  to  the  north  between 
the  two  Sal  trees  in  the  Upavattana  or  village  grove  of 
Sal  trees   of  the  Malli  city  of  Kusinara,  the  town  of  the 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  (Sabhadrd- Harana)  Parva,  ccxxi.  pp.  604,  606,  Adi 
{Khdfidava'ddha)  Parva,  ccxxiv.  pp.  615,  616,  Virata  {Vaivdhika)  Parva,  Ixxii. 
pp.  183,  184,  Ashvamedha  {Anugita)  Parva,  Ixxxix.  pp.  226,  227,  Mausala 
Parva,  i.  29,  iii.  15,  16,  pp.  3,  7. 

'  Kisley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  i.  pp.  39,  80,  81,  531  ;  vol.  ii. 
pp.  23,  229,  102. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  173 

Kushikas^.  The  Bagdis  bum  their  dead  and  throw  the 
ashes  into  a  stream,  and  hence  show  an  affinity  with  the 
men  of  the  Bronze  Age,  while  the  Bauris  still  remain  in 
the  Neolithic  Age  when  the  dead  were  buried  ^  It  is  to 
this  last  ^e  that  the  institution  of  the  Ojhas  or  priests 
of  knowledge  {pdf)  must  be  assigned,  for  it  was  when  he 
appointed  these  accredited  teachers  and  judges,  and  con- 
secrated the  trident  of  Pharsi  Pot,  that  Linga  vanished  from 
the  earth.  This  trident  god  of  the  Gonds,  whose  prongs 
denote  the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  is  worshipped  also  by 
the  Badagas  of  the  Nilgiris,  who  boast  their  descent  from 
the  Northern  Himalayas,  and  who  are  the  cultivating  caste 
subordinate  to  the  milk-drinking  Todas,  and  also  worship- 
pers of  the  tiger  3. 

E.     Immigration  of  the  sons  of  the  raven  and  the  antelope 

into  India. 

I  must  now,  after  having  traced  the  history  of  the  Gond 
immigration  in  India,  return  to  the  fire-worshipping  races 
whose  progress  I  have  tracked  from  Asia  Minor  to  Seistan, 
and  relate  from  the  Zendavesta  and  Hindu  records  the 
history  of  the  successors  of  these  Gond  millet-growing 
immigrants  who  came  into  India  as  the  second  or  barley- 
growing  race.  The  Zendavesta  tells  how  the  first  band 
of  the  phallus  and  fire-worshippers  established  themselves 
in  Seistan  as  the  Turanian  subjects  of  the  great  irrigating 
King  Frangrasyan,  who  covered  the  country  with  water 
channels  leading  into  the  Kyansih  or  Kashava  sea,  the 
lake  Zarah  into  which  the  Helmend  flows  4.  Frangrasyan, 
the  king  of  the  Fryano  or  sons  of  the  Viru,  with  his  brothers 
Aghraeratha,  he  of  the  foremost  chariot  {ratha\  and  Kere- 
savazda,  he  of  the  horned   {keresa)  club  {vazda),  were  the 


*  Rhys  David,  Mahdpari-nibbana  Suffa,  v.  i — 3  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xi.  p.  85. 
^  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  i.  p.  42. 

*  Elie  Rcclus,  Les  Primitifsy  pp.  225,  275,  276. 

*  West,  Bundahishy  xx.  34;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  82. 


1/4  History  and  Chronology 

sons  of  Pashang,  whose  brother  was  Vaisakh,  that  is  the 
Indian  mid-month  (April — May)  of  the  Pleiades  year'. 
Aghraeratha,  the  eldest  of  the  three  brethren  is  called 
Go-patshah  the  king  (badshah)  of  the  cows  of  light,  the 
ruler  of  the  year  of  two  seasons  of  Pashang  and  Vaisakh, 
that  is  to  say  he  of  the  foremost  chariot  was  the  leading 
star,  and  his  ally  was  Syavarshan,  son  of  Kavi  Kush,  who 
is  said  to  be  the  creator  of  the  land  of  Kang-desh  or  India, 
the  country  now  called  Kangra  in  the  Punjab  2.  Thus 
Aghraeratha  was  the  ruling  god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons 
of  the  tortoise  race  in  India,  founded  upon  that  of  the 
Pleiades.  He,  the  star  Canopus,  was  deposed  and  slain 
as  the  ruling  star  by  Frangrasyan  when  Orion  was  sub- 
stituted for  Canopus  as  the  ruler  of  the  year. 

But  both  Aghraeratha  and  Frangrasyan  were  sons  of 
Pashang  the  Vedic  Pushan,  the  barley-god  eater  of  Karam- 
bha,  rice  and  barley  porridge,  who  makes  cows  to  calve, 
whose  car  is  drawn  by  goats,  and  who  married  the  daughter 
of  the  sun  3.  His  name  comes  from  the  root  Push,  the 
growth  of  plant  life,  and  is  connected  with  the  Akkadian  Pu, 
a  pool  or  marsh.  As  the  sibilant  sh  represents  an  original 
k,  he  is  the  eastern  form  of  our  fairy  King  Puck,  who 
was  once  the  Lithuanian  Purk  or  Perkunas,  the  thunder- 
god  4.  He  is  also  the  god  who  leads  the  Hindu  year, 
beginning  at  the  winter  solstice  with  the  month  Push 
(December — January),  and  became  in  stellar  astronomy  the 
constellation  Cancer,  called  by  the  Arabs  Alnathra.  This 
in  the  Malayan  cosmogony  is  the  constellation  of  the  great 
Crab  which  dwells  in  the  cavern  of  the  Navel  of  the  seas 
at  the  roots  of  the  world's  tree,  that  is  in  the  winter 
resting-place  of  the  Southern  sun  at  the  winter  solstices. 

'  West,  Bundahish,  xxix.  5,  xxxi.  15,  16  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  pp.  117,  135. 

'  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Zamyad  Yasht^  77,  ^bdn  Yasht,  41 ;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xxiii.  pp.  304,  64,  note  i;  V^est,  Bahman  Yasht^  24;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v. 
p.  224. 

3  Rg.  iii.  52,  7,  vi.  53,  9,  vi.  58,  4,  vi.  55,  3,  4. 

^  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  vol.  i.,  Essay  v.,  pp.  437 — 439. 

5  Sachau,  Alberunl's  India^  chap.  Ivi.  p.  84;    Ibid.,  Chronology  of  Ancient 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  175 

In  short  he  represents  the  union  of  the  Southern  black- 
cloud-bird  Khu  with  the  Northern  thunder-god  Thor  of  the 
Edda,  whose  car,  like  that  of  Pushan,  is  drawn  by  goats.  It 
was  his  Northern  sons  Frangrasyan  and  Keresavazda  that 
came  down  to  India  to  conquer  the  matriarchal  races  ruled 
by  Syavarshan.  Keresavazda's  name  the  horned  club  shows 
him  to  be  the  god  of  the  worshippers  of  the  male  as 
distinguished  from  the  original  female  trident  of  Pharsi 
Pen.  These  people  are  the  Takkas  or  artisans,  still  known 
as  a  wealthy  and  powerful  tribe  in  Kashmir  and  the  Punjab. 
Their  god  is  the  trident  or  trisula,  representing  the  three 
seasons  of  the  year  in  its  three  prongs  called  Shesh  Nag, 
the  spring,  Vasak  or  Basak  Nag  the  summer,  and  Takt  or 
Taksh-Nag  the  winter*.  They  founded  the  great  city  of 
Taxila  or  Taksha-sila,  the  rock  {silo)  of  the  Takkas,  so 
celebrated  in  Buddhist  history,  and  in  that  of  Alexander 
the  Great's  Indian  campaigns.  This  capital  of  the  early 
Naga  faith  was  taken  by  Janamejaya,  son  of  Parikshit 
the  circling  sun,  after  he  instituted  the  great  snake 
sacrifice  which  substituted  sun-worship  for  that  of. the 
earlier  star  and  moon-gods,  and  avenged  the  death  of  his 
father,  who  was  slain  by  Taksh  Nag  the  winter-god,  as  the 
last  sun-god  of  the  Pole  Star  era  of  time-measurement, 
when  the  sun  was  looked  on  as  a  day-star  going  round 
the  heavens  and  subordinate  to  the  Pole  Star  2.  Janamejaya, 
the  god  victorious  {jaya)  over  birth  {janatn),  is  represented 
in  the  Mahabharata  as  the  successor  of  Paushya  or  Push, 
who,  as  well  as  himself,  was  the  pupil  of  the  sacrificial  priest 
Dhaumya,  the  god  of  the  smoke  {dhumo)  of  burnt-offerings, 
called   also   Gautama,   whose  wife  was   Ahalya    the   year- 


Nationsy  chap.  xxi.  of  the  Lunar  Stations,*  p.  352  ;  Skeat,  Malay  Magic, 
p.  7. 

*  Oldham,  '  Serpent  Worship  in  India,'  fournal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society, 
i89i,pp.  361,  362,  387—391. 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Patishya)  Parva,  p.  45,  Adi  {Astika),  Parva,  1. — Iviii. 
pp.  143—160. 


•  1/6  History  and  Chronology 

hen ',  who  was,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  163,  the  winter  wife 
of  the  sun-god  Ar-chal,  and  the  goddess  Damia  or  Dame, 
the  Gond  tortoise-mother  worshipped  as  the  goddess  of  the 
house-building  races  of  Greece  and  Italy. 

Near  Taksha-Sila,  according  to   Hiouen  Tsiang,  was  the 
shrine  and  sacred  tank  of  the  Naga  father-god  of  the  Takkas 
Ila-putra,  the  son  {putrd^  of  I  la,  whose  body  stretched  from 
thence  to  Kashi  (Benares)^  and  who  was  the  god  worshipped 
at  the  great  Hindu  national  temple  at  Somnath  or  Ila-pura, 
on  the  coast  of  Kathlawar,  where  his  image  was  a  Linga  with 
a  lunar  crescent  on  its  head.      This  proves  him  to  be  the 
Gond  god  Lingal,  who  had  become  on  his  disappearance 
from  earth  the  sixth  Gond  god,  the  Crescent-moon  goddess 
Pandhari  or  Mu-chandri.     Hence  these  Takkas  were  both 
sons  of  the  eel-god  Ila,  and  worshippers  of  the  trident  and 
also  sons  of  the   rivers,  whence  the   parent-eel  was   born, 
and  they  extended  their  rule  all  over  India,  and  have  left 
records   of  their  sovereignty  in    the   names   they  gave   to 
the  rivers  they  called  Iravati,  and  adopted  as  their  parent 
streams  in   the  countries  they  ruled  in  their  progress  from 
the  North-west  to  the  South-east.     These  are  the  Ravi  of 
Punjab,  the   Rapti  of  Oude,  and  the  Irawadi  of  Burmah, 
all  forms  of  the  original  river   name    Iravati.     They  were 
the  sons  of  Iran  or  Erenavach,  and  she  was  the  mother- 
mountain    Ida,   Ila   or   Ira,  mother   of  the  eel  race  whom 
Manu  raised  from  the  sea  after  the  flood  which  followed, 
as  we  have  seen  in  the  Lingal  Gond   story  the  arrival  of 
these  immigrants.     She  in  her  new  avatar  was  born  from 
the  four-fold  sacrifice  of  butter,  sour-milk,  whey  and  curds. 
This    made    her,  who    had    originally  been  the  little  fish, 
the  infant  eel,  in   Manu's  water-jar  or  water-pool,   become 
the   horned    fish,    the    dolphin,    which    led    Manu    and    his 
moon  -  boat    to    the    motiier-mountain,   where   she   became 
the  mother  of  the  sons  of  the  cow,  the   Gond   Koi-kopal 
or  dairy  farmers  2. 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Paushya)  Parva,  iii.  pp.  45 — 51,  Ashvamedha  {Anugiia) 
Parva,  Ivi.  pp.  145 — 148. 
"  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  i.  8,  i,  i — 15  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  216—218. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  177 

The   dolphin -mother   became   in   Syria   and    Greece   the 
goddess   Derceto  or   Tirhatha,  meanini^  the  cleft  or  rock- 
pool,  and  the  dolphin  Apollo.     In  the  Euphratean  countries 
she  was  the  goddess  Nana,  whose  leaden   imag^e  with  the 
triangle   round    the    navel,   as    in   the    Hindu   altar   in   the 
form    of  a   woman,    was    found    in    the    city   on    the   site 
of  Troy,  dating  back   to  the  earliest  period  of  the  Bronze 
Age,  the  second   from  the  bottom  of  the   six  cities   there 
suf)erim posed    on    one   another.      The   image   is    of   Indian 
lead,   the   produce   of  the    Indian    Galena   silver    mines  of 
Saurashtra,   for   the   mines   of    Laurium    or    Attica,   which 
supplied    lead    in    a   later   age,  were   not   yet   opened,   and 
there  was   no  lead  found   in   any  mines  of  that  age  near 
the   coast,    except    those    of    India.      This    leaden    image 
was  found  in  a  separate  hoard,  chiefly  of  gold  ornaments, 
hidden  in  the  city  wall,  and  all  these  were  of  Indian  pat- 
terns ».     Similar  figures  in   terra-cotta  have  been  found  in 
Mesopotamia,  Cyprus   and    the   Cyclades,   and    in    Maionia 
[Lydid),  the  land   of  the   Tursena,  the    Mediterranean    re- 
presentatives   of    the    Indian    Turvasu,    an    image    of   the 
Akkadian    goddess    Nana    has    been    found    engraved   on 
syenite,  with  the  Babylonian  god  Bel  standing  by  her  side  2. 
In   India   the   dolphin-goddess    was  the  river-fish  of  the 
national  religious  history,  the  porpoise  of  the  Ganges  called 
Makara,  the  cognizance  of  Pradyumna,  the  foremost  {pro) 
bright  one  {dyumnd)^  the  eldest  sun-god,  born  of  the  year- 
J^od  Krishna  3.     This  succeeded,  in  religious  ritual,  the  alli- 
gator of  the  Gonds,  Muggar,  Mugral   or   Pusc,  and  became 
the  star  called  in  Tamil  Makaram,  and  by  the  Akkadians 
Makkhar4,  the  constellation  Capricornus,  which  has  always 


*  Schluchhardt,  Schliemann's  Excavations^  pp.  6,  7,  fig.  60;  Hewitt,  Ruling 
Rac^s  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  p.  1 70. 

-  Wilson.  *  The  Swastika.'     Reports  of  the  American  Smithsonian  Institution^ 
p.  829. 

^  Mahahharata  Anu^hasana  {Anushasinika)  Parva,  xi.  3,  p.  41. 

*  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,   'Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars.'     Proceedings  of  the 
Society  of  Biblical  Archaolo^^  Jan.,  1 890,  iv.  pp.  13 — 16. 

N 


178  History  and  Chronology 

been  represented  as  a  goat  with  a  fish's  tail  ^,  This  con- 
stellation was  deified  as  the  parent  constellation  of  the 
Pitaro  Barhishadah,  who  sat  on  sheaves  {barhis)  of  Kusha 
grass  at  the  feast  of  the  dead  held  at  the  autumnal 
equinox,  and  were  the  successors  of  the  sons  of  Muggar 
the  alligator  of  the  age  of  Orion's  year. 

These  Takkas  of  the  mead-drinking  age  of  Europe,  on 
entering  Kangra  or  Kang-desh  in  India,  found  themselves 
in  the  land  of  the  Madrikas  or  drinkers  of  intoxicating 
drinks  {mad),  the  national  rice  and  murwa  {millet)  beer. 
They  were  the  subjects  of  the  king  Shalya,  who  in  the 
Mahabharata  is  the  father  of  Madrl,  the  second  wife  of 
Pandu,  the  sexless  god  of  the  Great  Bear,  as  the  constella- 
tion of  the  seven  Rishyas  or  antelopes.  This  father-god 
Shalya  is  the  god  of  the  point  of  the  arrow  {Shalya),  that 
is  to  say,  he  was  in  the  theology  of  the  arrow  year  of 
three  seasons  the  winter  season  answering  to  the  god 
Taksh  Nag,  and  in  the  account  of  the  alliance  between 
the  Takkas  and  the  Madrikas  in  the  Mahabharata  the  former 
are  called  Vahlikas  or  the  men  of  Balkh.  They  came  from 
Balkh  on  the  Oxus,  under  the  lead  of  Vahlika,  the  third 
god  of  the  triad  of  Shan-tanu,  Devapi  and  Vahlika.  Shan- 
tanu,  whose  name  means  the  healing-god,  and  Devapi,  his 
rain-priest,  are  described  in  Rg.  x.  98  as  the  sons  of  Rishti- 
sena,  the  god  of  the  fire-spear  (rishti),  and  are  represented 
as  invoking  Brihaspati,  the  Pole  Star  god,  for  rain.  They 
were  thus  the  spring  and  summer  seasons  of  the  year,  and 
Shan-tanu  is,  as  we  shall  see  by  his  marriage  with  the 
mother-river  Gunga  and  SatyavatI,  the  sister  of  Matsya,  the 
fish-god,  the  eel-father  of  the  royal  races  of  India,  the  sons 
of  the  Kauravya  and  Pandava  kings.  The  Vahlikas,  led  by 
Somadatta,  son  of  Vahlika,  and  Somadatta's  son,  Bhuri- 
shravas,  marched  under  the  banner  of  the  Yupa  or  sacrificial 
stake,   the   Takka   trident,   and  joined    the    Kauravyas    in 


*  Hewitt,    Ruling    Races    of   Prehistoric    Times,    vol.    i.,     Essay    iv.,    pp. 
375—377. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  179 

their  war  with  the  Pandavas.  They  were  both  slain  by 
Satyaki,  son  of  Shini,  the  moon  -  goddess,  the  father  of 
ten  sons  slain  by  Bhurishravas,  and  these  ten  sons  and 
their  father  represent  the  year  of  eleven  months,  of  which 
the  history  will  be  given  in  Chapter  VI. ^ 

These  Vahlikas,  Madrikas  and  Rakshasas  or  sons  of  a  tree 
{rukh),  are  all  denounced  by  Kama  in  the  Mahabharata 
as  sacrificers  of  living  victims,  which  they  ate,  who  indulged 
in  intoxicating  drink.  He  describes  their  dancing  seasonal 
festivals,  at  which  the  women,  eaters  of  beef  and  pork,  and 
bearing  on  their  foreheads  the  red  arsenic  or  Sindur  mark 
of  marriage,  danced  while  drunken,  and  says  that  at  Shakala 
or  Sangula,  Shalya's  capital,  one  of  these  was  held  on  every 
fourteenth  day  of  the  dark  half  of  each  month,  when  the 
dying  moon  about  to  reappear  as  the  new  moon  of  the  next 
month  was  worshipped  at  a  festal  dance,  in  which  a  Rak- 
shasa  woman  beat  the  drum  2.  This  was  clearly  a  monthly 
festival,  held  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  each  month  of  Orion's 
year  of  the  Karanas. 

These  fire- worshipping  warriors,  who  sacrificed  living 
victims,  bound  them  to  the  three-headed  sacrificial  stake 
by  their  necks,  according  to  the  custom  attributed  in  the 
Brahmanas  to  the  Fathers  who  succeeded  those  who  killed 
their  victims  by  a  blow  on  the  forehead  which  broke  their 
skulls  3.  Their  necks  were  so  tied  that  the  blood  flowing 
from  the  jugular  artery  when  severed  fell  on  the  sacrificial 
stake,  and  thence  on  the  consecrated  ground  in  which  it 
was  fixed  ;  and  it  was  by  this  mingling  of  the  blood  of  their 
totem  victims  with  the  soil  of  each  new  land  they  occupied 
that  they  completed  the  formation  of  blood  brotherland 
between    them   and   the   hitherto  alien   land,  just   as  they 

»  Mahabharata  Udyoga  {Amvnpakyana)  Parva,  cxcvii.  p.  558,  Bhishma 
{Bhishmaz'adha)  Parva,  Ixxiv.  pp.  272 — 274,  Drona  \^Jayadratha-badha)  Parva, 
cxlii. — cxliv.  pp.  428 — ^441,  Drona  {Ghatotkacha  -  badha)  Parva,  clxii.  pp. 
523-525. 

^  Mahabharata  Kama  Parva,  xliv.  8 — 29,  pp.  152 — 154. 

3  Eggeling,  Sat  Brdk,^  iii.  8,  I,  15  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  189. 

N  2 


i8o  History  and  Chronology 

united  themselves  to  its  daughters  by  the  symbolical  infu- 
sion of  blood  typified  in  their  marriage  customs.  This 
blood  was  probably,  as  it  was  in  ancient  Scandinavian 
sacrifices,  smeared  over  the  altars  for  the  bettering  of  the 
year ;  and  that  the  sacrifice  was  one  of  the  Pole  Star  age 
of  worship  is  proved  by  the  rule  that  the  Agnidhra  or  fire- 
kindling  priest  should  go  round  the  fire  on  which  the  victim 
was  to  be  cooked  three  times  against  the  course  of  the  sun '. 

The  geography  of  the  Mahabharata  marks  the  progress 
of  these  Takkas  through  India  by  placing  them  as  the 
Tri-gartas,  or  people  of  the  three  {tri)  pits  {gartas),  in  which 
were  fixed  the  sacrificial  stakes  to  which  the  victims  were 
tied,  in  the  country  south  of  the  Sutlej,  on  the  borders 
of  Kuru-kshetra.  These  were  the  Gond  tribe  called  Koi- 
kopal  or  cow-keepers,  the  sons  of  Kai-kaia,  mother  of 
Bharata ;  and  they  are  described  in  the  Virata  Parva  of  the 
Mahabharata  as  the  chief  allies  of  Duryodhana,  the  Kauravya 
chief,  when  he  invaded  the  country  of  the  Viratas,  or  men 
of  the  Viru,  also  called  Matsya,  the  sons  of  the  eel-fish,  and 
tried  to  steal  their  cattle. 

In  the  Rigveda  they  are  called  the  Tugra,  who  were 
conquered  by  Indra  with  the  Vetasu,  the  sons  of  the  reed 
{vetasd)  ^,  who  are  said  to  be  possessed  of  tenfold  magic 
power  3.  In  another  hymn  Indra  is  said  to  drink  the  drink 
of  the  Tugras4,  that  is  to  be  the  god  of  the  drinkers  of 
strong  drink  in  the  first  stage  of  his  mythology  as  the 
eel-god  of  the  early  fire- worshippers.  In  Rg.  x.  49,  4,  Indra 
is  said  to  have  entrusted  these  magicians,  the  Tugra  and 
Vetasu,  to  the  charge  of  Kutsa,  his  yoke- fellow  ;  and  the 
beginning  of  his  metamorphosis  as  the  god  of  the  water- 
drinkers  is  shown  when  Indra,  as  one  of  the  twin-pair  Indra- 
Kutsa,  is  asked  to  separate  himself  from  Kutsa  5. 

Kutsa  is  called  Arjuneya,  or  the  son  of  a  fair  {arjuna) 
mother  6,  and  also  Puru-Kutsa,  or  Kutsa  the  Puru,  whom 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  iii.  8,  I,  16;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  187,  note  I. 
=  Rg.  vi.  26,  4.  3  Ibid.,  vi.  20,  8.  ■♦  Ibid.,  viii.  32,  2a 

5  Ibid.,  V.  29,  9,  X.  38,  5.  ^  Ibid.,  iv.  26,  I. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  i8i 

Indra  aided  by  breaking  down  the  seven  towers  of  the 
enemy,  and  it  was  for  the  beautiful  young  Kutsa  that  he 
slew  Shushna,  the  demon  of  drought  ^ 

These  Purus,  descended  from  Puru,  the  son  of  Yayati  and 
Sharmishtha,  the  most  protecting  {sharman)  tree,  the  Kushika 
Banyan  fig-tree,  succeeded  Yayati,  son  of  Nahusha,  the  great 
snake  of  the  Naga  race,  as  rulers  of  India  ;  and  their  rule 
preceded  that  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu,  sons  of  DcvayanI,  the 
sun-maiden  of  the  six  Devayana  months  from  the  winter 
to  the  summer  solstice  2.  These  last  were,  according  to  the 
Mahabharata,  the  Yavanas  or  growers  of  barley  {yava),  whose 
rule  began  after  the  age  of  Orion's  year. 

The  Purus  or  Pauravas  were  a  brother-tribe  to  the  Druhyus 
or  Bhojas,  the  offspring  of  Druhyu,  the  eldest  son  of  Shar- 
mishtha, and  both  are  said  in  the  Rigveda  to  belong  to  the 
Nahusha  or  Naga  races  3.  They,  as  the  sons  of  Druh  the 
sorceress,  the  Druj  of  the  Zendavesta^  were  sorcerers  and 
magicians,  and  both  were  opponents  of  the  Tritsu,  or  wor- 
shippers of  the  perpetual  altar -fire,  whose  priest  was 
Vashishtha,  for  they  were  overthrown  in  the  battle  of  the 
ten  kinq^s,  when  Indra  gave  the  land  of  their  brethren,  the 
Anu,  to  the  Tritsu  4.  The  Purus  are  in  this  passage  called 
Mridhravac,  an  epithet  which,  according  to  Zimmcr5,  marks 
them  as  speaking  a  non-Aryan  language.  Its  meaning  is 
uncertain,  but  whether  it  means  speaking  softly,  that  is, 
using  the  soft  sounds  of  the  Dravidian  and  Pali  languages 
instead  of  the  Sanskrit  gutturals,  or  speaking  imperiously 
as  enemies  of  the  Aryan  Tritsus,  it  distinctly  shows  them 
to  belong  to  the  Pre-Sanskrit  population  of  India.  This  is 
also  clear  from  their  connection  with  the  Anus,  descended 
from  Anu,  the  second  son  of  Sharmishtha,  who  are  called 
Mlecchas  or  outcasts  in  the  Mahabharata.  Kutsa,  the 
young   and   fair   leader   of   the   Pre-Sanskrit    Purus,  is   the 

'  Kg-  i.  63,  7,  3. 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  {^ambhava)  Parva,  Ixxxv.  pp.  258—260. 
3  Rg.  vi.  46,  7,  8.  ■♦  Ibid.,  vii.  18,  13. 

5  Zimmer,  AUindischcs  Leben^  chap.  iv.  pp.  114,  115. 


1 82  tiistory  and  Chronology 

reputed  author  of  twenty-one  hymns  in  the  first  Mandala 
of  the  Rigveda,  in  which  he  describes  himself  as  the 
priest  of  the  Varsha  giras,  the  praisers  [giras)  of  rain,  who 
belong  to  the  Naga  race  of  the  Nahusha  ^  That  this 
confederacy  included  the  Takkas  or  Tugras,  and  the 
Turanian  races  of  the  early  Gond  stock,  is  clear  from  the 
history  of  the  Zettdavesta,  For  in  it  Frangrasyan  and 
Keresavazda  are  said  to  have  been  finally  conquered  and 
slain  by  Hu-shrava,  the  glory  of  the  Hus,  the  successor 
of  the  Kavi-kush  kings,  whose  sacrament  was  the  holy 
Haoma  or  Soma,  and  who  is  said  to  have  united  the  Aryans 
into  one  kingdom,  and  killed  the  Takka  Tugra  leaders 
Frangrasyan  and  Keresavazda  behind  the  Chaechasta  lake, 
the  modern  Uruniiah  in  Ataro-patakan  2.  That  this  cam- 
paign extended  to  India  is  shown  by  the  account  given 
of  it  in  the  Rigveda,  where  Su-shravas,  the  Sanskrit  form 
of  the  Zend  Hu-shrava,  the  king  of  the  barley-growing 
Turvayana  or  Turvasu,  is  said  to  have  overcome  Kutsa, 
Atithigva,  the  coming  (gva)  guest  {atithi)^  that  is  Divodasa, 
the  king  of  the  ten  {dasha)  gods  or  months  of  the  three 
years'  cycle  described  in  Chapter  V.,  and  Syu,  the  son  of 
Urvashi  the  fire-socket  3.  This  evidence  clearly  shows 
that  the  Takkas,  Tugras  or  Trigartas,  the  men  of  the  sacri- 
ficial trident-stake,  joined  themselves  to  the  Eastern  or 
Puru  Naga  confederacy,  of  which  Kutsa  was  the  divine 
high-priest,  that  of  the  Vetasu  or  sons  of  the  rivcr-reed,  who 
worshipped  the  rain-snakc-god  and  the  sun-god  born  of  the 
tree,  and  were  thus  united  with  the  Eastern  Malli  or  moun- 
tain-races. The  name  of  Kutsa,  their  high-priest,  derived 
from  Ku  (where)^  is  a  divine  epithet  of  the  unseen  god  allied 
to  that  of  Ka  {who)y  given  to  Prajapati  [Orion)  as  god  of 
the  sacred  Drona  or  tree-trunk,  the  hollow  wooden  jar 
containing  the  sacred  Soma  or  divine  sap  4. 

»  Rg.  i.  100,  16,  17. 

=  Darmestcter,    Zcndavesta   Abdn    Yashty   40,    Cos    Yasht,    17,    18,    21,   22, 
Zunyad  Yashin  74 — 77  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  pp.  66,  note  2,  114,  115,  303,  304. 

^  l^g-  i-  53»  10- 

*  Eggeling,  iiat,  Brah,^  iv.  5,  5,  II,  iv.  5,  6,  4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  408,41a 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  183 

These  early  fire-worshippers,  bearers  of  the  sacrificial 
tridents,  whom  I  have  thus  traced  as  conquering  and  ruling 
races  from  Asia  Minor  to  the  junction  of  the  Jumna  and 
Ganges,  were  the  people  to  whom  the  authorship  of  the 
Second  Mandala  of  the  Rigvcda  is  described.  Its  title  is 
Grit  Samada  Bhargava  Saunaka,  interpreted  by  Ludwig  and 
Brunnhofer  to  mean  the  book  belonging  to  [grit)  the  col- 
lected {smn)  Median  race  {Mada),  the  sons  of  Bhrigu  {bhar- 
gava) the  fire-god  Bhur,  belonging  to  the  dog  {saunaka). 
This  tells  us  that  the  Thracian  Bru-ges,  the  Phrygians 
of  Asia  Minor,  the  Phlcgyans  of  Greece,  who  worshipped 
the  god  Bhur,  came  to  India  through  Media  as  the  followers 
of  the  fire-dog. 

This  is  the  dog  which  always  follows  all  Parsi  funerals, 
the  holy  dog  of  the  Bauris  and  Bhils,  and  especially  sacred 
to  the  sons  of  Bhrigu,  who  are  said  in  the  Rigveda  to  have 
first  found  the  concealed  household  fire  by  the  help  of 
Matar-i-shvan,  the  mother  {matar)  of  the  dog  {shvan)  ^  and 
to  have  brought  it  to  men^  and  placed  it  on  the  navel 
of  the  world  3.  This  holy  dog,  born  of  the  wooden  fire- 
socket,  that  is  as  the  son  of  the  mother-tree,  became  in 
ritualistic  astronomy  the  dog-star  Sirius,  the  dog  of  Orion, 
the  god  Tishtrya,  or  he  of  the  thirtieth  {tishtryd)  day  of  the 
month  of  the  Zendavesta^  who  defeats  the  demons  of  drought 
and  brings  up  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice  4. 

This  totem-dog  of  the  fire-worshippers,  which  according 
to  Herod,  i.  140  no  Mtigian  will  kill,  was  the  dog  who  woke 
the  Ribhus  from  their  twelve  days*  sleep  at  the  winter 
solstice  5.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  the  herald  of  a  new  year 
then  begun,  and  it  was  as  the  year-dog  that  it  was  like  other 
totem  year  animals  sacrificed  at  the  end  of  its  term,  as  the 
god  of  the  dying  year,  to  make  way  for  his  successor.  It  is 
to  this  sacrifice  that  allusion  is  probably  made  in  Rigveda 

«  Rg.  X.  46,  2,  9,  i.  60,  I,  iii.  5,  10.  ^  Ibid.,  i.  58,  6. 

3  Ibid.,i.  I43>4- 

*  Darmesteter,  Ztndavesta  Tlr   Yasht,  vi.   10 — 34;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  pp. 

96—104.  5  Rg.  i.  161,  13. 


184  History  and  Chronology 

iv.  18,  13,  where  Indra  tells  how  after  killing  Vyansa,  the 
alligator-year-god  of  the  Ribhus,  he  ate  dog's  entrails 
together  with  the  Soma  brought  to  him  by  the  Shyena 
or  frost  {Shya)  bird  of  the  winter  solstice.  The  sacrifice 
succeeding  that  which  began  the  year  at  the  winter  solstice 
with  the  sacrifice  of  the  dog  was  that  of  the  dog  of  the 
summer  solstice,  probably  that  referred  to  in  the  story 
of  Shuna-shepa,  the  dog's  penis,  or  the  male  dog.  He  was 
the  second  son  of  Aji-garta,  the  pit  (garta)  of  the  goat, 
that  is  of  the  priest  of  the  Tri-gartas  or  throe  sacrificial  pits. 
His  eldest  brother  was  Shuna-pucclia,  the  dog's  tail,  and  the 
youngest  Shuna-langala,  the  dog's  plough  or  head.  They 
were  the  three  seasons  of  the  dog's  year  of  Orion.  Shuna- 
shepa,  the  dog-god  of  the  summer  season,  was  sold  by  his 
father  for  sacrifice  in  place  of  Rohita  the  red  god,  the  fire- 
drill  son  of  Hari-chandra,  the  moon  {chandra)^  of  Hari  the 
name  of  Vishnu  the  )ear-god  as  the  son  of  the  mother 
Shar  \ 

The  sacrifice  of  the  middle  god  of  the  trident,  the  god 
of  the  summer  solstice,  as  the  god  of  the  dying  year,  marks 
a  change  in  the  year  reckoning  coincident  with  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  five  and  the  adoption  of  the  six-days  week 
of  the  phallus  worshippers,  and  this  change  appears  in  the 
ritual  of  the  three  seasons  of  the  Chatur-masya.  The 
offerings  to  the  Vaishvadeva  gods  of  the  spring  season  and 
the  Saka-medha  offerings  to  Indra  as  Saka,  god  of  winter, 
consist  of  baked  cakes,  boiled  rice  and  curds,  and  the  same 
ingredients  are  offered  to  Varuna  as  god  of  the  summer 
solstice ;  but  to  these  are  added  in  the  ritual  of  his  sacrifice 
a  ram  and  a  ewe  made  of  barley-meal,  but  which  doubtless 
represent  living  victims  once  offered,  which  were  originally 
goats  and  human  beings  2.  This  offering  is  made  on  the 
northern  altar,  especially  erected  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  ram 
to  Varuna  and  thatched  with  branches  of  the  Plaksha  tree  3 

'  Ilaug,  Aitarcya  Briihniana^  vol.  ii.  pp.  462—469. 

°  Kggcling,  Sat.  Brdh,^  ii.  5,  2,  15,  16  ;  S.B.  E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  395. 

-^  This   Plaksha   or   Pakur   tree   is   that   consecrating   the   meeting-place  of 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  185 

(JPicus  infectorid)  placed  on  the  altar  on  which  animal  victims 
were  to  be  offered.  The  southern  altar  is  dedicated  to  the 
Maruts  or  tree-ape  {vtarom)  goddesses,  the  Egyptian  apes 
who  sing  the  praises  of  Ra  in  the  language  of  Uetenu,  the 
green  {net)  land  of  India  ^  and  it  is  they  who  are  invoked 
as  leading  goddesses  in  all  the  three  seasonal  festivals  ^. 

This  change  in  ritual,  consequent  on  the  introduction 
of  the  worship  of  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice,  is  also 
marked  in  the  Zend  year  reckonings.  For  they  began  their 
year  at  the  summer  solstice  with  the  feast  of  the  dead 
Fravashis  or  mothers,  the  Maruts  of  the  Hindu  ritual.  It 
also  appears  in  the  Celtic  custom  of  lighting  the  year's  fires 
on  St.  John's  Day  instead  of  in  November,  and  at  the  winter 
solstice,  as  in  the  years  of  the  Pleiades  and  deer-sun. 

In  this  summer  year  sacrifice  of  Shuna-shepa,  as  described 
in  Rg.  1.  24,  13,  the  dog  is  said  to  have  been  bound  to  three 
sacrificial  posts  (drupadas)^  at  each  of  which  probably 
a  separate  dog  for  each  season  was  sacrificed.  These  posts 
were  in  the  ritual  of  the  Trigartas  placed  in  three  pits, 
into  which  the  blood  of  the  slain  victims  was  collected. 
This  blood  was  in  the  Arab  ritual  of  these  sacrifices 
tlrunk  and  the  flesh  eaten  raw  by  the  sacrificcrs3,  and  this 
custom  of  eating  the  flesh  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the 
victims  in  the  days  of  early  sun-worship  appears  in  the 
Scandinavian  ritual,  where  the  year-god  Hadding,  the  hairy 
{had)  sun-god,  in  alliance  with  Lysir,  the  one-eyed  Pole  Star 
god,  slays  the  fire- wolf  Loki,  drinks  his  blood  and  eats  his 
heart  4.  Also  Sigurd,  the  sun-god  of  the  pillar  {urd-r)  of 
victory  {sig),  when    he    slew   Fafnir,   the  snake-god  of  the 

the  Northern  and  Southern  races  at  Puryag  at  the  junction  of  the  Jumna 
and  Ganges. 

'  Brugsch,  Religion  und  My thologie  der  Alien  ^Q^pter^  pp.  152,  153. 

"  Eggcling,  5a/.  Brah.y  ii.  5,  2,  5— lo,  iii.  8,  3,  10;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp. 
392,  note  I — 394.  xxvi.  p.  202. 

^  Robertson   Smith,   Religion  of  the  Semites^  Lect    vi.   p.    210,    Lcct.    ix. 

pp.  324*  327- 

<  Powell    and    Elton,   Saxo-Grammaticus^    Introduction,    p.    119,    Book   i. 

pp.  28,  29. 


1 86  History  and  Chronology 

earlier  ritual,  when  standing  in  a  pit  over  which  the  year- 
snake  passed  as  Sigurd  stabbe'd  him,  and  Regin,  the  rain- 
god,  Sigurd's  guardian  and  Fafnirs  brother,  drank  the 
blood  of  the  slain  year-god  '. 

In  the  earliest  Hindu  ritual  these  three  posts,  each  in  its 
pit,  represented  the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  just  as  in  the 
later  Soma  ritual  the  eleven  posts  for  living  victims  slain  at 
the  Soma  sacrifices  represented  the  eleven  months  of  the  year 
of  the  sun-horse,  to  be  described  in  Chapter  VI. ;  and  the 
sacrificial  year-dog  was  as  the  rising  sun  of  the  new  year 
called  back  to  life  by  the  six  Aditya,  the  six  days  of  the 
new  week  of  the  Tri-kadru-ka  year,  Mitra,  Aryaman,  Bhaga, 
Varuna,  Daksha  and  Anjha^.  This  early  sacrifice  of  the 
year-dog  by  the  mead-drinkers  is  reproduced  in  Greece  in 
the  sacrifice  of  black  dogs  and  honey  and  water  {nepJialta) 
to  Hecate,  the  dogs  offered  to  Herakles  and  Ares  at  Sparta, 
also  those  sacred  to  yEsculapius,  son  of  Koronis,  and  kept  in 
his  temple,  and  whose  flesh  was  given  to  patients  as  a 
medicine,  a  custom  derived  from  the  Thracians,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Sextus  Empiricus,  used  to  eat,  and  therefore  to 
sacrifice,  dogs  3,  a  custom  continued  by  their  descendants  the 
Indian  Bhrigu. 

A  further^account  of  the  coming  to  India  of  the  introducers 
of  the  household  fire  is  told  in  the  Brahmana  story  of 
Mathava.  He,  the  god  who  produces  fire  by  rubbing 
(math),  is  called  the  Vi-degha,  or  king  of  the  two  {vi) 
countries  {degha  desha),  the  North  and  the  South.  He 
carried  into  India  Agni  Vaishvanara,  the  fire  of  the  village 
(vish),  and  the  household  fire  of  the  village  grove  (vanam), 
under  the  guidance  of  Gotama  the  cow-born  (go)  father 
of  the  Indian  Brahmins,  called  Rahugana,  or  he  possessed 
with  the  spirit  of  Rahu.  Rahu,  in  the  orthodox  Vedic 
literature,  is  the  god  of  the  cresent  new  moon,  that  is  the 

*  Hewitt,  Kuling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  pp.  120, 121. 
^  Rg.  ii.  27,  I  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  v., 
pp.  421,  422. 
3  Frazer,  Pausaniast  iii.  250. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  187 

god  in  whose  honour  the  Takka  women  danced^  as  we  have 
seen  (p.  179),  religious  dances  at  the  beginning  of  each  month. 
But  this  new-moon-god  was  one  which  marked  the  yearly 
circles  of  the  sun-god,  and  it  is  as  the  combined  moon- 
and  sun-god  that  he  was  worshipped  as  the  god  Raghu  in 
Media.  He  is  still  the  god  Raghu  in  Kumaon  worshipped 
as  Rahu  by  the  Dosadhs  or  fire-priests  of  Magadha,  and 
he  was  the  father  of  the  Indian  plough ing-god  Rama.  It 
was  the  Gotama  priest  of  this  god  who,  with  Mathava, 
brought  the  sacred  fire  from  the  Sarasvati,  that  is  from 
the  Harahvaiti  of  Herat  to  the  banks  of  the  Sudanira 
or  Gunduk '  in  Magadha.  He  there  instituted  the  yearly 
animal  sacrifice  to  Rahu  which  is  still  celebrated  by  the 
Dosadhs. 

The  date  of  this  festival  of  Rahu's  year  varies  according 
to  the  local  customs  of  year  reckoning,  and  it  may  be  held 
at  the  various  dates  current  throughout  India  for  beginning 
the  year,  except  those  of  the  November  year  of  the  Pleiades, 
when  no  animal  sacrifices  can  be  offered,  the  year  of  the 
three  years'  cycle  beginning  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  and 
the  year  of  the  summer  solstice.  It  must  be  held  on 
the  fourth  or  ninth  of  the  month,  or  on  the  day  before 
the  full  moon,  and  the  months  in  which  it  may  take 
place  are  those  (i)  of  the  winter  solstice,  when  the  year  of 
the  sun-hen  and  Orion  begins  with  the  Pongol  festival  of 
the  Madras  Dravidians,  and  the  Sohrai  of  the  Santals ;  (2) 
Fhagun  (February — March),  the  month  ending  with  the 
vernal  equinox,  and  that  beginning  the  popular  Hindu 
year  with  the  new  year's  Huli  festival  held  on  the  full 
moon  of  Fhagun  ;  (3)  Magh  (January — February),  when 
the  Ooraon  Munda  and  Santal  year  begins;  (4)  Baisakh 
(April — May),  as  the  New  Year's  feast  of  the  Gond  year. 

At  it  pigs,  a  ram,  wheaten  flour,  and  rice  milk  {khir) 
are  offered,  and  intoxicating  drinks  are  consumed  by  the 
worshippers.     After  the  sacrifice,  the  Bhukut  or  priest  who 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,,  i.  4,  i,  14—17  J  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  105—106. 


1 88  History  and  Chronology 

has  been  consecrated  by  sleeping  the  night  before  the 
festival  on  a  bed  of  Kusha  grass  {Poa  cynosuroides)^  walks 
fasting,  after  worshipping  Rahu,  through  the  sacred  fire, 
and  then  mounts  a  platform,  from  which  he  distributes 
Tulsi  leaves  to  heal  diseases,  and  flowers  to  cure  barrenness 
in  women.  It  is  after  this  that  the  orgies  of  the  feast 
begin  ^. 

The  gods  of  these  Dosadhs,  the  triune  embodiment  of 
Rahu,  otherwise  called  Bhim-Sen,  are  (i)  Goraya,  the 
boundary-god,  and  his  two  wives,  Bundi  the  forest  (buii) 
mother,  and  Sokha  the  witch-mother,  the  Akkadian  wet- 
god  Sakh,  the  first  form  of  Istar ;  and  this  triad  of  the  year 
trident  is  worshipped  by  almost  all  the  lower  castes  in 
Maghada  {Behar),  and  by  the  women  of  the  dominant 
tribe  of  the  Babhans,  to  which  almost  all  the  great  terri- 
torial chiefs  belong  2. 

There  are  no  images  in  the  shrines  of  these  gods  who 
manifest  the  various  aspects  of  the  creator  shown  in  the 
changing  seasons  of  the  year  ruled  by  the  supreme  maker 
of  time,  who  in  Asia  Minor  divided  the  year  into  the 
three  seasons  of  the  sowing,  growing,  and  ripening  mother- 
goddesses. 

It  was  the  worshippers  of  this  god  Ra  or  Raghu  who  made 
the  pig  the  sacred  animal  of  Asia  Minor  and  ancient  Greece, 
whose  blood  was  used  as  a  baptismal  bath  to  cleanse  the 
guilty  from  sin.  He  was  worshipped  in  Babylonia  and  India 
as  Atar,  the  god  of  the  Vedic  Atharvans,  the  Zend  Athravans, 
and  was  called  in  Babylonia  "  the  lord  of  the  pig."  He  is 
the  white  pig  Vishnu  worshipped  by  all  Brahmins  in  the 
third  of  their  daily  meditations  (p.  158),  and  the  name  of 
the  pig-god  was  also  given  to  the  Assyrian  Ramanu,  the  god 


*  See  the  Ritual  described  in  fuU  in  Risley's  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^ 
Dosadhs,  vol.  i.,  pp.  255,  256;  also  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^ 
vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  pp.  201,  203. 

*  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  i.  Amats,  p.  18,  Babhans,  p.  33, 
Binds,  p.  133,  Dosadhs,  p.  256,  Kandus,  p.  416,  Korris,  p.  504,  vol.  ii.. 
Teles,  p.  309. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  189 

[anti)   Ram,  the  Indian  Rama,  the  Akkadian  Mermer,  also 

worshipped  as  Matu  or  Martu,  the  god  of  the  West  Monsoon 

wind '.     It  was   to    this   same  god  of   increase,  the  Latin 

Mars    {Martis\  the  Sabine   Mar-mar,  the  Etrurian   Maso, 

that  two  pigs  were  offered  at  the  Roman  Arvalia  to  secure 

the  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  it  was  to  this  totem  god  of  the 

marrying  races  that  a  pig  was  offered  at  Etrurian  weddings  2. 

Istar,  in  one  of  her  avatars,  was  a  pig-goddess,  being  called 

as  Lady  of  the  Dawn    Bis-bizi,  a   reduplication   of  bis  or 

pes,  a  pig  3.     Pigs  were  offered  to  the  corn-mothers  Demeter 

in  Greece  and  Ceres  at  Rome,  and  the  Phoenicians,  Syrians, 

Egyptians,  and  Cyprians,  who  refused  to  eat  swine's  flesh 

as  every-day   food,   ate  it  at  the  annual  sacrifices  to  the 

father  and  mother  of  swine.     The  Cyprians  fed  the  swine 

sacred  to  Aphrodite  with  figs,  the  sacred  fruit  of  the  phallus 

worshippers   before   the   annual   sacrifice  4 ;    and   in   Isaiah 

Ixv.  4  and  Ixvi.  3,  17,  we  read  how  the  Jews  used  to  eat 

swine's  flesh  and  the  mouse,  the  mouse-god  (<r/A«;^o*)of  Troy, 

Apollo    Smintheus,   at   their    religious   festivals.     In    India 

the  boar-god  was  the  first  Avatar  of  Krishna  or  Vishnu, 

and  we  are  told   in    the    Rigveda   how    this    three-headed 

six-eyed  boar  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  was   slain  by 

Trita5,   the    god   of  the   three    years'  cycle,  described    in 

Chapter  V.     In  the  Harivamsa  the  first  enemy  slain  by  the 

young   Krishna,   born   as   the   sun-god,  the   eighth  son    of 

Vasudeva  and    DevakI,  is  the  boar.      This  year-boar  was 

the   Calydonian    boar   of  Greece   slain   by   Meleager,   and 

it  was  the  parent-boar  of  the  North  whose  head  was  eaten 

at  their  annual  Yule  feasts  at  the  winter  solstice. 

The  year  of  the  phallus  worshippers,  who  changed  the 
week,  the  unit  of  their  year,  from  five  into  six  days,  was 


*  Sayce,  Hihbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  p.  153. 

^  Encyc.  Brit,  Arval  Brothers,  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  ii.  pp.  671,  672;  Varro, 
/)e  Re  Rustica,  ii.  4. 

3  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1 887,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  258,  note  2. 

4  Movers,  Die  Phonitter,  vol.  i.  chap.  vii.  p.  122. 
s  Kg.  X.  99,  6. 


IQO  History  and  Chronology 

that  which  immediately  succeeded  the  Gond  year,  beginning 
with  the  month  of  May.  This  was  the  year  of  the  central 
prong  of  the  trident  worshipped  by  the  Takkas  as  Basuk 
or  Vasuk  Nag.  His  year,  beginning  with  the  summer 
solstice  and  the  rains  it  brings,  was  that  ruled  by  the  god- 
king,  called  in  the  Mahabharata  Uparichara,  he  who  moves 
above,  and  Vasu,  of  the  race  of  the  Purus,  king  of  Chedi» 
the  land  of  the  birds  {Chid  or  Chir).  This  is  the  country 
of  the  tribe  of  the  Chiroos,  who  succeeded  the  Kushika 
Gonds  as  rulers  of  Central  India,  and  whose  descendants 
ruled  Magadha  till  the  last  independent  Chiroo  chief, 
Muhurta,  was  conquered  in  the  sixteenth  century  A.D.  by 
Khuwas  Khan,  general  of  the  emperor  Sher  Shah.  His 
descendant,  representing  this  ancient  royal  race,  still  sur- 
vived as  a  local  chieftain  living  at  Chainpur  in  the  Kymore 
hills,  when  I  had  charge  of  the  Sasseram  district  in  1862. 
It  was  on  these  hills,  called  the  Sakti  mountains,  forming 
the  boundary  of  the  Gangetic  valley,  south  of  Kashi 
{Benares)^  that  the  national  Chiroo  god,  Vasu,  ruling  the 
summer  solstice,  planted  the  bamboo  pole  as  the  sign  of 
the  national  rain  god,  the  Asherah  of  the  Jews,  and  sur- 
mounted it  with  the  lotus-garland  of  Shukra  {Indra),  the 
wet  {sak)  god  who  brings  up  the  rains,  and  who  gave  Vasu 
a  crystal  car,  the  moon-chariot  of  the  year-god  circling 
the  heavens  ^  This  was  the  lotus  growing  in  Central  India 
in  pools,  whence  the  Narmada  {Nerbudda)  and  Sone  rise. 
This  sacred  lotus  was  transported  from  India  to  Egypt 
with  the  worship  of  the  sun-god  Ra,  and  there  the  lotus- 
garland  was  the  crown  of  the  feather-headed  staff  borne 
by  the  measuring  [men  or  min^  goddess  Min,  the  star  Virgo. 
Min,  with  her  staff  and  her  lotus-garland,  is  portrayed  in 
her  oldest  prehistoric  statues  found  by  Mr.  Petrie  in  the 
lowest  stage  of  the  successive  series  of  temples  built  one 
upon  another  on  the  ancient  site  of  Coptos,  lying  on  the 
route  from  Northern  Egypt  to  the  Red  Sea  2. 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Adivanshava(arana)  Parva,  Ixiii.  pp.  171 — 173. 
'  Petrie,  History  of  Egypt ^  Prehistoric  Kgypt,  vol.  i.  pp.  13,  14. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  191 

It  was  on  the  Sakti  mountain  at  the  source  of  the  river 
Shuktimati,  the  Sanskrit  Tamas,  or  the  darkness,  that  Vasu 
became  by  the  sun-hawk  his  second  wife,  one  of  the  outer 
prongs  of  his  trident,  called  Adrika,  the  rock,  the  father  of 
the  fish-born  royal  race  of  India,  the  descendants  of  her  twin 
children  the  mountain -eels,  called  Matsya,  the  fish- father, 
and  Satyavatl  the  fish-mother.  The  latter  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  mother  of  Vyasa,  the  alligator  constellation,  and 
the  second  wife  of  Shantanu,  the  ancestress  of  the  Kauravya 
and  Pandava  kings ',  and  both  came  to  life  in  the  Yamuna 
or  river  of  the  twins  {YamcC)^  the  Jumna,  of  which  the 
Tamas  or  Tons  is  a  tributary.  Matsya,  the  fish-father, 
ruled  the  land  of  the  Virata  or  sons  of  the  Viru  god  «,  and  it 
was  in  his  land  that  the  Pandavas  were  concealed  during 
the  thirteenth  year  of  their  exile  from  power  before  their 
final  contest  with  the  Kauravyas.  Uttara,  the  god  of  the 
North  {uttara)^  the  son  of  king  Viru,  was  charioteer  of 
Arjuna,  the  god  of  the  rains  of  the  summer  solstice,  when 
he  went  forth  single-handed  to  conquer  the  Kauravyas, 
who  came  to  steal  the  Matsya  cattle  or  cows  of  lights. 
Also  king  Viru's  daughter  Uttara,  the  North  Pole  Star 
goddess,  became  the  wife  of  Abhimanyu,  the  son  of  Arjuna 
and  Su-bhadra,  the  mountain-goddess,  also  called  Durga, 
whose  name  means  the  sainted  (bhadrd)  Su-bird  4.  Uttara 
was  the  mother  of  the  sun-god  Parikshit,  meaning  the 
circling  sun,  slain  by  Taksh  Nag,  the  winter-god  of  the 
Takka  trident,  the  history  of  whose  birth  as  the  son  of 
the  blade  of  Kusha-grass  will  be  told  in  Chapter  VII. 

The  kings  of  the  early  dynasty  were  descended  from 
the  eel,  born  from  the  sun-hawk,  the  goddess  Friga  of  the 
Edda  and  Asia  Minor,  the  Egyptian  hawk-headed  god- 
dess   Hathor,  depicted  on  the  walls  of  the  temple  of  the 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Adivanshavatdrana)  Parva,  Ixiii.  pp.  174,  175. 

'  Biihler,  Manu,  vii.   193;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  p.  247,  note  3;  Mahabharata 
Virata  (Pandava-pravfsha)  Parva,  vii.,  viii.  pp,  18,  19. 

^  Mahabharata  Virata  {Goharana)  Parva,  xlvi.  fT.  pp.  109  Hf. 

*  Mahabharata  Virata  ( Vaivdhika)  Parva,  Ixxii.  pp.  182  fl*. 


192  History  and  Chronology 

Virgin  -  mother  at  Denderah  as  the  Pole  Star  goddess, 
giving  birth  at  Midsummer  to  the  hawk-headed  sun-god 
Horus^  She  was  the  Greek  goddess  Kirke,  the  hawk 
{KipKoi),  who  concealed  Odusseus,  the  sun  and  star-god 
Orion,  in  her  island  Aiaia,  and  changed  his  followers  into 
the  swine  sacred  to  the  phallus  worshippers. 

This  fish-born  royal  line  were  the  kings  who  led  the 
Northern  immigrants,  who  had  introduced  into  India 
Northern  crops,  the  custom  of  marriage  and  the  worship 
of  the  household  fire,  and  had  amalgamated  themselves 
with  the  people  who  ruled  the  land  before  their  arrival, 
and  had  divided  it  into  organised  villages,  provinces  and 
groups  of  allied  and  confederated  provinces. 

These  grouped  provinces  were  ruled  by  hereditary  chiefs, 
and  under  the  first  organisation  framed  by  the  Northern 
conquerors,  who  preceded  the  sons  of  the  eel,  and  their 
indigenous  allies,  the  state  seems  to  have  been  divided 
into  three  divisions,  such  as  those  still  existing  in  the  tri- 
butary Bhuya  State  of  Gangpore.  The  central  province, 
watered  by  the  Eebe,  is  the  appanage  of  the  king,  while 
the  Eastern  province  of  Nuggra  is  held  by  his  hereditary 
prime-minister  and  high-priest,  the  Mahapatur,  and  the 
Western  province,  Hingir,  by  the  Gharoutea  or  house- 
manager,  who  afterwards  became  the  Sena-pati  or  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  (sena).  These  three  chiefs 
represent  the  hereditary  leaders  of  the  Bhuya  or  earth 
[hhnvi)  clan,  formed  by  a  union  of  the  Northern  immigrants 
with  their  Southern  predecessors.  This  model  is  that 
followed  in  all  the  states  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of 
Jambu-dvipa,  for  in  Chutia  Nagpur,  Pachete,  Sirgoojya, 
Chuttisgurh,  and  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Magadha,  the 
central  province  is  always  held  by  the  king,  and  those 
surrounding  it  by  his  subordinate  chieftains,  and  the  na- 
tionality of  these  chieftains  gives  us  a  most  reliable  clue 
to  the  ancient  history  of  India. 

'  Marsham  Adams,  The  Book  of  the  Master y  chap,   vi.,  The  Temple  of  the 
Virgin-Mother,  pp.  67 — 71. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  193 

Thus,  if  we  take  as  illustrative  instances  of  national  history 
thus  told,  the  kingdoms  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  Sirgoojya  and 
Chuttisgurh,  we  find  that  in  the  first  the  village  and  provin-. 
cial  organisation  is  that  of  the  Ooraons,  but  with  them  are 
intermixed  their  predecessors  the  Mundas,  whose  villages  are 
interspersed  among  those  of  the  Ooraons  in  the  royal  central 
province  of  Kokhra,  which   has  been  formed    by  amalga- 
mating a  large  number  of  Munda  Parhas,  which  still  survive 
in  local  geography,  and   each    of  which  retains  its  distinc- 
tive flag.     The  border  provinces   to   the   North   and   East 
are  held   chiefly   by   Munda   chiefs,   but    there    are    some 
governed  by  Rautia  Kaurs,  while  the  Ramgurh  or  Hazari- 
bagh  district   to  the    North,   the  hereditary   appanage   of 
.  the  Commander-in-chief,  is  ruled  by  a  Kharwar  Raja. 

In  Sirgoojya  and  Jushpore,  which  once  formed  part 
of  Sirgoojya,  the  primitive  element  is  supplied  by  the 
Korwas,  of  the  Munda  stock,  and  next  above  them  in  the 
social  scale  are  the  Gonds.  The  hereditary  prime  minister 
holding  the  central  province  of  Pilka  is  a  Gond,  and  so  is 
the  chief  of  Ramkola,  the  Northern  province,  the  appan- 
age of  the  Commander  -  in  -  chief  The  Southern  frontier 
province  of  Oodeypore  belonged  to  the  Kaurs  before  it 
came  into  the  hands  of  a  younger  branch  of  the  family 
of  the  Sirgoojya  Raja,  and  the  Kaurs  also  hold  frontier 
provinces  in  Jushpore,  and  the  family  of  the  present  Raja, 
though  they  now  call  themselves  Rajputs,  were  originally 
Kaurs,  for  they  obtained  possession  of  the  governments 
on  the  marriage  of  the  ancestor  of  the  present  Raja  with 
the  daughter  of  the  Kaur  Raja,  whose  ancestors  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  original  Gond  chief. 

Chuttisgurh,  like  Sirgoojya  adjoining  it,  was  originally  a 
Gond  kingdom,  but  the  primitive  inhabitants  were  not 
Korwas  but  Marya  Gonds  intermixed  with  Mons  to  form 
the  race  of  Souris,  Suari  or  Sus,  the  original  sons  of  the 
bird  Khu,  with  primitive  Finn  elements.  They  have  left  the 
traces  of  their  presence  in  the  name  of  the  province  of 
Belaspore,  which  is  called  after  the  god  Bel,  the  sun  and 


194  History  and  Chronology 

fire-god  of  the  Souris »,  a  name  which  marks  their  Akkadian 
descent.  Raipur,  the  second  capital  of  Chuttisgurh,  and  once 
the  central  royal  province,  points  to  the  rule  of  the  Raj  Gonds, 
worshippers  of  Rai  or  Ragh,  and  marks  the  connection  of 
the  Gond-Kaur  dynasty  of  the  Haihaya  or  Haiobunsi  kings 
of  Central  India  with  the  sun-god  Rahu  or  Raghu.  In  the 
vestiges  of  the  ancient  records  of  these  kings  preserved  in 
the  family  of  their  hereditary  Prime  Ministers  we  find  that 
the  dominions  of  the  Haihaya,  who  were  finally  dethroned 
by  the  Mahrathas  in  1750  A.D.,  extended  in  1560  A.D.  over 
a  large  expanse  of  country.  In  the  lists  of  the  royal  revenues 
of  Luchmun  Sen,  who  was  then  ruler  of  Chuttisgurh,  his 
kingdom  included  not  only  Chuttisgurh  but  also  the  adjoin- 
ing territories  of  Sirgoojya,  Chutia  Nagpur,  Sumbulpore, 
Kharond  and  Bustar^,  covering  a  greater  area  than  the 
whole  of  France,  and  this  was  then  stated  to  be  much  less 
than  the  Haihayas  originally  ruled  as  Lords  paramount,  not 
only  of  Jambu-dwipa  or  Central,  but  also  of  Northern  India. 
That  the  Hai-hayas  became  ultimately  Kaurs  through  the. 
marriage  of  a  Kaur  prince  with  a  Raj  Gond  princess  is 
proved  by  the  great  influence  exercised  by  the  Kaurs  in 
Chuttisgurh,  and  the  large  estates  held  by  them  ;  among 
these  are  the  frontier  estates  to  the  North  and  East  of  the 
province. 

We  can,  in  the  ruling  tribes  of  this  extensive  tract,  trace 
the  history  of  the  country  from  the  primitive  times  when 
it  was  peopled  by  the  Marya  or  tree  {marom)  Gonds,  the 
earliest  Dravidian  founders  of  villages,  and  the  Korwas,  the 
aboriginal  Mons  from  the  North-east.  They  were  succeeded 
by  the  Ugro-Finn  tribes,  who  introduced  sorcery  and  witch- 
craft, and  by  the  Bhils  or  men  of  the  bow.  Their  union 
formed  the  Souris,  Bhuyas,  Muudas  and  Gonds.  The  last 
covered  the  country  with  villages,  each  ruled  by  its  head- 

'  The  Souris  call  the  sun  Bel. 

'See  list  of  ancient  Haihaibunsi  provinces  and  their  revenues  in  Hewitt, 
Report  of  the  Land  Revenue  Settlements  of  the  Chuttisgurh  Division,  ss.  55,  56, 
pp.  16,  17. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  195 

man  and  his  four  assistants,  making  the  village  Panchayut 
or  council  of  five,  and  separated  from  its  neighbours  by  the 
boundaries  guarded  by  the  boundary-snake-god  Goraya  and 
his  priests  the  Goraits.  They  were  succeeded  by  the  Khar- 
wars  or  sons  of  the  eel-god,  and  they  again  by  the  Kaurs  or 
Kauravyasy  who  extended  their  rule  over  the  whole  country, 
and  who,  by  their  pre-eminent  agricultural  aptitude,  made 
it  populous  and  prosperous.  They  made  water  reservoirs 
in  almost  every  village  in  the  plateau  of  Chuttisgurh,  and 
everywhere  where  the  Kaurs  have  been  left  in  undisturbed 
possession  of  their  ancestral  lands  you  find  the  people  more 
thriving  and  well-to-do  than  in  any  of  the  neighbouring 
properties,  except  those  peopled  by  their  very  near  con- 
geners the  Kurmis.  Both  the  Kaurs  and  Kurmis  call  them- 
selves the  sons  of  the  mango-tree,  for  in  both  clans  husbands 
are  first  married  to  a  mango  tree  '. 

This  descent  from  the  mango-tree  marks  their  identity 
with  the  race  of  the  Magadha  kings,  represented  by  Jara- 
sandha,  the  grandson  of  Vasu,  the  central  prong  of  the 
divine  trident.  He  was  son  of  Vrihadratha,  who  married 
the  twin  daughters  of  the  King  of  Kashi,  and  as  the  story 
is  clearly  a  variant  of  the  marriage  of  Vichitra  Virya,  the 
reputed  father  of  the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas,  they  were 
the  two  national  mothers  Ambika  and  Ambalika,  who  were, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Pole  Star  in  Cygnus,  and  the  stars 
of  the  Great  Bear.  They,  in  the  Jarasandha  form  of  the 
story,  had  only  one  son  between  them,  who  was  conceived 
from  the  mango  given  to  the  two  queens  by  the  national 
priest  Chandra-Kushika,  the  moon-god  (Chandra)  of  the 
Kushikas.  Each  queen  bore  half  a  son,  and  the  two  parts 
were  united  together  by  an  old  woman,  Jara,  old  age,  to 
form  the  king  Jarasandha,  the  union  {sandhi)  by  lapse  of 
time  (Jara)  ^.     Hence  he  was  the  uniter  of  the  Northern  and 


'  Risley,    Trides  and  Castes  of  Bengal,  Rautias,   vol.  ii.  p.  201,  Kurmis, 
vol.  i.  p.  504. 
'  MahabharaU  Sabha  {Rdjasuyd-rambha)  Parva,  xvii.  pp.  54,  55. 

O    2 


196  History  and  Chronology 

Southern  stocks  forming  the  confederacy  of  the  Kushikas  or 
Kauravyas.  He  was  a  worshipper  of  the  three-eyed  trident- 
bearing-god  Shiva,  to  whom  he  offered  human  sacrifices; 
and  he  and  his  generals,  Kansa  or  Hansa,  the  moon-goose 
{kans  or  hans)^  also  called  Kushika  and  Dimvaka,  he  of  the 
two  tongues  (vaka),  also  called  Chitrasena,  or  he  of  the  army 
(sena)  of  divers  colours  {chitra),  had  conquered  all  Nor- 
thern India  before  he  was  slain  by  the  Pandava  Bhima  and 
Krishna ',  ^ 

This  story  tells  of  the  age  when  the  whole  of  Northern 
and  Central  India  was  ruled  by  Kaur  or  Haihaya  kings, 
who  were  said  in  the  Vishnu  Purana  to  have  formerly  ruled 
Ayodhya  {Oude),  and  the  relics  of  this  ruling  race  still 
survive  in  Ghazipur,  where  the  Raja  of  Huldi  is  a  Haiobunsi. 
The  remembrance  of  their  rule  is  recorded  in  the  ancient 
name  Ahi-kshetra,  the  land  of  the  Ahis  or  snakes,  given  to 
Northern  Panchala  in  the  Mahabharata  before  the  con- 
secration of  the  later  sacred  land  of  Kuru-kshetra,  between 
the  Sarasvati  and  Drishadvati  2.  This  was  the  land  ruled 
by  Drona,  the  tree-trunk,  the  original  mother-tree  of  the 
primitive  races,  and  this  name  of  the  land  of  the  snake 
given  to  the  original  Haihaya  territory  extending  from  the 
Himalayas  to  the  Godaveri,  survives  in  the  original  ver- 
nacular form,  of  which  Ahikshetra  is  a  Sanskrit  translation, 
in  the  Gond  names  of  Nagpur  and  Chutla  Nagpur  given 
to  the  land  of  Central  India,  ruled  by  the  Nag-bunsi  or 
Haihaya  kings.  It  was  the  Kaur  immigrants  from  the  North 
who  changed  the  name  of  the  land  of  the  Naga  snakes 
into  that  of  the  Kaurs  or  Kurus,  and  the  Kaurs  of  Central 
India  who  retain  the  old  customs  and  ritual  of  their  fathers 
are  still  like  their  ancestors  in  the  neolithic  age,  for  they 
bury  their  dead,  perform  their  religious  ceremonies  by  their 
own  tribal  priests ;  eat  beef,  pork  and  fowls  without  any 
scruple ;  and  drink  fermented  and  spirituous  liquors.     They 

*  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Rajasuya-rambha)  Parva,  xiv.  pp.  46,  47,  xix.  p.  60, 
Sabha  (Jardsandha-badhd)  Parva,  xxii.  p.  68. 
'  Mahabharata  Adi  {^Sambhonfo)  Parva,  clx.  p.  413, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  197 

show  their  Northern  descent  by  their  reverence  for  the 
Great  Bear  constellation,  which  they  call  that  of  the  Seven 
Sisters,  to  whom  a  shrine  is  erected  in  every  village  near 
that  of  Goraya,  tlie  boundary-god  '. 

The  very  great  antiquity  of  the  legendary  history  of  their 
nile,  and  that  of  their  king  Jarasandha,  is  marked  by  the 
date  of  the  latter's  death.     He  was  killed  as  the  year-god 
of  a  dying  epoch,  and  the  year  which  he  ruled  was   one 
reckoned,  not  like  the  years  ruled  by  Orion  and  the  sun- 
bird,  by  the  solstices,  but  on  the  basis  of  the  oldest  Pleiades 
year   beginning    in    November.      For  the  contest   between 
Bhima,  the  son  of  Maroti,  the  tree-ape-god,  and  Jarasandha 
began  with  the  first  lunar  day,  that  is,  with  the  new  moon 
of  Khartik  (October — November),  and  lasted   through  the 
whole  of  the  light  fortnight  of  the  month,  as  it  was  not  till 
the  night  of  the  14th,  that  is  on  the  fifteenth  night  of  the 
month,  that  Jarasandha  was  slain  as  the  year-god  of  the 
year  of  the  Karanas,  divided  into  twelve  months  of  twenty- 
nine  days  each  2.     It  was  not  till  the  death  of  Jarasandha, 
the  year-god   of  the  year  of  the  mango-tree-mother,  that 
Krishna,   the   new  year-god  of  the   antelope  race,  and  his 
year-sun-bird   Gadura,    the   flying-bull   {^gud)   of   light,  the 
Hebrew  and  Assyrian  Kerub,  the  flying-bull,  took  possession 
of  his  chariot.      This  was  the  crystal  year-car  of  Vasu  or 
Vasukia,  the  god  of  the  summer  solstice,  who  had  planted 
upon  the  Sakti  mountains  the  bamboo-pole  surmounted  with 
the  lotus-garland  as  the  sign  of  the  national  rain-pole,  the 
Asherah  of  the  Northern  immigrants  who  worshipped  the 
household  fire.     They  had  become  the  Kauravya  or  Kaur 
sons   of  the   tortoise    {kur),   and   had    established   all   over 
Northern   India  the   rule  of  the  Kaur  or  Kurmi  dynasty, 
which  is  still  remembered  in  local  Central  Indian  tradition  as 

'  Rbley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  ii.,  Rautias,  p.  204,  vol.  i.,  Kaurs, 
PP-  435.  436 ;  Hewitt,  Report  on  the  Land  Revenue  SeUlenwU  of  Chuttisgurh, 
Kaurs,  s.  115,  116,  p. 35. 

'  Mahabharata  Sabha  (  /arasandha-badha)  Panra,  xxiii.,  xxiv.  pp.  7^1  73* 

^  Ibid.,  xxiv.  pp.  75,  76. 


198  History  and  Chronology 

the  original  imperial  power,  and  the  remains  of  their  moun- 
tain capital  still  survive  in  the  hill  jungles  of  Southern 
Sirgoojya. 

These  Kaur-kurmi  kings  were  followers,  like  their  present 
descendants,  of  Kabir^  originally  the  great  ape-god,  and  were 
descended  from  this  god  in  his  avatar  of  the  Great  Potter, 
who  made  the  earth  revolve  as  the  potter's  wheel.  Their 
year  is  that  commemorated  in  the  legend  of  the  churning 
of  Vasuki,  with  the  revolving  Mount  Mandara  as  the  dasher 
of  his  churn.  This,  the  mother-mountain  of  the  Indian 
Kushikas,  is  the  hill  Parisnath,  lord  (iiath)  of  the  traders 
{Paris)y  on  the  Burrakur  in  the  east  of  Chutia  Nagpur.  It 
is  the  sacred  Eastern  mountain  of  the  Jains,  whose  first 
Tlrthakara  was  Rishabha,  the  bull  of  Koshala  or  of  the 
Kushikas,  born  in  the  dark  fortnight  of  Ashadha  (June — 
July),  that  is  at  the  summer  solstice.  He  was  the  son  of 
Maru-devi,  the  tree-mountain-goddess,  and  of  Nabhi,  the 
navel,  the  central  turner  of  the  earth  ^  In  this  birth-story 
as  told  in  the  Mahabharata,  the  god  churned  from  the  ocean 
by  the  potter  Vasuki  is  not  the  bull,  but  Ucchai-shravas,  the 
horse  with  long  ears,  that  is,  the  ass,  and  the  mother  who 
bore  him  was  the  snake-god  Shesh  Nag  or  Ananta,  the 
Gond  Sek  Nag,  who  had  been  deposed  by  Vasuki,  and 
placed  below  the  earth  as  the  ocean-snake  guarding  the 
foundations  of  the  mother-mountain  2.  This  ass-son  of  the 
ocean-mother  is  the  three-legged  ass  of  the  Bundahish  with 
six  eyes  and  nine  mouths,  the  six  and  nine  days  of  the  week 
of  this  and  the  succeeding  cycle  epocli,  and  one  horn,  the 
gnomon  pillar.  It  made  all  women  pregnant,  and  was  the 
chief  assistant  of  Tishtrya  (Sin'us)  in  bringing  up  the  rains 
of  the  summer  solstice  from  the  ocean  3.  It  was  born  as  the 
ruler  of  the  next  epoch  of  time  measurement,  when  it  was 
divided  into  cycles  of  three  years.     In  this  age  India  was 

*  Jacobi,  /aina  SHiras  Kalpa  Sutra;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxii.  p.  281. 
=*  Mahabharata  Adi  {AsUka)  Parva,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xxxv.,  xxxvi.  pp.  78— 81, 
113— 116. 
3  West,  Bundahish^  xix.  I,  ii  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  pp.  67—69. 


of  the  Myth'Makitig  Age.  199 

divided,  according  to  the  early  geography  of  the  country 
sketched  in  the  Mahabharata,  into  a  number  of  federated 
states  forming  larger  aggregates,  called  the  kingdoms  of 
Anga  (Magadha  and  the  North-east),  Vanga  (Bengal  and 
Orissa),  Kalinga  (the  Dravidia  of  the  South),  Pundra  (the 
North  Centre  and  South-west),  and  Shamba  (the  North-west), 
the  land  of  the  Kurus,  sons  of  the  javelin  (Shamba)^  the 
Gond  symbol  of  the  phallic-god,  encased  in  the  female 
bamboo  and  coated  with  Kusha  grass,  which  had  been  the 
Shelah  or  spear  of  the  Jews. 

These  five  divisions  of  ancient  India  are  called  in  the 
Mahabharata  the  sons  of  the  blind-god  Dirghatamas,  the 
long  {dirgJia)  darkness  (Jamas),  the  sun-gnomon  stone,  and 
the  river  Tamas,  mother  of  the  eel-born  Haihaya  kings  ; 
and  their  mother  was  Su-deshna,  the  mother  of  the  land 
(desk)  of  the  bird  (5«),  wife  of  Vali,  the  revolving  {vri) 
earth ',  the  Pole  Star  mother  Tara,  who  married,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  Rama  story,  Su^riva  the  ape,  after  the  death 
of  ValL 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  (Sambhava)  Parva,  civ.  p.  316. 


BOOK    II. 

THE   AGE  OF    LUNAR-SOLAR   WORSHIP. 


CHAPTER    V. 

The  epoch  of  the  three-years  cycle  and  of 

the  nine-days  w^ek. 

THE  birth  of  the  three-legged  ass  as  ruler  of  time  opens 
the  history  of  a  totally  new  conception  of  time  measure- 
ment. The  years  of  the  Pleiades,  the  sun-bird,  Canopus  and 
Orion,  and  the  deer-sun,  those  reckoned  by  the  primitive 
agricultural  and  hunting  races,  were  in  this  epoch  superseded 
by  a  division  of  time  devised  by  the  pastoral  cattle  breeders, 
who  became  the  ruling  powers  in  those  regions  bordering  on 
the  Indian  Ocean  and  the  Mediterranean,  which  had  hitherto 
been  governed  by  the  matriarchal  farmers  and  the  Basque 
patriarchists,  who  were  born  from  the  union  of  the  matriar- 
chal Dravidians  with  the  hunting  races  of  the  North.  These 
feeders  of  flocks  and  herds  were  more  interested  in  com- 
puting the  periods  of  gestation  of  the  animals  which  they 
tended  than  in  the  succession  of  the  seasons  of  the  sowing, 
growing  and  ripening  of  crops.  The  leading  herdsmen  were 
the  tribes  called  in  India  Koi-kopal  or  mountain  shepherds, 
who  were,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Song  of  Lingal,  the  directors 
of  the  Kushika  and  Trigarta  Confederacies.  They  had  now 
come  down  from  the  mountains,  and  grazed  their  cattle 
in  the  river  valleys,  and  called  the  cow  and  bull  their 
totem  parents.  Their  year  was  that  measured  by  ten  lunar 
months,  the  period  of  gestation  of  the  cow-mother,  but 
as  this  period  did  not  cover  the  circle  of  the  seasons  accord- 
ing to  which  the  national  agricultural  festivals  were  arranged, 


History  and  Chronology  of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  201 

they  were  obliged,  in  order  to  prevent  the  confusion  that 
would  ensue  from  the  clashing  of  their  tribal  calendar  with 
that  of  the  confederacy  they  ruled,  to  devise  a  system  of 
time  reckoning  which  would  provide  for  the  harmonious 
working  of  the  two  systems. 

But  in  order  to  understand  their  method  of  year  measure- 
ment thoroughly  it  is  necessary  to  examine  their  national 
history.  They,  as  worshippers  of  the  household  fire,  the 
descendants  of  the  Bru-ges  of  Thrace,  who  became  the 
Indian  Bhri-gu,  were  originally  the  people  called  in  Asia 
Minor  by  the  Turanian  Finns,  who  changed  the  Aryan 
bh  into  ph,  the  Phrygians  or  sons  of  fire  {phur)^  born  of  the 
union  of  the  Indian  farmers  with  the  Northern  hunters  and 
the  North-eastern  Finns.  Their  legendary  father-king  was 
Midas,  which  was  apparently  a  name  assumed  on  their 
succession  by  all  the  kings  of  Phrygia,  just  as  all  Egyptian 
kings  were  called  Pharaoh.  Each  king,  as  he  succeeded 
to  power,  became  the  reputed  son  of  the  cave-goddess 
Cybele  and  of  her  High-Priest,  that  is  of  the  fire-gods, 
the  fire-mother,  the  diorite  stone  which  represented  the 
goddess  in  her  most  sacred  shrine  at  Pessinus,  and  the  god 
of  the  hammer,  who  drew  fire  from  it,  the  Northern  smith, 
the  Thor  of  the  Edda,  the  wielder  of  Mjolnir,  whose  car 
was  drawn  by  goats.  This  father-king,  continually  repro- 
duced in  his  successive  descendants,  was  reputed  to  have 
had  asses  ears,  and  his  subjects,  the  Satyrs,  were  said  to 
have  goat's  or  asses  ears  and  goat's  or  asses  feet  and  tails. 
in  short,  they  were  the  sons  of  the  mountain-goat,  who 
subsequently  became  the  sons  of  the  wild  ass  of  Syria, 
on  which  Silenus,  their  god,  descended  from  the  ape-father 
of  India,  rode. 

This  historical  story  of  the  year-king  with  asses  or  horse's 
ears,  belonging  apparently  to  Asia  Minor,  the  land  of  the 
ass,  is  repeated  in  the  Welsh  and  Irish  stories  of  March  ab 
Meirchion  and  Labraid  Lore  with  the  swift  hand  or  the 
sword.  March  is  the  Brythonic  horse  who  was  in  Goidelic 
the  ass,  and  the  king  of  Galatia,  the  Celtic  province  of  Asia 


202        *  History  and  Chronology 

Minor.  Both  killed  every  barber  who  shaved  them  and 
found  out  the  secret  of  their  ears.  This  horse  or  ass-king 
was  the  Indian  Ashva,  the  horse  or  ass  of  Indra,  the  rain- 
god  called  Ucchai-shravas  with  the  long  ears,  and  was  in 
Celtic  mythology  that  given  by  Midir,  the  king  of  the 
lower  world,  to  Rib,  and  by  Mac  Oc  to  Eochaid,  the  sun-god, 
when  they  had  killed  the  horses  of  Rib  and  Eochaid  after 
they  escaped  with  their  father's  second  wife,  Ebliu,  who  was 
in  love  with  Eochaid.  This  horse  was  the  sun-horse  who 
made  with  his  hoofs  a  well,  over  which  Eochaid  built 
a  house,  which  was  submerged  by  the  water  of  the  well 
which  filled  Lough  Neagh  when  the  woman-priestess  in 
charge  of  the  holy  well  forgot  to  cover  it  We  shall  see  the 
importance  of  this  story  when  I  treat  of  the  well  of  Hippo- 
crene,  made  by  the  hoofs  of  Pegasus,  the  horse  of  Belle- 
rophon  or  Baal  Raphon,  the  sun-physician.  March  was 
king  of  the  Fomori,  or  men  beneath  {fo)  the  sea  (muir),  and 
his  swine,  the  holy  animals  of  the  Phrygians  or  Bhrigu, 
were  guarded  by  Drystan,  the  Pictic  Drostan,  who  seems 
to  be  a  tree-god  of  the  Druid  sons  of  a  tree  {dru).  He  was 
induced  to  swear  fealty  to  Arthur,  or  Airem,  the  ploughing 
(dr)  sun-god,  by  Gwalch-mei,  the  Hawk  of  May.  In  the  spot 
where  March  buried  those  who  shaved  him  reeds  grew,  and 
when  a  bard  cut  a  pipe  from  these  reeds  the  only  music 
they  could  play  was  "  March  has  horse's  ears." 

A  similar  incident  is  recorded  in  the  story  of  Labraid 
Lore,  who  was  leader  of  the  Fir  Domnann  and  Gaili6iny  the 
men  of  the  Gai  or  sun-spear,  the  Dubgaill  or  Black  Strangers, 
who  were  allies  of  the  Fomori,  and  came  to  aid  them  in 
battle.  Liban,  the  Welsh  LHon,  called  Muirgen  the  sea- 
born, was  his  wife,  and  he  persuaded  Cuchulainn  the  sun- 
god,  to  live  for  a  month  with  Fand  Liban's  sister,  who 
shared  with  her  the  rule  of  the  year,  and  also  to  aid  the 
Fomori  as  the  king  of  the  Southern  sun  beneath  the  sea. 
Labraid  was  shaved  by  a  widow's  son,  whom  he  did  not  slay, 
but  who  fell  ill  from  the  possession  of  the  secret  of  his  ears. 
A  druid  cured  him  by  telling  him  to  turn  sun-wise  and  tell 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  203 

his  secret  to  the  first  tree  on  the  right-hand  side.  This  was 
a  willow,  the  parent-tree  of  the  Iberian  sons  of  the  rivers, 
and  the  harps  made  from  it  would  only  play  "  Labraid  has 
horse's  ears'."  The  wide  diffusion  of  this  story  with  the 
accompanying  changes  of  Midir's,  Midas's  and  Tishtrya's 
ass*  into  the  sun-horse  of  Eochaid  and  Indra,  the  sun-gods, 
show  it  to  be  a  relic  of  ancient  history  universally  accepted 
as  recording  the  substitution  of  the  sun-ass  for  the  sun-bird, 
and  the  sun-horse  for  the  sun-ass. 

These  sons  of  the  sun-ass  were  the  Minyan  or  measuring 
(»««)  race,  equally  skilled  as  agriculturists  and  herdsmen, 
who  in  Greece  made  the  subterranean  channels  draining  the 
lake  Copais  of  its  superfluous  waters.  In  Arabia  they  built 
the  great  Minyan  reservoir  of  Ma'arib,  and  in  India  made 
the  village  tanks  and  the  large  lake  reservoirs  of  Central 
and  Southern  India,  which  survive  as  relics  of  Kurmi  rule, 
such  as  that  of  Nowagaon  in  the  Bhundara  district  of  the 
Central  Provinces,  seventeen  miles  round.  As  sons  of  the 
mother-tree  and  of  the  Indian  agricultural  races,  they  began 
their  day  and  year  in  the  evening,  and  reckoned  their  day  and 
night  from  the  time  of  the  setting  of  the  equatorial  sun  of 
their  Dravidian  ancestors.  In  northern  countries  this  could 
only  be  made  to  coincide  with  actual  sunset  at  the  equinoxes, 
and  hence  they  made  their  year  begin  with  the  autumnal 
equinox.  This  gave  them  the  sunset  time  they  sought  for 
at  a  period  of  the  year  very  near  the  beginning  of  the 
original  Pleiades  year,  opening  with  the  Thesmophoria  of 
October — November.  From  this  starting-point  they  devised 
a  time  unit  reconciling  in  a  three-years  cyle  of  forty  sidereal 
months,  divided  into  four  periods  each  of  ten  months,  the 
gestational  and  seasonal  measures  of  the  year. 


'  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore^  vol.  i.  pp.  23 1,  233,  vol.  ii.  pp.  435 — 437,  480,  499, 
572—574;  Ibid.,  The  Arthurian  Legend^  pp.  356,  357,  378—380;  Ibid., 
Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  v.  p.  460—463,  Lect.  vi.  p.  589,  note  I,  591. 

^  In  the  Bundahish  the  bringer  up  of  the  rains  of  Tishtrya  at  the  summer 
solstice  is  the  same  ass  who  was  in  India  Ucchai-shravas,  the  long-eared  horse 
of  India.    West,  Bundahish^  xlx.  i — 11 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  pp.  67—69. 


204  History  and  Chronology 

The  autumnal  equinox  was  celebrated  as  the  birthday 
of  the  sun-god  conceived  at  the  winter  solstice,  when  the 
deer-sun-year  began.  The  infant  sun  of  Syria,  where  the 
conception  apparently  first  received  official  sanction,  was 
the  sun-god  born  of  the  cypress-tree,  the  Adonis  Tammuz 
or  Dumu-zi  of  Antioch,  whose  birth  was  there  celebrated 
at  the  autumnal  equinox  by  the  finding  of  the  Gardens  of 
Adonis  fil&oi/iSos  Krproi),  the  boxes  or  square  jars  of  fennel, 
lettuce,  wheat  and  barley,  which  had  been  sown  and  hidden 
by  the  women  who  mourned  the  death  of  the  year-god,  and 
brought  his  new-born  successor  to  life  in  the  sprouting  crops 
produced  when  the  first  week  measuring  the  year  was  ended. 
These  boxes  were  the  Drona,  the  hollowed  tree-trunk,  from 
which  the  divine  seed  sprouted  in  the  Indian  land  of  Ahi- 
kshetra,  the  Sanskrit  form  of  the  Gond  Nagpur  or  country 
of  the  Nagas,  in  which  Drona  was  king,  the  Drona,  which 
in  the  Soma  ritual  was  worshipped  as  the  Supreme  god 
Prajapati  {Orion),  called  in  the  Brahmanas  Ka  Who  ?  and 
invoked  in  Rg.  x,  121,  under  that  name,  as  the  "Creator 
of  heaven  and  earth  and  all  living  things,  who  is  born  from 
the  Golden  Womb  ^"  This  land  of  the  holy  tree-trunk  was 
the  Northern  Indian  land  of  the  Gangetic  Doab,  the  country 
of  the  people  first  called  Panchalas,  or  men  of  the  five-days 
week,  and  who  afterwards  took  the  name  of  Srinjaya  or  men 
of  the  sickle  (srini),  when  their  union  with  immigrants  from 
Asia  Minor  had  made  them  members  of  the  confederacy 
of  the  corn-growing  races  who  introduced  millets,  barley  and 
wheat.  This  sickle  was  the  instrument  with  which  they  cut 
their  corn  crops,  and  also  the  symbol  of  the  crescent-moon, 
the  father-god  of  the  cycle-year,  the  Harpe  of  the  Greek 
year-god  Kronos,  and  that  with  which  the  Assyrian  god 
Bel  Merodach  or  Marduk,  the  calf,  slew  Tiamut,  the  mother- 
goddess  of  the  former  era. 

*  Eggeling,   Sat,  Brdh,,  iv.   5,  5,   11,  iv.  5,  6,  4;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.   pp. 
408,  410. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  205 

A.    Birth  of  the  sun-god  dated  by  Zodiacal  stars. 

They  began  their  cycle  with  the  birth  of  the  sun-god  at 
the  first  new  moon  following  the  autumnal  equinox,  and  the 
young  sun-god  then  born  was  the  Ram-sun,  the  Hermes 
Kriophoros,  the  ram  [icpios)  bearer  of  the  Greeks,  the  sun- 
gnomon  pillar  (Ipfjui)  represented  on  the  Palmyrene  altar 
in  Rome,  and  on  many  coins  and  bas-reliefs  as  rising  out 
of  the  mother-tree  with  the  ram  on  his  shoulders '.  This 
ram,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  sacred  to  Varuna,  god 
of  the  barley,  Varuna's  corn  *,  became  the  totem  parent 
of  the  sons  of  Ila,  the  eel-goddess,  in  her  avatar  as  the 
sheep-mother  Eda  of  the  Madras  Kurumbas,  and  who  finally 
became  the  cow-mother  of  the  sons  of  Ida  raised  from  the 
flood  by  Manu  by  the  oflTering  of  clarified  butter,  sour  milk, 
whey  and  curds,  and  who  was  claimed  at  her  birth  by  Mitra- 
Varuna,  in  whose  theology  she  as  the  sheep-mother  had  been 
a  mother-goddess.  But  in  her  new  birth  she  refused  their 
claim, and  acknowledged  Manu,  the  measurer, as  her  fathers. 
This  sun,  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  when  the  Jewish 
year  opened  with  blasts  from  ram's  horns  also  began,  begot 
at  his  birth  the  sun  of  the  divine  seed,  who  was  to  be  born  at 
the  summer  solstice  ending  the  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation. 
The  sun  of  this  new  birth  then  begot  the  sun-god  to  be  born 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  who  was  the  parent  of  the  sun-god 
of  the  winter  solstice,  whose  offspring  closed  the  three-years 
cycle  at  his  birth  at  the  autumnal  equinox.  The  parent- 
father  of  this  cyclic  succession  of  equinoctial  and  solstitial 
sun-gods  was  the  crescent-moon,  and  the  months  were  not 
those  of  Orion's  year  of  twenty-nine  days  each,  but  were 
measured  by  the  sidereal  star  circle,  represented  by  the 
twenty-seven    Hindu   Nakshatra   or  Nagkshetra,  the   fields 

[kshethra)  of  the  Nags  or  beacon  stars,  at  which  the  moon 

'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  v.  pp.  87 — 91  ;  Goblet  d'Alviella,   Thf  Miration 
of  Symbols^  p.  142. 
'  Hggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  ii.  5,  2,  I  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  391. 
^  Ibid.,  i.  8,  I,  7 — 9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  218,  219. 


I 


2o6  History  and  Chronology 

rested  during  his  monthly  circuit  of  the  heavens;  and  the 
first  of  these  star-stations  in  the  list  given  by  Brahma  Gupta 
was  that  of  the  Ashvins  or  twin  horsemen  in  the  star 
^  Arietis  in  the  constellation  of  the  Ram '.  These,  we  are 
told  in  the  Vishnu  Dharma,  represented  the  27  days  of  the 
sidereal  month  ^  that  is  to  say  the  sidereal  month  was  so 
calculated  that  the  forty  months  of  the  cycle  of  27  days  each 
measured  27  x  40  or  1,080  days,  the  same  number  as  that 
making  up  the  cycle  of  three  years  of  360  days  each,  or 
3  X  360,  1,080  days. 

This  division  of  time,  while  recognising  the  circuit  of 
the  equinoctial  and  solstitial  sun-star  round  the  Pole,  in- 
troduced a  new  element  in  time  measurement  by  marking 
the  monthly  track  of  the  moon  through  the  stars.  And, 
together  with  the  certain  proof  thus  given  of  the  introduction 
of  the  lunar  zodiac  into  the  measurement  of  the  year,  it 
seems  probable  that  the  beginning  of  a  solar  zodiac  was 
made  at  the  same  period.  For  its  commencement  with 
the  birth  of  the  ram-sun  at  the  autumnal  equinox  and 
the  adoption  of  fi  Arietis  in  the  Ram  constellation  as  the 
first  of  the  lunar  stations,  seems  to  show  that  the  sun  was 
in  conjunction  with  the  new  moon  in  Aries  at  the  autumnal 
equinox  when  this  cycle-year  was  introduced.  This  being 
the  case,  we  can  make  a  very  near  approximation  to  the 
date  when  the  cycle-year  began.  Sir  N.  Lockyer3  states 
that  the  period  of  the  revolution  of  the  equinox  forming 
the  circle  of  the  changing  Pole  Stars  is  24450  years.  During 
this  time  the  sun  going  through  the  twelve  signs  of  the 
Zodiac  moves  forward  one  sign  in  about  2,037  years.  It 
was  in  /8  Arietis,  at  the  vernal  equinox,  about  2000  B.  C, 
and  hence  the  period  during  which   it  had  moved  forward 

*  J.  Burgess,  C.I.E.,  *  Hindu  Astronomy.'  Journal  Royal  Asiatic  Socitiy^ 
Oct.,  1893,  p.  756.  This  is  in  Akkadian  Astronomy  the  constellation  Gam, 
the  curved,  that  of  the  sickle,  «  /3  7,  Arietis,  with  which  Kronos  emasculated 
Ouranos  and  introduced  the  sexless  gods  of  this  epoch.  J.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.  A., 
Primitive  Constellations ^  The  Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars,  toI.  ii.  pp.  71,  72. 

'  Sachau,  Alljerunrs  India^  vol.  i.  chap,  xxxvi.  p.  354. 

3  Lockyer,  Elementary  Lessons  on  Astronomy^  1888,  s.  547. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  207 

from  its  position  in  the  same  constellation  at  the  autumnal 
equinox  was  6  x  2,037,  or  about  12,200  years  before  2000 
B.C.,  or  14,200  B.C. 

This  was  apparently  a  time  when  no  Pole  Star  was  visible, 
for  neither  ancient  tradition  nor  the  star  globe  tells  of  any 
star  sufficiently  conspicuous  to  be  marked  as  a  Pole  Star, 
between  S  Cygnus,  the  Pole  Star  about  15,000  B.C.,  and  Vega 
in  Lyra,  worshipped  as  the  Pole  Star  10,000  B.C.  ^  This 
was  the  age  when  the  ruling  god  of  time  was  no  longer 
the  Pole  Star  bird  in  Cygnus,  but  the  Great  Ape,  who 
had  become  the  Master  Potter,  who  made  the  stars  revolve 
as  he  turned  the  central  wheel  of  the  universe.  This  turning 
god  was  the  Greek  Ixion  or  IxiFon,  the  Sanskrit  Akshi- 
van,  the  axle  {aksha)  god.  The  Northern  constellation  in 
which  this  directing  god  lived  was  the  Great  Bear,  called 
by  the  Egyptians  the  Thigh  of  Set  or  Hapi,  the  ape-god, 
the  rudder  of  the  heavenly  ship  Ma;^nt,  the  bringer  {md) 
or  mother  of  progressive  time  ^,  Hence  they  looked  to 
the  Great  Bear  as  the  ruling  constellation  of  the  North. 

The  correctness  of  this  deduction  js  confirmed  by  the 
Hindu  astronomical  tradition,  which  makes  their  year  of 
months  begin  with  Push  (December— January),  at  the  winter 
solstice.  This  is  the  month  of  the  constellation  Pushya 
Cancer,  and  it  was  in  this  month  and  under  this  constellation 
that  Rama,  the  son  of  Kush-aloya,  the  house  (aloya)  of  the 
Kushites,  was  proclaimed  the  ruler  of  India  by  his  father 
Raghu,  the  sun-god  3.  That  is  to  say,  the  year  of  Rama 
as  sun-god  began,  like  the  original  Hindu  year  of  months 
when  the  sun  was  in  Cancer,  at  the  winter  solstice,  that 
is  about  14,200  B.C.,  or  the  same  date  as  when  it  was  in 
Aries  at  the  autumnal  equinox. 

'  Lockycr,  Dcnvn  of  Astronomy,  p.  128. 

'  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead t  Translation,  chap.  xcix.  1 1,  p.  158. 

^  Mahabharata  Vana  {Draupadi-harana)  Parva,  cclxxvi.  p.  812.  It  was  also 
in  Cancer,  the  Great  Crab,  that  the  sun  is  supposed  by  the  Malays  to  rest  at  the 
winter  solstice,  as  I  have  shown  on  p.  174.  Hence  the  primaeval  Malay  tradition 
(lates  itself  as  starting  from  about  14,200  B.C.,  when  the  sun  was  in  this  constella- 
tion at  the  winter  solstice* 


208  History  and  Chronology 

This  monumental  date  in  Hindu  astronomical  history 
is  again  referred  to  in  the  Vedic  tradition  that  Pusfa^n, 
the  god  of  the  constellation  Cancer,  married  the  sun-maiden 
at  the  winter  solstice  ^  * 

This  sun-maiden  has  another  form,  that  of  Sita,  first  the 
furrow  and  afterwards  the  moon-goddess,  the  wife  of  Rama. 
They  by  their  Qnion  inaugurated  the  cycle  -  year  of  the 
Ashvins,  beginning  with  the  birth  of  the  sun-god  conceived 
at  the  winter  solstice  and  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox, 
a  year  measured  by  the  lunar  phases  of  Sita,  the  moon- 
goddess.  Again  the  name  of  Sita,  the  furrow  ploughed 
through  the  sky  by  Rama,  the  sun-bull,  shows  that  the 
givers  of  this  name  knew  of  a  zodiacal  path,  or  furrow, 
through  the  stars  which  he  traversed  in  his  yearly  course. 
This  was  the  yearly  path  of  the  sun  and  the  monthly  path 
of  the  moon,  marked  by  the  27  stars  called  the  Nak-shatra  . 
or  Nag-kshethra,  the  fields  {kshethra)  of  the  Nags  or  star- 
snakes.  This  path  was  marked  by  Lakshman,  the  god  of 
boundaries  {laksk)^  the  constant  companion  of  Rama  in  his 
search  for  Sita,  in  the  track  he  traced  for  him  and  the  wife 
he  sought  for,  the  moon-goddess  of  the  furrow.  That  this 
star  track  was  the  path  of  Rama  is  proved  by  his  history. 
He  was  installed  at  the  winter  solstice  as  king  of  the  year 
of  the  ten-headed  Ravana,  or  ten  lunar  months  of  gesta- 
tion, from  whom  he  was  to  deliver  Sita.  The  sun  was  then 
in  Cancer,  and  his  ten  months'  journey  would  be  completed 
under  the  constellation  marking  the  close  of  the  sun's  circuit 
through  a  yearly  path  beginning  in  /8  Arietis  at.  the 
autumnal  equinox.  This  constellation  is  that  of  the  27th 
Nakshatra    called    Revati,   said    by    Brahmagupta    to    be 


*  Rg.  vi.  58,  4.  The  Shah-nameh  of  Firdousi,  which  is  the  Persian  form 
of  the  Indian  Mahabharata,  but  one  in  which  the  historical  legends  have  reached 
a  much  later  stage  of  decomposition  than  those  of  the  Indian  Epic,  is  founded 
on  the  much  earlier  histories  of  the  Zendavesta  and  Bundahish.  It  begins 
with  the  reign  of  Kaioumors,  the  Persian  Kama,  who  is  said  to  have  come 
to  the  throne  when  the  sun  entered  Aries,  but  it  does  not  state  the  time  of 
the  year  when  this  happened.    J.  Mohl,  L^  Livre  des  Hois^  p.  18, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  209 

the   star   f  Piscium,  which  was  then   the  fish-star-mother, 

the  Akkadian  fish-goddess  Nana,  the  Phoenician  Tirhatha, 

who  was  delivered   of  her    son,  the    Ram-sun-god,  at   the 

autumnal  equinox.      Hence  this  yeaf  beginning  with   the 

■  sun  in   Ares  ended  with  the  sun  passing  from  Pisces  into 

Aries  at  the  autumnal  equinox.    This  is  confirmed  by  the 

Nakshatras,  for  the  2Sth  and  26th    Nakshatras  are  Purva 

and  Uttara   Bhadrapada,  those  of  the   month  Bhadrapada 

(August — Sepember)   closing  with  the   autumnal  equinox- 

That  this   constellation    Revati   marked    the   close  of  the 

Hindu  Nakshatra .  year  is  also  conclusively  proved  by.  the 

Vedichymn  x.  19^  addressed  to  Revdt.     In  Stanzas  i  and 

2 she  id"  called  on  to  be  still,  and   not' carry  away  further 

the  cows   of  light,  but  to  .allow  them  to  return  ;   and  in 

Stanzas  6  and  8  she  is  called  the  Nivartana  or  star  which 

makes  the  cows  return,  that  is,  which  makes  them,  when 

they  have  ended   their  annual   circuit,   begin    again   their 

appointed  round  along  the  path   of  the   Nakshatra  stars, 

still  used  by  all  Hindus  as  lunar  and  solar  Zodiacs. 

This  new  reckoning  of  time,  starting  from  the  place  of 
the  sun  at  the  autumnal  equinox  and  winter  solstice,  ignored 
the  old  Pole  Star  worship  of  the  days  when  the  Pole  Stars  in 
Kepheus  arid  Cygnus  were  visible,  and  introduced  the  con- 
ception of  the  sun-mother,  enclosed  in  the  tower  of  the  three- 
years  cycle,  the  labyrinthine  castle  of  the  ten-headed  Ra- 
vana  in  Ceylon,  in  which  Sita  was  confined,  and  Perseus 
and  the  Celtic  sun-god  Lug  were  born.  The  history  of 
Perseus  and  his  marriage  with  Andromeda,  the  Phoenician 
Adamath,  the  red  -  earth  daughter  of  Kassiopaea,  Kassia- 
peaer  (the  beautiful,  Heb.  peaer)^  wif9  of  Zeus  Kasios,  and 
the  equivalent  of  Eurynome  (Scm.  Erebh-noema)^  the  beauti- 
ful West  {ereb),  points  to  a  history  based  on  the  worship  of 
the  Pole  Star  Kepheus,  husband  of  Kassiopaea,  transformed 
to  a  worship  of  the  sun-star,  and  its  attendant  constella- 
tions Kassiopaea,  Perseus  and  Andromeda,  outside  the  Polar 
circle. 

*  Ludwig,  Rigveday  No.  185,  vol.  i.  pp.  191,  192. 

P 


210  History  and  Chronology 

Each  of  the  forty  months  of  27  days,  forming  the  cycle- 
year  of  this  epoch,  was  divided  into  three  weeks  of  nine 
days,  which   appear  in  Vedic  mythology  as  the   Navagva 
Angiras,  the  nine  priests  of  the  burnt  (angd)  offering,  and 
who  are  represented  in  Rg.  x.  61,   10,  11,  as  guarding  the 
seed  whence  the  god  engendered  by  the  union  of  Prajapati 
with  his  daughter  RohinI  was  to  be  bom.     This   mother- 
goddess  was  first  the  doe-mother,  the  star  Aldebaran,  and 
afterwards  became   the  red  dawn-cow   of  Rg.  viii.  90,  13, 
the  mother  of  the  Kushikas.      Her  son  was,  as  we  have 
seen  on  p.  90,  the  god   called   in   Rg.  x.  61,   18,  NabhI- 
nedeshtha,  the  nearest  to  the  navel,  and  the  central  fire  on- 
the  altar.      These  nine  Angiras  were  the  guardians  of  the 
cows  of  h'ght  kept  by  the  Panis  or  traders  when  Sarama, 
the  bitch  of  the  gods,  was  sent  to  find  them '.     Also  their 
intimate  connection   as   reckoners   of  time  with  the  year 
measurements   of  the  cycle-year  of  gestation  is  distinctly 
proved  in  Rg.  v.  45,  7,  8,  where  they  are  said  to  have  sung 
for  ten  months  when  Sarama  found  the  cows  they  guarded, 
while  the  necessity  of  their  guidance  to  those  who  would 
traverse  the  wilds  of  time  to  find  the  cows  of  light  is  proved  in 
Rg.  iii.  39,  4,  where  Indra  is  said  to  have  taken  the  Navagvas 
to  show  him  the  way  to  these  cows  who  lay  in  darkness. 

This  year  with  its  nine-day  weeks  also  seems  to  be  referred 
to  in  Rg.  X.  49, 6,  where  Indra  relates  among  his  other  exploits 
his  destruction  of  Brihad-ratha,  the  year-god,  with  the  chariot 
{ratlid)  of  Brihati,  with  its  nine  (navd)  dwellings  {vastva), 
Brihati  was,  as  I  have  shown  on  pp.  69, 70,  the  goddess  of  the 
original  year  measured  by  five-day  weeks,  who  with  Rathan- 
tara  ruled  the  seventy-two  weeks  of  the  year.  In  this 
passage  she  still  remains  the  goddess  of  the  year-weeks, 
which  had  become  weeks  of  nine  days  or  dwellings,  and 
not  of  five  days.  This  ancient  week  of  nine  days  still 
survives  in  the  Great  Bengal  Festival  of  the  Durga-puja, 
called   also    Nava-ratra,  the    nine    nights,    celebrating    the 

'  Rg.  X.  108,  8, 10. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  211 

victory  of  Durga  the  mountain-goddess  over  the  buffalo- 
god  Mahishasur.  It  is  to  all  Bengalis  practically  the  New 
Year's  Feast  of  the  year,  and  is  held  during  the  first  nine 
days  of  Ashva-yujau  or  Assin  (September — October),  that 
is  at  the  autumnal  equinox  '. 

The  forty  months  of  this  year  are  mentioned  as  a  measure 
of  time  in  Rg.  ii.  12,  11,  where  Indra  is  said  to  have  found 
and  slain  the  dragon  Shambara  called  Danu,  or  the  son 
of  Danu  the  Pole  Star  god,  in  the  fortieth  (month  of)  autumn, 
and  also  in  Rg.  i.  126,  4,  where  Kakshivan,  who,  as  we  shall 
see  in  Chapter  VI.,  is  the  year-god  of  the  next  epoch  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  is  said  to  have  in  his  possession 
the  forty  flame-coloured  horses  or  months  of  Dasaratha, 
that  is  of  the  ten  {dasa)  chariots  {rat ha)  ^  or  months  of 
gestation  of  the  sun-god,  also  called  Raghu  the  father  of 
Rama. 

The  description  of  this  forty  -  months  year  as  that  of 
Shambara  gives  us  a  further  clue  to  its  place  in  Hindu 
Chronological  history,  for  the  name  means  the  holder  of 
the  Shamba  or  lance.  The  year-god  of  the  lance  is  in  the 
historical  record  of  the  Mahabharata  Karna,  the  horned 
[heren)  god,  the  first  son  of  the  mother  of  the  Pandavas 
called  Kunti,  the  lance,  or  Prithi,  the  begetting  mother  of 
the  Parthas,  a  name  of  the  Pandavas  in  the  poem.  They 
were  the  Parthavas  or  Parthians,  the  horsemen  of  Central 
Asia  who  fought  with  the  lance,  and  bore  on  their  banners 
the  image  of  their  parent-god  Susi-Nag,  the  snake  of  the 
sons  of  the  Shu-bird.  They  appear  in  Rg.  vi.  27,  5 — 8,  as 
the  tribe  to  which  Abhyavartin  Chayamana  belonged,  who 
kd  the  Srinjaya  against  the  Vrishivans  and  Turvasu,  and 
slew  three  hundred  of  them  at  the  Hariyupiya  or  sacrificial 
stakes  (yiipa)  of  Hari,  that  is  at  Mathura,  the  sacred  shrine 
of  Hari,  the  Hindu  form  of  the  goddess  Shar,  on  the 
Yayavati  or  Jumna,  called  here  the  river  of  the  Yavya 
or  barley  {yava)  granaries. 

*  Monier  Williams,  Religious  Thought  and  Life  in  India^  chap.  xvi.  p.  431. 

P   3 


1 

I 


212  History  and  Chronology 

Karna  was  miraculously  begotten  by  the  sun-god  when 
he  touched  the  navel  of  his  virgin  mother ',  that  is,  lit  the 
fire  on  the  centre  of  the  mother  altar  made  in  the  form  of 
a  woman,  which  was  made  the  altar  of  burnt-offering  during 
this  epoch.  He  was  born  with  an  impenetrable  coat  of 
golden  mail,  marking  the  invulnerability  of  the  sun-god 
during  the  term  of  his  rule  as  the  measurer  of  year  time, 
and  with  semi-circular  earrings,  which  marked  him  as  the 
sun-god  with  the  horns  of  the  lunar  crescent. 

He  was  born,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Mahabharata,  on  the 
first  day  of  the  tenth  month  of  the  year  beginning  at  the 
winter  solstice,  that  is  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  and  was  at 
his  birth  placed  by  his  mother  in  a  basket  boat,  the  osier- 
moon-boat  of  the  Basque  sons  of  the  rivers,  and  launched 
on  the,  Ashva  or  Horse-river,  whence  the  boat  descended 
to  the  Ganges.  At  Champa,  near  the  modern  Bhagalpur 
and  the  village  of  Karnagurh,  called  after  him,  Radha,  the 
month  Vaisakha  (April — May),  the  mid-month  of  the 
Pleiades  year,  found  the  infant  sun  in  the  moon-boat,  and 
took  him  to  her  husband,  Adhiratha,  the  charioteer  of  the 
year's  chariot,  who  was  king  of  Anga,  the  burning  {angd) 
volcanic  land  of  Monghyr  and  Bhagalpore,  and  of  the 
Angiras  priesthood  2.  Thence  he  ruled  North-eastern  India, 
the  land  of  the  central  mountain  of  Mandara  or  Parisnath, 
not  far  to  the  west  of  Champa.  It  was  Indra  who  beguiled 
this  horned  son  of  the  Horse  or  Ass-river  (ashva)  3  of  his 


'  Mahabharata  Vana  (Kundald-harana)  Parva,  cccvi. — cccix.  pp.  908 — 912. 

*  Ibid. ,  cccvii.  p.  907;  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  of  Indian  pp.  177, 
178 ;  BeaPs  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,  vol.  ii.  p.  191.  In 
p.  187  the  Karna  legend  as  told  by  Hiouen  Tsiang  is  given.  His  feet  were 
covered  with  golden  hair,  and  he  is  called  in  the  Buddhist  traditions  of  the 
Mahavagga  Sona  (the  golden)  Kolivira  and  Sona  Kutikanna,  The  latter 
epithet  means  **  He  with  the  pointed  ears,"  that  is  to  "say,  he  was  the  golden 
sun- god  with  the  asses  ears  of  the  crescent  moon.  Rhys  David  and  Oldenberg's 
Vinaya  7>x/j,  Mahavagga,  v.  i,  iff.,  v.  13,  iff.;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xvii.  pp.  iff. 
32,  note  3. 

3  Our  word  ass,  the  Latin  asinus,  comes  from  the  Sanskrit  askva,  which 
meant  originally  an  ass,  the  long-eared  horse  Ucchai-shravas  of  India. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  213 

impenetrable  golden   armour  and  earrings  when  Indra  be- 
came, as  the  Pandava-god  Arjuna,  his  son,  the  ruler  of  the 
year,  who  began  it  by  bringing  up  the  rains  at  the  summer 
solstice.     He  gave   Karija   in   exchange  the    lance    called 
Vasavi,  the  bamboo   lance  of  the  god  Vasu,  whence  the 
tribe  of  the  Shambara  took  its  name,  and  the  weapon  of  the 
god  ruling  the  three  years*  cycle,  with  which  he  pierced  the 
rain-clouds.     It  was  with  this  throwing  lance  or  arrow  that 
Karna  was  armed  when  he  was  made   king  of  Anga  by 
Duryodhana  ^   the    generalissimo    of   the   Kauravyas,   and 
when  he  was  the  third  of  the  five  leaders  Bhishma,  Drona, 
Karna,  Shalya  and   Duryodhana,  who  successively  led  the 
Kauravyas  against  the  Pandavas.     With  it  he  struck  off  the 
golden  crest  of  Arjuna  before  the  latter  slew  him  with  the 
more  powerful  weapon  of  the  new  sun-god,  called  Aftjalika  *. 
This  was  the  weapon  of  the  joined  hands  (afljali)^  that  of  the 
diving-fish  sun-god,  who  joins  his  hands  like  a  diver  when 
plunging  at  the   sun-set  of  the  summer  solstice   into   the 
waters  of  the  Southern  Ocean,  which  are  to  lead  him  to  his 
winter  goal.     The  death  of  Karna  marked  the  beginning 
of  the  next  epoch,  described  in  Chapter  VI.,  when  the  year 
began  in  one  of  its  phases  at  the  summer  solstice. 

The  Zend  counterpart  of  Karna,  the  horned-god  of  the 
Horse  or  Ass-river,  appears,  if  we  judge  by  the  name,  to 
be  Keresaspa,  the  horned  {keres)  horse  {aspd)^  who  is  said 
in  the  Yasnas  to  be  son  of  Thrita  the  third,  the  Vedic  Trita, 
elsewhere  called  Thraetaona,  the  conqueror  of  the  three- 
headed  six-eyed  god  Azi  Dahaka,  who  ruled  the  year 
measured  by  six-day  weeks,  described  in  Chapter  IV.  But 
when  we  compare  the  mythological  history  of  Thraetaona 
and  his  son  and  successor  Keresaspa,  as  told  in  the  Zenda- 
vesta,  it  seems  certain  that  it  was  Thraetaona  who  was 
god  of  the  cycle-year.     He  is  called  the  Sama  or  Semites, 


*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Satnbhava)  Parva,  cxxxviii.  p.  406. 

'  Mahabharata  Karna  Panra,  xc,  pp.  352—364. 

3  Mill,  Zendavesia,  Part,  iii.,  Yasna,  ix.  10  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxi.  pp.  233,  234. 


214  History  and  Chronology 

and  was  therefore  the  first  ruler  of  this  especially  Semite- 
year,  which  was  that  instituted  by  the  Hittites,  called  in 
India  Khati,  the  Khita  of  the  Egyptians  and  Assyrians. 

This  third  god  of  the  three  united  years,  the  conqueror  of 
the  year  of  six-day  weeks,  was  accompanied  on  his  march  to 
the  Rangha  or  Tigris,  where  he  killed  Azi  Dahaka,  by  the 
mother-mountain-bird,  called  in  the  Aban  Yasht  Vafra 
Navaza,  the  freshly-fallen  snow  ^  This  snow-bird,  the  bird 
Hu  Kairya,  dwelling  on  the*  top  of  Ararat,  whence  the 
mother  rivers  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  the  Euphrates  and 
Tigris  descend  to  water  the  earth,  was  the  bird  which 
Thraetaona  is  said  to  have  thrown  up  in  the  air  as  a  vulture. 
It  then  flew  to  the  Pole  Star  mountain,  and  brought  down 
the  mother-goddess  Ardvi  Sura  Anahita  from  her  mountain 
heights,  as  the  spring-goddess  of  the  year,  the  goddess  who 
caused  the  yearly  rise  of  the  Euphrates  at  the  vernal  equinox 
when  the  snows  melt.  The  bird  of  the  freshly-fallen  snow 
of  the  autumnal  equinox  was  the  Pole  Star  bird  in  Cygnus, 
who  ruled  the  Northern  receptacle  for  the  waters  which  are 
to  fall  on  the  earth  in  rain. 

The  age  of  Trita,  the  god  of  the  triple  year,  was  that 
of  the  nine  sons  of  Pathana,  the  nine  days  of  the  cycle- 
week,  and  also  of  Hitaspa,  the  Hittite  horse,  and  of  Snavid- 
haka,  the  stone-handed-god  of  the  gnomon-stone,  who  made 
the  earth  a  wheel  and  made  the  shining  sun  of  Garo- 
nmana,  the  home  of  light  and  the  spirit  of  darkness,  that 
is  the  day  and  night,  carry  his  year  chariot.  That  is  to  say, 
made  the  sun  the  god  ruling  the  march  of  time.  It  was  also 
that  of  the  earth-tortoise  fish  on  which  Kcrcsaspa  cooked 
his  food,  and  which  ran  away  with  him,  carrying  him  round 
the  heavens  in  the  course  of  the  three-years'  cycle-year 
to  become  the  god  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  in  the  next 
epoch  2. 

*  Danncsteter,  Zendavesta  Aban  Yasht f6i — 64;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  pp.  68, 
note  3,  69. 
'  Darmestetcr,  Zcndavesta  Zamydd   Yasht ^  40 — 44;    S.B.E.  vol.   xxiii.  pp 

293—297. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  2 1 5 

B.     The  Khati  or  Hittites, 

The  Shambara  or  Parthian  riders  and   throwers  of  the 
javelin,   who    measured    time    by  the    cycle-year  of  forty 
'months,  were,  and   are  still,  a  powerful   tribe  called   the 
Yohihas   or  Yaudheyas,   who    owned    the   country   at  the 
junction  of  the  five  Punjab  rivers  and  the  ancient  capital 
of  Multan,  a  form  of  Malli-sthana,  or  the  place  of  the  MalHs. 
They  are  called  Yaudheyas  in  the  list  of  tribes  said,  in  the 
Mahabharata,  to  have  brought   tribute  to  Yudishthira,  the 
eldest  Pandava,  when  he  celebrated  the  Rajasuya  sacrifice 
as  ruler  of  India  *.     They  are  divided  into  three  clans,  which 
show  by  their  names  of  Langa-vira,  the  worshippers  of  the 
Linga  or  Viru ;  Madho-vira  or  Madhua,  the  drinkers  of  the 
inspiring  and  intoxicating  honey  {madh)  drink ;  and  Adam- 
vira,  the  sons  of  Adam  the  red  man,  that  they  belong  to  the 
oldest  races  of  the  Northern  invaders,  the  warrior  tribes  who 
marched  under  the  banner  of  the  Naga  snake  2.     By  their 
name  Yaudheya  they  show  their  connection  with  the  Yadu- 
Turvasu  named  in  Rg.  ix.  61,  2  as  allies  of  the  Shambara. 
These  Yadu-Turvasu,  who  became,  according  to  the  Mahab- 
harata 3,   Yadavas   or   worshippers   of  the    full    moon,   the 
Hittite  Ya4,  and   Yavanas   or   barley  {yava)   growers,  are 
the  descendants  of  the  twin-sons  of  DevayanI,  the  second 
wife  of  Yayati,  the  son  of  Nahusha,  the  Naga  snake-god, 
who  succeeded  Sharmishtha,  the  most  protecting  (sitarman), 
the  Banyan    fig-tree   mother   of   the   Druhyus,   Anus    and 
Purus  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  of  Chapters  III.  and 
IV.    DevayanI  is  said  in   the  Mahabharata  to  have  been 
hidden  in  a  well  by  Sharmishtha,  the  daughter  of  the  Asura 
king  Vrisha-parvan,  the  god  of  the  rainy  (vris/ta)  quarter 
[parva)y  that  is  to  say  she  was  the  sun-mother  hidden  in  the 
tower  of  the  three-years   cycle.      Her   father,  called'  Kavi 


'  Mahabharata  Sabha  (Dyuia)  Parva,  lii.  p.  145. 

^  Cunningham,  Ancitnt  Geography  of  India ^  pp.  244 — 246. 

^  Mahabharata  Adi  (Sambkava)  Parva,  Ixxxv.  p.  260. 

^  Conder,  The  Hittites  and  their  Language^  App.  iv..  Sign  24,  p.  2 1 8. 


2i6  .History  and  Chronology 

Ushana  or  Shukra,  the  son  of  Bhrigu,  was  the  rain-god  of 
the  Asuras,  the  sons  of  Diti,  the  second  mother,  and  con- 
querors of  the  Danavas.  He  said, "  It  is  I  who  pour  rain  for 
the  good  of  creatures  '/*  and  his  names,  Shukra  and  Ush- 
ana, the  god  Ush,  show  him  not  only  to  be  the  Wet-god, 
Sak  or  Shak,  but  also  the  rain-bird  of  the  Finn  ancestors  of 
the  Kushika  Kabirpuntis.  Ush  is  the  Hindu  form  of  the 
Finn-creating  bird-god  Uk-ko,  "the  great  (fik)  begetter,*' 
who  dwells  in  the  Pole  Star  Tahtl,  in  the  navel  of  heavqn  ^. 
He  is  the  chief  god  in  the  Finnish  triad  of  Valnamofnen, 
Ilmarinen  and  Ukko,  and  the  epithet  Kavi  given  to  him 
in  the  Rigvcda  and  Mahabharata,  is  the  Zend  and  Sanskrit 
form  of  the  north-god  Kabir,  and  the  Dravidian  Kapi,  the 
ape,  applied  to  the  Kushite  kings,  who  arc  all  called  Kavi 
Kush.  It  is  as  the  storm-bird,  the  slayer  of  the  year,  that 
he  appears  in  Rg.  v.  34,  2,  where  he  is  said  to  have  given 
to  Indra  the  weapon  called,  in  Rg.  i.  121,  12,  the  thunder- 
bolt, with  which  he  slew  the  deer-sun  {inrigd)  year-god 
Orion,  and  this  marks  him  as  a  year-god  of  the  cycle-year 
following  Orion's  year  of  three  seasons.  He  is  also  said 
to  have  made  Agni,  the  fire-god,  the  Hotri,  or  pourer  of 
libations  of  sacrifice  3,  that  is  to  say,  he  instituted  the  ritual 
of  burnt-offerings  which  were  first  offered  on  the  national 
altars  in  this  epoch.  His  daughter,  Devayani,  mother  of 
the  Yadu-Turvasu,  is  the  goddess  ruling  the  six  Devayani 
months  beginning  with  the  winter  solstice,  and  hence  her 
two  sons  then  begotten  were  the  gods  of  the  cycle-year 
beginning  at  the  autumnal  equinox.  The  names  Yayati 
and  Yadu  mark  them  as  the  sons  of  Ya,  the  full-moon-god 
of  the  Cypriotes  and  Hittites,  that  is  of  the  Minyans  or 
measurers  of  Asia  Minor  4,  who  became  the  sons  of  Manu 


*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixvi.  p.    191,   Ixxviii.   pp.  241,  243, 
Ixxxiii.  p.  253. 

*  Kirby,  Hero  of  Esthoniay  Introduction,  p.  xxvii.  ;  Schoefer  Castrcn,  Finnish 
Mythology,  pp.  32,  33. 

3  Rg.  viii.  23,  17. 

^  Condcr,  The  Hittites  atid  their  Language,  App.  iv.  p.  2 18,  Symbol  24. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  217 

in  India.  These  names  show  them  to  be  parent-gods  of  the 
joined  races  called  Kathi  in  India,  Khatti  or  Khita  in  Assyria 
and  Egypt,  and  Hittitcs  by  the  Jews,  whose  national  symbol 
is  that  of  the  two  brothers  joining  hands  ^ 

They  are   represented   on    the   Egyptian    monuments   as 
a  beardless  race,  a  characteristic  which  distinguishes  them 
from  the  hairy  sons  of  the  bull.     They  also  wear  the  peaked 
tiara,  the  Chiroo  cap,  and  shoes  turned  up  at  the  toes.     This 
last  sign,  combined  with  the  fact  that  they  habitually  wore 
leather  shoes,  connects  them  with  the  very  ancient  immigrant 
race  of  India,  the  beardless  Chamars,  who  work  in  leather 
and  tan  hides,  one  of  the  earliest  occupations  followed  by 
the  pastoral  races.     They  use  for  this  process   myrobolans, 
tMb  name  of  the  fruit  of  the  Arjuna  tree  ( Tetmifialia  Belerica)^ 
which  is  one  of  the  most  important   modern  exports  from 
India  to  Europe,  and  was  doubtless  also  exported  thence 
by   the    ancient    trading   Turvasu.      The    important    part 
assigned  to  this  tree,  its  products,  and  the  tanners  who  used 
them  in  ancient  traditional  history,  is  proved  by  the  his- 
torical story  of  Nala  and  DamayantI,  on  which  the  plot  of 
the  Mahabharata  is  founded.     Nala,  the  god  of  the  channel 
(«tf/a),  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  was  wedded  to  Dama- 
yantI, meaning  "she  who  is  being  tamed,"  the  earth  subdued 
under  the  civilising  influences  of  agriculture  and  industry. 
They  lived  happily  together  during  the  spring  months  of 
their  marriage,   but   with    the   hot   weather,    Pushkara    the 
gambler,  the  scorching  west  winds,  came  and  stripped  the 
earth  of  its  verdure  and  fruits,  and  drove  Nala  and  Dama- 
yantI into  the  forests,  where  they  wandered  during  the  rainy 
season.     Nala  escaped  to  the  North-east  to  Ayodhya,  where 
he  became  charioteer  to  the  king  Ritu-parna,  the  recorder 
of  the  seasons  {riui)^  the  god  of  the  North-east  Monsoon. 
He  drove  Ritu-parna  back  to  the  South-west  with  the  North- 
east Monsoon  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  horses  of  the  Sindhu 
or  moon  (Sin)  breed,  those  measuring  time   in  this  lunar 

'  Conder,  The  HUtites  and  their  Language^  App.  iv.  p.  233,  Symbol  161. 


2i8  History  and  Chronology 

epoch,  to  be  again  re-united  with  Damayantl.  On  the  way 
Ritu-parna  taught  Nala  the  science  of  calculation  and  fore- 
sight, of  determining  the  times  of  the  seasons  and  the  means 
of  using  their  influences  in  the  orderly  developments  of  the 
valuable  products  yielded  by  the  earth-mother  of  growing 
life.  This  lesson  was  imparted  by  instructing  him  how  to 
reckon  the  leaves  and  fruits  on  the  Arjuna  {Terminalia 
belerica)  tree,  the  fruits  of  the  industry  of  the  trading  com- 
munity, who  used  this  tree  as  one  of  the  most  valuable  aids 
to  their  commerce.  This  tree  is  the  representative  in  this 
graphic  historical  story  of  the  Arjuna  {the  fair)  god  of  the 
North  parent  of  Kutsa  ^  the  charioteer  of  Indra,  whose 
history  as  High-Priest  of  the  Varshagiras  or  praisers  of  rain, 
and  the  rulinjr  Purus,  I  have  told  in  Chapter  IV.,  p.  182. 
Also  of  the  Arjuna  of  the  Mahabharata,  the  son  of  Indra, 
the  god  of  the  rainy  season  in  the  Pandava  year,  who  restored 
to  power  the  Pandavas;  beggared  and  driven  into  exile,  like 
Nala,  by  the  gambler  Shakuni,  the  storm-bird,  who  here  takes 
the  place  of  Pushkara  in  Nala's  story  2.  In  this  story  wfe 
read  a  history  told  in  ancient  cryptogramic  language,  of  the 
great  advance  made  in  the  important  knowledge  of  the  rules 
of  time  measurement  by  the  trading  races  and  the  workers 
in  leather,  who  devised  the  intricate  rules  for  measuring  the 
cycle-year  and  for  providing  for  an  accurate  determination 
of  the  immutable  laws  governing  the  order  by  succession 
of  the  days,  months  and  seasons  of  the  year  measured  by 
the  solstices  and  equinoxes.  And  if  we  could  recover  the 
ancient  sources  of  history,  the  national  birth-stories  of  these 
primitive  races,  we  would  find  that  the  origin  of  the  story 
of  Arjuna,  as  told  in  the  Mahabharata,  and  of  Kutsa  in  the 
Rigveda,  was  told  in  the  birth-tale  of  the  Arjuna  from  the 
Myrobolan  tanning-tree,  as  that  of  the  birth  of  the  Buddha 
sun-god  IS  told  in  those  of  the  birth  of  the  sun  from  the 
cypress  and  Sal-tree  sun-mother. 

'  Kg.  iv.  26,  I,  vii.  19,  2. 

^  For  the  full  details  and  interpretation  of  the  story  of  Nala  and  Damayanli, 
see  Hewitt,  Kuling  Kaces  0/  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iL,  pp.  64 — 72. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Agt.  2I9 

Further  proof  of  the  great  early  influence  of  the  Chamars, 
and  of  the  important  place  they  occupied  among  the  rulers 
of  India,  is  furnished  by  the  history  of  their  religious  creed. 
They  call  themselves  the  descendants  of  Rai  Das,  that  is 
of  the  sun-god  Rai  or  Raghu,  and  their  Northern  descent 
is  marked  in  Chuttisgurh,  where  I  know  them  best,  by  their 
fair  skins  and  the  beauty  of  their  women.     Their  connection 
with  the  religious  ceremonies  of  child-birth,   which  distin- 
guished the  ritual  of  the  cycle-year,  is  shown  by  the  custom 
which  has   made  the  Chamar  women  the  most  sought-for 
midwives  in  India,  whose  presence  at  a  birth  brings  luck  to 
the  family.     They  also  in  their  tribal  ritual  show  that  their 
original  year  was  the  cycle-year  of  the  nine-days  week,  by 
celebrating  their  Dasahara  or  autumn  festival  on  the  9th  of 
Assin  {Ashva-yujaUy  September — October),  that  is  nine  days 
after  the  autumnal  equinox,  or  a  day  before  it  is  ended  by 
other  castes,  who  begin  it  on  the  ist  of  Assin  (September — 
October),  the  day  when   the  Jewish  year  begins,  and  con- 
tinue the  feast  to  the  loth  of  the  month  ^      At  this  New 
Year's  feast   they  sacrifice    pigs,   goats,   and   drink   spirits. 
It  is  also  in  this  month  that  they  celebrate  their  new  year's 
feast  to  their  dead,  who  are  buried  and  not  burnt. 

That  these  people,  who  are  cultivators  as  well  as  workers 
in  leather,  belong  to  the  group  of  invading  barley-growers 
and  traders  headed  by  the  Kaurs  knd  Kurmis  is  shown  by 
their  marriage  ceremonies,  in  which  the  wrists  of  the  wedded 
pair  are  bound  with  mango  leaves,  the  marriage-tree  of  the 
Kurmis  and  Kaurs ;  and  they  also,  like  the  Kaurs,  worship 
the  seven  sisters,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear.  That 
they  are  the  sons  of  the  red-cow-star  RohinJ  Aldcbaran^ 
and  of  the  growers  of  cotton,  is  indicated  by  the  custom 
of  washing  the  feet  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  with  cotton 
steeped  in  red-lac  dye.  This  is  done  by  the  barber  who 
officiates  as  marriage-priest  2. 
In  Chuttisgurh,  the  home  of  ancient  faiths  and  customs, 

'  Monier  Williams,  Religious  Thought  and  Life  in  India^  chap.  xvi.  p.  431. 
'  Kisley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal ^  Chamars,  vol.  i.  pp.  176 — 181. 


2^0  Itistory  and  Chronology 

the  Chamars  occupy  a  very  peculiar  position  arising  out  of 
their  reh'gious  tenets.  They  are  the  leaders  of  the  Sat  Nam 
sect  of  worshippers  of  the  one  god,  the  True  {sat)  Name 
(nam),  a  sect  which  is  the  rival  of  that  of  the  Kabirpuntis. 
But  the  Sat-Nam  belief  is  united  with  phallic  practices  from 
which  the  religion  of  the  Kabirpuntis  is  free  S  and  in  Eastern 
Bengal  the  greater  number  of  the  Chamars  are  followers 
of  Sri  Narayan,  the  woman-man-god,  one  of  the  forms  of 
Vishnu. 

Their  name  for  the  Supreme  and  only  god  Sat  Nam,  the 
True  Name,  shows  them  to  belong  to  the  Semite  confederacy 
of  the  sons  of  Shem,  the  Name,  who  adored  the  Name  of  God 
as  that  of  the  phallic  potter,  the  pole-turning  father,  and  not 
the  God  of  the  Creating  Word,  and  they  represent  the  earliest 
phallic  form  of  fire-worship,  not  the  later  cult  of  the  sexless 
fire-god  represented  by  the  unsexed  male  and  female  priests, 
the  Galli  of  South-western  Asia. 

C.     TAe  worship  of  sexless  and  bisexual  gods. 

It  is  this  latter  form  of  worship  which  appears  to  be  the 
special    product  of  this   cycle    epoch.     As   it    is   the   year 
of  the  sun-ass,  the  year  chariot  of  the  god  ruling  it  is  drawn 
by  asses,  and  they  draw  the  car  of  the  Ashvins,  the  twin 
riders    on    horses,   or  rather  asses   [ashva),  that  with  thrc^ 
wheels,  the  three  years  6f  the  cycle.     They  are  called  th^ 
Nasatya,  that   is  the    Na-a-satya,   those  who   are  not  {na) 
untruthful    (asa/ya),   that   is,  who   are   reliable   trustworthy 
recorders  of  time  2.     They  are  called  in  the  Brahmanas  the 
first   Adhvaryu,  or  ceremonial  priests  of  the  gods  3,  and  it 
•is  to  them  that  the  cup  of  the  tenth  month,  that  concluding 
the  four  divisions  of  the  cycle-year,  is  offered  at  the  Soma 
sacrifice 4.     Also  the  cycle -year  began  in    India   with   the 

»  Hewitt,  J^f/ori  on  the  Land  Revenue  Settletticnt  of  the  Chuttisgurh  DisiricU 
s.  no— 113,  130—136,  pp.  33,  34,47,48. 
=  Kg.  i.  34,  9  ;  i.  116,  2  ;  viii.  74,  7. 

3  Eggcling,  6V?/.  Bruh,y  i.  i,  2,  17;  S.B.E. ,  vol.  xii.  p.  16. 
^  Ibid.,  iv.  I,  5,  16  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  276. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  221 

month   consecrated    to  them,   Ashva-yujau  (September — 
October).     The  original  twins  of  the  creed  of  the  Kabiri 
were,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  147,  male  and  female,  the  fire- 
drill   and   fire-socket,   when   the    fire-drill-god   became  the 
Great  Potter.     They  were  the  male  and  female  creators,  the 
days  and  nights,  who  made  the  potter's  wheel  of  the  earth 
revolve  by  turning  the  tridents  of  the  three  seasons  of  the 
year,  and  raising  the  earth  from  the  ocean.     This  symbolism 
remained   dominant  during   the   present  epoch.     In  it  the 
Ashvin  twins  were   the  hands  of  the  gods  in  the  fourteen 
star  constellation  of  the  Simshumara  or  Alligator.     These 
hands  were  the  stars  Kastor  and  Pollux  in  Gemini ',  repre- 
sented in  astronomical  notation   by  the  square  which  suc- 
ceeded the  circle  of  the  year  measured  by  seasons.      This 
square  is  guarded  by  these  twin  Stars,  its  door-posts,  called 
in  Akkadian  Masu-Mahru,  the  Western  twin  {Kastor),  and 
Masu-arku,   the   Eastern    twin    {Pollux)  2.     The    door    they 
guarded   as   the   West    and    East    stars   was    that   looking 
Southward,    like   the    doors  of   the    Sabaean    temples   and 
Mahommedan  mosques,  and  leading  to  the  Northern  realm 
of  the  Pole  Star  god.     This  was  represented  in  the  Zenda- 
vesta  as  the  garden  of  God,  called  the  Vara-Jam-kard,  the  rain 
(var)  garden   made   by  the  twins  Yima.     It  is   the  garden 
symbolised    as   circled   by  the  sun-bird    in    the   four  equal 
divisions  of  his  three  years'  flight  round  the  heavens,  and  is 
described    as   an   exact  square,  two  hathras,  or  about  two 
niiles  long  on  every  side.     In  it  was  built  a  house  of  kneaded 
clay  (the  brick  age  had  not  yet  arrived)  with  fires,  the  home 
of  the  household-fire  of  the  earth,  and  it  was  stocked  with 
the  human  products  of  the  seeds  of  the  most  thoroughbred 
men  and  women,  the  flower  of  the  red   race,  the  Yaudheya 
Adam-vira,  and  with  the  best  breeds  of  cattle,  sheep,  dogs, 
and  birds,  also  with   the  best  fruit  and  timber   trees,  and 


*  Sachau,  Albcninl's  India,  vol.  i.,  chap.  xxii.  p.  242. 

''  R.   Brown,  jun,,  F.S.A.,  Researches  into  the  Origin  of  Primitive  Constella- 
tions^ vol.  i.  p.  359,  note  on  p.  338, 


222  History  and  Chronology 

no  permanently  diseased  or  impotent  persons  were  admitted 
into  it.  It  was  to  be  divided  into  three  districts,  the  three 
years  of  the  cycle,  the  largest  containing  nine,  the  middle 
six,  and  the  third  three  streets,  the  nine  and  six-day  weeks, 
and  the  three  years  of  the  cycle,  a  division  tracing  the 
gradual  growth  of  this  conception  of  time  measurement 
from  the  year  of  three  seasons.  It  was  to  be  sealed  up 
with  a  golden  ring,  the  ring  of  the  cycle,  and  to  be  entered 
by  the  door  to  which  the  ring  was  attached  ',  the  door  with 
the  stars  Gemini  for  its  door-posts.  The  number  forty, 
the  forty  months  of  the  cycle,  was  to  be  its  sacred  number, 
for  every  fortieth  year  each  male  and  female  couple  were 
to  have  a  male  and  female  child.  These  children  of  the 
two  sexes  were  born  from  the  one-stemmed  RIvas  plant, 
the  mother-tree,  out  of  which  they  grew  as  one  bisexual 
being  which  was  to  be  the  parent  of  future  life*.  They 
were  thus  the  symbols  of  the  bisexual  creating  sun-god  born 
in  the  fortieth  month  of  the  cycle.  The  gate  of  this  garden 
of  life,  the  successor  of  the  consecrated  village  grove,  was 
called  in  Greece  the  Dokana,  of  which  the  two  side-posts 
were  the  brother  twins  Kastor  the  pole  {star)  of  Ka  the 
unsexed  beaver,  the  house-builder,  and  Polu-deukes,  the 
much  (ttoXv)  wetting  (Sevw),  the  rain-father-god  who  brought 
the  seed  of  life  to  earth. 

This  square  garden  entered  by  the  holy  gate  became 
the  Templum  of  the  Roman  Augurs,  the  field  of  the  parent- 
rain-bird,  divided  into  four  equal  parts  by  the  lines  drawn 
North  and  South,  and  East  and  West  from  the  centres  of 
its  four  sides,  to  form  the  Greek  equilateral  cross  of  St. 
George,  the  cross  on  the  back  of  the  cycle-ass.  It  was  this 
cross  of  the  plough ing-god,  called  also  in  Syria  El  Khudr,  the 
rain-god,  the  Greek  Elias,  which  represented  the  four  equal 
divisions  of  the  cycle-year,  beginning  with  the  autumnal 
equinox.     The  day  of  the  finding  this  cross,  and  its  adop- 

*  Darraesteter,  Zendavesta  Vendidad  Fargard^  ii.  25 — 41  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  iv. 
pp.  16—20. 
^  West,  Bundahishy  xr.  2,  3  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  v.  p.  53. 


of  the  Myth-Making'  Age.  223  . 

tion  as  the  national  sign  for  God,  as  the  new  year's  day 
of  the  cycle,  is  recognised  in  the  popular  mythology  of  the 
Lebanon,  where  the  feast  of  the  Invention  of  the  Cross, 
'Id  El  Saib,  is  still  celebrated  every  year  on  the  14th 
September,  the  first  day  of  the  week,  at  the  end  of  which 
the  new  sun-god  is  to  be  born  ». 

It  was  in  this  age  of  the  three-years  cycle  ruled  by  the 
Angiras   priests  of  the  burnt -offerings  that    the  offering 
of  roasted   totem  victims,  afterwards  consumed  by  the  as- 
sembled  tribes -folk,  first   began.      Originally  the  victims 
were  eaten  raw,  and  their  blood   drunk,  according  to  the 
Arab   custom   of   eating  all   but  human   victims   raw «,    a 
custom   still   observed   in   Southern   India  in    the  worship 
of  Potraj.     He  is  the  male  counterpart  of  the  stone-mother- 
goddess  of  fire,  whose  stone  image  is  covered  with  vermilion, 
and  who  is  the  Indian  form  of  the  Phrygian  cave-goddess 
Cybele,  whose  image  is  a  fire-stone. 

The  Potraj  festival  is  a  festival  of  the  pre-Sanskrit  popula- 
tion, at  which  Pariah  priests  officiate,  and  in  which  the 
Mangs,  or  workers  in  leather,  play  a  principal  part.  The 
sacrifice  lasts  for  five  days,  showing  that  it  originally  dated 
from  the  age  of  the  five-days  week,  and  the  first  animal 
slain  at  it  is  the  sacred  buffalo,  who  had  been  turned  loose 
as  a  calf  and  allowed  to  roam  in  freedom  through  the  village 
fields,  till  the  day  of  the  Dasahara  festival  held,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  Chamars  of  Bengal  on  the  9th  of  Assin 
(September — October).  It  is  killed  on  the  second  day  of 
the  feast,  and  its  head  struck  off,  according  to  the  universal 
I^a§ahara  practice,  with  one  blow.  Round  its  body  are  placed 
vessels  containing  the  cereals  grown  in  the  village,  and  close 
to  it  a  heap  of  mixed  grains  with  a  drill-plough  in  the  centre 
showing  the  festival  to  be  one  to  the  plough-god.  The 
carcase  is  then  cut  up  into  little  pieces,  one  being  given 
to  each  cultivator  to  bury  in  his  field.  The  blood  and  offal 
are  collected  in  a  large  basket,  over  which  some  pots  of 

'  Burton  and  Tyrrwhitt  Drake,  Unexplored  Syria  ^  vol.  ii.  p.  89. 
'  Hobertson  Smith,  Religion  0/  the  Semites y  Lect.  vi.  p.  210. 


224  History  and  Chronology  ^ 

cooked   food  had  previously  been  broken,  and  a  live  kid 
is   hewn   in    pieces   and    scattered   over   the  whole  by  the 
Potraj  priest.     A  Mang  then  takes  the  basket  on  his  head 
and  throws  its  contents   right   and   left   as    an   offering  to 
the  evil  spirits,  as  he,  followed  by  the  other  Pariahs,  runs 
round  the  village  boundaries.     On  the  fifth  day  the  whole 
community  marches  to  the  temple,  and  a  lamb,  concealed 
close   by  and    found   by  the  priest,  is   placed   by   him   on 
the    Potraj    altar.     He    makes    this   victim,  the    Ram    sun 
of    the    dying    year,    insensible    by    striking    it    with,  his 
wand    of    office,    and     after    his    hands    have    been    tied 
behind    his    back,   he   rushes   at    it,  tears   open    its    throat 
with  his  teeth  and  eats  the  flesh.     When  it  is  dead  he  is 
lifted   up,  and  he  buries  his  face  in   a  dish  of  the  buffalo 
meat-offering    given    to    him.     This,  with   remains    of  the 
lamb,  is  buried  beside  the  altar,  and  the  slaughtering  priest 
flies  ^     This   buffalo   autumnal  sacrifice   is   one   celebrated, 
by  the  male  Todas,  who  then   eat  a  young  male  buffalo, 
though  they  will   not  touch  the  flesh  at  other  times  ^;  and 
this  sacrifice  is  probably  a  variant  of  the  bear  feast  of  their 
Aino  congeners,  described  on  p.  117.     We  sec  in  this  festival 
the  transition  from   the   ritual  of  the  Bhrigus,  who  ate  the 
animals   they  sacrificed    raw,   to   tiiat  of  the  Angiras,  who 
cooked   their   victims,  and    mixed   this   cooked    meat   with 
the  raw  buffalo  offal   and   blood.     This   is   the   festival   df 
the   autumnal   equinox    celebrated    all    over    Central    and 
Southern    India    at   the   Dasahara   New  Year's    feast,    held 
on   the  loth  of    Assin  (September — October),  at  which    a 
buffalo  is  slain,  and  it  answers  to  the  Jewish  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles held  on  the  15th  of  Tisri  (September — October). 

The  radical  change  in  the  national  customs  accompanying 
the  introduction  of  this  new  measurement  of  time  is  marked 
by  the  change  in  the  date  of  the  annual  feast  to  the  dead. 
The  original  feast  was  that  which  began  the  Pleiades  year 

»  G.  L.  Gomme,  Ethnology  in  Folklore^  chap.  ii.  pp.  22—25 ;  Sir  W.  Elliot, 
Journal  Ethnological  Society y  N.S.,  i.  97 — 100. 

'  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  Lect.  vii.  p.  281. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  225 

with  three  days'  mourning,  of  the  31st  of  October  and  the 
1st  and  2nd  of  November.  This  was  first  altered,  as  we 
have  seen  on  p.  169,  by  the  Iranian  sons  of  Ida,  who  wor- 
shipped the  Fravashis,  or  souls  of  their  ancestors,  at  the 
summer  solstice,  during  the  epoch  of  the  year  of  three 
seasons  and  the  six-days  week.  But  this  local  ritual  was 
not  accepted  in  India  when  the  pastoral  barley  -  growing 
tribes  united  the  Indian  'people  in  the  confederacy  of  the 
Kushika.  It  was  to  celebrate  the  formation  of  this  national 
union,  b^inning  with  the  autumnal  equinox,  that  the  last 
fortnight  of  Bhadrapada  (August — September),  called  the 
Pitri-paksha,  was  dedicated  to  the  fathers  ^  This  is  the 
month  of  the  blessed  (bhadra)  step,  consecrated  to  the 
Pole  Star  goat  -  god,  which  became  the  month  of  the 
sons  of  the  ox,  when  it  received  the  name  translated  in 
Sanskrit  as  Prosthapada,  the  ox-footed  month.  The  latter 
half  of  this  month  was  the  season  of  Sraddhas,  or  memorial 
celebrations  of  the  sons  of  the  cloud-goddess  Shar,  to  whom 
the  autumn  called  Sharad  was  dedicated.  It  was  to  the 
next  month  (September — October),  called  Boedromion,  the 
course  of  the  ox,  a  reproduction  of  the  Indian  name  of  the 
previous  month,  that  the  Nekusia,  or  feast  to  the  dead,  was 
celebrated  in  Athens.  The  ordinary  Pitriyajfta  or  sacrifice 
was  offered  once  a  month  at  the  New  Moon,  showing  it 
to  be  a  sacrifice  of  a  year  beginning  with  the  New  Moon, 
hut,  as  in  the  beginning  of  the  cycle-year,  the  New  Moon 
of  Ashva-yujau  (September — October)  was  consecrated  to 
the  sun-god  of  the  New  Year.  It  was  the  last  days  of 
the  departed  year  which  were  dedicated  to  the  dead  fathers 
^nd  called  the  days  of  the  Maha-pitri-yajfla,  or  sacrifice  to 
fte  Great  Fathers. 

The  fathers  to  whom  this  festival  was  especially  con- 
secrated were  the  worshippers  of  the  Pole  Star,  who  wore 
the  sacrificial  cord  on  the  right  shoulder  and  bent  their  left 
l^nee  in   their  circumambulations  of  the  altar,  which  were 

'  Sachaa,  Albenini's  Indian  vol  ii.  chap.  Ixxxvi.  p.  180;  Monier  Williams, 
Religious  Thought  and  Life  in  India^  chaps,  xi.,  xvi.  pp.  308,  431. 


226  History  and  Chronology 

always  made  contrary  to  the  course  of  the  sun,  from  right 
to  left'.  They  are  called  the  Pitaro  Barishadah,  or  the  fathers 
who  sat  on  the  sheaves  (barhis)  of  Kusha  grass  (Poa  eyno- 
siiroides).  They,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Brahmanas,  were  the 
first  fathers  to  whom  cooked  sacrificial  food  was  offered. 
They  were  men  of  the  Neolithic  stone  age,  who  buried  their 
dead,  and  preceded  the  last  series  of  fathers  recc^nised 
in  the  Brahmanas  as  commemorated  at  this  Festival.  These 
were  the  Pitaro'  Gnishvattah,  those  "consumed  by  fire," 
a  name  proving  them  to  belong  to  the  Bronze  Age,  when  the 
dead  were  burnt  as  in  the  Vedic  ritual,  and  that  now  followed 
by  all  high-caste  Hindus  ^, 

The  predecessors  of  these  two  classes  of  barley-eating 
fathers  were  the  Pitarah  Somavantah,  or  fathers  possessed 
of  Soma,  that  is,  the  sons  of  the  tree  and  its  life- 
giving  sap  {soma).  These  first  fathers  were  fed  at  this 
festival  with  rice  on  six  platters,  the  six  days  of  their  week. 
This  rice  was  brought  by  the  sacrificing  priest  to  the  north 
of  the  Garhapatya  or  circular  household  {Gurh)  fire-altar, 
whence  he  took  it  southward  and  threshed  it  at  the  north  of 
the  Dakshina  or  southern  fire,  shaped  like  a  crescent  moon  3. 
After  threshing  the  rice  he  ground  it  between  two  mill- 
stones placed  on  the  skin,  sloping  to  the  south,  of  the  black 
antelope,  the  successor  of  the  deer-sun  and  the  year-god 
of  the  Kushika,  sons  of  the  Kusha  grass,  the  antelope's 
favourite  food.  He  placed  the  cakes  made  of  this  ground 
rice,  divided  into  six  portions  or  platters,  to  the  south  of  the 
Garhapatya  4  altar,  after  it  had  been  mixed,  in  the  ceremony 
presided  over  by  the  Aptya  or  water  [ap)  gods  {the  Trita 
Aptya  of  this  epoch)^  with  water  brought  by  the  unsexed 
Agnldhra  or  fire-priest,  who  also  buttered  the  dough  before 
it  was  baked  by  the  Adhvaryu  or  ceremonial-priest  5. 

'  Eggeling,  5'a/.  Bruh.^  ii.  4,  3,  2,  ii.  6,  I,  8,  ii.  6,  2n. ;  S.B.E.,  toI.  zii. 
pp.  361,  421,  441.  '  Ibid.,  ii.  6,  I,  7  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  421. 

3  Ibid.,  The  Agniyiidhana,  or  Establishment  of  the  Sacred  Fires;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xii.  p.  275.  *  Ibid.,  ii.  6,  i,  4,  8,  9  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  421,  422. 

5  Ibid.,  i.  2,  2,  I — 18  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  42 — 47. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  227 

The  Adhvaryu,  after  preparing  the  sacrifice  for  the  rice- 
eating  fathers,  began  to  prepare  that  for  those  born  of  the 
Kusha  grrass.  For  them  he  prepared  a  new  altar,  differing 
from  the  circular  Garhapatya  and  the  semi-circular  or 
crescent-shaped  Dakshina  altar  of  the  earlier  races.  For  this 
altar  he  built  a  four-sided  shed  south  of  the  Dakshina  fire, 
the  tower  of  the  three-years  cycle,  with  its  door  to  the  north, 
instead  of  being  on  the  south  side,  like  the  door  of  the 
garden  of  the  Twins.  Inside  this  he  built  the  national  sacri- 
ficial fire-altar  of  earth,  made  in  the  form  of  the  woman 
enclosed  in  the  tower,  who  was  to  be  the  mother  of  the 
sun-god  born  of  the  cycle-year'.  The  altar  was  placed 
with  its  sides  facing  the  cardinal  points,  like  the  early  sun- 
altar  at  Borsippa,  near  Babylon,  and  it  was  to  measure  a 
fathom  on  the  west  and  three  or  more  cubits  from  west 
to  east.  Also  the  east  side  was  to  be  shorter  than  the  west. 
The  breadth  was  to  be  contracted  in  the  middle  to  resemble 
a  woman's  waist,  and  it  was  to  slope  towards  the  east*. 
This  altar,  called  the  Vedi  or  altar  of  knowledge,  was 
sprinkled  with  water  by  the  Adhvaryu  before  he  thatched 
it  with  Kusha  grass.  Seven  sheaves  or  Barhis  were  made  of 
this  grass  in  the  later  ritual  of  the  seven-days  week,  but 
only  four  for  this  earlier  festival.  With  three  of  these  the 
altar  was  thatched  by  the  Adhvaryu,  as  the  Barhis  on  which 
the  Pitaro  Barishadah  sat.  For  this  ceremony  he  in  the 
later  ritual  shifted  the  sacrificial  cord  to  the  left  shoulder, 
and  laid  the  grass  in  three  circuits  of  the  altar  made  sun- 
wise 3.  The  fourth  was  the  Prastara  or  rain-wand,  the  Zend 
Baresma,  made  of  three  united  sheaves,  the  three  years  of 
the  cycle,  flowering  shoots  denoting  the  flowers  of  each 
of  the  three  years  being  added  to  each  sheaf  4. 

After  the  altar  was  thatched  the  priest  placed  the  fire  re- 
moved from  the  crescent  moon-shaped  Dakshina  altar  to  the 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  BraA,,i\,  6,  I,  lo;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  422,  note  3. 

^  Ibid.,  i  2,  5,  14 — 17 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  62—64. 

3  Ibid.,  i.  3,  3,  3 ;  "•  6,  i,  14-15 ;  voL  xii.  pp.  84,  note  2,  424,  425. 

*  Ibid.,  ii.  5,  I,  18 ;  vol.  xii.  p.  389,  note  I. 

Q  2 


228  History  and  Chronology 

centre  of  the  new  altar,  calling  the  fire-wood  "the  black 
deer  living  in  a  den,"  the  fire  of  generation  hidden  in  the 
womb  of  the  black-antelope-altar '.  He  encircled  the  fire 
with  the  Paridhis,  the  enclosing  mother-triangle  of  the  cycle- 
year,  made  of  three  sticks  of  Palasha  wood  {Butea  frondosa)^ 
with  its  apex  towards  the  south,  and  laid  the  northern  stick, 
denoting  the  northern  origin  of  the  fathers,  first  ^.  Thus  the 
figure  of  the  altar  was  as  follows — 

with  the  sacred  triangle,  the  womb,  impregnated  with  the 
fire-seed  in  the  centre.  This  fire  was  the  Agni  Jatavedas, 
the  Agni  who  knows  {vedas)  the  secrets  of  birth  (jata), 
which  was  thus  invoked  by  the  Hotri  or  libation-priest  in 
the  words  of  the  Vedic  ritual  3 :  "  We  place  thee,  O  Jata- 
vedas,  in  the  place  of  Ida  (the  mountain-daughter  of  Manu 
and  the  sheep  (eda)  mother  of  the  ram-sun),  in  the  navel 
of  the  altar  to  carry  our  offerings."  This  fire  was  the 
sacred  fire,  Nabhi-nedeshtha,  nearest  to  the  navel  {ndbhi), 
born  as  Vastospati,  the  lord  {patt)  of  the  house,  the  house- 
hold fire,  from  the  union  of  Prajapati  {Orion)  with  his 
daughter  Rohinl  Aldebaran,  and  transferred  from  this 
Garhapatya  altar  to  the  new  altar,  made  in  the  form  of 
a  woman,  when  Rohinl  became  the  red  cow  and  the  god 
born  from  the  fire  of  the  altar  became  the  husband  of  his 
mother,  kindling  the  fire  in  the  navel  of  the  altar,  and  the 
begetter  of  the  successive  children  born  of  the  cycle,  who 
were  finally  to  produce  the  perfect  sun-god,  rising  from  the 
fire  to  the  sky. 

The  offering  made  on  this  altar  to  the  fathers  who  buried 
their  dead  was  barley-grain,  parched  on  the  fire  but  not 
ground.     This  was  the  same  food  as  that  of  the  Picts,  which 

*  Eggeling,  SaL  Brah.^  ii.  6,  I,  ii,  i.  3,  3,   i;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  422, 
note  3,  84. 
^  Ibid.,  1.  3,  3,  13,  19  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pd.  87,  89,  90. 
3  Rg.  ui.  29,  4.^ 


oj  the  Myth-Making  Age,  229 

they  buried  for  their  year's  consumption  in  subterranean 
chambers,  such  as  those  still  made  by  ryots  in  Chutia 
Na^ur.  It  was  these  Picts  who  traced  descent  in  the 
female  line,  like  the  Nairs  of  Madras,  the  Lycians,  Cre- 
tans, Dorians,"  Athenians,  Lemnians,  Etrurians,  Egyptians, 
Orchomenians,  Locrians,  Lesbians,  Mantinaeans',  and  all 
the  races  comprised  under  the  names  of  Tursena,  Tursha 
and  Tyrrhenians,  the  rulers  of  the  Minyan  empire.  They 
are  called  in  Irish  Cruithni,  and  in  Welsh  Priten  or  Pryden, 
meaning  men  of  the  "  form  or  shape  "  of  the  animal-parents, 
from  whom  they  claimed  descent.  They  in  Europe  tattooed 
their  tribal  marks  on  their  foreheads,  and  covered  their 
bodies,  according  to  Herodian,  "  with  the  figures  of  animals 
of  all  kinds,"  that  is  with  those  of  their  totem-parents.  It 
was  these  men  who  gave  to  our  islands  the  Welsh  name 
of  Yuys  Pridain,  the  Picts'  island,  called  by  Strabo  and 
Diodorus  the  Hp^raviKal  Ntjo-oi,  whence  the  name  of  Britain 
arose  2.  It  was  apparently  their  congeners  who  came  to 
India  as  the  fathers  who  ate  parched  barley,  tattooed  their 
bodies  as  the  Ooraons  still  do,  and  painted  on  their  foreheads 
the  sign  or  Tiloka  of  the  Naga  snake,  and  of  the  trident 
of  Vishnu,  their  sacrificial  stake,  a  mark  still  worn  by  all 
Vishnuites,  the  tribal  mark  which  the  sons  of  Jamvavan,  the 
bear,  were  said  to  bear  in  the  Mahabharata  (p.  119). 

It  was  this  race  of  barley-growing  sons  of  the  cross  of 
St.  George,  the  worker  (ovp^osi)  in  the  earth  (71)),  the  plough- 
god  of  the  three-years  cycle,  born  from  the  navel-fire  of 
the  altar,  who  became  in  European  traditional  history  the 
parents  of  the  second  race  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers,  the  first 
cultivators  who  tilled  land  with  the  plough.  They  were  born 
from  the  god-kings  of  Lydia,  Herakles,  the  star  Orion,  wor- 


*  Morgan,  Ancient  Society ^  Macmillan  and  Co.,  1877,  chap.  xiv.  pp.  343,  351  ; 
Bachofen,  Die  Mutterrecht^  passim;  Rhys  and  Brymnor  Jones,  The  Welsh 
People^  chap,  ii.,  The  Pictish  Question,  pp.  36 — 74. 

*  Sir  II.  Maxwell,  A  Duke  of  Britain^  pp.  31,  393 ;  Rhys  and  Brymnor 
Jones,  The  Welsh  People^  pp.  76,  79,  note  2,  80 ;  Professor  Rhys,  Address  to 
th£  Anthropological  Sectioti  of  the  British  Association^  Sept.  6,  1900. 


230  History  and  Chronology 

shipped  as  the  sun -god',  and  Omphale,  the  navel,  who 
succeeded  the  sons  of  Attis  the  Phrygian  of  the  Bhrigfu  race, 
the  ape-grandfather-god  Pappos*.  They  were  the  Hindu 
Asura,  who  succeeded  the  Danava,  the  Danaoi  of  the  Greeks, 
the  Turanian  sons  of  Danu  of  the  Zendavesta^  the  sons  of 
Dan  of  the  Jews.  These  latter  were  in. Jewish  history  the 
sons  of  Billah,  the  old  Pole  Star  mother,  and  Dan's  sons  were 
the  race  called  Hushim  and  Shuhams,  the  Hus  and  the 
Shus,  the  subjects  of  the  Zend  and  Vedic  kings  Hu-shrava 
and  Su-shrava,  the  glory  of  the  Hus  and  Shus,  the  king 
called  in  the  Biblical  historical  genealogy  of  Edom  (the  land 
of  the  red  men)^  preserved  in  Genesis,  Husham,  king  of  the 
Temanites  or  Southern  Arabia.  He  was  the  son  of  Jo-bab, 
the  gate  {bab)  of  God  {Jo\  the  constellation  Gemini,  and 
grandson  of  Zerah,  the  red  son  of  Tamar,  the  palm-tree 
mother  and  predecessor  of  Hadad  Rimmon,  the  hastening 
{hadad)  pomegranate,  the  sun-god  4. 

This  widely-spread  race  of  the  Kushite  Asura,  the  ploughers 
of  the  earth  and  the  growers  of  corn,  were  the  people  who 
worshipped  the  bisexual  mother-goddess,  called  by  the 
Phoenicians  Shemi-ram-ot,  meaning  She  of  the  exalted 
(ram)  name  (Shem),  a  name  by  which  one  of  the  classes  of 
officiating  Levites  is  called  in  i  Chron.  xv.  i8,  20.  She  was 
a  goddess  whose  statues  at  Ashkelon  on  the  Mediterranean 
and  Mabug  {Hierapolis)  on  the  Euphrates  are  described  by 
Diodorus  Halicarnassus  and  Lucian.  At  Ashkelon,  Dio- 
dorus  ii.  4  says  that  in  her  temple  outside  the  city  she  was 
portrayed  with  the  crescent-moon  over  her  head,  a  spear 
in  her  left,  and  a  dove,  the  bird  of  marriage,  on  her  right 
hand.  Her  foot  was  placed  on  the  head  of  her  fish-mother, 
the  goddess  Derketo.  Lucian,  De  Dea  Syrid^  33,  says  that 
her  image  at  Mabug  stood  between  that  of  Chiun,  the  pillar- 
god,  the  gnomon-stone,  and  Tirhatha,  meaning  the   cleft, 

'  Movers,  Die  Phonizier^  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.  p.  472. 

'  Herod,  i.  7. 

3  Gen.  xlvi.  23  ;  Numb.  xxri.  42. 

*  Gen.  xxxvi.  33—35. 


ofttu  Myth- Making  Age,  23 1 

the  Phoenician  form  of  the  name  of  the  fish-mother-goddess, 
changed  by  the  Greeks  into  Derketo  and  Atergatis. 

She  had  a  dove  on  her  head,  and  was  represented  as  a 
Hermaphrodite,  half-man  and  half-woman,  with  the  male 
and  female  attributes  of  the  other  two  gods  of  the  triad. 
She  was  called  Semeion  or  Semi,  and  the  story  of  her  birth 
was  that  she  was  the  daughter  of  Hadad,  the  sun-god  of 
Damascus,  who  sent  her  to  the  sea  to  get  water  from  thence 
to  drive  away  the  evil  spirits  from  the  springs.  Her  mother 
was  Tirhatha,  the  fish-mother-goddess,  depicted  at  Mabug 
as  bearing  a  sceptre  in  one  hand  and  a  spindle,  the  sign 
of  the  spinning  Pleiades,  in  the  other.  A  tower-crown  of 
the  year-goddess,  like  that  of  Kybele  and  Isis,  was  on  her 
head,  which  was  surrounded  with  a  halo.  She  wore  the 
girdle  of  the  ruling  year-goddess  round  her  waist,  and  she 
was  a  sea-goddess  into  whose  temple-cleft  or  pool  sea  water 
was  brought  twice  a  year  in  sealed  jars.  She  abandoned 
her  daughter  Shemiramot  on  the  mountains,  and  she  was 
brought  up  by  the  doves,  the  Pleiades,  the  Greek  Peleiades. 
They  got  milk  for  her  from  the  shepherds,  and  the  shepherd 
Simmas  gave  her  the  name  Shemiramot  when  she  was 
a  year  old  ^.  Thus  she  was  a  goddess  born  from  the  central 
mountain,  the  earth-altar  encircled  by  the  salt  sea,  the  ocean- 
snake  surrounding  the  mother-mountain,  and  she,  like  her 
mother,  measured  time. 

Her  festival  fairs  at  Mabug  were  held  in  spring  and 
autumn  at  the  vernal  and  autumnal  equinoxes,  and  they 
were  accompanied  by  orgiastic  rites  requiring  the  temple 
Kedesha  to  prostitute  themselves  to  strangers  paying  the 
fixed  fee  into  the  treasury  of  the  goddess  2.  She,  the  goddess 
of  the  doves,  is  called  by  Herodotus  i.  105,  Aphrodite 
Ourania,  and  is  said  to  have  sent  the  female  disease  upon 
the  Scythians  who  plundered  her  temple  at  Ascalon.     That 

'  MoYers,  Die  Phonitier^  vol.   i.  chap.   xii.   p.   468 ;   chap.   xvii.  pp.    588, 
598,631,  632,  634. 
'  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  Das  Phoenischc  Alterthum,  chap.  vii.   pp.  136,  137,  vol.  i. 

P-  635. 


232  History  and  Chronology 

is  to  say  that  the  establishment  of  her  worship  caused  the 
ritual  requiring  the  performance  of  the  divine  ceremonies 
by  unsexed  male  and  female  priests  to  become  universal 
throughout  South-western  Asia.  But  in  India,  where  the 
earlier  cult  of  the  Bhrigu  priests  was  established,  this  phase 
of  worship  only  produced  the  one  unsexed  priest,  the 
Agnidhra.  It  was  he,  the  helper  of  the  cooking-priest,  who 
brought  water  and  butter  for  making  the  sacrificial  cake 
f^or  the  Fitarah  Somavantah  in  the  festival  of  the  dead 
fathers  described  above,  and  who  in  the  preparations  for 
the  oiTerings  made  to  the  Pitaro  Barishadah  wiped  the  dust 
from  the  three  lines  drawn  by  the  Adhvaryu,  either  East 
or  West  or  North  and  South  across  the  altar,  and  laid  the 
fire-logs  and  sacrificial  sheaves  by  the  altar  with  their  tops 
to  the  South «. 

The  ritual  of  the  Galli  or  unsexed  priests  of  Cybele,  Istar, 
Mylitta,  and  all  other  forms  of  the  cycle-mother-goddess, 
was  that  of  Herakles  Sandon,  a  form  of  the  god  Moloch, 
the  master  {malik).  He  is  described  in  his  Grecian  legendary 
history  as  exchanging  the  beast  skin  he  wore  as  the  deer  or 
lion  sun-god  for  the  flesh-coloured,  transparent  garment  of 
his  paramour  Omphale,  the  navel.  His  male  priests  wore 
the  women's  garments  depicted  as  those  of  Herakles  on 
Lydian  coins,  and  the  women  marched  to  the  sacrifice  armed 
with  swords,  lances  and  the  sickle-shaped  knife,  the  imple- 
ment used  for  killing  the  victims  of  Moloch  worship,  among 
whom  they  sacrificed  eldest  sons.  This  son  was  in  Jewish 
ritual  redeemed  at  the  Passover  by  the  lamb  substituted  for 
him  as  the  sacrificed  Ram-sun,  but  in  the  early  Semitic 
worship  these  sacrifices  were  universally  offered  by  all 
Semites.  The  lamb  might  be  substituted  for  the  ass,  the 
sun-ass  of  this  cycle-year,  but  for  no  other  animal  was  a 
substitute  allowed,  and  their  necks  must  be  broken  3. 

The  high  places  on  which  these  rites  were  performed  were 

»  Eggeling,   Sat.  Brah.^  ii.  6,  I,   12;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  422,  note  3, 
423,  note  3. 
^  Ex.  xiii.  II — 16  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  35. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  233 

the  consecrated  hills  of  hilly  lands,  symbolising  the  central 
mother-mountain,  and  to  supply  these  in  plain  countries  arti- 
ficial hills  were  raised,  which  were  called  in  South-western  Asia 
the  hills  of  Shemiramot  ^.  The  most  universally  celebrated 
of  these  artificial  hills  is  that  of  Borsippa  near  Babylon. 
The  name  of  this  city  is  in  Akkadian  Ka-dingira^  the  gate 
of  the  Creators,  translated  by  the  Semites  into  Bab-ili,  the 
gate  of  II  the  god.  This  name,  which  represented  the 
theology  of  the  cycle  epoch  of  the  Gate  Stars  Gemini,  was 
substituted  for  the  earlier  title  of  Tintir-ki,  the  place  of  the 
tree  of  life,  the  mother-grove  «  The  hill  of  Borsippa,  called 
by  the  Akkadians  Tilu  ellu,  the  illustrious  mound  3,  is  that 
to  which  the  seventh  month  of  their  later  year,  called  Tul-ku, 
the  holy  mound  or  altar  (September — October),  was  dedi- 
cated. This  was  the  first  month  of  the  cycle-year,  the 
Jewish  Tisri,  the  Indian  Ashva-yujau,  the  Attic  Boedromion ; 
and  it  was  in  the  previous  month,  Ki-Gingir-na  (August — 
September),  that  of  the  circuit  of  Istar  the  creatrix  {Gingir)^ 
that  Istar  descended  to  the  realms  of  Allah,  the  goddess 
of  the  Southern  world,  to  recover  the  dead  sun-god  Dumu-zi, 
and  bring  him  back  to  earth  as  the  ram-sun-god  born  at  the 
autumnal  equinox  on  the  top  of  the  Holy  Hill.  On  entering 
the  abode  of  the  sun-goddess  of  the  South,  Istar  had  to 
divest  herself  of  the  ornaments  marking  her  as  a  lunar  year- 
goddess,  including  the  year-girdle  of  the  Syrian  Tirhatha 
and  the  lunar  earrings  of  the  Hindu  Karna4. 

It  was  on  these  hills  that  the  New  Year's  festival  of  the 
Feast  of  Booths  or  Tabernacles  was  held.  This  began 
according  to  the  Levitical  Jewish  law  on  the  15th  of  Tisri 
at  the  full  moon  5,  but  in  the  epoch  we  are  now  dealing 
with,  it  was  the  New  Moon  feast  of  the  cycle-year.     We  have 


*  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.  pp.  480,  483,  chap.  xiv.  p.  674. 

=  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  C oust ellat ions ^  vol.  i.,  chap.  viii.  p.  314. 
^  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  vi.  p.  405. 

*  Ibid.,  Lect.  iv.  pp.   221 — 227;   R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Con- 
stellcUions^  vol.  ii.  p.  13. 

s  Levit.  xxiii.  34. 


5  34  History  and  Chronology 

seen  in  Chapter  II.  p.  49,  that  this  was  originally  the  New 
Year's  festival  of  the  Sabaean  sons  of  the  tree,  held  on  the 
1st  of  November  to  commemorate  their  descent  from  the 
mother-village  grove,  and  like  their  feast  to  the  dead  in 
India,  it  was  changed  by  the  corn -growing  races  to  the 
autumnal  equinox.  The  festival  is  called  by  Hesychius 
Sakara,  the  feast  of  the  Saka,  or  sons  of  the  wet-god  Sak,  and 
it  was  in  India  the  Saka-medha,  or  sacrifice  of  the  Sakas. 
The  corresponding  festival  held  to  celebrate  the  beginning 
of  Orion's  year  at  the  winter  solstice  was,  as  we  have  seen 
in  Chapter  III.  p.  96,  the  Rudra-Tri-ambika.  The  sun-god 
then  conceived  when  the  Pole  Star  was  in  Cygnus,  from 
17,000  to  15,000  B.C.,  was  the  sun-god  brought  up  from 
the  nether  world  in  August — September,  to  be  born  as  the 
ruler  of  the  cycle-year  at  the  autumnal  equinox.  But  this 
New  Year's  Hindu  festival  of  the  corn-growing  races  was 
also  like  that  of  the  Arabians  originally  held  in  October — 
November,  and  this  original  date  was  retained  in  the  Vedic 
ritual  of  the  Brahmanas,  which  gives  the  full  moon  of 
Khartik  (October — November)  as  the  date  of  the  Saka- 
medha  ".  But  this,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  197, 
in  the  account  of  the  slaying  of  Jarasandha,  the  god  of 
the  year  of  three  seasons  and  six-day  weeks,  by  Bhima, 
was  originally  held  on  the  new  moon  of  Khartik  2.  To 
judge  by  the  date  of  the  Shraddha  feast  to  the  dead  held 
at  the  autumnal  equinox  to  replace  one  originally  celebrated 
in  October — November,  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that 
when  this  festival  received  the  Akkado-Semitic  name  of 
the  Saka  sacrifice,  it  was  held  with  tlie  feast  to  the  dead 
as  the  New  Year's  festival  of  the  barley-eating  fathers. 

It  was  called  by  the  Phoenicians  Sakut,  meaning  the 
booths,  the  Hebrew  Succoth.  It  was  at  the  place  called 
by  this   name  that  Jacob  built  his  first  house,  and  made 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  Chaturmasiyani,  or  Seasonal  Sacrifices,  Introduction; 
S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  383. 
'  Mahabharata  Sabha  (/ardsandha-badha)  Parva,  xxiii.  p.  72. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  235 

booths  for  his  cattle  after  he  crossed  the  parent  Semite 
river  Jordan  %  the  Greek  lardanos,  the  river-god  to  whom, 
according  to  Herod,  i.  7,  Omphale  the  Navel,  the  female 
form  of  the  bisexual  Herakles,  was  a  slave.  This  de- 
scription marks  the  New  Year's  feast  of  Jacob's  house-warm- 
ing at  which  he  lit  his  household  fires  for  the  year,  as  that 
of  the  house-building  Kushika  or  Hittite  Khati,  who  built 
the  three-years  tower  of  God. 

In  India  it  was  the  Bengal  Durga-Puja,  or  Nava-ratra, 
held  on  the  loth  day  of  the  light  half  of  Assin  (September — 
October),  the   festival  of  the  mountain-goddess  Su-bhadra, 
described  in  the  Mahabharata  as  that  held  on  the  Raivataka 
hill,  whence  Arjuna  eloped  with  Su-bhadra  ^,     This,  as  we 
have  seen  on  p.  209,  was  the  festival  of  Revati,  the  closing  and 
opening  festival  of  the  year.     She  was  the  hill-eel-goddess, 
the  blessed  bird  (5«)  who,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  III. 
p.  96,  succeeded  the  Tri-ambika  mothers,  and  this  mountain- 
goddess   was,  as   Strabo  tells   us,   xi.   8,  pp.  431,432,  the 
Persian  goddess  Anahita,  the  Greek  Anaitis,  the  Ardvi  Sura 
Anahita  of  the  Zendavesta^  the  mother-river  Euphrates,  sent 
down  to  water  the  earth  of  the  sons  of  the  Gate  of  God  by 
the   creating   {kairya)   bird    Hu-kairya,  the   Zend   form   of 
Su-bhadra.     She  was  the  goddess  Tanais   of  Carthage,   a 
form  of  Danu,  the  Phoenician  Thenet,  who  was,  as  Berdsus 
tells  us,  also  the  national  god  of  the  Saka  3.     The  worship 
of  this  mountain-goddess  extended  from  the  East  in  India 
to  the  West  of  Europe,  for  we  have  in  the  hill  of  Avebury 
^Q  Gloucestershire  an  example  of  the  artificial  hills  erected 
in  her  honour.     In  this  cycle-year  the  two  festivals  of  the 
solstitial  year  held  at  intervals  of  six  months  in  each  year 
^ere  incorporated,  and  to  these  two  festivals  the  equinoctial 
f^tivals  were  added,  and  each  of  these   festivals  was  the 
thinning  of  a  fresh  year  of  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation. 


'  Gen.  xxxiii.  17  ;  Movers,  Die  Phonisier,  vol.  i.  chap.  vi.  pp.  480 — 483. 
'  Adi  (Subhadrd-Harana)  Parva,  sects,  ccxzi..  ccxxii.  pp.  603 — 607. 
^  Movers,  Die  PAcnizur,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvii.  p.  620. 


236  History  and  Chronology 

Consequently  the  New  Year's  feast  of  the  autumnal  equinox 
was  repeated  at  the  summer  and  winter  solstices  and  the 
vernal  equinox. 

D.     The  festivals  of  the  three-years  cycle. 

The  feast  beginning  the  ten-months  year  following  that 
opening  at  the  autumnal  equinox  was  that  of  the  summer 
solstice.  This  feast  at  Babylon  was  the  Saka  Feast  of 
Booths,  commemorating  the  marriage  of  Shemiramot  to 
Ninus  or  Nimrod,  the  hunter-star  Orion  of  the  year  of  three 
seasons.  It  was  held  on  the  hill  of  the  Illustrious  Mound, 
and  took  place,  according  to  Berosus,  on  the  i6th  of  Loos 
(June — July),  and  the  date  of  the  festival  coincides  with  that 
of  the  setting  of  Orion  at  sunset,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
put  in  the  sky  by  Ninus,  that  is  to  say,  the  Wild  Hunter 
Ninus  became  the  year-star  Orion  '. 

The  festival  lasted  for  five  days,  and  was  ruled  by  the 
bisexual-goddess  Shemiramot,  represented  by  a  male  slave. 
He  sat  on  a  throne  with  his  face  painted  white  and  red, 
wore  chains,  lunar  earrings  and  a  red  robe,  and  held  the  cup 
of  the  seasons  in  one  hand  and  a  double  axe,  symbolising 
the  two  monthly  lunar  crescents,  in  the  other.  He  was 
surrounded  by  women,  and  during  the  feast  he,  like  the 
Satnam  Guru  of  the  Chuttisgurh  Chamars  and  the  ruling 
priests  of  the  Maharaja  Vishnu  sect  in  Western  India,  had 
rights  over  all  the  women  in  the  camp.  During  the  first  day 
there  was  a  general  feast.  On  the  second  Ninus,  the  setting 
Orion,  was  imprisoned  underground,  and  placed  in  charge  of 
the  springs  then  being  filled  by  the  rains  of  the  rainy  season. 
On  the  removal  of  Ninus,  homage  was  done  to  his  herma- 
phrodite double,  Shemiramot,  as  queen.  On  the  last  of  the 
five  days  the  slave  who  represented  her  was  burnt  as  the 
sacrifice  of  the  dying  sun-god  =»,  a  rite  marking  an  earlier 

*  Movers,  Die  PhofiizUr^  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.  pp.  472,  480,  497  ;  Chron,  Pasch*^ 
vol.  i.  p.  64 ;  Codremus,  vol.  i.  p.  27  ;  Aihettaus^  xiv.  p.  639. 
'  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.  pp.  491,  492  ;  Cur^ius,  v.  i. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  237 

form  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  fifth  day  of  the  lamb  slain  at 
the  Potraj  festival  in  South  India. 

This  festival  of  the  marriage  of  Shemiramot  and  Ninus 
{Orion),  with  the  interchange  of  male  and  female  clothes, 
characterising  the  age  of  lunar-solar  worship,  beginning  with 
the  cycle-year,  was  celebrated  all  over  South-western  Asia, 
and  in  Tarsus  a  dog,  the  dog-star  Sirius,  was  burnt  as 
the  south-going  sun-god '. 

This  same  festival  is  celebrated  in  India  as  the  Rath-jatra, 
or  chariot  wedding  procession  of  Krishna  or  Rama,  the 
antelope  sun-god  Orion,  or  the  ploughing  ox,  with  his  twin- 
sister  Durga  or  Su-bhadra,  the  mountain-goddess.  It  is 
held  at  Mathura,  the  holy  shrine  of  Krishna,  sacred  to  the 
"turner  of  the  earth"  (math),  on  the  17th  of  Sshadha,  the 
modern  Asarh  (June — July),  that  is  at  the  beginning  of  July. 
This  festival  is  also  held  in  Chutia  Nagpur  at  the  same 
time,  so  that  they  agree  exactly  in  date  with  that  of  Shemi- 
ramot at  Babylon. 

The  year-bride  in  the  story  of  Rama,  son  of  Kushaloya, 
the  house  or  mother  of  the  Kushite  race,  was  Sita,  who  was, 
as  we  have  seen  on  p.  208,  united'to  him  as  king  of  the  cycle- 
year.     She  was   first   the  furrow  ploughed  in  the  sky  by 
Rama,  the  ox,  in  his  monthly  circuit  round  the  heavens 
of  the  Nag-kshetra  stars  ;  and  afterwards  the  crescent-moon, 
which   made   the  same   circuit.     She   was   freed   from   the 
clutches  of  Ravana,  the  ten-headed  giant  of  the  cycle-year, 
ruling  its  ten  months  of  gestation,  and  of  his  three  generals, 
the  three  years  of  its  duration  2 :   Prahasta,  the   foremost 
hand   (hasta),  the  stars   Gemini,  the   hands   of  the   gods  ; 
Kumbha-kama,  the   maker  {karna)  of  the  year  water-jars 
{kumbhd)y  the  Great  Potter ;  and  Indrajit,  the  maker  of  the 

'  Movers,  DU  Phonitier,  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.  pp.  457,  497. 

'  In  the  variant  form  of  the  story  of  Rama  and  Sita  told  in  the  Buddhist 

Jaiakay  book  zi.  no.  461,  Rama  is  said  to  have  returned  from  his  wanderings, 

that  is,  from  his  circuit  of  the  sky  as  a  year-god  after  three  years'  absence, 

thus  shewing  that  he  was  a  year-god  of  the  three-years  cycle.    Rouse,  Jdtaka, 

vol.  iv.  book  xi.  no.  461,  p.  82. 


238  History  and  Chronology 

year-net  of  the  cycle  time  measurement,  in  which  Rama 
and  his  brother  Lakshman,  the  guider  of  the  plougher 
of  the  furrow,  were  all  but  suifTocated,  till  they  were  revived 
by  the  water  of  life.  Of  these  rulers  of  the  cycle-year, 
Prahasta  was  slain  by  Vibhishana,  the  brother  of  Ravana 
the  year-god,  who  conducted  Rama's  army  to  Ravana's 
southern  stronghold,  in  Ceylon,  over  the  year-bridge  of 
360,000  monkeys  (360  days),  Kumbha-kama  and  Indrajit 
by  Lakshman  '.  It  was  Rama  himself,  the  god  of  the  new- 
year  of  the  sun-horse,  to  be  described  in  the  next  Chapter, 
who  slew  Ravana  from  the  year-car  of  Indra,  into  which  he 
was  conducted  by  Vibhishana,  the  year-god  \ 

After  this  victory,  the  June — July  wedding  procession 
of  Rama  and  Sita  from  Ceylon  began  and  ended  with  the 
installation  of  Rama  as  king  of  Ayodhya  in  the  North-east, 
in  the  beginning  of  Sravana  (July — August)  3,  as  described 
in  the  Mahabharata.  This  midsummer  festival  to  the  year- 
god  of  the  mother-mountain,  crowned  with  the  lunar- 
crescent,  is  also  that  of  the  Devil  Dancers,  held  yearly  in 
Dardistan,  the  traditional  birth-place  of  the  Indian  Dar- 
danian  sons  of  the  antelope.  It  is  held  on  the  slopes 
of  the  central  Pamir  table-land,  the  Hindu  Mount  Meru, 
which  became  in  the  later  days  of  sun-worship  the  successor 
of  Mount  Mandara,  the  first  central  mountain  of  the  Indian 
Kushikas  4. 

The  third  feast  of  the  cycle-year  was  that  of  the  vernal 
equinox,  beginning  the  third  year  of  ten  lunar  months, 
extending  from  the  vernal  equinox  to  the  winter  solstice. 
This  division  of  the  cycle-year  is  that  marked  in  the  Latin 
year  reckoning  by  the  name  of  December  the  tenth  {decern) 
month  given  to  that  which  concludes  it.  The  best  historical 
evidence   as  to  this  festival,  and  its  connection  with   the 

'  Mahabharata  Vana  (Draupadiharana)  Parva,  cclxxxii. ,  cclxxxv. — cclxxxviii. 
pp.  839,  844-853. 

*  Ibid.,  cclxxxix.  pp.  855 — 857. 
3  Ibid.,  ccxc.  p.  862. 

*  Knight,  Where  Three  Empires  Mect^  Third  Edition,  chap.  xiii.  pp.  200—223. 


of  the  My th- Making  Age.  239 

measurement  of  time,  is  that  given  by  the  Roman  festivals 
of— (i)  The  twenty-three  days'  procession  of  the  fully-armed 
twelve  Quirinal  and  twelve  Palatine  Salii,  or  dancing  priests, 
canying  the  twelve  Ancilia,  or  year-shields,  through  the 
twenty  -  four  Argei,  or  stations  marking  the  boundaries 
of  the  ancient  city,  and  ending  with  the  Tubilustrium,  or 
Purification  of  the  Trumpets  {tuba)^  with  which  the  opening 
of  the  year  was  announced,  and  the  sacrifice  of  a  lamb 
representing,  as  in  the  other  cycle  festivals  I  have  noticed, 
the  Ram-sun  ;  (2)  The  festivals  of  Mamurius  on  the  14th  of 
March;  and  of  (3)  Anna  Perenna  on  the  15th  full-moon  day 
of  the  month. 

The  Sabine  Mamurius  is  the  male  god  of  this  connected 
series  of  New  Year  religious  ceremonies.  He  is  the  equivalent 
of  Quirinus,  the  god  of  the  revolving  or  running  year  {kur\ 
whose  priests,  the  Salii,  danced  in  circles  round  the  Pole, 
the  central  god  of  the  rotating  earth,  like  the  dancing 
dervishes  of  the  East,  wearing  the  three-knotted  girdle  of 
the  three  seasons  of  Orion's  year.  He  was  the  god  of 
Increase  or  growth,  the  Etrurian  Maso,  and  a  form  of  the 
Sabine  god  called  Semo  Sancus,  who,  as  I  have  shown  in 
Chapter  IV.  p.  164,  is  the  god  of  the  sacred  grain  {sagmen). 
Hence  he  was  the  god  of  the  sons  of  the  Kusha  grass  who 
made  the  spring  grass  to  grow. 

This  series  of  March  festivals  is  in  the  Roman  Calendar 
entirely  based  on  the  New  and  Full  Moons,  by  which  the 
months  of  the  cycle-year  were  measured.  They  bee^in  with 
the  new  moon  of  the  ist  of  March,  when  the  year  fires  of 
Rome  were  lighted,  and  the  first  especially  sacred  day 
^fter  this  New  Year's  Day  is  the  9th  of  March,  when  the 
Calendar  tells  us  that  they  (i.e.  the  Salii)  move  the  Ancilia. 
No  extant  authorities  tell  us  what  this  ceremony  actually 
^as,  but  the  fact  that  it  took  place  on  the  ninth  day,  the 
last  day  of  the  cycle-week,  marks  it  as  connected  with  the 
^ch.  The  next  special  ceremony  connected  with  the 
^rcuit  of  the  Salii  is  that  of  the  Feriae  Marti  on  the  19th, 
^hen  the  shields  of  the  Salii  were  purified ;  and  this  seems 


240  History  and  Chronology 

to  be  connected  with  the  second  nine-days  week,  ending 
on  the  1 8th  of  March,  after  which  the  purifying  ceremony 
was  performed  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  and  last  week 
of  the  month.  The  last  special  ceremony  of  the  Salii  pro- 
cession was  that  of  the  Tubilustrium  on  the  twenty-third. 
This  took  place  fourteen  days  after  the  9th,  a  number 
which  may  perhaps  be  the  result  of  the  reformation  made 
in  the  calendar,  and  the  adoption  of  the  seven-days  week. 

The  festivals  of  Mamurius  on  the  14th,  and  of  Anna 
Perenna  on  the  isth  of  March,  when  taken  together  as 
parts  of  one  series  of  ceremonies,  show  a  close  approximation 
between  these  spring  equinoctial  celebrations  and  those 
of  the  marriage  of  Shemiramot  and  Ninus  at  the  summer 
solstice.  On  the  14th  of  March  Mamurius  Veturius,  clad 
in  skins,  the  old  (vetus)  year-god  of  the  deer-year,  was 
beaten  with  long  white  rods,  and  driven  out  of  the  city. 
This  expulsion  of  the  old  year-god  of  increase  at  the  close 
of  his  year  is  an  exact  parallel  to  the  underground  imprison- 
ment of  Ninus  (Orion)  on  the  day  after  his  marriage'. 
This  expulsion  of  the  male  side  of  the  combined  male  and 
female  figures  of  the  bisexual  year-god,  the  warrior-god 
represented  in  the  military  array  of  the  Salii,  is  'followed  by 
the  license  of  the  New  Year's  festival  of  the  female  Shemi- 
ramot Anna  Perenna,  installed  as  year-queen,  and  mother 
of  the  sun-god,  on  the  deposition  of  her  male  counterpart, 
thrown  out  of  the  hive  like  a  drone  bee.  During  this  festival 
the  Roman  people  lived  in  booths  in  the  Campus  Martius 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  the  mother-river  a,  and  it  was 
therefore  one  of  the  ancient  series  of  New  Year's  Feasts 
of  Booths  or  Tents.  The  following  lines  of  Ovid  describing 
it  show  clearly  that  these  feasts  were  a  reproduction  of 
the  dancing  seasonal  festivals  of  the  sons  of  the  village 
tree : — 


*  W.  Warde  Fowler,  T/it  Roman  Pestwals^  Meiisis  Martius,  pp.  48,  note  2, 
49  ;  Frazer,  Golden  Bought  ii.  208. 
=»  Ibid.,  pp.  50 ff. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  241 

"  Idibus  est  Annae  festum  generale  Perennse, 
Haud  procul  a  ripis,  advena  Tibre,  tuis. 
Plebs  venit,  et  virides  passim  disjecta  per  herbas 
Potat,  et  accumbit  cam  pare  quisque  sua. 
Sub  love  pars  durat :  pauci  tentoria  ponunt : 
Sub  quibus  e  ramis  frondea  facta  casa  est. 
Pars  ibi  pro  rigidis  calamos  statuere  columnis  : 
Desuper  extentas  deposuere  togas. 
Sole  tamen  vinoque  calent :  annosque  precantur, 
Quot  sumunt  cyathos  ;  ad  numerumque  bibunt. 
Illic  et  cantant,  quod  didicere  theatris  ; 
Et  ducunt  posito  duras  cratere  choreas, 
Nunc  mihi  cur  cantant  superest  obscaena  puellae 
Dicere,  nam  coeunt  certaque  proba  canunt."  1 

Ovid,  Fasti  III.  sSqAT. 

n  we  consider  the  great  strength  of  the  evidence 
J  that  very  many  of  the  rituals  of  Europe,  and  es- 
r  those  of  the  Southern  maritime  countries,  were 
id  from  the  East,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 
the  Roman  goddess  of  the  vernal  equinox,  is  the 
ginian  virgin-goddess  Anna,  sister  and  predecessor 
),  the  beloved  one  {dod),  the  sun-goddess,  also  called 

a  reproduction  of  the  Phoenician  El  Hazeh,  the 
one.  She  and  her  male  double  are  apparently  spring 
Is  of  the  two  goats  of  the  autumnal  scape-goat  sacri- 
urvivals  of  a  year  of  two  seasons  of  the  goat-god, 
ed   by   the   equinoxes.      In  these,  as   described    on 

the  scape-goat  Aziz  or  Azazel  was  driven  into  the 
ess  like  Mamurius,  the  male  form  of  Anna,  and  either 
;ith  the  arms  and  clothes  of  her  male  counterpart 

or,  according  to  Varro,  Anna,  was  burnt  as  the  god 
lA  in  this  age  of  burnt-offerings  in  the  March  sacrifice 
a  Perenna  mentioned  by  Macrobius  i. 

Phoenician  and  Roman  Anna  is  therefore  the  Anath 
ge  goddess  of  Palestine  called  Anah,  the  name  of  the 

rs,  Die  Phonizicry  vol.  i.  chap.  xvii.  pp.  612 — 616;  Virg,  ALtt.y 
507 ;  W.  Warde  Fowler,  'I he  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  Martius, 
acrobius,  Sat,^\.  126. 

R 


242  History  and  Chronology 

mother  of  Aholibama,  the  Hittite  wife  of  Esau,  the   goat- 
god ',  the  goddess  of  the  tent  {AAol)  festivals,  denounced 
by  Ezekiel  xxiii.  36 — 46,  as  carried  on  by  the  worshippers 
of  Aholah   and    Aholibah^.     She  was  the   Akkadian  and 
Hindu  goddess  Anu,  and  as  the  primaeval  mother-goddess 
she  was  the  mother-tree.     It  is  in  her  Indian  festivals  as 
the  goddess   of  the   Sal-tree-mother  of   the  sun-god,   the 
Munda-Dravido  tree-mother,  that  we  find  the  earliest  form 
of  the  annual  dances  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  at  the  vernal 
equinox,   which  survives   in   the  European  carnival.     This 
festival  is  called  that  of  the  Sar-hul,  or  the  blossoming  of 
the   Sal-tree,   or   Bahu    Puja,   the   festival   of   the   goddess 
Bahu,   and   is   one   of  the   chief  festivals   of  the   Mundas, 
Ooraons  and  Santals.     The  two  former  celebrate  it  at  the 
beginning  of  the  month  of  Cheit   (March  —  April),  that  is 
at  the  New  Moon  after  the  vernal   equinox,   the  original 
date  at  which  it  was  held,  while  among  the  Santals  it  takes 
place  during  the  previous  month,  Phalgun  or  Arjuna  (Feb- 
ruary— March)  3,  that  is  at  the  date  of  the  Roman  festival 
of  the  procession  of  the  Salii,   a  retrogression   caused  by 
the  subsequent  changes  in  year  reckonings,  which  will  be 
told  in  future  chapters.     This  was  the  tree  clasped  by  the 
mother  of  the  Buddha  at  his  birth,  that  is  the  tree  from 
which  the  sun-god  was  born  4,  and  his  birth  was  greeted  by 
a  shower  of  rain.     This  is  still  commemorated  by  the  throw- 
ing of  water  by  the  women  over  their  male  friends,  from 
a  peculiarly  shaped  bottle  made  for  this  festival  by  the  San- 
tals.    It  is  also  universally  observed  in  Burniah,  and  among 
the  Ooraons  it  begins  with  the  worship  of  the  Sarna  Burhi,  or 
tree-mother  of  the  Sarna  village  grove,  to  whom  five  fowls, 
in  commemoration  of  the  original  five-days  week,  are  oflTered. 


*  Gen.  xxxvi.  i. 

'  '  Movers,  />;>  P/ionhtW,  vol.  i.  chap.  xii.   p.  492 ;  Sayce,  Ilibbert  Lectures 
for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  p.  188. 

3  Risley,    Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal ^  vol.    ii.,    Munda,  p.    104,  Ooraon, 
p.  146,  Santal,  p.  233. 

*  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories  :  The  Nid&nakatha,  p.  66. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  243 

The  general  water-battle  begins  with  the  drenching  of  the 
Pahan  or  priest  with  water  by  the  women  of  each  house, 
to  whom  he  presents  sal  flowers. 

It  is  the  Munda  date  of  this  festival  which  survives  in 
Greece  in  the  Greater  Dionysia,  held  in  Elaphebohon  (March 
—April),  the  month  of  the  sprouting  of  the  deer's  {eka^i) 
homs,  a  name  commemorating  the  spring  festival  of  the 
deer-sun-god.  This  god  was  Dionusos,  son  of  Semele, 
the  Phoenician  goddess  Samlath,  a  form  of  Shemiramot. 

The  fourth  festival  of  the  cycle-year  was  that  of  the 
winter  solstice,  at  which  the  sun-god,  the  offspring  of  its 
four  periods  of  gestation,  was  to  be  conceived  so  as  to  be 
born  at  the  autumnal  equinox.  This  was  a  reproduction 
of  the  old  feast  of  the  death  and  birth  'of  the  deer-sun-god, 
and  it  was  in  India  a  festival  of  the  harvest-home,  when 
the  rice  crops  were  stored,  called  Pongol  by  the  Madras 
Dravidians,  and  Sohrai  by  the  Santals. 

In  Italy  this  harvest  festival  of  the  South  was  reproduced 
in  the  Consualia  of  the  i  Sth  December.  This  was  in  the 
Roman  ritual  a  subordinate  festival  to  that  of  the  Consualia 
of  August  2ist.  That  is  to  say,  the  earlier  December  fes- 
tival was  superseded  in  sanctity  by  the  later  August  feast, 
which  was,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  a  mid-year  feast  of 
the  year  of  fifteen  months,  to  be  described  in  Chapter  VII. 
The  god  Consus,  the  god  of  the  storing  (condere)  of  the 
crops,  was  a  god  worshipped  in  an  underground  temple 
like  that  of  Llyr  at  Leicester,  described  on  p.  63.  His 
priest  was  the  Flamen  Quirinalis,  that  is  the  priest  of  the 
god  Quirinus  of  this  cycle-year  ^  The  festival  of  the 
December  harvest-god  was  followed  by  the  seven  days  of 
the  Saturnalia,  beginning  on  the  17th  of  December,  the 
New-Moon  feast  of  the  ten-months  year,  beginning  with  the 
Hindu  month  of  Push  (December — January),  the  month 
of  the  barley-god  Push-an.     The  corresponding  Greek  fes- 

*  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  December,  pp.  267,  268, 
Mensis  Sextilis,  pp.  206-208. 

R  2 


244  History  and  Chronology 

tival  was  that  of  the  Lesser  Dionysia  held  in  Poseidon 
(December— January)  in  honour  of  Dionysius  Nuktelios,  the 
Arcadian  god  of  the  lower  world,  the  home  of  the  winter- 
sun.  He  was  worshipped  at  Megara  at  the  winter  solstice, 
his  feast  celebrating  his  descent  into  the  lower  world  to 
seek  Semele,  the  daughter  of  Kadmus,  whose  sister  Ino 
was  the  wife  of  Athamas,  Ionic  Tammas,  the  Akkadian 
Dumu-zi,  and  the  mother  of  Melicertes,  the  Phoenician  sun- 
god  Melkarth,  lord  {malik)  of  the  city  {kartk).  This  Diony- 
sius Nuktelios,  husband  of  Semele  Samlath,  or  Shemiramot, 
was  the  male  god  who  was  to  bring  her  to  the  North  as  the 
summer  sun,  and  make  her  mother  of  the  sun-god  bom  at 
the  autumnal  equinox.  This  Megara  festival  of  the  marriage 
of  Dionysius  Nuktelios  with  Shemiramot  at  the  winter 
solstice  was  accompanied  by  the  same  orgiastic  dances 
which  marked  the  other  festivals  of  the  cycle-year'.  This 
winter  descent  of  the  sun-god  into  the  subterranean  regions 
of  the  South  was  also  celebrated  at  the  festival  held  in 
Argolis  on  the  Alcyonian  Lake,  near  Lerna,  and  at  Cynaethae 
in  Arcadia,  when  a  bull  was  sacrificed  to  him,  and  he  was 
called  to  come  up  out  of  the  lake  as  the  young  bull-god 
of  Spring ',  the  father  of  the  god  to  be  born  at  the  autumnal 
equinox  ^,  the  night  sun  {Helios)  god  of  winter. 

The  ruling  gods  of  this  cycle  of  three  years,  with  its  four 
successive  festivals,  separated  by  equal  intervals  of  ten  lunar 
months,  were  the  mother-goddess,  originally  the  mother-tree, 
and  her  spouse  the  rain-god,  who  made  his  way  into  her 
enclosing  tower  of  the  three  revolving  years.  This  was  the 
marriage-chariot  of  Krishna  and  Su-bhadra  of  Shemiramot 
and  Ninus.  But  before  their  incarceration  in  this  tov/er 
of  the  Garden  of  God,  watered  by  the  life-giving  rain,  they 
were  separate  male  and  female  deities.  The  male  deity  was 
the  father-god  whose  sacrifice,  in  that  of  his  counterpart,  his 
eldest  son,  fertilised   the  earth,  into  which  the  blood,  the 


'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  i.  40,  5,  vol.  i.  p.  61,  ii.  525. 

'  Ibid.,  ii.  27,  6,  viii.  19,  i,  vol.  i.  pp.  130,  397,  vol.  iii.  pp.  302,  303. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  245 

divine  seed,  flowed,  and  made  it  bear  a  numerous  offspring. 
This  god  was  in  the  Mahabharata  the  king  Somaka  with 
a  hundred  wives,  but  only  one  son,  Jantu,  born  after  long 
years  of  expectation.  The  sacrifice  of  the  son  was  followed 
by  the  pregnancy  of  all  the  hundred  wives,  who  each  bore 
a  son,  and  among  these  Jantu  was  re-born  as  the  second 
son  of  his  mother  ^ 

E.     Human  Sacrifices, 

The  history   of  this    rite    of   human    sacrifice    with    its 

attendant  ritual  is  told  most  clearly  in  that  of  the  worship 

of  Zeus   Lykaios,  of  Arcadia,  and  the  Semite   mountain* 

father-god.      The    altar    of    this    god,    said    in    Arcadian 

tradition  to  have  been  erected  by  Lycaon,  the  wolf  (Xu/co?), 

god  of  light  and  son  of  Pelasgus,  the  Hebrew  Peleg,  for  the 

sacrifice   of  his   new-born   son,   was   a   mound    of   earth «. 

It  was  placed,  as  described  by  Pausanias,  on  the  highest 

summit   of  the  central   Lycaean   mountain,  and   before  it, 

when  he  saw  it,  were  two  pillars  nearly  facing  the  East, 

on  which  two  gilt  eagles  were  engraved  3.     But  to  ascertain 

the  full  meaning  of  this  altar,  and  the  ritual  of  the  human 

sacrifices  offered  on  it,  we  must  turn  to  another  example 

of  it,  in  which  its  inner  meaning  has  been  told  by  the  rules 

of  construction    enjoined    by   the   priestly   guardians    and 

transmitters   of  the  national   traditions.      This   altar   of  a 

mound  of  earth,  made  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  appears  with 

its  explanatory  adjuncts  in  the  national  altar  of  the  Chinese 

Empire  placed  on  the  top  of  the  round  hillock  near  Pekin, 

under  the  triple-roofed  circular  temple,  recalling  in  its  three 

roofs  the  three  years  of  this  cycle.     This  is  oriented  to  the 

sun  of  the  winter  solstice  4,  the  time  when  Orion's  year  and 

that  of  the  solstitial  sun-bird  began,  and  dedicated  to  Shang-ti, 

the  Pole  Star  god.     The  traditions  of  this  altar,  on  which 

»  Mahabharata  Vana  {Tirtha-Yatra)  Parva,  cxxvii.,  cxxriii.  pp.  386,  389. 

»  Frazer,  Pausanias^  viii.  2,  i,  vol.  i.  p.  374. 

3  Ibid. ,  viiL  38,  7,  vol.  i.  424. 

*  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astrotiomy^  chap.  ix.  pp.  88,  89. 


246  History  and  Chronology 

the  Emperor  offers  yearly,  while  facing  the  North,  a  first- 
born male  animal  as  a  whole-burnt  sacrifice,  clearly  points 
to  the  cycle  epoch  of  the  nine-days  week,  and  the  year 
divided  into  months  of  twenty-seven  days  each.  These  last 
are  commemorated  by  the  twenty- seven  steps  to  the  top 
of  the  platform  on  which  the  altar  stands,  and  the  nine-days 
week  by  the  nine  circles  of  marble  slabs  round  the  circular 
stone  forming  the  altar.  The  innermost  of  these  circles 
is  one  of  nine  slabs,  and  each  circle  increases  its  slabs 
in  multiples  of  nine  up  to  the  ninth  circle  of  9x9=81  '. 
Thus  the  mound-altar  was  the  altar  of  the  ritual  of  the 
cycle-year  2. 

The  two  pillars  before  the  altar  of  Zeus  Lykaios,  de- 
scribed by  Pausanias,  were  those  said  by  Herodotus  ii.  44 
to  stand  before  the  temple  of  Herakles  at  Tyre,  and  which 
were  set  up  in  front  of  all  Phoenician  and  Egyptian  temples. 
Of  these  one  was  dedicated  to  the  god  Chiun,  the  pillar 
which  became  Solomon's  pillar  Jachin,  its  hiphil  form. 
This  was  the  pillar  of  Usof  the  hunter,  the  Hebrew  Esau, 
called  Khammam  or  Hammam,  the  green  pillar,  the  pillar 
of  the  god  of  the  summer  solstice  ;  and  the  other  was  that 
of  Usofs  brother  Hypsuranius,  the  golden  pillar,  the  Boaz 
or  moving  pillar  of  the  winter  solstice  3.  The  eagles  on  these 
two  pillars  were  the  mother-cloud-bird,  the  Zend  Hu  Kairiya. 
This  altar  of  Zeus  Lykaios  was  exactly  similar  to  that 
of  Saturn  Balcaranensis  in  Africa  4. 

This  primitive  altar  with  the  two  pillars  in  front  of  it  was 
placed  under  the  open  sky,  and  had  no  temple  attached 
to  it,  but  when  the  pastoral  shepherd  races  began  to  leave 
the   mountain   heights   and   descend    to   the   river   villages 

*  Professor  Douglas,  Confucianism  and  Taoism^  pp.  82 — 87. 

'  The  Irish  ritual  of  the  sacrifice  of  eldest  sons  to  Crom  Croich,  the  god 
of  the  central  pillar  of  the  sun  circle,  proves  that  these  victims  were  offered 
to  the  sun-god.  Meyer  and  Nutt,  The  Voyage  of  Bran^  Ritual  Sacrifice  in 
Ireland,  vol.  ii.  pp.  149,  150. 

3  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  chap.  vii.  p.  292  ,  chap.  viii.  pp.  343,  346. 

^  B^rard,  Ori^ine  des  Cultes  Arcadiens^  ii.,  Lc  Culte  de  Zeus  Lycaios,  pp. 
72,  73- 


of  the  Myth-Making  Agi.  ^47 

to  feed  their  herds,  a  change  of  ritual  followed  their  descent. 
This  appears  in  the  cult  of  the  Lycaean  Zeus,  in  the  Temenos 
or  sacred    enclosure   dedicated    to   this   god   on  the  lower 
slopes  of  the  mountain,  and  that  of  Saturn  Balcaranensis. 
This  Temenos  was  a  survival  of  the  village  grove  of  the 
primaeval   faiths,  and   it  was   to   judge   from    the   copy  of 
it  made  at  Megalopolis,  and  described  by  Pausanias,  sur- 
rounded by  stones,  like  the  sun  circles  at  Solwaster.     In  its 
centre  was  the  stone  temple  of  Zeus  Lykaios,  open  in  front 
with  two  altars  before  it  and  two  tables  along  the  side  walls, 
above  each  of  which   was  an  eagle  with  outspread  wings 
extending  to  the  length  of  the  tables '.     But  this  enclosure, 
copied  apparently  from  the  stone  circles  of  the  North,  was 
not  like  the  village  grove,  open  to  all  comers,  and  especially 
to  the  dancers  at  the  festivals.     Entrance  to  it  was  forbidden 
under  pain  of  death.     This  prohibition  marks  the  temple, 
to  the  precincts  of  which  it  was  applied,  as  a  product  of  the 
age  of  the  worship  of  the  virgin-mother  and  unsexed  father, 
of  the   creed  of  the  worshippers  of  the  central  mountain 
revolving  in    the   surrounding   ocean.     It  was  as  a  repro- 
duction of  this  conception  of  the  abode  of  the  creating  gods 
that   Phoenician   temples,  like  that  of  Atn  al   Hayat,   de- 
scribed by  Renan,  and  that  at  Mabug  by  Lucian,  were  placed 
in   the   centre  of  a  natural  or  artificial   lake  2,   that   made 
by  Elijah  round  the  altar  he  built  on  Carmel  3.     This  temple 
was  reproduced  in  Egypt  in  the  lake-temple  at  Buto  dedi- 
cated to  Latona,  goddess  of  the   tree-trunk,  and  her  son 
Apollo,  as  described  in  Herodotus  ii.  1 56. 

These  were  the  temples  of  the  Turanian  king  Frangrasyan^ 
built  in  the  Chaechasta  lake,  the  modern  Urumiah  in  Adar- 
baijan,  whom  Hushrava  slew  4.  This  was  a  salt-water  lake 
representing  the  salt  sea  whence  the  goddess  Shemiramot 
was  born.     The  building  of  these  lake  temples,  which  could 

'  Frascr,  Pausanias^  viii.  38,  6,  30,  2,  vol.  i.  pp.  424,  463  ;  Berard,  Origine 
d€5  Cultcs  Arcaduns,  pp.  72,  73,  87,  88. 

'  Renan,  PhenicUy  pp.  63 — 67  ;  Lucian,  De  Dea  Syria^  pp.  45,  46. 

^  I  Kings  xviii.  30  ff. 

4  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Gos  Yasht,  iv. ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii.  p.  114. 


248  History  and  Chronology 

only  be  approached  by  boats  provided  by  the  priests,  marks 
the  growth  of  sacerdotal  influence,  and  it  was  from  these 
shrines,  which  human  feet  could  not  reach  without  help,  that 
the  idea  arose  of  the  sanctity  of  the  temple  precincts,  and 
the  prohibition  of  entering  them  with  shodden  feet. 

The  tables  within  them  were  the  altar  of  incense  and  the 
table  of  shew-bread  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  Jewish 
tabernacle  and  temple,  the  latter  being  that  on  which  the 
firstfruits  were  offered.  It  was  on  this  table  that  the 
Athenian  Cecrops,  son  of  Erectheus  the  snake-god,  offered 
the  Pelanoi  or  cakes  of  honey,  barley,  meal,  and  oil  which 
he  presented  as  the  earlier  firstfruits'  offering  instead  of  the 
later  eldest  son  offered  by  Lycaon  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice  ^ 
This  table  and  the  temple  sanctuary  in  which  it  stood  were 
placed  in  the  sun-circle  surrounded  with  the  gnomon-stones, 
within  which,  according  to  primaeval  custom,  no  blood 
could  be  shed,  while  the  altar  of  sacrifice  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain  answered  to  the  dolmen  or  stone  of  sacrifice  of 
the  Palaeolithic  age  of  the  northern  totemistic  clans. 

F.     Incense  worship  and  international  trade. 

The  second  table  in  the  sanctuary,  the  incense  altar,  gives 
us  a  complete  clue  to  the  history  of  this  epoch.  The  incense 
there  burnt  was  a  substitute,  conceived  in  the  lowlands,  for 
the  clouds  which  wreathed  the  mountain  tops  where  the 
earliest  altars  were  made.  This  ritual  of  burnt  sacrifice  ac- 
companied by  incense  was  that  of  the  priest-god  Dhaumya 
of  the  Mahabharata,  the  priest  of  smoke  {dhumo)  of  the 
Pandava  brethren.  The  incense  whence  the  sacred  fumes 
arose  was  that  extracted  from  the  Indian  incense  tree,  the 
Salai  {Boswellia  thuriferd)^  which  grows  on  the  top  of  every 
rocky  hill  in  Central  India  where  nothing  else  will  grow. 
This  frankincense  with  the  Indian  gold  washed  from  the  sand 
of  the  rivers  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  the  Sone,  the  river  of  gold 
{sona),  the  Subonrika  or  Suvarnariksha,  the  river  of  the  tribe 

'  Fraser,  Pausanids^  viii.  2,  I,  vol.  i.  p.  374, 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  249 

{varnd)  of  the  Sus  with  its  golden  sand,  and  those  of  the 
brooks  of  Sona-pet,  the  golden  womb,  the  ancient  treasure- 
houses  of  Indian  wealth,  and  the  spices  of  the  South,  was 
the  most  valuable  merchandise  exported  to  foreign  lands 
by  the  descendants  of  the  Indian  twin-gods  Yadru-Turvasu. 
These  Hittite  sons  of  the  Full  Moon  (  Yd)^  whose  god  (vasu) 
was  the  revolving  Pole  {tur)  Star  god,  the  dweller  in  the 
Caer  Sidi  or  Turning  castle  where  the  Holy  Grail,  the  seed 
of  life,  was  preserved  in  the  mother-tree  of  the  Southern 
Ocean,  were  the  founders  of  the  three  most  ancient  ports 
in  Western  India : — the  Yadava  port  of  Dwarika,  the  door 
{dwar)  of  Khatiawar,  the  holy  land  of  the  Khati  or  joined 
twins,  that  of  Pragjyotisha  or  Baragyza,  the  modern  Broach, 
called  in  the  Mahabharata  Prabhasa,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Nerbudda,  and  Surparaka,  the  modern  Surat,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Payoshni,  now  called  Tapti,  built  according  to  the 
Mahabharata  by  a  Vidarba,  that  is  by  a  Gond  or  Haihaya 
king  who  used  the  Semite  word  *'arba*'  to  denote  four^ 
The  name  Pragjyotisha,  the  star  {jyotis)  of  the  East,  shows 
the  importance  attached  to  it  as  the  port  of  the  mother-river 
of  the  Haihaya  kings  who  were  the  earliest  imperial  rulers 
of  North  India.  This  and  Surparaka  were  the  two  ports 
of  the  king  called  in  the  Mahabharata  Bhagadatta,  the 
offspring  of  the  tree  of  edible  fruit  {b/uiga)^  the  fig  and 
mango  tree.  He  is  called  the  King  of  the  Yavanas,  or 
growers  of  barley  (yava),  who  were,  as  we  are  told  elsewhere, 
the  Turvasu,  the  king  who  bore  on  his  head  the  most 
wonderful  jewel  on  earth,  the  light  of  the  Western  sun,  the 
Pole  Star.  He  was  subordinate  to  Jarasandha  ^,  and 
though  he  was  the  maternal  uncle  of  the  Pandavas,  brother 
of  KuntI,  or  Prithi  their  mother,  and  that  of  Karna,  he 
f€iught  in  the  final  battle  between  the  Kauravyas  and 
Pandavas   on  the   side   of  the   former,   and    was    slain   by 

*  Mahabharata  Vana  (Tir/Aa-Vd/ra)  Parva,  cxviii.,  cxix.,  cxx.  pp.  363,  364, 

365*  371- 

'  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Rdjasuyaratnbha)  Parva,  xv.  p.  45,  Adi  (Sambhava) 
Parva,  Uxxv.  p.  260. 


250  History  and  Chronology 

Arjuna,  as   Krishna  had   formerly  slain   Naraka,  the   man 
[narcC)  god,  the  bisexual  god  of  this  epoch  *. 

It  was  from  these  ports  that  the  Turvasu  or  Yavana  ships 
carried  the  wealth  of  India  to  the  foreign  lands  on  the  coasts 
of  the  Indian  Ocean.     Their  first  foreign  station  was  the 
island  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  whence,  according  to  Theophrastus, 
the  Phoenicians  said  they  originally  came.     This,  the  modem 
Bahrein,  celebrated  for  its  pearl  fishery,  they  called  Turos. 
It  was  the  holy  Akkadian  island  Dilmun,  the  Isle  of  God 
{dil)^  where  la  first  appeared  to  human  eyes  as  En-zag,  the 
first-born  {zag)  son   of  god  (en)^  the  fish-born  son  of  the 
waters.     He  was  worshipped  as  Pati,  the  lord  which  identi- 
fies him  with  the  Hindu  Praja-pati^.     It  was  thence  they 
began  their  career  as  the  roving  merchants  of  South-western 
Asia,  whose  ships  made  their  way  along  the  coasts  of  Arabia 
to  the  country  called  by  the  Akkadians  Magana,  the  jewel 
mines  of  Sinai,  or  the  Mountain  of  Sin,  the  moon,  a  name 
they  brought  with  them  from  the  Indian  land  of  Sindhu. 
This   name  Sin  was   originally,  according  to   Lenormant, 
Singh  or  Sik,  and  was  given  first  to  the  land  of  the  Sume- 
rians,  the  Euphratean  Delta.     This  is  called  Shinar  in  the 
Bible,   Singara    by   the    Greeks,   Sindjar  by   the    Arabian 
geographers,   and   was   that   ruled   by  the   three-eyed    and 
two-horned   wild-bull-god   Samir-us   or    Shemiramot,    who 
ruled  Babylon,  as  we  have  seen,  after  Nimrod   or   Ninus 
{Prioji): 

He  was  the  bisexual-god,  the  male  form  of  Shemiramot, 
who  invented  weights  and  measures  and  the  art  of  silk- 
weaving  3.  This  was  the  three-eyed-god  Shiva  of  the 
Hindus,  whose  wife  or  female  counterpart  was  the  weaving 
Uma,  the  flax  {uma)  goddess,  the  goddess-mother  of  the  flax 
weavers  of  Asia  Minor,  who  became  the  Egyptian  goddess 
Neith,  meaning  the  weaver ;  the  goddess  who  supplied  the 
mummy  cloths  of  the  dead  in  Egypt,  all  of  which  are  made 

*  Mahabharata  Drona  (Samsaptika-badha)  Parva,  xxix.  pp.  95 — 98. 
"  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  ii.  p.  114,  note  i. 
3  Lenormant,  Chaldcean  Magic t  pp.  395,  396,  note  2,  402. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  251 

of  flax^  and  from  this  flax  were  made  the  most  sacred 
dresses  of  the  Egyptian  and  those  of  the  Jewish  priests '. 
The  silks  woven  by  their  worshippers  were  those  called 
by  Hiouen  Tsiang  Kauseya  or  Kushite  cloth,  made  from 
the  cocoons  of  the  jungle  tusser  moth,  which  supplied  the 
yellow  robes  worn  by  the  early  Huddhist  mendicants  called 
Kasayam,  and  which  were,  he  tells  us,  the  common  garments 
of  the  people  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  Punjab  2.  They 
also  wore  garments  of  kshauma  or  hemp,  the  modern  jute, 
the  flax  of  Uma,  as  well  as  of  cotton,  and  wove  fine  goat's- 
hair  blankets,  Kambala,  which  now  appear  as  Rampore 
Chudders,  whence  the  Kambhojas  of  the  Northern  Punjab 
and  the  men  of  Kambojia,  in  the  north  of  the  Malay  Penin- 
sula, got  their  names. 

The  cotton  garments  of  these  sons  of  the  weavers  and 
potters  were  originally  made  of  the  cotton  of  the  Simul 
[Bonibax  heptaphylla)y  or  red-cotton  tree,  the  Sanskrit  Shil- 
mili.  It  was  from  the  wood  of  this  tree  and  that  of  the 
Kimshuka,  the  Palasha  {Butea  frondosd)  tree,  that  the  car 
was  made  in  which  the  Ashvins  drove  the  sun-maiden  when 
they  brought  her  to  be  married  to  Soma,  the  male  moon- 
god  3.  This  cotton-tree  is  the  sacred  tree  of  the  offerers 
of  human  sacrifices,  which  was  always  planted  with  appro- 
priate rites  above  the  sacrificial  stone  where  the  Meriah 
victims  were  to  be  slain  whenever  a  new  village  was  founded 
by  the  Kandhs  of  Orissa,  who  call  themselves  Kui-loka,  the 
people  of  the  Gond  mother-goddess  Koi,  and  who  retained 
the  rite  of  human  sacrifice  longer  than  any  other  race 
in  India  4. 

But  on  the  coming  of  the  Kurmis  or  Kaurs  the  cotton 
of  this  tree  was  superseded  by  the  cotton  Karpasi  {gossy^ 

*  Sir  Gardiner  Wilkinson,  The  AncUftt  Egyptians^  vol.  ii.  chap.  ix.  p.  158. 
The  flax  plant  in  India  is  not  now  used  for  weaving  but  only  for  its  oil-seeds. 

=  Beal,  Records  of  the  Western  Worlds  vol.  i.  pp.  75,  165,  168. 

3  Kg.  X.  85,  20. 

<  Grant  Allen,  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God,  p.  145  ;  Risley,  Tribes  and 
Castes  of  Bengal f  vol.  i.,  Kandhs,  p.  297. 


2S2  History  and  Chronology 

pium  herbaceum)^  which  they  sowed  yearly,  and  whence  the 
Western  land  of  Saurashtra,  the  kingdom  {rdshtrd)  of  the 
Saus,  the  inland  part  of  Khatlawar,  got  the  name  of 
Karpasika,  the  cotton  land,  by  which  it  is  called  in  the 
Mahabharata  ^  It  was  the  cloth  woven  from  this  which  was 
called  in  the  earliest  Babylonian  documents  Sipat  Kuri, 
or  the  cloth  of  the  land  of  Kur,  and  also  Sindhu,  from  the 
land  of  Sin  or  Singh,  the  horned-moon -god,  the  sadin  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  sind5n  {aiv^div)  of  the  Greeks  2. 

It  was  these  merchants  who  also  imported  into  Arabia 
and  Europe  the  cinnamon  of  Ceylon,  mentioned  by  Herodotus 
iii.  Ill  as  one  of  the  products  brought  by  the  Phcenician 
traders.  Their  generic  name,  when  they  settled  in  Arabia, 
was,  as  I  have  told  in  Chapter  II.,  that  of  Atjub,  or  col- 
lectors of  incense  {tib\  the  original  form  of  the  Greek  name 
of  -/Ethiopian  3  ;  and  they  were  the  Midianites  of  the  Bible, 
who  organised  the  land  caravans  which  brought  Eastern 
produce  overland  along  the  course  of  the  Euphrates,  and 
thence  to  the  Mediterranean  through  the  city  of  Haran, 
the  road  {kfiarram).  This  was  the  city  of  Laban,  mean- 
ing "  the  white-god,"  called  in  Assyrian  inscriptions  "  the 
builder  of  the  brick  foundation  of  heaven  4/*  the  tower  of  the 
Garden  of  God  of  this  epoch,  whose  image  was  a  stone 
surmounted  by  a  star. 

This  city  of  the  moon-god  of  the  tower  is  the  father  of 
Lot  and  son  of  Terah,  the  antelope,  who  was  also  father 
of  the  Hebrew  Ab-ram,  the  father-ram,  the  Hindu  Rama. 
Lot  means  concealment  and  a  veil,  and  the  root  meaning 
of  the  word  is  "  incense  s."  Thus  in  Lot  we  find  the  incense- 
god  of  the  men  of  Haran,  the  city  of  the  white-moon-god 
"  of  the  brick  foundation  of  heaven,'*  the  god  of  the  three- 
years  cycle ;  and  we  also  learn  from  this  historical  genealogy 

'  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Dyuta)  Parva,  li.  p.  141. 

^  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  i.,  iii.  p.  138. 

3  Glascr,  Die  Abyssinter  in  Arabien  und  Africa j  p.  10. 

^  Sayce,  Ilibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  249,  note  3. 

5  Gesenius,  Thesaurus^  s.v.  Lot,  p.  748 ;  Gen.  xi.  27,  28. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  253 

that  this  incense  ritual  concealing  the  hidden  god  from 
profane  eyes  was  that  of  the  sons  of  the  antelope  and  of 
the  god  Ram,  whose  eastern  wife  was  Keturah,  meaning 
the  '* incense"  mother  ^ 

The  sons  of  Lot,  the  incense-god,  were  Ammon,  the  sup- 
porter, and  Moab,  the  father  {ab)  of  the  waters,  begotten 
of  his  two  daughters,  the  two  wives  of  the  trident  father-god, 
when  he  was  inspired  by  the  wine  consumed  by  the  creating 
gods  of  this  epoch,  and  when  he  dwelt  in  the  mother-cave 
of  the  Turanian  races  *.  Of  these  Ammon,  the  supporter, 
was  the  earlier  Egyptian  god  of  Thebes,  Amon,  the  Hidden, 
called  in  the  Book  of  the  Dead  "  prince  of  the  gods  of  the 
East,  lord  of  the  two  horns,  the  divine  bull-scarab  3/'  the 
roller  or  turner  of  the  earth  ball.  In  Chapters  CLXV. 
and  CLXIII.  he  is  depicted  as  an  ithyphallic  man-beetle, 
with  plumes  on  his  head,  standing  in  front  of  a  man  with 
a  ram's  head  on  each  shoulder,  and  as  a  horned  serpent 
with  legs  and  a  lunar  disk  on  his  head.  He  is  thus  the 
turner  of  the  pole  of  the  revolving  earth,  hidden  in  the 
clouds  of  incense  which  filled  the  Egyptian  temples,  the  god 
descended  from  the  original  parent-bird  and  snake  who 
had  become  ruler  of  the  cycle-year. 

For  the  history  of  Moab,  the  father  {ab)  of  the  waters, 
we  must  turn  to  that  of  the  contemporaneous  twin  gods 
of  the  Greek  incense  mythology,  Kastor  and  Poludeukes, 
who  became  the  twin  stars  Gemini,  the  door-posts  of  heaven. 
They  were  the  sons  of  Leda,  the  feminine  form  of  Ledon 
(X^Soi/),  the  mastich-shrub  {Pistaccia  lentiscus)  yielding  the 
incense  Ledanon  burnt  in  the  Greek  temples.  This  was, 
according  to  Herodotus  iii.  in,  originally  used  in  religious 
sacrifices  by  the  Arabians,  and  was,  as  we  now  see,  brought 
from  India  to  Arabia  by  the  Turvasu  traders,  who  carried 
it,  with  the  other  mercantile  contents  of  their  caravans, 
to  Haran  on  the  Euphrates,  whence  the  incense  ritual  passed 


*  Gen.  XXV.  6.  '  Gen.  xix.  26 — 38. 

'  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead^  Translation,  chaps,  clxv.,  clxiii.  pp.  295,  292. 


254  History  and  Chronology 

• 

through  Syria  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean    and 
thence  to  Greece.     There  the  twin  gods,  sons  of  the  incense- 
mother,  became  the  patron  gods  of  the  Dorian  immigrants 
from    Asia    Minor   and   of  Sparta,  the   country  in   which 
the  Indian  Dravidian  customs  of  common  meals  and  the 
state  education  of  children  were  more  deeply  rooted  than 
in  any  other  Grecian  territory.    They  were  the  reputed  sons 
of  Tyndareus,  king  of  Sparta,  the  hammer  {tudy  fund)  god 
of  the  North,  the  divine  smith  of  the  Kabiri.     But  Tyn- 
dareus was  the  father  only  of  Kastor,  the   pole   [stoi^  of 
Ka,  the  sexless  beaver,  the  house-builder  of  the  Northern 
races.     Poludeukes,  the  wetting  (Sev©)  rain-god,  the  Semitic 
Moab,  father  {aU)  of  the  waters,  was  the  son  of  Zeus,  the 
Pole  Star  god,  and  the  mother-cloud-bird.     They  belonged 
to  the  crew  of  the  original  star-ship  Argo,  the  mother  con- 
stellation of  the  dwellers  on  the  shores  of  the  Indian  Ocean. 
It  was  the  merchant  traders  of  India,  worshippers  of  these 
twin  star-gods,  guardians  of  the  gate  of  heaven,  who  brought 
the  cycle-year  to  Europe,  where  they  set  up  its  calendar, 
which  i  I  shall  describe  presently,  in  the  ten  rows  of  stones 
at  Kermario,  near  Carnac  in  Britany,  and  placed  in  them 
the  two  index  -  stones  marking  the  sunrise  at  the  solstices 
and  equinoxes  ^     It  was  they  who  made  the  year  beginning 
with  the  autumnal  equinox  that  of  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and 
Southern  Greece.     They  brought  with  them  a  fresh  influx 
of  Indian   traditional  history,  ritual  and   local  customs,  in 
addition  to  the  Indian  teachings  of  the  Amazonian  races. 
The  Dravidian  mariners,  who  had  learnt  the  arts  of  naviga- 
tion in  the  Indian  Ocean,   and   established  the  sea-farine 
trade  of  India  with  the  Euphratean  countries,  Arabia  and 
Egypt,  now,  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  joined  the 
matriarchal   races,   and    the   Basque   population   descended 
from  them.     These  amalgamated  Dravido-Turano  Dorian 
tribes  descended  from  the  spear  Dor,  became  the  subjects 
of  Minos,  and  among  these  the  Dravidian  seafarers  were 

*  Gaillard,  VAstronomie  Prihistorique^  vii.  p.  73. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  255 

the  Carian  seamen  who,  according  to  Herodotus  i.  171, 
made  the  Minyans  rulers  of  the  islands  of  the  iEgean 
sea  and  of  Greece.  They,  according  to  Aristotle,  cited 
by  Strabo  viii.  p.  374,  occupied  Epidaurus  in  Argolis, 
the  sacred  city  where  iEsculapius,  the  divine  physician, 
was  said  to  have  been  born,  and  his  Indian  origin  is 
marked  by  the  snake  twisted  round  his  left  arm,  and 
the  cocks  sacrificed  to  him. 

The  Carians,  also  like  the  Indian  Pitaro  Barishadah, 
buried  their  dead,  and  their  supreme  god  Zeus  was  depicted 
as  bearing  the  double  axe  of  the  two  lunar  crescents 
measuring  the  cycle-year '.  Herodotus,  in  describing  them, 
attributes  to  them  the  origin  of  three  special  customs,  (i)  of 
wearing  cock's  combs  on  their  helmets,  (2)  of  painting 
scutcheons  on  their 'shields,  and  (3)  of  holding  their  shields 
by  a  wooden  handle.  The  two  first  of  these  are  clearly 
derived  from  the  Indian  people  who  worshipped  Ahalya, 
the  hen-bird,  as  the  sun-bird  circling  the  heavens,  the  wife 
of  the  lunar  bull-god  Gautama,  and  sacrificed  cocks,  the 
Munda  sun-offerings,  and  painted  their  caste  totem  marks 
on  their  foreheads.  He  also  says  that  the  Carian  women 
never  pronounced  their  husband's  name,  a  thoroughly  Indian 
and  Munda  custom  *. 

The  introduction  into  Greece  of  the  Munda  jungle  fowl 
must  date  from  the  epoch  when,  as  we  have  seen,  cocks  and 
hens  were  the  sacred  birds  of  Herakles,  the  sun-god,  and 
his  wife  Hebe,  a  reproduction  of  the  Indian  Ahalya.  They 
were  also,  according  to  Plutarch,  sacrificed  to  Ares,  the 
ploughing  {ar)  god  in  Sparta,  and  were  the  sacred  birds 
of  the  Roman  Mars,  thus  marking  him  as  originally  the 
Indian  Maroti,  the  ape-god  of  the  South-west  Monsoons, 
The  Carians  also  placed  the  figure  of  a  cock  at  the  end 
of  their  lances.  The  cock  was  the  bird  sacred  to  Minos  and 
the  Minyans,  for  a  cock  was  the  crest  painted  on  the  shield 

*  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  iii.  pp.  154,  155. 

*  Herodotus,  i.  1 71,  146. 

3  De  Guberaatis,  Die  Thiere  (German  Translation),  p.  561. 


256  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  statue  of  Idomeneus,  the  leader  of  the  Minyan  Cretans 
in  the  Trojan  war,  placed  among  the  offerings  of  the  Sicilian 
Agrigentines  in  Elis,  and  there  was  a  figure  of  a  cock  on  the 
helmet  of  the  statue  of  Athene,  the  Ionian  tree-mother,  in 
the  Akropolis  of  Elis'.  Cocks  and  hens  were  the  birds 
used  for  augury  by  the  augur  priests,  who  sacrificed  them 
and  examined  the  signs  shown  by  their  entrails  in  the  sacred 
square,  the  Roman  Templum,  divided  into  four  equal  parts 
by  the  cross  of  St.  George.  This  field  was  that  called  in  the 
Rigveda  and  Zendavesta  the  four-cornered  field  of  Varuna, 
the  barley  and  ram  sun-god  of  this  epoch,  which  is  said  to 
have  conquered  the  triangle  of  the  year  of  three  seasons'. 
This  land  of  the  conquering  square  is  said  to  have  been  the 
fourteenth  of  the  lands  created  by  Ahura  Mazda,  and  that 
in  which  Thraetaona,  the  Vedic  Trita,  who  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  ruling  god  of  the  cyle-year,  was  born. 

The  ritual  founded  on  the  prophetic  signs  given  by  the 
Indian  cocks  and  hens,  the  sun-birds,  was  taken  to  Rome 
with  the  worship  of  the  Twin  Brethren,  and  those  who 
diffused  the  cult  were  the  seafaring  Minyans,  called  Tursena 
by  the  Lydians,  Tursha  by  the  Egyptians,  and  Tyrrhenians 
by  the  Romans  and  Greeks,  the  worshippers  of  the  supreme 
god  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  iEgean  islands,  who  is  called 
Pator  Tur,  the  father  Tur,  in  the  inscription  in  Cypriote 
letters  on  a  whorl  dedicated  to  him,  and  found  in  the  sixth 
settlement  from  the  bottom  of  the  buried  cities  of  Troy.  It 
was  he  who  gave  his  name  to  the  Phrygian  city  of  Turiaion  3, 
and  who  was  originally  the  Pole  Star  mother-goddess,  the 
counterpart  of  the  Indian  and  Finnic  Tara,  the  Etrurian 
mother-goddess  Tur-an.  It  was  she  who  in  the  Etrurian 
folk-tale  quoted  by  Leland  4  gave  the  father  of  the  future 


*  Frazer,  Pausamas^  v.  25,  4,  vi.  26,  4,  vol.  i.  pp.  277,  324  ;  Homer,  Tliad^ 
ii.  p.  643. 

*  Rg.  i.  152,  2  ;  Darmesteter,  Zmdavcsta  Fargard,  i.  18,  Introduction,  iv.  12; 
S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  9,  Ixiii. 

•'  Schluchhardt,  Schliemann*s  Excavations^  Appendix  i.  p.  334. 

*  Leland,  Etruscan  Roman  Retiwins^  Tur-anna,  pp.  39 — 41. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  257 

sun-god,  the  ragged  peasant,  the  despised  sun,  the  basket 

of  nuts,  the  fruit  of  the  World's  tree,  which  was  to  make 

the  king's  daughter,  the  tree-sun-mother,  pregnant,  and  who 

was  looked  on  as  the  Pole  Star  mother  of  light  and  life. 

These  Tursena  were,  as  Herodotus  i.  57  tells  us,  a  different 

race   from   the  Pelasgians  who   emigrated   from   Lydia   tp 

Umbria  in  Italy.     From  the  Eugubine  tables  describing  the 

ritual  of  Iguvium,  the  modern  Gubbio,  the  capital  of  Umbria, 

we  learn  that  the  Umbrian  priests,  who  divined  by  the  birds, 

wore,  like  the  Pitaro  Barishadah  of  India  and  the  Dervish 

priests  of  South-western  Asia,  sacrificial  girdles;  and  that 

both  the  Umbrian  priests  and  the  Pitaro  Barishadah  were 

directed  in  their  official  sacrifices  to  wear  this  girdle-cord 

over  the  right  shoulder.     It  was  also  on  this  shoulder  that 

the  Umbrian  priests  were  to  carry  the  fire-brazier.     They 

were  also  to  pray  for  protection  to  the  owl  {parra)  ^     This 

was  the  bird  sacred  to  Athene,  the  tree-mother-goddess  of 

the  Ionian  race,  descended  from  matriarchal  mothers.     The 

owl  is  in  India  a  bird  form  of  Indra,  who  is  called  Uluka,  the 

owl-god,  and  the  sacred  owl  of  Athene  was,  according  to 

the  birth-legend  told  of  her  origin,  the  night-bird-mother 

of  the  sun-god,  the  horned  moon.     She  was  iEthiope,  that 

is,  she  was   a  daughter  of  the  Atyub  or  incense  men,  the 

daughter  of  Nykteus,  king  of  the  matriarchal  island  of  Lesbos* 

or  according  to  other  authorities,  of  ^Ethiopia,  that  is  of  the 

Indian  incense  collectors.     She  lay  by  her  father,  as  Myrrha, 

or  Shemiramot,  lay  by  her  father  Thoas,  whom  we  have 

seen  to  be  a  form  of  Dumu-zi  and  to  be  the  year-star  Orion, 

and  was  pursued  by  him  with  his  sword,  but  was  saved  by 

Athene,  who  changed  her  into  an  owl,  as  Myrrha  was  changed 

into  a  cypress-tree  to  become  the  mother  of  the  sun-god 

Adonis  «.    Thus  we  see  that  the  owl  was,  according  to  Greek 

history,  the  sacred  bird  of  the  age  of  incense  worship,  that 

'  Breal,  Lts  Tables  Euj^ubitteSi  v.  pp.  xliv.,  xlv. ;  Bower,  Elevation  and  Pro- 
session  of  the  Cert  at  Gubbio^  Appendix,  Translation  of  the  Ancient  Lustration 
of  the  Iguvine  People,  p.  132. 

*  De  Gubernatis,  Die  Thiere  (German  Translation),  chap,  vi.  p.  528. 

S 


258  History  and  Chronology 

is  of  the  three-years  cycle.  And  in  the  genealogy  of  the 
Mahabharata,  Uluka  is  the  son  of  Shakuni  the  raven,  the 
early  sacred  storm-bird.  The  sons  of  the  owl,  the  Ulukas, 
are  in  the  Mahabharata  described  as  a  powerful  tribe  in  the 
North-west,  h'ving  near  the  fire-worshipping  dwellers  in  the 
Sarasvati,  who  were  conquered  by  Arjuna,  They  joined 
the  army  of  the  Kauravyas  with  the  men  of  the  Sarasvati, 
and  both  fouf[ht  under  the  command  of  Shakuni,  the  raven. 
Uhlka,  his  son,  was  sent  as  an  ambassador  to  the  Pandavas 
by  Duryodhana,  the  Kauravya  leader,  before  the  war,  and 
he  insulted  Arjuna  in  the  course  of  his  embassy,  while  his 
father  Shakuni  had,  like  Pushkara  in  the  story  of  Nala, 
ruined  them  by  winning  their  wealth  in  gambling.  Both 
he  and  his  father  Shakuni  were  slain  by  Sahadeva,  the  fire- 
god  among  the  Pandavas,  ruling  the  autumn  season  begin- 
ning at  the  autumnal  equinox,  and  their  forces  were  the 
last  remnant  of  the  Kauravya  army,  whose  defeat  and 
destruction  left  the  Pandavas  the  victorious  rulers  of  India  *. 

Hence  in  this  ritual  of  the  Umbrian  divining  priests  who 
worshipped  the  moon-owl  of  night  we  see  evidence  of  the 
migration  to  Italy  of  the  men  of  the  cycle-year,  who  made 
the  owl  their  mother-bird  instead  of  the  earlier  raven,  and 
made  it  the  sacred  bird  of  their  tree-mother-goddess-  Athene. 
This   was  the    Athene   called   the   Itonian,  who    was    the 
protecting  goddess  of  the  Pan-»Boeotian  confederacy,  whose 
sanctuary  containing    her  image,    and    that    of   her    male 
counterpart  the  Zeus  of  the  lower  world,  called  Itanos,  the 
god   of  the   South,  was   the  national   Boeotian    temple    at 
Coronca,  where  the  festival  of  the  united  gods  was  held 
yearly  at  the  autumnal  equinox  when  the  Boeotian   year 
began  2.    It  was  under  the  protection  of  this  goddess,  to  whom 
the  owl  was  sacred,  that  the  Boeotians  under  Kadmus  entered 
Europe  from  the  East,  and  thence  they  made  their  way  to 

'  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Digvijaya)  Parva,  xxvii.  pp.  80,  81,  Udyoga  ( Yana- 
sandhi)  Parva,  Ivi.  p.  202,  Udyoga  {Sainya-Niryana)  Parva,  clx. — clxiv.  pp.  462 
— 485,  Shalya  (Hrada-Pravesha)  Parva,  xxviiL,  xxix.  pp.  105 — no. 

*  Frazer,  Pausanms^  ix.  34,  I,  vol.  i.  p.  486,  voL  v.  p.  169. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  259 

Italy  as  the  Minyan  race,  sons  of  the  owl-goddess,  whom 
they  called  Mena,  Menfra  or  Minerva,  and  who  was  both 
a  phallic-serpent  and  a  winged-goddess,  the  moon-bird  of 
night,  the  protectress  of  brides ',  and  the  measuring  ijften) 
mother  the  Egyptian  goddess  Min,  the  star,  and  Virgo. 

* 

G.    Plant  worship. 

The  creed   of  these   Hittite  descendants  of  the   Indian 

Turvasu  and   the   owl-mother-goddess   of  the   Minyans   is 

depicted  in  the  historical  bas-relief  of  lasili  KaYa  in  Cilicia. 

This  represents  the  Hittite  father-god  wearing  the  Hittite 

peaked  tiara,  and  their  shoes  with  turned-up  toes,  descend- 

'"g  from  the  mountain,  and  bearing  in  his  right  hand  the 

polar  sceptrC)  his   magic   rain-wand   of  office,  surmounted 

^*th  the   earth  globe.     In    his   left    hand    is   the   symbol 

of  the   pollen-bearing    flower   with    the   seed-vessel    rising 

out  of  the   calix,  and    the  sacred   antelope,  wearing   the 

Hittite  cap,   runs  by  his    side.      He,   in    the   copy  of  the 

oas-relief  drawn    by  Puchstcin  *,  which   is  reproduced   on 

^^  plkte  annexed,   meets,  after    he    has    come    down   to 

^^  plain   and    mounted    on   the   shoulders   of  his   Hittite 

Priests,  the  mother-goddess  Rhea,  the  mother  of  the  sons 

of  the    rivers.      She    also    wears    the    Hittite    shoes    and 

^^  tower  head-dress  of  the  goddess  of  the  revolving-year, 

stands  on    a    leopard,   and    bears   in    her   right   hand   the 

symbol  of  the  blossomed  flower  with  its  petals  springing 

'^om  the  calix,  and  bearing  the  seed-vessel  already  swelling 

""om  the   infusion   of  the  seed   of  the  male  flower.     This 

represents  the  marriage  of  the  plant-parents  of  life  at  the 

four  wedding  festivals  of  the  cycle-year,  and  behind  them, 

Ending  like  his  mother  on  a  leopard,  the  sacred  animal 

of  Dionysus,  son  of  Scmele  or  Shemiramot,  is  the  son  bom 

of  their  union.      Between'  the  mother  and    her   full-grown 

'  Deccke,  Etruria,  Encyclopirdia  Britanmca^  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  viii.  637  ; 
uland,  Etruscan  Roman  Remains ,  Mena,  p.  132. 

•  This,  according  to  Signor  Milani,  is  more  carefully  drawn  than  that  given 
by  Pcnot,  iv.  fig.  321. 

S  2 


26o  History  and  Chronology 

son  is  the  walking  seed-vessel,  the  infant  who  has  not  yet 
assumed  his  final  human  form.  In  his  form  of  the  man-god 
he  bears  in  his  right  hand  the  staff  on  which  he  leans,  and 
in  his  left  the  double  axe  of  the  Carian  and  Hittite  Zeus, 
while  behind  him  is  bound  the  pickaxe  or  mattock,  headed 
by  the  lunar  crescent '. 

It  is  the  birth  of  this  sun-plant-god  which  is  represented 
in  the  story  of  the  combat  between  Horus  the  son  of  Hat-hor, 
the  Pole  Star  goddess,  and  Set  the  pig-god,  told  in  Chapters 
XVII.  and  CXI  I.  of  the  Book  of  the  Dead  ^  Horus  is  the  sun 
of  this  cycle-year  born  from  the  tree  crowned  by  the  Pole 
Star,  and  Set  or  Suti  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  II. 
p.  75,  the  god  who  was  changed  in  his  Northern  avatar  from 
Canopus  the  ape-god  of  the  South,  into  the  Pig  Pole  Star 
god  in  the  constellation  Kepheus.  This  pig-god  is  said  to 
have  blinded  Horus  by  throwing  filth,  that  is  earth,  in  his 
eyes,  thus  making  him  the  blind-tree-father  and  mother  of 
life  born  from  the  earth.  Horus,  or  rather  Thoth,  that  is 
Dhu-ti  the  bird  (rfA«)  of  life,  the  moon  emasculated  Set,  that 
is  to  say,  they  made  him  like  the  emasculated  Phrygian  god 
Attys,  the  father-god  only  visible  in  the  sexless  pine-tree, 
the  fire-drill.  The  whole  parable  tells  us  that  the  theology 
of  the  plant-god  of  the  cycle-year  succeeded  the  worship  of 
the  Pole  Star  and  the  solstitial  sun-bird. 

This  son  of  the  parent-plants,  born  of  the  virgin  flower- 
mother,  is  the  exact  representation  of  the  Etrurian  god 
Sethlans  the  heavenly  smith,  and  he  is  in  the  Indian 
theogony  the  god  called  Parasu  Rama,  or  Rama  of  the 
double-axe,  who  appeared  to  the  Pandavas  clad  in  a  deer- 
skin on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  moon,  thus  marking  him- 
self as  the  lunar  god  of  the  stellar  lunar  month  of  twenty- 
seven  days,  and  who  also  showed  himself  on  the  eighth, 
that  is  on  the  eve  of  the  ninth  day  of  his  week.     He  was 

*  Milani,  Studi  Di  Arckctologia^  i.,  Part  i.,  Nota  Esegetica  Sulla  Stele  di 
Amrit. ,  pp.  35,  note  5,  37,  figs.  2,  3  ;  Puchstein,  Rtisen  in  Khinasien^  Taf.  x. 

'  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead^  Translation,  chapters  xvii.  67 — 70,  cxii.  2 — 9, 
pp.  52,  177. 


of  tfie  My tk' Making  Age.  261 

the  great  grandson  of  Bhrigu  the  fire-god,  and  son  of 
Jamadagni  the  twin  (Jama)  fires  engendered  by  Richika 
the  fire-spark  in  the  mother- trees,  the  Banyan  fig-tree  {Ficus 
Indica)  of  the  Kushikas  and  the  Pipal-tree  {Ficus  Religiosa) 
sacred  to  the  sun-god.  This  twin-born  god,  the  seed  of  life, 
married  Renuka  the  flower-pollen  {renu)^  and  her  fifth  son 
was  Parasu-Rama^  that  is  the  son  born  from  the  union  of 
the  parent-plants  like  the  Hittite  son  of  the  mother-flower 
who  became  the  Etrurian  Sethlans. 

He  recovereii  the  year-calf  begotten  in  the  cosmological 
hymn  of  the  Rigveda  from  the  year-cow  after  ten  months 
of  gestation ',  which  had  been  stolen  by  Arjuna  the  fair 
(orfuna)  Haihaya  king,  the  sun-god  with  the  thousand  arms, 
and  slew  the  stealer,  that  is  to  say,  became  ruler  of  the  year 
rf  the  united  moon-cow  and  sun-calf.  The  brothers  of 
Arjuna,  the  star  sons  of  Kartavirya,  or  Krituvlrya,  the  male 
('ifirya)  star-parent,  the  warrior-star  Orion,  slew  Jamadagni, 
Rama's  father,  in  revenge,  and  were  all  slain  by  Rama 
with  his  double  axe  Parasu,  in  the  field  of  Tan-eshur,  the 
home  of  the  mud-god  Tan,  the  centre  of  Kuru-kshethra,  the 
land  of  the  Kurus,  where  he  filled  the  five  adjoining  {sa- 
^nta)  lakes  called  Samanta-Panchaka  with  their  blood, 
that  is  to  say,  he  became  ruler  of  their  year  with  its  five- 
day  weeks  ^. 

H.    Emigration  of  the  men   of  this  age  as  told  by  their 

monuments. 

These  Turano-Semitic  seafaring  races  were  the  founders 
of  the  earliest  Cyclopean  architecture  of  the  one-eyed  {Cyclops) 
sons  of  the  Pole.  In  this  the  walls  were  built  of  polygonal 
stones,  accurately  fitted  together  without  mortar,  as  in  the 
oldest  parts  of  the  prehistoric  buildings  of  Tiryns,  Mycenae, 
Orchomcnos.  They  were  also  the  builders  of  the  earliest 
^ype  of  stone  dwelling-house,  modelled  on  the  earth  and 
battle   heehive  huts   of  Phrygia,  of  which   specimens   are 

*  Rg.  i.  164,  I— 10. 

'  Mahabharata  Vana  (Tirtha-YtUra)  Parva,  cxv.-*cxviL  pp.  354—362. 


-»f  *» 


History  and  Chronohgy 


found   in  the   Picts*  houses  of  Scotland   and   Ireland  bur- 
rowed under  earth  mounds.     The  sacrificial  pits  which  were, 
as  \vc  have  seen,  a  distinguishing  feature  of  their  ritual  in 
India,  arc  reproduced   in   those   in   the   palaces   of  Tiryns 
and   Myccna\  in  the  temple  of  the  Kabiri  in  Samothrace, 
and  in   that  of  the  Great   Kabir   near  Thebes,  while  near 
the  sacrificial  pit  at  Jlycena;  is  a  wall-painting  representing 
a  procession   of  ass-head^d   figures  wearing  gay   garments, 
who  are  apparently  votaries  of  the  ass-riding  Hindu  Ash- 
vins  ».    This  architecture  also  sur\'ives  in  that  of  the  Nuraghs 
or   circular    towers   of    Sardinia,   the    zigurrats   or    sacred 
observatories  of  the  ancient  astronomers  of  the  age  of  the 
tower  of  the  Garden   of  God,  the  Hebrew  Pen-u-el  of  the 
face   (/cv/)  of  God,  the  Midianite  tower  of  Zibah  and  Zal- 
mana,  which,  with  the  booths  {sakui)  of  Succoth,  the  place 
of  booths,  were  destroyed   by  Gideon,  who  cut  down  the 
Asherah,  or  divine  pillars,  and  overthrew  the  altar  of  Baal, 
that  of  this  cycle  age,  and  substituted  the  worship  of  the 
Ephod  ^.     This   was  the  garment  of  the   prophetic  priest 
of  the  spoken  oracle,  who  was  inspired  by  the  Bhang  or 
Hashish  (Cannabis  Indica)  which  succeeded  the  intoxicat- 
ing drink  of  this  epoch,  and  which  is  said  in  the  Zenda- 
vista  to  have  taught  the  divine  law  to  Hvogvi  or  Shu-gvi, 
the  coming-bird  (5////),  the  wife  of  Zarathustra,  and  to  his 
priests,  who  wore  the  Chista  or  ephod  3.     These  Nuraghs 
were  built  by  the  Turano-Scmitcs  from  the  East^  who  settled 
in  Sardinia,  under  the  lead  of  Sardis,  called  on  Sardinian 
coins  Sard   Pater.     His  name,  which  was  also  that  of  the 
capital   of  Lydia,   the   home  of  the   Tursena,   is  >said  by 
Xanthus  to  mean  **  a  year,"  and  it  is  allied  to  the  Sanskrit 
Sharad,   the    autumnal   equinox^   the  Armenian   Sard,  the 
Persian  Sal,  a  year  ■». 

*  Fnuer,  PausdHiiZs,  vol.  iiL  pp.  I2I,  223,  v.  136,  137. 
-  JuJgcs,  vi.  25— 32,  viiL  1—29. 

*  Darmcstetcr,  Zitiiiii-.jta  Din    Yasrj,  15,  16,  17;  S.B.E^  vol.  xziii.  pp. 
2t)7,  aoS, 

*  KawUnsuD,  ILi^si^^tui^  vol.  i.  p.  »so,  note  7. 


of  t)u  Myth-Making  Age.  263 

This  year-god  of  the  autumnal  equinox  was  the  son  of 
Makaris,  Baal  Makar,  the  god  of  the  lunar  sickle,  the 
Phcenician  Melkarth,  or  Herakles,  and  he  was  the  Herakles 
Sandan  of  the  unsexed  male  and  female  priests '.  He 
was  assisted  by  lolaus^  the  Phoenician  Baal  lol,  the  chario- 
teer of  Herakles,  who  was  the  first  of  the  five  Dactyls  or 
finger-gods,  the  first  victors  of  the  Olympian  games  of  Elis, 
who,  with  lasius,  Kastor,  Poludeukes  and  Herakles,  won 
all  the  contests  at  the  first  festival :  lolaus  winning  the 
chariot-race  as  the  leader  of  the  year;  lasius  the  horse-race  ; 
Kastor  the  foot-race ;  Poludeukes  the  boxing  match ;  and 
Herakles,  the  cycle-sun-god,  the  wrestling  and  pancratium. 
They  were  originally  the  five  Idaean  Dactyls  of  the  early 
five-days  week  who  guarded  the  infant  Zeus  Itanos,  the 
son  of  Rhea,  at  Ida  in  Crete.  They  arc  called  by  Pausanias 
Herakles,  Paeonaeus  (the  healer  Paion),  Epimedcs,  lasius,  and 
Idas  \ 

These  ancient  builders  who  measured  their  year  by  the 

cycle  beginning    at  the  autumnal    equinox,   and   led   this 

emigration  from  East  to  West,  were   those  who  set  their 

cities  on   a  hill,  and  made  the   Akropolis  on   its   summit 

the  centre  of  the  city,  as  in  the  cities  of  Orchomenos,  Tiryns, 

Mycenae  and  Athens.     This  Phoenician  Greek  type  is  that 

which  was  transferred  by  these  emigrants  to  Etruria,  where 

Fiesole     {Fasula)^     Arczzo    (Arretium),     Cortona,    Chiosi 

{Clusium),  Volterra  and  Perugia  all  stand  on  hills,  and  are 

surrounded  by  walls  of  Cyclopean  architecture.      Each  of 

these    also    marks    its    independent   origin  as  the  ruler  of 

the  province  of  which  it  is  the  centre  by  the  ceremony  of 

lighting  the  year's  fires  at  the  national  city  feast  held  on 

their  New  Year's  Day.     This  is  at  Volterra,  as  I  learnt  by 

inquiry  in  the  town,  the  20th  of  September,  or  the  day  of 

the  autumnal  equinox.     In  most  of  these  cities  the  rocks 

*  Fraser,  Pausanias,  x.  17,  I — 4,  vol.  i.  p.  523,  v.  pp.  320,  322;  Movers, 
Du  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  chap.  xi.  pp.  417 — 421. 

»  Ibid.,  V.  7,  4,  8,  I,  X.  17,  4,  vol.  i.  pp.  245,  247,  523,  vol.  v.  p.  323; 
Movers,  Die  Phonincr^  vol.  i.  chap.  xi.  p.  435. 


264  History  and  Chronology 

forming  the  hills  on  which  they  are  built  supplied  materials 
for  the  walls,  but  the  hill  of  Perugia,  rising  1,700  feet  above 
the  sea,  is  a  gravel  deposit  from  the  neighbouring  Tiber, 
and  the  stones  for  its  walls,  some  of  which  are  of  enormous 
size,  must  have  been  brought  from  quarries  at  a  distance 
and  carried  up  the  hill. 

These  immigrants  also  introduced  into  Etruria  the  cham- 
bered tombs  which  reproduce  those  of  Bahrein  on  the  Persian 
Gulf,  called  the  Mounds  of  AH,  where  one  of  these  mound- 
tombs,  thirty-five  feet  high,  seventy-six  feet  in  diameter,  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty-two  paces  in  circumference,  was  opened 
by  Mr.  Bent'.     It  contained  in  one  chamber  the  bones  of 
a  horse,  and  in  that  below  it  unbumt  human  bones.    The 
builders  of  these  tombs  took  the  pattern   to  Asia  Minor, 
where  it  appears  in  the  tomb  of  Midas  and  those  adjoining 
it,  one  of  which  is  an  exact  representation  of  a  Phrj^an 
peasant's  cottage.    There  are  similar  tombs  also  at  Dorylautn 
in  Phrygia,  on  the  Sangarius,  and  others  pierced  in  the  rocks 
of  the  Taurus  range  in  Cilicia  2.     It  is  with  tombs  like  thcs^ 
that  the  hills  on  which  Chiusi  stands  and  those  in  its  imm^' 
diate  neighbourhood   are  honeycombed,  the  tombs  in  oO^ 
hill,  the  Poggio  Gajella,  rising  in  successive  stories  from  tti-^ 
bottom  to  the  top.     One  of  the   most   remarkable  of  tl:^^ 
tombs  at  Chiusi   is   that  called  the  Deposito  della  Scimi^'' 
or  the  tomb  of  the  Ape.     It  is  a  collection  of  chambe^*^ 
hollowed  in  the  tufa  of  which  the  hill  is  made,  and  closed 
by  a  tufa  door.     Each  chamber  is  provided  with  three  ston  ^ 
beds,  each  with  its  stone  pillow,  on  which  the  dead  were  lai^ 
in  their  last  sleep,  the  burial  taking  place  before  the  intro^ 
duction  of  the  custom  of  burning  the  dead  in  the  Bronz^ 
Age.     Above  each  of  these  is  a  picture  painted  in  outlined 
of  red   antimony.     The   most   interesting  of  these  is  that 
which  gives   its  name  to  the  tomb,  and  which   represents 
the  dedd  man  taking  leave  of  his  relatives  on  earth  and 


'  Bent,  Southern  Arabia ^  chap,  i.  pp.  24 — 28. 

^  Y^t^^ii^  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  Asia  Minor ^  pp.  20  ff.,  106,  I07« 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  265 

riding  on  the  horse  of  death  to  the  underworld.  There  he 
meets  the  king  of  the  dead^  behind  whom  is  the  ape-god, 
the  god  Kapi  of  India,  the  wise  ape  who  is  his  inspiring 
genius.  These  same  people  also  brought  with  them  from 
the  East  the  Dardanian  Apollo,  the  god  of  Troy  and  of 
Larissa  in  the  Troad,  called  by  Homer  the  capital  of  the 
Trojan  Pelasgi  ^  These  Pelasgi  Dardanians  were  allied  to 
the  men  of  the  same  race  in  Thessaly,  where  there  is  another 
Larissa,  meaning  perhaps  the  city  of  the  Lares  or  ancestral 
spirits.  Their  Apollo  was,  as  Plato  tells  us  in  the  Cratylus, 
the  god  *jl7rXa)9  3,  that  is  the  Etrurian  Aplu,  the  Semitic 
Abel  or  Ablu  the  son.  But  this  Apollo  of  the  Troad  was, 
according  to  Homer  3,  Apollo  Smintheus,  or  Apollo  the  mouse 
{ffUvOo^),  which  was,  according  to  Isaiah,  eaten  at  their  annual 
festivals  by  the  ancient  Semites  4  as  the  devouring-god  of 
time.  It  is  this  god  which  we  find  holding  a  conspicuous 
place  as  a  year-god  in  one  of  the  most  remarkable  historical 
monuments  of  Etruria.  This  is  the  sacred  ship  found  in  the 
tomb  of  a  warrior  High-Priest  of  Vetulonia,  whose  ashes 
Were,  like  those  of  Hector  in  the  Iliad,  enclosed  in  a  golden 
Urn  covered  with  purple  cloths  s.  The  ship  is  a  Phoenician 
harque,  and  is  evidently  a  religious  ark,  the  ship  in  which 
the  national  gods  were  carried  in  all  religious  processions 
in  South-western  Asia  and  Egypt.  Its  contents  tell  us  of 
the  course  of  the  evolution  of  religious  belief  in  the  creating 
year-god  from  a  period  beginning  with  the  year  of  the  deer- 
sun-god  Orion. 

On  its  prow-deck  is  an  image  of  the  dwarf  guardian-god, 
the  Patoikos,  who  is  depicted  as  a  flower  like  that  of  the 
lotus  springing  from  between  two  snakes  coiled  on  a  sub- 
structure of  four  pillars,  which  seem  to  represent  the  four 
divisions  of  the  cycle-year.  At  the  end  of  the  prow  is  the 
head  of  the  deer-sun-god  with  horns  of  nine  points,  the  nine 

'  Homer,  I/iad,  ii.  840^843. 

=*  Jowctt,  PiaA?,  Cratylus,  vol.  ii.  p.  228. 

3  Homer,  I/iad,  i.  38.  4  jg.  ixvi.  17. 

5  Homer,  I/iad,  xxiv.  794,  795, 


266  History  and  Chronology 

days  of  the  cycle-week,  and  on  the  topmost  point  of  the 
horns  two  parent-snakes  are  seated.  This  head  of  the  year- 
god  is  bound  to  this  representative  of  the  star-ship  Argo 
by  ropes,  the  year-days,  which  the  mouse-god  is  gnawing 
from  below,  while  on  the  top  of  the  ropes  the  sun-lizard, 
worshipped  by  all  Dravidians  as  the  sun-god  of  marriage ', 
is  lying.  He,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  is  the  sun-god  bom 
of  the  Finn  mother-goddess  Kesari-tar,  the  daughter  {tar) 
of  the  cauldron  of  life  (iesari),  after  three  years'  pregnancy. 
Upon  its  head  another  mouse  is  sitting. 

In  the  centre-deck  of  the  ship  are  two  yoked  oxen  with 
wooden  balls  at  the  end  of  their  horns,  an  ass  or  calf,  a  wild 
sow  with  two  young  pigs,  a  gelt  pig,  a  ram  or  ewe,  and  a  dog, 
the  domestic  animals  of  the  age  when  the  pig  was  a  sacred 
animal  3.  It  represents  the  Argo  or  mother-ship,  the  con- 
stellation which  brought  the  twin-gods  Gemini  to  Argos,  the 
land  consecrated  to  the  holy  fish,  and  which  was  carried  as 
a  sacred  talisman  by  the  emigrants  who  went  still  further 
westward  to  Etruria. 

From  Etruria  we  can  trace  these  Turano-Semite  traders 
to  Gades  (Cadiz),  where  Herakles,  their  Ar-chal,  slew  the 
three-headed  Geryon,  the  Phoenician  Charion  (Orion)  3. 
From  thence  they  made  their  way  by  sea  to  Britany, 
where  we  find  similar  chambered  tombs  to  those  of  Etruria 
and  Asia  Minor.  There  they  have  left  in  the  megalithic, 
flat-sided  stones,  near  Carnac,  a  series  of  stone  calendars 
giving  a  history  of  their  successive  measurements  of  annual 
time. 

There  are  three  of  these  stone  calendars  close  to  Carnac 
One  at  Kermario,  in  which  the  stones  are  ranged  in  ten  rows, 
while  in  that  at  M^nec  there  are  eleven,  and  at  Kerlescan 
thirteen  rows  of  stones.  That  these  may  be  justly  called 
calendars  has  been  proved  by  M.  Gaillard  of  Plouhamel, 

*  Beauchamp,  Dubois'  Hindu  Manners^   Customs,  and  Cttemonies,  Yol.  i. 
part  ii.  p.  218* 
'  Milani,  Museo  Topografico  Dell  Etruria  Veiulonia,  pp.  2S — 33. 
3  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  i.  chap.  xi.  p.  437. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  267 

who  has  observed  and  studied  them  for  forty  years.  He 
found  that  all  the  stone-lines  run  from  South-west  to  North- 
east, and  that  the  narrow  ends  of  the  stones  point  in  this 
direction.  At  the  South-west  end  of  each  series  there 
is  an  oval  enclosure  fenced  in  by  stones,  in  which  there 
was  one  stone  used  as  a  point  of  observation.  Correspond- 
ing with  this  he  found  in  each  series  a  second  stone  standing 
among  the  aligned  stones,  but  at  right  angles  to  them.  By 
constant  observations  made  with  scientific  instruments,  M. 
Gaillard  found  that  these  two  related  gnomon-stones  were 
so  placed  as  to  mark  for  an  observer  standing  at  the  South- 
west stone  in  the  oval  the  day  when  the  rising  sun  sent 
its  rays  over  the  second  stone  so  as  to  fall  exactly  on  the 
•  line  between  the  two  stones.  The  days  thus  indicated  were 
in  the  Kermario  series  of  ten  stones,  the  summer  solstice 
and  the  equinoxes,  in  the  eleven  rows  of  M^nec  the  sum- 
mer solstice,  and  in  the  thirteen  rows  of  Kerlescan  the 
autumnal  equinox  \  He  also  found  that  all  the  other 
surviving  ranges  of  stones  in  Britany,  similar  to  but  much 
more  imperfect  than  those  of  Carnac,  were  erected  on  the 
same  plan. 

Also  the  examination  of  the  entrance  passages  of  the 
chambered  dolmens  used  as  burial-places  showed  that  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  these  were  directed  towards  the  South- 
east, where  the  sun  rose  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  in  a  de- 
tailed summary  of  the  directions  of  the  entrances  of  the  156 
dolmens  in  Morbihan,he  states  that  54  point  either  to  the  rising 
of  the  sun  at  the  summer  or  winter  solstice,  and  98  to  the 
rising  or  setting  sun  of  the  winter  solstice  \  These  dolmens 
are  all  situated  under  a  mound  raised  over  them,  like  the  ar- 
tificial hills  of  Shemiramot,  to  represent  the  mother-mountain, 
and  the  greater  number  belong  to  the  Neolithic  age  in  which 


*  Gaillard,  VAstronomie  Prihistoriqut^  i"  Partie,  Les  Alignments  des  Men- 
hirs dans  le  Morbihan  R^vue  Mensuelle  d*Astronomie  de  Met^rologie  et  des 
Sciences  d'Observation  pour  1897,  PP-  * — 39>  73* 

'  Ibid.,  Partie  II.,  Les  Dolmens  et  coffies  de  Piene,  pp.  125,  126. 


•-    X 


r::::.ry  jkJ  C'lrcKclogy 


trr   feai  -ere  biir.C'i  *.>":a^  on  their  sides,  with  their  1^ 
K.-:  ^T.l  rh=:r  ^T.t-t^  raised  t-">  their  breasts,  and  their  arms 
5:r-.:!irly  riisei -.     This  :5  exactly  the  position  of  a  foetus 
:r.  the  w:r::b,  v  hich  the  cartaker  cf  the  Soma  sacrifice  is 
d::;.ctei   t?   as^jTie   a:    hi?   bar>tism   in   the    Brahmanas^; 
ir.i    ::    was    .;r-:    .^hich   wculd   naturally   suggest  itself  to 
the  re:r!e  -f  tr.e  c\c!e  a^c  cf  crestation,  which  was  based 
■:r   the  year  cf  the   ^:wxr.^   foetus   of  ten   lunar  months 
This  :>  the  So.ffie  posfticn  as  that  in  which   the  dead  are 
:':u:.d   :r.  prehistoric  torr.bs  in   Eg>-pt,  and  also  in  those  of 
the  Neolithic  aj^e  throughout   Europe  3.     Also  in  Britany 
son:e  -zi  the  skeletons  have  been  exposed  to  the  air  before 
burial  so  as  tJ-  clean  the  nesh  otTthe  bones  ■♦,  as  is  the  custom 
an:or»g  the  Ooraor.s  of  Chutia  Nagpur  5  ;    and  both  animals 
and  human  bei::^s  were  sacrificed  at  the  funerals. 

All  these  tacts  prove  that  in   Britany  in   the  Neolithic 
age  of  the  dolmens  with  internal  chambers  under  hilb  or 
artincial  mcunds,  these  tombs  were   placed  with  reference 
to  the  rising  or  setting  of  the  sun  at  the  solstices,  and  that 
in   Morbihan,  of  which  Carnac  is  the  religious  capital,  the 
greater  number  of  the  dolmens  are  oriented  to  the  position 
of  tlie  rising  or  setting  sun  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  a  larg^ 
number  to  the  South-west  setting  points  of  the  same  su^^ 
which   marked   the   beginning  of  the  earliest  Indian  yea^ 
measured  by  the  solstices. 

The  stone  calendars  must  have  been  arranged  on  simila^ 
principles,  and  they  ail  have  their  observatories  situate^ 
at  the  South-west,  the  home  of  the  mother-bird  of  the  year^ 
of  the  Pleiades  and  Orion,  which  began  with  the  setting 
of  tiie  sun   in   the   South-west.     It   is  also  clear  that  th^ 


GaUUrd,  L'AstroH^mu  Prtaislori^dt^^  Partie  ii.  p.  II2. 

'  Eggeling,  Sj/,  BrJA,,  iiL  2,  I,  5—16;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp,  26^29;  Max 
Midler,  History  of  Ancknt  Sanskrit  LiUraiun^  pp.  395—398. 

^  Peine,  Htstcry  cf  E^pt^  \-oL  i.,  Addenda,  p.  xix. ;  Lubbock,  Prehistoric 
Tittus^  Second  Edition,  p.  14^. 

*  GaiUaid,  L\4stroHomw  Prekistoriqut^  Partie  ii.  p.  Iia 

»  Hewitt,  kuling  Rai€s  of  PrtkisUirit  Times^  voL  i..  Essay  iii.,  p.  336, 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age.  269 

arrangements  of  the  stone  avenues  must,  like  the  orientation 
of  the  dolmens,  and  the  positions  of  the  index-stones  and 
observatories  attached  to  them,  have  some  connection  with 
the  reckoning  of  the  year.  We  find  in  the  Hindu  ritual 
of  the  Soma  sacrifice  that  eleven  sacrificial  stakes  were 
placed  outside  the  East  side  of  the  consecrated  Soma  ground, 
to  which  were  tied  the  eleven  victims  offered  to  the  gods 
of  the  eleven  months  of  the  year,  which  forms  the  subject 
of  Chapter  VI '.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  rows 
of  stones  of  Britany,  which  mark  in  other  particulars 
their  descent  from  Indian  year  reckonings,  denote,  like 
the  Hindu  sacrificial  stakes,  years  of  ten,  eleven  and 
thirteen  months. 

This  probability  is  raised  almost  to  a  certainty  by  the 
Linga  stone  altar  in  the  collection  of  M.  du  Chatellier  at 
Kerauz,  near  Pont  L'Abb6,  Finist^re.  Its  form  follows 
the  rules  laid  down  in  the  Hindu  religious  books  for  the 
niaking  of  a  sacrificial  Linga  or  stake.  When  I  examined 
in  M.  du  Chatellier's  house  this  stone,  which  is  nearly  three 
feet  high,  and  is  of  Breton  granite,  I  saw  at  once  from  the 
designs  engraved  on  its  top  and  four  sides  that  those  who 
n^ade  it  must  have  learnt  the  theology  expressed  in  the 
engravings  in  India. 
On  the  top  there  was  drawn  the  St.  Andrew's  Cross  ^ 

of  the  solstitial  sun,  the  sign  of  the  flying  year-bird  beginning 
'ts  flight  at  the  winter  solstice.     On  one  side  was  a  pattern 

of  interlaced  female  Su-astikas  f^,  representing  the  annual 

course  of  the  sun,  beginning  its  journey  round  the  heavens 

^y  going  northward   at   the  winter  solstice.     On  the  side 

N 

^ext  to  this  was  the  square  of  the  eight-rayed  star  \v  -^^  e 


s 


'^epresenting   the  union   of  the   St.  Andrew's  Cross  of  the 


'  See  Plan  of  Sacrificial  Ground,  Eggcling,  Sat,  Brah,  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi. 
P'  475. 


2/0  History  and  Chronology 

Solstitial  ^  with  the  St.  Geoi^e's  Cross  of  the  Equinoctial 

sun  -^.    This  square  with  the  eight-rayed  star  inscribed  in 

it  was  that  directed  to  be  marked  inside  the  circling  stones 
of  the  Soma  sacrificial  ground  by  the  plough  made  of  the 
sacred  fig-tree,  the  Udumbara  {Ficus  glomerata),  to  which 
the  oxen  were  yoked  by  traces  made  of  three  strands  of 
Munja  grass  {Saccharunt  Munja\  of  which  the  Brahmin 
year  girdles,  denoting  the  three  seasons  of  the  year,  were 
made.  The  guider  of  the  plough  in  making  this  square  was 
directed  to  begin  at  the  South-west  corner,  where  the  sun 
of  the  winter  solstice  sets,  and  to  mark  from  this  point  the 
two  South  and  West  sides  of  the  square  first.  In  drawing 
the  transverse  lines  the  Polar  line  from  South  to  North  was 
ploughed  first,  as*that  round  which  the  sun  and  stars  revolve, 
that  from  the  South-west  to  the  North-east,  marking  the 
year  of  the  flying  sun-bird,  second,  the  equinoctial  West 
and  East  line  third,  and  the  North-west  and  South-east 
line  last '. 

This  sacred  symbol  told  the  history  of  the  sun-year  including 
that  of  the  solstitial  and  equinoctial  three-years  cycle  which 
preceded  the  year  of  the  Ikshvaku  kings,  sons  of  the  sugar- 
cane {ikslid),  which  is  the  year  described  in  Chapter  VII. 
Upon  this  square  the  later  brick  altar  of  the  sun-bird  rising 
in  the  East,  the  successor  of  the  sun  setting  in  the  West,  was 
ordered  to  be  built.  This  eight-rayed  star  of  the  solstitial 
and  equinoctial  year  was  called  by  the  eariiest  Akkadians 
of  Girsu  Dingir  the  Creator,  and  Anu  or  Esh-shu,  meaning 
god,  and  an  ear  of  corn  2.  It  was  in  Hindu  mythology  the 
symbol  of  the  two  united  female  and  male  Su-astikas,  the 
solstitial  star  denoting  the  course  of  the  sun  going  from 
South  to  North  at  the  winter  and  from  North  to  South  at 
the  summer  solstice.  The  name  embodies  that  of  the  god 
Astika,  or  rather,  as  he  is  also  called  in  the  Mahabharata, 

'  Eggcling,  Sat,  Br&h,,  vii.  2,  2,  3—14 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  326 — 330. 
"  Ball,  *  Akkadian  Affinities  of  Chinese.'     Transactions  of  i fie  Ninth  Congress 
of  Orientalist s^  §  viii.,  China,  Central  Asia,  and  the  East,  p.  685. 


of  tlie  Myth-Making  Age.  271 

Ashtaka  the  eighth.'.  He  was,  according  to  one  account, 
grandson  of  Yayati,  and  to  another,  son  of  the  father  ascetic 
of  the  Yayavara  or  full-moon  ( Ya)  sect,  and  of  his  wife,  the 
sister  of  Vasuki  the  snake-god  of  the  summer  solstice.  Both 
his  father  and  mother  were  called  Jarat-karu,  or  makers  of 
time  (jarat),  that  is  to  say  the  two  seasons  of  the  year, 
and  their  son,  the  eight-rayed  star,  was  the  high- priest  of 
King  Janam-e-jaya,  the  conquerer  {jaya)  of  birth  (janam) 
in  the  sacrifice  of  the  fire-altar,  in  which  all  the  snake-gods 
except  Takshaka,  god  of  the  winter,  and  Vasuki,  god  of  the 
summer  solstice  were  destroyed  2.  It  is  this  history  and 
that  of  the  Su  or  Khu  year-bird  which  explains  the  meaning 
and  historical  importance  of  the  name  Su-ashtaka,  denoting 
the  yearly  course  round  the  eight  {ashta)  points  of  the 
heavens  of  the  sun-bird. 
On  the  third  side  of  this  conical  linga  altar  was  a  pattern 

of  four  leaves     Px     exactly  the  shape  of  Palasha  leaves, 

arranged  in  the  form  of  a  St.  Andrew's  Cross ;  and  these 
leaves  denote  the  Palasha  leaves  grown  from  the  feather 
of  the  Shyena  or  frost  {shyd),  which  fell  to  earth  when  the 
year-bird  of  the  winter  solstice  was  wounded  by  the  arrow 
of  Kushanu  the  rain-bow-god,  drawer  {karsh)  of  the  heavenly 
bow  3.  On  the  fourth  side,  engraved  in  the  form  of  a  St. 
George's  Cross,  is  the  Palasha  tree  with  its  flowers  and  fruit, 
from  which  the  leaves  denoting  the  solstitial  year  fell. 

Round   the  top  of  these  designs  there  runs  a  scroll  of 
female  Suastikas,  and  at  the  bottom  one  of  snakes  coiled 

in  the  form  of  the  cross-bar  of  the  male  Su-astika   ^^^, 

This  stone,  sculptured  in  Britany,  was  found  by  M.  du 
Chatellier  at  the  end  of  an  avenue  marked  by  two  rows  of 
uncut   stones,  and   it   stood  with  the  side  marked   by  the 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixxxix. — xciL  pp.  265 — 272. 

^  Mahabharata  Adi   {Astika)   Parva,   xlv. — xlviii.,   Iv. — Iviii.   pp.    132 — 140, 

153— *  59. 
3  Rg.  iv.  27,  3;   Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.^  i.  7,  I,  I ;  S.6.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  183, 

note  2. 


272  History  and  Chronology 

female  Su-astika  looking  eastwards,  about  a  hundred  yards  to 
the  west  of  a  dolmen  under  a  mound,  which  contained  cal- 
cined bones  but  only  flint  implements,  and  it  was  therefore 
a  grave  of  the  close  of  the  Neolithic  or  the  beginning  of  the 
Bronze  Age,  when  bodies  were  burnt  before  they  were 
buried. 

According  to  the  rules  for  making  a  stone  linga,  given 
by  Varahamihira  in  the  Brihat-samhita,  Iviii.  8,  the  maker 
is  ordered  to  choose  a  stone  of  the  length  he  wishes,  and 
to  divide  it  into  three  parts.  The  top  part  is  to  be  rounded 
like  the  top  of  a  phallus,  and  the  bottom  to  be  square, 
exactly  like  the  Breton  stone,  but  Varahamihira  says  the 
middle  part  should  be  eight-sided '.  This  last  is  the  figure 
made  by  changing  the  eight-rayed  star  in  a  square  into  a 
figure  in  which  the  bases  of  the  eight  triangles  it  forms  are 
the  sides  of  an  eight-sided  figure.  It  is  this  eight-sided 
figure  which  is  that  prescribed  for  the  Yupa  or  sacrificial 
stake  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana.  As  for  its  length,  the 
Satapatha  Brahmana  says  it  may  be  five  or  six  cubits  long 
if  the  worshipper  measures  the  year  by  five  or  six  seasons, 
eleven  cubits  long  if  he  measures  the  year-thunderbolt  by 
eleven  months,  twelve  if  he  measures  it  by  twelve  months, 
and  so  on  through  the  series  of  recorded  year  measurements, 
showing  clearly  that  the  altar  was  one  erected  to  the  god 
ruling  the  year  «  It  was  doubtless  to  this  god  of  time  that 
the  earliest  stone-altar  or  sun-gnomon-stone  was  erected, 
and  similarly  the  original  tree  Yupa,  the  tree-trunk,  denoted 
the  god  who  measured  time  by  the  changes  of  the  plant 
with  its  three  seasons  of  winter  bareness,  summer  leaves  and 
flowers,  and  autumn  fruit.  The  designs  engraved  on  this 
stone-altar,  when  interpreted  by  the  Indian  ritual  from  which 
they  were  derived,  say  as  clearly  as  written  words  could  do, 
*'  This  is  the  altar  of  the  God  of  Time,  who  sent  the  sun-bird 
of  the  winter  solstice  to  fly  its  annual  course  from  South 


'  Sachau,  Alberuni's  India^  chap.  Iviii.  vol.  ii.  pp.  103,  104. 

"  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.y  iii.  6, 4,  17—27 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  126, 127. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  273 

to  North  and  North  to  South  round  the  Pole,  and  to  supply 
the  light  and  heat  which  nourish  the  tree-mother  of  life  on 
earth,  and  enable  it  to  bring  forth  its  flowers  and  seed,  the 
parents  of  future  generations." 

The  theology  of  which  the  creed  is  stated  in  the  pictured 
writing  on  the  Linga  has  in  Britany  examples  of  the  still 
earlier  phases  of  this  belief  when  the  altar  was  the  sun- 
gnomon-stone,  the  solitary  menhirs  which  abound  in  the 
country.  The  whole  evidence  proves  that  the  maritime 
people  who  lived  in  Britany  in  the  Neolithic  Age,  and 
erected  there  the  menhirs,  dolmens  and  stone  calendars, 
were  descended  from  the  Indian  Dravidian  races  mixed  in 
their  long  journey  from  East  to  West  with  other  stocks ; 
that  they  brought  with  them  their  national  creed  and  social 
institutions  as  expressed  in  the  ritual  and  customs  of  the 
successive  worshippers  of  menhirs,  the  builders  of  sacrificial 
and  burial  dolmens,  and  of  the  people  who  buried  their  dead 
in  the  elaborate  chambered  tombs  of  the  later  age  of  this 
form  of  burial  on  the  Persian  Gulf  and  in  Asia  Minor, 
Etruria  and  Britany. 

A  conspicuous  place  among  the  component  members 
of  this  Turano-Semitic  maritime  confederacy  must  be  as- 
signed to  the  two  races  of  Goidelic  and  Brythonic  Celts, 
the  first  of  whom  apparently  belonged  to  the  Gothic  sons 
of  the  bull  and  wolf.  They  seem  to  have  been  the  leaders 
of  society  in  the  palaeolithic  stone  age  of  menhirs,  who 
looked  up  to  the  wise  woman  inspired  by  the  bee  and  its 
mead  as  the  divine  prophetess,  and  believed  in  the  river 
and  tree-goddess-mother,  Anahita  and  Rhea,  as  the  quecii 
of  wisdom,  from  whom  she  derived  her  lore.  These  were 
the  people  living  under  the  Amazonian  rule  of  the  queens 
of  the  Ionian  races,  who  introduced  into  Greece  the  name 
yovri  for  woman,  meaning  the  mother,  the  Gothic  gino,  the 
Saxon  quena,  our  queen,  which  became  in  Sanskrit  Jani. 
They  were  succeeded  as  ruling  powers  by  Celts  of  Brythonic 
origin,  whose  language  is  spoken  in  Britany,  and  who 
changed    the    name    of    the    mother,  the    queen,  into   the 

T 


2/4  History  and  Chronology 

• 

Brythonic  Pen  »,  and  who  called  the  Pole  Star  mother  ii 
India  Tan  Pennu,  the  mother-star.  They  gave  the  name 
of  Pen-Samlath,  the  mother  or  face  of  Samlath  or  Semelc, 
to  the  daughter  of  Kadmus,  the  man  of  the  East  (*«fo«), 
who  became  the  mother  of  Dionysus,  and  who  was  both 
the  bisexual  Phoenician  mother  Shemiramot,  and  the 
Samleh  of  Masrekah,  the  Vine-land  ^  of  the  Edomite 
genealogy  of  Genesis  xxxvi.  35,  36.  This  bisexual  ruler 
succeeded  Hadad,  the  sun-god  of  the  pomegranate  Rimmon, 
who  was  her  father,  and  he  was  the  conqueror  of  the  Mi- 
dianites,  and  was  thus  the  counterpart  of  Gideon,  the 
founder  of  the  worship  of  the  Ephod,  the  sacred  woven 
garment  worn  by  the  priests  of  these  trading  merchant 
mariners. 

The  flow  of  this  stream  of  Eastern  immigration  to  the 
trading  regions  of  the  West  can   be  traced  still  further  in 
the  Celtic  mythology  of  Wales  and  Ireland,  and  especially    I 
in   that   of  the   latter  country.     A   blurred  outline  of  the 
history  of  the  successive  arrivals  of  the  differing  races  of 
eastern  invaders  is  to  be  found  in  the  story  of  the*  never 
dying  father-god  of  Erin  Tuan,  the  son  of  Starn,  the  Pole 
Star,  told  by  him  to  Finnen  (the  Finn)  of  Maige  Bile,  the 
plains  of  the  hill  of  the  holy-tree  {bile)  3.     First  he  came 
to    Ireland   with    Panthalon,  evidently   a   name   substituted 
for  the  original  title  of  the  divine  leader  by  a  later  editor 
of  the  history.     He  was  the  son  of  Sera,  who  may  be  the 
Wesh  Ser,  a  star,  and  was  accompanied  by  four  and  twenty 
couples,  probably  the  four  and  twenty  lunar  phases  of  the 
earlier  lunar  year  of  Orion.      Tuan  was  the  only  survivor 
of  this    first   immigration,   which    may   represent    the   first 
matriarchal    races  who   came   with    Hu,  the  Mighty,  from 
Deffrobani,   Ceylon,  and  introduced  the  worship   of  Briin, 
the  raven.     Secondly,  he  became  the  stag-god,  that  is,  the 

*  Rhys  and  Bryninor  Jones,  T/tc  IVclsk  Peoplcy  chap.  i.  pp.  2,  7. 
-  Saycc,  I  libber  t  Lidures  for  1887,  Lcct.  i.  p.  54,  note  2. 

*  Meyer  and  Nutt,  Voyage  of  Bran,  vol.  ii.,  Appendix  A,  pp.  285  ff. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  275 

un  Orion,  of  the  sons  of  Nemed,  the  grove  {nemeton) ', 
asque  races  of  Asia  Minor,  bom  from  the  union  of 
idian  sons  of  the  village  grove  with  the  Northern 
ig-races.  Thirdly,  when  these  sons  of  Nemed  died 
:ame  the  wild  boar  sun-god,  the  boar  of  the  age  of 
x-days  week,  whose  slaughter  was  the  first  of  the 
ts  of  Krishna,  the  antelope  sun-god,  and  of  Arjuna,  the 
va  god  of  the  summer  solstice.  This  was  the  boar 
;lew  Adonis,  the  sun-god,  born  of  the  cypress-tree, 
rho  in  Celtic  mythic  history  was  killed  on  ttu  last 
^  the  year  by  Diarmait,  the  ruling  year-god,  husband 
ainne,  the  goddess  of  light,  the  female  form  of  the 

sun-god  Grannos  2,  and  therefore  the  equivalent 
ia,  the  sun-maiden  of  the  Rigveda,  who  was  brought 
;  car  of  the  Ashvins,  made  of  Palasha  and  Shilmali 
-tree  wood,  to  wed  Soma,  the  moon-god  3.  Diarmait, 
he   Semitic  Ram,  was  the  son  of  one  of  two  twins, 

mother  was  Duben.  Their  father  was  her  brother 
e  Muse,  called  the  cat-headed  Cairbre.  Core,  meaning 
"opped,  the  father  of  Diarmait,  got  his  name  from 
Dpped  ears,  which  were  bitten  off  before  his  birth  by 
ic  his  brother  4.  This  incident  bears  a  close  resem- 
:  to  the  attempted  supersession  of  Perez,  ancestor 
m,  the  sun-god,  by  his  twin  brother  Zerah,  before 
^ere  born  as  the  children  of  the  incestuous  union  of 
-,  the  palm-tree,  with  her  father-in-law  Judah  5. 
ruling  men  of  this  age  of  the  boar-sun-god  are  called 
an's  story  the  GaiH6in,  or  men  of  the  spear  Gai,  who 
loted  magicians  6,  the  Fir  Domnann,  or  sons  of  the 
5s  of  the  deep,  Domnu,  the  Syrian  goddess  Derkcto, 
e  Fir  Bolg,  the  men  of  the  Bag  or  womb,  born  after 

'  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  i.  pp.  1 00— 102. 
'  Ibid.,  Lect.  i.  p.  22,  Lect.  v.  pp.  506 — 511. 

3  Rg.  X.  85, 9— 2a 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  308,  309,  313. 

s  Gen.  xxxviii.  27 — 30. 

^  Rhys,  Hibberi  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  vi.  pp.  598—600. 

T   2 


276  History  and  Chronology 

ten  lunar  months  of  gestation  ^     These  last  claimed  as  their 
father  Semion,  the  son  ot  Stariath,  the  great  sorceror  Simon 
Drui,  who  made  the  revolving  wheel  of  Fal,  or  of  the  paddles 
which  enabled  him  to  fly  through  the  air.     He  is  the  II 
Vecchio   Simeone  Santo,  the   king  of  Wizards,  of  Italian 
popular   mythology,  who   must   be   invoked  by  a  Novena 
prayer  to  the  wise  gods,  the  nine-days  week  of  the  cycl^ 
year  2.     He,  as  the  turner  of  the  heavenly  time-wheel,  was 
the  counterpart  of  Ixion  or  Akshivan,  the  driver  of  that  wheel, 
who  was  bound  to  it,  and  by  its  revolutions  made  the  earth 
turn   round ;    and   both  the  Greek   Ixion,  twin  brother  of 
Koronis,  and  the  Irish  wheel-magician  Simon  were  the  male 
forms   of  the   bisexual  goddess  of  this  cycfe-epoch.  Serai 
or  Shemiramot3.     Therefore  these  Fir  Bolg,  the  bag-born 
sons  of  the  wheel-god  or  goddess,  were  the  men  of  the  epoch 
of  this  cycle-year  of  three  years,  with  its  recurring  periods 
of  ten   lunar   months   of  gestation.      These   Fir  Bolg  arc 
described   by  McFirbis,  in  his  "  Book  of  Genealogies "  as 
having  dark  hair  and  eyes,  slender  limbs  like  those  of  the 
Hindu   races,  and  short  stature  ;   and  Skene  classes  them 
with  the  Basque  Si]ures4,  the  Aquitanian  sons  of  the  goat, 
the  mixed  race  formed  by  the  union  of  the  short  Finns  with 
the    Indian  Dravidian    farmers   and  the   northern   hunters. 
They  are  said  by  McFirbis  to  have  lived  in  under-ground 
houses   burrowed    under   mounds,  like   the   neolithic   long- 
barrow  tombs  4,     During  the  fourth  avatar  of  Tuan  he  was 
the  sun-hawk  of  the  Tuatha  De  Danann,  the  sons  of  the 
goddess    Danu   and   of  the   sons  of  Beothach,  son    of  the 
prophet  larbonel,  that  is  to  say  he  was  the  sun-hawk  Adrika 
of  the  Mahabharata,  the  mother  of  the  holy  eels,  the  fish- 
parents  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers,  the  hawk-goddess  Freya 
of  the  Edda,   Hathor  the  hawk   Pole   Star  mother  of  the 
hawk-headed    Horus,  the   sun-god   of  the   Egyptian    Hor- 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  vi.,  pp.  596 — 598. 
'•'  Lcland,  Etruscan  Roman  Remains ^  pp.  243 — 247. 

3  Rhys,  Hibbcrt  Lectures  for  1886,  Lcct.  vi.  pp.  210—214. 

*  Isaac  Taylor,  The  Origin  of  the  Aryans,  p.  78. 


^ 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  277 

shesu  and  Zarathustra  in  his  form  of  Karshipta,  the  hawk 
who  knew  the  language  of  birds  and  divined  by  bird  augury. 
They  are  described  by  McFirbis  as  tall,  with  golden  or  red 
hair,  fair  skin,  blue  or  grey  eyes ;  and  as  the  builders 
of  houses  they  lived  in  huts  or  pit  dwellings  ^  The  battle 
in  which  these  sons  of  the  goddess  Danu  and  the  bird- 
prophet  overcame  the  Fir  Bolg,  called  also  Fo-mori  or  the 
men  beneath  (/&)  the  sea  {niuir),  the  men  of  the  South  and 
the  Fir  Domnann,  is  said  to  have  been  fought  on  the  last 
day  of  October,  that  is  at  the  end  of  the  Pleiades  year,  and 
in  it  the  Tuatha  De  Danann  were  led  by  Nuada  of  the 
Silver-hand,  the  god  of  the  lunar-crescent  measuring  the 
cycle-year,  who  was  slain  in  the  battle  by  Balor,  leader 
of  the  Fir  Bolg,  and  succeeded  by  Bres,  meaning  war  2,  who 
was  the  son  of  Brigit,  the  goddess  Brihati  of  Chapter  II. 
p.  71,  and  whose  father  Elatha  came  out  of  the  sea  and  left 
a  ring,  the  year-ring,  with  her  at  his  departures.  .So  that 
the  birth  of  Bres  was  similar  to  that  of  the  Indian  Bharatha, 
the  son  of  Sakuntala,  who  was,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  the 
sun-god  born  of  the  three-years  cycle.  Also  this  victory 
of  the  sun-hawk-god  of  the  Tuatha  De  Danann  introduced, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  age  of  the  sun-god  Lug. 

In  his  fifth   avatar  Tuan  became  the  sun-fish,  the  river- 
salmon   who  made  the  Queen  of  Erin  pregnant,  the  god 
of  the    Milesian    sons    of    Mile    or    Bile,   who    conquered 
the  Tuatha    De    Danann,   and    who    were    the    Brythonic 
Basques  from  Spain.     They  defeated  at  Tailltin  in  Meath, 
on    the   Boyne,   these   sons   of   Danu,    called   the   men    of 
the    fairy    mounds,   the    mound-builders    of   the    Neolithic 
Age,    who   "  had    always    three    trees    bearing    fruit,    one 
pig    always    alive    and     one     ready    to    be    cooked,    and 
a    vessel    always    full    of   excellent    ale."      Mile    or    Bile, 
the    parent    of   these    conquering    Brythons,   was,   accord- 
ing  to   Professor  Windisch,  *'a  tree  growing   over  a  holy 

*  Isaac  Taylor,  Origin  of  the  Aryans^  p.  78. 

■  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lecttires  for  1886,  Lect.  vi.  pp.  586,  587. 

3  Ibid.,  Lect.  iii.  p.  275,  Lect.  iv.  p.  478,  note  3. 


2/8  History  and  Chronology 

well  or  in  a  fort,"  or,  in  other  words,  the  mother-tree 
of  the  sons  of  the  river-pool  or  the  mountain-fort ".  The 
sun-fish-god  of  these  sons  of  the  mother-tree  and  holy  well 
was  "the  two  undying  fish  which  swim  in  BowscaleTam" 
of  Cumberland  mythology,  the  Akkadian  fish-god  Salli- 
mannu,  the  Hebrew  Solomon,  son  of  Bath-sheba  of  the  seven 
measures,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  Makara 
or  river-porpoise,  the  form  assumed  by  Pra-dyumna,  the 
especially  {prd)  bright  {dyumna)  god,  son  of  Krishna,  the 
year-antelope,  the  Irish  sun-god  Lug,  born,  as  we  shall 
see,  in  the  three-years  tower,  and  saved  from  the  sea  ^  the 
Greek  sun-god  Perseus,  who  was  an  Assyrian  god,  according 
to  Herodotus  vi.  53,  whose  name  means  a  fish  3,  and  who  was 
drawn  from  the  sea  in  a  chest  by  a  fisherman  named  Dictys, 
a  net. 

« 

J.     Story  of  the  tower  of  the  three-years  cycle. 

It  is  the  story  of  the  birth  of  this  sun-fish-god  from  the 
tower  of  the  three-years  cycle,  as  told  in  popular  mythology, 
that  I  have  now  to  tell  to  complete  the  history  of  this  epoch. 
Its  earliest  form  is  that  of  the  Finn  story  which  tells  of  the 
«  three  years*  pregnancy  of  Kasari-tar,  the  daughter  of  the 
kettle  [kasari)  4.  This  was  the  Celtic  Southern  cauldron  of 
regeneration  of  the  god  Dagda,  the  year-god  father  of  Brigit, 
the  Sanskrit  Daksha,  represented  as  a  ram,  the  ram-sun  of 
this  epoch,  and  called  Mendh  Ishwara,  the  ram-god  of  boun- 
daries (menr)f  the  Gond  god  Goraya,  who  was  the  father  of  the 
twenty-seven  Nakshatra,  the  twenty-seven  wives  of  Chandra 
the  moon-god,  the  twenty-seven  days  of  the  month  of  the 
cycle-year  5.     He  was  the  Greek  god   Hermes  of  the  pillar 

'  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  vi.  p.  5S8,  Lcct.  i.  pp.  90,  91* 
Lect.  ii.  pp.  147 — 149,  Additions  and  Corrections,  p.  678. 

""  Ibid.,  Lect.  iv.  p.  316. 

3  yEliattf  N.  A.,  3,  28. 

*  Abercromby,  Magic  Songs  of  the  Finns,  Part  ii.  ;  Folklore,  vol.  i.  p.  331. 

5  Elliot,  Supplementary  Glossary ^  s.v.,  Mens>  a  boundary,  p.  249;  Ma- 
habharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixvi.  p.  189. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  279 

\epfu£)^  the  Hermes  Kriophoros  who  bore  the   ram-sun  on 
his  shoulders.     This  cauldron  was  the  treasure  of  the  Tuatha 
De  Danann  ^  and  it  was  made  pregnant  by  the  heated  froth 
3f  the  boiling  sea  of  the  South,  churned  by  the  revolving 
pole.     At  the  end  of  the  three-years  period  she  gave  birth 
to  the  sun-lizard,  who  comes  forth  to  greet  the  sun  in  spring, 
and  who  was  thus  the  symbol  of  the  sun  to  the  worship- 
pers  of  the   gnomon    menhir  with    its  recording   shadows. 
It   is  called  by  the  Finns  "  the  eye  of  Hiisi,"  the  wooded 
mother-mountain.     The  race  who  adopted  this  story  of  the 
birth  of  the  Southern  sun  of  winter  from  the  cauldron  of 
regeneration   of  the  South  were  the  sons  of  the   volcanic 
Mount  Ararat,  raised  from   the  waves  of  the  Caspian  and 
Black  Sea  by  the  churning  pole  of  the  trident  god  of  the 
year  of  three  seasons  to  be  the  original  home  of  the  Kushite 
sons  of  Kur,  the  Kurds  of  Kurdistan,  the  Kauravya  of  India, 
born    of  the    Kur  or   Araxes  river,  the  Daitya  or  second 
mother-river  of  the  Zendavesta. 

This  story  becomes  in  India  that  which  tells  of  the  birth 
of  Bharata,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  triad  gods 
Rama,  Lakshman  (the  boundary  laksh\  and  Bharata,  who 
were  sons  of  the  sun-god  Raghu,  called  Dasaratha,  or  the  god 
of  the  ten  chariots  (ratha),  or  months  of  gestation.  Bharata, 
who  was  the  ruling  god  during  the  exile  of  Rama,  son  of 
Kushaloya  the  Kushite  mother,  was  the  son  of  Kai-kaia 
the  Gond  mountain  (koi)  mother.  But  in  the  form  of  the 
story  which  describes  Bharata  as  the  parent  god  whence  the 
Kauravyas  and  Pandavas  were  descended,  he  was  the  son 
of  Sakuntala  the  bird  {S/iaknna)  mother,  the  crow  who  was 
bom  of  Menaka  the  white-robed  moon,  the  measuring  {vien) 
goddess,  the  first  of  the  six  Apsaras,  or  dwellers  in  the 
watery  (ap)  abyss,  the  six  days  of  the  week  2.  Her  father 
was  Visvamitra,  the  friend  {initra)  of  the  village  races  {vishva)^ 
the  prophet-god  of  the  Bharatas,  who  raised  Tri-sankhya,  the 


'  Rhys,  Uibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Led.  iii.  pp.  256,  257. 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  (Samb/iava)  Parva,  Ixxii.,  Ixxiv.  pp.  213,  223. 


28o  History  and  Chronology 

Ikshvaku  king  of  the  three  {tri)  numbers  {sankha)^  to  heaven 
as  the  triangle  of  the  three  weaving  sisters,  the  three  stars 
in  the  constellation  of  the  Vulture  now  called  Lyra,  which 
are  looked  upon  by  the  Chinese  as  the  measurers  of 
time.  One  of  them  is  Vega,  the  Pole  Star  from  10,000  to 
8000  B.C.^ 

Menaka  was  brought  to  Vishvamitra  by  Maroti  the  tree- 
ape-god,  and  she  gave  birth  to  her  daughter  Sakuntala  on 
the  banks  of  the  Malini,  the  mother-river  of  the  Malli,  the 
mountain  races  of  North-east  India.  Dushmanta,  he  of  the 
hard  {dusti)  sayings  {tnantd).  King  of  Ayodhya,  in  the  age 
of  the  cycle  year  met  Sakuntala  in  the  forest  dwelling  of 
Kanva,  the  bard  of  the  new  (kana)  age  of  the  lunar  solar 
reckoning  of  time,  whose  disciples  are  the  reputed  authors  of 
the  eighth  Mancjala  of  the  Rigveda,  and  she,  after  three  years' 
pregnancy  ^  bore  him  a  son  called  Bharata.  Dushmanta 
had  left  on  his  departure  from  Kanva's  asylum  a  ring  with 
Sakuntala,  to  ensure  her  future  identification  as  the  mother 
of  his  son,  but  she  lost  her  ring  in  the  river,  and  she  and 
her  son  were  disowned  by  Dushmanta,  when  she  took  hitn 
to  his  father.  But  when  the  ring  was  found  in  a  fish  brought 
by  a  fisherman  to  the  King,  Bharata  was  acknowledged  as 
the  royal  heir  3. 

Bharata  is  the  father-god  of  the  begetting  (phn)  races, 
who  looked  on  the  father  as  the  true  parent  and  the  son 
as  the  reproduction  of  the  father  born  from  the  mother 
sheath  4.  His  children  became  the  ruling  race  of  Bhars,  who 
as  the  wheat-growing  building  races  succeeded  the  first  millet- 
growing  Gond  Kushikas.  It  was  they  who  were  the  tradi- 
tional rulers  of  all  India,  who  built  the  city  of  Pampapura, 
of  which  the  ruins  remain  in  the  Mirzapur  district.  Their 
totemistic  descent  is  from  (i)  the  Bans-rishi,  the  bamboo 
of  the  antelope  {rishya)  race,  that  of  Vasu  the  rain-god  of  the 

*  Legge,  The  Shih  King  Decade ^  V.,  Ode  9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iii.  p.  363. 

=*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixxiv.  p.  223. 

^  Ibid.,  Ixxi. — Ixxiv.  pp.  211—228;  Kalidasa,  Sakuntala^  Act  vii. 

^  Ibid.,  Ixxiv.  p.  226. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  281 

summer  solstice ;  (2)  the  Bel  or  iEgle  Marmelos,  the  tree, 
as  we  shall  see,  sacred  to  the  sun  Physician ;  (3)  the  tortoise  ; 
and  (4)  the  Mayura  or  peacock.  This  is  the  form  which, 
as  we  are  told  in  the  Jatakas,  was  that  assumed  by  the 
sun-god  in  the  heaven  of  the  thirty-three  archangels,  the 
rulers  of  the  year  described  in  Chapter  VI.,  with  its  eleven 
months  of  thirty-three  days  each  ^  This  golden  peacock 
is  the  Indian  bird  into  which  Argus,  the  hundred-eyed  South 
Pole  god  Argo,  was  transformed  by  Here  when  Hermes 
slew  him  with  the  Harpe  or  lunar  crescent,  thus  introducing 
the  cycle-year  of  the  god  of  the  gnomon -pillar  {epiia)  ruled 
by  the  lunar  crescent.  This  transformation,  accompanied 
by  the  introduction  of  the  Indian  peacock  into  Greek 
mythology,  marked,  like  the  introduction  of  the  worship 
of  the  Indian  sun-cock  and  hen,  a  fresh  migration  of  Indians 
into  Greece.  In  India  the  sons  of  the  peacock  were  the  race 
ruled  by  the  dynasty  of  the  Maurya  or  peacock  kings, 
among  whom  the  great  Asoka  was  the  celebrated  ruler  in 
days  long  after  the  remote  period  with  which  I  am  now 
dealing.  He  marked  his  traditional  descent  from  the  ruling 
races  of  the  cycle-age  of  the  ass-drawn  Ashvins  by  adopting 
the  ass  as  his  cognizance.  For  it  is  this  ancestral  ass  which 
he  placed  as  a  representation  of  his  sign-manual  on  the  top 
of  the  pillar  he  erected  about  240  B.C.  on  the  traditional  site 
of  the  Buddha's  birth  in  the  Lumbini  village  grove.  The 
ass  has  disappeared,  but  its  presence  is  recorded  in  the 
inscription  on  the  base  of  the  pillar  describing  it  as  Vi-gada- 
bhi  with  the  ass  (gada)  on  it  2. 

It  was  from  these  ruling  Bhars  that  India  took  its  ancient 
vernacular  name  of  Bharatavarsha,  the  land  of  the  Bharatas, 
and  that  its  traditional  historical  poem  was  called  the  Maha- 
bharata  or  History  of  the  Great  Bharatas. 

These  children  of  the  cycle-year  of  the  birth  of  Bharata 
were  the  race  who  disseminated  the  story  of  the  birth  of  the 

*  Rouse,  Thejdtaka,  vol.  ii.  No.  159,  p.  25. 

=  v.   A.  Smith,  *Thc  Birth  Place  of  Gautama  Buddha.'    J.R.A.S,,,  1897, 
pp.  618,  619. 


282  History  and  Chronology 


^. 


sun-god  born  from  the  river-eel  in  the  tower  of  the  three- 
years  cycle  in  the  Garden  of  God.     This  came  from  India 
to  Greece  by  way  of  Assyria  in  the  story  of  the  birth  of 
Perseus,  the  fish,  from  Danae,  the  Pole  Star  goddess,  the 
female  form  of  the  god  Danu,  who  was  shut  up  in  a  brazen 
tower  by  her  father  Akrisius,  the  god  of  the  mountain-top 
(axpov),  and   made  pregnant   by  Zeus   in  the   form  of  the 
golden   rain.      This   is   reproduced   in   the   Celtic  story  of 
Ethnea  and  her  son  Lug.    Ethnea  was  the  daughter  of  Balor, 
the  giant-leader  of  the  Fir  Bolg,  or  men  of  the  Bag,  who 
measured  time  by  the  cycle-year.    He  had  two  eyes,  one  be- 
fore and  one  behind  his  head,  the  morning  and  evening  star, 
and  represented  the  sun-gnomon-stone,  the  Celtic  form  of 
Kastor,  the  Pole  {stor)  of  Ka.     Balor's  Druid,  the  bird  augur 
or  divining-priest,  told  him  his  grandson  would  slay  him. 
To  make  the  birth  of  a  grandson  impossible  he,  like  Akrisius, 
shut  up  his  only  child,  his  daughter  Ethnea,  in  an  almost 
inaccessible  tower,  called  Tor  More,  at  the  eastern  end  of 
Tory  Island,  the  island  of  the  Tur,  and  set  twelve  matrons, 
the  year-months,  to  guard  her.     Balor  made  himself  ruler 
of  the  year  by  stealing  the  year-cow  of  Mackinealy,  meaning 
the  son  of  the  Wolf's  head,  that  is  of  the  wolf  of  light,  the 
sun-god  of  day.     Mackinealy's  Druid  told  him  that  the  cow 
could  not  be  recovered  till  Balor  was  killed  by  his  grandson. 
Mackinealy  was  then  conveyed  to  the  tower  of  Ethnea  by 
the  fairy  Biroge  of  the  mountain  as  a  woman  hunted  by  a 
cruel  tyrant,  or  in  other  words,  entered  it  as  the  rain-cloud 
hunted  by  the  storm,  the  golden-rain  of  the  Perseus  story. 
He  made  Ethnea  the  mother  of  three  boys,  the  three  years 
of  the  cycle.     Balor  put  them  in  a  boat,  as  Akrisius  treated 
Perseus  and   Danae,  and  launched  them  on  the  sea  to  be 
drowned  in  a  whirlpool,  the  revolving-cycle.     In  this  two 
of  the  sons  were  drowned,  but  before  the  boat  reached  it  the 
eldest  of  the  three  fell  out  of  it  and  was  saved  by  its  fairy 
godmother,  who  took  it  to  Mackinealy,  who  gave  it  to  his 
brother  Gavida,  the  smith,  to  nurse.     Balor,  thinking  that 
all  his  grandchildren  were  dead,  caught  Mackinealy  and  cut 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  283 

off  His  head  on  a  large  white  stone,  the  sacred  stone-altar 
of  the  Scandinavians  ^ 

The  sun-god  thus  saved  was  the  god  Lug,  the  god  of  light 
{lux'lucis)y  whose  name  is  connected  with  that  of  Loki,  the 
fire-god  of  the  Edda,  and  with  that  of  the  Lycian  Apollo, 
the  wolf  (^vKos)  of  light  born  of  the  wolf-mother  on  the 
yellow  river  Xanthus  in  Lycia,  the  sun-god  of  Western 
Europe  and  father-god  of  the  Guelph  or  wolf  race,  one  of 
whose  chief  shrines  is  Lug-dunum,  Lyons,  the  fort  {dun) 
of  Lug  2. 

In  another  story  of  his  birth  we  find  the  three-years  period 
of  the  cycle  more  distinctly  shown  than  in  that  of  Ethnea 
or  Danae.  In  this  he  is  the  son  of  Dech-tere  or  Daeg-ter, 
the  day-goddess,  the  sun-maiden  of  the  Rigveda,  who  was 
driven  in  the  chariot  of  the  Ashvins,  and  who  drove  that 
of  Conchobar,  the  year-god,  as  his  charioteer.  She  at  the 
head  of  fifty  maidens  disappeared  from  Emain,  the  capital 
of  Conchobar,  and  returned  every  year  for  three  years  as 
wild  birds  who  destroyed  the  crops.  Conchobar  and  some 
of  his  nobles  set  out  Southwards  towards  the  end  of  the 
three  years  to  find  the  birds,  and  came  to  a  place  where  he 
was  entertained  by  an  old  man  and  woman  living  in  a 
cottage,  Orion  and  the  Pleiades  mother.  Bricriu,  the  Ulster 
genius  of  mischief,  who  was  with  Conchobar,  going  out  at 
night  saw  a  magnificent  mansion  which  had  been  invisible 
by  day,  the  night  sky  lit  up  by  stars.  He  was  met  at  the 
door  of  the  palace  of  the  stars  Gemini  by  Dech-tere,  who 
sent  a  purple  mantle,  the  clouds  of  sunset,  to  Conchobar, 
and  came  to  his  bed,  where  she  was  delivered  of  the  young 
sun -god  Lug.  For  the  original  form  of  this  god  Lug,  born 
from  the  three-years  tower,  we  must  turn  to  his  Welsh 
counterpart  Llew,  the  son  of  Arianrhod,  the  moon-goddess 
of  the  Silver  Wheel,  and  Gwydion,  the  parallels  of  Dech-tere 

'  Rhys,  Hibbtrt  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  314 — 3 1 8. 

"■  Ibid.,  Lect.  V.  p.  496,  note  i,  497,  501,  502;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of 
Prehistoric  Times y  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  213;  Miillcr,  Die  Dorter ^  Book  ii., 
chap,  ii.,  §  2,  p.  218,  Book  ii.,  chap,  vi.,  §  8,  pp.  305,  306. 


284  History  and  Chronology 

and  Conchobar.  Llew  was  disowned  by  his  mother  Arian- 
rhod,  who  after  having  by  various  means  retarded  his 
recognition  as  the  young  sun-god,  declared  that  no  living 
woman  should  marry  him.  A  wife  Blodeued,  meaning  the 
flower,  was  made  for  him  from  flowers,  the  Greek  goddess 
Koronis  in  her  form  of  the  flower-mother,  but  she  was 
unfaithful  to  Llew,  and  attempted  to  murder  him  by  the 
aid  of  her  paramour.  But  the  arrow  with  which  he  was 
hit,  thd  year-arrow  shot  by  Krishanu  at  the  Pole  Star 
mother-bird,  only  changed  him  into  an  eagle,  which  flew 
into  Gwydion*s  lap,  and  he  brought  him  back  to  his  former 
shape.  Llew  then  slew  the  murdering  archer  with  his  sun- 
spear,  and  Blodeued  was  changed  into  the  owl-mother-bird 
of  this  epoch.  It  is  as  a  variant  form  of  this  avatar  of  the 
sun-eagle  that  Llew  is  represented  as  having  been  changed 
in  the  same  place  where  he  became  the  sun-eagle  into  the 
Aurwrychyn,  or  the  beast  "with  the  golden  bristles,"  that 
is  to  say,  he  became  the  Ram  with  the  Golden  Fleece,  the 
ram-sun-god  of  the  cycle-year  ^.  There  are  two  accounts 
of  the  death  of  Balor  slain  by  Lug :  one  that  Lug  slew  him 
at  the  close  of  the  battle  in  which  he  led  the  Tuatha  De 
Danann,  after  Balor  had  killed  their  king  Nuada  with  the 
Sijver  Hand ;  and  in  this  battle  the  Fir  Bolg  led  by  Balor, 
and  the  Fir  Domnann  under  Indcch,  were  the  opponents 
of  the  Tuatha  De  Danann.  In  the  other  accounts  Lug 
killed  Balor  in  the  forge  of  his  guardian  uncle,  Gavida  the 
smith  2. 

This  sun-god  Lug  or  Llew,  born  as  the  sun-god  of  the 
cycle-year  of  the  Hittites  who  wore  the  peculiar  Hittite 
shoes,  was  also  an  excellent  shoemaker,  for  it  was  by  making 
leather  shoes  for  his  mother  Arianrhod,  the  moon-goddess, 
that  he  first  secured  her  recognitions.  He  was  also  the 
patron-god  of  the  Lugoves  or  shoemakers,  mentioned  in  a 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iii.  pp.  239 — 241,  v.  pp.  404,  405, 

423,  434- 

'  Ibid.,  Lect.  vi.  p.  587,  v.  pp.  396—398,  iv.  pp.  316,  317. 
3  Ibid.,  Lect  iii.  p.  237. 


of  t/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  285 

Latin  inscription  found  in  the  Celtic  Uxama,  the  modern 
3sma,  a  town  in  Spain.  He  and  his  father  Gwydion  were  two 
jf  the  three  golden  shoemakers,  the  makers  of  the  shoes  of 
iie  sun  of  the  three-years  cycle  ^,  This  mythic  occupation 
rf  the  sun-god  marks  him  as  the  god  of  the  Hittite  race,  who 
i)ecame  in  India  the  Chamar  workers  in  leather,  whose  tribal 
history,  as  we  have  seen,  dates  back  to  this  cycle  epoch. 

Another  variant  form  of  this  age  of  the  three  years' 
imprisonment  of  the  virgin  sun-mother  is  that  given  in 
the  historical  story  of  Kamar-al-Zaman,  the  moon  of  the 
age,  the  son  of  the  king  of  the  Islands  of  the  West, 
the  Canary  Islands,  the  crescent-moon-god  of  the  races 
who  began  their  day  and  year  with  the  setting  sun,  and 
Budur,  the  full -moon  daughter  of  the  Eastern  emperor 
of  China.  Her  father  built  for  her  seven  palaces,  in  which 
she  dwelt  till  he,  on  her  refusal  to  marry,  imprisoned  her 
in  a  separate  building,  where,  like  Ethnea,  she  was  guarded 
by  ten  matrons,  the  ten  months  of  the  year  of  gestation. 
Kamar-al-Zaman,  who  also,  like  Budur,  refused  to  marry 
the  mate  chosen  for  him  by  his  father,  was  imprisoned 
for  fifteen  days,  the  length  of  a  phase  of  the  crescent-moon, 
on  the  same  day  as  Budur.  They  were  brought  together 
in  Kamar-al-Zaman*s  prison  by  two  Ifrits,  spirits  of  the 
dust  {afar)j  male  and  female,  the  gods  of  day  and  night, 
who  carried  Budur  thither.  The  night  of  their  meeting 
was  Friday,  called  in  Arabic  Juma,  the  day  of  meeting, 
or  of  the  twins,  the  day  sacred  to  the  Northern  mother- 
goddess  Friga,  the  mother  of  seed  {frio\  followed  b}'  that 
of  Saturday,  the  day  of  the  seed  (satur)  father-god.  The 
story  says  that  this  night  was  the  first  of  Zu'1-kadah  or 
Dhu'l-kadah,  the  month  of  the  bird  Zu  or  Dhu,  and  it  is 
stated  to  have  been  a  time  of  hard  frosty  weather.  I  have, 
in  Chapter  II.  p.  54,  shown  reason  to  believe  that  this 
month  at  one  time  coincided  with  that  of  the  first  month 
of  the   Pleiades   year,   October  —  November,  which   would 

»  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lcct.  v.  pp.  424,  425,  541. 


286  History  and  Chronology 

not  answer  this' description.  But  from  the  story  of  Kamar- 
al-Zaman,  which  states  that  the  first  of  Zu'1-kadah  was 
a  great  state  festival,  apparently  that  of  the  marriage  of 
the  sun-god,  which  Kamar-al-Zaman  refused  to  celebrate  S 
it  would  seem  that  in  the  age  before  the  cycle-year  the 
month  beginning  the  life  of  the  year-bird  was  transferred 
from  its  original  place  at  the  beginning  of  the  Pleiades  year 
to  the  winter  solstice,  when  the  national  year-festival  be- 
ginning Orion*s  year  was  held  as  a  festival,  which  was  con- 
tinued during  the  cycle-year.  This  was  also  one  of  the 
dates  beginning  the  Jewish  year,  before  they  finally  adopted 
the  year  beginning  with  the  autumnal  equinox.  It  is  still 
kept  as  the  Feast  of  the  Dedication  of  the  Temple,  held 
at  the  winter  solstice,  the  temple  being  the  star-clad  vault 
of  heaven  of  Orion's  year,  the  temple  of  the  Hindu  god 
Varuna.  It  was  on  the  new  year's  day  of  the  new  cycle  age 
when  the  sun-god  to  be  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox 
was  to  be  begotten  by  the  sexless  parent-gods  of  this 
epoch,  that  the  moon-gods  who  were  to  rule  the  new  era 
were  brought  into  the  prison  of  the  Garden  of  God,  where 
they  exchanged  the  ring  of  marriage  of  the  ten-months 
year  of  gestation,  but  as  each  was  asleep  when  the  other 
took  the  ring  they  had  no  conversation  together.  In  the 
morning  Budur  was  taken  back  to  her  prison  in  China,  and 
remained  there  for  three  years,  till  Kamar-al-Zaman  was 
brought  to  her  by  her  foster-brother  Marzawan,  the  warden 
of  the  marches  or  boundaries,  the  boundary-star-god  of 
heaven,  the  counterpart  of  Lakshman  in  the  story  of  Rama. 
He,  at  Budur's  request,  went  by  sea  to  the  Canary  Islands 
to  seek  Kamar-al-Zaman,  but  he  brought  him  back  to  China 
by  land,  thus  completing  the  course  assigned  for  the  Southern 
star-ship  Argo  in  the  original  legend  of  its  voyage,  com- 
mented on  by  Hecataeus.  This  makes  the  Argo  sail  from 
iEa  in  the  East  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  to  come  down,  how 


'  Burton,  Arabian  Nights ^  Talc  of  Kamar-al-Zaman,  vol.  iii.  pp.  17 — 30,  36, 
43»  47—51 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  287 

it  IS  not  said,  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  whereas  the  Argo  of 
this  story,  steered  by  Marzawan,  the  star  Canopus,  starts 
from  a  port  in  China,  in  the  Pacific,  which  was  originally 
in  the  Indian  version  one  in  Ceylon,  the  island  of  Agas- 
tya  Canopus.      From  this    Indian  Ocean  the  Greek  Argo 
went  to  the  lake  Tritonis,  in  West  Africa,  in  the  South-west, 
where  Athene,  the  tree-mother-goddess,  was  born.     There  it 
rested   for  twelve   days,   showing   that  the   story  was   one 
describing  the  course  of  the  year  of  the  Phoenician  Archal, 
and  the  three  Indian  Ribhus,  as  described  in  Chapter  III. 
pp.  loi,  102.     This  lake  Tritonis  was,  in  the  story  of  Marza- 
wan's  voyage,  the  Canary  Islands,  where  he  was  shipwrecked 
and  taken  up,  like  Agastya,  who  drank  up  the  tides  "  with 
.his  belly    full   of  water."     After  his   twelve   days'    rest  at 
the  court  of  Kamar  -  al  -  Zaman's  father,  the  two  escaped 
by  land   to   China,  where   Budur   broke   the   chain,  which 
liad  confined  her  for  three  years,  and  married  Kamar-al- 
Zaman  under  the  condition  that  she,  as  the  circling  moon- 
goddess,  was  to  return  once  a  year  to  her  father. 


J.     The  Indian  and  European  land  tenures  of  this  age. 

It  is  apparently  to  this  age  that  we  must  refer  the  origin 
of  the  peculiar  system  of  land  tenure  still  existing  in  the 
Ooraon   Lohardugga  district,  the  especial  property  of  the 
Chutia  Nagpur  Raja,  held  by  him  as  lord  paramount  of  the 
group   of  ancient   kingdoms   included   in   the   area   of  the 
Chutia  Nagpur  Commissionership.     During  the  growth  of 
the  Kushika  rule,  the  civilised  world  surrounding  the  Indian 
Ocean    was   divided,  as  we   have   seen,  into  allied   groups 
of  provinces,  formed  from  the  union  of  the  villages  within 
the  area  of  each  province.    It  was  the  Kushikas  or  Haihayas 
who  united  the  provincial  confederacies  into  larger  unions, 
ruled  by  the  king  of  the  central  group  of  the  union.     The 
States  formed  on  this  system   do  not  seem  to  have  pos- 
sessed any  standing  army,  except  the  internal  police,  the 
still  surviving  village  Chokidars  or  watchmen,  and  the  men 


288  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  villages  in  the  frontier  provinces,  who  were  bound  by 
their  tenures  to  defend  the  country  against  any  invading 
enemy.     But  when  the  Pre-Celtic  races,  who  painted  their 
tribal  marks  on  their  foreheads,  and  whose  food  was  the 
parched  barley  of  the  North,  overcame  the  Haiheyas,  a  more 
distinctly  military  rule  was  introduced,  and  the  government 
was  divided  between  the  king,  who  was  law-giver,  judge  and 
high-priest,   and   his   principal   subordinate,   the    Sena-pati 
or  lord  of  the  army  {send),  the  Commander-in-chief,  to  whom 
the  largest  and  most  important  of  the  frontier  provinces  was 
assigned.     This   in   the   Chutia   Nagpur    confederacy  was 
Ram-gurh,  now  called  Hazaribagh.     It  was  under  this  semi' 
military  constitution  that  the  peculiar  Ooraon  land  tenures, 
which  bear  so  strong  a  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Cymri  in 
Wales,  grew  up. 

Among  the  Ooraons,  as  among  the  Goidelic  Welsh, 
society  was  divided  into  four  classes,  (i)  The  royal  class, 
including  the  families  of  the  central  king  and  his  subordinate 
hereditary  rulers  of  provinces.  These  had,  as  we  shall  see, 
special  land  rights,  and  the  younger  members  of  their 
families  were  entitled  to  grants  of  land  for  their  main- 
tenance. (2)  The  class  called  among  the  Ooraons  Bhun- 
hiars,  the  Celtic  Uchelwyr,  from  whose  families,  among  the 
Ooraons,  were  chosen  the  holders  of  the  offices  of  the  Munda 
or  head-man,  the  Pahan  or  priest,  and  the  Mahto  or 
steward  of  the  villages,  in  which  they  held  ancestral  rights. 
(3)  The  class  of  tenants  who  were  members  of  the  village 
community  ruled  by  the  three  hereditary  officials,  who  were 
the  Vaishya  of  the  later  Hindu  organisation,  and  resembled 
in  their  hereditary  rights  to  the  village  lands  the  Celtic 
bonedegion.  (4)  The  hereditary  village  servants,  who  de- 
veloped under  Kushika  rule  into  the  classes  of  artisans  and 
tradesmen,  and  who  were  under  Cymri  rule,  the  taeogion 
or  eitttion,  the  un-free  persons  ^. 


*  Rhys  and  Brymnor  Jones,  The  Welsh  People^  chap.  vi.  Ancient  Laws  and 
Customs,  p.  191. 


of  tfie  Myth' Making  Age.  289 

The  king  in  each  village  of  the  central  royal  province 
>f  Chutia  Nagpur,  and   the  provincial   governor  in   each 
)f  those  on  the  frontier  into  which  the  Ooraon  property 
aw  was  introduced,  was  entitled  to  a  large  share  of  the  land 
«rhich  was  cultivated  for  him  by  the  tenants  who  were  not 
Bhunhiars,  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Mahto,  and 
in  payment  for  this  service  a  special  area  of  land  called 
Beth-kheta  is  assigned  to  them  as  common  property.    This 
royal  land  is  called  Manjhus,  and  the  crops  gathered  from 
it  were  stored  in  the  granaries  distributed  over  the  province 
to  supply  food  for  the  maintenance  of  the  king  and  his 
followers    during    the    constant    progresses    through    their 
dominions,  which  they,  as  well  as  the  Cymric  kings^  were 
obliged  by  custom  to  make.     This  royal  land  in  the  Cymric 
system  was  the  king's  Maerdref,  under  the  superintendence 
of  the  land  Maer,  the  Ooraon  Munda.     This  consisted  not 
of  land  in  every  village  but  of  two  trefyd  or  areas,  each 
of  256  erwan   or  acres,  that   is   of  512   erwan    in   every 
Q^wd  or  province,  the  Hindu  Parha.     This  was  cultivated 
tythe  eiHtion  or  taeoghs,  the  non-Cymric  holders  of  the  land, 
^  each  village,  called  Tyr  Cyfrif  or  registered  land,  which 
^^  all   held   in   common,  and   partitioned   for  cultivation 
^njong  all  the  males  of  the  village  above  the  age  of  fourteen  ^ 
The  register  of  this  land  was  kept  by  the  Canghellor  or 
Chancellor,  the  Ooraon  Mahto,  who  has  become  the  Pat- 
^ri  or  village  accountant  of  Northern  India,  and  the  Kul- 
wni  of  Bombay  and  the  Dekhan.     These  alien  cultivators, 
^  had  occupied  the   country  before   the   Celts,  held  in 
"^alcs  the  position   assigned   among   the   Ooraons  to  the 
teiant  members   of  the  village  community  who  were  not 
Bhunhiars,  and   both  among  the  Celts  and  Ooraons  they 
«^cre  required,  as  a  service-rent  for  their  land,  to   repair 
he  king's  houses,  to  erect  temporary  dwellings  for  him  and 
or  his  retinue  when  they  visited  the  cymwd  during  the 

'  Seebohm,  The  Tribal  System  in  Wales ^  p*  18 ;  Rhys  and  Brymnor  Jones, 
\i  Welsh  PeofU,  chap.  vi.  pp.  218 — 220,  chap.  ix.  p.  400. 


290  History  and  Chronology 

royal  progresses.  Among  the  Cymri  the  rule  was  that  the 
king's  sojourn  in  each  cymwd  was  to  be  limited  to  nine 
days,  the  nine-days  week  of  this  cycle-year ;  and  during  this 
time  he  was  fed  by  the  Uchelwyr,  an  obligation  which  docs 
not  entirely  fall  upon  the  Ooraon  Bhunhiars,  as  they  have 
only  to  supply  firewood  and  such  articles  of  consumption 
as  were  not  furnished  by  the  royal  granaries  ^ 

Under  the  land  system  set  forth  in  the  Welsh  Codes,  the  old 
village  organisation  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  Ooraon  land- 
laws  appears  to  have  been  replaced  by  one  in  which  the  cymwd 
or  province  was  the  unit  instead  of  the  village.     Within  the 
cymwd  was  the  king's  demesne  and  his  waste  land,  and  in 
it  the  Maer  and  Canghellor  had  the  land  attached  to  their 
offices,  while  the  remaining  area  was  divided  into  villages, 
some  of  which  were  occupied  by  the  Uchelwyr,  or  free-tribes- 
men holding  Tir-gwelyawg  or  family  land,  and  others  by 
the  alien  eitttion  or  teaoghs  holding  lands  in  common  tenancy. 
Thus  the  Cymric  cymwd  with  its  king's  land,  the  lands  of 
the  Maer  and  Canghellor,  the  villages  of  the  free-tribesmen 
and  those  of  the  alien  tenants,  was  an  exact  enlargement 
of  the  Ooraon  village  with  the  king's  Manjhus   land,  the 
lands  of  the  Bhunhiar  families  filling  the  offices  of  Munda, 
Pahan,  and   Mahto,  with  those  of  the  tenant  members  of 
the  community.   But  this  Ooraon  organisation,  which  included 
glebe  land  for  the  priest  in  every  village,  was  also  recognised 
in   some  of  the  Cymric  villages  where  the  priest  occupied 
a  position  intermediate  between  that  of  a  village  servant 
and  a  free  tenant.    In  the  former  capacity  he  had  a  contribu- 
tion from  each   plough  of  land  in  the  district  in  which  he 
was  an   authorised   teacher,  like   the   Hindu   Prashastri  or 
teaching-priest  and  the  Ooraon  Ojha,  and  as  a  free  tenant 
the  land   attached  to  his  office  in  his  village  ^.     That  this 
glebe  land  was,  in  the  Celtic  villages  where  the  pre-Cymric 


'  Seebohm,  The  Tribal  System  in  Wales y  pp.   157,  158;  Rhys  and  Brymnor 
Jones,  The  Welsh  People^  chap.  vi.  pp.  220,  note  2,  224. 
»  Seebohm,  The  Tribal  System  in  Wales,  p.  67. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  291 

organisation  of  the  Picts  was  preserved,  mixed  with  the 
land  of  the  other  tenants,  like  those  of  the  Ooraon  Pahan, 
is  proved  by  the  map  of  Hitchin  in  Hertfordshire,  in  Mr. 
Seebohm's  "  EnglisTi  Village  Community,"  where  the  plots  of 
glebe  land  are  scattered  over  the  cultivated  area  just  as  they 
were  allotted  under  the  original  system  of  periodical  redistri- 
butions of  the  land  which  was  formerly  customary  throughout 
England,  and  survives  in  the  yearly  allotments  of  common 
grazing  lands  existing  in  many  villages.  In  India,  where  the 
tenant's  rights,  under  the  customs  of  Chutia  Nagpur  and  Chut- 
tisgurh,  did  not  entitle  him  to  the  continued  holding  of  the 
same  fields  from  year  to  year,  he  obtained  at  the  village  dis- 
tributions a  certain  defined  area  of  each  kind  of  soil  cultivated 
in  the  village,  proportionate  to  the  number  of  his  plough 
cattle.  Thus  the  owner  of  four  plough-oxen  got  twice  the 
area  given  to  the  tenant  with  only  two.  The  whole  system 
was  based  on  the  accurate  discrimination  of  the  different 
kinds  of  land  in  the  village,  and  the  measurements  of  the 
areas  of  each  class  of  land.  This  has  been  from  time  im- 
memorial most  carefully  determined  in  India.  But  the 
oldest  measurements  there  are  not  made,  as  among  the 
Cymri,  by  linear  measurements  of  areas^divided  into  plough- 
strips,  but  by  an  estimate  of  the  quantity  of  seed  that  would 
be  sown  in  each  plot.  The  whole  cultivated  area  is  measured 
by  the  number  of  maunds  (2  lbs.)  that  would  be  required 
to  sow  it,  a  different  area  being  calculated  for  the  rice 
lands  and  for  those  sown  with  dry  crops ;  and  the  results 
thus  obtained,  as  I  have  frequently  found  by  comparing  the 
seed  areas  with  those  given  by  linear  measurements,  are 
surprisingly  accurate.  The  existence  of  a  similarly  exact 
calculation  of  land  areas  among  the  Cymri  is  proved  by 
the  measurement  of  the  cymwd,  as  defined  in  the  Venedotian 
Code.  The  unit  was  the  erw  or  acre  of  about  4,320  square 
jrards,  somewhat  less  than  the  acre  of  4,840  square  yards, 
uid  this  was  probably  originally  measured  by  the  seed 
lown  in  it.  There  were  four  erwan  in  ev^ery  tydyn  {home- 
fUad).    Four  tydenan  or  16  erwan  in  every  Rhandir  (/aW- 

U  2 


292  History  and  Chronology 

share).  Four  Rhandiroed  or  64  erwan  in  every  Gafael  (hold- 
ing). Four  Gafaelion  or  256  erwan  in  every  tref  {town-ship)* 
Four  trefyd  or  1,024  erwan  in  every  maenol.  Twelve 
maenolyd  and  two  trefyd  for  the  king,  or  4,608  enxran 
in  every  cymwd. 

Here  the  tref  or  maenol,  the  latter  having  the  average 
area  of  an  Indian  village  in  Chuttisgurh,  is  the  original 
foundation  on  which  the  subsequent  provincial  organisation 
is  laid  ;  and  the  maenol  or  maenaur,  the  English  manor 
or  the  area  surrounded  by  stones  (maen),  is  the  original 
Gond  village  with  its  carefully  preserved  boundaries,  marked 
in  Babylonia  by  stone  boundary-marks  ^. 

The  original   pre-Celtic  village  system  in   England  was 
apparently  similar  to   that  of  the  Ooraons,  for  there  was 
originally  in  every  village  an  area  of  land  called  the  Thane's 
inland  or  demesne,  which  was   cultivated  for  him  by  the 
tenants  in  the  same  way  as  the  Ooraon  tenants  cultivated 
the  "  manjhus  "  land  ;  and  in  the  village  of  Chippenham,  1^ 
Wilts,  we  find  a  most  interesting  instance  of  the  16  carucatcs 
of  this  demesne  land  belonging  not  to  the  over-lord  but 
to  the  village  community  as   a  whole.     This   correspond^ 
exactly  to  the  Gond  custom  of  allotting  one  share  of  the 
village  land  to  the  head-man.     Thus  in  Chuttisgurh,  where 
the  village  lands  are  divided  into  five  or  more  koonts  or 
sections,    one    koont    always    belongs    to    the    head-man. 
Another  custom  which  shows  the  close  affinity  between  the 
Ooraon   and   pre-Celtic   English   village   is   the   custom  of 
recognising  the  village  servants  as  hereditary  members  of 
the  community.     These  in  Chutia  Nagpur  and  Chuttisgurh 
sometimes  have  distinct  allotments  of  land,  but  are  more 
frequently  paid  by  contributions  of  grain  ;  and  in  England, 
as  in  the   village   of  Aston    in    Oxfordshire,   we    find   fre- 
quently distinct  fields  set  apart  as  those  belonging  to  the 
village  servants  2.     This  village  system  was  superseded  by 

'  Rh)rs  and  Brymnor  Jones,  T/a  Welsh  People,  chap.  vi.  p.  218,  notes  i 
and  2,  219.  • 

=  Seebohm,  English  Village  Community,  p.  135  ;  Gomme,  The  Village  Com- 
munity ^  chap.  viii.  pp.  174 — 176,  163. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  293 

'^mwd  organisation,  in  which  the  villages  held  by  the 
vyr    or    free-tribesmen    were    separated    from    those 

Pict-tenants,  who  were  aliens  to  the  Goidel  con- 
s ;  and  we  see  this  separation  of  tenures  still  subsisting 
ia  in  the  divisions  of  villages  into  sections,  one  in- 
1  by  the  superior  and  the  other  by  the  inferior  or 
1  tenants ;  and  also  in  the  conversion,  almost  uni- 
in  some  districts  of  the  North-west  Provinces,  of  the 
1  communal  villages  into  those  held  on  the  Jat  system 
tidari,  in  which  the  villages  arc  divided  into  puttis 
res,  belonging  to  the  families  descended  from  the 
ig-brotherhood,  which  exactly  answers  to  the  Uchel- 
llages  of  the  Cymri.  Again  in  the  Dekhan  we  find 
>  in  which  the  part  of  the  lands  seized  by  the  invad- 
t  and  Cheroo  conquerors  is  partitioned  into  fields, 
by  the  family  name  of  the  original  appropriators, 
Id  in  hereditary  descent  by  their  successors,  while  the 

the  lands  are  held  on  the  old  communal  system  by 
hrs,  who  represent  the  earlier  tenants  ^. 

whole  system  of  the  Munda,  Ooraon,  and  Jat  land  tenures  is  ex- 
t  length  in  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i.,  Essay  ii. 
i,  118—123. 


CHAPTER    VI. 


The  year  of  the  horse's  head  of  eleven  months 

and  eleven-day  weeks. 

THE  period  I  have  now  reached  in  this  historical  survey 
of  primaeval  history  is  that  represented  in  Indian 
mythological  history  by  the  worship  of  the  horse's  head, 
called  in  the  Rigfveda  Dadhiank.  This  is  the  horse's  head 
which  was  originally  placed  on  the  roofs  of  all  houses  in 
Gothic  lands,  after  the  sacrifice  to  Odin  of  the  horse  to 
which  the  head  belonged.  This  is  still  carved  in  wood  and 
affixed  to  the  principal  gables  of  houses  in  the  Lithuanian 
and  Gothic  provinces  of  Mecklenburgh,  Pomerania,  Luneberg 
and  Holstein  ^  This  horse-sacrifice  was  also  offered  by  the 
Mordvinian  Ugro  Finns  of  the  Volga,  the  conquering  races 
who  succeeded  the  sons  of  the  ass  of  the  cycle-year,  and 
first  brought  the  horse  to  South-western  Asia  to  supersede 
the  wild  ass,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  drew  the  year-car 
of  the  Ashvins,  and  which  drew  the  chariots  of  the  early 
Assyrian  kings  2.  At  the  Mordvinian  horse-sacrifice,  accord- 
ing to  a  description  of  it  by  an  eye-witness  at  the  end 
of  the  1 6th  century,  the  Italian  traveller  Barbaro,  the  horse 
was  tied  by  the  neck  to  the  sacrificial  stake  in  the  sacrificial 
pit,  a  survival  of  the  ritual  of  the  Pitaro  Barishadah  of  the 
age  of  the  Trigarta  sacrifices,  and  killed  with  arrows.  Its 
skin  was  then  torn  off  and  the  flesh  eaten.  The  skin,  stuffed 
with  straw,  was  lifted  to  the  top  of  the  sacred  tree  of  the 
sacrificial  ground,  and  adorned  with  rags  and  ribbons  3.    The 

*  Baring  Gould,  Strange  Survivals  attd  Superstitions  on  Gables^  pp*  38 — 4 1. 

^  Maspero,  Dawn  of  Civilisation^  Egypt  and  Chaldaea,  p.  770. 

3  Max  Muller,  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  vol.  ii.  p.  469. 


■f 


.  History  and  Chronology  of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  295 

head  of  this  year-horse  sacrificed  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  symbolised  its  course,  and  was  replaced  at  the  end 
of  the  year  by  that  of  the  horse  sacrificed  to  consecrate  the 
next   year.    This  was   the  head   found,   according  to  the 
Rigveda  i.  84,  13,  14,  by  Indra  in  the  §haryanavan,  the  ship 
{ndva)  of  the  arrow  {sharya),  the  arrow  of  the  year  of  three 
seasons,  marked  by  its  feathers,  shaft  and  barb.     It  was  this 
new  conception  of  the  year,  a  revival  of  the  arrow-year  of 
Orion,  which  superseded  and  destroyed  the  cycle-year ;  and 
it  was  with  the  bones  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  Dadhiank, 
called   in  the  Tait.  Brah.    i.   5,  8,   the   ten-head   breaking 
[ShirO'bhida)    spells     {mantrdh)     of    Atharva,   Dadhiank's 
father,  the  sun-god  of  the  Atharvans  or  sun-priests,  that 
Indra  slew  the  Vritra  or  worshippers  of  the  encircling-snake, 
called  the  ninety-nine'.     This  number  proves  clearly  that 
the  year-god  slain  was  the  god  of  the  three-years  cycle,  for 
the  new  year  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  was,  as  we  shall 
see,  one  of  eleven   months  of  thirty-three  days  each,  and 
especially  consecrated  to  the  thirty-three  gods ;  hence  the 
ninety-nine  false  year-gods  overthrown  by  Dadhiank's  bones 
are  those  of  three  years  measured   by  the  year-reckoning 
of  the  thirty-three  gods  of  the  new  ritual  order,  that  is  the 
gods  of  the  three  years  of  the  cycle-year.    The  field  of  battle 
was  the  centre  of  the  land  of  Kuru  Kshetra,  where,  as  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  II.  p»  26,  the  world's  tree  grew  up  from 
the    southern-mud   {tan)  to  be  the   Pole   Star   tree  of  the 
Kurus,  the  mid-tree  of  the  world's  village   grove.     It  was 
here  where  Parasu  Rama,  the  god  of  the  double-axe  of  the 
three-years  cycle,  had  slain  the  Haihayas ;  that  Indra,  accord- 
ing to  the   scholiast  on  the  Veda,    found    the   conquering 
horse's  head  near  the  sacred  lake  of  Tan-eshur,  that  of  the 
o^od  Tan  2.     It  was  then  consecrated  to  Staneshvara,  the 
jnomon-pole  of  Sthatlu,  the  leader,  after  Bhrigu  their  father, 
Df  the  eleven  Rudras,  the  gods  ruling  this  year  3. 

'  Rg.  vi.  16,  I4»  i.  84,  13  ;  Ludwig,  Rigvtday  vol.  v.  p.  27. 

'  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  of  India ^  Staneshvara,  p.  335. 

3  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixvi.  p.  188. 


^'X 


<...^ 


"^.'i-r-ti 


296  History  and  Chronology 

The  Atharvans,  priests  of  the  sun-god  of  the  horse's  head, 
are  the  successors  in  the  priestly  genealogy  of  the  Afigiras 
and  Navagvas,  the  priests  of  the  nine-days  week,  and  their 
genealogical  line  of  descent  from  Bhrigu,  the  first  of  the 
Budras,  is  given  in  the  Rigveda   as   that  of  the  Bhrigus, 
Afigiras,  Navagvas,  Atharvans'.     That  is  to  say,  the  first    l^j.^ 
in  the  sacerdotal  genealogy  were  the  Bhrigus,  worshippers 
of  the  household  fire ;  secondly,  the  Afigiras  or  officers  of 
burnt-offerings  in  the  age  of  the  six-days  week  ;  thirdly,  the 
Navagva  priests  of  the  cycle-year  with  its  nine-day  weeks  ; 
and  lastly,  the  Atharvans,  the  priests  of  the  sun-horse,  the 
fire-god  Athar  (Zend Atar),  also  known  as  Atri.the  devouring 
(ad)  three  {tri)  *     This  name  marks  the  year  as  descended 
from  the  early  year  of  three  seasons,  which  had  been  tha-^ 
of  the  sun-deer. 

A.     TIte  genealogy  of  the  sun-god  with  the  horse's  head  afUf 

tlu  ritual  of  his  worship. 

We  find  this  line  of  descent  expressly  declared  in  th^ 
story  of  the  sun-god  Sigurd,  the  god  of  the  pillar  [jirdf) 
of  Victory  (5/^),  for  it  was  from  Hinda-fjall,  the  hill  of  tb<^ 
deer  {Jiinda)^  that  Sigurd  started  to  run  his  annual  cours«^ 
through  the  heavens  on  his  sun-horse  Grani,  given  to  him 
by  Grip,  the  seizing  dog,  the  star  Sirius  ruling  the  year 
of  the  six-days  week  beginning  at  the  summer  solstice. 
His  year's  journey  began  after  he  had  killed  Fafnir,  the 
snake-god  of  the  three-years  cycle,  and  gained  possession 
of  his  treasures  and  the  insignia  of  the  sun-god  of  the  year : 
(i)  The  helm  of  aweing,  the  night-cap  of  invisibility  given 
to  Perseus,  born  in  the  tower  of  the  three-years  cycle ; 
(2)  the  golden  impenetrable  mail  worn  by  Kama  and 
Achilles ;  and  (3)  the  golden  year-ring,  that  given  by  Dush- 
manta  to  Sakuntala,  and  with  which  Sigurd  wedded  Brun- 
hilda,  the  Valkyr  or  bird-mistress  of  the  springs  {drunnen), 

*  Rg.  X.  14,  6. 

^  GrassmanD,  Worterbuch  zum  Kigvcda^  s.v.  Atri. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  297 

when  he  found  her  asleep  on  the  top  of  the  hill  whence  he 
was  to  set  forth  on  his  year's  circuit  of  the  heavens  ^ 

The  Atharva  priests  of  the  sun-god,  the  third  in  succession 
of  the  Indian  priestly  lines  of  the  Bhrigus,  Aftgiras  and 
Atharvans,  were  the  counterparts  in  Indian  ritualistic  history 
of  the  Jewish  Kohathites  or  prophet-priests  headed  by 
Aaron,  meaning  the  Chest,  who  was  appointed  to  be  the 
speaking-prophet  to  Moses,  as  the  wearer  of  the  priestly 
ephod  which  revealed  the  counsels  of  God  2.  Their  pre- 
decessors were,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  the  sons  of 
Gershom,  answering  to  the  Aftgiras,  and  those  of  Merari, 
answering  to  the  Bhrigus  3. 

These,  called  Sthravans  by  the  Zends,  were  the  itinerant 
Preaching-priests  said,  in  the  Din  Yasht,  to  have  been  sent 
^^rth  to  preach  the  law  of  the  holy  Chest,  the  inspired 
^^achings  revealed  to  them  by  the  Bhang  or  Hashish,  of 
^^hich  I  have  spoken  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  171  4.  These  teachers 
*^^came  the  national  official  historians,  for,  as  we  are  told  in 
^he  Upanishads,  the  Atharvas  and  Aftgiras  were  the  authors 
^f  the  Itihasa  Purana  or  national  histories  surviving  in  the 
Mahabharata,  Harivansa,  Ramayana,  the  Shah  Nameh,  the 
poems  combined  to  form  the  Kalevala,  the  Greek  and  Roman 
historical  myths,  the  mythological  Sagas  of  Scandinavia  and 
Iceland,  and  the  endless  series  of  local  historical  legends* 
We  are  told  in  Buddhist  records  that  the  knowledge  of  these 
national  histories  was  an  essential  part  of  the  instruction 
instilled  into  the  mind  of  every  Brahmin,  and  they  were  also 
known  by  every  Druid  s.  They  were  recited  at  the  annual 
festivals  marking   the   changes  of  the  year,  and  especially 

'  Hewitt,  Rttling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times  ^  vol.  ii..  Essay  viii.,  pp.  117 — 124. 

-  Ex.  vii.  I. 

3  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i.,  Preface,  pp.  xv. — xvii. 

*  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Din  Yasht,  17;  Abdn  Yasht,  86;  S.B.E.,  vol. 
cxiii.  p.  268-74. 

5  Rhys  David,  *  Dialogues  of  the  Buddha  from  the  Nikayas,'  iv.,  Sonadanda 
Sutta,  114,  where  it  is  said  that  it  was  necessary  for  every  perfect  Brahmin 
:o  be  a  repeater  of  the  legends,  that  is  to  know  them  by  heart.  Sacred  Books 
7f  the  Buddhists,  vol.  ii.  p.  146. 


/ 


298  History  and  Chronology 

at  the  New  Year's  Festival,  a  custom  which  survives  in  the 
recitation  of  the  Jewish  Thora  at  the  New  Year's  Feast  in 
the  beginning  of  Tisri  (September  —  October) '.      In  the 
Brahmanas  this  recitation  was  ordered  to  be  made  by  the 
Hotri,  the  pourer  (hu)  of  the  libations  «,  who  was  the  Zend 
Zaotar,  the  chanter  of  the  hymns^  the  speaking-priest  3.    The 
root  Hu,  whence  the  name  is  derived,  shows  the  connection 
of  the  office  with  the  cloud-rain-bird  Khu.     He  was  the 
priest  of  the  bird  Karshipta,  the  sun-hawk,  who  brou£[ht 
the  law  of  Mazda  into  the  Garden  of  God,  and  taught  the 
priests  who  divined  by  bird-augury  to  speak  the  language 
of  birds  4. 

The  year  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  Dadhiank  is  said 
in  the  Rigveda  to  have  been  imported  with  the  horse's  head 
by  the  Ashvins,  who  taught  in  it  the  secrets  of  Tvashtar,  the 
framer  of  the  solstitial  year  of  two  seasons.     The  gods  of 
this  year  were  thirty-three,  or  three  elevens,  who  accompany 
the  Ashvins  to  drink  madhu  or  mead  5.     Thus  it  was  a  year 
of  eleven  months,  each  of  thirty-three  days,  divided  into 
three  weeks  of  eleven  days,  a  combination  of  the  five  and 
six-day  weeks  of  the  years  of  two  and  three  seasons,  so  that 
there  were  the  same  number  of  weeks  in  the  year  as  there 
were  days  in  the  month.     It  was  the  year  of  the  second, 
in  point  of  time,  of  the  Buddhist  historical  heavens,  called 
the  Tavatimsa,  or  that  of  the  thirty-three  gods   ruled  by 
Sakko,  the  rain  {sak)  god.     They  succeeded  the  gods  of  the 
first    heaven,   the    Shatum    Maharajika   Devaloko,   or    the 
hundred  angels  born  from  the  constellation  Argo,  the  Shata- 
vaesa  or  hundred  creators. 

This  year  became  the  Zend  ritualistic  year  ruled  by  the 
"  thirty-three  gods  of  the  ritual  order,  who  are  round  about 

'  Max  Miiller,  Chandogga  Upanishad^  iii.  4,  i,  2;  S.B.E.,  vol.  i.  pp.  39, 
note  I,  40. 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh,y  xiii.  4,  3,  2 — 15  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  361 — 371. 

^  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Vendiddd  Fargardy  v.  58;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p. 
64,  note  I. 

^  Ibid.,  ii.  42;  West,  Bundahishy  xix.  16;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  21,  voL  v. 
p.  70-  5  Rg.  i.  117,  22,  i.  34,  II. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  299 

the  Havani/'  the  mortar  in  which  the  holy  Haoma  or  Soma, 
the  water  of  life,  is  mixed ;  that  is  to  say,  the  gods  of  the 
year  regulating  the  storage  of  the  life-giving  rain  in  the 
mother-Soma-tree  or  plant  *,  the  mortar  of  the  earth's  Soma 
or  sap  of  life. 

We  find  further  evidence  of  the  existence   of  this  year 
of  eleven   months    in   the   eleven  sacrificial  stakes  erected 
outside   the  east   end   of   the    Soma    consecrated   ground, 
to    which    the    eleven    victims     sacrificed    to     the     gods 
ruling   the   months    of  this   year  were    tied;   the    last    of 
the    eleven    gods  who    ruled    the    close    of   the  year  was 
Varuna,  and  the  first  Agni  2,  the  god  of  the  national  fires. 
These  eleven  gods  are  also  invoked  in  the  eleven  stanzas 
of  eight  out  of  the  ten  AprI  hymns  in  the  Rigveda,  recited 
at  the  animal  sacrifices,  and  the  twelve  and  thirteen  stanzas 
of  the  other  two  hymns  are  addressed  to  the  gods  ruling 
the  twelve  and  thirteen-months  year.     The  first  four  stanzas 
of  these  hymns  summon  to  the  sacrifice  the  four  seasons 
of  the  year:    (i)  Agni,  the  god  of  the  sacrificial  flame  lit 
by  the  Samidhs  or  kindling  sticks  of  the  spring.     (2)  The 
wind-god  of  the  burning  West  winds  of  the  Indian  summer 
called  Tanu-napat,  the  son  {napdt)  of  his  own   body,  the 
self-produced    or   Nara    Shamsa,  praised   of  men,   the  fire 
burning  on   the  altar.     (3)  The   Icji   or  Idah,  the  mother- 
goddess  of  the  rains  of  autumn.    (4)  The  Barhis  or  sacrificial 
seats  of  Kusha  grass  allotted  to  the  Kushika  fathers  of  the 
winter  season.     ^The  fifth  stanza  invokes  the  gates  of  the 
sacrificial  enclosure,  the  two  door-posts,  and  the  two  pillars 
in  front  of  the  Phoenician  temples,  the  Semitic  Bab-el  or 
Jo-bab,  the  gates  of  God,  the  stars  Gemini,    The  sixth,  the 
twins  Night  and  Day.      The  seventh,  the  two  Hotars,  the 
singers  and  speakers  of  truth,  the  two  original  seasons  of 
the  year,  the  pourers  of  libations  and  distributors  of  rain. 


'  Mill,    Yasnat  i.   10 ;     Darmcsteter,   Zendavesta  Vendidad  Fargard,  iii.   I  \ 
S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxi.  p.  198,  vol.  iv.  p.  23,  note  i. 
'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,,  iii.  9,  i,  4 — 23 ;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  2l8-*22i. 


300  History  and  Chronology 

The  eighth,  the  three  mother-goddesses  Bharati  or  MahT,  Ida, 
SarasvatI,  the  three  seasons  of  Orion's  year.  The  ninth, 
Tvashtar,  the  creator  of  time  measured  by  days,  nights, 
weeks  and  years.  The  tenth,  Vanaspati,  the  lord  ^paii) 
of  the  wood  (vanas),  the  primaeval  mother-tree.  The  eleventh 
summons  all  the  gods  who  obey  the  cry  of  Svaha  or  Hail, 
and  who  were  not  invoked  in  the  previous  stanzas.  The 
god  left  behind  is  said,  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana,  to  be 
the  god  of  cattle,  Rudra,  called  Svishta-krit,  meaning  he 
who  offers  a  right  sacrifice.  He  is  the  god  of  the  Northern 
immigrants,  called  the  god  who  "  rose  in  the  North  with 
his  raised  weapon,"  that  is  the  god  of  the  gnomon-stone  S 
the  ithyphallic  Hermes,  which  I  have  seen  set  up  as  a 
boundary  -  mark  in  Chuttisgurh,  the  facsimile  of  the 
phallic  Hermae  of  Greece.  This,  the  only  god  of  those 
named  in  the  hymns  to  whom  animal  sacrifices  were  offered, 
was  the  god  in  whose  honour  these  hymns  were  composed, 
the  sun-god  of  the  Northern  Asuras  for  whom  the  dolmen 
altars  were  built,  and  whose  blood-stained  offerings  were 
not  admitted  into  the  sun-circle  of  the  earlier  parent-gods. 

These  stanzas  set  before  us  a  record  of  the  past  religious 
history  of  the  country,  beginning  with  the  worship  of  the 
mother-tree,  whence,  in  the  ritual  of  this  eleven-months  year, 
the  sacrificial  stake  was  made  2.  This  is  followed  by  the  wor- 
ship of  Tvashtar,  the  Pole  Star  god  of  the  stellar-year,  who 
sent  the  Pleiades  Argo  and  the  sun-bird  round  the  Pole  as 
the  heralds  of  the  years  of  two  seasons.  After  the  mother- 
tree  and  the  primitive  gods  of  time  and  of  the  year  of  two 
seasons,  came  the  three  mother-goddesses  of  the  three-seasons- 
year,  the  rain-guardians  ;  the  two  Hotars,  the  twins  Night 
and  Day,  and  the  door-posts  of  the  gate  of  the  Gardens 
of  God,  whence  the  four  seasons  of  the  cycle-year  of  Agni, 

*  Eggeling,  SaL  Brdh.^  i.  5,  4,  i — 5,  i.  7,  3,  I — 9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii. 
pp.  152,  153,  199,  200,  note  2—202. 

'  This  is  the  Khadira  tree  {Acacia  ccUechu)  of  which  the  fire  socket  and 
sacrificial  stake  were  made.  Hewitt,  Ruling  Rcues  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i., 
Essay  iii.,  p.  161  ;  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh,,  iii.  4,  I,  19,  22,  iii.  6,  2,  12 ;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xxvi.  p.  90,  note  Si  91,  151. 


of  the  Myth-Making'  Age.  301 

the  god  of  the  household  fire,  and  the  fathers  of  the  Kushika 
race  issue.  The  seasons  of  the  Ribhus,  the  makers  of  the 
year-cow,  were,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  III,,  three: 
spring,  summer  and  winter ;  but  these  were,  according  to  the 
Rigveda,  increased  to  four  by  Ribhuksha,  the  third  Ribhu 
of  Indra,  the  rain-god,  who  said  "  let  us  make  four,"  thus 
adding  to  the  original  Vedic  year  the  fourth,  the  autumn 
rainy  season  ^ 

The  sacrifice  offered  at  the  recitation  of  these  Apri  hymns 
is,  according  to  the  Aitareya  Brahmana,  one  to  the  thirty^ 
three  gods  who  do  not  drink  pure  Soma  but  the  intoxicating 
drink  the  Sura,  offered  at  the  Sautramani  sacrifice «,  which 
is,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  a  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  New 
Year's  Festival  of  this  year.  In  the  orthodox  Soma  animal 
sacrifice  the  offerings  of  the  eleven  slain  animals  are  divided 
into  thirty-three  parts,  called  fore-offerings,  after-offerings, 
and  by-offerings.  The  by-offerings  are  the  hind-quarters 
of  the  victims  divided  into  eleven  parts  for  the  eleven  gods  3. 
These  offerings  were  made  on  the  Uttara  Vedi  altar  at 
the  east  end  of  the  sacrificial  ground.  This  was  erected 
for  this  sacrifice,  offered  at  the  Varuna  Praghasah,  the 
festival  of  the  summer  solstice,  and  especially  dedicated 
to  Varuna,  to  whom,  as  we  have  seen,  the  last  of  the  victims 
was  offered.  This  special  altar  is  placed  on  the  top  of  the 
original  Northern  altar,  covered  with  the  Barhis  or  sheaves 
of  Kusha  grass  of  the  Kushikas.  It  is  roofed  with  branches 
of  the  Plaksha-tree  {Fiats  infectorid)^  the  tree  consecrated  at 
Puryag,  the  junction  of  the  Jumna  and  Ganges,  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  Northern  millet  and  barley-growing  Gonds 
:oming  down  the  Jumna  and  the  earlier  dwellers  in  the 
land.  On  this  altar  the  enclosing  triangle  surrounding 
the  sacred  fire  on  the  navel  is  made,  not  as  on  the  Kushika 
iltar  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  of  Palasha  twigs  {Buteafron- 

'  Rg.  iv.  33.  3»  4,  5»  9- 
-■  Haug,  Ait,  Brah.y  ii.  2,  1 8,  vol.  ii.  p.  Iio. 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brak.y  iii.  8,  4,  I,  II— 18,  iii.  8,  5,  I— 4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi. 
;)p.  210—212,  note  2,  213,  214. 


30^  History  and  Chronology 

dosci)^  but  of  PitQdslru  wood  {Pinus  Deodard),  sacred  to  the 
sons  of  the  Northern  mother  Cybele  and  the  pine-tree  of 
Phrygia.  Also  the  omentum,  the  membrane  enclosing  Ae 
entrails  of  the  animals  offered,  is  roasted  at  the  Northern 
fire  on  spits  made  of  the  KSrshmarya  {Gmelina  arborea) 
wood^.  The  ritual  of  the  animal  sacrifice  as  performed 
by  the  orthodox  Vedic  priests  is  admitted,  in  the  $atapatha 
Brahmana,  to  differ  from  the  orginal  ritual  of  the  Asuras,  who 
instituted  it  and  divided  the  whole  sacrifice  into  portions, 
one  for  each  of  the  year-gods,  whereas  only  specified  portions 
were  divided  in  the  later  ritual  ».  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that,  in  the  original  sacrifice,  thirty-three  portions  divided 
into  three  elevens  were  offered  to  the  gods  of  the  thirty-three 
days  of  the  month  and  the  eleven  days  of  the  week. 

The  whole  ritual  tells  us  that  those  who  instituted  it  were 
a  Northern  race  who  originally  worshipped  the  pine-tree  of 
Cybele,  the  mother-cave  and  tree,  and  looked  on  the  god 
ruling  the  year  as  the  sun-ram,  born  of  the  tree  nurtured  by 
the  rains  of  Varuna.     But  in  this  sacrifice  the  original  ram 
had  become,  under  the  influence  of  the  ritual  of  the  three- 
years  cycle  of  the  sexless  gods,  a  wether.     Hence  a  tuft 
of  wethcr*s  hair  with  bdellium  and  fragrant  reed-grass  was 
placed  on  the  altar,  with  pine-tree  twigs  forming  the  triangle. 
The  Karshmarya-tree  [Gmelina  arborea)  supplying  the  roast- 
ing  spits  is   also  significant.      It  is  the  tree  called  Gumi, 
furnishing  the  sacred  house-pole,  Gumi  Gosain,  of  the  North- 
ern Miles  and  their  later  congeners  the  Cheroos  and  Kaurs. 
Its  wood  will  never  rot  in  water,  and  hence  it  was  valuable 
as  ship-building  timber  3. 

The  eleven  months  of  this  year  are  also  commemorated 
in  the  eleven  stanzas  of  the  Samidheni  hymn  sung  at  the 
kindling  of  the  year's  fires,  and  also  in  the  Tristubh  metre 
of  the  three  (Jri)  praises  [stubh),  in  which  each  line  contains 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  ii.  5,  2,  5,  iii.  5,  2,  14,  18,  iii.  8,  2,  16—28  ;  S.B.E. 
vol.  xii.  pp.  392,  note  i,  393,  xxvi.  pp.  125,  194,  note  i  ff. 
'  Ibid.,  iii.  8,  3,  29;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  207. 
3  Clarke,  Roxburgh's  Flora  indica^  p.  486. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  303 

eleven  syllables  <.  These  months  are  spoken  of  in  the 
Akkadian  hymn  describing  the  combat  between  TiSmat 
and  Merodach  or  Marduk,  the  Assyrian  form  of  the  son 
of  la  Silik-mulu-khi,  meaning  he  who  gives  good  to  men, 
the  household-fire-god,  the  Agni  of  the  Rigveda,  and  king 
of  the  grove  of  Tin-tir,  the  Sarna  of  Babylon  »  They  are 
there  called  the  eleven- fold  offspring  of  Tiamat,  the  bird  and 
dragon-mother  (w^/)  of  living  things  (tid),  the  original  rain^ 
cloud.  And  it  was  on  the  eighth  and  eleventh  day  of  the  New 
Year  F.estival  at  Babylon,  the  last  day  of  the  eight-days  week 
of  the  year  of  fifteen  months,  described  in  Chapter  VII., 
and  the  last  day  of  the  eleven-days  week  of  this  year,  that 
Bely  the  fire  and  sun-god,  was  said  to  sit  on  his  throne  as 
king  of  heaven  and  earth  3. 

The  victory  of  Bel  Merodach  over  the  eleven -fold  offspring 
of  Tiamat  is  also  told,  under  another  form,  in  the  Book 
of  Esther.  Esther  is  the  Akkadian  goddess  Istar,  who, 
in  the  Semitic  ritual,  has  become,  according  to  Dr.  Sayce, 
the  evening-star,  the  sun-maiden  wedded  to  the  horned- 
moon-god,  the  Ashtoreth  Karnaim,  that  is  of  the  double- 
horn  4.  She  who  is,  in  the  Bible  version  of  the  story,  niece 
of  Mordecai,  the  god  Merodach  or  Marduk,  the  calf  of  the 
double-horn,  becomes  the  wife  of  the  king  of  Shushan,  the 
great  Susi-nag,  in  place  of  Vashti,  the  female  form  of  Vash- 
ishtha,  the  burning  fire  on  the  altar.  It  is  she  and  Mordecai, 
the  female  and  male  form  of  the  conquering  sun  and  moon- 
god,  who  overcame  Haman  or  Baal  Khamman  s,  the  green 
pillar  of  Uzof,  the  goat-god,  and  his  ten  sons,  the  eleven 
months  of  the  year,  and  crucified  Haman,  as  the  deposed 
year-god  of  an  abandoned  epoch,  on  the  equinoctial  cross 


'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  i.  3,  5,  5,  i.  4,   i,  7 — 39;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  96, 
102,  note  I — 113. 
''  Lenormant,  Chaldaan  Magic ^  chap.  xiii.  pp.  190—195. 

3  Sayce,  Hibbcrt  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  vi.  p.  382  ;  Ibid.,  Babylonians  and 
Assyrians,  chap,  xi.,  Religion,  p.  247. 

4  Ibid.,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  256,  257,  note  i. 

5  Movers,  Die  Phonitier,  vol.  i.  pp.  394—396, 


304  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  year-god  of  St.  George's  Cross '.  Thus  they  brought 
in  the  year  of  the  sun-god,  heralded  by  the  morning  and 
evening  stars,  in  his  daily  progress  through  the  heavens  on 
the  cloud'Sun-horse. 

The  eleven  months  of  this  year  became,  according  to  the 
custom  of  ancient  historical  astronomy,  star-gods,  the  eleven 
stars  of  the  dream  of  Joseph  who  wore  the  coat  of  the  many* 
coloured  stars ».     Joseph,  whose   name   is   a   form   of  the 
Assyrian   Asipu,   or  interpreter,  was  the  eleventh  son  of 
Jacob,  described  in  Deuteronomy  xxxiii.  17  (New  Version) 
as  having  the  horns  of  the  wild  ox,  the  horns  of  Leah,  the 
wild  cow,  those  of  the  god  of  the  year  measured  by  lunar- 
crescents.     He  went  down  into  Egypt,  where  these  eleven 
stars  are  depicted  in  Vignette  4x.  of  the  Egyptian  Papynis 
of  Ani.     They  there  appear  as  the  four  sons  of  Horus,  the 
four  stars  of  the  constellation  Pegasus  and  the  seven  stars 
of  the  Great  Bear,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  ruled  the  cycle- 
year.     This  year  of  Pegasus  is  that  of  the  Akkadian  con- 
stellation of  Lik-barra  or  the  striped-dog  3,  the  tiger-father 
of  the  Indian  Mallis  and  Licchavis,  the  Vajjian  sons  of  the 
tiger  {vidghrd)^  the  rulers  of  India  consecrated  on  a  tiger- 
skin  4.     As  the  year  of  the  sun-horse  it  is  the  year  of  the 
fountain    {trTjyrj)   or   well,  that   of   Hippocrene,   opened   by 
the  horse  of  Bellerophon,  the  Phoenician  god  Baal  Raphon, 
meaning  the  god  of  healings.     He  was  the  slayer  of  the 
triple-monster  the  Chima^ra — with  its  fore-part  like  a  lion, 
its  middle-part  with  the  head  of  a  goat,  and  its  hinder-part 
like  a  serpent — the  god  of  the  three-years  cycle.    The  flying- 
horse   which    secured    him   the   victory  was  the  sun-horse, 
who  by  striking  the  earth  with  his  hoof  made  the  fountain 
of  Hippocrene  to  swell  forth  as  the  first  of  the  holy  wells 
of  healing   distributed   as    objects   of  worship    throughout 

'  Sachau,  Alberuni's  Chronology  of  Ancient  Nations ,  p.  274. 

'  Gen.  xxxvii.  9,  10. 

3  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations ^  vol.  ii.  pp.  68,  69. 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  v.  3,  5,  3  ;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  81. 

5  Berard,  Origine  des  Cnltes  Arcadiens^  ii.,  Les  Dresses,  p.  116. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  30  5 

Europe  and  Asia,  the  holy  well  near  which  the  Irish  Mile- 
sians made  their  settlements. 


B.     The  Sun-physician, 

We  see  in  this  healing-god,  the  rider  on  the  sun-horse,  the 
prototype  of  Cheiron,  the  Centaur,  half-man  and  half-horse, 
the  king  of  the  race  of  sun-worshippers  who  succeeded  the 
Lapithae,    the    sons    of   the    storm    (XaTr    XaiXa*^),    whose 
goddesses  were  the  three  Harpies,  one  of  the  emblems  of  the 
three  years  of  the  cycle-year.     They  were  the  gods  of  time 
who  buileted  and  pecked  at  Phineus,  the  sea-eagle  ((^m9 
or  ^pv)t  whenever  he  attempted  to  eat,  and  half-starved 
him,  that  is,  interrupted  his  annual  series  of  religious  fes- 
tivals.    These  troublers  of  the  mother-cloud-bird  and  dis- 
turbers of  the  yearly  measurement  of  time  were  driven  from 
their   usurped   office  of  time-rulers   by   Zetes  and   Kalais, 
the  sons  of  Boreas,  the  North,  the  North-east  and  North- 
west winds,  the  winds  of  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice 
rising  in  the  North-east.    They  sailed  on  the  Argo  with  Jason 
the  healer  (las),  a  form  of  the  Hindu  Vivasvan,  the  god 
of  the  two  (vi)  lights  night  and  day.     The  Harpies  were 
sent  to  the  Strophades  or  turning  islands,  those  marking  the 
solstitial  changes   of  the   sun  ^     This   god,  the   sea-eagle 
Phineus,  was  competitor  with    Perseus,  the   sun -god   born 
from  the  cycle-year,  for  the  hand  of  Andromeda,  the  Phoe- 
nician Adamath,  the  star-mother  of  the  red  (Adam)  race. 
He  interrupted  their  wedding,  and  was  changed  by  Perseus 
from  the  storm-bird  of  the  South-west  Monsoon  into  a  stone- 
god,  the  gnomon-stone  ^, 

It  was  Cheiron,  called  by  Pindar  the  teacher  with  the 
gentle  hand  (x^ip),  and  the  tutor  of  Jason  and  iEsculapius, 
the  sun-physician,  who  taught  the  use  of  drugs,  oil  and 
salves,  and  the  practise  of  massage  so  extensively  used  in 

■  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  pp.  190,  199. 
»  Ilnd.,  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  p.   213;    R.   Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive 
QoHsteitations^  vol.  i.  p.  49 ;  Hartland,  Legend  of  Perseus  y  vol.  i.  p.  3. 

X 


3o6  History  and  Chronology 

India  ^.  The  Centaur  race  introduced  into  Greece  the  use 
of  the  medical  febrifuge,  called  the  Kentaurion  of  Cheiron 
(X^ipdviov  K€VTavpiov)y  for  which  Pelion,  the  mountain  on 
which  Cheiron  dwelt,  was  famous  «. 

Cheiron  gave  to  Peleus,  the  god  of  the  potter's  clay  (inyXof), 
on  his  marriage  as  the  Great  Potter  with  Thetis,  the  Southern 
mother-goddess  of  the  mud  {thith)^  the  mighty  ashen-spear, 
the  creating  fire-drill  and  supporter  of  the  heavens,  the 
centre-pole  of  the  world-house  cut  from  the  top  of  Pelion, 
which  no  other  Greek,  not  even  Patroclus  who  wore  his 
armour,  could  wield  3.  This  spear  was  the  stem  of  the 
world's  ash-tree  of  the  Edda,  the  ash  Yggdrasil ;  and  the 
evidence  thus  furnished  as  to  the  origin  of  the  story  of 
the  spear-bearing  sun-god  riding  on  the  horse  Pegasus  of  the 
fountains  and  wells  proves  that  it  was  the  Northern  wor- 
shippers of  the  sun-horse  who  first  brought  to  the  South 
the  knowledge  of  natural  plant  remedies,  and  of  the  use  of 
the  oil  of  Asia  Minor  as  medical  remedies  preferable  to  the 
magical  incantations  and  the  system  of  cautery  which  formed 
the  ground-work  of  medical  practice  in  the  age  of  sorcery  and 
witchcraft.  These  Northern  warriors  were  wielders  of  the 
spear  of  Cheiron,  the  Shelah  of  the  Jews,  the  fire-drill  of 
the  revolving  world's-tree  which  superseded  the  arrow  of  the 
first  Centaur  Eurytos,  the  drawer  (e/auo))  of  the  heavenly  bow, 
the  rain-bow-god,  the  Indian  Krishanu,  whose  bow  descended 
to  Odusseus  or  Orion  4.  Eurytos  was  the  god  who  led  the 
Centaurs  in  their  battle  with  the  Lapithse  at  the  wedding  of 
Pirithous,  the  revolving-one,  the  Pole  Star  god,  son  of  Ixion, 
with  Hippodameia,  the  moon-goddess  tamer  of  horses.    It  was 

'  Pind.,  Nem.y  Hi.  55  :  — 

iSaOv/i^ra  Xflpay  rpd<pt  \t6lytp 
"laaov  tvZov  reyti  xal  drtirtk  'A<rK\rjTi6tf 
rhy  ipapfidKoty  8^5a(6  fxaXaKSx^ipft  vofiov. 
Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  vi.,  pp.  521 — 526. 
^  Mannhardt,  Antike  Wald  und  Fcld  KuUQr^  Part  ii.  chap.  ii.  pp.  47,48. 
3  Horn.   Iliad^  xvi.    139 — 144;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^ 
vol.  i.,  Essay  vi.,  pp.  526 — 530. 
*  Homer,  Odyssey ^  viii.  224  ff. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  307 

then  that  the  nose  and  ears  of  Eurytus  were  cut  off,  and  he 
was  changed,  like  Phineus,  into  the  gnomon«stone-god  of  the 
cycle-year  i. 

The  introducers  into  India  of  this  new  medical  knowledge 
were  the  founders  of  the  caste  of  the  Telis  or  oil-men,  who 
are  called  the  Ekadas  or  worshippers  of  eleven  gods.    They 
brought  from  Asia  Minor  to  India  the  holy  oil  called  Til, 
extracted   from   the  Sesamum   plant   [Sesamum  Orientate). 
It  IS  with  this  oil  that  every  Hindu  child  is  anointed  after 
birth,  and  everyone,  both  men  and  women,  anoint  themselves 
with  oil  as  a  medical  precaution  against  disease.    In  the  mar- 
riage ceremonies  of  the  Kayasth  or  writer,  and  the  Kshatriya 
or  warrior  castes,  both  of  which  arrange  their  marriages  by 
the  help  of  the  barber,  who  is,  as  we  shall  see,  the  priest 
of  this  age,  the  bridegroom  and  bride  are  smeared  with  oil  2. 
But  this  use  of  oil  does  not  occur  in  the  marriage  ceremonies 
of  the  Brahmins,  nor  is  oil  used  in  any  of  the  ritualistic 
ceremonies  enjoined  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana,  not  even  in 
those  of  the  king's  coronation,  called  the  Raja-suya  sacrifice. 
In  this  the  king  is  anointed  with  holy  water  rubbed  over 
him  with  the  horn  of  a  black  antelope,  and  not  with  oil ;  and 
this  water,  mixed  with  Kusha  grass,  fried  rice  and  black 
Kesari  millet,  was  poured  on  the  king's  head  in  the  oldest 
references  to  the  coronation  ceremony  of  Rama  given  in  the 
Mahabharata  3.    The  use  of  oil  is  ascribed  to  the  ten-headed 
Ravana  of  the  cycle-age  and  his  co-adjutors  4,  and  the  holy 
ointment  in  the  orthodox  ritual  is  ghi  or  clarified  butter. 
IhtjynXy  oil  which  pure  Telis  can  make  is  that  extracted 
from  the  Sesamum,  and  the  antiquity  of  the  caste  is  proved 


'  Homer,  Odyssey^  xxi.  295 — 303  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times, 
vol.  i.,  Essay  vi.,  pp.  555,  521. 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal  ^  vol.  i.,  Kayasth,  pp.447,  448,  vol.  ii., 
Rajput,  p.  188. 

3  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,,  Abhishechanlya,  or  Consecration  Ceremony,  v.  4, 
2,  I — 4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  94—96  ;  Mahabharata  Vana  {Draupadi-harana) 
Panra,  cclxxviii.  pp.  820,  821. 

4  Biahabharata  Vana  (Draupadi-harana)  Parva,  cclxxix.  pp.  826,  827. 

X  2 


3c8  History  and  Chronology 

by  their  worship  of  the  eleven  gods,  and  the  Panch  Pirs  or 
five  gods  of  the  primaeval  week,  and  the  boundary-god 
Goraya,  to  whom  the  Dosadhs,  their  priests,  offer  pigs.  Their 
mother-tree  is  the  Chumpa-tree  {Liriodendron  grandiflora), 
on  which  the  bridegroom  sits  as  the  bride  is  carried  round 
it,  and  the  Chumpa  flowers  are  those  most  prized  for  sacred 
garlands.  These  flower  garlands  are  worn  by  the  Hindus 
at  all  religious  ceremonies,  and  are  reminiscences  of  the 
ancient  flower-mother  of  the  year,  who  marked  the  year's 
circle  by  a  perpetual  succession  of  fresh  blossoms,  the  crown- 
circlet  or  coronet  of  flowers  of  the  Greek  Crow-goddess 
Koronis,  the  sister  of  Ixion  or  Akshi-van,  the  turner  of  the 
heavenly  axle,  and  the  mother  of  iCsculapius,  the  sun- 
physician.  She  was  a  variant  form  of  the  tree-mother- 
goddess  Athene,  whose  name  is  derived  from  the  same  root 
as  avBos^  a  flower  ^.  The  Teli  legendary  history  tells  how 
the  first  two  Telis  were  made  by  the  goddess  Bhagavati,  the 
tree  with  the  edible  fruit  (phagd)^  the  nut  or  acorn-tree  of 
Baal  Bahal,  spelt  with  an  ain,  implying  the  former  gh  of  the 
god  (el)  Bagh,  the  Persian  garden.  She  made  them  out  of 
turmeric  or  yellow  paste,  the  plant  sacred  to  the  Hindu 
Vaishya  or  yellow  race,  which  is  used  to  anoint  Brahmin 
bridegrooms  and  brides  2;  and  it  is  mixed  with  oil  and  ghi 
or  clarified  butter  in  anointing  those  of  the  Kayasth  and 
Rajput  castes.  The  Telis  are  said  in  the  Brahma  Vaivartha 
Purana  to  be  the  eleventh  in  the  lists  of  castes,  and  to  be 
descended  from  the  Kumhar  or  potters  and  the  Ghorami 
or  builders ;  that  is  to  say,  they  belonged  to  the  races  who 
looked  on  themselves  as  descended  from  the  Great  Potter, 
and  who  were  the  first  builders  of  houses  3. 

The  eleven  gods  of  the  Telis  were  also  the  eleven  local 
gods  of  the  Kandhs  of  Orissa,  the  conquering  race  of  the 
Kui-loka  or  mountain-people,  who  trace  their  descent  from 

*  Curtius,  Griechische  Etymologies  No.  304. 
^  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Brahmans,  vol.  i.  p.  149. 
3  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  306—309;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy 
vol.  i.,  Essay  ii„  pp.  85—87, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  309 

the  sword,  and  who  sacrifice  human  victims  to  ensure  good 
harvests,  especially  of  turmeric,  their  most  valuable  export. 
They  anoint   this   victim,  after   cutting   his   hair,  with  oil- 
turmeric   and   ghi,   with   which   Rajput   brides   and    bride- 
grooms are  anointed,  and  they  thus  celebrate  his  marriage 
with  the  Pole  Star  goddess  Tkri  Pennu,  to  whose  home  in 
the  other  world  he  is  to  be  transferred '  ;  and  this,  marriage 
is  analogous  to  that  of  Peleus,  the  god  of  the  ashen-spear- 
tree  Yggdrasil,  of  which   the  roots  reach  to  the  Southern 
Ocean,  the  fountains  of  life,  with  the  goddess  Thetis  of  the 
Southern  mud  (//«///).     The  age  during  which  this  year  was 
the  official  year  in  India  is  that  marked  by  the  rule  of  the 
Kauravyas,  who,  in  the  war  of  the  Mahabharata,  led  eleven 
akshauhinis,  or  monthly  revolutions  of  the  axle,  against  the 
seven  akshauhinis  of  the*  Pandavas,  who   measured   time 
by  the  seven-days  week  of  the  seventeen-months   year  of 
Prajapati,    and   their   thirteen-months   lunar-year   of   exile, 
the    subjects    of   Chapter    VIII.,   who   were    also   sons    of 
Ambalika,  the   seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear.     The  rulers 
of  the   eleven-months   year   were,  according  to  the  Maha- 
bharata, the  eleven  great  Maharathas  or  chariot  drivers  of 
the    hundred    sons    of   Dhritarashtra,   headed   by   Duryod- 
hana  the  Kauravya  leader  3.     Their  mother  was  Gandhari, 
the  vulture,  the  daughter  of  Suvala,  the  circling  (vcda)  bird 
(i'w),   sister   of  Shakuni,  the   raven.      She   was  the   wetter 
[dhari)  of  the  land  {gan),  the  goddess  Dharti  worshipped 
by  the  Cheroos  and  higher  semi-aboriginal  castes.     She  is 
the  star  Vega  in  the  constellation  of  the  Vulture,  now  Lyra, 
which  was  the  Pole  Star  from  10,000  to  8000  B.C.,  and  was 
wedded  to  the  blind   Dhritarashtra,  the  world's   pole   and 
spear,  the  central  tree,  meaning  he  who  upholds  {dhrita)  the 
kingdom  [rdshtrd),   son  of  Ambika,   who   was,   as  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  III.  p.  97,  the  Pole  Star  in  Cygnus.  ,  In  the 

*  Dalton  and  Macpherson,  quoted  by  Elie  Rcclus,  Les  Primitifi^  pp.  355, 
356  ;  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Kandh,  vol.  i.  pp.  397,  39^,  404»  40S» 
^  Mahabharata  Udyoga  (Sanjayayana)  Parva,  pp.  43,  44. 
^  Mahabharata  Adi  (Adivanshdva  tdrna)  Parva,  Ixiii.  p.  180. 


310  History  and  Chronology 

Northern  land  of  Gandhara,  the  wet  {dhara)  land,  the  parent- 
home  of  the  Kushite  race,  she  gave  birth  to  a  hundred  sons^ 
the  hundred  Kauravyas.  Their  birth-place  is  the  modem 
Kandahar  on  the  Kushite  mother-river  the  Helmund,  the 
country  of  the  accumulated  waters,  which  descend  to  fertilise 
the  plains  of  India  in  the  Indus  and  the  five  rivers  of  the 
Punjab. 

They  were  born  from  an  egg  which  lay  two  years  in  her 
womb.  When  produced  the  egg  was,  by  the  orders  of 
Vyasa,  the  uniter,  the  constellation  Draco,  father  of  Dhrita- 
rashtra,  sprinkled  with  the  water  of  life.  It  then  divided 
into  one-hundred  parts^  each  about  the  size  of  the  thumb* 
the  hundred  Naga  snakes.  They  were,  according  to  the 
original  form  of  the  myth,  the  hundred  children  of  the 
constellation  Argo,  called  Sata-vaesa,  or  that  of  the  hundred 
(sJiata)  creators,  the  Greek  goddess  Hekate,  meaning  a 
hundred.  They  were  the  snakes  forming  the  Anguineum 
Ovum  of  the  Druids,  the  tree  {dru)  priests  of  the  Picts,  the 
snake's  egg  hung  up  in  the  temple  of  Herakles  at  Tyre  \ 
They  were  each  put  into  a  jar  of  clarified  butter,  and  thus 
became  the  children  of  the  cow-mother.  They  were  kept 
covered  up  for  two  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  they 
came  to  life  as  a  hundred  sons  and  a  daughter  Dushala. 
The  eldest  of  the  sons  was  Duryodhana,  who  brayed  like 
an  ass  at  his  birth,  thus  showing  him  to  be  the  son  of  the 
cycle-year  of  the  three-legged  ass  ^  the  four  divisions  of 
which,  each  of  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation,  marked  the 
four  years  of  the  parturition  of  the  Kauravyas,  the  two 
years  during  which  they  were  in  their  mother's  womb,  and 
the  two  in  the  jars  of  clarified  butter.  The  travelling  car 
of  Duryodhana  was,  as  we  learn  afterwards,  drawn  by  mules, 
thus  showing  him  to  belong  to  the  race  born  from  the  union 
of  the  sun-horse  and  ass  3. 

The  eleven  ruling  months  of  this  year  in  India  appear 

'  Macdonald,  Druidism,  Encyc.  Brit.^  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  vii.  p.  477. 
^  Mahabharata  Adi  {SamdAava)  Parva,  ex.,  cxv.  pp.  328,  329,  337 — 339. 
3  Mahabharata  Adi  (  fatugriha)  Parva,  cxlvii  pp.  430,  431. 


of  tlu  Myth- Making  Age.  3 1 1 

also  in  the  eleven  sons  of  the  blind  Dirghatamas,  the  long 
age  {dirghd)  of  darkness  (tafnas)^  when  the  stars  and  moon 
were  worshipped  as  the  rulers  of  time.  The  mother  of  his 
eleven  sons  was  Ushlnarl,  sister  of  Shiva,  the  three-eyed 
god  of  the  three-years  cycle,  and  the  eldest  of  these  was 
Kakshivat,  the  socket  [kaksJux)  of  the  revolving-pole  of  the 
earth,  also  called  the  son  of  Gautama,  the  father  of  the  bull- 
race.  He  is  said  to  be  the  father  of  Chandra- Kaushika,  the 
moon  of  the  Kushikas '.  In  the  Rigveda  the  Ashvins  are 
said  to  have  made  for  Kakshivan  a  hundred  vessels  of  Sura 
{spirits)  to  flow  from  the  well  opened  by  the  hoof  of  the  sun- 
horse  *.  In  other  words,  he  was  the  counterpart  of  the  Greek 
Bellerophon,  the  Phoenician  Baal  Raphon. 

A  further  history  of  this  age  is  given  in  the  Mahabharata, 
in  the  story  of  king  Kalmashapada  with  the  spotted  {kalma- 
sha)  feet,  the  ruling  god  of  the  starry  heaven,  son  of  Su-dasa 
He  is  called,  in  the  variant  forms  of  his  story,  Saudasa,  the 
son  of  the  ten  (ddshan)  birds  (j«),  and  Paushya,  the  god 
Pushan,  who  wedded  the  sun's  daughter  when  the  sun 
was  in  Cancer  {Pushyd)  at  the  winter  solstice,  as  we  have 
seen  on  p.  207,  and  became  the  god  Push  of  the  first  month 
of  the  Hindu  year.  He  ruled  in  the  age  of  Vashishtha, 
the  god  of  the  altar-flame,  and  his  hundred  sons,  the  equi- 
valents of  the  hundred  sons  of  Gandhari.  The  eldest  of  these 
was  Shaktri,  the  wet  {Shuk)  god  of  rain,  called  also  Shakra, 
Shukra  or  Sakko,  who,  at  the  close  of  the  Buddhist  age 
of  the  hundred  Shatum  Maharajaka  Devaloko,  became 
the  ruling  god  of  the  thirty-three  Tavatimsa  gods.  The 
star-king,  Kalmashapada,  the  Pole  Star  god,  became  mad 
when  he  was  cursed  by  Shaktri  and  deserted  by  Vishvamitra, 
the  moon-god,  who  had  ruled  the  cycle-year.  That  is  to 
say,  he  became  invisible  as  the  Pole  Star  during  the  interval 
between  the  Pole  Star  in  Cygnus  in  15,000  B.C.  and  the 
Pole  Star  Vega  in  the  Vulture,  B.C.  10,000,  when  no  Pole 

*  Mahabhirata  Adi  (Sambhava)  Parva,  civ.  p.  316,  Sabha  {Jardsandha- 
dadha)  Parva,  xxi.  p.  63,  Udyoga  Parva,  cxvii.  p.  345,  Sabha  (Raj as uy a- 
ramhka)  Parva,  xvii.  p.  55.  '  Rg.  i.  116,  7. 


312  History  and  Chronology 

Star  was  seen  during  this  age  of  the  year  of  the  head  of  the 
sun-horse.  It  was  in  this  period  that  the  wandering  Pole 
Star  god  devoured  Shaktri  and  all  the  hundred  sons  of 
Vashishtha,  and  offered  human  sacrifices.  Vashishtha,  the 
god  of  the  sacred-fire,  then  fled  to  the  river  Shata-dni 
[Sutlej)  of  the  hundred  springs,  and  oiily  returned  after 
twelve  years,  when  Kalmashapada's  wife  gave  birth  to  a 
son,  Ashmaka,  the  god  of  the  gnomon-stone  (asAma),  who 
was  begotten  by  Vashishtha ',  and  born  after  twelve  years' 
pregnancy.  With  this  son  was  born  the  son  of  Adrishyanti, 
the  rock  [adrika)  wife  of  Shaktri,  called  Parashara,  the  over- 
hanging {para)  cloud,  and  Aurva,  the  son  of  the  thigh  («#«) 
the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  thigh  of  Set,  the  ape, 
from  which  he  was  bom.  He  was  the  god,  as  we  shall  see, 
of  the  next  year  of  the  eight-days  week,  the  subject  of 
Chapter  VI I  2. 

The  inner  meaning  of  this  mythic  history  appears  in 
the  story  of  Utanka,  the  weaver  («/  a  part,  of  Fa,  to  weave), 
the  maker  of  the  web  of  time.  The  first  part  of  it  is  told  in 
the  beginning  of  the  Mahabharata,  and  the  last  in  the  Ash- 
vamedha  Parva,  after  the  Pandava  victory  and  before  the 
birth  of  Parikshit,  the  circling-sun,  the  later  development  of 
the  sun-god  with  the  horse's  head.  Utanka  was  in  his  last 
avatar  made  by  Krishna  the  god  of  the  Utanka  rain-clouds, 
which  gathered  before  the  birth  of  Parikshit,  and  were  sup* 
plied  with  water  by  the  hunter-star  Orion  3. 

He  first  began  his  career  as  a  year  -  god  as  one  of  the 
three  disciples   of  Gautama,  also  called   Veda  4  or  Know- 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Chitra-rcUha)  Parva,  clxxviii.,  clxxix.  pp.  504,  51I1 
clxxxiv.  p.  519 — 521. 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  (Chitra-ratha)  Parva,  clxxx. — clxxxii.,  pp.  512-517.  The 
identity  of  Aurva  and  Parashara,  which  is  obscure  in  parts  of  the  story  where 
two  mothers  appear  to  be  spoken  of,  is  clearly  shown  in  the  end  of  clxxxii., 
where  the  fire  cast  by  Aurva,  also  called  Parashara,  into  the  sea  to  destroy 
the  world  is  said  to  have  become  the  head  of  the  sun-horse. 

3  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (Anugi£a)  Parva,  Iv.  p.  145. 

^  Mahabharata  Adi  {Paushya)  Parva,  iii.  pp.  51*— 59t  Ashvamedha  (Anugita) 
Parva,  Ivi. — Iviii.  pp.  145 — 155. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  313 

ledge,  when  he  was  the  god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons. 
But  he  became  decrepit  and  lost  his  vigour  during  the  cycle- 
year,  and  did  not  regain  his  youthful  strength  till  he  was 
wedded  to  the  daughter  of  Gautama  and  his  wife  Ahalya, 
the  hen,  that  is  to  the  sun-maiden,  who  was  wedded  in  the 
Rigveda  first  to  Pushan,  that  is  to  Kalmashapada  or  Paushya,* 
and  afterwards  to  Soma,  the  moon-god  S  here  called  Utanka. 
He  agreed  to  bring  as  a  present  to  his  mother-in-law  the 
ear-rings  of  Madayanti,   the  wife   of  Saudasa,  also   called 
Paushya   and   Kalmashapada.     That   these   ear-rings   were 
the  lunar  crescents    marking  the   course  of  the  months  is 
proved  indubitably  by  their  description,  for  they  are  said 
"  to  shine  brightly  at  night,  attracting  the  rays  of  the  stars 
and  constellations  2."     Utanka,  when  he  went  to  fetch  the 
ear-rings,  was  met  by  a  giant  god  riding  on  a  bull  to  the 
house  of  Paushya,  the  devourer  of  human  beings  and  offerer 
of  human  sacrifices,  ruling  the  first  month  of  the  Hindu 
year,  beginning  at  the  winter  solstice.     The  giant  on  the 
moon-bull,   the   three-eyed   Shiva  of  the  cycle-year,   made 
Utanka  eat  its  dung  and  drink  its  urine  to  sanctify  him 
as  the  leader  of  the  New  Year  of  the  moon-bull.     Paushya, 
when  his  wife  had  given  the  ear-rings  to  Utanka,  became 
blind,    like    Dhritarashtra     and     Dirghatamas,    the   ruling 
gods   of  the  eleven-months  years.      Utanka,  when  he  got 
the   ear-rings,  wrapped   them    up   in  the   black  antelope- 
skin  of   the  antelope-sun-god.     While   he  was    eating  the 
fruits    of  the  Vilva   or   Arjuna-tree    {Tenninalia   belericd) 
(whence  Nala,  in  the  story  of  Nala  and  Damayaritl,  obtained 
the  powers  of  calculation,  making  him  the  god  of  a  year  of 
months)  the  package  fell  to  the  ground,  and  was   picked 
up  by  the  snake-god  Takshaka,  who   took  it  underground 
as  the  sun  of  the  winter  solstice.     Utanka  went  beneath 
the  earth  to  recover  the  sign-marks  of  his  year,  as  Orpheus, 
the  Greek  form  of  the  Ribhus,  went  to  Hades  to  recover  his 

'  Rg.  vi.  58,  4,  X.  85,  9. 

'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {AnugUa)  Parva,  Ivii.  2$,  p.  1 50. 

3  Mahabharata  Adi  [^Paushya)  Parva  iii.  pp.  54,  55. 


314  History  and  Chronology 

bride  Eurydice,  who,  as  the  year-goddess,  the  sun-maiden, 
had  been  killed  by  the  snake  which  bit  her  heel.  He  reached 
the  nether  earth,  the  underground  mansions  of  the  Southern 
Naga  year-gods,  by  the  help  of  Indra's  thunderbolts  aiding 
the  revolutions  of  his  staff,  the  fire-drill  of  the  revolving-pole 
On  arriving  there  he  was  helped,  according  to  one  account, 
by  a  man  with  a  horse,  the  god  Indra,  and  according  to 
another  by  a  black  horse  with  a  white  tail ',  who  suffocated 
the  Nagas  with  smoke,  the  smoke  of  the  incense  offered 
to  the  god  of  the  cycle-year  of  the  ass,  and  that  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  of  the  horse's  head,  and  made  them  restore 
the  ear-rings  to  Utanka.  He,  when  he  reached  the  upper 
earth,  mounted  the  black  horse  to  take  the  ear-rings  to 
Ahalya.  These  became  the  ear-rings  of  Utanka's  bride 
when  he  became  the  moon-god  riding  the  black  sun-horse, 
whose  head  was  the  Dadhiank  of  the  Risfveda.  That  the 
whole  story  has  a  mythological  meaning,  giving  the  history 
of  the  reckoning  of  the  year,  is  further  proved  by  the  sights 
seen  by  Utanka  in  the  nether  world,  while  waiting  for  the 
ear-rings.  He  there  saw  two  women,  the  nights  and  days, 
weaving  the  cloth  of  time  with  its  black  and  white  threads, 
and  the  wheel  of  time  turned  by  six  boys,  said  in  the  poem 
to  be  the  six  seasons  of  the  year,  but  who  were  originally 
the  six  days  of  the  week,  the  six  Aditya  or  beginning-gods 
of  the  Rigveda. 


C.     The  New  Yearns  Day  of  i/ie  deven-montlis  year. 

Having  thus  shown,  by  this  long  chain  of  evidence,  that 
the  epoch  of  the  eleven -months  year  of  the  black  horse's  head 
was  that  succeeding  the  cycle-year  of  three  years,  I  must 
now  proceed  to  show  in  what  part  of  the  year's  circle  the 
New  Year's  Day  of  this  year  of  363  days  was  fixed. 

The  evidence  as  to  the  date  fixed  for  the  beginning  of  the 


*  Mahabharata   Adi   {Paushya)   Parva,    iii.    p.    57,    Ashvamedha   {Anugita) 
Parva,  Iviii.  p.  154. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  315 

nan  year  of  the  horse's  head  is  most  conclusive'.  It 
an  on  the  Ides,  the  iSth  of  October,  sacred  to  the  god 
IS,  of  the  fountains,  that  is  of  the  springs  brought  to 
surface  by  the  hoofs  of  the  sun-horse  of  this  epoch.  On 
i  day  there  was  a  horse  race  of  two-horsed  chariots  in 
Campus  Martius,  and  the  near-horse  of  the  winning  pair 
i  killed,  according  to  Timaeus^.  The  tail  of  the  horse 
;  carried  to  the  Regia,  the  ancient  royal  palace,  which 
Id  only  be  entered  by  the  Vestal  Virgins  guarding  the 
on  the  national  hearth  of  Vesta,  in  its  central  hall  3. 
s  was  the  temple  of  the  god  Consus,  the  storing-god,  the 
rdian  of  the  harvested  grain,  and  represented  the  central 
ional  house,  the  village  hall  of  the  Munda  head-man, 
ivhich  was  the  village  fire  tended  by  his  daughters,  who 
ame  the  Vestal  Virgins  of  Rome. 

i'he  blood  from  the  tail  was  allowed  to  drip  on  the  hearth, 

carefully  kept  by  the  Vestals  for  future  use.     The  head 

cut  off  and  decked  with  cakes,  like  the  head  of  the  Mord- 

an  sacrificed  horse,  and  a  contest  for  it  took  place  between 

men  of  the  Via  Sacra  on  the  Palatine,  who  placed  it, 

hey  won,  on  the  Regia  as  the  gable-horse  ;  and  by  the 

I  of  the  lower  and  older  region  of  the  Suburra,  it  was 

ed   on   the   Turris   Manilia,  the  representative    of   the 

r  Sidi,  or  Turning-castle  of  the  Pole  Star  age. 

his  New  Year's  Festival  of  the  1 5th  of  October  corres- 

ded  with  the  Greek  festivals  of  the  Pyanepsion  of  Apollo 

the  Oscaphoria,  or  bringing  home  of  the  grape  or  vine 

ches  (ocr/co9),  of  Dionysos,  a  festival  still  celebrated  in  the 

lan   Campagna.     They  were  held  in  the  beginning  of 

nepsion  (October — November),  on  the  15th  of  October. 

Iso  answers  exactly  to  the  Hindu  New  Year's  Day  of  the 

a-vali,  the  circling  (pali)  lamps,  the  stars,  which  begins 

days  before  the  end  of  Ashvin  or  Assin  (September — 


/.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  October,  pp.  240—250. 

olyb.,  De  Bello  Punicoy  12,  46. 

V.  Wardc  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  Sextilis,  pp.  212 — 214. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  317 

firom  the  water  the  five  lands,"  the  five  provinces  into  which 
India  was  divided,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  199 ». 
He  is  mentioned  in  another  hymn  as  a  year-god  with  Indra, 
Pushan   and   Brihaspati,  the  Pole   Star  god «.     His  year's 
history  is  told  in  that  of  the   twenty-second  of  the  Jain 
Tirthakaras,  his  place  being  a  multiple  of  eleven,  and  denot- 
ing the  half-months  3  in  his  year.     He  was  the  son  of  Ugra- 
sena,  king  of  the  Bhojas,  the  army  {send)  of  the  mighty 
{Ugra\  the  traditional  cannibals  who  have  become  our  ogres. 
He  is  called  in  the  Rigveda  Ugra-deva,  the  god  Ugra,  and 
invoked  as  a  companion  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu  4  of  the  cycle- 
f     era.     His  mother  was  Shiva,  who  here  becomes  a  female 
goddess,  and  he  is  thus  marked  as  a  year-god  descended 
from  the  cycle-year  of  the  three-eyed  god.     He  took  the 
form  of  a  living  embryo  in  the  womb  of  his  mother  Shiva, 
that  is,  was  quickened  five  months  before  his  birth.     He  was 

'  Rg.  X.  178,  1—3.  '  Ibid.,  i.  89,  6. 

3  He  was  the  duplicate  of  the  eleventh  Chakravartin  or  unirersal  monarch, 
Jaya  Victory.  Jacobi,  Jaina  Sutras  Uttaradhyayana^  xvii.  43 ;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xlv.  p.  86. 

*'  Rg.  i.  36,  18.  The  name  Ugra,  as  that  of  the  national  god,  seems  to  mark 
these  invaders  as  the  Akkadian  Finns,  allied  to  the  races  who  still  call  them- 
selves sons  of  Ugur,  and  are  known  as  the  Ugro  or  Uigar  Finns.  These  people, 
according  to  Dr.  Sayce  (Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lecture  iii.  p.  196),  called 
Nergal,  the  god  of  the  South,  the  king  Nerra,  and  **  the  mighty  sovereign  of 
the  deep,"  and  also  Ugur,  the  falchion  or  sickle-shaped  knife,  the  Kherpe  or 
Harpe  with  which  Merodach  slew  Tiamat  and  Hermes  Argos,  and  which  was 
the  weapon  of  Kronos.  It  was  the  lunar-crescent  with  which  the  father-god 
Ugur  measured  the  year,  and  it  is  with  this  knife,  the  Ghurka-kukri,  that  the 
year-buffalo  is  always  slain  in  India  at  the  Dasahara  festival.  It  has  been  the 
sacrificial  knife  since  the  days  of  Parasu  -  Rama,  and  this  is  the  sword  from 
which  the  Khands  of  Orissa,  the  human  sacrificers,  claim  to  be  descended,  and 
which  I  have  seen  set  up  as  a  god  on  a  hill-shrine  in  Burwah  in  the  Lohardugga 
District  of  Chutia  Nagpur.  These  sons  of  the  sword-knife  are  sons  of  the 
lunar-crescent  or  sickle.  Thus  these  Ugro  Finns  of  the  Bronze  Age  called 
themselves  sons  of  Ugur,  or  the  crescent -shaped  moon-knife.  This,  their  father- 
god,  was,  as  Dr.  Sayce  shows,  the  Phoenician  god  Sar-rabu,  the  great  king, 
and  he  was  worshipped  by  the  Shuites  on  the  western  banks  of  the  Euphrates 
as  Emu,  a  name  which  is  **  letter  for  letter  the  same  as  Ammi,  the  national 
god  of  the  Ammonitts "  (Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iii.  p.  196, 
note  I). 


3i8  History  and  Chronology 

begotten  on  the  twelfth  day  of  the  dark  half  of 
(October — November),  two  days  before  the  Bengal  Kdi 
Puja,  the  year-festival  of  this  time-goddess,  held  on  the  M 
day  of  Khartik,  when  she  is  worshipped  as  the  cannibal 
goddess,  to  whom  goats,  sheep  and  bufTaloes  are  thcfi 
offered '.  His  history,  which  has  already  stated  that  he  was  |^ 
bom  in  Chitra  {Cfieit)  (March — April),  then  goes  on  to  saf  F 
that  he  was  born  on  the  5th  day  of  Shravana(July — August),  |^ 
a  statement  which  must  mean  that  he  was  then  begotten. 

This  is  the  date  of  the  Nag-Panchami,  the  annual  festival 
to  the  five  snake-mothers.  He  installed  himself  as  the  year- 
god  on  the  6th  of  Shravana  (July — August),  that  is  the  day 
after  his  conception,  and  probably  that  following  the  birth 
of  the  Naga  goddess,  his  mother,  who,  like  the  early  year- 
gods,  conceived  at  her  birth.  His  immaculate  conception 
is  probably  referred  to  in  the  story  of  his  virgin-wife  Raji- 
mati,  who  vowed  virginity  with  him  on  Mount  Raivataka^ 
and  who  was  almost  certainly  in  the  original  year-story  also 
his  virgin-mother.  This  installation  took  place  on  the  sacred 
Jain  hill  of  Girnar,  about  ten  miles  to  the  East  of  Juna  or 
Yona-gurh  in  Kathlawar,  the  birth-city  of  the  Yonas  or 
Yavanas,  the  growers  of  barley  (java).  This  is  the  Raiva- 
taka  hill  near  Dwaraka,  consecrated  to  Su-bhadra  or  Durga, 
the  mountain-goddess,  when  she  was  at  this  Nag-Panchami 
festival  carried  off  and  married  by  the  Pandava  Arjuna,  the 
rain-god  3.  He  was  there  worshipped  by  Rama,  the  god 
Halayudha,  who  has  a  plough  (Iial)  for  his  weapon  {ayudlia\ 
and  Krishna,  called  Keshava,  the  hairy-god.  And  it  is  this 
hill,  which  was  sacred  to  Revati,  the  constellation  Pisces, 
from  which  the  year-sun-god  was  to  be  born. 

It  was  on  the  last  day  of  Ashvin  or  Assin  (September- 
October),  that  is  on  the  isth  of  October,  the  day  of  the 
Roman  sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse,  that  he  attained  perfection 

*  Monier  Williams,  Religious  Thought  and  Life  in  Itidia^  pp.  430,  431. 
^  Jacobi,  faina   Siitrds    Uttaradhyayana^    xxii.    28 — 48;    S.B.E.,    vol.   xlv. 
pp.  115— 119. 
^  Mahabharata  Adi  (Sabhadrd-harana)  Parva,  ccxxi.,  ccxxii.  pp.  603—^7. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  319 

under  the  Vetasa  or  Banyan-tree  {Ficus  Indica).  Thus  we 
see  in  this  history  of  Arishtanemi,  called  the  black-god  with 
the  belly  of  a  fish,  bom  from  the  fish  constellation,  that  he 
was  clearly  the  equivalent  of  the  Roman  October  horse  and 
the  year-god  of  the  Ugro-Finn  conquerors  of  India.  This 
sun-god  riding  on  the  black  horse  of  night  circled  the 
heavens  as  the  sun-star  of  day,  going  round  his  circuit  in 
an  unbroken  ring  of  eleven  months,  divided  into  four  seasons 
ruled  by  the  four  seasonal-gods  invoked  in  the  first  four 
stanzas  of  the  AprI  hymns.  And  we  find  in  the  history  of 
this  year-god,  reverenced  as  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Jain 
creed,  most  interesting  historical  testimony  as  to  the  funda- 
mental changes  in  religious  belief  made  by  the  founders 
of  the  year.  The  Jains  in  their  ritual  and  religious  organisa- 
tion stand  quite  apart  from  the  holders  of  the  earlier  creeds, 
who  looked  on  the  gods  of  time,  the  Pole  Star,  Pleiades, 
Orion  and  the  Creating-rain-god,  as  the  gods  of  villages, 
provinces  or  local  national  confederacies,  who  gave  good 
crops,  health  and  national  prosperity  to  the  localities  they 
ruled — provided  that  they  were  propitiated  by  sacrifices  and 
religious  dances  correctly  performed  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  ritual  prescribed  by  the  national  elders  and  priests. 
In  this  religion  the  personal  morality  of  the  worshippers  had 
no  place,  except  as  regarding  the  strict  obedience  required 
to  the  local  rules  of  social  organisation.  But  among  the 
Jains,  as  among  the  early  Hebrews,  we  find  the  first  traces 
of  the  germs  of  the  conception  of  personal  religion  and  of 
the  formation  of  a  character  by  efforts  in  moral  improvement. 
These  appear  in  the  belief  that  they  could  by  asceticism  and 
imitation  of  the  lives  of  the  saints  of  the  community  become 
individually  holy,  and  attain  to  such  a  sensitiveness  of  con- 
science as  to  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  sin;  an  ideal 
infinitely  higher  than  the  conception  of  an  unvarying  obe- 
dience to  imperious  commands  required  from  the  slaves 
of  a  hard  task-master.  In  contradistinction  to  this  narrow 
view,  which  looked  on  fear  of  punishment  as  the  only 
preventive  of  sin,  the  Jains  believed    that   the   lapses  in 


320  History  and  Chronology 

moral  progress,  caused  by  yielding  to  temptations,  could 
be  atoned  for  and  made  less  frequent  in  future  by  increased 
earnestness  in  ascetic  discipline.     But  intermixed  with  this 
system  of  improving  self-training  there  was  the   old  trail 
of  the  notion  of  sacrifice,  for  the  penances  became,  as  they 
are  among  many  of  the  Hindu  devotees,  a   temporary  or 
permanent  sacrifice  to  God  of  the  devotee  undertaking  a 
limited  or  unlimited  life-task,  such  as  that,  common  among 
pilgrims,  of  journeying  to  the  shrine  to  be  visited  by  pros- 
trations, in  which  the  devotee  lies  down  flat  on  the  ground 
and  begins  his  next  prostration  by  placing  his  feet  where  his 
head  was  in  the  last.     The  belief  in  the  possibility  of  self- 
regeneration  was  held  in  unison  with  the  custom  of  national 
sacrifices,  the  most  effectual  of  these  being  those  in  whidi 
human  victims  were  offered.     In  these  the  primal  belief  in 
the  creative  power  of  the  rain  imbued  with  the  germs  of  life, 
which  was  that  of  the  first  founders  of  vills^es,  the  sons 
of  the  mother-tree,  had  been  changed  into  the  creed  which 
ascribed  the  origin  of  life  not  to  the  pure  rain  which  ripened 
the  seed  and  made  it  grow,  but  to  the  rain  which  had  become 
the  blood  of  the  father-god.     It  was  this  blood  transfused 
into  the  veins  of  the  animal-father  which  became  the  vital 
seed  making  the  father  the  transmitter  to  his  offspring  of  the 
life-giving  blood.     This  blood  shed  in  human  and  animal 
sacrifices  fertilised  the  earth  and  made  it  produce  food,  and 
licnce  arose  the  custom,  followed  in  the  Meriah  human  sacri- 
fices of  the   Kandhs,  and   in  New  Year  animal   sacrifices 
throughout  India,  of  giving  to  each  cultivator  in  the  vills^ 
where  the  sacrifice  was  offered  a  piece  of  the  victim  to  bury 
in  his  field.     It  was  these  practices,  and  the  alterations  made 
in  the  dates  of  the  local  festivals  by  these  sons  of  the  sun- 
horse,  that  caused  them  to  be  regarded  with  horror  by  the 
votaries  of  the  old  faiths.     Hence,  in  the  Krishna  legend 
the  rule  of  the  Bhoja  king  Ugrasena  and  that  of  his  son 
Kansa,  the  Jain  Arishtanemi,  whose  mothor  was  Kalanemi, 
the  wife  of  Shiva,  the  goddess  Kali,  was  spoken  of  as  that 
in  which  priests  and  cattle  were  ruthlessly  massacred,  and 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  321 

the  temples  of  the  gods  defiled  with  blood.  It  is  the  age 
called  in  the  Zendavesta  that  of  the  usurpation  of  Keresani, 
the  Krishanu  of  the  Rigveda,  the  archer-god  of  the  North, 
who  said,  "No  priest  shall  walk  the  lands  for  me  as  a 
counsellor  to  prosper  them,  he  would  rob  everything  of 
progress '."  It  was  the  rule  of  these  ruthless  Northern  con- 
querors, followers  of  the  Patesi,  the  bearded  priest- kings  of  the 
Akkadians  of  Girsu  and  their  prophet-priests,  the  preachers 
of  personal  religion,  which  was  put  an  end  to  by  the  victory 
of  the  true  and  holy  Haoma,  the  Soma  god,  who  was  wor- 
shipped, not  with  blood  and  libations  of  the  intoxicating 
drinks  consumed  by  his  worshippers,  but  by  the  pure  sacri- 
fice of  the  Tri-ashira,  or  three  mixings  of  Indra,  the  sacra- 
mental cup  made  of  Gavashir  milk,  Dadhyashir  sour  milk, 
Yavashir  barley.  This  was,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Rigveda 
viii.  2,  II,  12,  first  mixed  with  Sura  {spirits),  but  afterwards, 
according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Brahmanas,  with  water  from 
a  running  stream  ».  In  this  mixture  the  Dadhyashir,  typi- 
fying the  summer,  is  the  ingredient  of  Varuna  and  of 
Dadhiank  or  Dadhikras,  the  god  of  the  horse's  head. 

We  find  the  religious  history  of  this  age  of  transition 
depicted  in  the  ritual  of  the  Sautramani,  the  New  Year's 
Soma  sacrifice  of  this  epoch.  It  is  said  to  be  offered  for 
the  healing  of  Indra,  the  rain-god,  whose  divine  power  had 
left  him  at  the  end  of  the  rainy  season,  during  which  he 
had  completed  his  victory  over  Na-muchi,  the  antelope-god 
of  summer,  the  Asura  who  does  not  {fid)  set  free  {much) 
the  rain  4.  He  is  said  in  this  Satapatha  Brahmana  and 
Rigveda  to  have  killed  the  god  of  drought  by  the  foam  of 
the  waters,  the  wet  wind  of  the  South-west  Monsoon  5.     He 


»  MUI,    Yasna,  ix.  24;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxi.   pp.  237,  238;    Hewitt,  Ruling 
Riues  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  vol.  i..  Essay  v.,  pp.  462,  463. 

»  Kg.  V.  27,  5,  viii.  2,  7;  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.,  iii.  9,  3,   15  ff-  ;  S.B.E., 
▼ol.  xxvi.  pp.  232,  note  2—238. 

3  Rg.  iv.  38,  2.  *  Benfey,  Glossary,  s.v.,  Na-muchi. 

s  EggeUng,  Sai,  Brah.,  xii.   7,  3,    1—4;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.   pp.  222,   223 
Rg.  viii.  13,  14. 

Y 


322  History  and  Chrofwlogy 

was  healed,  that  is  his  power  of  bringing  the  rain-showcfs 
drained  by  the  heavy  falls  of  his  rainy  season  contest  with 
Na-muchi  was  restored  to  him,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Satapatha 
Brahmana,  by  the  thirty-three  gods  of  this  year ».  Therefore 
it  is  clear  that  this  sacrifice  took  place  after  the  rains,  like 
the  New  Year's  sacrifice  of  the  Roman  horse,  offered  on  the 
iSth  of  October,  or  about  the  first  of  the  Indian  month 
Khartik  (October — November),  the  day  of  the  national  Dibali 
festival,  beginning  in  India  the  year  of  the  Krittakas  or 
Pleiades,  and  that  on  which  Arishtanemi  attained  perfectioa 
The  Satapatha  Brahmana  does  not  give  any  exact  date  for 
the  sacrifice  which  formed  part  of  the  Rajasuya  or  Coronation 
ceremonies  2.  It  evidently  became  in  later  times  one  shifting, 
like  the  New  Year's  sacrifice  to  Rahu,  described  on  p.  187, 
with  the  New  Year's  Day  of  the  sacrificer's  year,  but  it  must 
be  begun  three  days  before  the  New  or  Full  Moon ;  and 
undoubtedly  when  originally  instituted  by  the  Asuras 
these  three  days  were  those  before  the  New  Moon  beginning 
their  year ;  that  is  probably  three  days  before  the  ist  of 
Khartik,  when  Arishtanemi  or  Indra,  by  his  victory  over 
the  evil  spirits  who  kept  back  the  rain,  became  the  conquer- 
ing god  of  the  year,  so  that  it  is  a  counterpart  of  the  Roman 
Equiria  held  on  the  same  date. 

During  the  first  three  days  the.  annual  offerings  of  a  grey 
he-goat  to  the  Ashvins,  a  ram  to  SarasvatT,  the  mother-river 
of  the  Kurus,  and  sons  of  the  ram-sun,  and  a  bull  to  Indra 
are  made ;  and  the  Sura  or  spirituous  liquor  to  be  drunk 
at  the  sacrifice  and  poured  out  in  libations  is  prepared.  It 
is  made  of  stalks  of  Kusha  grass  and  fruits  of  the  different 
species  of  Baer  shrub  {Zizyphus  Jujuba)y  which  grows 
profusely  over  the  sandy  plains  of  Northern  India,  where 
it  feeds,  when  placed  upon  these  shrubs,  the  lakh  insects 
producing  the  red  lakh  dye  and  the  tusscr  silk-worms  who 
spin  the  silk  which  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  V.  p.  251, 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  xii.  7,  i,  14;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  216,  217. 
*  Ibid.,  V.  5,  4,  1—35  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  129—138. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  323 

so  much  worn  in  ancient  times  by  the  people  of  the  Punjab ». 
With  these  are  mixed  spices,  parched  rice,  malted  barley, 
and  millets,  the  food  of  the  Kusha  grass  fathers,  and  the 
first  immigrant  Gonds.  Into  the  mixture  thus  made  is 
poured  the  milk  of  one  cow  on  each  of  the  three  days  dur- 
ing which  it  is  fermenting  2.  On  the  fourth  day  thirty-three 
libations  of  fat  gravy,  obtained  from  the  cooking  of  the 
victims,  were  offered  in  bull's  hoofs  used  as  cups,  and  three 
cups  of  milk  were  offered  on  the  Northern  and  three  cups 
of  Sura  on  the  Southern  altar  to  the  gods  of  the  six  days 
of  the  week,  and  a  fourth  animal,  a  bull,  was  offered  to  Indra 
as  god  of  the  fourth  season,  together  with  a  cake  on  eleven 
potsherds  3. 

Thus  we  see  that  this  New  Year's  sacrifice  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  of  the  sun-horse  was  accompanied  by  the  same 
drunken  orgies  which  marked  the  earlier  religious  festivals. 
Though  the  year  appears  in  its  Indian  form  to  have  been 
one  of  four  seasons,  it  seems  probable  that  it  was  originally 
like  the  Pleiades  or  Solstitial  years,  one  measured  by  two 
seasons,  with  a  sacrifice  in  the  middle,  the  Vishuvan  or  mid- 
year sacrifice  of  the  Brahmanas,  answering  to  the  April 
sacrifice  at  Rome  of  the  unborn  calf  mixed  with  the  blood 
of  the  October  horse  slain  on  the  isth  of  October,  the  day 
on  which  this  Indian  year  began.  This  was  held  in  Rome 
on  the  15th  of  April,  exactly  six  months  after  the  October 
Equina.  At  the  festival  called  the  Fordicidia4  thirty 
pr^nant  cows  were  offered,  one  for  each  of  the  thirty  Curiae, 
the  villages  or  parishes  into  which  the  Latin  State  was  divided, 
and  the  unborn  calves  were  torn  from  their  wombs,  and 
burnt  by  the  Vestal  Virgins.     These  ashes  were  kept,  and 


'   Eggeling,  5'<j/.  Brah,^  v.   5,  4,  22;  S.B.E. .  vol.  xli.  pp.    129 — 138,  xii.   7, 
I,  2ff.  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  p.  214,  note  3. 

*  Ibid.,  xii.  7,  2,  9,  xii.  7,  3,  5  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  219,  223,  note  2,  224. 
3  Ibid.,  xii.  7,  I,  I,  xii.  7,  2,  18,  xii.  7,  3,  13,  14  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  219, 

note  2,  220,  221,  225,  note  i,  227,  228. 

*  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  Aprilis  Fordicidia,  p.  71, 
Parilia,  pp.  79  ff. 

Y    2 


322  History  and  Chrotwlogy 

was  healed,  that  is  his  power  of  bringing  the  rain-showers 
drained  by  the  heavy  falls  of  his  rainy  season  contest  with 
Na-muchi  was  restored  to  him,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Satapatha 
Brahmana,  by  the  thirty-three  gods  of  this  year '.  Therefore 
it  is  clear  that  this  sacrifice  took  place  after  the  rains,  like 
the  New  Year's  sacrifice  of  the  Roman  horse,  offered  on  the 
iSth  of  October,  or  about  the  first  of  the  Indian  month 
Khartik  (October — November),  the  day  of  the  national  Dibali 
festival,  beginning  in  India  the  year  of  the  Krittakas  or 
Pleiades,  and  that  on  which  Arishtancmi  attained  perfection. 
The  Satapatha  Brahmana  docs  not  give  any  exact  date  for 
the  sacrifice  which  formed  part  of  the  Rajasuya  or  Coronation 
ceremonies  2.  It  evidently  became  in  later  times  one  shifting, 
like  the  New  Year's  sacrifice  to  Rahu,  described  on  p.  187. 
with  the  New  Year's  Day  of  the  sacrificer's  year,  but  it  must 
be  begun  three  days  before  the  New  or  Full  Moon ;  and 
undoubtedly  when  originally  instituted  by  the  Asuras 
these  three  days  were  those  before  the  New  Moon  beginning 
their  year ;  that  is  probably  three  days  before  the  ist  of 
Khartik,  when  Arishtanemi  or  Indra,  by  his  victory  over 
the  evil  spirits  who  kept  back  the  rain,  became  the  conquer- 
ing god  of  the  year,  so  that  it  is  a  counterpart  of  the  Roman 
Equiria  held  on  the  same  date. 

During  the  first  three  days  the.  annual  offerings  of  a  grey 
he-goat  to  the  Ashvins,  a  ram  to  SarasvatT,  the  mother-river 
of  the  Kurus,  and  sons  of  the  ram-sun,  and  a  bull  to  Indra 
are  made ;  and  the  Sura  or  spirituous  liquor  to  be  drunk 
at  the  sacrifice  and  poured  out  in  libations  is  prepared.  It 
is  made  of  stalks  of  Kusha  grass  and  fruits  of  the  different 
species  of  Baer  shrub  {Zizyphus  Jujubd)^  which  grows 
profusely  over  the  sandy  plains  of  Northern  India,  where 
it  feeds,  when  placed  upon  these  shrubs,  the  lakh  insects 
producing  the  red  lakh  dye  and  the  tusser  silk-worms  who 
spin  the  silk  which  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  V.  p.  251, 


*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  xii.  7,  i,  14;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  216,  217. 
=»  Ibid.,  V.  5,  4,  1—35  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  129 — 138. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  323 

much  worn  in  ancient  times  by  the  people  of  the  Punjab  ^. 
With  these  are  mixed  spices,  parched  rice,  malted  barley, 
and  millets,  the  food  of  the  Kusha  grass   fathers,  and  the 
first   immigrant  Gonds.    Into   the   mixture   thus    made   is 
poured  the  milk  of  one  cow  on  each  of  the  three  days  dur- 
ing which  it  is  fermenting  2.     On  the  fourth  day  thirty-three 
libations  of  fat  gravy,  obtained  from   the  cooking  of  the 
victims,  were  offered  in  bull's  hoofs  used  as  cups,  and  three 
cups  of  milk  were  offered  on  the  Northern  and  three  cups 
of  Sura  on  the  Southern  altar  to  the  gods  of  the  six  days 
of  the  week,  and  a  fourth  animal,  a  bull,  was  offered  to  Indra 
as  god  of  the  fourth  season,  together  with  a  cake  on  eleven 
potsherds  3. 

Thus  we  see  that  this  New  Year's  sacrifice  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  of  the  sun-horse  was  accompanied  by  the  same 
drunken  orgies  which  marked  the  earlier  religious  festivals. 
Though  the  year  appears  in  its  Indian  form  to  have  been 
one  of  four  seasons,  it  seems  probable  that  it  was  originally 
like  the  Pleiades  or  Solstitial  years,  one  measured  by  two 
seasons,  with  a  sacrifice  in  the  middle,  the  Vishuvan  or  mid- 
year sacrifice  of  the  Brahmanas,  answering  to  the  April 
sacrifice  at  Rome  of  the  unborn  calf  mixed  with  the  blood 
of  the  October  horse  slain  on  the  isth  of  October,  the  day 
on  which  this  Indian  year  began.  This  was  held  in  Rome 
on  the  iSth  of  April,  exactly  six  months  after  the  October 
Equiria.  At  the  festival  called  the  Fordicidia4  thirty 
pregnant  cows  were  offered,  one  for  each  of  the  thirty  Curiae, 
the  villages  or  parishes  into  which  the  Latin  State  was  divided, 
and  the  unborn  calves  were  torn  from  their  wombs,  and 
burnt  by  the  Vestal  Virgins.     These  ashes  were  kept,  and 


*  Eggeling,  .Srt/.  Brdh.y  v.  5,  4,  22;  S.li.E. .  vol.  xli.  pp.   129 — 138,  xii.   7, 
I,  2fr.  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  p.  214,  note  3. 

*  Ibid.,  xii.  7,  2,  9,  xii.  7,  3,  5  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  219,  223,  note  2,  224. 
3  Ibid.,  xii.  7,  I,  I,  xii.  7,  2,  18,  xii.  7,  3,  13,  14  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  219, 

note  2,  220,  221,  225,  note  I,  227,  228. 

*  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mcnsis  Aprilis  Fordicidia,  p.  71, 
Parilia,  pp.  79  ff. 

Y   2 


324  History  and  Chronology 

were  at  the  Parilia  or  Palilia  on  the  2ist  of  April  mixed  with 
the  blood  of  the  October  horse  and  thrown  upon  the  heaps 
of  burning  bean-straw,  laurel  and  olive  wood,  from  which 
the  national  fires  were  lighted  on  this  New  Year's  Day. 

This  new  opening  of  the  year,  transferred  from  the  15th 
of  October,  marks  a  later  chronological  date  for  this  year 
than  that  given  by  the  traditional  birth  of  Arishtanemi 
on  the  5th  of  Cheit  (March — April),  and  makes  this  New 
Year,  which  was  still  under  the  influence  of  Virgo,  as  one 
dating  from  the  time  when  the  sun  was  in  Virgo,  in  April - 
May,  the  Hindu  month  Visakha.  This  was  the  month  in 
which  Parsva,  the  Jain  Tirthakara  succeeding  Arishtanemi, 
was  born  from  the  embryo  quickened  in  Push  at  the  winter 
solstice ' ;  also  that  in  which  the  Syrian  year,  opening  with 
St.  George's  Day  on  the  23rd  of  April,  begun  ;  as  well  as 
the  Gond  year  beginning  with  the  Akkhadi,  or  ploughing 
festival,  on  the  i8th  of  Visakha  {Baisakh),  This  was  the 
official  year  beginning  about  2,000  years  after  that  of  Arish- 
tanemi, or  between  10,000  arid  11,000  B.C.,  a  year  under  the 
influence  of  Vega,  the  Pole  Star  from  10,000  to  8000  B.C., 
and  the  apex  of  the  triangle  of  the  three  stars  in  the  con- 
stellation of  the  Vulture  or  Lyra,  called  by  the  Chinese  the 
three  weaving  sisters,  who  are  said  to  measure  time  by 
"  passing  on  a  day  through  the  seven  stages  of  the  skyV 

This  New  Year's  Festival,  described  by  Ovid  3,  was  origin- 
ally the  rustic  feast  of  the  shepherds,  held  in  honour  of  the 
bisexual-god  Pales,  the  god  of  the  chaff"  or  husk  {palea) 
of  the  seed-grain,  answering  to  the  rice-mother  husk  de- 
.scribed  in  the  Annamite  version  of  the  Cinderella  story  given 
in  Chapter  II.  pp.  60,  61  4.     This  god  of  the  double-husk  is  the 

*  Jacobi,  yiziwa  Sutras^  Kalpa  Sutra^  Life   of  Parsva;    S.B.E.,  vol.    xxii. 
pp.  271,  272. 

=  Legge,  The  Shih  King,  Decade  v.,  Ode  9  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  Hi.  p.  363. 
3  Ovid,  Fasti,  721-782. 

*  Pal  in  Akkadian   ^.ii^V^    No.  6,  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar  Syllabary, 

Assyrian   Palu,  means  a  year,   or  the  Pudenda  Muliebria.     It  is  perhaps  this 
word  which  became  in  Latin  Pales^  the  grain-husk,  and  in  Hindi  Bar^  Bar-as, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  325 

of  the  two  brothers  Palici,  worshipped  in  Southern  Italy 
the  sons  of  Jupiter  and  Thalia  ^  the  tree-mother,  the 
1  cotyledon  leaves  of  the  parent-grass  sacred  to  the  god 
cus  in  Italy,  and  the  Kusha  grass  of  the  Asiatic  Kushites. 
;  sheep-fold,  sacred  to  the  sun-ram,  and  its  gates,  the  door- 
ts  of  the  Aprl  hymns,  were  decorated  with  green  boughs 

garlands.  The  sheep  and  the  fold  were  sprinkled  with 
er  and  purified  by  the  shepherds  at  earliest  dawn  ;  and 

sheep  were  driven  through  the  fire  of  bean-straw,  laurel 

olive  wood  to  consecrate  them  to  the  creating-fire  of  the 
e-goddess,  the  Greek  Pallas,  the  Roman  Minerva,  the 
/ptian  goddess  Min,  the  star  Virgo.  The  shepherds  then 
red  millet  and  millet  cakes,  milk  and  food  offerings, 
the  wooden  image  of  Pales,  who  is  apparently  the  god 
the  Palladium,  or  wooden  image  of  the  goddess  Pallas, 
•rm  of  Pales.  A  prayer  was  then  recited  by  the  shepherds, 
li  their  faces  to  the  East,  asking  Pales  to  bless  them  with 
•d  crops  of  grain  and  wool,  and  the  increase  of  their  flocks 
the  birth  of  healthy  lambs.  While  saying  this  prayer 
y  washed  their  hands  in  the  morning  dew  and  sprinkled 
mselves  with  dew  from  a  laurel  branch.  A  wooden  bowl 
ancient  form  was  then  brought  filled  with  heated  wine, 
I  after  drinking  this  both  men  and  women  leaped  three 
es  through  the  mother-fire,  exactly  as  the  Dosadh  priests 
in  their  New  Year's  sacrifice  to  Ra-hu,  the  sun-god. 
n  this  festival  we  see  the  first  beginnings  of  the  belief 
the  baptismal  virtues  of  holy  water  as  more  sanctifying 
n  the  blood-baths  of  the  Phry;^Man  ritual ;  and  also  the 
rship  of  the  rising-sun  of  day  instead  of  the  setting-sun 
1  stars  of  night.  It  was  followed  by  the  Vinalia  of  the 
d  of  April,  the  day  of  St.  George  in  Europe  and  Syria, 
led  in  Rome  the  festival  of  Venus  Erycina.     This  was  the 

year,  the  Tamil  Var-usbani.     Pal  is  a  Finnic  equivalent  for  bar  or  var,  as  the 
adian  Bil  is  an  equivalent  for  Phur  fire.     Hence  the  goddess  called  Pallas 
originally  the  mother-goddess  of  the  year,  and  a  goddess  brought  from 
Euphratean  countries  to  Troy,  like  Assaracus,  the  god  of  the  bed  Asurra. 
Virg.  y-Zi/i.,  ix.  $85;  Macrobius,  s.v. ,  19. 


326  History  and  Chronology 

Greek  Erigone,  priestess  of  Dionysos,  who  gave  the  first 
wine  known  to  mortals  to  Ikarios  her  father.     He  was  slain 
by  the  peasants  with  whom  he  shared  it,  as  they  thought 
themselves  poisoned.     Erigone  was  led  to  the  corpse  of  her 
father  by  Maira,  her  dog,  and  hung  herself  on  a  tree.     Thus 
the  father  and  daughter,  the  bisexual-year-goddess  Shetni- 
ramot  of  the  three-years  cycle,  in  which  Dionysos  Nuk- 
telios  was  born  from  the  imprisoned  sun-mother,  were  slain 
at  the  end  of  their  year,  and  went  up  to  heaven  with  their 
dog  as   the  constellations  Virgo,  Bootes,  and  the  dog-star 
Sirius^.     This   virgin-star-goddess  is  the  Phoenician  Erek- 
hayim  of  length  {erek)  of  days,  the  goddess  of  health,  who 
ruled  both  this  year  of  eleven  months  and  that  of  Arishta- 
nemi  preceding  it,  which  was  also  an  eleven-months  year. 
These  two  year  epochs  were  those  falling  between  the  days 
of  the    Pole   Star   in    Cygnus   and    those   of  Vega   in  the 
Vulture  constellation,  that  is  the  period  from  about  15,000 
to  10,000  B.C. 

The  sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse,  which  began  this  year 
in  Rome  on  the  15th  of  October,  was  in  India,  according 
to  the  Mahabharata,  offered  on  the  Full  Moon  of  Cheit,  that 
is  about  the  1st  of  Aprils  as  the  initiation  sacrifice  of  the 
coronation  of  Yudhishthira  ;  but  as  the  New  Year's  sacrifice 
of  this  year,  ruled  by  the  crescent-moon,  it  must  have 
originally  taken  place  at  the  New  Moon,  and  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Full  Moon  as  a  preliminary  sacrifice  to  the 
dying  year-god  of  the  year  ending  at  the  close  of  Cheit  and 
beginning  at  the  New  Moon  of  Visakha  {Baisakh).  This 
sacrifice  as  an  offering  preceding  the  new  year  beginning 
in  Visakha,  under  the  constellation  Virgo,  about  the  15th 
of  April,  would  therefore  date  from  about  10,200  B.C.  It 
was  certainly  one  to  the  thirty-three  gods  of  this  eleven- 
months  year,  for  we  are  expressly  told  that  the  horse  was 

^  Berard,  Origine  des  CulUs  Arcadiens^  Lcs  Deesses,  pp.  148 — 150,  Les 
Couples  Divins.  pp.  179,  180,  Eratosph.,  Catast^  Edition  Robert,  pp.  39fif.  ; 
Roscher,  Lexicon^  An.  Ikarios. 

=  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (Anugita)  Parva,  Ixxxii.  p.  181. 


of  the  Myth'Makiug  Age.  327 

cut  into  pieces  according  to  the  directions  of  the  Veda,  that 
is  into  thirty-four  pieces,  and  that  the  horse  to  be  sacrificed 
was  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  Drupadl,  the  mother- 
goddess,  daughter  of  the  tree  (dru)  wife  of  the  PSndavas ', 
who  was  thus,  like  Subhadra,  the  mountain- mother-goddess, 
made  the  bride  of  the  sun-horse.  She  is  thus  marked  as  the 
star-mother-goddess  Virgo,  wedded  to  the  Pandavas  after 
they  left  the  kingdom  of  Chaitra-ratha,  the  chariot  {ratlid) 
of  Chitra  Virgo,  under  the  guidance  of  the  incense-priest 
{dhumo)  Dhaumya^. 

The  ritual  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse  in  the  Ma- 
habharata  is,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  compounded  of  various 
forms  adapted  to  the  fifteen,  seventeen  and  eighteen-months 
years,  described  in  Chapters  VII.,  VIII.  and  IX.,  but  the 
observation  of  the  fundamental  rule  of  the  Vedic  ritual 
that  the  horse  was  to  be  cut  into  thirty-four  pieces,  each 
containing  one  of  its  ribs  3,  shows  that  it  was  originally  a 
sacrifice  to  the  thirty-three  gods  of  this  year  and  the  sun-god. 
In  the  first  form  of  the  ritual  of  the  sacrifice  given  in  the 
Satapatha  Brahmana,  the  horse,  when  led  up,  is  addressed 
in  a  hymn  of  eleven  stanzas  sacred  to  this  year,  but  the 
horse  is  not  slaughtered  according  to  the  ritual  requiring 
its  jugular  vein  to  be  cut  and  the  blood  shed  into  the 
sacrificial  pit,  but  strangled,  and  it  is  said  that  the  verse 
18  of  Rigveda  i.  162,  directing  it  to  be  cut  into  thirty- 
four  pieces,  may  be  left  out,  but  the  queen  was  placed, 
like  Drupadl,  lying  down  near  the  horse  4. 

The  horse  sacrifice  of  the  Mahabharata  was  accompanied, 
like  the  Sautramani  and  Palilia  festival,  with  much  drinking, 
for  we  are  told  that  both  men  and  women  were  drunk  at  it  5. 
Hence  it  was  offered  before  the  days  when  high-caste  Hindus 


'   Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {AitugUa)  I'arva,  Ixxxix.  2,  3,  p.  224. 

Mahabharata  {Chaitra-ratha)  Parva,  clxxxv.  pp.  520,  521. 
^  Rg.  i.  162,  18. 
*  Eg^'cHng,  .Sfl/.  Brah.,  xiii.  5,   i,    16—18,  xiii.  5,  2,  2;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv. 

pp.  384.  385,  386. 

s  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (^^nui^ita)  Parva,  Ixxxix.  41,  p.  227. 


328  History  and  Clironology 

became  what  they  now  are,  strict  teetotallers,  who  think  it 
disgraceful  to  drink  intoxicating  liquor.  It  was  not,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  sequel,  till  the  death  of  Krishna  and  the 
year-gods.of  the  early  ages  of  time  reckoning  that  abstinence 
from  drink  became  universal  among  the  upper-classes,  and 
was  enjoined  on  all  Buddhists,  but  not  on  Jains  or  Brahmin 
ascetics,  unless  we  are  to  include  this  as  one  of  the  pro- 
hibitions covered  by  the  rule  that  Brahmins  were  obliged 
to  observe  purity  in  eating'.  Abstinence  from  intoxicating 
drink  must  also  in  Vedic  times  have  been  enjoined  as  a 
religious  duty  on  all  partakers  of  the  orthodox  Soma  sacra- 
ment of  the  Brahmanas,  in  which  the  ingredients  were  mixed 
with  water  and  not  with  the  Sura  or  spirits  of  the  Sautra- 
mani  sacrifice.  We  shall  see  later  on,  in  Chapter  VIIU 
that  this  reformation  dates  after  the  seventeen-months  year 
of  Prajapati,  inaugurated  by  the  Vajapeya  sacrifice  of  the 
chariot-horse  race. 

D.     The  horses  of  tfte  sun-chariot. 

An  important  question  arising  out  of  the  year  of  the 
sun-horse  is  that  connected  with  the  ^  belief,  originating 
at  this  epoch,  tliat  the  chariot  of  the  sun  was  drawn  by 
horses,  and  with  the  number  attached  to  the  sun's  car. 
We  have  seen  that  in  the  cycle-year  the  car  of  the  year-god 
was  drawn  by  asses,  and  the  change  of  the  ass  into  the 
J^orse  was  one  made  by  the  Parthian  cavalry,  who  introduced 
into  Asia  Minor,  Syria  and  Southern  Arabia  the  horses 
of  the  Ugrian  Finn  tribes  of  the  Volga,  who  have  always 
sacrificed  horses.  These  became  the  horses  of  the  Pandava 
sons  of  Pritha,  mother  of  the  Parthava  or  Partha,  a  name 
given  in  the  Mahabharata  to  the  Pandavas,  and  she  was 
also  called  Kunti,  the  lance  or  javelin  of  the  horse-riding 
Shambara.  The  horses  which  drew  the  chariot  of  Krishna 
were  two,  Saivya  and  Su-griva.     The  first  is  ihc  horse  of 

'  Jacobi,  yir/z/M  Stl/ras,  Introduction;    S.B.E.,   vol.   xxii.    p.   xxii.  ;  Biihler, 
Baudhilyana^  ii.  lo,  i8,  2;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xiv.  p.  279. 


of  the  Myth-Makiug  Age.  329 

hiva,  the  three-eyed  god  of  the  cycle-year,  the  year-bull ; 
le  second,  the  bird-headed  ape,  who  married  Tara,  the 
ole  Star  goddess  in  Kepheus '.  These  correspond  to 
{ishabha,  the  bull,  and  Shimshumara,  the  alligator,  the 
)nstellation  Draco,  who  drew  the  Ashvins*  car  bearing 
le  sun's  daughter  to  the  house  of  Divo-dasa,  the  ten 
lasJian)  months  of  the  cycle-year  2.  Similarly  Achilles' 
Drses  were  originally  two,  Xanthus,  the  yellow,  and  Balios, 
le  dappled  star-horse,  sons  of  the  West  wind,  given  to 
is  father  Peleus,  god  of  the  potter's  clay,  the  Great  Potter, 
y.  Poseidon,  who  was  originally  Erectheus  or  Ericthonius, 
le  snake-god  of  the  very  fertile  {ipi)  earth  {x^(ov)y  who 
:st  owned  the  three  thousand  mares,  the  mother  -  stars, 
om  whom  twelve  horses  were  begotten  by  Boreas,  the 
orth  wind  3.  The  two  original  sun-horses,  or  star-season 
3ds,  became  the  three  horses  of  Krishna  driven  by  Daruka, 
le  god  of  strong-drink  (ddru)^  given  by  Krishna  to  Satyaki, 
le  son  of  Shini,  the  moon-goddess,  who,  with  his  ten  sons 
ain  by  Bhurishravas,  the  bearer  of  the  Yupa  or  sacrificial 
ake  4,  represented,  like  Haman  and  his  ten  sons,  the  eleven 
onths  of  this  year.  This  chariot  was  given  to  Satyaki 
^fore  he  encountered  Kama,  the  horned-god  of  the  three- 
iars  cycle,  and  the  third  horse  is  called  Meghapushpa 
alahaka,  the  cloud  {megha)  flower,  the  circler  {vala)  5.  This 
as  a  horse  belonging  to  the  car  of  Uttara,  the  North-god 
iswering  to  the  Greek  Boreas,  who  was  son  of  the  king 
'  Virata,  and  drove  the  car  of  Arjuna  when  he  encountered 
le  Kauravyas  as  a  sexless  warrior  under  the  banner  of 
e  ape  with  the  lion's  tail ;  but  in  the  description  of  Uttara's 
ir  the  horse  Meghapushpa  Valahaka  becomes  two,  giving 
s  car  a  yoke  of  four  horses,  the  four  seasons  of  this  year  ^. 
his  third  horse  in   the  chariot  of  Achilles   is  the   mortal 

'  Mahabhdrata  Sabha  (Sabha-kri^a)  Parva,  ii.  p.  4. 

*  Kg.  i.  116,  17,  18. 

3  Homer,  Iliad,  xvi.  149,  xx.  219—225,  xxiii.  277,  278. 

■*  Mahabharala  Bhishma  (B/Ushma-vadha)  Parva,  Ixxiv.  20 — 23,  p.  273. 

'  Mahubharata  Drona  ( /uyadraiha-badha)  Parva,  cxlvii.  45 — 48,  p.  461. 

*  Mahabharata  Virata  {Goharana)  Parva,  xlv.,  xlvi.  pp.  107,  109. 


330  History  and  Chronology 

horse  Pedasus,  taken  by  him  from  Heetion,  the  father  of 
Andromache,  wife  of  Hector,  together  with  the  golden  lyrt 
of  the  sun-god  ^  Thus  the  third  sun-horse  of  Satyaki  and 
Achilles  is  the  horse  born  of  the  cycle-year  with  its  ten 
months  of  human  generation. 

E.     Tlie  Thibetan  year  of  eleven  months. 

I  have  already  shown  that  this  year  of  eleven  months 
of  thirty-three  days  each  was  probably  the  official  year  of 
the  original  Telis,  Kandhs  and  Kaurs,  and  that  it  was  the 
ritualistic  year  of  the  Northern  Yavanas  or  barley-growers 
during  the  age  of  the  worship  of  the  year-god,  symbolised 
in  the  head  of  the  sun-horse.  Further  conclusive  evidence 
on  this  point  is  given  by  the  ancient  Thibetan  religion  and 
the  ritual  of  the  Mossoos  living  to  the  South-east  of  Thibet, 
between  it  and  Yunnan.  They  are  called  by  Marco  Polo 
Mossooman,  and  according  to  Chinese  history  they,  under 
the  leadership  of  Mong  Tsu,  invaded  China  from  Thibet, 
and  founded  the  Mossoo  kingdom  with  its  capital  Li-kiang. 
It  was  reconquered  by  China  in  the  8th  century  A.D.;  but 
after  the  conquest  the  Chinese  at  first  retained  the  royal 
dynasty  as  rulers  under  the  supervision  of  a  Chinese  resident, 
and  since  they  were  deprived  of  their  administrative  powers 
they  have  been  allowed  to  live  in  their  ancient  capital  as 
Mandarins  of  the  third  degree. 

These  people,  though  nominally  Buddhists,  still  retain 
their  old  religion  and  their  priests,  whom  they  call  Tong-pa, 
according  to  M.  Bonin,  and  Bonbo  by  Mr.  Rockhill.  They 
worship  the  Buddha  Shen-rab,  to  whom  they  offer  living 
animals,  and  especially  fowls.  They  make  their  circuits 
round  their  sacred  buildings,  answering  to  the  circuits  of  the 
altar  in  the  ritual  of  the  Brahmanas.  from  right  to  left, 
against  the  course  of  the  sun,  instead  of  using  the  prescribed 
Buddhist  Padakkhino,  the  sun-circle  from  left  to  right,  with 
which  every  disciple  was  required  to  salute  the   orthodox 

'   Homer,  Iliad^  xvi.  153,  154,  ix.  186— 188. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  331 

Buddha'.  M.  Bonin,  the  French  Vice-President  in  Indo- 
China,  visited  their  country  on  an  official  mission  in  1895, 
and  acquired  a  peculiarly  intimate  knowledge  of  their 
customs  from  one  of  their  priests,  who  gave  him  a  copy 
of  their  ritual  written  in  Mossoo  characters,  with  a  trans- 
lation in  Chinese  of  the  first  six  pages,  giving  the  Chinese 
equivalent  for  each  Mossoo  hieroglyphic.  These  latter  are 
strictly  pictographic ;  thus  the  sign  of  the  family  is  a  house 
with  a  man  and  woman  in  it,  that  of  prayer  an  altar,  similar 
symbolisms  being  used  for  other  abstract  ideas ;  but  there 
are  no  characters  denoting  verbs.  It  therefore  represents 
the  earliest  form  of  pictorial  writing.  In  this  ritual  the 
ruling-goddess  is  the  female  Buddha,  Kouei  Ying,  with  the 
conch-shell  of  the  year-god  Vishnu,  to  whom  rice  and  incense 
arc  offered.  She  is  the  goddess  of  the  mother-tree,  and  her 
consort  the  male  Buddha,  her  son,  the  sun-god,  is  represented 
with  a  halo  round  his  head.  Besides  these  gods,  the  sacred 
spear  or  fire-drill,  the  two  birds  of  day  and  night,  the  original 
cloud  Khu  birds,  the  chief  of  the  evil  Genii,  the  god  of  the 
under-world,  are  represented,  the  last  wearing  the  robes  of 
a  Thibet  Lama.  M.  Bonin,  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
Oriental  Congress  at  Paris  in  1897,  translated  thirty  stanzas 
of  this  ritual  2.  They  apparently  describe  the  course  of  the 
year  opening  with  a  blast  from  the  conch  of  the  year- 
goddess.  It  begins  under  the  constellation  of  the  Tiger  and 
the  protection  of  the  rising  sun  and  moon.  The  Tiger,  as 
one  of  the  Chinese  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  is,  as  Professor 
Douglas  informs  me,  the  constellation  Wei,  containing  e,  yit,  f, 
T),  0,  If  K,  X,  2/,  Scorpio,  and  this  is  the  constellation  said  in 
the  Li-chI  to  culminate  at  dawn  at  the  beginning  of  their 
year  in  January — February,  when  the  sun  is  in  Shih  a 
Pegasus  3.  This  later  constellation  seems  to  have  been  that 
of  the  Tiger  in  Akkadian   astronomy,  for  it  is  there  called 

'   Rockhill,  The  Land  of  the  Lamas,  p.  217. 

-  M.  Bonin,  Note  sur  tni  Manttscrit  Mossoo  Actes  dit  OnzUme  Congrh  LtUcr- 
national  dcs  Orientalistes  Paris ^  liH)7»  sect.  ii.  pp.  i — 10. 

5  Leggc,  Li'chlf  Bk.  iv.,The  Yiieh  Ling;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvii.  p.  249. 


332  History  and  Chronology 

Lik-barra,  or  the  Striped-dog,  by  the  Akkadians.  It  is  the 
second  in  the  Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars,  beginning  with 
Skat  in  Aquarius,  called  the  Star  of  the  Foundation  ^ 
These  stars  represent  the  course  of  the  moon  through  the 
first  three  months  of  a  lunar  solar-year,  beginning  with 
Kislev  (November — December),  and  in  Chinese  astronomy 
this  month  begins  when  the  constellation  Pi  7  Pegasus  and 
a  Andromeda  culminates  at  dusk  2.  They  appear  in  Rg.  x. 
189,  where  they  are  called  **the  thirty  stations  ruled  over 
by  the  mighty  bull,"  the  moon-god.  In  the  Grihya  Sutra 
they  are  the  thirty  sisters  ruling  the  three  Ashtakas  or 
monthly  festivals  following  the  AgrahayanI  full  moon  of 
November — December,  that  is  exactly  the  same  three  months 
as  those  covered  by  the  course  of  the  Thirty  Stars  in  the 
Akkadian  Tablet.  It  was  at  the  third  festival  called  the 
Ekashtaka,  or  wife  of  the  year,  held  on  the  eighth  day  of 
the  dark  fortnight  of  Magh  (January — February),  that  the 
sun-moon-child,  the  "  child  of  the  majesty  of  Indra,"  was 
born  3,  This  child  was,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  VII., 
the  sun-god  of  the  year  beginning  in  Magh  (January — 
February),  the  sun-physician  who  started  on  his  career  as 
the  healing-sun-god  on  his  horse  Kanthaka,  the  sun-horse 
Pegasus,  seven  days  after  his  son  Rahulo,  the  little  Rahu 
or  sun-god,  was  born  on  the  full  moon  of  Magh  4.  This  sun, 
born  as  the  rider  on  Pegasus,  was,  like  Horus,  whose  sons  are 
the  four  stars  in  Pegasus,  the  sun  born  of  the  Thigh,  the 
constellation  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  Thigh  of  Set,  the  Ape- 


*  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations,  'Tablet  of  the  Thirty 
Stars,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  67 — 70. 

^  Legge,  Lt-chit  Book  iv.,  The  Yiieh  Ling  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvii.  p.  301. 
3  Oldenberg,  Grihya  Siitrds,  Paraskara  Grihya  Sutra,  iii.  3,  $,  a — k  ;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xxix.  pp.  341—343. 

*  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories  :  The  Nidanakatha,  pp.  82—84.  The 
date  here  given  for  the  departure  of  the  Buddha  on  Kanthaka  is  the  fuH  moon 
of  Asalhi  (Asarh),  June — ^July.  But  that  was  the  date  of  the  Glorification 
of  the  Perfect  Buddha,  the  sun-god  of  the  summer  solstice,  not  of  the  birth 
of  the  first  Buddha,  the  sun-physician,  which  is  that  slated  in  the  Paraskara 
Grihya  Sutra,  iii.  3,  5  c. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  333 

god.  It  was  as  an  offering  to  this  father-thigh-god  that 
on  the  day  following  each  of  the  Ashtakas  a  cow  was  sacri- 
ficed, and  the  left  thigh  and  ribs  presented  to  the  presiding 
deity  of  the  Fathers.  Strong  drink  and  garlands,  the  flower 
garlands  of  the  Teli  mother-goddess,  were  also  offered  to  the 
Mothers  ^. 

The  tiger  and  his  tiger  wives  were,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
parents  of  the  Mens  or  Mallis,  who,  with  the  Licchavis  or 
sons  of  the  Akkadian  dog  {Ltg),  formed  the  confederacy  of 
the  Vajjians  or  sons  of  the  tiger  ( Vydghra\  who  ruled  the 
country  on  the  borders  of  Nepal  which  intervened  between 
it  and  Thibet.  This  Tiger  country  was  that  in  which  the 
Buddha  was  bom,  and  it  was  the  year  of  the  tiger 
and  the  Tiger-star  Pegasus,  which  made  its  way  into 
China,  as  is  shown  by  the  Chinese  Calendar  in  the  Li- 
chi,  in  which  the  year  beginning  in  January — February, 
the  year  of  the  birth  of  the  Ekashtaka  sun-god,  is  said 
to  begin,  when  the  sun  is  in  Shih  or  Pegasus  *.  The 
year-sun  born  of  the  Tiger  mother,  the  Mossoo  goddess 
Kouei  Ying,  is  the  sun-god  called  Kwan-tsz*tsan,  the  self- 
existing  sun-god  also  called  Kwan  Yin  3,  or  the  male  form 
of  his  mother  the  Buddhist  Avaldkatesvara,  the  visible 
{avalokitd)  god,  the  sun  of  the  Buddhist  year  of  three 
seasons,  who,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  II.  p.  36,  was 
represented  in  the  statues  seen  by  Hiouen  Tsiang  at  Tiladaka 
in  Magadha  as  born  from  Tara,  the  Pole  Star,  and  the 
Buddha.  He  is  represented  as  sitting  on  his  mother's  lap 
in  one  of  the  Chinese  statues  in  the  Mus6e  Guimet  in 
Paris  4. 

This  Mossoo  year  begins  with  the  birth  of  the  Tiger-sun, 
and  in  stanza   14  of  M.  Bonin's   translation   of  the  ritual 


*  Oldenberg,  Grihya  Sutras ^  Paraskara  Grihya  Sutra,  in.  3,8 — ii,  Sankha- 
yana  Grihya  Sutra,  iii.  14,  3 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxix.  pp.  344,  105. 

'  Legge,  Lt-chty  Bk.  iv.,  The  Yiieh  Ling,  i.  i ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvii.  p.  249. 
-^  Uealc   Buddhist  Records  of  tlu   Western  World,  Hiouen  Tsiang,  vol.  i.  pp. 
60,  note  210,  127,  note  28,  128. 

*  Guide  au  Musie  Guimet  Vitrine^  20,  p.  13$. 


334  History  and  Chronolog}* 

the  thirty-three  days  of  the  months  of  this  year  arc  called 
the  thirty-three  genii  of  heaven,  while  its  twenty-two  half- 
months  are  called  the  twenty-two  genii  of  earth.  It 
closes  with  the  constellation  of  the  Pig.  This  in  Thibetan 
astronomy  is  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear  ruled  by 
'the  goddess  Marlchi,  the  spouse  of  Haya-griva,  the  god  of 
the  horse's  ijiaya)  neck  {griva)  or  head,  the  ruling  god  of  this 
eleven-months  year,  the  sun-god  born  at  its  commencement. 
He  is  driven  away  by  the  Buddhist  priests,  as  the  most 
powerful  of  evil  spirits,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sacramental 
service  of  three  pills  of  flour,  sugar  and  butter,  partaken  uith 
beer,  at  the  annual  national  festival,  beginning  their  year  in 
Magh  (January — February)  ^  which  is  thus  the  same  as  the 
Mossoo  year.  This  god,  called  in  Thibetan  Tam-ding,  is 
also  married  to  Tara,  the  Pole  Star.  Hence  Tara,  the 
Pole  Star,  married  to  Su-griva,  the  bird-headed-ape,  and 
Marichi  to  Haya-griva,  the  horse-headed  god,  are  equivalents. 
MarlchI  means  the  fire-spark,  and  is  feminine  in  Sanskrit. 
She  is  called  in  Rg.  x.  58,  6  the  goddess  in  the  light  heights 
of  heaven,  to  whom  the  dead  go.  In  the  Mahabharata  she 
becomes  the  male  Marichi,  the  father  of  Kashyapa  =,  the 
father  of  the  Kushika,  and  one  of  the  six  sons  of  Brahma. 
In  Hindu  astronomy  he  is  represented  as  one  of  the  stars 
of  the  Great  Bear,  and  with  his  son  Kashyapa,  he  is  one 
of  the  tail  stars  in  the  constellation  Simshumara,  the 
alligators.  It  is  as  a  star,  to  which  the  Great  Bear  points, 
that  Marichi  is  represented  in  Thibetan  theology.  Then 
she  is  the  goddess  called  also  Vajra  Varahi,  the  sow  {vdraJii) 
of  the  thunderbolt,  who  has  thrfte  faces,  the  left  being  that 
of  a  sow,  and  sits  upon  a  lotus  throne,  driving  the  seven 
pigs,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  4.  She  also  appears 
in  Japan  as   the  war-god  seated  on  a  boar  5,  and  we  see 

'  Waddcll,  The  Buddhism  of  Thibi-t^  pp.  361,  446,  44S,  502,  503. 

"  Mahahhdraia  Adi  [Sarnbhava)  i'arva,  Ixv.  p.  185. 

^  Sachau,  Alberuni's  Indiuy  vol.  i.  chap.  xlv.  p.  390,  xxii.  p.  242. 

*  Waddcll,  The  Buddhism  of  Thibet,  p.  361. 

5  Guide  au  Muscle  Guimet  Vitrinc,  7  Clabsc  des  Tens,  pp.  208,  209. 


of  the  Myih'Makhig  Age,  335 

in  him  the  boar-god  who  was  once  the  Pole  Star  sow,  the 
god  who  slew  at  the  end  of  his  year's  course,  in  the  constel- 
lation of  the  s^^v^n  pigs,  Adonis,  the  sun-god  born  of  the 
Cypress  tree,  who  was  originally  the  Akkadian  Dumu-zi 
Orion.  This  boar-god  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Akkadian 
god  Mer-mer  or  Martu,  the  West  wind,  called  the  pig-god, 
and  in  his  female  form  of  Istar  called  Biz-bizi,  the  pig  {pes) 
mother '. 

It  seems  probable  that  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear 
was  called  that  of  the  Seven  Pigs  in  Akkadian  as  well  as 
in  Thibetan  astronomy,  for  the  planet  Saturn  is  called 
Kakkab  Ila  Ninpes,  the  star  of  the  god  of  the  Lord  of 
the  Boar  or  pig  2.  But  in  the  early  astronomy,  as  we  know 
from  the  Zendavesta,  the  planets  were  looked  upon  as  rebels, 
or  wandering  stars  not  belonging  to  the  divine  [host  of  the 
ruling  fixed  stars.  But  this  planet  of  the  pig  is,  as  its  Roman 
name  Saturnus  shows,  the  planet  of  sowing  (sa/ur),  that  is 
the  planetary  analogue  of  the  stars  of  the  Plough,  the 
Septemtriones,  or  seven  oxen  of  the  Great  Bear.  These 
in  the  ploughing  age  of  the  sun-ox  Rama,  were  the  succes- 
sors of  and  substitutes  for  the  early  Phrygian  parent-stars 
of  the  pigs,  the  flock  led  by  the  year-boar  of  heaven,  the 
boar  and  deer-sun-star  Orion. 

We  find  also  in  Celtic  mythology  most  important  evidence 
confirming  the  conclusion  that  the  Great  Bear  stars  were 
once  called,  throughout  Europe  and  Asia,  the  seven  pigs. 
This  is  furnished  by  the  story  telling  of  the  hunting  by 
Arthur  of  Twrch  Trwyth,  meaning  the  king's  boar  and  his 
seven  swine-children,  which  proves  that  the  Thibetan  mytho- 
logy of  the  seven  pigs  was  that  of  the  .early  pre-Celtic  Picts. 
This  boar-god,  Twrch  Trwyth,  carried  between  his  ears  a 
comb,  a  razor  and  pair  of  shears,  the  mythical  weapons 
for  arranging  the  hair  of  the  year-god  in  this  age,  when 
the   cult  of  the  hair  was  a  dominant  part  of  the  national 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii. ,  p.  l8l. 
-  K.    Brown,  jun.,   F.S.A.,   Primitive  Constellations^  vol.  ii.,  chap.   xv.   pp. 
215,  216. 


336  History  and  Chronology 

ritual.  It  was  to  get  these  weapons  of  the  year-god  tint 
Arthur  or  Airem,  the  sun  -  ploughman,  pursued  Twrdi 
Trwyth  and  slew  him  and  his  seven  sons,  the  seven  stais 
of  the  Great  Bear,  the  eight  ruling  powers  before  the  age 
of  the  sun-god  of  the  eight-rayed  star  of  Chapter  VIL 
These  ruling  gods  were  those  of  the  primitive  Pictish 
population,  called  in  Britain  Prydain,  or  sons  of  the  form 
(pryd)^  the  people  who  tatooed  their  totems  on  their  persons- 
The  swine  of  heaven,  the  stars,  were  herded  by  the  three 
stout  swineherds  of  the  Isle  of  Prydain.  (i)  Pryderi,  the 
man  of  the  form  {pryd),  son  of  PwyH  or  Arawn,  the  god 
of  the  Southern  Hades,  from  whom  he  got  his  swine,  as 
the  stars  of  the  South ;  (2)  Drystan,  son  of  Tailwch ;  and 
(3)  Cott,  son  of  CoHfrewi,  the  three  seasons  of  the  yedx 
of  March,  the  god  of  the  horse's  ears,  whose  ears  were,  as 
we  have  seen  in  Chapter  V.,  first  the  ears  of  the  ass-god 
Midas.  Another  form  of  Drystan  is  Drostan,  the  Druid 
who  brought  back  the  foes  of  Bran  to  life  by  a  bath  of  new 
milk.  He  is  apparently  the  summer-tree  {dru)  god.  The 
story  of  the  victory  of  Arthur  over  Twrch  Trwyth  and  his 
seven  pig-sons  tells  of  the  end  of  the  rule  of  the  Pole  Star 
god  and  of  the  conversion  of  his  worshippers  to  the  service 
of  the  sun-god,  for  we  find  in  the  Mabinogion  a  dramatic 
version  of  the  dialogue,  in  which  Gwalch-mei,  the  Hawk 
of  May,  brought  Drystan  to  leave  the  service  of  the  ass- 
god  March  and  to  swear  fealty  to  Arthur  ^ 

To  return  to  the  year  of  the  Mossoos,  who  worship  the 
seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  as  the  Seven  Pigs.  It  is 
one  began  under  the  constellation  of  the  Tiger  or  Horse 
Pegasus,  and  concluding  under  that  of  the  Great  Bear.  It 
is  thus  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  year  of  Horus  in  Egypt, 
ruled  by  the  eleven  stars  of  these  constellations.  Thus 
both  years  were  years  of  eleven  months  of  thirty-three 
days,  each  containing  363  days ;  and  that  this  was  the  year 
of   Horus    in    Egypt    is    made  still   more  probable  by  the 

*  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore f  chap.  ix.  pp.  509,510,  509 — 519,521 ;   Tin  Arthurian 
Legend^  chap.  i.  p.  12,  chap.  xii.  pp.  281 — 284,  chap.  xvi.  pp.  378 — 380. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  3  J7 

statement  in  the  Egyptain  official  myth  of  Horus,  ana- 
lysed by  M.  Naville,  that  Horus  started  with  his  son  for 
^SyP^  to  conquer  Set  in  the  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
third  year  of  his  reign  ^ 

This  year  was  also  that  of  the  Swabian  goddess  Ursula, 
the  Little  Bear,  the  German  Horsel,  who  went  cruising  for 
three  years,  those  of  the  cycle,  with  ten  companions  in 
eleven  galleys,  to  free  herself  from  the  marriage  proposals 
of  a  heathen  king.  As  the  price  of  her  freedom  she  was 
to  collect  11,000  virgins,  and  these  were  brought  to  the 
shrine  of  the  gods  of  the  three-years  cycle,  the  Three  Kings 
of  Cologne,  where,  at  the  end  of  their  three  years*  task, 
they  were  all  slaughtered  by  the  Haus  «. 

These  Mossoos,  or  Mon-su,  were  the  sons  of  the  mountain 
{vion)  and  the  bird  {su),  the  two  mother-birds  they  wor- 
shipped. They,  who  ruled  India  before  the  Kauravya  Ku- 
shikas,  came  up  thence  and  conquered  the  Thibetans,  the 
Kout-song  and  the  Min-kia,  who  are  the  aboriginal  inhabi- 
tants of  Yunnan,  and  are  both  named  in  the  Mossoo  ritual. 
They  were  worshippers  of  Hayagriva,  the  horse  {liaya)  headed 
god,  represented  with  three  heads  and  four  arms,  one  pair 
holding  and  shooting  the  bow  of  heaven  3 ;  he  is  thus  a 
Thibetan  Eurytus,  the  Centaur.  This  is  the  Indian  black- 
barley  mare,  Yavadiyi,  the  mother  of  the  horse  of  Guga,  one 
of  the  five  Pirs  or  gods  of  the  old  five-days  week,  headed 
by  Ram-deo,  the  god  Ram  4.  The  Mossoos  are  described 
by  M.  Bonin  as  entirely  matriarchal  in  their  sexual  relations, 
for  the  women  did  not  marry  but  united  themselves  to  tem- 
porary partners,  a  practice  the  Chinese  have  sought  to  stop 
by  fining  heavily  all  fathers  of  families  who  do  not  provide 
legitimate  husbands  for  their  daughters. 


*  Naville,  Mythe  d' Horus  ;  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy ^  chap.  xxvi.  p.  390. 
^  Baring  Gould,  *  Curious  Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,'  Ursula,  Encyc.  BriL^ 

Ninth  Edition,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  13. 
3  Waddell,  The  Buddhism  of  Thibet^  pp.  364,  444 — 446. 

*  Crooke,  Introduction  to  the  Popular  Religions  and  Folklore  of  Northern 
India f  pp.  1 30— 1 32. 

Z 


338  History  and  Chronology 

F.     The  connection  between  this  year  and  ceremonial  htit* 

cutting. 

The  Mossoos,  like  the  Chinese,  wear  pig-tails,  and  this 
is  also  a  characteristic  mark  of  the  Mundas.  It  was  thcf 
and  the  Bhils,  the  men  of  the  bow,  who  introduced  into 
India  the  custom  of  hair-cutting.  This  was  originally  an 
offering  to  the  river-parent-gods  of  a  lock  of  hair,  in  which 
the  strength  of  the  body  dwelt,  according  to  the  belief  of 
the  Jewish  Nazarites,  as  set  forth  in  the  story  of  Samson. 
We  see  in  the'  Creation  story  of  the  Edda  how  the  sacrifice 
originated.  It  is  there  said  the  Ymin,  the  roarer,  the  thunder- 
cloud-god, made  grass  and  trees  of  his  hair.  This  hair  thus 
offered  was  the  firstfruits,  which  it  was  the  duty  of  all 
men  and  women  to  offer  to  the  creating  rain-god-parent  of 
the  rivers.  Thus  Achilles  sent  a  lock  of  his  hair  by  the 
hand  of  his  dead  friend  Patroclus  to  his  parent-river  Sper- 
cheios '.  This  custom  of  cutting  off  the  front  hair  as  an 
offering  made  at  puberty  apparently  began  in  this  epoch. 
It  was  a  distinctive  tribal  mark  of  the  Abantes  of  Eubcea, 
whose  weapons  were  the  ashen  spears  of  the  sons  of  the 
northern  ash-tree,  Yggdrasil,  sacred  to  the  sun-horse '. 
This  tonsure  offering,  ascribed  to  the  Celts  under  the  name 
Celtic  tonsure,  was  that  made  by  all  young  Athenians  as 
a  preliminary  observance  necessary  before  they  could  claim, 
at  the  age  of  eighteen,  their  share  in  the  village  land  and 
admission  into  the  Phratria.  It  was  originally  required 
both  from  women  and  men,  for  Pausanias  tells  us  that  the 
women  of  Troezen  used  to  offer  a  lock  of  their  hair  to 
Hippolytus,  the  constellation  Auriga  3,  called  by  the  Ak- 
kadians Askar,  the  goat. 

This   constellation    is   also  called    by  Aratus4  the   goat. 
The  goat-star  is  one  on  the  left  shoulder,  and  the  kids  two 

*  //iVw/,  xxiii.  141— 146.  '  Ibid.,  ii.  535—544. 
3  P'razer,  Pausanias^  ii.  32,  vol.  i.  p.  121. 

*  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  The  Phainomena^  or  Heavenly  Display  of  Aratui, 
I55»  166,  679—682. 


of  tlu  Myth'Making  Age,  339 

stars  on  the  left  hand  of  the  Driver  or  Charioteer.    This 
driver  is  Poseidon  or  the  ocean-snake-god  Ericthonius,  king 
of  the  realms  below  the  ocean  on  which  the  earth  floats,  who 
is  called   the   Olenian  ^   or  Taraxippos,   the    frightener   of 
horses.     This  epithet  of  Olenian,  also  given  to  the  goats 
which  he  bears   on  his  left  shoulder,  is  derived   from  the 
Greek    Olene   (wXei/iy),   arm,   and    marks    this    driving-god 
as  he  who  bears  the  goat  of  the  Pole  Star  on  his  arm,  an 
epithet  exactly  similar  to  that  which  calls  Hermes,  Krio- 
phorus,  the  Ram-bearer.     Both  epithets  indicate  that  these 
year-gods  are  sons  of  the  mother-tree  growing  on  the  very^ 
fertile  (ipix^dv)  earth,  from  which  the  snake-god  took  his 
name.     Thus  he  was  the  ruler  of  the  cycle-year  of  the  goat, 
and  he,  as  we  have  seen,  gave  the  sun-horses  of  this  year 
to  Achilles.     He  is  also  thus  equated  withThor  and  Pushan, 
from  the  latter  of  whom  he  may  have  taken  his  name  of 
Poseidon,  the  god  with  the  form  (etSo?)  of  Push,  as  they  were 
both  gods  whose  year-chariot  was  drawn  by  goats  2;  and  we 
have  seen  that  Pushan  was  the  year-god  who  wedded  the 
sun-maiden   when   the   sun   was   in    Cancer   at   the   winter 
solstice,  about  14,200  B.C.,  that  is  in  the  cycle-year.     This 
god  of  the  year-car,  also  called  Hippolytus,  is  in  this  form 
the  son  of  Theseus,  meaning  the  Organiser  or  Civiliser,  who 
learnt  from  the  star-goddess  Ariadne  (Corona  Borealis)  to 
measure  the  course  of  the  sun  through  the  year  by  the  stars. 
She  thus  'furnished  him  with  the  clue  by  which  he  reached 
the  centre  of  the  labyrinth  of  the  Minotaur,  the  year-god 
of  the  early  Pole  Star  age,  which  he  slew.     The  mother  of 
Hippolytus  was  Hippolyte,  daughter  of  Mars,  the  god  of  the 
South-west  wind  Martu,  the  tree-mother  of  the  South ;  and 
he,  like  Joseph,  the  eleventh  son  of  Jacob,  who  saw  in  his 
dream  the  eleven  stars  of  this  year,  was  accused  of  attempt- 
ing to  violate  the  second  wife  of  Theseus  Phoedra,  the  moon- 
goddess  of  the  myrtle-tree,  and  torn  to  death  by  his  own 


*  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vi.  20,  8,  vol.  i.  pp.  315 1  316. 

»  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities  :  The  Prose  Edda,  ii,  p.  417  ;  Rg.  vi.  55,  6. 

Z    2 


340  History  and  Chronology 

horses  at  the  end  of  this  year,  during  w^ich  he  drove  Ik 
year-chariot ».     He  was  restored  to  life  by  iEsculapios,  the 
jTod  of  Troezen  2,  where  hair  offerings  were  made,  and  k 
then  became  Virbius,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  mat 
god  of  the  Grove  of  Aricia,  ruled  by  Diana  or  Tana,  thctitt' 
goddess  of  the  Southern  mud  {tati)^  p.  34.    This  constellatioi 
of  the  god  who  drove  the  year-chariot  of  the  goat  beone 
the   guardian   constellation   of  the   Babylonians,  the  stv> 
messenger  of  the   Pole   Star  goat.    They  called  the  sl» 
Capella  a  Auriga,  the  little  goat  on  the  left  wrist  oftk 
driver  Dilgan,  the  god  {dil)  of  the  land  (gan),  and  it  m 
by  the  position  of  this  star  in  relation  to  the  new  moQO 
of  the  vernal   equinox   that  the  Akkadians,   accordii^  to 
Dr.  Saycc,  determined  the  beginning  of  the  years.    It  was 
also  used  as  a  year-star  by  the  prehistoric  Hor-shesu  in  Egypt 
for   Sir  N.  Lockyer  tells   us  of  three  temples  at  Kanuk, 
Memphis  and  Annu  oriented  to  Capella  as  a  setting-star, 
at  dates  varying  from  5500  B.C.  to  3050  B.C.4    These  were 

'  A   similar  accusation   was  made  against  Bcllerophon,  Baal  Raphon,  ibe 
rider  on  Pegasus,  and  Pclcus,  father  of  Achilles,  both  gods  of  this  year  oftntf* 
tion  from  Pule  Star  worship  to  that  of  the  zodiacal  sun,  who  was  not  ibe 
ploughing-sun  Rama,  guided  by  Lakhsman,  but  the  sun  making  his  own  pid> 
through  the  appointed  stars.     Bellerophon  was  accused  by  Anteia,  the  bockwaii 
{afife)  goer,  the  moon-goddess  of  the  stars  going  widershins  round  the  Poki 
She  was  wife  of  Proetus,  king  of  Tiryns,  the  oldest  city  of  Argos,  the  loA 
of  the  Southern  sons  of  the  constellation  Argo.     Pcleus*  accuser  was  Hippolftei 
a  female  form  of  Plippolytus,  he  who  was  loosed  by  horses  who  elided  tbe   1 
heaven  as  a  night -star,  in  the  path  of  the  solar  lunar  zodiac.    Her  hnsbiK 
was  Akastos,  king  of  Thcssay,  and  his  name  connected  with  ^Kdarris,  a  healeii 
and  &1C17,  a  knife,  as  well  as  the  a"fifxara  \vypdt  or  dreadful  signs,  carried  liy 
Bcllerophon  as  his  death   warrant   (Homer,  //iW,   vi.    178,    179),  traced  0* 
a  tablet  (irfi^airt),  tell  of  this  age  of  incipient  sun-worship  as  the  Bronze  Afic 
in  which  the  barber-surgeons  began  to  use  the  knife  and  written  pictogiapUc 
characters  were  first  employeil.     Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  PrckistcrU  Ttwui^'^ 
i.,  Essay  vi.,  p.  523—532. 

'  Frazer,  Pausaniasj  i.  22,  2,  vol.  i.  p.  31. 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  pp.  4l9i 
note  2,  420;  Sayce,  Herodotus^  p.  402  ;  R.  Brownfi,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  *  Euphiatean 
Stellar  Researches.'    Proceedings  of  ike  Society  of  Biblical  Archa:ology^  May. 

1893.  P-  324- 
^  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy ^  chap.  xxxi.  pp.  316,  318,  chap.  xxx.  p.  312. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  341 

^mples  to  Ptah,  the  opening  {patah)  god,  who  was,  as  we 
ave  seen,  the  Southern  creating-ape  of  the  worshippers  of 
ie  evening  stars.  Annu  also  is  On,  the  city  of  the  sun-god, 
rliose  high-priest  gave  his  daughter  Asenath  as  wife  to 
oseph  I,  the  interpreter  {asipu)  god  of  this  year,  who  wore 
he  star-coat  of  many  colours,  and  ended  his  year  as  the 
*ar-god,  the  eleventh  son  of  Jacob,  in  the  pit  dug  for 
ions  2,  that  is  under  the  constellation  Leo,  ruling  the  year 
of  the  ape  with  the  lion's  tail.  This  year  of  Babylon  ruled 
l>y  Capella,  beginning  at  the  vernal  equinox,  was  one 
^uivalent  to  this  eleven-months  year  in  India,  which  was, 
^  we  have  seen,  measured  by  the  constellation  Chitra  or 
"Virgo  ruling  the  month  March — April,  and  it  thus  furnishes 
lis  with  valuable  evidence  as  to  the  chronology  of  the  year 
«f  the  hair-offerers. 

But  to  return  after  this  digression  to  the  historical  evidence 
given  by  the  customs  of  cutting  the  hair,  we  learn  from 
Pausanias  that  offerings  of  hair  were  made  before  marriage 
by  the  girls  of  Megara  and  Delos  3 ;  and  that  the  hair  of  the 
children  of  the  Dorian  city  of  Corinth  was  cut  in  remem- 
brance of  the  children  of  Medea  4,  who  was  the  counsellor 
of  Jason,  the  healer  (w),  in  the  year-voyage  of  the  Argo, 
the  mother-constellation  of  the  South,  and  of  the  Turano- 
Dravidian  races  who  brought  to  Greece  the  Dravidian  and 
Dorian  customs  of  communal  village  holdings,  communal 
education  of  the  village  children  and  common  meals. 

Hence  the  custom  of  the  ceremonial  cutting  of  the 
children's  hair  was  one  apparently  brought  from  India. 
The  ritual  of  the  ceremony,  which  was  performed  on  girls 
as  well  as  boys,  is  described  in  the  Grihya  Sutra  5.  It  re- 
quires that  the  hair  of  all  children  should  be  cut  off  in  the 


»  Gen.  xli.  $0.  *  Ibid,  xxxvii.  20 — 24. 

^  Frazer,  Pausanias^  i.  43,  4,  vol.  i.  p.  66.  *  Ibid.,  ii.  3,  6,  vol.  i.  p.  75. 

5  Oldenberg,  Grihya  St'ttra^  Shankayana  Grihya  Sutra,  i.  28,  1—24  ;  Ashval- 
ayana  Grihya  Sutra,  i.  17,  i — 19,  Paraskara  Grihya  Sutra,  ii.  I,  i— 17,  Grihya 
Sutra  of  Gobhila,  ii.  9,  1—29;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxix.  pp.  55—57,  184—186,  301— 
303,  voL  XXX.  pp.  60—63. 


34^  History  and  Chronology 

first  or  third  year,  or  according  to  family  custom,  and 
rule  prevails  among  the  Bhils,  who  do  not  acknowledge  Hi 
ritual,  but  who  shave  their  children's  hair  when  they  are 
or  five  years  old.  The  custom  is  also  observed  by 
Malays,  who  in  India  are  the  Mallis  or  Mons,  the  men 
Malabar.  They  cut  the  hair  in  the  first  week  after  birth 
a  few  days  after  the  child  is  named,  and  in  some  cases  lea^ 
the  central  lock,  the  top-knot  of  the  Mundas,  Mossoos  a 
Chinese,  but  generally  shave  all  the  hair  off^  But  t 
custom  of  shaving,  which  involves  the  use  of  a  sharp  razor, 
belongs  to  a  later  age  than  that  with  which  we  are  now 
dealing.  It  would  be  impossible  for  the  barber-priest  of  the! 
Grihya-Sutras,  who  performs  the  religious  ceremony  of  the 
Hindu  tonsure  with  a  copper  razor  and  one  of  Udumbara 
{Ficus  glomerata)  wood,  to  shave  the  heads  on  which  he 
operated. 

It  is  most  probable  that  the  ceremony  was  originally 
performed  at  the  age  of  puberty,  and  in  the  case  of  women 
before  marriage,  and  that  then  only  a  few  locks  were  cut 
off.  Mr.  Skeat  saw  seven  cut  from  the  head  of  the  Malay 
bride  at  whose  tonsure  he  officiated  ^.  These  locks  with  the 
water  in  which  they  were  placed  were  buried  at  the  foot 
of  a  barren  fig-tree  in  hopes  of  making  it  bear  fruit,  a 
ceremony  repeating  the  belief  of  the  Edda  that  trees  and 
grass  were  the  hair  of  the  creator  Ymin.  That  the  Hindu 
ceremony  of  the  ceremonial  clipping  of  the  hair,  succeeding 
that  of  the  ceremonial  offering  of  hair  to  the  river-gods  made 
by  the  Greek  youths  and  maidens,  was  one  dating  from  the 
age  of  this  year  is  rendered  probable  by  the  ritual  and 
the  evidence  as  the  institution  of  the  barber's  trade. 

The  barbers  of  Bengal  are  divided  into  the  three  castes 
of  Bhandaris,  Hajams  and  Napits.  Their  caste  customs 
prove  that  they  were  originally  associations  of  Kushika 
priests,  who  belonged  to  the  age  of  the  worship  of  the 
Fanch  Firs,  or  five  village  gods  of  the  Telis,  who,  as  we 

'  Skeat,  Malay  Magic^  chap.  vi.  p.  341.  ■  Ibid.,  chap,  vi,  pp.  353—355. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  343 

have  seen,  trace  their  descent  from  the  gods  of  the  eleven- 
months  year.  Thus  the  Bhandaris,  the  barbers  of  Orissa, 
still  in  some  villages  are  the  priests  of  these  gods,  and  hold 
land  rent  free  in  payment  for  their  services.  Hence  in 
Orissa,  one  of  the  birth-places  of  Indian  ritual,  the  country 
of  the  great  temple  of  Jagahnath  at  Poori,  and  of  the 
Mahendra  mountain  sacred  to  Parasu-Rama,  who  was,  as 
\vc  have  seen,  a  god  of  the  cycle-era,  the  institution  of 
barber-priests  dates  back  to  the  days  when  grants  of  land 
were  set  apart  for  the  village  servants,  and  when  the  Mahto 
or  superintendent  of  the  Manjhus  land  allotted  to  the  king 
was  one  of  the  village  rulers,  for  the  Mahto  still  exists  in 
all  Orissa  villages.  There  also  the  rules  as  to  the  tenure 
of  land  are  similar  to  those  of  the  Ooraons,  which  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  V.  to  be  like  those  of  the  Pre-Celtic 
Welsh.  The  Bhandaris  are  marked  as  a  Kushika  caste  by 
their  marriage  rites,  for  among  them  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom are  united  not  by  the  earlier  Sindurdan  ceremony 
of  marking  the  partings  of  the  bride's  hair  with  red,  as 
a  symbol  of  making  blood  brotherhood,  but  by  tying  the 
hands  of  the  wedded  pair  together  with  a  wisp  of  Ku§ha 
grass  I. 

The  Hajams,  the  barber-surgeons  of  Behar  or  Magadha, 
the  Chiroo  country  of  the  sun-god  Ra-hu,  marry  by  the  rite 
of  Sindurdan,  but  worship  the  five  Pirs.  They  arc  the 
universal  match-makers,  the  assistants  of  the  Brahmin  priest 
in  the  marriages  of  the  higher  and  the  marriage-priest  of  the 
lower  castes.  They  also  like  the  Bhandaris  are  village 
servants,  getting  a  stipulated  payment  in  grain  in  Behar,  and 
an  allotment  of  land  in  Chutia  Nagpur  and  Manbhum.  Their 
wives  act  as  nurse-tenders  to  women  during  the  last  six  days 
of  their  confinement,  succeeding  the  Chamar  or  Dhanuk 
nurse  who  acts  during  the  first  six  days.  The  Dhanuks,  who 
are  allied  to  the  Chamars  or  workers  in  leather,  are  the  sons 
of  the   bow   {dlianii),   who   are  the   personal   servants   and 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Cosies  0/ Bengal,  Bhandari,  vol.  i.  pp.  92 — 94. 


344  History  and  Chronology 

watchmen  in  the  higher  caste  households  of  the  old  Maghada 
kingdom  of  Behar  and  of  the  North-west  provinces.  They 
are  connected  with  the  leading  agricultural  caste  of  the 
Kurmis^  one  of  whose  seven  sub-divisions  is  called  Dhanuk. 

They  as  a  caste  are  divided  into  two  sections,  called  Naga 
and  Kashyapa.  That  is  to  say,  they  are  the  survivals  of  the 
old  Naga  Kushika,  sons  of  Kashyapa^  who,  as  I  have  shown 
in  Chapter  III.  p.  86,  were  originally  like  the  Dhanuks, 
sons  of  the  bow  (Kaus) '. 

In  Bengal  the  barber-surgeon  is  called  Napit,  and  gets 
an  allotment  of  land  as  a  village  servant.  He  is  the  marriage 
agent  and  the  marriage  priest.  In  the  Napit  marri^^e,  after 
the  bridegroom  has  been  anointed  with  mustard  oil  and 
turmeric  as  a  member  of  the  yellow  race,  he  and  the  bride 
are  both  dressed  in  the  sacred  red  tusser  Kausya  silk,  and 
are  united  by  the  bride  placing  her  hands  palms  downward 
on  the  palms  of  the  bridegroom.  The  Napit  barber,  who 
officiates  as  priest,  dictates  the  mantras  the  wedded  pair 
are  to  repeat,  and  finishes  the  ceremony  by  instructing  them 
in  their  duties  in  the  words  of  the  Gaur-vachana,  or  discourse 
telling  of  the  wedding  of  Shiva  and  Parvati,  the  mountain- 
goddess,  in  her  form  of  Gauri,  the  wild  cow  or  Indian  bison  ^. 

The  ceremonies  of  the  Hindu  tonsure,  called  Chula- 
karman  or  arrangement  of  the  hair,  confirm  the  conclusions 
as  to  the  great  antiquity  of  their  craft  drawn  from  the  caste 
usages  of  the  barbers.  They  prove  that  the  hair  was 
originally  only  clipped  as  a  firstfruits*  offering  of  the  growing 
products  of  the  body,  answering  to  the  crops  grown  from  the 
earth.  Both  were  in  primitive  creeds  the  offspring  of  the 
rain,  and  hence  arose  the  Malay  rule  forbidding  coverings 
to  be  worn  on  the  head  3. '  This  must  be  left  open,  like  the 
crops,  to  the  life-giving  air  and  rain,  and  most  of  the  Indian 
lower  castes,  including  the  Ooraons,  who  tend  their  hair 
carefully,  keep  their  heads  bare.     It  was  from  the  belief  in 

'  Risley,    Tndes  ami  CasUs  of  Bt^ngal,  Hajam,  Dhanuk,  vol.   i.  pp.  306 — 
309,  220.  -^  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  Napit,  pp.  125 — 129. 

-5  Skeat,  Malay  Magic,  chap.  ii.  p.  43  ;  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  vol.  i.  p.  189. 


of  the  Myth'Makifig  Age.  345 

the  sanctifying  efficacy  of  water  that  each  lock  of  hair  was 
moistened  before  it  was  cut,  and  this  was  a  repetition  of  the 
bathing  of  the  child  which  preceded  the  hair-clipping.     It 
was  an  early  form  of  the  baptismal  rite  common  to  all  the 
yellow  sons  of  the  rivers  who  worshipped  the  wolf-sun-god, 
the  Lycian  Apollo,  born  on  the  yellow   river  Xanthus,  in 
which  he  was  bathed  by  his  mother  ;  and  in  this  ceremony 
the  child  was  believed  to  be  impregnated  with  the  seed  of 
life  stored  by  the  rain-god  of  heaven  in  the  waters  of  the 
parent-river.     The  barber  used  mixed  hot  and  cold  water 
to  moisten  the   head,  and  placed  next  each  lock  before  he 
cut  it  a  bunch  of  Kusha  grass  which  he  cut  with  the  hair. 
He  first  wet  the  head  three  times  from  left  to  right,  in  the 
direction  of  the  sun,  with  water,  fresh  butter  and  curds,  but 
in  cutting  the  hair  he  took  the    right-hand  side  first,  and 
thence  cut  three  or  four  locks.     He  then  cut  from  the  left 
side  two  or  three  locks,  making  the  whole  number  of  locks 
five  or  seven,  answering  to  the  five  and  seven  days  of  the 
week.     The  Gobhila  Grihya  Sutra  directs  that  seven  locks 
are  to  be  cut,  beginning  with  the    right   side,  whence  the 
barber  proceeds  to  cut  seven  locks  first  from  the  back  and 
then  from  the  left  side,  thus  going  round  the  head  contrary 
to  the  course  of  the  sun.     The  twenty-one  locks  thus  cut 
answer  to  the  twenty-one  days  of  the  month  in  the  seven- 
teen-months  year  of  Chapter  VHI.     In  this  last  ceremony 
it  is  clear  that   the  cutting  leaves  three  single  tufts  to  be 
arranged,  one  on  each  side  and  one  at  the  back  of  the  head. 
These  answer  to  the  three  locks  worn   by  the  Dakota  or 
joined  Indians  ^  the  American  representatives  of  the  Hindu 
Khati.     They  have,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  **  Ruling  Races 
of  Prehistoric  Times,"  reproduced  in  America  the  ceremony 
of  the  self-torturing  Churuk  or  swinging  Puja,  a  relic  of  this 
ascetic   Hindu  age.     It  is  celebrated  in   Bengal  about  the 
beginning  of  Baisakh  (April— May),  a  month  which,  as  we 


'   MalJury,  'Picture  Writing  of  the  American  Indians.'     Publications  0/  the 
J^unau  of  Ethnology  of  thi  Smith.^oniau  JnstUiition^  vol.  x.  p.  433,  Fig.  558. 


346  History  and  Chronology 

have  seen,  bc[;an  the  year  of  this  epoch  opening  with  the 
Roman  Palilia  and  its  associated  festivals.  Also  they 
associated  with  this  festival  the  Ooraon  rites  of  cutting 
down  the  sacred  Kurum  or  almond-tree  and  the  buffalo 
dance '.  The  hair  when  cut  by  the  Indian  barber  is  to  be 
placed  on  Ku§ha  grass,  bull's  dung  or  Shaml  leaves,  and, 
according  to  the  Shankayana  Sutra,  to  be  buried  in  a  garden, 
like  the  hair  of  the  Malays.  The  Kusha  grass,  like  that  cut 
with  the  hair  by  the  barber,  shows  that  the  ceremony  dates 
from  the  age  of  the  Kushika,  while  the  leaves  of  the  Shaml 
(Prosopis  spicigera)t  the  hundred-branched  {shata-valsfta)  tree, 
show  that  the  ritual  of  the  Ashvalayana  Grihya  Sutra,  in 
which  it  and  twenty-one  bunches  of  Kusha  grass  are  used, 
belonged  to  the  later  age  of  the  Pandavas  and  of  the  seven- 
teen-months  year.  This  Shami  tree  is  that  in  which  the 
Pandavas  hid  their  bows  during  their  seclusion  in  Virata 
in  the  thirteenth  year  of  their  exile  from  power.  It  was 
from  this  tree  that  Arjuna  took  his  bow  when  he  went  forth 
with  Uttara,  the  North-god,  as  his  charioteer  to  fight  the 
Kauravyas,  under  the  banner  of  the  ape-god  with  the  lion's 
tail,  who  ruled  this  year.  His  bow  was  the  Gandiva,  the  god 
[diva)  of  the  land  {gan),  the  rain-bow  of  the  rain-god,  which 
was,  wc  are  told,  successively  the  bow  of  Sakrci,  the  wet  {sak) 
god,  of  Soma,  the  mother-trec-god,  and  of  Varuna,  the  ram- 
rain  {var)  god  of  heaven,  the  rain-sun-god  2. 

The  barber's  fee  fur  this  baptismal  ceremony  was  rice, 
barley,  scsanium  seeds,  and  beans  or  millet,  thus  showing 
that  it  belongs  to  the  age  when  barley  and  millets  had  been 
brought  from  Asia  Minor  to  India  with  the  sacred  oil 
{sesamum  orientale)  of  the  Telis. 

The  custom  of  ceremonial  hair-cutting,  of  which  I  have 
now  sketched  the  first  beginnings  was  apparently  exported 
from    India  to  all  the  countries   on  the  Persian  Gulf  and 

*  HewiU,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  ix.  pp.  291 — 293. 

=  Mahabharata  Virata  (Pdndava-pravesha)  Parva,  v.  pp.  12,  13,  Virata  (Go< 
harana)  Panra,  xli.,  xlii.  pp.  icx),  loi  ;  Zimmer,  Alt  indisches  Leben^  chap, 
iii.  pp.  59,  60. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  347 

Southern  Arabia,  for  Jeremiah  xxv.  20 — 23,  speaks  of  the 
people  of  Dedan  in  the  Persian  Gulf  and  of  Tema,  or 
Southern  Arabia,  as  "  having  the  corners  of  their  hair  pol- 
led." This  expression  apparently  refers  to  a  ceremonial 
cutting  of  the  side  locks  like  that  prescribed  in  the 
Indian  ritual.  But  the  cutting  of  the  side  locks  seems  in 
Southern  Arabia,  according  to  Herodotus  iii.  8,  to  have 
become  a  shaving  of  the  temples  and  a  cutting  of  the  hair 
in  front,  after  the  fashion  of  Dionysus.  He,  whose  car  was 
drawn  by  Indian  leopards,  was  originally  the  Indian  god 
Shiva,  the  god  of  dancing  accompanied  by  the  consumption 
of  ardent  drinks,  who  was  transported  to  Arabia,  whence  he 
brought  to  Greece  the  cult  of  Dionysus.  He  was,  as  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  V.  pp.  243,  244,  the  son  of  the  Phoenician 
goddess  Semele  or  Samlath,  whose  images  were  worshipped 
under  the  Brythonic  Celtic  name  of  Pen  or  Pen  Samlath, 
the  lady  [Pen)  Samlath  or  Shemiramot ;  and  this  name  of 
the  Celtic  queen  of  heaven  was  given  to  the  mother  of 
the  wine-god  by  the  Indian  Turvasu,  who  called  the  Pole 
Star  Tarl  Pennu.  This  shaving  of  the  front  of  the  head 
instead  of  only  the  side  locks  is  the  Celtic  tonsure.  It  be- 
came in  the  later  days  of  sun-worship,  when  men  began 
to  worship  the  rising-sun  of  the  East  instead  of  the  setting- 
sun  of  the  West,  the  tonsure  which  left  only  the  scalp-lock  on 
the  top  of  the  head  uncut.  This  was  the  rite  prescribed 
for  all  those  who  offered  the  sacrifices  of  the  year  of  three 
seasons  at  the  Vaishvadeva,  Varuna  Praghasah  and  Saka- 
medha  festivals.  The  hair  was  to  be  cut  for  these  festivals, 
and  before  partaking  of  the  later  Soma  sacrament,  with 
a  copper  razor,  as  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  Grihya  Sutra 
ritual  ^  It  was  this  all-round  tonsure,  or  clipping  of 
all  hair  except  the  scalp -lock,  which  produced  the  pig- 
tail of  the  Mossoos,  Chinese,  Mundas,  and  all  high-caste 
Hindus. 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  ii.  6,  4,  5—7  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  450. 


348  History  and  Cfironalogy 

G.     The  Bronze  Age  in  India. 

This  evidence  of  the  early  history  of  ceremonial  hair- 
cutting  proves  that  it  originated  in  the  Copper  Age  pre- 
ceding that  of  Bronze.  This  last  is  called  in  the  Rigveda 
and  Brahmanas  the  epoch  of  the  third-class  of  Fathers,  the 
Agnishvattah,  or  fathers  who  burnt  their  dead.  They  are 
the  race  whose  remains  are  found  with  bronze  metal  vessels 
and  spear-points  in  the  circular  mound-tombs  in  the  Nilgiris, 
answering  in  their  form  to  the  round  burrows  of  the  Bronze 
Age  in  Europe.  The  people  who  made  these  graves  are 
depicted]  in  the  clay  figures  found  in  them  as  wearing  high 
hats  I.  Native  tradition  says  that  these  tombs  are  those 
of  the  Pandyan  kings,  the  Pandavas  of  the  Mahabharata, 
and  assigns  them  to  the  Kurumbas,  the  mixed  shepherd 
and  cultivating  race,  of  whom  the  Kurmis,  the  Madras 
Kacjumbis,  are  the  leading  members.  These  Kurmis  are, 
according  to  the  traditions  of  Central  India,  the  rulers  of 
the  country  who  succeeded  the  Gonds,  and  who  still  survive 
also  in  the  Kaurs,  whom  I  have  described  in  Chapter  IV. 
pp.  195,  196.  The  hat  shows  them  to  belong  to  the  race  of 
the  Chiroos,  or  sons  of  the  bird  {Chir\  the  ancient  kings 
of  Magadha,  the  Chiroos  of  Madras,  and  to  the  Dard  sons 
of  the  antelope.  That  is  to  say,  they  are  a  branch  of  the 
Hittites,  who  are  depicted  on  ancient  monuments  as  wearing 
a  high-peaked  cap  and  shoes  with  turncd-up  toes,  like 
those  made  by  the  Chamars  in  some  parts  of  India.  Offer- 
ings are  made  to  these  Fathers  of  the  Bronze  Age  at  the 
Pitriyajna,  held  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  and  they  are 
also  invoked  in  the  Vedic  hymn  summoning  the  fathers  to 
this  sacrifice  2.  To  them,  as  to  the  Pitaro  Barishadah, 
parched  barley  is  offered,  but  the  half-share  allotted  to  them 
is  ground  and  made  into  a  porridge  with  the  milk  of  a  cow 
suckling  an  adopted  calf  3.     This  is  the  Karambha,  or  barley- 

*  Hunter,  Gazetteer  of  India ^  Nilgiri  Hills,  vol.  x.  p.  322. 

=  Rg.  X.  15,  II. 

3  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  ii.  6,  1,  6  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  421. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  349 

porridge  oflFered  to  Pushafi ',  the  year  -  god  of  the  winter 
solstice,  and  husband  of  the  sun-maiden,  by  whom  he  became 
the  father  of  the  sun-god  bom  at  the  autumnal  equinox. 

The  stipulation  that  this  porridge  should  be  made  of  the 
milk  of  a  cow  suckling  an  adopted  calf  conveys  most  im- 
portant historical  information,  for  it  tells  us  of  a  time 
when  the  cow-mother-goddess  of  Indian  ritual  nursed  a 
foreign  calf,  which  was  to  supersede  her.  It  tells  in  short 
of  the  supersession  of  the  old  worship  of  the  buffalo,  the 
animal  always  sacrificed  in  Central  and  Southern  India 
at  the  Dasahara  on  the  tenth  of  Sshvina  (Assin)  (September 
— October),  that  is  on  the  tenth  day  after  the  new  moon 
of  the  autumnal  equinox.  In  this  festival  the  first  nine 
days  of  the  week  of  the  cycle  -  year  celebrate  the  victory 
of  Dui^a  or  Subhadra,  the  mountain-goddess  of  the  North, 
over  a  female  buflfalo  Mahishasur  2.  It  was  for  this  primaeval 
buffalo  that  the  bull,  cow  and  calf  were  substituted  as 
sacrificial  animals,  and  it  is  only  these  which  are  offered 
in  the  ritual  of  the  Brahmanas  and  Grihya  Sutras. 

But  this  sacred  buffalo  appears  in  the  Rigveda  as  Indra 
himself.  In  the  account  of  his  birth  3  he  is  called  the  buffalo 
{ntahisa)  son  of  the  cow  who  had  only  once  calved  (grsti)  4, 
and  his  father  is  called  Vyaftsa,  that  is,  as  wc  have  seen,  the 
constellation  Draco  which  ruled  the  year  measured  by 
seasons.  He  is  said  in  another  hymn  to  have  killed  this 
father  as  the  Vritra  or  enclosing  snake  after  drinking  Soma  at 
the  six-days  Tri-ka-dru-ka  festival  of  the  summer  solstice,  and 
he  is  there  called  Danu  or  son  of  the  Pole  Star  5.  It  was  the 
Pole  Star  god  of  Orion's  year  that  Indra,  the  buffalo,  slew,  and 
after  his  death,  and  the  warning  he  received  from  his  mother 
that  the  year-god  had  forsaken  him,  he  called  Vishnu  the 
year-god  of  months,  the  antelope-god  Krishna,  to  his  aid. 

'  Rg.  tL  56,  I,  iii.  52,  7. 

»  Monier  WUliams,  Relij^ms  Thous^^ht  and  Life  in  India,  chap.  xvi.  p.  431. 

3  Rg.  iv.  18,  10—13. 

4  Gnssmann,  IVorterlmch  zum  Rigveda,  s.v.  grsti. 

5  Rg.  u  32,  3—9. 


350  History  and  Chronology 

Vishnu  asked  him  how  he  can  hope  to  be  trusted  when  he 
had  killed  his  father,  and  Indra  replied  that  (it  was  true) 
that  he  had  once  eaten  dog's  entrails  ;  that  is,  accepted 
the  sacrifice  of  the  dog  offered,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter 
IV.  p.  184,  at  the  summer  solstice,  and  become  god  of  that 
dead  year,  the  Vritra  he  slew,  but  that  he  was  now  converted, 
and  would  partake  of  the  Soma  of  the  Shyena  or  frost  {shya) 
bird  of  the  winter  solstice  ^  That  is,  he  would  become  the 
son  of  the  mother  of  the  sun-god  begotten  at  the  winter 
solstice  and  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox.  That  he  was 
born  in  this  hymn  as  the  rain-god  of  a  new  era  is  shown  by 
his  saying  before  his  birth  «  that  he  would  be  born  from  his 
mother's  side  as  the  sun-god,  the  branch  of  the  mother-tree, 
begotten  by  the  rain-cloud  who  entered  his  mother's  womb, 
from  the  right  side,  as  Gan-isha,  the  elephant-cloud-god, 
entered  the  right  side  of  the  Buddha's  mother  3.  He  then 
promised  that  when  thus  born  as  the  sun-god  of  a  new  era 
of  years  measured  by  months  instead  of  those  measured 
by  seasons  and  weeks,  he  would  betake  himself  to  Vishnu. 

That  this  buffalo-god  born  of  a  buffalo-cow  was  a  year- 
god  is  proved  by  Rg.  ix.  113,  i — 3,  where  the  sun's  daughters 
are  said  to  have  brought  him,  impregnated  by  Parjanya, 
the  rain-god,  to  Sharyanavan,  the  ship  (ndva)  of  the  arrow, 
that  is  of  the  arrow-year  of  three  seasons,  when  he  as 
Indra  shall  drink  Soma  as  the  slayer  of  Vritra,  These 
sun-maidens  were  the  ten  maidens  or  lunar  months  of  gesta- 
tion of  the  cycle-year,  whose  singing  makes  the  Soma  flow 
for  Indra  and  Vishnu,  in  their  new  alliance  as  year-gods  of 
this  year  measured  by  lunar  months  4. 

The  buffalo  is  the  sacred  animal  of  the  Malays,  which  they 
believe  to  support  the  earth  as  it  floats  on  the  ocean.  It  is 
the  animal  always  offered  and  eaten  at  their  sacrificial  feasts, 
and  is  thus  the  counterpart  of  the  Indian  Dasahara  buffalo. 
But  this  totem  buffalo  is  not  the  sacred  buffalo  of  the  Malay 

'  Rg.  iv.  18,  II— 13.  -  Ibid.,  iv.  i8,  I,  2. 

3  Rhys  David,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories  :    The  Nidilftakathdy  p.  63. 

♦  Rg.  ix.  56,  3,  4. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  351 

tin  miners,  who  trace  their  origin  to  the  Bronze  Age.  They 
sacrifice  a  white  buffalo,  which  is  thus  the  sun-buffalo  of  the 
sun-god  born  as  the  buffalo  Indra  of  this  year  succeeding 
the  three-years  cycle.  It  is  never  killed  in  the  mine,  where, 
as  in  the  Indian  sacrificial  ground  sacred  to  the  sun-god, 
no  blood  may  be  shed,  but  portions  of  every  part  of  its 
carcase  are  deposited  inside  the  spirits'  audience-chamber 
outside  the  mine,  and  they  invoke  the  god  they  summon 
to  the  sacrifice  as  the  White  Sheikh,  king  of  the  virgin  jungle. 
But  the  flesh  of  this  white  buffalo,  the  Indra  allied  with 
Vishnu,  is  never  eaten  '. 

This  was  the  buffalo-calf  of  the  fathers  burnt  after  death, 
and  adopted  as  the  son  of  the  mother-cow  of  the  Todas 
and  Gautamas.  That  this  age  of  the  worship  of  the  white 
sun-buffalo  and  of  the  white  pig  Vishnu  of  the  Brahmins' 
daily  meditations  *  on  the  history  of  time-reckoning,  was 
one  in  which  the  heavenly  bodies  were  believed  to  go  round 
the  Pole  as  stars  of  night  and  day,  is  proved  in  the  ritual  of 
the  Brahmanas.  In  the  Pitriyajfta  the  priests  make  six  circuits 
of  the  altar,  the  first  three  contrary  to  the  course  of  the 
sun,  from  right  to  left,  and  the  other  three  from  left  to  right, 
sunwise.  They  wore  the  cord  on  the  right  shoulder,  according 
to  the  rules  of  primitive  Pole  Star  worship,  except  when  they 
are  kindling  the  fire,  and  then  they  shift  it  to  the  left 
shoulder,  and  become  sacrificially  invested  as  sun-worship- 
pers. When  the  cakes  and  porridge  are  presented  to  the 
Fathers  the  sacrificer  with  the  cord  on  his  right  shoulder 
walks  round  the  altar,  sprinkling  it  from  right  to  lefts. 
And  thus  in  the  ritual  of  these  ancestral  gods  the  ruler  of 
Pole  Star  moon  and  sun-worship  are  intermingled,  marking 
the  sacrifice   as  one  of  the    age    of   transition    from    the 


«  Skeat,  Malay  Magic ^  pp.  56,  189,  190,  268,  269. 

■  Dubois  and  Beauchamp,  Hindu  Manners  and  Customs ^  chap,  xiii.,  The 
Sam-kalpa,  3,  vol.  i.  p.  147. 

3  EfiS^°€t  ^^^'  Brdh.y  ii.  4,  2,  9,  ii.  6,  i,  12—34  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp. 
363,  423.  424.  note  2,  428—433. 


352  History  and  Chronology 

primaeval  star  and  moon  worship  to  that  of  the  adbratioa 
of  the  sun. 

It  was  these  sons  of  the  buffalo  totem  parent  of  the  Malay 
rice-growinc^  races  who  were  joined  in  India  by  the  Northern 
worshippers  of  the  horse's  head,  the  god  Dadhiank,  the 
Atharvan,  or  son  of  the  fire-god  Atar,  and  he,  according  to 
the  Brahmanas,  imparted  to  the  aboriginal  Indians  tiic 
mystery  of  honey,  the  inspiring  mead '.  The  history  of 
this  union,  which  marked  the  beginning  of  the  Copper  and 
Bronze  Ages  in  India,  is  given  in  the  ethnology  of  the 
castes  of  the  miners  and  workers  in  metal,  who  formed, 
according  to  the  custom  introduced  by  the  Naga  Kushikas, 
trade  guilds  united  by  community  not  of  descent  but  of 
function. 

The  only  mining  castes  of  Bengal  and  Cdhtral  India,  who 
are  smelters  of  ore,  are  the  Asuras  and  Lobars  of  Chutia 
Nagpur.  The  Asuras  are  the  survivals  of  the  Vedic  Asuras, 
who  traced  their  descent  to  the  primaeval  man-ape,  the 
great  Kapl  or  Kabir,  and  offered  human  sacrifices  to  the  fire 
and  sun-god.  He  was,  in  the  ritual  of  the  Finns,  not  the 
sun-maiden  of  the  Rigveda,  but  a  male  deity,  the  Thoas 
Tammuz,  or  Dumu-zi,  king  of  the  Tauric  Chersonesus, 
the  sun-god  Orion,  the  Jewish  Moloch,  and  the  Northern 
sun-god  Sigurd,  the  rider  on  the  sun-horse  Grani,  who 
cooked  and  ate  the  heart  of  Fafnir,  the  snake-god,  his 
predecessor  as  ruler  of  the  year,  and  who  was  the  Northern 
form  of  the  Indian  Vritra  slain  by  Indra,  after  which  feat 
he  ate  the  dog's  entrails,  or  the  heart  of  the  fire-dog,  the 
creator  of  fire  2.  These  sacrifices  to  the  male  sun-gods, 
which  were  first  human  sacrifices,  were  the  only  burnt- 
offerings  of  the  Eastern  Finns,  who  transmitted  the  same 
custom  to  the  Arabs  3.     They  were  also  the  burnt-offerings 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.,  iv.  i,  5,  18;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  277. 

=  Hewitt,  RtdiHg  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  p.  121; 
Rg.  iv.  18,  13. 

3  Abercromby,  Pre  and  Protohistoric  Finns,  vol.  i.  chap.  iv.  p.  167  ;  Robert- 
son Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  Lect.  vi.  p.  210. 


of  tlie  Myth' Making  Age,  353 

of  the  Angiras  priesthood  of  the  age  of  the  cycle-year 
preceding  the  eleven-months  year  of  the  Atharvans,  and 
this  marks  their  Finnish  descent. 

The  Asuras,  retaining  the  name  of  the  Aftgiras  priests, 
call  themselves  Aguryas,  or  Aftgurias,  the  men  of  charcoal 
{angdra\  who  prepare  the  charcoal  for  ore  smelting,  and 
this  name,  together  with  that  of  the  land  of  Aftga,  the 
volcanic  Behar  country  ruled  by  Kama,  the  horned  {keren) 
moon-god  of  the  cycle-year,  point  to  their  descent  from 
Phrygian  Asia  Minor,  whence,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Itonian 
Athene  of  Boeotia  got  the  name  of  Onka,  which  appears  in 
India  as  Anga.  This  was  the  birth-land  of  the  Hittite  sons 
of  the  goat,  whose  year  was  the  cycle-year  of  ten  months 
of  gestation,  and  the  ancient  name  of  ten  as  the  number 
of  the  months  of  the  heating  and  smelting  of  the  sun-god 
of  the  workers  in  metal,  born  in  the  tenth  month  of  ges- 
tation, survives  in  the  word  Agoor,  ten,  in  the  dialect  of 
the  Hindu  Kasbhara,  or  workers  in  bell-metal '.  This  word 
Agfur,  ten,  is  also  found  in  the  name  of  Agurnath,  the  re- 
puted ancestor  of  the  caste  of  Agurwalas,  the  wealthy  guild 
of  jewellers,  bankers  and  usurers  who  trace  their  descent 
from  the  Vaishya  Rajas  of  Agroha,  on  the  borders  of  Raj- 
putana.  It  is  to  this  caste  that  many  of  the  wealthiest 
merchants  of  Behar  and  the  North-west  provinces  belong. 
The  god-king  from  whom  they  were  descended  was  Guga, 
or  Goga,  Pir,  the  fifth  of  the  five  Pirs,  the  snake  or  Naga 
kings  of  Agroha;  and,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  337,  he  was  the 
rider  on  the  black  sun-horse,  born  of  Yavadiya,  the  barley- 
mare,  and  he  and  his  horse  together  formed  the  Centaur- 
god  of  the  Thibetan  Buddhists  and  Mossoos,  Haya-griva. 
Thus  he  was  the  Indian  form  of  the  Northern  sun-god 
Sig-urd,  the  pillar  {urdr)  of  victory  {szg)  gnomon-stone.  His 
festival  is  on  the  ninth  day  of  the  dark  half  of  Bhadon 
(August — September),  or  about  the  9th  of  September  2,  and 


*  Elliot,  Supplementary  Glossary ^  vol.  i.  p.  i6i,  §  v.  Kasbhara. 
'  Ibid.,  Goga  Pir,  vol.  i.  p.  357. 

A  a 


354  History  and  Chronology 

he  is  associated  with  a  duplicate  of  himself,  Ghazi  MiyanS 
whose  festival   takes   place  in   Jaistha  {Jeth )  May — ^Junc, 
as  the  god   with  bushy-hair «,  the  full-grown   hair  offeral 
as  the  iirstfruits  of  the  summer  solstice.     Hence  as  the  god 
of  the  cycle-year  of  nine-day  weeks  he  is  the  god  Orion, 
the  god  of  the  Rathjatra  of  Krishna  and  Subhadra,  wedded 
at  the  summer  solstice  as  Ninus  and  Shemiramot  at  Babylon. 
He  is  said,  as  Agurnath,  to  have  instituted  eighteen  sacrifices 
of  the   eighteen   gotras,  or  sections   of  the   Agurwalas,  to 
Lakshmi,   the  goddess  of  the  boundary-pillar  {laksh),  the 
female   form  of   the   pillar-sun-god   Sigurd,  half  of  which 
only,  nine  sacrifices  3,  were  accomplished,  and  hence  he  is 
the  god  of  the  fourth  part  of  the  year  of  seventy-two  weeks 
into  which  the  cycle-year,  as  that  of  the  five  Pirs  or  five- 
day  weeks,  was  divided.     These  were  weeks  of  five  nights 
and  four   days,  whence   the    conception    of  the    nine-days 
week  arose.     As  the  Agurwalas  trace  descent  in  the  male 
line  4,  his  clan  came  from  the  north,  and  he,  as  Goga  or  Gog, 
was  apparently  the  god  of  the  bed  of  thirty-six  cubits,  the 
Og  of  the  Bible,  the  god  of  the  people  called,  in  Ezekiel 
xxxviii.,  xxxix.,  Gog  and  Magog,  who   lived  in  the  land 
of  Rosh,  the   sun-god    Ragh,   Meshech    and   Tubal.     This 
was  the    country  of  the  Moschoi    and  Tiberinoi,  who  are 
described  by  Herodotus  iii.  94,  vii.  78,  as  wearing  wooden 
helmets.      It    is    called    Meschia    by   Cedrenus.     Gesenius 
identifies  it  with   North  Georgia  or  Iberia,   and   mentions 
the  wall  between  the  Caspian  and  Euxine  seas,  called  the 
wall  of  the  Ya-yuj  and  Mayuj,  which  was  built  as  a  de- 
fence against  northern  invaders.     It  was  from  these  people 
that   Hermes,   the    god  of  the  pillar,   got   the    Phoenician 
name  of  Moschophorus,   or  calf-bearer  5,  the  god  who,  as 

'  Miyan  is  the  27th  division  of  the  Persian  Lunar  Zodiac  representing  the 
stars  7  Pegasi  a  Andromedse,  so  that  his  constellation  is  that  of  the  horse 
Pegasus.     R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  EuphraUan  Stellar  Researches ^  p.  lO. 

=  Elliot,  Supplementary  Glossary y  Ghazi  Miyan,  vol.  i.  pp.  251,  252. 

3  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal j  Agurwala,  vol.  i.  p.  5. 

♦  Ibid. 

5  B^rgrd,  Origine  (Us  Cultes  Arcadiem^  p.  299. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  355 

the  sun-gnomon-pillar,  produced  the  sun-calf,  the  calf-born 
Indra.  This  was  the  sun-god  of  the  Sakya  Kunti-bhojas,  the 
Bhojas  of  the  lance  {kunti)  of  the  race  of  the  Bhoja  king 
Ugrasena,  who  founded  Kosambi  at  the  junction  of  the 
Jumna  and  Ganges,  and  called  the  country  round  it  Vatsa- 
bhumii  the  land  of  the  calf  {vatsa\  the  ancient  name  of 
Bundelkund.  They  belonged  to  the  army  of  the  Iberian 
Finn  miners,  worhippers  of  Ya,  the  full  moon,  who  came 
to  India  from  Colchis,  another  name  of  the  Gog  and  Magog 
country,  whence,  according  to  Herodotus,  circumcision  was 
first  introduced.  This  country,  called  also  Tubal  after  the 
father  of  the  workers  in  metal,  was  a  land  of  great  mineral 
wealth.  These  dealers  in  minerals,  who  called  Agur- 
nath,  the  lord  of  ten  (Agur),  their  ancestral  god,  were  ap- 
parently the  introducers  of  the  Northern  decimal  system 
of  notation,  differing  from  the  Southern  duodecimal  system 
of  counting  by  "gundas"  or  fours,  and  they  united  the 
Northern  and  Southern  races  in  India.  For  their  father- 
god  Agurnath  or  Goga  (the  equivalent  of  Dasaratha,  he 
of  the  ten  chariots  or  lunar  months,  the  father  of  Rama) 
married  the  daughters  of  two  Naga  Rajas,  and  he  stipulated 
that  the  children  of  one  of  the  two  princesses  should  bear 
their  father's  name,  while  those  of  the  other  wife  should 
trace  their  descent  from  the  mother,  according  to  the  custom 
of  the  Naga  races '.  They  were  thus  the  successors  of  the 
Naga  Kushika,  and  as  Agurwalas  they  are  strict  monoga- 
mists like  the  Finns.  Their  native  land  in  Asia  Minor  is 
called,  in  Ezekiel  xxxix.  ii,  12,  Hamon  Gog,  which  is 
apparently  the  land  of  Baal  Khamman,  the  pillar-god.  It 
was  from  this  god  of  the  lunar  months  that  the  eighteen 
tribes  of  the  Bhojas,  or  sons  of  Druhyu,  the  sorcerer-god, 
originated «.  They  are  the  sons  of  Gog,  who  are  called 
in  the  Recueil  des  Histoires  de  Troye,  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
sons  of  a  race  of  giants,  the  Rephaim  descended  from  the 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengai,  Agyxiw^A^L,  vol.  i.  p.  5. 
'  MahabbSrata  Sabha  (Rtyasi4y&.rambha)  Parva,  xiv.  ]).  46,  Adi  {Sambhava) 
hm^^  Ixxxv.  p.  260. 

A  a   2 


356  History  and  Chronology 

thirty-three  daughters  of  Diocletian,  the  thirty-three  days 
of  the  months  of  this  year.  They  are  also  descendants 
of  the  twin  door-posts  of  the  Garden  of  Grod»  the  Stan 
Gemini,  who  as  Gog  and  Magog  stand  at  the  door  of  the 
Guildhall  in  London. 

The  Lohars,  congeners  of  the  Agurias  or  Asuras,  were  first 
workers  in  copper  {lolid)^  a  name  that  means  the  red,  *'  roh," 
metal,  and  this  change  of  r  into  *1  marks  them  as  allied 
to  the  Finn  races,  who  in  Greece  changed  the  name  of  the 
Phrugyes,  or  sons  of  fire  {phur),  into  Phlegyes.  Their 
caste  institutions  prove  them  to  be  a  mixed  race,  who  were 
first  sons  of  the  mother-mountain,  which  they  worship  as 
Mohangiri,  the  Marang  Buru  of  the  Mundas,  and  in  Chutia 
Nagpur  their  priests  are  the  village  Pahan  and  the  provin- 
cial Ojha,  but  the  sub-caste  of  Sad-Lohars,  ■  immigrants 
from  the  Hindu  (Sad)  districts,  employ  the  village  barber 
as  their  marriage  priest.  They  are  most  closely  allied  with 
the  Bagdis,  who  were  originally  a  caste  of  hill  fishermen, 
sons  of  the  tiger  and  the  sun-cock,  one  of  whose  totems 
is  the  Sal-machh,  or  fish  of  the  Sal-tree  ^. 

Both  Lohar  and  Bagdi  bridegrooms  begin  their  wedding 
ceremonies  by  marrying  the  Mahua  tree  {Bassia  latifoliaY 
This  tree,  through  the  use  of  its  honey-sweet  flowers  in 
making  intoxicating  drink,  has  become  the  honey-tree  of 
India,  which  gave  honey  to  the  Ashvins  and  the  sons  of 
Dadhiank,  the  horse's  head.  This  mahua  mead  replaced  the 
rice  and  murwa  beer  of  the  Mundas  and  Thibetan  Buddhists. 
Both  the  Lohars  and  Bagdis  worship  the  wise  snake-goddess 
Manasa,  the  female  form  of  Manu,  to  whom  rice,  sweetmeats, 
fruit  and  flowers  are  offered  as  the  mother-snake-goddess 
of  the  early  village  founders.  But  to  these  are  added,  at  her 
festivals  held  on  the  fifth  and  twentieth  of  the  four  rainy 
months  from  the  middle  of  June  to  the  middle  of  October, 

^  Their  totems  are  : — Ardi  the  fish,  Bagh-rishi  the  tiger,  Kachchap  the 
tortoise,  Kasbak  the  heron,  Pak-basanta  the  bird,  Pat-rishi  the  bean,  Ponk-rishi 
the  jungle-cock,  Sal-rishi  or  Sal-machh  the  Sal-fish.  Rislcy,  Tribes  and  Castes 
of  Bengal t  Bagdi,  vol.  ii.  Appendix  i.  p.  5. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  357 

the  moon-goat  and  sun-ram  of  the  Northern  immigrants.  Both 
these  castes,  as  well  as  all  those  of  the  barbers  and  workers  . 
in  metal,  bum  their  dead,  and  thus  trace  their  origin  to  the 
Bronze  Age.  The  connection  between  them  and  the  men 
of  the  eleven-months  year  is  shown  in  their  custom  of  per- 
forming the  shradh  or  funeral  ceremony  on  the  eleventh  day 
after  death,  or  at  the  end  of  a  week  of  that  year'.  This 
custom  is  also  observed  by  the  Kamis,  the  Nepal  branch 
of  the  Kamars  or  metal  workers  of  Bengal,  and  the  Bhan- 
daris,  the  barbers  of  Orissa  2. 

Their  goddess  Manasa  is  the  sister  of  Vasuki,  the  snake- 
god  of  the  summer  solstice,  and  mother  of  the  sun-god 
Ashtaka.  She  is  the  Hindu  counterpart  of  the  siiake 
Erectheus  at  Athens,  fed  with  monthly  honey-cakes,  who 
occupied  the  western  end  of  the  Erictheum,  the  eastern 
being  the  temple  of  Athene  Polias  3,  the  tree-mother-goddess 
Onka  or  Anga  of  the  mining  races.  They,  in  India,  are  the 
sons  of  the  Sal-tree,  whence  the  best  charcoal  is  made,  and 
this  as  a  resin-bearing- tree  is  the  Hindu  equivalent  of  the 
resinous  pine-tree  of  the  Finn  country,  the  pine-tree  of  the 
cave-mother  Cybele.  Manasa  is  also  the  female  form  of  the 
snake  Fafnir  of  the  story  of  Sigurd,  the  year-god  slain  by 
this  rider  on  the  sun-horse,  who  guarded  the  year-treasures  of 
Andvari,  the  wary  (vart)  dwarf.  These  dwarf-gods  were  the 
parents  of  the  dwarf  Finn  races,  the  Ugrian-Finns,  the  first 
workers  in  metal  who  lived  in  the  country  between  the  Volga 
and  the  Ural  mountains,  where  copper  has  been  smelted  from 
time  immemorial,  and  where  gold  is  also  found.  It  was  the 
Ostiak  and  Mordvin  Finns  who  introduced  into  India  the 
horse-sacrifices  which  they  still  offer,  as  well  as  the  use 
of  horses  in  preference  to  buffaloes  and  bullocks  4,  and  they 


'   Kisley,   Trid^s  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Lobars,  vol.  ii.  pp.  22,  23,  Bagdis, 

vol.  i.  pp.  37—43- 

'  Ibid.,  Bhandaris-Kamis,  vol.  i.  pp.  94,  395. 

3  Frazer,  Pausaniasy  Erichthonius  Ericlhciun,  vol.  ii.  pp.  168,  169,  330  ff. 

^  Abcrcromby,   Proto  and  Prehistoric  Finns ^  chap,   iv.,   Their  Prehistoric 
Civilisation,  vol.  i.  p.  217. 


358  History  and  Chronology 

brought  also  their  acquaintance  with  mining.  They  wot 
of  the  race  of  the  dwarfs  who  made  the  honey  {Jfordvm, 
med)  mead,  drunk  by  the  gods  of  the  Edda,  who  ate  the 
flesh  of  the  boar  Scehrimnir.  They,  who  were  gold-washen 
in  the  Volga  country,  became  in  Chutia  Nagpur  the  JharaSi 
or  gold-washers,  who  extracted  gold  from  the  river  sands  of 
the  Sona-pet  or  womb  of  gold  in  the  Munda  country,  and 
who  took  gold  from  the  sands  of  all  the  rivers  watering  the 
South  of  the  Chutia  Nagpur  plateau  from  East  to  West 
Their  name  for  gold  is  embodied  in  that  of  the  Son^ 
meaning  the  **  golden  "  river.  It  was  on  the  banks  of  the 
Niranjara  or  Phagun  river,  which  was  once  the  main  stream 
of  the  Sone  S  that  the  Buddha  obtained  enlightenment,  when 
sitting  under  the  Nigrodha  or  Indian  Banyan  tree  of  the 
Kushika  races.  The  word  for  gold,  whence  the  river-name 
was  derived,  is  in  Pali  Soi^nam,  spelt  with  the  Dravidian 
cerebral  n,  which  is  a  substitute  for  an  original  r  preceding 
it,  as  the  Sanskrit  Suvarna  becomes  in  Pali  Suvanno.  Hence 
the  original  name  for  gold  is  Sornar,  its  Tamil  name,  and 
this  is  reproduced  in  the  Mordvinian  Sirna,  the  Votiak 
Zarni,  Ostiak  Sarni,  which  became  the  Zend  Zar^,  the 
primitive  root  of  the  Sanskrit  hiranya.  The  Finnic  worker 
in  gold  has  become  the  Hindu  Sonar,  the  banker  and  gold 
merchant. 

These  Sonars  of  the  East  are  the  wealthy  representatives 
of  the  Western  Saus,  sons  of  Su,  the  bird  who  came  from 
Saurashtra,  the  Western  kingdom  {rdshtra)  of  the  Saus,  to 
settle  in  the  eastern  land  of  Anga.  They  traced  their  descent 
to  Marudevi,  the  mountain  {maru)  goddess,  wife  of  Nabhi,  the 
navel,  the  central  fire  on  the  altar,  who  were  parents  of  the 
first  Jain  Tirthakara  Rishabha,  the  bull  of  the  Kashyapa 
clan,  born  in  the  land  of  the  Ikshvakus  on  the  eighth  day 

*  The  Sone  has  like  the  Kusi  and  Gunduk  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ganges 
moved  in  the  course  of  ages  from  East  to  West,  so  that  the  present  course 
is  very  far  removed  from  that  it  followed  in  the  ages  of  this  epoch. 

'  Abercromby,  Proto  and  Prehistoric  Finns ^  chap,  v.,  The  Iranian  Period, 
p.  211. 


of  tlu  Myth-Making  Age.  359 

the  dark-fortnight,  that  is  on  the  twenty-second  of  Cheit 
larch — April),   when   the    sun   was    in    the    constellation 
ttarashadha  Sagittarius,  that  is  about  15,000  B.C.  or  the 
ginning  of  the  cycle-year ».     He  was  the  predecessor  of 
rishtanemi,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Jain  ruler  of  this 
iven-months  year.     It  was  apparently  at  this  epoch,  when 
e  Bronze  Age  began,  that  the  Jain  merchants  ruling  the 
iga  confederacy  came  from  the  West  to  the  East.     They 
ide  Parisnath  on  the  Barrakur  in  Chutia  Nagpur,  formerly 
5  sacred  mountain  of  the  Mundas,  the  holy  High  Place 
the  Jain  Panris  or  Paris,  the  trading  (Jfani)  races,  and 
ed   their  headquarters  '  in   Chutia   Nagpur,   the    mother 
jntry  (chut)  of  the  Nagas,  and  in  the  plains  of  Anga  and 
igadha  forming  the  Western  side  of  the  Gangetic  valley. 
By  the  help  of  the  Finn  miners  who  accompanied  them 
;y  obtained  large  and  constant  supplies  of  gold  from  the 
ids  of  the  rivers,  diamonds  from  the  diamond  fields,  and 
sned  up  the  copper  mines  at  Baragunda  on  the  Northern 
pes  of  Parisnath,  and  at  Lando  in  Seraikela  in  Singh- 
jm.      These   were   worked    throughout   the  long  period 
ervcning  between   the   opening  of    the   mines    and   the 
ablishment  of  Mussulman  rule  in  Bengal,  and  hence  the 
mense  supplies  of  ore  contained  in  these  vast  deposits 
^e   now  been  almost   exhausted.     But   no  one  who   has 
ited  them  can  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  magnitude 
the  works  and  the  great  trading  energy  of  the  race  who 
erintended  them.     They  made  their  capital  at  Dalmi  on 
;  of  the  gold-bearing  rivers,  the  Subon-rikha  or  Suvarna- 
>ha,  the  channel  [riksha]  of  the  race  (varna)  of  the  Sus. 
d  the  ruins  of  the  city  they  founded  still  exist  on  its 
iks,  and  from  thence  they  ruled  the  whole  of  Bengal  and 
lar^.     Their  seaport  was  Tamluk,  at  the  mouth  of  the 

\ acohi f /aina  Silfrds,  Kalpa  Sutra,  Life  of  Rishabha  ;  S.B«£.,  vol.  xxii. 
iSi,  282. 

Tamluk  in  Orissa  was  the  ancient  seaport  not  only  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  but 
jhar,  the  country  of  Anga  in  the  West  of  the  Gangetic  valley,  and  Kashi 
ires.     It  was  commercial  goods   from  Orissa  and  the  port  of  Tamralipti 


360  History  and  Chronology 

Hooghly  and  Rupnarain.  Its  Sanskrit  name,  of  which  tbe 
modem  Tamluk  is  a  corruption,  is  Tamra-lipti,  the  copper 
(tdmra)  port ;  and  it  was,  according  to  tradition,  the  capital 
of  the  Peacock  (mayura)  kings  of  the  Bhars  or  Bharatas^ 
whose  descendants  still  rule  the  adjoining  semi-independent 
state  of  Moharbhunj.  The  original  Mayura  dynasty  was 
succeeded,  as  maritime  trade  developed,  by  the  Kaivarta 
or  Kewut  kings,  a  caste  of  fishermen  and  merchants,  who 
make  marriages  by  mingling  the  blood  of  the  bride  and 
bridegroom,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  Sindurdan  ceremooy. 
That  the  country  was  originally  ruled  by  races  in  touch  with 
the  Ooraon  rulers  of  Chutia  Nagpur  is  proved  by'the  fact 
that  the  Kadamba  almond-tree  of  the  Qoraons  is  the  sacred 
tree  in  the  precincts  of  the  ancient  Tamluk  temple  of  Kali, 
dedicated  to  Vishnu,  the  year-god  of  the  peacock  race,  whose 
deification  has  been  discussed  in  Chapter  V.  p.  281  ^  The 
name  of  this  seaport  shows  first  that  the  founders  were  of 
Dravidian  origin  like  the  Ooraons,  whose  native  language 
is  a  Dravidian  dialect,  for  the  Sanskrit  Tamra  is  a  form 
of  the  Tamil  Thambiram  ;  and  secondly,  it  stamps  the  city 
as  the  seaport  of  the  copper  merchants  of  the  Bronze  Age, 
and  proves  that  they  must  have  been  great  exporters  of  that 
metal.  This  was  originally  used  without  alloy,  as  we  learn 
from  the  copper  razors  of  the  barbers,  the  copper  axes 
belonging  to  Colonel  Samudls  found  near  Baragunda,  and 
the  copper  knives  found  by  Dr.  Schliemann  in  the  oldest 
but  one  of  the  six  superimposed  Trojan  cities.  But  it  must 
have  very  soon  been  mixed  with  alloys  of  zinc  and  tin. 
These  metals,  and  also  copper,  are  found  near  together  in 
Udaipur  in  Rajputana^;  and  it  was  there  probably  in  the 

that  Tapassu  and  Bhalluka  were  bringing  to  Kushi  in  five  hundred  carts  when 
they  met  the  Buddha  at  his  final  transformation  into  the  sun-god,  Lord  of 
Heaven,  when  the  four  bowls  of  sapphire  and  four  of  jet,  the  skies  of  day 
and  night,  brought  by  the  four  Loka  Palu  angels,  ruling  the  four  quarters 
of  the  heavens,  became  the  one  bowl  or  canopy  of  the  sun-god,  the  universal 
ruler.     Khy^DdiWidt  Buddhist  Birth  Stories :   The  Nidanakaiha,  i^,  no. 

'  Hunter,  Gazetteer  of  India ^  Tamluk,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  172 — 173. 

^  Ibid.,  Udaipur,  vol.  xiii.  p.  401. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  361 

adjoining  country  of  Khatiawar,  sacred  to  the  year-god 
Krishna  or  Vishnu,  that  Indian  brass  and  bronze  were  first 
made,  and  the  ancestors  of  the  Kassara  or  Kasbhara  here- 
ditary braziers  probably  accompanied  the  Jain  Khati  kings 
of  the  Peacock  dynasty  to  Chutia  Nagpur,  where  they 
established  the  brass  trade  of  Manbhum,  the  district  in 
which  Dalmi  is  situated. 

It  was  these  trading  kings  who  fought  their  way  through 
India  who  founded  the  great  merchant  caste  of  Bengal,  the 
Subarna  or  Suvarna  Baniks,  the  Suvarna  traders,  the  Bengal 
Shus.  It  is  to  this  caste  who  boast  their  descent  from  the 
Kushika  father-gods,  Kasyapa,  Gautama  and  Vyasa,  and 
which  is  celebrated  for  the  beauty  of  its  women,  that  the 
great  merchant  families  of  the  Pals,  who  gave  the  dynasty 
of  the  Pal  kings  to  Bengal,  Lahas,  D^s,  Chandras,  Sinhas 
or  Sils,  belong,  and  they  show  equal  ability  in  literature  and 
in  commerce ».  Barbers  occupy  a  prominent  position  among 
them  as  priests  at  their  weddings. 

It  was  apparently  during  the  rule  of  the  barber-priests 
and  merchant-kingis  that  Tamra-lipti  was  made  the  principal 
trading  port  between  Bengal  and  Malacca,  the  great  tin- 
producing  country ;  and  it  was  hence  that  tin  was  procurable 
much  more  easily  than  from  Eastern  India,  for  the  only  tin 
deposit  in  Chutia  Nagpur  is  so  poor  in  quality  that  it  has 
never  been  worked.  It  was  the  exchange  of  the  copper 
of  Tamluk  with  the  tin  of  the  Malay  miners,  brethren  of  the 
Mallis  of  India,  which  made  bronze  the  metal  of  India  and 
inaugurated  the  Bronze  Age  of  the  Pandava  kings. 

The  historical  retrospect  thus  traced  from  the  trade  tradi- 
tions, ritual  and  caste  customs  of  the  men  of  the  Copper  and 
Bronze  Age,  who  burnt  their  dead,  coincides  exactly  with 
that  <leduced  from  the  Mahabharata  and  Harivansa.  It 
tells  us  how  the  Suvarna,  the  race  of  Sus  dwelling  on  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  and  in  Saurashtra  and  Khatiawar 
founded   in  the  West,  the  empire  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu  or 

*  Risley,  Tribei  aptd  CasUs  of  Bengal ,  Subarnabanik,  vol.  ii.  pp.  261 — 266. 


362  History  and  Chronology 

Yavanas,  the  sons  of  the  barley  {yava\  who  became  tiie 
Ikshvaku  kings  of  Patala,  and  afterwards  of  Patali-putra, 
the  son  of  Patala  {PatPia),  These  Khati  or  Hittite  Nagas 
founded  from  the  artisan  classes  of  village  servants  and 
cultivators  the  trading  guilds  or  castes  united  by  community 
of  function.  They  under  the  guidance  of  the  Finn  mining 
races  first  established  the  Yavana  or  Yona  rule  from  their 
capital  of  Yonagurh  near  the  Girnar  hill  of  Arishtanemi, 
the  year-god  of  this  epoch.  He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
ruling  deity  of  the  Ugra-sena  or  Ugro  Finns,  and  of  their 
King  Kansa,  the  moon-goose,  who,  as  king  of  the  lunar 
dynasty,  ruled  the  West  of  India  as  far  East  as  Magadha, 
where  Jarasandha,  whose  subordinate  he  was,  reigned  as 
central  emperor,  the  Chakravarti  or  wheel-turning  king. 

He  was  the  son  of  the  mango,  born,  as  we  have  seen,  of 
the  two  Kushi  or  Kushite  queens  Ambika,  and  Ambalika, 
the  Pole  Star  in  Cygnus,  and  the  Great  Bear  mother. 

The  rule  of  these  ruthless  conquerors  was  overthrown  by 
Krishna,  and  the  Pandava  Bhima,  who  killed  Kansa  and 
Jarasandha,  and  made  Krishna  or  Vishnu  the  year-god  in- 
stead of  Jarasandha's  god,  the  three-eyed  Shiva  of  the  three- 
years  cycle,  to  whom  he  offered  human  sacrifices.  It  was 
after  this  victory  that  the  Jain  community  of  mef chant- 
warriors  established  the  rule  of  the  Su-vama  in  Eastern 
India,  and  made  the  sons  of  Rishabha,  the  bull,  supreme 
rulers  of  the  land.  It  is  as  a  survival  of  the  imperial  rule  of 
the  sons  of  Indra,  the  eel-god,  who  became  the  buffalo- 
bull,  that  the  Rajas  of  Chutia  Nagpur  wear  on  the  day  of 
their  coronation  a  turban  twisted  into  a  peculiar  shape  to 
represent  the  ancestral  bull's  horns,  and  the  maker  of  this 
turban  holds  a  village  granted  to  his  ancestors  free  of  all 
payments  except  the  discharge  of  his  duty  of  providing  the 
official  head-dress  of  the  Raja. 

It  was  from  this  amalgamation  of  the  alien  and  indigenous 
races  that  the  Bharata  confederacy  was  formed  under  the 
rule  of  the  Mayura  or  Peacock  kings.  Their  leaders  were 
the  Licchavis,  the  sons  of  the  Akkadian  dog  {lig)^  who  joined 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  363 

the  tiger-born  Mallis  to  form  the  confederacy  of  the  eighteen 
tribes  of  the  Vajjians,  sons  of  the  tiger  (vydghra)^  who  ruled 
the  country  to  the  North-east  of  the  Gangetic  valley.  Their 
chief  clan  was  that  of  the  warrior  Gftatikas  ^,  or  sons  of  the 
mother  gfta,  the  Greek  71/1/^,  called  the  fire-mother  in  Rg. 
iv.  9,  4.  She  is  the  "  even  "  or  queen  mother  of  the  Goidelic 
Celts  who  always  burnt  their  dead^  and  who  were  thus  the 
Pitaro  Agnishvattah  of  this  new  confederacy.  They  were 
the  dwarf  Celtic  race  of  miners,  who,  in  Europe,  became  the 
Celts  of  Auvergne  and  Central  France.  In  India  they  were 
the  dwarf  Asuras  and  Lohars,  among  whom  the  average 
male  height  is  only  about  163  centimetres,  or  5  ft.  4  in.,  and 
their  Cephalic  index  75  2.  It  was  they  who  introduced  into 
India  the  Ooraon  land  tenures,  giving  an  area  of  royal  land 
in  each  village  to  the  king,  which,  as  I  have  shown  in 
Chapter  V.  p.  287  ff,  were  very  similar  to  those  of  the  Goidelic 
Celts  in  Wales,  both  being  founded  on  the  earlier  tenures 
of  the  Picts,  the  painted  Pitaro  Barishadah,  to  whom 
parched  barley  was  oflfered. 

This  race  of  the  fathers  who  burnt  their  dead  was  allied 
with  the  sons  of  the  mother-fire-goddess,  called  in  the 
Rigveda  Matar-i-shvan,  the  mother  of  the  dog  {shvan),  who 
came  to  India,  according  to  the  title  of  the  Second  Mandala 
of  the  Rigveda,  as  the  Median  collected  race,  the  Saunaka, 
or  sons  of  the  dog-mother,  and  of  Bhrigu  the  fire-father. 
These  were  the  yellow  Finns,  who,  as  the  race  of  Hari  the 
mother-goddess  Shar,  furnished  twenty-two  of  the  twenty- 
four  Jain  Tjrthakaras  3.  These  were  the  men  of  the  new  or 
young  (hana)  race  represented  by  the  Kanva  priests,  the 
reputed  authors  of  the  eighth  Mandala  of  the  Rigveda. 
Their  representative  parent  Kanva  was  the  nominal  father 
of  Sakuntala,  mother  of  Bharata,  born  on  the  Malli  river 
Malini  4. 

'  Jacohit Jawa  Stltrus,  Kalpa  Sutra,  no;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxii.  p.  256. 
'  Kisley,    Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal,   Anthropometric  Data,  vol.  i.  pp. 
viii.,  xxxiv. 

*  JskcohUJaina  Stltras,  Kalpa  Sutra,  2  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxii.  p.  218. 

♦  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixxi.  p.  218. 


364  History  and  Chronology 

These  Kanvas  were  priests  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu  and 
of  the  mountain-god  Arbuda,  whose  shrine  is  the  sacred 
Jain  mountain  Arbuda  or  Abu  in  Sirohi  in  Rajputana. 
This  is  the  god  called  in  the  Rigveda  the  son  of  the  Ahi 
Urna-vabha,  the  weaver  of  wool,  the  goddess-mother  of 
the  Ram-sun '  who  was  slain  by  Indra,  and  who  is  named 
six  times  in  the  second  and  eighth  Mandalas  out  of  the 
seven  times  he  is  mentioned  in  the  Rigveda,  On  his  sacred 
mountain  near  the  copper  mines  of  Sirohi  and  the  tin  and 
copper  mines  of  Udaipur  are  two  of  the  finest  existing  Jain 
temples.  One  of  Adl-nath  or  Rishabha,  the  first  Tirthakarai 
and  one  of  Nemi-nath  or  Arishta-nemi,  the  twenty-second 
Tirthakara  and  ruler  of  this  year  2.  They  are  the  upper  and 
nether  mill-stones  of  Jain  theology,  and  it  is  under  this  sym- 
bol that  the  snake  Jarat-karna  and  his  counterpart  Arbuda  are 
worshipped  in  the  Vedic  ritual.  They  are  the  two  pressing 
or  grinding-stones  which  extract  the  sap  of  the  sacrificial 
Soma,  and  in  the  ritual  of  the  Soma  sacrifice  they  are 
invoked  in  four  Vedic  verses :  two  to  Savitar,  the  sun-bird 
Su,  which  is  the  root  of  Savitar,  and  two  to  Indras.  After 
these  are  recited  fourteen  stanzas  of  the  hymn  Rg.  x.  94, 
ascribed  to  the  Rishl-Arbuda.  In  this  hymn  (stanzas  6,  7, 
8)  the  pressing-stones  are  invoked  as  drawn  by  ten  horses 
furnished  with  bridles  and  harnessed  to  ten  poles,  the  ten 
sacrificial  stakes  indicating  the  ten  lunar  months  of  the 
cycle-year.  Before  the  last  stanza  of  this  hymn,  Rg.  x.  76, 
ascribed  to  Jarat-karna,  and  x.  175,  ascribed  to  Arbuda,  are 
recited,  and  they  are  both  addressed  to  the  gravanah  or 
pressing-stones,  pierced  with  the  holes  through  which  the 
bar  uniting  them  is  inserted  4.  In  the  titles  of  these  hymns 
Jarat-karna  is  called  the  Airavata  or  elephant- bull,  and 
Arbuda    Urddhvagrava,    the    pressing-stone    lifted    up    to 


*  Rg.  viii.  32,  26. 

=*  Hunter,  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India ^  Abu,  vol.  i.  pp.  8,  9. 

^  Kg.  i.  24,  3,  V.  Si,  I,  viii.  81,  I,  viii.  i,  i. 

^  Ibid.,  X.  94,  II. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  365 

heaven,  and  both  are  said  to  belong  to  the  serpent  {Sarpd) 
race  of  Nagas',  Arbuda  being  the  son  or  counterpart  of 
Kadru  the  mother-tree  (drii)  of  the  Nagas,  the  goddess 
Ka  or  Who  ?  This  ceremony  forms  part  of  the  ritual  of 
the  mid-day  pressing  sacred  to  the  meridian-sun,  to  which 
Indra  is  summmoned  as  the  chief  god. 

These  father  and  mother-stones,  the  revolving  heaven* 
drill  which  presses  out  on  tlie  nether  mother-stone  the  life- 
giving  sap  of  the  Soma  plants  placed  between  them,  are  the 
pair  called  in  the  Mahabharata  Jarat-karu,  they  who  make 
old  {Jara),  The  male  belongs  to  the  sect  of  the  Yaya-vara, 
the  wandering  mendicants,  who  were  the  early  Jains,  whose 
god  was  Yayati,  the  full-moon-god  {Yd),  father  of  the 
Yadu-Turvasu.  The  female  was  the  sister  of  Vasuki,  the 
snake-god  ruling  the  summer  solstice.  The  male  Jarat- 
karu,  as  the  dying  sun-god  who  has  fulfilled  his  yearly  task 
of  begetting  his  successor,  leaves  his  mate  when  Ashtaka 
is  begotten  as  the  god  of  the  eight  {ashta),  the  sun-god 
of  the  true  Soma  of  Chapter  VII  2.  He  is  the  god  of  the 
eight-rayed  star  of  day  worshipped  by  the  Akkadians  as 
Diii-gir  and  Esh-shu,  words  meaning  both  god  and  an  car 
of  com  3.  They  are,  in  short,  the  fire-drill  and  socket  which 
gave  birth  to  the  sun-god  born  from  the  altar  flame  kindled 
by  the  wood  of  the  mother-tree. 

H.     The  story  of  the  two  thieves  who  robbed  the  treasure- 
house  of  heaven. 

The  name  Arbuda  given  to  the  tree-mother-god  means 
also  the  god  of  the  Semitic  Arba  or  four,  the  Hittite  name 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  appears  in  that  of  the  Naga  Gond 
kingdom,  called  Vidarba,  or  the   double  (vid)  four  (arba), 

'  Ludwig,  Rigz'eda^  vol.  ii.,  Hymns  785,  786,  787,  pp.  412— 415  ;  Eggcling, 
Sat,  Brah.y  iv.  3,  3.  I  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  331,  note  I.  332. 

^  Mahabharata  Adi  {Astika)  Parva,  xlv.— xlvii.  pp.  132—139. 

3  Ball,  'Akkadian  Affinities  of  Chinese.'  Tratisactions  of  the  Ninth  Inter- 
national Congress  of  Orientalists,  §  China,  Central  Asia,  and  the  Far  East, 
p.  685  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.  Preface,  p.  xxviii. 


366  History  and  Chronology 

the  eight  Gond  tribes.  The  Hebrew  history  of  this  epod 
of  the  deification  of  the  four  ruling  gods,  the  four  seasons 
of  this  year  of  eleven  months,  is  to  be  found  in  the  history 
of  Caleb,  the  dog  (kalb),  the  star  Sinus.  He  was  brother 
of  Ram,  the  sun-god  and  grandson  of  Perez,  the  cleft,  tbc 
male  form  of  the  Phoenician  goddess  Tirhatha,  with  the  same 
meaning,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fish-mother-goddess 
of  the  Phoenicians,  mother  of  Shemiramot.  He  and  his 
brother  Ram  were  both  descended  from  Tamar,  the  date- 
palm-tree.  In  the  historical  genealogies  of  the  Chronicles 
various  lines  of  descent  are  assigned  to  him.  As  the  great- 
grandson  of  Tamar  his  father  is  Hezron,  brother  of  Hamal, 
the  star  ^  Arietis,  from  which  the  sun  was  bom  in  the 
cycle-year.  Hezron  died  in  Caleb-Ephratah,  the  city  rf 
ashes  (ephrd)  of  Caleb,  which  marks  him  as  god  of  the  dty 
of  the  sun-god,  in  the  year  ruled  by  Sirius.  In  another 
genealogy  he  is  the  brother  of  Shuhah,  Judah's  first  wife, 
the  bird  ( Shu )  goddess,  who  preceded  Tamar,  and  the 
ancestor  of  Ir-Nahash,  the  city  (iV)  of  the  Nagas,  and  the  son 
of  Jephunneh,  the  beautiful  youth  '.  In  short,  he  is  the  star 
Sirius,  which  was  first  the  dog-star  guarding  the  sun's  path 
along  the  Milky  Way,  then  the  young  man,  fifteen  years  old, 
who  became  afterwards  the  ZendTishtrya  (Sinus),  the  white 
horse  of  the  sun,  the  Zend  form  of  Indra,  as  the  white 
buffalo,  who  made  the  black  cloud,  the  horse's  head,  give 
up  the  rains  of  the  rainy  season  at  the  summer  solstice*. 
He  is  in  his  second  Avatar  as  a  star-god  ruling  this  year 
Tishtrya,  the  bull  with  golden  horns,  who  intervened  between 
Tishtrya,  the  bright  youth,  fifteen  years  old,  Caleb's  father, 
Jephunneh,  and  Tishtrya,  the  white  sun-horse. 

It  was  he  who  killed  the  old  trinity  of  Southern  Palestine, 
the  gods  Shesh-ai,  Ahiman,  and  Tol-mai.  These  words, 
as  all  Hebrew  scholars  admit,  are  not  Hebrew.  They  seem 
to   me  to  be  god-names   imported   into   Hebrew  theology 

»   I  Chron.  ii.  lo— 16,  i8,  19,  24,  iv.  11,  12,  15  ;  Gen.  xxxviii.  2. 
'  D&rmesteter,  Zem/avfsfn  Tir  Yaskf,   vi.   10—24;    S.B.E.,   vol.  xxiii,  pp. 
96—102. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  367 

by  the  Turvasu,  who  brought  the  gods  and  national  customs 
of  India  to  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Mediterranean  coasts. 
Thus    Shesh-ai   is    the   wet-god  Shesh   or    Sek    Nag,   the 
spring-god  of  the  Takka  triad.     Ahiman,  the  Egyptian  Ahi, 
a  name  of  Osiris  and  the  Sanskrit  form  of  Echis,  the  holding 
snake,  the  European  Vritra,  the  encloser,  and  the  equivalent 
of  the  Takka  Vasuk,  or  Basuk  Nag,  the  snake-god  Vasuki, 
while  Talmai  is  the  mother  Tal,  the  female   form  of  the 
Akkadian   Tal-tal,  the  very  wise  one  of  the  name  of  la '. 
He  is  the  counter-part  of  the  Takka  Takshaka,  or  Taksh 
Nag,   the  biting-snake  of  winter.     It   was   to   these   three 
seasons  that  Caleb,  as  the  god  of  this  year,  added  the  fourth 
season  of  this  year,  and  commemorated  the  institution  of 
this    new  measure  of  time  by  calling  Hebron  the  capital 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  parent-altar-fire  of  Caleb,  Kiriath- 
Arba,the  city  of  the  four  ».    This  was  the  year  ruled  by  four 
Akkadian  stars  of  the  seven  Lu-masi  3 :  (i)  Kakshisha,  the 
horn  {shi)  star  {sha\  the  door  {kak)  Sirius,  the  star  of  sum- 
mer.    (2)  En-te-na-mas-luv  Hydra,  the  divine  (en)  founda- 
tion (/^)  of  the  prince  {no)  of  the  black  ijuv)  antelope  {mas), 
the  star  of  the  rainy  autumn.     (3)  Ta-khu  or  Id-khu,  the 
creating  (id)  mother-bird  (khu),  the  winter-star.     (4)   Papil- 
sak,  the  sceptre  {pa),  the  wet  or  great  {sai)  fire  (///),  the  star 
of  spring  4.     In  the  theology  of  this  year  Masu,  the  Hebrew 
Moses,  the  leader  of  Caleb  and  the  Israelites,  was  the  star 
Regulus  5.     This  was  the  year  of  the  ape  with   the  lion's 
tail  depicted  on  the  banner  of  Arjuna  when  he  defeated  the 
Kauravyas,  rulers  of  this  year  with  Uttara,  the  North-god 
of  the  summer  solstice,  as  his  charioteer.     This  year  was 
led  by  the  dog  of  the  Pandavas,  the  last  surviving  com- 


*  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar ^  Syllabary  No.  16. 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  189,  note  2. 
'  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  *  Euphratean  Stellar  Researches,' ii.,  Tablets  W, 

A,  I,  iii.,  Ivii.,  No.  6,  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaology,  May, 

1893*  P-  328. 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i..  Essay  iv.,  pp.  370—372.: 
s  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  i.  p.  49. 


368  History  and  Chronology 

pan  ion  of  Yudishthira  when  he  went  up  to  heaven  at  the 
close  of  his  career  to  join  his  brethren,  its  dead  seasons, 
His  faithful  dog  was  changed  into  the  star  Sinus,  the  chid 
minister  of  the  god  Dharma,  the  Pole  Star  god  \  author 
of  law  and  order  {dharm),  and  of  the  unvarying  sequence 
of  national  phenomena,  the  Egyptain  goddess  Ma'at,  the 
Pole  Star  Vega  in  Lyra  from  10,000  to  8000  B.C. 

But  in  order  to  understand  fully  the  story  of  Caleb  and 
to  realise  his  connection  with  this  year,  we  must  turn  to 
the  historical   chronicles   compiled   for  oral  recitation  and 
transmitted  by  the  national  reciters  of  the  countries  in  which 
the  trading  Turvasu  or  Yavanas  of  India  became  the  ruling 
powers.     They  brought  with  them  their  eleven-months  year, 
which  they  established  as  the  official  year  of  all  lands  where 
they  ruled,  the  sea-coasts   from    India   to   Britany.     And 
in   this  last  country  we  have  seen   that  this  year  is  com- 
memorated  in  the  calendar  of  the  eleven    rows  of  stones 
at  Menec,  near  Carnac,  in  Britany,  in  which  the  year-gnomon- 
stone  was  oriented  to  the  rising  sun  of  the  summer  solstice. 
One  of  the  historical  stories  in   which   they  recorded  the 
history  of  this  year  and  its  foundation  on  the  substructure 
of  the  three-years  cycle  with  its  forty  months,  is  the  widely 
disseminated  tale  of  the  Two  Thieves  who  stole  the  king's 
treasure.     Variants  of  this  story,  which  is  told  in  Herodotus 
ii.  121,  of  the  robbery  of  the  treasure  of  Rhampsinitus,  king 
of  Egypt,  arc  found  in  India,  in  story  No.  2  in  the  Katha 
Sarit  Sagara,  and   No.  1 1    of  Lai  Behari   Dey*s  Folk  Talis 
of  Bengal-,     But  the  two  forms  of  this   story,  which  was 
intended  to  portray  graphically  the   history   of  the   great 
revolution  in   time-reckoning  wrought   by  the    Indian  and 
Phoenician  trading  guilds  when  they  substituted  the  year  of 
eleven-months  for  the  three-years  cycle,  are  those  of  Tropho- 
nius  and  Agamedes,  and  Ali  Baba  and  the  Forty  Thieves. 
Trophonius  and  Agamedes  were  sons  of  Erginus,  king  of  the 


*  Mahabharata  Mahaprashthanika  Parva,  iii.  17,  p.  8. 

'  For  other  variants  see  list  in  Frazers'  Pausanias^  vol.  v.  pp.  176—179. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  369 

Minyans,   a  form  of  the    ^ake-god    Ericthonius,   the   god 
Poseidon.     They  were  noted   builders,  who  built  the  sanc- 
tuary of  their  father  Poseidon  near  Mantinaea,  and  the  bridal 
cbamb^  of  Alkmene,  the  goddess  of  the  moon-bow  {alk^  arc) 
motheivfthe  sun-god   Herakles  ^     But   the  building  which 
indicates  most  clearly  their  historical  position  as  star-year- 
gods  of  a  year  measured  by  nights,  who  marked  the  stages 
in  heaven  through  which  the  sun-god  was  to  run  his  annual 
course,  is  the  treasury  of  King  Hyrieus  at  Delphi,  of  which 
they  were  the  architects.     In  this,  like  the  pyramid  thieves 
of  the  story  of  Rhampsinitus,  they  contrived  that  one  of  the 
stones  could  be  removed  from  the  outside  so  that  they  might 
enter    and   pilfer  the   hoard   every   night.      This    treasure 
was  that  of  the  god  of  the  bee  -  hive  or  vault  of  heaven, 
called  Hyrieus  {vpUvs  from  vpovy  a  hive,  vpiov,  honey-comb). 
This  was  the  Pole  Star  god  ruling  the  bee-hive  of  Mord- 
vin    theology,   described   in    Chapter    IV.  p.   169.     In    this 
world's   temple  of  the  bees,  the   star-gods  of  heaven,   the 
priests   and   priestesses   who    uttered    the   commands    and 
counsel  of  the  father-god  in  oracles  were  the  working-bees. 
These  were  the  Greek  Melissai,  the  bees,  the  official  name 
of  the  priestesses  of  the  mother-goddess  of  Ephesus,  of  De- 
meter  and  Persephone.     The  Semite  prophet  priestesses  are 
commemorated   under   the   name   of  Deborah,  the  bee   of 
the  date-palm-tree,  the  nurse  of  Rebekah,  the   mother  of 
Isaac   {laughter),  the    blind   god   of  the   laughing  corn   of 
harvest,  who   ruled    Israel   with   Barak,   the   lightning-god, 
the  Centaur-god  of  the  heavenly  bow.     She  was  buried  at 
Bethel  under  the  Oak  of  Weeping  {Alton -bacuth)^^  after 
Jacob,  the  supplanter  sun-god,  had  destroyed  the  idols  and 
false  gods  of  the  Pole  Star  god,    his   predecessor.      Thus 
she  was   the   mother-year-goddess,   the   queen   bee,   whose 
annual  death  was  lamented  at  her  year's  end,  like  that  of 
Dumuzi.     It  was  the  prophet  star-bees,  the    measurers   of 


*  Frazer,  Pausaniasj  ix.  37,  4,  5,  viii.  10,  2,  ix.  ii,  i,  vol.  i. 

*  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  pp.  223,  224;  Gen.  xxxv.  I — 8;  Judges  iv.  4ff.  v, 

B  b 


370  History  and  Chronology 

the  year,  who  nursed  the  young  Zeus  in  Crete  as  the  aoi 
of  Rhea,  the  tree-mother  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers.  Th 
hive  of  these  holy  bees,  the  over-arching  heavens,  was  tk 
tower  of  the  three-year  cycle,  and  it  was  in  the  age  of 
the  cycle-year  that  the  article  of  the  national  creed  ww 
made  requiring  belief  in  the  world  as  a  bee-hive,  whence 
honey  was  taken  for  the  preparation  of  the  inspiring  mead 
and  for  generating  physical  and  mental  life  on  earth. 

This  conclusion  will  be  made  still  more  clear  by  examin- 
ing the  story  of  All  Baba  and  the  Forty  Thieves.    The  latter, 
whose  number  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  months  of  the  c]^cl^ 
year,  had  buried  their  treasure  in  a  cave,  the  dark  amphi- 
theatre of  the  night  sky,  the  cave  of  Cybele.    All  Baba,  who 
found  it,  was  a  poor  wood-cutter  with  three  asses,  those  wludi 
drew  the  car  of  the  Ashvins,  the  three  seasons  of  the  year  of 
the  three-legged  ass  of  the  Zendavesta,    His  brother,  Kasim, 
whose  name  means  the  collector  of  tribute   in  kind  \  was 
wealthy  and  prosperous.     They  signify  the  two  seasons  of 
the  equinoctial  year  of  the  cycle,  the  despised   season  of 
winter,  beginning  at  the  autumnal  and  the  wealthy  season 
of  spring,  and  summer  beginning    at  the  vernal  equinox. 
It  was  at  the  autumnal  equinox  that  the  treasure  was  dis- 
covered.   When  AH  Baba  came  ifpon  the  thieves  he  watched 
them  from  a  hiding-place,  and  learnt  that  they  opened  the 
door  of  the  treasure-house  by  saying  Open  Sesame,  and  shut 
it  by   saying  Shut   Sesame.     Thus  this  discoverer   is  the 
ruling  twin  of  the  eleven-months  year  of  the  oil  growers 
whose  sacred  plant  was  the  Sesamum  Orientale.     When  Ali 
Baba's  brother  Kasim  discovered  his  brother's  good  fortune, 
and  was  told  the  secret  of  the  pass-word,  he  took  ten  mules, 
the  ten  sexless  months  of  gestation  of  the  cycle-year,  to  the 
cave,  which  he  opened  by  calling  out  Open  Sesame,  and  shut 
it  by  saying  Shut  Sesame.     But  when  after  taking  ten  mule- 
loads  of  treasure  he  wanted  to  return,  he  forgot  the  pass- 
word, and  called  out  Open  Barley,  showing  that  he  was  the 

*  Burton,  Arabian  Ni§hts^  vol.  xii.  p.  13,  note  2, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  yj\ 

summer  and  autumn  god  of  the  barley  -  growers  whose 
revenue  he  collected.  He  was  found  in  the  cave,  and 
slain  as  the  autumn  harvest-god  by  the  forty  thieves 
of  the  cycle-year,  and  they  divided  his  body  into  two 
parts,  which  they  hung  up  on  each  side  of  the  cave  door 
as  the  twin  door-posts  of  the  holy  temple  of  the  Garden 
of  God  opening  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  when  the  cycle- 
year  began. 

Ali  Baba,  the  ruling  twin  of  the  eleven-months  year, 
removed  these  gate-posts  of  the  cycle-age,  and  was  sought 
after  by  the  thieves  as  the  unknown  destroyer  of  their 
carefully  constructed  clock  of  time.  They  were  baffled  and 
finally  slain  by  Marjinah,  the  maid-servant  of  Kasim,  whose 
name  means  red-coral.  She,  who  was  the  slayer  of  the  forty 
cycle-months  or  thieves,  was  the  fish-sun-mother  of  the  sun- 
god  conceived  at  its  close,  who  married  Ali  Baba's  son,  the 
sun-god  of  the  winter  solstice '.  She  was  the  sea-mother- 
goddess,  the  counterpart  of  Thetis,  the  ocean-mud  {thith\ 
who,  as  the  Black  Demeter  of  Phigalia  in  Arcadia,  with  the 
horse's  head  of  the  black-horse-god  Dadhiank,  bore  the 
sun-god  of  this  eleven-months  year^  to  Poseidon,  the  god 
who  gave  the  sun-horses  to  Peleus. 

When  we  return  to  the  story  of  Trophonius  and  Agamedes, 
sons  of  Erectheus  Poseidon,  the  Greek  Ali  Baba  and  Kasim, 
we  find  still  further  evidence  connecting  the  robbery  of  the 
treasure  with  the  substitution  of  the  eleven-months  year  of 
the  sun-god,  with  the  horse's  head  for  the  cycle-year.  These 
twin  robbers  of  the  treasury  they  built  were  the  counterparts 
of  the  Hindu  Ashvins,  the  stars  Gemini  who  ruled  both  the 
cycle  and  the  eleven-months  year,  the  two  door-posts  of  the 
House  of  God.  Agamedes,  like  Kasim,  was  caught  in  a  snare, 
from  which  he  could  not  be  freed,  and  slain  by  his  brother, 
who  cut  off  his  head  to  escape  detection,  as  Ali  Baba  carried 

*  Burton,  Arabian  Nights^  *  Ali  Baba  and  the  Forty  Thieves,*  vol.  x.  pp. 
209 fr.,  216,  note  I,  234. 

'  B^rard,  Origine  des  CulUs  Arcadiens^  ii.,  Les  Dosses,  pp.  104 — 109 ; 
Frazer,  Pamanias^  viii.,  xlii.  pp.  428,  429. 

B  b  ? 


3/2  History  and  Chronology 

away  his  brother's  body.  According  to  Pausanias,  as 
Trophonius  carried  away  his  brother's  head  the  earth  op«icd 
and  received  Trophonius  in  the  sacrificial  pit  consecrated  to 
Agamedes,  the  Hindu  Pole  Star  goat  (flja),  in  which  a  Wack 
ram  was  offered  to  him  as  the  ram-sun-god  of  the  C3^1e-year 
slain  at  its  close  ^. 

As  for  Trophonius,  he  is  the  god  worshipped  at  Lebadea 
in  Boeotia  as  Zeus  Trophonius,  the  Phoenician  Baal  Tropha, 
the  healing-god  2.  His  cave  and  grove,  which  were  frequented 
by  worshippers  who  sought  advice  from  his  oracles,  and  who 
wore  at  his  shrine  shoes  made  of  the  skins  of  animals  sacri- 
ficed to  him  3,  were  on  the  river  Hercyna,  that  of  the  goddess 
Erycina,  the  Phoenician  Erek  Hayim,  the  preserving  goddess, 
the  star  Virgo.  She,  according  to  the  legend  told  by  Pausanias, 
was  the  goddess  holding  the  goose,  the  Hindu  Kansa,  the 
goose-king  of  this  epoch  which  fled  from  her  to  Persephone, 
who,  as  the  autumn  mother  of  the  goose-god  born  from  the 
sun-god,  hid  it  under  a  stone  4. 

This  goose  layer  of  the  sun-egg  was  the  Egyptian  god  or 
goddess  who  laid  the  egg  of  Nekekur  the  Great  Cackler 
under  the  great  sycamore-tree,  in  the  sacred  sun-city  of  On. 
She  is  called  also  the  star  {seb)  god  Seb,  who  laid  the  egg 
in  the  growth  of  which  Osiris  lives  5,  This  egg  laid  by  the 
star-god  is  the  egg  of  the  god  Bes,  a  form  of  Seb,  whose 
ancient  name  is  Bes-bes  the  goose  6.  He  or  she  is  called  in 
the  Book  of  the  Dead  the  being  within  the  sixteenth  Pylon, 
or  gate  of  the  gods  through  which  the  soul  of  Ani  passes, 
the  Lady  of  Victory  who  burneth  with  flames  of  fire  (Bes\ 
creator  of  the  mysteries  of  the  earth  7.     That  is  to  say,  she 

»  Frazer,  Pausanias,  ix.  37,  2,  3,   39,  4,  vol.  i.  pp.  490,  491,    493,  494, 
vol.  V.  p.  201. 
^  Ibid.,  vol.  V.  p.  197  ;  Berard,  Origine  des  Culies  Arcadiens^  pp.  293,  294. 
3  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  v.  pp.  202,  203. 
-«  Ibid.,  ix.  39,  I,  2,  vol.  i.  pp.  492,  493. 
5  Buige,  Book  of  the  Dead,  chaps,  liv.,  lix.  pp.  105,  108,  109. 
^  Brugsch,  Religion  imd  Mythologie  der  Alten  Aigypter,  pp.   172,   173,  576, 

577. 
7  Budge,  Book  of  the  Dead,  chap.  cxlv.  56,  Translation,  p.  250,  Text,  p.  344. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  373 

is  the  goddess  of  the  South,  the  fire-mother  who  heats  into 
life  the  egg  she  is  to  lay,  that  of  the  Southern  ape  or  raven- 
god  of  the  mother  constellation  Argo.  This  god  Bes  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  god  in  the  form  of  the  ape  with  the  lion's 
tail,  who  follows  and  succeeds  the  ape-god  Hi,  the  Southern 
god  '.  He  bears  a  sacrificial  knife  in  each  hand,  representing 
the  lunar  phases  of  the  months  of  this  year.  He  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  ape  with  the  lion's  tail  on  the  banner  of 
the  sexless  Arjuna,  ruling  the  year  of  the  four  Akkadian 
stars:  i.  Kakshisha,  Sirius;  2.  Entenamasluv,  Hydra; 
3.  Takhu  or  Id-khu,  Aquila ;  4.  Pa-pil-sak,  Leo ;  the  year 
of  the  prince  (no)  of  the  black  (liiv)  antelope  {mas)^  the  god 
of  the  rains  of  Hydra  the  water-snake,  that  of  the  black 
antelope-god  Krishna,  Arjuna's  charioteer  in  the  final  contest 
with  the  Kauravyas,  the  god  of  the  year  in  which  the  world's 
^Z'S^  was  laid. 

This  year  in  Hindu  history  is  that  in  which  Gandharl,  the 
vulture-mother  of  the  Kauravyas,  laid  the  egg  from  which 
her  hundred  sons,  the  rulers  of  the  world,  were  born.  She 
is  the  Pole  Star  mother,  the  star  Vega  a  Lyrae.  This  egg, 
we  arc  told  in  the  Mahabharata,  remained  for  two  years 
in  Gandhari's  womb,  and  its  offspring  remained  two  more 
years  in  holy  water  and  clarified  butter  before  they  came 
to  life.  Hence  the  children  born  of  the  egg  were  the  off- 
spring of  the  four  divisions,  each  of  ten  lunar  months,  of 
gestation  of  the  cycle-year.  It  was  laid  simultaneously  with 
the  birth  of  Yudishthira,  the  eldest  Pandava  son  of  Kunti 
or  Prithi,  the  lance  or  conceiving  {peru)  mother  of  the 
Parthavas  and  Dharma,  the  Pole  Star  god.  Yudishthira  was 
born  on  the  fifth  day  of  Khartik  (October— November),  about 
the  20th  of  October,  under  the  constellation  Jaistha  Scorpio, 
and  the  star  Antares  a  Scorpio  at  the  Muhurta  or  hour 
sacred  to  the  star  Abhijit  ( Vega)  2. 

'  Gardiner  Wilkinson,   The  Ancient  Et^yptians^  vol.  iii.  pp.  148,  150,  Fig. 

535- 
=  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,   cxv.,  cxxiii.  pp.   338,  359.     There 

is  a  difficulty  here  about  dates.     Wc  have  seen  in  the  history  of  the  birth  of 


374  History  and  Chronology 

Hence  the  beginning  of  the  year  when  the  world's  ^ 
was  laid  coincided  with  the  year  opening  with  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Roman  horse  on  the  isth  of  October,  and  it  began 
twenty-one  days  earlier  than  the  birth  of  Arishtanemi  or 
in  the  lunar  phase  preceding  it  He  was  the  goose  (JKansa) 
son  of  Ugrasena,  who  was  born  on  the  I2th  day  of  the  dark 
fortnight  of  Khartik  (October — November),  or  about  the 
13th  of  November;  and  who  like  Duryodhana,  the  eldest 
Kauravya,  was  a  ruling-god  of  this  eleven-months  year. 
This  was  also  the  month  sacred  to  Trophonius,  the  robber 
of  the  treasury,  who  as  the  god  of  the  river  of  Erycina  or 
Erek-hayim,  the  goose-mother,  the  son  of  the  egg,  which 
in  another  form  was  that  from  which  Castor  and  Poludeukes, 
the  sons  of  Led  a,  were  born. 

But  this  star- mother  Erek-hayim  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  star  Virgo,  which,  as  the  sun-star,  ruled  the  mid-month 
of  this  year,  beginning  on  the  isth  of  October  and  com- 
mencing its  second  period  of  six  months  at  the  Roman 
festival  of  the  Fordicidia  on  the  iSth  of  April.  This  was 
the  Hindu  year  beginning  on  the  ist  of  Baisakh  (April- 
May),  and  that  succeeding  the  year  mentioned  in  the  alter- 
native account  of  Arishtanemi*s  birth,  which  fixed  it  at  the 
vernal  equinox  when  the  sun  was  in  Virgo.  The  year  when 
the  sun  was  in  Virgo  at  the  isth  of  April  was  about  10,200 
B.C.,  or  about  the  time  when  Vega  began  to  be  the  Pole  Star, 
under  which  Yudishthira  and  the  Kauravyas  were  born.  It 
was  also  a  year  consecrated  to  Antares  a  Scorpio,  called 

Arishta-nemi,  pp.  316—318,  that  he  was  quickened  in  Khartik  and  born  in  Cheit 
(March — April),  when  the  sun  was  in  Virgo,  about  12,200  B.C.  If  we  apply 
similar  reasoning  to  the  date  of  the  birth  of  the  Kauravyas  and  Yudishthira  in 
order  that  they  should  be  born  under  Scorpio  in  12,200,  they  must  be  bom 
in  May — ^June,  the  month  Jaistha,  in  which  the  sun  was  in  that  constellation. 
They  might,  when  born  at  the  end  of  this  month,  the  summer  solstice,  be 
conceived  at  the  beginning  of  Khartik  (October— November).  The  difficulty 
cannot  be  cleared  up  without  a  full  examination  of  the  texts,  but  in  spite  of 
this  difficulty  the  connection  between  the  births  of  the  Pandava,  Yudishthira, 
and  Arishta-nemi  is  clear.  Both  were  born  about  12,200  B.C.,  and  Yudishthira 
apparently  in  Jaistha,  May— June,  at  the  summer  solstice. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  375 

n  the  Akkadian  Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars  the  Lord  of 
Seed  of  the  month  Tisri  (September— October),  that  is,  the 
L^rd  of  its  offspring,  the  star  of  the  storm,  Zu  bird,  Lugal- 
:udda  ^  the  layer  of  the  autumnal  egg. 

This  star  heralding  the  season  of  the  autumnal  equinox 
in  India  and  Babylonia  also  fulfilled  a  similar  function  in 
Egypt  and  Greece,  where  temples  erected  for  the  worship 
of  a  year-god  whose  year,  like  that  of  the  three-years  cycle, 
began  at  this  date.     It  was  regarded  in  Egypt  as  an  equi- 
noctial star,  marking  the  setting  of  the  sun  at  the  vernal 
and  its  rising  at  the  autumnal  equinox  \     It  was  to  this  star 
that  the  great  temple  of  Here,  the  Heroeum,  at  Argos  was 
oriented  3.     Also  as  marking  the  connection  of  this  year  of 
Trophonius  with  the  star  Spica  a  Virgo,  I  may  notice  that 
in  Egypt  this  star,  called  Min  or  Khim,  was  also  looked  on 
as  that  of  a  mummy-goddess  who  ruled  the  years  beginning 
with  setting  stars,  and  Sir  Norman  Lockyer  concludes  from 
the  orientation  of  the  temples  dedicated  to  this  star  that 
they  celebrated   the  worship  of  a  god  whose  year  began 
on  the  1st  May  4.    This  was  the  year  of  Persephone,  the 
year  of  the  Pleiades  epoch,  who  appears,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  Trophonius  legend.    We  thus  see  in  this  long  analysis 
of  ancient  mythologies  and  astronomical  legends  that  the 
age  of  the  three-years  cycle  was  that  of  the  primaeval  bee- 
hive robbed  and  conquered  by  the  twin-gods  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  which  succeeded  it.     Also  that  this  year  is  that 
ruled  by  the  Pole  Star  Vega  of  the  Vulture  constellation, 
who  ushered  in  this  new  year  about  io,ooo  B.C.  by  hatching 
the  world's  egg,  from  whence  the  Kauravyas  who  were  to  rule 
it  were  born.  *  That  this  date  of  the  birth  of  the  Kauravyas 
coincided  with  that  of  Yudishthira,  the  Pandava  ruler,  and 
with  the  New  Year's  Day  of  this  year  beginning  with  the 

«  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations,  'Tablet  of  the  Thirty 
Starb/  vol.  ii.,  Antare;i,  xxiv.  py.  8S,  89. 

*  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astro  no  my  <t  chap.  xxx.  p.  314. 
3  Ibid.,  pp.  289,  308,  360,  388,  419. 
<  Ibid.,  chap.  xxxi.  pp.  318,  319. 


376  History  and  Chronology 

sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse  at  the  Roman  Equiria  on  the  15th 
of  October.  This  was  also  the  year  of  the  ape  with  the 
lion's  tail,  borne  by  the  sexless  god  Arjuna,  the  chief  warrior 
of  the  Pandavas. 

As  the  year  of  the  ape  with  the  lion's  tail  was  that  b^[un 
under  the  auspices  of  the  star  Sirius,  the  star  of  Caleb, 
the  conquering  dog  (kalb)  star  of  the  tribe  of  Judah^  it 
was  that  in  which  he  and  Joshua  or  Hoshea,  the  Ya  or 
Yahveh  of  the  Hus  or  Hushim,  the  Danava  sons  of  Dan, 
after  wandering  for  forty  years  in  the  wilderness  (the  forty 
months  of  the  cycle-year)  broke  into  and  conquered  the 
treasure-house  of  the  bees  ruled  by  Deborah,  the  queen-bee. 
This  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  was  that  discovered 
by  these  two  spies  or  thieves  who  had  dwelt  in  it  for 
forty  days'.  This  conquest  was  made  after  the  death  of 
Moses  or  Masu,  the  star  Regulus  in  Leo  which  ruled  the 
last  season  of  this  year.  This  is  the  constellation  which  lies 
due  south  of  the  pointer-stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  that  called 
by  the  Akkadians  Su-gi,  the  spirit-reed  {gi)  of  the  Su  bird, 
the  reed-cradle  in  which  he,  with  his  Kushite  wife  Zipporah, 
the  little  bird,  was  guarded  in  his  infancy  by  his  virgin-sister 
Miriam,  the  Greek  Mariam,  the  Hindu  Mari-amma,  the 
prophet-star  Virgo  which  precedes  Leo  in  the  zodiacal  list 
of  stars  2.  The  birth-story  of  Moses  is  parallel  with  that 
of  Kavad,  the  ancestor  of  the  Kushite  kings,  who  was  found 
as  an  infant  in  the  reeds  of  the  lake  Kushava  or  Zarah 
by  Uzava,  the  goat  Pole  Star  god.  The  constellation  Leo, 
as  ruler  of  the  year,  died  on  Mount  Nebo,  sacred  to  the 
prophet-god  of  that  name,  the  planet  Mercury,  which  was 
to  herald  the  birth  of  the  sun-god   of  Chapter  VII.,  the 


'  Numbers  xiii.  "^"^^  34. 

-  Ibid.  xii.  I  ;  Exodus  ii.  2 — 4,  21  ;  Gcscnius,  T/wsaurtts,  p.  819,  derives 
the  Hebrew  Miriam  from  the  Greek  Mariam,  and  the  last  is  certainly  the  same 
word  as  the  Hindu  Tamil  Mariamma,  the  mother  {amma)^  Mari,  the  tree 
{marom)  mother.  Hewitt,  Rttling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  iv., 
PP-  357 — 2fi2i  where  the  history  of  the  constellations  of  the  Great  Bear  and 
Virgo  is  discussed  at  length. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  377 

god  of  the  eight-rayed  star.  These  invaders  acquired  the 
lands  ruled  by  Og,  the  king  of  the  Rephaim  of  Bashan,  who 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  god  of  the  revolving  year-bed 
of  the  heavens  or  beehive-house  of  God.  Their  leader  was 
Hoshea^  the  son  of  Nun,  of  the  tribe  of.  Ephraim  i,  or  the 
two  ashes  (ephrd),  the  united  sons  of  Jacob,  the  supplanting 
sun-god  of  the  pillar  of  Bethel  and  husband  of  Leah,  the 
wild  {le)  cow-mother  with  the  weak  eyes,  the  three-eyed 
mother  Gauri,  wife  of  Shiva,  and  of  Joseph  or  Asipu, 
the  son  of  Rachel  the  ewe,  the  ram-sun-god.  Nun,  the 
father  of  Hoshea,  was  the  chief  god  of  the  four  creating 
male  and  female  pairs  of  the  lunar-solar  Egyptian  mythology 
who  were  led  and  inspired  by  Thoth  or  Dhu-ti,  the  moon- 
bird  (dhu)  of  life  (//),  and  formed  by  Chnum  the  artificer, 
the  Great  Potter,  the  soul  of  Shu,  the  fire-god.  They  were 
called  Nun,  Nunet,  Heh,  Hehet,  Kek,  Keket,  Gorh,  Gorhet, 
the  spirits  of  the  air  and  the  earth.  They  are  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  theology  of  the  Mehueret  cow,  the  year-cow 
of  the  year  of  three  seasons  made  by  the  Ribhus,  manifested 
in  Nunet,  the  vulture-wife  of  Nun,  the  water  or  cloud-god  ^, 
They  were  the  metaphysical  form  of  the  earliest  eight  gods 
of  the  fire-worshippers:  (i)  Shu,  the  heat;  (2)  Tefnut,  the 
effluence  or  flame ;  (3)  Seb,  the  star  or  egg ;  (4)  Nut,  the 
over-arching  heaven;  (S)  Osiris,  Orion;  (6)  Isis,  the  moun- 
tain {is)  goddess ;  (7)  Set,  the  ape-star  Canopus  first,  and 
afterwards  the  Pole  Star  in  Kepheus ;  and  (8)  Nebh-hat, 
the  mistress  of  the  house,  the  tender  of  the  sacred  fire  and 
the  Pole  Star  mother-goddess,  wife  of  Set. 

It  was  from  these  eight  parent-gods  that  Horus  the  young 
sun-god  was  born,  the  god  depicted  on  the  square  zodiac 
at  Denderah  as  ruling  the  equinoctial  points  North,  South, 
East  and  West  of  the  planisphere  or  eight-partitioned  plan 
of  the  heavens  drawn  on  the  panther's  hide,  the  sacred 
garment  of  the   Egyptian   priests.     In   this   the  stars   are 

'  Numbers  xiii.  8. 

-  Brughch,  Religion  und  Mytholo;^ie  der  Alien  ^gypUr^  pp.  116,  123,  124, 
444,  469. 


37^  History  and  Chronology 

placed  in  their  respective  quarters  in  the  sky,  and  the  mother 
of  Horus  Hathor  or  Nebt-hat  rule  the  intermediate  North- 
east, South-west,  South-east,  North-west  points,  those  markiog 
the  St  Andrew's  Cross  indicating  the  yearly  circuit  of  the 
sun-bird.  Thus  Horus,  who  is  represented  on  the  walls 
of  the  temple  as  born  from  the  womb  of  the  Pole  Star 
goddess,  is  the  son  of  the  eight-rayed  star '. 

The  Hebrew  Hoshea  is  thus,  as  the  son  of  Nun  and 
the  eight,  the  counterpart  of  the  Egyptian  Horus  bom 
of  the  Pole  Star,  and  his  mother  was  Nunet,  the  Vulture 
Pole  Star  Vega,  while  his  father  Nun  was  the  ocean-god 
Num  of  the  Finn  Samoyedes,  who  divided  the  rule  of  the 
world  between  Jumala,  the  heaven  god,  and  Num,  the  water 
god  ^.  He  was  also  a  god  of  the  Ugro-Finn  Akkadians 
of  Elam,  the  land  of  the  great  Naga  snake  Susi-Nag,  for 
Elam,  the  South-eastern  land  of  Akkadian  geography,  is 
called  Mat  Num-maki,  the  land  of  the  lady  {fnak)  Nun  3. 
The  name  of  the  god  or  goddess  of  the  sun  of  the  winter 
solstice  rising  in  the  South-east  is  indicated  by  the  cuneiform 

symbol  >*YYy>«>  meaning  the  three  gods  >-,  the  Assyrian 
Rabu,  the  Hebrew  Rabbi,  the  Hindu  Ribhus.  This  parent 
of  the  sun-god  was  in  Hebrew  belief  the  fish-mother-goddess, 
for  Nun  means  a  fish  in  Hebrew.  In  other  words,  she  was 
the  goddess  Tirhatha,  or  the  cleft,  the  pool  who  was  originally 
the  mother  13ahu  who  gave  birth  to  the  sun-god  born  from 
the  mother-tree  grown  in  her  ocean  mud. 

It  was  under  the  two  robber  leaders,  the  dog-star  Sirius 
and  the  young  sun-god  succeeding  the  lion-star,  the  ape 
with  the  lion's  tail,  that  Jericho,  the  moon  or  yellow  [Yarah 
Yareh)  city,  was  betrayed  by  Rahab,  the  crocodile-mother, 
the   constellation    Draco,  who   admitted    the   two   spies  or 


'  Marsham  Adams,  The  Book  oj  the  Master  of  the  Secret  House,  chap,  vi., 
The  Temple  of  the  Virgin-Mother,  pp.  71 — 73. 

'  Max  Miiller,  Contributions  to  the  ScUiue  of  Mythology ^^so\,  i.  p.  261. 

^  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Primitive  Constellations^  vol.  ii.  cliap.  xiv.  pp. 
163— 165  ;  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar :  Syllabary  Sigft  361,  498. 


of  the  Myth'Makifig  Age.  379 

"thieves  sent  by  Hoshea  ^  to  rob  the  Treasury  of  the  heavens, 

of  which  this  constellation  was  the   crown   and   keystone. 

It  was  the  Hindu  Shunshu-mara  of  which  the  stars  Gemini 

vrere  the  hands,  the  alligator,  the  constellation  Vyasa,  the 

parents   of  the  fathers   of  the   Kauravyas    and    Fandavas 

Dritarashtra  and  Pandu.     Rahab,  the  crocodile  constellation 

which^  like   Trophonius,  connived    at    the    robbery  of   the 

treasure-house  she  built,  was  converted  into  a  mother-star 

of  the  new  solar  worship,  and  became  the  mother  of  Boaz  2, 

the  sun-pillar  of  the  twin-pillars  Jachin  and  Boaz  before  the 

temple  at  Jerusalem. 

The  city  fell  before  the  blast  of  the  trumpets  of  rams' 
horns  ushering  in  the  cycle-year,  which  also  proclaimed 
its  fall,  and  the  birth  of  the  sun  successor  of  its  interlop- 
ing follower,  the  eleven-months  year  of  the  horse's  head. 
This  conquest  was  effected  after  the  erection  of  Gilgal,  the 
circle  of  year-stones,  the  pillar  -  girdle  of  Hir-men-sol,  the 
sun-god  of  the  great  stone  {men). 

The  seven  trumpets  of  rams*  horns  which  overthrew  the 
walls  of  the  moon-city  were  the  seven  stars  of  the  Bear- 
mother  of  the  ram-sun,  born,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter 
VII.,  of  the  Bear  thigh.  It  was  encompassed  six  times  on 
the  first  six  days  of  the  siege,  the  six  days  of  the  Hittite 
week,  and  on  the  seventh  day  it  was  encompassed  seven 
times.  The  number  thirteen  refers  to  the  thirteen  months 
of  the  year,  the  thirteen  children  of  Jacob,  to  be  described 
in  Chapter  VIII. 

The  ancient  date  of  this  change  of  ritual  from  Pole  Star 
and  moon  worship  to  that  of  the  sun-god  is  shown  by  the 
rite  of  circumcision  which  Hoshea  required  all  the  Israel- 
ites to  undergo.  By  this  rite  the  sun-worshippers  united 
themselves  to  the  land  of  their  adoption  by  mingling  their 
blood  with  its  soil^  and  its  antiquity  is  indicated  by  the 
stone  or  flint  knives  used  by  Joshua,  which,  according  to 
the  Septuagint  version  of  the  account  of  his  burial,  were 
buried  with  him  3. 

'  Joshua  ii.— vi.  »  Matthew  i.  6.  ^  Joshua  v.  2 ;  xxiv.  30. 


38o  History  and  Chronology 

The  place  of  this  revolution  in  Hebrew  traditional  histof) 
is  shown  in  the  historical  genealogy  of  the  kings  of  Edom, 
to  which  I  have  referred  previously.  Boaz  of  the  golden 
pillar,  the  husband  of  Rahab,  was  the  counterpart  of  Samlah 
of  Masrekah,  the  vine-land,  the  Phoenician  Pen  Samlah,  or 
the  face  of  the  God  of  the  Name  {S/tem)^  the  prophet  pillar 
Samuel,  the  son  of  Hannah,  the  fig«tree  from  which  the  phalli 
of  Dionysus  were  made  *.  He  is  otherwise  called  Penuel, 
the  face  of  God.  This  was  the  gnomon  image  of  the 
young  Dionysus,  son  of  Semele  or  Samlath,  the  god  of 
the  conical  towers  of  Penuel  which  Gideon  destroyed.  His 
successor  was  Shaul  of  Rehoboth  by  the  river  Euphrates, 
the  squares  and  suburbs  of  Babylon,  where  Shaul  or  Shawul 
was  the  sun-god  *. 

Shaul  was  the  Saul  of  Hebrew  history  consecrated  by 
Samuel,  who  inaugurated  his  rule  as  god  of  the  year  by 
setting  up  as  his  monument  the  symbol  of  the  hand  of 
the  five-day  weeks  3.  He  is  the  pillar-chief  of  the  prophet- 
priests  of  the  Ephod,  who  was  succeeded  by  the  sun-god 
of  the  eight-rayed  star-father  of  the  later  year-kings,  the 
sun-god  who  drove  his  year  chariot  through  the  heavens, 
independently  of  the  Pole  Star,  following  the  path  marked 
out  for  him  by  the  Zodiacal  Stars.  This  was  the  sun-god 
Dod  or  Dodo,  the  beloved-one,  the  eighth  son  of  Jesse  or 
Ishai,  meaning  He  who  is.  He  is  called  Baal  Hanan  in 
Gen.  xxxvi.  38,  and  in  2  Samuel  xxi.  19,  xxiii.  24,  El- 
haiian,  the  son  of  Dodo  of  Bethlehem,  who  slew  the  great 
Goliath,  the  chief  of  the  Rephaim,  or  sons  of  the  giant 
{Rep/ia),  the  star  Canopus.  In  Genesis  xxxvi.  38,  he  is 
called  the  son  of  Achbor,  the  mouse,  that  is  of  Apollo 
Smintheus,  the  mouse,  and  his  name  Baal  Hanan  means 
the  merciful  or  pitying-god,  the  sun-physician,  the  Phoeni- 


*  Movers,  Die  Phonizier^  vol.  i.  pp.  24,  25. 

^  Gen.  xxxvi.  37,  38 ;  Sayce,  Hibbcrt  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect  i.  pp.  54,  55. 
^  I  Samuel  xv.  12.      The  word  monument  in  our  verbion,  the  Hebrew  yj^i!*, 
means,  as  noted  in  the  margin,  a  hand. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  381 

cian  Eshmun,  the  Greek  healing-god  yEsculapius,  the  son 
of  the  Indian  snake  and  sun-cock  sacrificed  to  him.  This 
god,  who  introduced  the  new  form  of  solar  worship,  will 
form  the  subject  of  the  next  chapter. 


BOOK    III. 


SOLAR    WORSHIP. 


CHAPTER    VH. 

The  fifteen  -  months  year  of  the  sun  -  god  of  the 
eight- rayed  star  and  the  eight-days  week. 

THE  period  now  arrived  at  in  this  review  of  the  history 
of  human  progress  and  national  education  *is  one  which 
discloses  to  us  the  completion  of  the  stage  of  development 
occupying  the  epoch  of  lunar  solar  worship  of  the  three- 
years  cycle  and  of  the  eleven-months  years  measured  by 
weeks  of  nine  and  eleven  days.  The  social  organisation 
of  this  age  of  transition  was  still,  as  in  the  days  of  the 
Pleiades  year,  based  on  the  system  of  village  and  provin- 
cial governments,  which  gave  each  village  and  province 
the  control  of  its  own  affairs,  provided  they  did  not  injure 
those  of  their  neighbours.  The  diffusion  of  this  underlying 
principle  of  public  policy  studded  during  this  period  the 
whole  of  India,  the  coast-lands  on  the  North  of  the  Indian 
Ocean,  the  villages  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris,  Egypt, 
Syria,  Armenia  and  Asia  Minor,  with  provinces  formed  by 
the  union  of  village  communities.  In  the  most  prosperous 
of  these  regions,  those  watered  by  the  Indus,  Nerbudda, 
Jumna  and  Ganges  in  India,  and  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris 
in  Mesopotamia,  the  groups  of  allied  provinces,  which  had 
become  incorporated  as  separate  confederacies,  were  con- 
trolled by  imperial  princes  who,  as  national  law-givers,  ruled 
the  province  forming  the  centre  of  each  confederated  as- 
sociation of  united  states.  The  city  which  was  the  head- 
quarters of  the  central  ruler  became,  like  Kashi  and  Babylon, 
the  parent-village  of  the  confederacy,  the  site  of  the  national 


History  and  Chrofiology  of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  383 

High  Place  or  Akropolis,  and  its  most  sacred  shrine  the  altar 
of  the  great  mother.     Of  this  centralising  theocracy  Delphi, 
the  womb  (ScX^i/x)  of  the  Dorians,  and  Jerusalem,  the  holy 
mountain  of  the  Semites,  are  the  most  conspicuous  survivals. 
Under  the  control  of  these  princes   and  their  counsellors 
society  was,  in  the  ages  through  which  it  reached  the  stage  at 
which  we  have  now  arrived,  ruled  by  the  village  and  provin^ 
cial  elders  who,  besides  doing  the  every-day  duties  of  govern- 
ment, superintended  the   education   of  each  fresh  genera- 
tion of  young  men  and  women  who  were  born  as  children 
of  their  respective  villages.   These  were  trained  as  successors 
to  those  who  brought  them  up,  and  taught  to  continue  their 
inherited    policy  of  conservative   veneration    for    the   past 
and  of  careful  and  slow  advance  to  new  progressive  improve- 
ments. 

The  original  village  organisation  was,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, succeeded  by  that  of  the  commercial  guilds  which 
superintended  all  handicrafts  and  productive  trades,  and 
watched  over  and  developed  the  internal  interchange  of  local 
products  conducted  in  the  weekly  markets  and  annual  fairs 
held  at  selected  sites  distributed  over  the  country.  This 
supervision  of  internal  commerce  developed,  as  wealth  and 
enterprise  increased,  into  that  of  the  foreign  and  maritime 
trade  which  followed  the  river  and  valley  highways,  and 
the  ocean  coasts.  Under  the  guidance  of  these  guilds  the 
traders  of  India,  known  as  the  Tur-vasu,  had  penetrated 
into  Persia,  the  Euphratean  countries,  Arabia,  Egypt  and 
Syria,  and  joined  the  descendants  of  the  earlier  Indian 
emigrants  who  had  settled  as  farmers  on  the  coasts  of  the 
Mediterranean.  Thence  they  had  passed  through  Greece 
and  Italy  to  the  extremities  of  Europe.  In  their  advance 
they  founded  the  village  communities  of  the  Neolithic  Age 
which  grew  into  inland  cities  and  trading  centres,  such 
as  Kashi  and  Takka-sila  in  the  interior,  and  Tamra-lipti, 
Baragyza,  Dwarika  and  Patala  on  the  coasts  of  India;  Eridu, 
Girsu  and  Haran  or  Kharran  in  Mesopotamia ;  on  the  coasts 
of  the   Mediterranean    Ashkelon,   Jebail   Gi-bil   or   Bil-gi, 


384  History  and  Chronology 

consecrated  to  the  Akkadian  fire-god  Bil-gi,  called  by  (he 
Greeks  Byb-los.  apparently  the  earliest  Phoenician  port  la 
Syria,  Smyrna  and  Troy.  In  Greece  Orchomenus,  Tirym, 
and  the  prehistoric  Akropoh's  of  Athens,  Gnossos,  the  capital 
of  Minos  in  Crete  ;  and  in  Italy  the  Umbrian  port  of  Caere 
or  Agylla,  and  the  Tyrrhenian  Tarquinium,  the  sacred 
city  of  Tarchon  Tages  or  Terie'gh,  the  child  who  rose  from 
the  furrow  as  the  son  of  the  European  form  of  the  Indian 
year-mother  Sita,  the  disseminator  of  the  astronomy  of  his 
father  Rama,  and  who  was  the  child  of  the  original  snake 
constellation  of  Draco.  These  pioneers  of  maritime  trade 
had  also  passed  through  Gades,  the  city  of  the  apples  of  the 
Hesperides,  and  the  Gates  of  Hercules  to  Britany,  where 
their  sepulchral  mounds,  menhirs,  sun-circles  and  stone 
calendars  show  indubitable  traces  of  their  occupation  of 
the  coasts  of  the  French  Cornouaille,  which  were  a  stepping- 
stone  to  the  tin  lands  of  Cornwall,  the  ancient  Kassiterides 
or  tin  islands. 

Throughout  the  long  series  of  ages  fresh  breeds  and  types 
of  character  had  been  formed  by  the  intermingling  of 
different  stocks  of  emigrant  races,  but  the  process  of  growth 
had  been  generally  peaceful  till  the  arrival  of  the  Northern 
sons  of  the  sun-horse,  who  had  taken  possession  as  con- 
querors of  the  lands  into  which  they  introduced  their  new 
beliefs.  They  had  by  their  arbitrary  dealings  with  the  people 
they  subjugated  prepared,  during  the  age  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  the  way  for  the  revolution  which  was  to  end 
in  the  worship  of  the  sun-god  as  the  successor  to  the  Pole 
Star. 

It  was  to  these  military  conquerors  that  the  world  owes 
the  development  of  individual  character  begun  among  the 
North-western  Goths  or  sons  of  the  bull  {^giit  ox  got) ^  the  race 
of  cattle  herdsmen  who  based  their  national  organisation 
on  family  property,  and  divided  their  land  not  into  village 
communities  but  into  tracts  owned  by  the  families  united 
to  form  tribal  territories,  as  the  village  communities  formed 
provinces. 


of  tlu  Myth'Making  Age.  385 

These  men  were  the  Teutonic  Frisians  and  Saxons, 
described  by  Tacitus,  who  says  of  them':  "They  cannot 
"endure  houses  close  to  one  another ;  scattered  and  separated 
"  they  settle  where  attracted  by  a  spring,  a  pasture,  or  a 
"grove.  Their  villages  are  not  arranged  as  among  us 
y  Romans  with  united  dependent  buildings.  Each  man 
"  surrounds  his  house  witli  an  open  courtyard,  from  fear  of 
"  fire  or  ignorance  how  to  build.  They  do  not  use  stones 
"or  tiles,  but  employ  a  common  material  (kneaded  clay), 
"without  show  or  value." 

These  people  are  essentially  different  from  the  Southern 
Suevi  or  Swabians,  who,  as  Tacitus  says  2,  "  have  no  private 
"or  separate  fields  with  proper  boundaries,  and  the  magis- 
"trate  and  princes  divide  the  land  annually  in  proportion, 
"while  the  village  tenants  of  the  lord,"  like  the  members 
of  the  Indian  village  community  who  do  not  belong  to  the 
official  families,  "  each  occupies  his  own  house,  and  pays 
"a  tribute  of  corn,  cattle,  and  flax." 

Tacitus  here  describes  a  community  like  those  of  the 
Central  and  Southern  Indian  villages,  which  has  reached 
the  stage  of  cultivating  common  lands,  for  which  rent  is  paid 
in  kind,  as  described  in  Chapters  IV.  and  V. 

In  the  North-west  provinces  of  India  wc  find  that  the 
most  common  tenures  are  those  of  the  Jat  villages,  in  which 
each  farmer  cultivates  with  his  family  his  own  hof  or  house 
and  farm  garden  and  his  compact  fields,  all  forming  one 
separate  farm,  and  not  intermixed  with  the  holdings  of  their 
neighbours  as  in  the  communal  village  lands.  In  the  lands 
of  North-west  Europe,  where  the  prototype  of  these  holdings 
has  existed  from  time  immemorial,  several  scattered  farms 
form  a  Bauerschaft,  which  generally  bears  the  name  of  the 
oldest  and  most  honoured  Hof.  Its  proprietor  is  called 
Hauptman,  Headman,  or  Captain,  and  his  house  is  the 
Recht  Hof  or  Court  of  Judgment,  the  meeting-place  of  the 
tribe,  analogous  to,  but  differing  from,  the  Gemeinde  Haus 

'  Tacitus,  Germania,  i6.  '  Ibid.,  25,  26. 

C  C 


386  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  communal  village,  which  is  common  and  not  imE- 
vidual  property.  This  Bauerschaft  of  the  Low  Germans  is 
similar  to  the  Bratsvo  or  community  of  brothers  of  4c 
Southern  Slavs,  as  described  by  Schrader ». 

Each  Bratsvo  owns  a  landed  estate,  of  which  each  familf 
owns  a  definite  and  compact  portion.  The  number  of  men 
capable  of  bearing  arms  in  a  Bratsvo  vary  from  about  thirty 
to  eight  hundred,  and  the  families  to  which  they  belong 
occupy  one  or  more  villages  like  the  Uchelwyr  and  Bonll^ 
digion,  the  corresponding  class  among  the  Goidelic  Cdts 
They  fight  side  by  side  in  battle,  and  their  leader  is  chosen 
by  the  Bratsvenici. 

These  people,  the  Goths  of  Gothland,  the  Getae  of  the 
Balkan  country  and  Asia  Minor,  became  in  India  the  Jats 
or  Cheroos  who  hold  Pattidari  villages  divided  into  different 
shares  of  land  held  by  each  family  forming  the  village  com- 
munity.    They,  like  the   Getae  of  Armenia,  described  by 
Herodotus  i.  216,  worshipped  the  sun-god,  to  whom  they 
offered  horses.     The  Jats  in  India  are  divided  into  the  Dhc 
Jats,  called  the  Pachades  or  comers  from  the  West  {pack), 
and   the   Hole   or  Deshwali  Jats,  dwellers  in  the   country 
(desh)f  who  worship  the  god  Ram,  who  has  the  plough  for  his 
weapon.     They,  like  the  ancient  Hebrew  sons  of  Shem,  the 
Name,  preserve  the  family  and  national  history  in  the  form  of 
a  mythic  genealogy,  prepared  by  bards  called  Jagas  or  Bhats. 
It  was  originally  a  history  framed  on  principles  similar  to 
the  recited  chronicles  of  the  priestly  successors  or  assistants 
to  the  village  elders,  the  priests  called  Prashastri  or  keepers 
of  records  which  were  verbal  and  not  written.    These  became, 
as  the  careful  preparation  and  remembrance  of  the  original 
divine  poems  died  out,  under  the  rule  of  the  Dhe  Jats,  the 
Brythonic  followers  of  the  Goidels,  the  family  histories  of 
distinguished  individuals  claimed  as  ancestors  by  the  Brython 
tribes.     It  was  these  bards  who  took  the  place  first  assigned 


*  Jevon,  Schrader*s  Prehistoric  Antiquities  of  Aryans^  Part  iv.,  chap,  xii., 
sect.  iii.  p.  397. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  387 

in  the  primitive  constitutions  to  the  teaching  village  elders. 
The  original  or  Hele  Jats  are  also  called  Bhatti,  or  men 
of  the  bards,  and  Malwa  Jats.  They  are  the  descendants 
of  the  latest  immigrant  Malli  tribes,  who  gave  their  name 
to  Malwa  and  Multan  or  Malli-thana,  the  place  of  the  Mallis. 
It  was  while  besieging  this  town  in  his  war  with  the  Malli 
and  Kathaei  or  Kathi  that  Alexander  the  Great  was  wounded '. 
It  was  a  great  centre  of  sun-worship,  and  it  was  hither  that, 
according  to  the  Bhavishya  Purana  Samba,  son  of  Krishna, 
which  may  be  a  representative  name  denoting  the  Shambara 
or  Parthian  men  of  the  javelin,  brought  Magi  from  Saka- 
dwipa,  or  the  land  of  Seistan,  to  officiate  in  the  temple  of 
the  sun  af  Multan  2. 

The  present  chief  representatives  of  these  Malwa  Jats  in  the 
Punjab  are  the  Rajas  of  Putiala,  Nabha  and  Jind,  all  of  whom 
trace  their  descent  to  the  Jat  confederacy  originally  settled 
at  Mahraj  in  the  Ferozepur  district.  Their  institutions  were 
thoroughly  republican,  somewhat  like  those  of  the  Spartans, 
for  when  they  came  under  British  protection  they  were  not 
governed  by  Rajas  but  by  a  Panchayat  Council  of  elders,  like 
the  Spartan  Ephors  chosen  by  the  6,728  Jat  free-holders  3. 
These  are  the  ruling  officers  said  in  the  Mahabharata  to 
be  provincial  governors.  "  The  five  brave  and  wise  men 
employed  in  the  five  offices  of  protecting  the  city,  the  citadel, 
the  merchants  and  agriculturists,  and  punishing  criminals  4." 
Confederacies  such  as  these  were  so  careful  of  their  inde- 
pendence that,  like  the  people  of  Khytul  belonging  to  the 
Mahraj  group  of  states,  they  would  not  admit  a  tax-collector 
into  their  city,  but  paid  their  land  revenue  or  rent  over 
the  wall  ;  and  they  were  most  particular  in  isolating  them- 
selves  from   their    neighbours.      Thus    the    Jat   village   of 

'  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  of  India y  Multan,  p.  238. 
'  A.  Weber,  India  and  the  West  in  Old  Days ^  p.  20  ;  Hewitt,  Early  History 
of  Northern  India,  Part  ii.    J.R.A.S.t  1889,  pp.  226,  250. 

3  .Sir  G.  Campbell,  Aittobiography^  vol.  ii.  p.  42  ;  Hunter,  Gazetteer^  Mahraj, 
vol.  ix.  p.  184. 

4  Mahabharata  Sabha  (Lokapalasabha-khyana)  Parva,  v.  p.  17, 

C    C    2 


388  History  and  Chronology 

Jagraon  in  the  Ludhiana  district  was  divided  into  e^ 
Fattis  or  wards,  Jagraon  being  in  the  centre  ;  and  it  and  tk 
seven  circumjacent  Pattis  were  all  carefully  fortified  against 
each  other '.  These  precautions  recall  the  days  when  similar 
rivalry  and  isolation  separated  the  dwellers  on  the  seva 
hills  of  Rome,  and  when,  as  we  have  seen,  the  men  of  the 
quarter  of  the  Palatine  Via  Sacra  fought  with  those  of 
the  Suburra  for  the  possession  of  the  head  of  the  horse 
sacrificed  as  the  old  year's  horse  at  the  Equina.  These 
customs,  though  they  arc  permeated  with  the  spirit  of 
Northern  isolation,  yet  show  that  those  who  lived  under 
them  had  so  far  lost  their  original  dread  of  contact  with 
neighbours,  who  were  possible  foes,  the  *'  hostes  "  who  were 
in  Latin  speech  both  enemies  and  strangers,  as  to  live 
in  walled  towns  and  to  borrow  the  Dravidian  village  insti- 
tutions, which  entrusted  the  rule  of  the  community  to  the 
village  elders. 

Hence  we  see  that  though  the  Finno-Celts  established 
their  supremacy  in  the  lands  in  which  they  settled  by  war 
and  violence,  and  by  trying  to  trample  underfoot  the  cus- 
toms of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants,  yet  they  gradually 
amalgamated  with  them  and  instituted  the  habit  of  inter- 
marriages, which  were  first  preceded  by  the  forcible  capture 
of  the  daughters  of  the  land.  In  these  marriages  the  union 
between  the  old  and  new  settlers  was  made  binding  by  inter- 
mingling the  blood  of  the  alien  married  partners.  In  the 
societies  which  grew  up  from  this  interfusion  of  races,  the 
various  modifications  of  the  year- reckoning  and  the  national 
ritual  set  forth  in  previous  Chapters  were  evolved;  but 
in  all  these,  as  we  have  seen,  the  primaeval  beliefs  held  a 
conspicuous  place ;  and  the  national  histories  represented 
the  gods  of  the  new  ritual  as  directly  descended  from  the 
first  parents  of  the  village  races  ;  and  everywhere  the  cloud- 
mother-bird  Khu  and  the  father-tree-ape  were  looked  on 
as  the  ancestors  of  the  new  sun-god.  In  pursuance  of  this 
system  we  shall  now  see  that  the  sun-god  bom  as  the  ruler 

'  Sir  G.  CampbeU,  Autobiography ^  vol.  ii.  p.  52, 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age^  389 

of  this  epoch  was  the  son  of  the  Thigh  of  the  ape-father 
begotten  from  the  cloud-bird-mother,  who,  as  mother  of 
the  sun-physician  iEsculapius,  was  as  Koronis,  first  the 
raven-mother  and  afterwards  the  annual  garland  of  flowers 
bom  from  the  successive  months  of  the  year. 

A.     Tlie  birth  of  t fie  Sun-god  born  of  the  Thigh. 

The  origin  of  this  year  of  the  son  of  the  Thigh,  adopted 
by  these  amalgamated  Northern  and  Southern  races  after 
the  year  of  eleven  months,  is  distinctly  explained  in  the 
Brahmanas  in  the  instructions  for  lighting  the  fire  on  the 
year-altar.  The  first  sacrificial  fire  kindled  was  that  on 
the  altar  made  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  and  during  its 
ignition  eleven  Samidheni  or  kindling  stanzas  were  recited 
to  the  eleven  gods  ruling  the  eleven  months  of  the  year, 
those  invoked  in  the  eleven  stanzas  of  the  Apr!  hymns. 
But  the  ritual  marking  the  supersession  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  of  night  by  that 
dedicated  to  the  sun-god  of  day  tells  us  in  the  only  signi- 
fication that  can  be  given  to  the  words  of  the  Brahmanas, 
that  the  change  of  year-reckonings  was  one  from  Pole  Star 
to  sun-worship,  and  that  this  was  a  natural  evolution  of 
the  new  from  the  old  year. 

This  is  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  new  rule  introduced 
by  the  innovators,  that  in  kindling  the  sacrificial  fires  of  this 
year  the  eleven  Samidheni  stanzas  were  to  be  recited  as 
in  the  old  ritual,  but  the  first  and  last  were  each  to  be 
repeated  thrice  to  make  fifteen  the  number  of  months  in 
the  new  year.  These  stanzas  were  to  be  in  the  Gayatri 
metre  of  eight  syllables  in  the  line,  and  each  of  the  fifteen 
contained  three  of  these  lines  or  twenty-four  syllables. 
Hence  the  Samidheni  hymn  of  fifteen  stanzas  was  an  epito- 
mised description  of  this  year  of  fifteen  months,  each  of 
twenty-four  days,  and  three  eight-day  weeks  ^  Thus  this 
year  contained  only  24  x  15,  or  three  hundred  and  sixty 

'  Eggcling,  Sat.  Brah,,  i.  3,  5,  4—9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  96,  97  note. 


390  History  and  Chronology 

days  instead   of  the  three   hundred   and   sixty-three  days 
of  the  eleven-months  year. 

In  order  to  realise  the  causes  of  this  change,  which  was 
a  reversal  from  the  more  correct  year  of  Dadhiank  to  the 
Orion  year  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  da3r5,  we  must  trace 
out  the  history  of  the  revolution,  and  this  we  shall  find 
in  that  of  the  parentage  of  the  sun-god.  He  was  called 
in  all  the  mythologies  of  that  age  the  son  of  the  Thigh,  that 
is  of  the  Thigh  of  Set,  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear, 
the  parent  constellation  of  the  Kushika  who  invaded  India 
from  the  North,  and  which  they  called  the  seven  Rishis 
or  antelopes.  This  constellation  ruled  both  the  three-years 
cycle  and  the  eleven-months  year,  and  in  the  latter  it  was 
associated  with  Pegasus,  the  four  stars  of  Pegasus  being 
united  with  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  to  symbolise 
its  eleven  months. 

But  in  the  present  year  the  sun-god,  the  Phoenician  Esh- 
mun  or  eighth  god,  the  Hindu  Ashtaka,  with  the  same 
meaning  were  substituted  for  the  four  stars  of  Pegasus, 
the  four  sons  of  Horus,  and  these  eight  gods  ruled  the  eight- 
days  week  of  this  year,  as  the  eleven  stars  of  Pegasus  and 
the  Great  Bear  had  ruled  the  eleven-days  week  of  the 
previous  year.  This  new  god,  the  Phoenician  Eshmun,  the 
Akkadian  Eshshu,  was  worshipped  in  Cyprus  and  Rhodes 
as  Paian  the  healer,  the  sun-physician,  and  in  the  latter 
island  his  shrine  on  Mount  Atabyrios  was  called  that  of  Zeus 
Paian.  This  mountain  is  a  reproduction  of  the  Phoenician 
Mount  Tabor  '  near  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  on  which  hill  of  the 
oak-tree,  the  parent-tree  of  Deborah,  the  bee-prophetess, 
Saul  prophesied  after  he  had  found  the  asses  of  his  father 
the  ass-sun-gods  which  drew  the  car  of  the  Ashvins  and 
Ravana  of  the  cycle-year,  and  had  been  received  by  Samuel, 
as  sun-king  of  the  age  of  Ephod  worship,  at  Ram  ah,  the 
High-place  consecrated  to  Ram,  the  sun-god.  It  was  at 
Ramah  that  he  was  declared  to  be  the  son  of  the  Thigh,  that 

'  Movers,  Die  Phottizier,  vol.  i.  pp.  226,  26,  Appius,  xii,  27. 


of  t)u  Myth-Making  Age.  39 1 

of  the  victim  put  on  his  plate  as  the  thigh  of  the  god  of  the 
dead  year '.  But  this  was  the  right  thigh  of  the  sun-father- 
god  given  to  the  Jewish  prophet-priests  of  the  house  of 
Kohath  2,  and  not  the  left,  sacred  to  the  Pole  Star  god,  given, 
as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  VI.  pp.  332, 333,  to  the  father-god, 
rider  on  the  sun-horse,  after  the  birth  of  the  "  child  of  the 
majesty  of  Indra."  To  trace  the  history  of  the  god  born  of 
the  Thigh  we  must  go  back  to  the  Mahabharata,  where  this 
god  called  Aurva,  the  son  of  the  Thigh  (wri^),  is  said  to 
be  the  son  of  Chyavana.  Chyavana,  whose  name  means 
"  the  moving  one,"  was  the  personified  fire-drill  whose  wife 
is  called  in  the  Mahabharata  the  daughter  of  Manu  Arushi, 
the  red  one,  the  glowing  fire-socket  kindled  by  the  fire-drills. 
In  the  §atapatha  Brahmana  she  is  called  Su-konya,  the 
daughter  (konyd)  of  Su,  the  mother-bird.  Her  father  is 
Sharyata,  the  Manava  or  son  of  Manu,  the  god  of  the  arrow 
{sharya)y  that  is  of  the  year-god  Orion,  who,  as  Krishanu  the 
drawer  of  the  bow,  slew  at  the  winter  solstice  the  Shyena 
or  frost  (shyd)  bird,  the  year-mother-bird  from  whom  the 
sun-god  of  Orion's  year  of  the  Palasha-tree  was  to  be  born. 
In  short,  Su-konya  is  a  reproduction  of  the  Shyena  or  bird- 
mother  of  Orion's  year. 

Her  marriage  to  Chyavana  was  the  work  of  the  Ashvins, 
the  twin-stars  Gemini,  who  made  Chyavana,  the  aged  kindler 
of  the  fires  of  Orion's  year,  young  again  by  bathing  him  in 
the  Pool  of  Regeneration,  that  is  by  causing  him  to  be  reborn 
from  the  living  waters  of  the  mother-ocean  as  the  sun-god 
of  the  year  they  ruled.  This  is  the  pool  symbolised  in 
the  story  of  the  birth  of  the  Lycian  sun-god  Apollo,  born 
of  Leto  the  tree-trunk  by  the  yellow-river  Xanthus,  in  which 
his  mother  bathed  him  at  his  birth.  He  thus  became  the 
sun-god  of  the  race  of  the  united  North  and  South  twins, 
the  Kathi  or  Hittites,  the  Indian  Yadava  and  Turvasu.  It 
was  on  accomplishing  this  marriage  of  the  rejuvenated  sun- 


*  I  Samuel  ix.,  x.  i— 13.  *  i  Samuel  ix.  24  ;  Levit  vii.  32. 

3  Mahabharata  Adi  (Sambhava)  Parva,  Ixvi.  p.  191. 


39^  History  and  Chronotogy 

father  that  the  Ashvins  were,  according  to  the  Satapatha 
Brahmana,  allowed  to  drink  Soma  with  the  gods,  and  the 
Soma  they  drank  was  the  honey-drink  of  which  the  mystcfy 
was  taught  them  by  Dadhiank,  the  god  of  the  year  of  the 
horse's  head  ^. 

At  the  sacrifice  inaugurating  the  year  of  their  reception 
the  Bahish-pavamana  stotra  is  recited.  This  is  the  chant 
of  the  outside  {bahish)  drizzling  or  pure  Soma,  the  heaven- 
sent rain.  It  is  to  this  Soma  Pavamana  that  all  the  hymns 
of  the  Ninth  Mandala  of  the  Rigveda  are  addressed,  and 
he  is  called  (ix.  107,  15)  the  god-king  who  with  his  waves 
takes  the  holy  offerings  across  the  sea.  In  other  words, 
he  is  primarily  the  wind-god,  driver  of  the  clouds,  who  clears 
the  air  for  the  path  of  the  sun-god. 

But  the  ritual  gives  us  better  insight  into  the  inner 
meaning  of  this  chant  than  we  can  gain  from  the  interpre- 
tation of  its  title,  for  it  was  with  this  chant  that  the  gods 
summoned  the  Ashvins  2,  and  therefore  it  had  a  special 
historical  significance.  It  consists  of  nine  lines  in  the 
Gayatri  cight-syllablcd  metre  consecrated,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  this  year,  and  therefore  of  72  syllables.  That  is  to  say,  it 
is  a  year-hymn  telling  of  the  union  in  the  year  of  the  Gayatri 
eight-days  week  of  the  nine-days  week  of  the  cycle-year 
with  the  72  five-day  weeks  of  the  Pleiades  and  Orion's  year3. 

Thus  we  find  in  this  ritualistic  cryptogram,  as  well  as 
in  the  kindling  hymn,  most  striking  proofs  that  the  authors 
of  this  chanted  ritual,  written  in  the  lilting  Gayatri  eight- 
syllabled  metre,  that  employed  by  the  earliest  Vedic  writers, 
used  it,  which  has  been  reproduced  in  the  Greek  Anacreontic 
metre,  as  a  memoria  tecJinica  for  the  preservation  of  the 
memory  of  the  epochs  of  the  world's  history  ear-marked  by 
the  successive  methods  of  reckoning  annual  time. 

But  this  is  not  all  the  historical  information  given  by  the 
ritual  of  the  Bahishpavamana  hymn,  which  summoned  the 

^  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.y  iv.  i,  5,  i — 18;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  272 — 277. 

^  Ibid.,  iv.  I,  5,  13  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  275. 

3  Ibid.,  iv.  2,  5,  10;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  310,  note  i. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  393 

stars  Gemini  to  the  assembly  of  the  gods  who  ruled  time 
at  the  New  Year's  feast  of  the  marriage  of  the  rejuvenated 
year-father  to  the  mother-year-bird. 

This  hymn  of  invitation,  which  recognised  the  twin  ruling- 
stars  of  the  eleven-months  year  as  the  agents  who  introduced 
the  new  sun-year  of  the  eight-days  week,  was  recited  at  the 
Chatvala  pit,  whence  the  earth  for  the  Uttaravedi  or  northern 
altar  was  taken.  This  is  outside  the  limits  of  the  consecrated 
Soma  ground  at  its  north-east  corner,  the  rising  point  of  the 
sun  at  the  summer  solstice '.  The  altar  for  which  the  earth 
was  taken  from  the  pit  was  the  square  earth-altar  of  Varuna, 
which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  first  covered  with  sheaves  of 
Kusha  grass,  and  afterwards,  when  used  in  the  ritual  of  the 
animal  sacrifices,  with  branches  of  the  Plaksha-tree  {ficus 
infectorid). 

This  latter  covering  was  placed  on  the  altar  when  the 
omentum  and  heart  of  the  living  victims  slain  were  roasted 
at  it,  after  they  had  been  slain  outside  the  consecrated  Soma 
ground  close  to  the  Chatvala  pit.  It  was  on  this  altar> 
reconsecrated  for  animal  sacrifices  by  the  Plaksha  branches, 
that  the  triangle,  made  of  Pitadaru  wood  [Pinus  deodara), 
was  substituted  for  the  triangle  made  of  Palasha  twigs  {Butea 
frondosd)  placed  round  the  navel  of  this  symbol  of  the  divine 
mother  of  life. 

The  Chatvala  pit  was  especially  associated  with  the 
ritual  which  looked  on  the  year  as  a  recurring  series  of 
ceremonial  sacrifices  marking  its  progress ;  and  it  was  into 
this  pit  that  at  the  Samishtayajus  ceremonies  at  the  end 
of  the  annual  Soma  sacrifices  there  were  thrown  the  throne 
{asandt)  of  the  Soma  year -king,  the  Udumbarf  [Ficus 
glomeratd)  supporting  pillar  of  the  house  {sadas)  of  the 
year-gods,  the  Dronakalasa  or  hollowed  tree-trunk  in  which 
the  Soma  sap  of  the  year-tree  was  stored.  These  were 
afterwards  transferred  to  the  mother-water  or  temple-pool. 
Together  with  these  the   sacrificer  threw  into  the  pit  his 

'  Eggeling,  ^'d/.  Brdh.j  iv.  2,  5,  9,  iii.  5,  I,  26;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  309, 
116,  notes  I  and  3. 


394  History  and  Chronology 

year-girdle  of  three  strands,  signifying  the  three  seasons  of 
the  year,  and  the  black  deer's  horn  he  wore  at  the  end  of  his 
sacrificial  surplice  as  a  reminiscence  of  the  origtnal  year 
of  the  black  antelope '.  The  ceremonies  performed  at  the 
Chatvala  recognised  the  beginning  and  end  of  a  year  opening 
with  the  rising  of  the  sun  at  the  summer  solstice,  that  is  the 
year  of  the  Northern  god  of  the  rising,  not  the  Southern  god 
of  the  setting  sun ;  and  this  year  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
of  three  seasons  and  six -day  weeks  described  in  Chapter  IV. 
Hcnc^^  the  New  Year  sacrifice  which  deified  the  Ashvins, 
the  stars  Gemini,  who  brought  the  sun-maiden  or  Pole  Star 
bird  as  bride  to  the  moon-god,  and  worshipped  them  as  the 
twin  door-posts  of  the  House  of  God,  included  that  year  as 
well  as  the  earlier  years  recalled  in  the  Bahish-pavamana 
chant.  In  the  ritual  of  the  year's  cups  assigned  to  the 
ruling  deities  of  the  months  of  this  new  year  the  tenth  cup 
was  allotted  to  the  Ashvins  as  the  gods  of  the  three-years 
cycle  2. 

To  bring  the  ritualistic  historical  record  down  to  the 
Gayatrl  year  another  chant  of  eleven  verses  was  added  to 
the  Bahish-pavamana.  The  first  of  these  stanzas  is  called 
Shiras,  the  head,  and  the  second  Grivah,  the  neck,  thus 
showing  it  to  be  a  year-hymn  of  the  eleven-months  year 
of  the  horse's  neck.  This  chant  is  called  the  head  of  the 
sacrifice  ofTcrcd  by  Dadhiank,  the  god  of  the  horse's  head, 
that  is  to  say,  it  proclaimed  the  sacrifice  to  be  one  to  the 
ruling-god  of  the  eleven-months  years,  the  year  ruled  by  the 
Thigh  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear.  Hence  this  lengthy 
analysis  of  the  ritual  of  this  most  significant  marriage  of  the 
year-gods  Chyavana  and  Su-konya,  brought  about  by  the 
Ashvins,  shows  that  its  initial  ceremonies  conveyed  to  the 
initiated  a  complete   history  of  time   records,  as    disclosed 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh.y  iv.  4,  5,  2,  iii.  2,  I,  18  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  379, 
notes  2  and  3,  29,  30. 

'  Ibid.,  iv.  1,  5,  16;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  278. 

3  Ibid.,  iv.  I,  5,  15,  xiv.  i,  i,  18 — 24;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  276,  note  I, 
xliv.  pp.  444,  445. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  ^95 

by  the  various  official  years  measured  up  to  the  close  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  including  the  year  of  the  Pleiades  Orion 
ind  the  three-years  cycle. 

The  year  that  was  now  begun  was  that  which  forms  the 
subject  of  this  Chapter,  and  we  shall  see  that  in  its  history 
the  opening  month  of  the  year  was  always  that  in  which  the 
sun  was  in  Gemini. 

In  addition  to  the  history  of  the  wedding  of  Chyavana  and 
Su-konya  given  in  the  Brahmanas,  there  is  another  variant 
form  in  the  Rigveda  marriage  -  hymn  telling  of  the  union 
of  Suria,  the  sun-maiden,  born  of  the  bird  Su  to  the  moon- 
god  Soma,  the  rejuvenated  Chyavana.  In  this  poem  the 
wedding  oxen  were  slain  in  Magh  (January — February), 
when,  as  we  shall  see,  the  year  began,  and  the  marriage 
was  consummated  in  Arjuna  or  Phalgun  (February — March) 
ending  with  the  vernal  equinox.  That  is  to  say,  the 
ritualistic  record  of  the  year  extends  from  about  10,200  B.C., 
when  the  sun  entered  Gemini  in  January — February,  to 
8200  B.C.,  and  after  this  to  the  time  when  the  sun  was  in 
Gemini  in  February— March,  about  6200  B.C.  The  Ash- 
vins  brought  the  bride  to  this  wedding  in  their  three- 
wheeled  car  made  of  Palasha  [Kimshuka^  Butea  frondosa) 
and  Shalmali  wood  of  the  cotton-tree  (Bombax  Heptaph- 
ylla)  '.  After  the  wedding  the  bridegroom  assumes  his 
wife's  clothes  (v.  30),  showing  that  it  is  a  marriage  of  the 
sexless  moon-god  with  the  maiden  of  the  central  fire  of 
heaven,  the  year-bird  tending  the  fire  of  the  never  setting 
or  dying  Pole  Star  as  the  mistress  of  the  House  of  God, 
the  vault  of  heaven.  She  was  the  Vestal  priestess  of 
the  navel-fire  on  the  altar,  that  of  Hercules  Sandon  and 
Omphale.  The  united  pair  who  are  to  give  birth  to  the 
sexless  sun-god  of  this  year,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  Aurva, 
the  son  of  the  Thigh,  are  compared  in  the  hymn  to  the 
months  of  the  eleven-months  year,  the  ten  sons  she  is  to 
bear  to  her  sexless  lord,  and  he  himself  as  the  eleventh 

*  Kg.  X.  85,  8—20. 


39^  History  and  Chronology 

(v.  45).    These  are  the  months  symboh'sed   by   the  seven 
stars  of  the  Thigh  and  the  four  stars  in  Pegasus. 

We  must  now  return  to  the  story  of  Aurva,  the  oflsprii^ 
of  this  union,  as  told  in  the  Mahabharata.  In  the  Chaitra- 
ratha  Parva  neither  his  mother  or  father  are  named,  but 
she  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  Bhrigus  who  were  being  ruthlessly 
slaughtered  by  the  Kshatriyas  just  before  the  birth  of  hff 
son.  They  were  the  savage  conquerors  of  the  age  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  which  is  further  identified  as  that  in 
which  Aurva  was  conceived  by  the  statement  that  the 
nascent  god  cast  the  fire  of  his  wrath  into  the  ocean,  where 
it  became  the  head  of  the  sun-horse  called  Vadavamukha,  be 
who  speaks  with  the  left  (vama),  that  is  with  the  distorted 
mouth  of  the  Pole  Star  messenger  whose  circuits  of  the 
heavens  arc  left-handed,  the  god  of  the  year  reckoned  by 
methods  different  from  those  used  by  the  ancestors  of  tiic 
indigenous  dwellers  on  the  land. 

It  was  at  the  birth  of  Aurva  that  his  counterpart  Pari- 
shara,  the  overhanging  cloud,  son  of  Shaktri,  the  god  Sakko, 
son  of  Vashishtha,  who  ruled  the  thirty-three  gods  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  became  the  sun-god  of  day  and  per- 
formed the  great  sacrifice  in  which  the  gods  of  the  stellar 
lunar  era  of  Pole  Star  worship  were  destroyed,  and  his  father 
Shaktri  sent  up  to  heaven  as  a  star-god  '. 

He  then  became,  as  we  learn  from  the  astronomy  of  the 
Manvantara,  one  of  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  called  Ur-ja, 
born  (j'a)  of  the  Thigh  (Urn),  his  full  name  being  Urja- 
Stauibha,  the  pillar  (stambha)  of  the  thigh-born  sun-god,  the 
golden  pillar  Boaz  of  the  Phoenician  temples.  This  list  of 
the  fourteen  star-parents,  headed  by  Urja-Stambha,  is  a 
second  edition  of  the  first  Manvantara  or  period  of  Manu, 
the  astronomical  reckoner.  In  this  original  list  the  first  of 
the  fourteen  parent-stars  marking  the  period  of  the  creating 
lunar  phases  is  the    Svayambhara,   the   self-begotten  2,   the 


*  Mahabharata  Adi  {Chaitra-ratha)  Parva,  clxxx. — clxxxii.,  pp.  5I2>5I9. 
■  Sachau,  Alberunrs  Indian  vol.  i.  chaps,  xliv.,  xlr.  pp.  387,  394. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  397 

Pole  Star  god,  who  was  originally,  as  we  have  seen,  Kepheus 
or  Kapi,  the  ape-god  who  is  worshipped  by  the  Sabaeans 
as  "  the  ancient  light,  the  divinely  self-created  ^" 

This  sun-god,  born  of  the  thigh  of  the  Pole  Star  ape-god, 
is,  in  Greek  mythology,  Dionysos,  son  of  Semele,  the  Phoe- 
nician goddess  Pen-Samlath,  the  face  {pen)  of  the  Name 
(Shem)  of  God,  the  Samlah  of  M asrekah,  the  wine-land  in 
the  Edomite  genealogy  of  Genesis  xxxvi.  36,  37.  His 
father  was  Zeus  in  his  form  of  the  ape-god  of  the  mud  {tan), 
the  Cretan  Tan,  the  Carthaginian  and  Phoenician  Tanais 
or  Tanit,  the  female,  and  therefore  the  earliest  form  of 
this  male  parent- god.  She  is  called  by  Strabo  the  equi- 
valent of  the  Zend  mother-goddess  Anahita,  the  parent- 
cloud,  the  springs  whence  the  Euphrates  rose,  the  Zend 
form  of  the  Vedic  goddess  Vrisha-kapT,  the  rain-ape,  wife 
of  Indra  ».  He  was  born  prematurely,  but  was  taken  up  by 
his  father  and  sewn  in  his  thigh,  that  is  to  say,  he  was 
first,  as  in  the  Hindu  mythology  of  the  Mahabharata,  the  son 
of  the  Thigh  of  the  mother-ape,  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear. 

When  born  he  passed  through  two  stages.  First  he  was 
the  sun-maiden,  a  girl  brought  up  by  Athamas,  or  Dumu-zi, 
Tammuz  the  star  Orion,  and  Ino  the  mother  of  Melicertes,  the 
Phoenician  Melkarth,  the  sun-god-master  of  the  city  {Karth)  3, 
the  god  Ar-chal  or  Herakles.  When  Athamas  and  Ino 
were  made  mad  by  Here,  the  goddess  of  stellar  lunar 
time,  the  Greek  form  of  the  madness  of  Kalmashapada,  the 
god  of  the  eleven-months  year  of  Chapter  VL,  this  maiden- 
goddess  was  changed  into  the  sun-ram  of  the  ship  Argo, 
and  brought  up  by  the  nymphs  of  Nysa,  who  became  the 
Hyades4,  the  companion  stars  to  the  Pleiades,  the  third  in 
the  list  of  the  Hindu  Nakshatra.     That  is  to  say,  he  was 


*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  T'/Wj,  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  p.  i6i. 

=  Movers,  Die  Phoniziery  vol.  i.  pp.  617,  618,  Strabo,  xi.  p.  432  ;  Rg.  x.  86. 

T  It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  Phoenician  Karth,  the  Hebrew  Kiriath,  is  the 
same  word  as  the  Cehic  Caer,  for  city ;  the  name  is  therefore  one  pointing 
to  the  Celtic  elements  in  the  population  of  Semitic  cities. 

*  Smith,  Classual  Dictionary,  Dionysos,  p,  226. 


398  History  and  Chronology 

in  the  second  form  of  his  birth  the  sun-goddess  of  the  age 
of  the  supremacy  of  the  mother-goddesses,  when  Semeki 
the  counterpart  of  Artemis,  called  Arktos,  the  goddess  of 
the  Great  Bear,  was  ruler  of  heaven.  He  was  the  Dion}^sos 
Nuktelios,  the  night-sun,  the  Arcadian  god  of  the  lower 
world,  the  realm  ruled  by  the  Southern  sun  of  the  winter 
solstice,  the  god  born  when  the  sun  was  in  the  H3^des,  that 
is  in  Taurus,  in  the  midst  of  which  they  stand  at  the  winter 
solstice,  that  is  about  10,200  B.C.,  at  the  same  time  when  the 
sun  was  in  Gemini  in  January — February. 

It  was  at  the  winter  solstice  that  he  was  worshipped  in  the 
festivals  of  the  lesser  Dionysos  in  Poseidon  (December- 
January).  These  were  held  to  celebrate  the  return  of 
Dionysos  from  the  lower  world,  whither  he  had  gone  to 
bring  back  the  sun-mother  Semele,  and  at  Pellene  his  return 
was  acclaimed  by  a  feast  of  torches,  like  that  offered  to  the 
Pleiades  mother  Demeter  in  October — November.  This 
Dionysos  festival  was  held  in  the  grove  of  Artemis  Soteira, 
the  Great  Bear  goddess,  the  healing  female  physician  '. 

At  Megara  this  festival  was  held  in  the  Akropolis  conse- 
crated to  Car,  the  Carian  Zeus  of  the  double  axe,  the  two 
lunar  crescents  2.  At  these  Dionysiac  festivals  held  in 
Argolis  on  the  Alcyonian  lake,  and  at  Cynethaca  in  Arcadia, 
a  bull  was  sacrificed  to  him,  and  he  was  called  on  to  rise 
up  out  of  the  lake  as  the  bull  sun-god  of  spring  3. 

It  was  to  him  as  the  spring-god  that  the  festival  of  the 
Lenaea  or  wine- press  was  held  in  Gamelion  (January- 
February),  the  month  of  the  marriage  {ydfio^)  of  Here  and 
Zeus,  the  beginning  of  this  year.  This  Pausanias  tells  us 
was  held  at  Migonium  in  Laconia,  on  a  mountain  called 
Larysium,  sacred  to  Dionysos  4,  and  it,  like  the  slaying  of 
the  Magh  (January — February)  wedding  oxen  in  the  Vedic 
marriage  of  Suria  and  Soma,  was  followed  by  the  Anthesteria 

*  Frazer,  PausaniaSf  vii.  27,  i,  vol.  i.  p,  371. 
'  Ibid.,  i.  40,  5,  vol.  i.  p.  61,  vol.  ii.  ]i.  525. 

3  Ibid.,  ii.  27,  6,  viii.  19,  I,  vol.  i.  pp.  130,  397,  vol,  iii,  302,  303. 

*  Ibid.,  iii.  22,  2,  vol.  i.  p.  170. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  399 

of  the  1 2th  of  Anthesterion  (February — March),  the  Hindu 
Arjuna  or  Phalgun,  when  the  marriage  was  consummated  '. 

In  another  Greek  story  of  the  bull  of  Dionysos  he  is  said 
to  have  been  the  son  of  Persephone,  the  Queen  of  the  Pleiades, 
the  star  Aldebaran,  when  she  was  violated  by  Zeus.  This 
IS  the  exact  reproduction  of  the  Hindu  story  which  tells 
of  the  birth  of  Vastos-pati,  the  lord  (^pati)  of  the  house 
(vastos)y  the  god  of  the  household  fire,  from  this  star  called 
RohinI,  when  she  was  violated  by  her  father  Prajapati  Orion. 
This  first  form  of  Dionysos  was  called  Zagreus,  born  as  a 
hunter  with  a  bull's  head.  This  god,  under  the  two  names 
of  Dionysos  and  Zagreus,  was  slain  by  the  Titans,  and  was 
eaten  by  them  as  the  totem  bull  man-god  at  the  human 
and  animal  sacrifices  of  the  rituals  of  the  cycle-year 
and  that  of  eleven  months.  His  remains  were  buried  under 
the  Omphalos  or  navel  of  the  tripod  altar  of  the  cycle-year  ^. 

This  god  born  of  the  Thigh  was  the  sun-god,  the  *'  child 
of  the  Majesty  of  Indra,"  born  at  the  Ekashtaka  or  marriage 
day,  the  eighth  day  of  the  dark  fortnight  of  Magh  (January 
— February),  which  I  have  already  described  in  Chapter  VI. 
p.  332,  at  whose  birth  the  left  thigh  was  offered  3. 

He  was  also  the  Greek  ploughing  and  sowing -god 
Triptolemus.  He  and  his  brother  Zeus  Eubouleus,  Zeus 
of  good  counsel,  are  said  by  Pausanias  to  be  traditionally 
the  sons  of  Celeus  or  Coeleus,  the  hollow  heaven,  or  of 
a  brother  of  Celeus  Dysaules.  This  latter  name,  as  Mr. 
Frazer  has   shown,   is   properly   Disaules,  he  who  ploughs 

*  The  Anthesleria  or  Festiral  of  Recall  (^yaeifrtraadai)  was  a  three  days  New 
Year's  Feast  beginning  with  the  Pitlioigia,  when  the  souls  of  the  dead  issued  from 
the  sacred  cleft  called  Pithoi  or  casks,  the  Indian  Drona  or  hollowed  tree-trunk 
of  the  mother-tree.  They  were  greeted  on  the  second  day  with  Choai  libations. 
It  was  a  reproduction  in  a  new  year-reckoning  of  the  Hindu  New  Year's  Festival 
of  the  autumnal  equinox,  when  the  Pitaro  Barishadah  were  calle<l  to  sit  on  the 
Barhis  or  sheaves  of  Kusha  grass.  Harrison,  Pandora  s  Box;  Verrall,  The  Name 
Anthesleria^  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies^  vol.  xx.  1 900,  pp.  102— 1 10,  1 1 6. 

*  Smith,  Dictionary  of  Antiquities^  vol.  ii.,  Orphica,  p.  302  ;  Fraier,  Pau- 
sanias^ vol.  iv,  p.  143. 

3  Oldenberg,  Grihya  Sutra  Pdraskara,  Grihya  Sutra,  iii.  3,  5,  i — 10; 
S.B.E.,  vol.  xxix.  pp.  342,  344. 


400  History  and  Chrondogy 

twice,   a   name  'like    that    of   Trisaules,    he    who   plouj^' 
thrice '. 

In  the  Satapatha  Brahmana  we  find  a  complete  explana- 
tion of  the  assignment  of  this  name  to  the  year-god.  h 
the  ritual  of  the  Rajasuya,  the  coronation  rite  of  the  Indian 
kings,  the  last  of  the  ceremonies  is  the  series  of  observances 
which  begin  with  the  oblation  of  the  Dasapeya  or  ten  cups 
offered  to  the  gods  of  the  year  of  the  months  of  gestation, 
the  year  ending  with  the  tenth  cup,  which,  as  we  have  seen 
on  p.  394,  was  offered  to  the  Ashvins.  The  second  sacrifice 
of  this  series  is  that  called  the  Panchabila,  an  offering  pr^ 
sentcd  on  a  square  platter  with  five  divi-  N 

sions,  as  in  this  diagram.  In  the  East  or 
North-east  division  there  is  a  cake  on 
eight  potsherds  for  Agni,  the  god  of  this  W 
year  of  the  eight-day  weeks.  In  the 
South  or  South-east  division  a  cake  on 
eleven  potsherds  for  Indra,  the  god  of 
the  eleven-months  year  and  eleven-days  week.  A  bowl 
of  rice  gruel  for  the  Vishvadevah  is  placed  in  the  South- 
west division  consecrated  to  the  sun-bird,  beginning  the 
year  with  the  setting  sun  of  the  winter  solstice ;  and  a  dish 
of  curds,  the  curdled  milk  of  the  hot  summer  season,  is 
placed  in  the  Northern  or  North-west  division  sacred  to 
Mitra  Varuna,  the  twin-gods  ruling  the  summer  solstice 
when  the  rainy  season  {var)  begins.  In  the  central  division 
is  placed  a  bowl  of  rice  gruel  for  Brihaspati,  the  Pole  Star 
god,  and  with  this  is  mixed  part  of  the  offerings  to  the  other 
four  year-gods.  This  centre-god  is  called  "  the  white-backed 
bullock,"  the  Pole  Star  ruling  the  path  of  Aryaman,  the  star 
Capella  in  the  charioteer  constellation  Auriga,  which,  as  we 
shall  sec,  drove  the  year-car  of  the  sun-god  of  this  year  «. 

These  ceremonies  close  with  the  oblation  of  teams,  the 
twelve  cups  offered  to  the  twelve  months  of  Orion's  year  at 
the  ploughing  festival.     This  took  place  among  the  Kuni- 

»  Frazer,  Pausanias,  i.  14,  2,  ii.  14,  3,  viii.  15,  4,  vol.  i.  pp.  20, 91,  303,  iii.  p.  81. 
'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,<,  v.  5,  i,  i — 12  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  120 — 123, 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  401 

"Panchalas,  the  Kurus  or  Kauravyas  united  with  the  Panchala 
men  of  the  five  (paflch)  days  week.  It  was  held  in  this  year 
in  the  early  spring  or  dewy  season,  that  is  at  the  New  Moon 
of  Magh  (January — February),  when  the  dews  which  cease 
in  the  hot  season  are  still  plentiful.  It  was  originally  a 
festival  of  the  winter  solstice  beginning  at  the  New  Moon 
of  Push  (December — January),  when  Pushan  was  wedded 
to  the  sun's  daughter,  but  in  the  age  of  the  birth  of  the 
Kauravyas  and  Pandavas,  about  10,000  B.C.,  the  year  began 
when  the  sun  was  in  the  constellation  Gemini,  that  is  in 
January — February,  and  hence  the  annual  ploughing  begin- 
ning the  year  was  transferred  to  that  month.  The  plough 
was  driven  by  the  king,  who  is  directed  to  plough  a  line 
forward  or  northward  to  represent  the  Northern  course  of  the 
sun  reaching  its  most  northerly  point  at  the  summer  solstice 
when  the  rains  begin,  and  he  is  to  return  again  southwards 
when  he  ploughs  the  second  furrow,  representing  the  sun 
returning  again  to  the  South  at  the  end  of  six  months'.  In 
the  ploughing  of  the  Magh  (January — February)  year  the 
first  six-months  furrow  was  that  ending  in  July — August. 

Hence  Triptolemus,  the  plougher  of  the  two  furrows,  was 
originally  the  ploughing-god  of  the  two  sea.sons  of  the 
solstitial  sun,  who  was  also  called,  as  the  year-god  of  Orion's 
year  of  three  seasons,  Trisaules,  or  the  god  of  three  plough- 
ings.  In  this  form  he  is  represented  in  ancient  Greek 
monuments  as  standing  between  Demeter,  the  barley-mother, 
originally  representing  the  first  six  months  of  the  year 
beginning  in  November  or  December,  and  Persephone,  the 
six  months  beginning  in  May  or  June.  When  the  year  was 
divided  into  three  seasons,  each  of  four  months  or  twenty- 
four  five-day  weeks,  the  centre  season  or  summer,  when  the 
sun  was  in  the  North,  was  assigned  to  him.  Hence  he 
received  from  Demeter  the  gift  of  a  car,  the  seven-starred 
northern  chariot  of  the  Great  Bear,  drawn  by  dragons,  the 
stars  of  the  constellation  Draco  «.     This  god  of  the  dragon- 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.y  v.  5,  2,  1—5  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  123,  124. 
^  Frazer,  Pausanias^  i.  14,  i,  vol.  i.  p.  20,  ii.  p.  118,  iv.  p.  142. 

D  d 


402  History  and  Chronology 

car,  the  thigh  of  the  ape-god,  taught  Eumelus,  the  bii3dff 
of  the  ploughing  {ar)  city  of  Aroe,  to  sow  grain,  and  instructol 
Areas,  the  son  of  Kallisto  the  Great  Bear  mother,  in  the 
cultivation  of  corn,  the  baking  of  bread,  the  weaving  of 
garments,  and  the  spinning  of  wool '. 

It  was  as  the  sowing-god  who  sowed  the  furrow  of  heaveOi 
the  Indian  goddess  Sita,  that  Triptolemus  became  the 
Etruscan  god  Tages  or  Terie'gh,  the  wise  child  who  was 
ploughed  from  the  earth  in  the  city  of  Tarchon  (TarfuiniH, 
who  civilised  the  people  of  Etruria  as  he  had  civilised  those 
of  Arcadia.  His  Etruscan  images  represent  him  as  a  I^ess 
and  armless  god,  with  a  lozenge-shaped  body  terminating 
in  a  point,  and  above  this  a  second  face  is  depicted,  so  that 
he  has,  like  the  sun-god,  a  Northern  and  Southern  face^  He 
wears  on  his  breast  the  St.  Andrew*s  Cross  of  the  solstitial 
sun  2. 

His  counterpart,  Zeus  Eubuleus,  was,  like  Triptolemus, 
a  partner  of  Demcter  and  Persephone  in  a  triad  of  pig-gods. 
A  sow  pregnant  for  the  first  time  was  offered  to  Demeter, 
an  uncut  boar  to  Persephone,  and  a  sucking-pig  to  Eubuleus. 
Thus  he  was  the  son  of  the  two  year-mothers,  the  young 
boar-god,  the  sun  of  the  winter  solstice,  as  Triptolemus  was 
the  sun  of  summer.  It  was  to  these  three  pig-gods  that  pigs 
were  thrown  into  the  serpents*  pit  at  the  Thesmophoria 
festival  beginning  the  Pleiades  year  3.  We  find  another 
phase  of  the  history  of  the  worship  of  the  sun-god  born  of 
the  Thigh  in  tlfe  story  of  Jacob.  He  came  to  the  banks 
of  the  Jabbok,  a  tributary  of  the  Jordan,  after  he  left  Harran 
or  Kharran,  the  half-way  city  of  the  road  {kfiarran)  from 
the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  Mediterranean,  where  the  god  was 
Laban,  the  white  god  *'  of  the  brick  foundations  of  heaven," 
the  god  of  the  lunar-solar-gods  of  the  year  of  the  bee-hive 
palace  of  the  three-years  cycle.  He  had  with  him,  as  we 
are  expressly  told  in  Genesis  xxxii.  22,  his  four  wives: 
(i)  Leah,  the  wild  cow  {Je)  with  the  tender  eyes,  the  counter- 

*  Frazer,  PausaniaSy  vii.  i8,  2,  viii.  4,  i,  vol.  i.  pp.  354,  376. 
'^  Leiand,  Etruscan  Roman  KetnainSf  pp.  96,  98. 
3  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vol.  ii.  pp.  118,  119,  v.  p.  29. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  403 

,:  part  of  the  three-eyed  Samirus  of  Babylon  and  the  Hindu 

ii  Shiva,  the  mother  of  six  sons  and  a  daughter,  the  seven 

4  children  of  the  Great  Bear  mother  of  the  cow-born  race ; 

r<  (2)  Rachel,  the  ewe,  the  mother  of  Joseph,  or  Asipu,  the 

interpreter-god  of  the  eleven-months  year,  who  is  to  become 

:   the  mother  of  the  sun-ram ;  (3)  Billah,  the  old  mother  of 

£   Dan,  the  Pole  Star  god-mother  of  the  Danava  sons  of  Danu ; 

:  and  (4)  Zilpah,  the  foot  of  the  snake  {tsir)y  a  form  of  Zillah 

-.  or  Tsir-lu,  wife  of  Lamech  or  Lingal.     She  was  the  mother 

.   of  the  fish-sun-god  Ashur,  who  was  Assur,  the  supreme  god 

of  the   Assyrians,  the  Hindu  Ashadha  ruling  the   summer 

solstice.     Besides  these  four  wives,  the  four  seasons  of  the 

eleven-months  year,  he  had  with  him  these  eleven  months 

in  the   eleven  children   spoken  of  in  this  narrative  of  his 

contest  with  the  god  of  the  Thigh. 

Before  crossing  the  Jabbok,  he  passed  the  night  at  Penuel, 
the  place  of  the  face  {pen)  of  God,  the  female  image  of  the 
mother-goddess,  the  Indian  Pennu,  the  Great  Bear,  queen 
of  Heaven  of  the  Brythonic  Celts.  She  appeared  to  him 
at  night,  and  he  wrestled  with  this  goddess  of  the  Thigh 
till  the  sun  rose,  and  he  found  himself  transformed  into 
the  sun-god,  born  from  the  left  thigh  of  the  Pole  Star 
ape,  who  was  conceived  during  the  age  when  the  priests 
who  wore  the  sacrificial  cord  on  the  right  shoulder  bent 
the  left  knee  to  the  moon-goddess  ruling  the  year ',  and 
not  the  right  knee,  bent  when  the  sacrificial  cord  was  worn 
on  the  left  shoulder.  Henceforth  the  sinew  of  his  left  thigh 
was  dried  up  as  the  virtue  had  gone  out  of  it,  and  the 
right  thigh  became  the  offering  given  to  the  priests  of  the 
sun-god  of  Benjamin,  the  son  of  the  ewe-mother  of  the  sun- 
ram,  and  the  father  or  ancestor  of  Saul  or  Shawul,  to  whom 
the  right  thigh  was  given  at  his  consecration  festival «,  It  was 
after  this  transformation  that  Jacob  met  his  brother  Esau, 
the  goat-god  of  the  green  pillar,  and  became  his  colleague  as 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  ii.  4,  2,  I,  2  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  361. 
'  Gen.  xxxii.  22 — 32  ;  Levit.  vii.  32 ;  i  Samuel  ix.  24. 

1)  d   2 


404  History  and  Chronolofj 

the  golden  pillar  of  the  sun-god.  After  this  meeting*  Jacob 
passed  over  Jordan  and  came  to  Succoth,  the  place  of  bootiis, 
where  the  tent-festival  of  Tabernacles  inaugurating  the  Net 
Year  was  held. 

His  passing  over  Jordan  is,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  V. 
pp.  229,  230,  significant,  for  it  tells  us  that  he  became  the  son, 
not  of  the  Euphrates,  the  Nahr  or  channel-river  of  the  Pole 
Star,  but  of  the  yellow  {yareh)  moon-river,  the  river-mother 
of  Omphale,  daughter  of  lardanus  «,  the  navel-fire  of  the  altar 
and  the  goddess  of  the  phallic  worship  of  the  sexless  god 
Herakles  Sandon  who  wore  her  clothes.     Her  father  was 
the  river  looked  on  as  the  national  parent-stream  of  the 
Phoenician  Minyans,  the  archers  of  Kudon  in  the  west  of 
Crete,  who  were   most  noted   bowmen,  the  picked   archers 
of  the  Kushika  sons  of  the  bow  and  the  antelope.    They 
were  the  sons  of  Teucer,  son  of  the  mountain  and  sheep- 
mother  Ida,  whose  daughter  became  wife  to  Dardanus,  who 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  antelope  sun-god  of  Troy,  and 
it  was  Teucer  who  brought  the  worship  of  Apollo-Smintheus, 
the  mouse-god,  from  Crete  to  Troy  3.      These  sons  of  lar- 
danus were,  according  to  Pausanias  vi.  21,  5,  sons  of  the 
Idsean  Herakles  of  the  Dactyli  or  priests  of  the  five-days 
week,  and  their  goddess-mother  was  the  Cydonian  Athene, 
that  is  of  the  original  tree-mother  whose  history  has  been 
traced  in  previous  chapters  4.     They  took  the  name  of  their 
sacred  river  to  Elis  in  Greece,  where  it  was  an  ancient  name 
of  the  river  on  which   Phaea,  called  after   the   sow   Phaea, 
destroyed  by  Theseus,  stood.     Its  name  meant  the  shining- 
moon-city,  and  it  was  taken  by  Nestor  s.    The  river  lardanus 
was,  in  the  time  of  Pausanias,  called  the  Acidas  ^,     It  was  as 
the  son  of  this  moon-river  that  Jacob  became  god  of  the 
eleven-months  year  while   he  dwelt  in  Shechem,  the  then 

*  Genesis  xxxiii.  17.  =*  Herod,  i.  7. 

3  Homer,  Od.^  iii.  292 ;  Hor.,  Carm,  iv.  9,  17  ;  Smith,  Classical  DutUmary, 
Cydonia,  p.  200,  Teucer,  p.  754. 

*  Frazer,  Pausanias,  vi.  21,  5,  vol.  i.  p.  317. 

5  Homer,  Iliad,  vii.  135  ;  Frazer,  Pausanias,  ii.  i,  3,  vol.  i.  p.  70. 
*•  PVazer,  Pausanias,  v.  5,  5,  vol.  i.  p.  243. 


of  the  Myth' Making   Age,  405 

:apital  of  the  lands  of  Ephraim,  the  men  of  the  two  ashes 
ephra)y  the  united  Northern  and  Sonthern  races,  sons  of 
[oseph.  It  was  at  Shechem  that  the  Hivite  villagers,  the 
Rephaim  first  settlers  in  the  land,  were  circumcised.  This 
:eremony  was  apparently  a  variant  form  of  the  circumcision 
^f  the  united  races  performed  by  Hoshea,  the  leader  of  the 
Ephraimites,  sons  of  Joseph,  when  he  joined  Caleb,  the  dog- 
itar,  in  robbing  the  treasury  of  the  bees,  and  established  the 
ileven-months  year. 

Prom  Shechem  Jacob  went  to  Luz,  the  place  of  the  almond 
luz)  tree,  the  nut-tree  of  the  Toda  sons  of  the  bull,  and 
parent-tree  of  the  Kohathite  priests,  and  also,  as  we  shall  see, 
>f  the  sun-god  of  this  year.  At  Luz,  which  he  called  Bethel, 
:he  place  of  the  pillar  of  God,  Jacob  buried  the  idols  of  the 
light-gods  of  his  former  worship.  From  thence  he  passed 
DH  to  Bethlehem,  where  the  sun-god  of  this  year,  Benjamin, 
:he  god  of  the  right  hand,  was  born  simultaneously  with  the 
death  of  his  mother,  Rachel,  the  ewe-mother  of  Joseph, 
the  god  of  the  eleven-months  year,  who  wore  the  star  coat 
Df  many  colours '. 

The  son  of  the  right  hand  was  born  as  the  sun-god  of  the 
worshippers  of  the  Pole  Star  of  the  North,  now  represented 
by  the  Sabaean  Mandaites,  who  in  worshipping  the  Pole  Star 
turn  their  faces  to  the  North,  and  who  have  thus  the  rising 
sun  of  the  East  on  their  right  hand  and  not  on  their  left,  hke 
the  Harranites,  who  face  southwards  while  worshipping*. 
This  is  the  position  of  the  Roman  augurs,  whose  parent-god 
was  the  mother-tree  of  the  South.  The  Sabaean  Mandaites 
in  their  annual  service  inaugurating  their  year,  fix  the  hour 
by  referring  to  the  position  of  the  Great  Bear  and  the  Pole 
Star,  and  mark  their  connection  with  the  age  of  the  sex- 
less gods  by  substituting  a  wether  for  the  earlier  ram  offered 
on  New  Year's  Day  3. 

*  Genesis  xxxiii.  16 — xxxv.,  xxxvii.  3,  4. 

-  Sachau,  Albeninrs  Chronology  of  Ancient  Nations^  chap,  xix.,  Festivals 
of  the  Moslems,  p.  329. 

3  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  Sabaean  New  Year's  Riiual, 
vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  pp.  159—164. 


4o6  History  and  Chronology 

The  birth-place  of  the  sun-god,  son  of  the  right  hand,  was 
Bethlehem,  also  called  Ephrata,  the  place  of  the  ashes  or 
shrine  of  the  dead  faiths  of  the  past.  It  was,  as  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  154,  the  house  of  Lehem,  the  Ak- 
kadian twin  gods  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu,  the  offspring 
of  Lakh,  the  Akkadian  form  of  the  Median  and  Hindu  Ragb 
the  sun-god.  It  was  there,  according  to  St.  Jerome,  Ep.  19, 
that  the  annual  festival  of  the  death  and  rebirth  of  Taminuz 
or  Dumu-zi,  the  year-god  Orion,  was  held. 

It  was  at  this  ancient  shrine  of  Boaz,  the  golden  pillar,  that 
the  new  sun-god,  rising  on  the  right  hand  in  the  East,  was 
born  as  the  son  of  the  left  thigh,  and  he  who  was  first  Saul 
or  Shawul,  the  heirless  sun-god  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
who  had  lost  the  asses  that  used  to  draw  his  father's  car, 
was  succeeded  by  David  or  Dodo  the  Beloved,  who  is  named 
as  the  national  god   on   the  Moabitc  stone,  who  was  the 
eighth  son  of  Jesse  or  Ishai,  meaning  He  who  is.     He  is 
the  eighth  son  of  the  Thigh,  but  of  the  right  not  the  left 
thigh,   the  god   born   not  of  the  sexless  gods  of  the  lunar 
era  of  the   bisexual   parent  fig-tree,  but  of  the  male  and 
female  pair,  the  two  trees  of  the  mother  Tamar,  the  date- 
palm-tree  which   only  bears  fruit   when  the  flower  of  the 
female-tree  has  been  fertilised  by  the  pollen  of  the  flower 
of  the  male  tree.     As  parent  of  the  son  of  the  Thigh,  Ishai 
is  also  called  Nahash,  the  plough-snake  {nahur),  the  god  of 
the   constellation    of  the  Great  Bear,  the   Arabic   Nagash, 
the  Indian  Nahusha,  the  Gond  Nagur.     As  Nahush  he  is  the 
father  of  Zcruiah  the  Cleft,  the  goddess  Tirhatha  and  Abigail, 
she   whose   father   [ab)   is  Exaltation,  the  daughter  of  the 
inspired  prophet  of  the  gnomon-stone  ^     He  is  also  called 
Dodo  of  Bethlehem,  father  of  El  Hanan  the  merciful,  which 
is,  as  we  have  seen  on  p.  380,  the  name  of  David  in  the 
Edomite  genealogy  of  Genesis  xxxvi.,   so  that  Dodo  the 
son   of  the  Thigh  was  son   of  himself,  the    self-begotten- 
god  2.     It   was   this   El    Hanan   who  slew  Goliath,  son  of 

'  I  Chron.  ii.  i6,  17  ;  2  Sam.  xvii.  25.         ^  I  Chron.  xi.  26;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  24. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  407 

Rapha,  the  giant  god  of  the  Rephaim,  and  his  brother 
Lahmi,  a  form  of  Lakhmu,  to  whom  Beth  -  Lehcm  was 
dedicated  ^  He  slew  them  with  five  stones  out  of  the 
brook,  their  parent  river-god,  the  five  days  of  their  week, 
the  last  of  their  rule  as  year-gods  2. 

The  sun-god  who  drew  his  strength  from  the  left  thigh, 
whence  he  was  born,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  god  of  the 
ten  and  eleven-months  year,  and  it  was  at  the  close  of  this 
epoch,  when  his  power  as  the  ruling  sun-god  was  departing, 
that  his  left  thigh  was  broken  or  withered  like  that  of  Jacob 
in  the  contest  at  Penuel.  This  is  what  happened  to  the 
Celtic  sun-god  Cuchulainn,  the  hound  of  Cu,  before  he  was 
slain  by  Lugaid,  and  the  story  of  his  end  reproduces  in 
a  most  striking  form  the  history  of  the  supersession  of  the 
god  of  the  eleven -months  year  by  the  god  of  the  year  of 
eight-day  weeks.  Lugaid,  his  slayer,  was  the  son  of  Fergus 
Fairge,  that  is  Fergus  the  Ocean-god  of  the  Southern  waste 
of  waters.  It  was  into  the  lap  of  Fergus  that  the  brooch 
with  which  Maine  used  to  fasten  her  cloak  fell,  and  Maine 
was,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  the  goddess  of  the  eight-days 
week  of  the  eight  Maine,  the  links  of  the  chain  that  bound 
together  this  year  of  fifteen  months  3,  Lugaid  is  also  called 
the  son  of  the  three  Curoi  hounds,  said  to  be  Cu-chulainn, 
Conall  Cernach,  slayer  of  Lugaid  and  Curoi,  keeper  of  the 
cows  of  light,  husband  of  Blathnat  the  flower-goddess,  the 
Celtic  form  of  the  Greek  Koronis,  mother  of  iEsculapius  the 
sun  physician  4.  These  Curoi  were  also  the  Corr  or  Cranes 
whence  Lugaid  got  his  name  of  Corr  the  Crane.  They 
were  the  three  Cranes  of  Mider,  the  god  of  the  lower  world, 
of  the  Southern  sun  of  winter,  the  three  baleful  birds  answer- 
ing to  the  Greek  Harpies  or  vultures,  who  tried,  in  the  story 
of  Jason,  to  kill  Phineus  the  sea-eagle,  by  taking  away  his 
food,  and  pecking  him  when  he  tried  to  eat.     These  birds 


'  I  Chron.  xx.  5  ;  2  Samuel  xxi.  19.  '  i  Samuel  xvii.  23  ff. 

3  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.  p.  328. 
*  Ibid.,  Lect.  v.  p.  472,  note  i — 474,  552,  676. 


1 


4o8  History  and  Chronology 

were  driven  by  Zetes  and  Kalais,  sons  of  Boreas,  the  North- 
east and  North-west  winds  in  the  Strophades,  or  turning 
islands,  marking  the  winter  turning-points  of  the  solstitial 
sun,  and  became  the  three  weaving  sisters  in  the  constellation 
of  the  Vulture  ^  It  was  these  three  Cranes  in  the  form  of 
three  old  women  blind  of  the  left  eye,  the  one-eyed  Grais 
whose  eye  Perseus  carried  off,  who  met  Cuchulainn  on  his 
way  to  fight  Lugaid,  and  persuaded  him  to  eat  the  shoulder- 
blade  of  the  hound,  whence  he  took  his  name,  the  year-dog 
Argus,  the  constellation  Argo.  They  gave  it  to  him  with 
the  left  hand,  and  it  was  from  his  left  ^hand  that  Cuchulainn 
ate  it,  and  he  put  the  bone  under  his  left  thigh.  Thereupon 
the  strength  of  his  left  thigh  departed,  and  he  was  slain  by 
Lugaid  «•  That  is  to  say,  the  sun-god  of  the  left  thigh  was 
slain  by  the  son  of  the  three  Cranes  of  the  South  land  of 
Fergus  Fairge,  who  gave  to  Lugaid  the  brooch  of  the  eight- 
days  week  of  Maine,  and  Lugaid,  god  of  the  winter  solstice, 
was  in  his  turn  slain  by  Conall,  god  of  the  summer  solstice, 
whose  horse,  the  dog-star  Sirius,  had  a  dog's  head  3. 


B.     T/ie  story  of  Tobit  and  Jack  tfie  Giant  Killer ^  builder 
of  the  altar  of  the  eight  and  nifu-day  weeks. 

The  sun-god  born  of  the  Thigh  appears  again  in  the  story 
of  Tobit  and  his  son  Tobias,  who  was  married  by  Raphael, 
one  of  the  seven  angels  of  God,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great 
Bear  4,  to  Sara,  who  had  had  seven  husbands  who  all  died 
on  their  wedding-day.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Raguel,  the 
god  [el)  Raghu  of  the  Median  land  of  Rages  or  Ragha, 
the  birth-place  of  the  Zend  sun-god  worshipped  by  the 
Akkadians  and  in  Bethlehem  as  Lakh.  But  before  dealing 
with  the  facts  of  this  story  as  told  in  the  Apocrypha,  I  must 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  iv.  pp.  331 — 334,  676,  677 ;  Hewitt, 
Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii.,  pp.  198,  199. 

*  Hull,  The  CtuhuUin  Saga^  Cuchulainn's  Death,  pp.  254 — 263. 
^  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,  Lect.  v.  p.  472. 

^  Tobit,  chapter  xii.  15. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  469 

first  show  by  comparing  some  of  its  numerous  variants  the 
fundamental  features  of  this  historical  narrative.  In  a 
number  of  these  collected  by  Mr.  Groome,  the  agent  of 
the  final  marriage  with  which  the  story  ends  is  a  dead  man, 
who  is  one  of  the  previous  husbands  of  the  sun-mother  the 
bride,  and  who  has  been  buried  by  the  future  father  of 
the  sun-god,  who  is  in  Tobit  the  eighth  husband  of  the 
bride.  The  dead  and  buried  husband  rises  from  the  dead 
to  aid  his  benefactor,  and  in  the  Russian  story  he  descends 
from  heaven  as  the  angel  of  God.  In  all  except  one  of  Jack 
the  Giant  Killer,  which  I  will  discuss  after  I  compare  the 
other  variants  with  the  Tobit  tale,  the  girl  whom  the  suc- 
cessful wooer  is  to  marry  has  had  several  husbands  who 
died  or  were  either  strangled  or  beheaded  by  her  on  their 
wedding  night.  There  are  five  husbands  in  the  Armenian 
story,  six  in  the  Russian,  and  nine  in  the  German  version. 
In  the  Gypsey  and  Armenian  two  dragons  and  two  serpents 
come  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  bride  on  her  wedding  night, 
and  in  the  Russian  story  one  dragon  files  into  the  bridal- 
chamber  to  kill  the  husband,  and  one  comes  out  of  the  inside 
of  the  bride  after  she  had  been  sawn  in  half,  and  these  are 
slain  by  the  assistant  angel.  In  the  German  version  the 
saviour  of  the  dead  man  is  supplied  by  him  with  a  feather 
shirt,  a  rod  and  a  sword,  and  with  these  he  files  after  the 
princess  as  she,  in  the  guise  of  the  year-bird,  makes  her  way 
at  night  through  the  air  to  her  demon  lover  of  the  Pole  Star 
Age.  He  is  thus  enabled  to  answer  the  three  questions 
as  to  what  she  was  thinking  of  which  she  asks  him  to  answer 
at  his  successive  daily  visits.  In  the  last  answer  he  tells  her 
she  is  thinking  of  her  lover's  head,  the  head  of  the  god 
of  the  dead-year,  which  he  produces.  In  the  Gypsey  and 
Armenian  story  the  guardian-angel  claims  half  the  bride, 
a  reminiscence  of  the  two  seasons  making  the  one  year,  but 
gives  up  his  claim  when  the  second  evil  beast,  the  second 
season,  comes  out  of  her.  In  the  Russian  version  she  is 
sawn  in  half  by  the  assistant  who  restores  her  to  life  as  the 
mother  of  the  sun-god  of  the  regenerated  year,  when  the 


410  History  and  Chronology 

dragons  leave  her.  In  the  German  version  the  bride  changes 
on  the  wedding  night,  when  dipped  in  water  by  the  bride- 
groom, first  into  a  raven,  then  into  a  dove,  and  last  into 
a  maiden.  These  changes  mark  previous  epochs  of  the  life 
of  the  year-mother-bird,  and  we  have  in  all  these  stories 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  slain  man,  the  dead  sun  returned 
to  life  as  the  Time-spirit  or  German  Zeit-geist,  who  destroys 
the  evil  spirits  which  in  previous  ages  deformed  the  year- 
mother  who  slew  in  her  successive  changes  her  husbands. 
And  the  Time-spirit  finally  transforms  the  changing  reckoner 
of  the  year  by  wedding  her  to  the  sun-god  *. 

When  we  turn  from  these  variant  versions  to  the  story 
of  Tobit  in  the  Apocrypha,  we  find  that  the  burier  of  the 
strangled  man  who  was,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  one  of  the 
husbands  of  the  bride,  is  Tobit  himself,  who  became  blind 
the  night  he  buried  him.  On  that  night  Anna  his  wife  got 
a  kid  as  wages,  and  was  told  by  Tobit  that  she  stole  it, 
on  which  she  reproached  him  for  his  hypocrisy.  On  this 
same  night  Sara,  the  daughter  of  Raguel,  prayed  that  she 
might  be  provided  with  a  husband  whom  Asmodcus  would 
not  strangle  ^, 

Tobit,  the  blind-god,  husband  of  Anna,  dwelt  in  Nineveh, 

the  town  of  the  fish-mother-goddess  Nana,  for  the  cuneiform 

ideogram  of  its  name  means  the  city  of  the  fish,  and  the 

name  for  fish,  Kha,  also  means  the  oracle,  the  teaching-fish. 

\     Hence  it  was  the  city  of  the  fish-god  first  called  la.     He 

/     is  called  by  Berosus  Oannes,  which  is  a  form,  as  Lenormant 

has  shown,  of  la  Khan,  la  the  fish  3  who  became  the  god 

;      Assur,  the  supreme  god  of  Nineveh.     Tobit  was  thus  the 

blind  oracle  of  the  fish-mother-goddess,  the  gnomon-stone. 

He  was  uncle  to  Achiacharus,  son  of  Ana-el,  the  god  Anu, 

who  was  cup-bearer  to  the  king,  that  is  the  filler  of  the  cups 


»  F.  H.  Groome,  'Tobit  and  Jack  the  Giant  Killer,'  Folklore^  vol.  ix,,  1898, 
pp.  226  ff.  "^  Tobit  i.  17—19,  ii.  3—14. 

3  Sayce,  Assyrian  Grammar:  Syllabary ^  178,442;  Lenormant,  Chaldaatt 
Magic  and  Sorcery',  chap.  xiii.  App.  I.  p.  203. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  4!  I 

of  the  seasons '.  Hence  he,  Anna  and  Achiacharus  formed 
a  triad  like  that  of  Ilos,  Assarakos  and  Ganymede,  that 
is  of  Ilos,  the  father-river  or  eel-god  of  the  Trojan  fig-tree. 
Assarakos,  the  god  of  the  bed,  and  Ganymede,  the  cup- 
bearer of  the  gods,  and  the  offspring  of  this  triad  born 
in  the  year-bed  of  the  mother-tree  described  in  Chapter  IV. 
pp.  143,  144,  was  Tobit,  the  Jewish  Asherah  or  gnomon-tree 
pillar,  the  double  of  Dhritarashtra,  the  blind  gnomon-stone 
husband  of  Gandharl,  the  Pole  Star  Vega.  Anna  and  Anael, 
father  of  Achiacharus,  are  the  bisexual  female  and  male 
form  of  the  goddess  Anna  Perennis  of  Roman  ritual,  and  the 
goddess  of  Carthage,  sister  of  Dido  or  Dodo  the  beloved 
sun -goddess. 

Tobit  belongs  to  the  tribe  of  Naphtali,  the  son  of  BlUah, 
the  old  mother  of  Dan,  the  Pole  Star  god,  who  sacrificed 
to  the  heifer  Baal,  that  is  to  the  mother-cow  RohinI  Alde- 
baran,  and  not  to  the  moon-bull  He  alone  of  his  tribesmen 
went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  pray,  and  he  was  the  grandson 
of  Deborah,  the  bee-prophetess,  and  therefore  a  father-god 
of  the  age  of  the  three-years  cycle,  the  beehive  and  tower 
of  God  ^.  It  was  also  to  this  age  that  Sara  belonged  as 
the  daughter  of  the  sun-god  Raghu,  the  father  of  Rama, 
who  ploughed  with  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  her 
husbands.  She  was  the  cloud-goddess  Shar,  also  called 
I-shara,  the  house  (/)  of  Shar,  the  mother  of  corn,  that 
is  to  say,  she  was  the  husk-mother  of  the  seed-grain  which 
she,  as  in  the  Siamese  Cinderella  story,  fostered  and  fed. 
She  was  the  guardian-encloser  of  the  sun-god  who  was 
to  be  born  from  her  as  the  sun  of  the  corn,  the  seed  of  life. 
Isaac,  the  laughing-grain  born  from  the  ninety-year  old 
withered  husk-mother  Sara,  wife  of  Abram,  the  father  Ram 
son  of  Raghu  and  brother  of  Sara.  Thus  Tobit  was  the 
blind  tree-trunk,  and  Sara  his  wife  the  mother  of  the  grain- 
born  sun-god.  They  were  both  to  be  rejuvenated,  like 
Chyavana,  by   the   leading   angel-star  of  the  Great   Bear, 

»  Tobit  i.  Ji,  22.  ^  Ibid.  i.  5, 6,  8. 


412  tiistory  and  Chronology 

Raphael,  the  god  of  the  giants  {rapha),  and  both  were  gods 
of  the  Southern  faiths  which  looked  to  the  mother-heifer-star 
Aldebaran  as  the  parent  of  life  and  not  to  the  Northern 
moon-father. 

The  regeneration  of  Tobit  and  Sara  as  parents  of  the  god 
of  the  right  Thigh  was  to  be  accomplished  by  Raphael,  the 
leading  star  of  the  Thigh  constellation,  who  had  been  buried 
with  the  dead  gods  of  the  age  of  Pole  Star  rule  of  the  left 
Thigh,  when  fathers  offered  their  eldest  sons,  the  slain 
Raphael  in  sacrifice  ^  Raphael,  eight  years  after  Tobit 
became  blind,  that  is  at  the  end  of  the  year-week  of  eight 
days  2,  led  Tobias,  the  rejuvenated  Tobit,  the  young  sun-god 
born  of  the  old  gnomon  pillar,  to  the  Northern  land  of  Raghu, 
the  birth-place  of  the  sun-god  of  day.  On  their  way  they 
caught  in  the  Tigris,  the  river  of  the  sun-god  going  South, 
the  Zend  Rangha,  a  fish  which  tried  to  devour  Tobias,  that 
is  the  river-fish  or  alligator  constellation  Draco.  Raphael 
took  from  it  its  heart,  liver  and  gall  3,  the  seats  of  the  vital 
essence  in  primitive  physiology.  From  the  heart  and  liver, 
when  burnt  by  Tobias  at  Raphael's  command,  rose  the  fumes 
which  drove  away  to  the  South,  his  home,  the  evil  spirit 
Asmodcus  4,  who,  as  the  god  of  the  offerers  of  human  sacri- 
fices representing  the  dead  sun-god  of  the  past  year,  was  the 
god  who  killed  the  former  husband  of  Sara,  and  of  the  brides 
of  the  variant  tales. 

He  was  the  god  Ashma-deva,  the  god  of  the  stone-gnomon- 
pillar  {ashman),  the  Greek  Akmon,  the  anvil  of  the  heavenly 
smith,  the  thunder-god  of  the  South,  whose  year  began  when 
the  sun  was  in  the  South  at  the  winter  solstice.  Fourteen 
days  after  the  consummation  of  the  marriage  and  the  regene- 
ration of  Sara  as  the  sun-mother,  they  returned  at  the 
summer  solstice,  after  the  defeat  of  the  winter-god  of  the 
South,  to  Nineveh.  It  was  then  that  Tobias,  instructed  by 
Raphael,  restored  to  Tobit  his  eyesight  by  rubbing  his  eyes 
with  the  fish  gall,  and  made  him  once  more  the  seeing  Pole 

»  Tobit  V.  13.  =  Ibid.  xiv.  2.  3  ibid.  vi.  1—5.  <  Ibid.  viii.  3. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  413 

Star  god  of  the  age  of  Orion's  year.  Tobit,  before  his 
approaching  death,  foretold  the  erection  of  a  new  temple 
of  the  sun-god  of  day,  the  vault  of  heaven  consecrated,  as 
we  shall  see,  to  the  fully  regenerated  Buddha  to  replace  the 
beehive  palace  of  the  gods  of  night '. 

The  age  of  this  history  is  made  capable  of  identification 
by  the  gift  of  the  kid  to  Anna.  This  was  the  constellation 
Auriga,  that  of  the  two  kids  on  the  wrist  of  the  driver  of 
this  year-car,  which  was  to  replace  the  plough  and  waggon 
constellation  of  the  Great  Bear.  This,  as  I  have  shown  in 
Chapter  VI.  pp.  338 — 340,  was  the  constellation  ruling  the  year 
of  the  zodiacal  sun  in  the  Babylonian  astronomy.  The  chief 
star  in  this  constellation  a  Aurigae  is  the  star  Aryaman  01 
Hindu  and  Zend  astronomy,  which  is,  as  we  shall  see,  the 
star  of  the  sun-physician.  I  have  now  before  completing 
the  review  of  the  historical  teaching  of  the  story  of  Tobit 
to  examine  the  variant  form  of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer.  In 
identifying  him  we  must  remember  the  nursery  rhyme  of  the 
House  that  Jack  built,  which  we  shall  see  was  an  ancient 
historical  tale.  We  have  seen  that  the  original  Akkadian 
teaching-fish  was  lakhan,  who  became  the  Cannes  of  Berdsus, 
the  Greek  lohaniiesT^ur  John,  who  has  also  resumed  his 
original  Akkadian  name  of  la-kh  or  Jack.  He,  on  St.  John's 
Day,  the  24th  of  June,  still  rules  the  summer  solstice.  The 
House  that  Jack  built  is  depicted  for  us  in  the  Talmud  form 
of  our  nursery  rhyme.  It  is  founded  on  the  "  kid  which  my 
father  bought  for  two  pieces  of  money."  This  takes  the 
place  of  "  the  Rat  which  ate  the  Malt "  in  our  version. 

Considering  the  number  of  the  actors  in  this  primitive 
relic  of  folklore,  there  being  in  the  Talmud  version  ten  and 
in  ours  nine  actors,  and  the  certainty  that  it  can  be  traced 
to  the  god  lakhan,  the  fish,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  taught 
the  early  Akkadians  the  astronomy  of  the  first  stellar  year 
measured  by  weeks,  there  is  a  very  strong  probability  that 
the  actors   in  this  old  rhyme   represent  the  bricks  or  days 

*  Tobit  viii.  19,  xi.  4 — 13,  xiv.  5. 


414  History  and  Chronology 

forming  the  weeks  which  built  up  this  year  edifice.  Tibl 
was  the  beehive  palace  of  the  gods  of  time,  beginning  frtft^ 
the  Laban  "brick  foundation  of  heaven,"  and  the  namB- 
of  the  bricks  forming  its  foundation-week  were  probaldy, 
according  to  the  custom  of  stellar  worship,  stars  connected 
with  the  course  of  the  year,  and  possibly  with  the  zodiacal 
stations  of  the  moon  and  sun. 

In  Chinese  astronomy,  one  of  the  oldest   in  the  woiU, 
there  are  two  Zodiacs  in  which  the  signs  are  the  same,  but 
the  first  denotes  the  hours  of  the  day  beginning  at  midn^jht, 
and  the  second  the  zodiacal  path  of  the  sun.     But  the  great 
antiquity  of  this  representation  of  the  sun's  yearly  course 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  signs  are  retrograde  and  mark 
the  course  of  the  sun  going  from  right  to  left,  according 
to  the  rule  of  the  Pole  Star  Age,  and  not  from  left  to  right 
as  in  the  solar  era.     The  first  of  these  signs  is  the  Rat,  which 
represents  in  the  annual  zodiac  Aquarius ;  and  the  second, 
the  ox,  is  not  Pisces,  but  Capricornus,  so  that  the  first  sign 
represents  the  last  month  of  the  year.    The  signs  are :  i.  The 
Rat,  2.  The  Ox,  3.  The  Tiger,  4.  The  Hare,  5.  The  Dragon 
or  Crocodile,  6.  The  Serpent,  7.  The  Horse,  8.  The  Ram, 

9.  The  Ape,  10.  The  Cock,  11.  The  Hog,  12.  The  Fox^ 
Among  the  Mongols  the  signs  are:  i. Mouse,  2. Ox,  3. Leopard, 
4.  Hare,  5.  Crocodile,  6.  Serpent,  7.  Horse,  8.  Sheep,  9.  Ape, 

10.  Hen,  II.  Dog,  12.  Hog,  so  that  with  the  exceptions  of 
signs  I,  II,  and  12,  they  are  the  same  as  the  Chinese^. 
These  signs  only  concern  the  present  discussion  in  the  first 
sign  or  brick  of  the  year-house.  This  is  the  Rat  or  Mouse, 
the  Rat  that  ate  the  Malt  that  lay  in  the  house  built  by 
Jack.  The  Rat  in  Chinese  represents  Aquarius,  and  is  used 
as  a  sign  for  water.  The  Babylonian  zodiacal  year  of  the 
ten  kings  of  Babylon  ended  with  Xisuthros,  the  star  Skat  I 

*  Burton,  Arabian  Nights^  vol.  xi.  p.  219,  i.ote  I.  The  list  in  the  article 
Zodiac,  Encyc.  Brit..  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  793,  substitutes  Dog  and 
Pig  for  the  nth  and  12th  signs. 

-  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico  ^  vol.  iii.,  Appendix,  Part  i.,  Origin  of  Mexican 
Civilisation,  p.  521,  note. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  415 

.  Aquarius.  He  was,  according  to  Berosus,  the  god  saved 
from  the  Flood,  who  in  the  Akkadian  form  of  the  Flood 
Legend  was  Dumu-zi  {Orion)^  called  Dumu-zi  of  the  Flood, 
and  it  was  he  who  rose  again  as  the  sun  of  the  New  Year 
measured  by  the  ten  zodiacal  stars,  when  he  entered  the 
constellation  Aries  in  the  star  Hamal,  represented  by  Alorus, 
the  first  of  these  kings.  Thence  he  passed  through  eight 
stars  in  Taurus,  Gemini,  Leo,  Virgo,  Scorpio,  and  Capricornus, 
to  return  by  the  path  of  our  zodiacal  sun  to  Skat  in  Aquarius. 
This  Babylonian  zodiac  represented,  as  I  have  shown 
elsewhere,  a  celestial  circle  of  360  degrees  divided  into 
minutes  and  seconds.  The  432,000  years  of  the  kings  or 
seconds  of  the  circle  were  the  432,000  years  of  the  Hindu 
Kali  Yuga  on  which  their  chronology  is  based.  Hence 
these  two  coincident  systems  of  year  reckoning  mark  an 
important  period  in  the  history  of  the  two  countries  ^  As 
the  year  in  which  this  zodiac  became  the  official  measure 
of  time  is  said  by  the  Babylonian  historians  to  have  been 
that  in  which  the  traditional  flood  occurred,  and  as  it  began 
with  the  Babylonian  rainy  season,  it  is  most  probable  that 
their  Hebrew  successors,  who  took  their  materials  from 
Babylonish  sources,  took  thence  the  date  of  this  flood-year, 
which  they  made  to  begin  on  the  17th  of  Marchesvan 
(October — November),  when  the  sun  was  in  Aquarius ;  it 
would  thus  be  in  Aries  in  December — January ;  and  this 
zodiacal  position  marks  the  date  of  this  year  as  about 
8,200  B.C.,  and  fixes  this  as  the  time  when  this  zodiac  was 
first  used  as  the  almanac  of  the  official  year,  and  this  was 
the  date  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  February — March, 
that  beginning  the  year  of  which  the  history  is  told  in  this 
Chapter ;  or  if  we  take  Aries,  according  the  Babylonian 
Zodiac,  as  the  sign  following  Aquarius  and  representing 
November — December,  the  year  will  begin  with  the  sun  in 

'  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  *  Remarks  on  the  Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars.' 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaology^  January,  1890  ;  Sayce,  Hibbert 
Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  233  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times, 
vol.  i.,  Essay  ir.,  pp.  382 — 384  ;  Gen.  vi.  6. 


41 6  History  and  Chronology 

Aries  in  November — December,  and  in  Gemini  in  January-!'^ 
February,  or  about  10,200  B.C.  This  latter  date  is  that  dfr*^- 
the  year  of  Dionysos  Nuktelios,  as  shown  in  p.  398.  V  ^ 

Hence  we  see  that  in  ancient  tradition  the  Water-rat  wasl*^^ 
the  founder  of  the  zodiacal  year  based  on  the  worship  of  tiie|^^ 
rain-god,  the  rain  and  cloud  bird  Khu,  who  brought  good 
crops.  This  Water-rat  became  in  the  evolution  of  theo* 
logical  astronomy  the  Mouse-god  Apollo  Smintheus,  the 
god  of  the  primaeval  Semites,  whose  worship  was,  as  we  have  JI 
seen,  brought  by  Teucer,  the  archer-god,  from  Crete  to 
Troy.  Having  thus  shown  the  coincidence  between  the  ftc 
Chinese  and  Mongol  zodiacal  signs  of  the  Rat  and  Mouse,  l!i 
their  correspondence  with  the  primitive  Babylonian  zodiac,  F 
and  their  probable  reproduction  in  the  Rat  of  the  House  \ 
that  Jack  built,  I  will  now  proceed  to  compare  the  English 
and  Talmud  bricks  of  this  house.  They  are  as  follows: 
English — I.  Rat,  2.  Cat,  3.  Dog,  4.  Cow,  5.  Maiden,  6.  Man, 
7.  Priest,  8.  Cock,  9.  Farmer.  Talmud — i.  Kid,  2.  Cab 
3.  Dog,  4.  Staff,  5.  Fire,  6.  Water,  7.  Ox,  8.  Butcher,  9.  Angel 
of  Death.  It  would  require  a  special  treatise  to  show  the 
full  meaning  of  each  of  these  signs,  and  I  certainly  could  not 
write  it  with  my  present  knowledge,  but  I  will  remark  that 
the  last  two  signs,  the  Sowing  Farmer  and  the  Angel  of 
Death,  corroborate  the  belief  that  it  is  an  old  nursery  poem 
made  to  teach  children  the  history  of  time,  beginning  its 
first  annual  revolutions  with  the  death  of  the  old  year  and 
the  sowing  of  seed  in  the  Pleiades  month  of  the  Southern 
spring,  October — November.  Also  the  second  sign,  the  Cat, 
is  significant.  She  is  the  cat  that  drew  the  year-car  of 
Freya,  the  sun-hawk,  and  the  Egyptian  cat-goddess  Bast, 
mother  of  the  mummied  cats,  who  bears  on  her  head  horns 
and  the  moon-disk  with  the  serpent  under  it.  This  shows 
that  the  cat-goddess  of  the  second  day  is  a  moon-goddess. 
Her  other  name  is  Sochit,  under  which  she  is  depicted  as 
a  scorpion  with  horns  and  disk.  This  is  the  scorpion  banner- 
sign  of  Dan,  the  Hebrew  son  of  Danu  or  Billah,  the  Pole 
Star  goddess.     This  scorpion  is  called  in  Genesis  xlix.   17 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  417 

serpent.  This  banner  guarded  the  Israelite  camp  of  the 
brth,  containing  the  tribes  of  Dan,  Asher,  and  Naphtah" ». 
t^he  name  Sochit  of  this  scorpion  or  serpent-goddess  is 
'^Dnnected  with  the  Coptic  Sochi,  a  field,  and  means  in  the 
'^cord  of  a  grant  of  land  at  Edfu  an  area  both  of  high  and 
c>w  land,  that  is,  a  village  area,  so  that  she  is  a  village- 
iroddess ;  and  as  a  star  she  is  symbolised  by  Antares  a 
Scorpio,  the  star  of  the  month  Tisri  (September — October), 
and  also  by  7  Draconis,  so  that  her  worship  goes  back  to  the 
days  of  lunar-solar  worship  of  the  age  of  the  cycle-year  and 
its  equinoxes  2. 

If  this  list  represented  the  primaeval  conception  of  the 
bricks  that  make  the  house  of  time  it  must  symbolize  the 
week,  and  as  the  year  of  the  beehive  house  of  heaven 
was  that  of  the  cycle-year,  the  number  nine  is  that  of  the 
nine  days  of  the  week  of  this  year  measured  by  the  lunar 
crescents,  the  horns  of  the  cat-goddess.  But  the  Talmudic 
interpretation  of  this  ancient  school  poem,  which  in  their 
version  contains  ten  verses,  of  which  the  last  tells  of  the 
final  victory  of  the  sun-god  born  from  the  ten  months  of 
gestation,  throws  still  further  light  upon  the  history  it 
accords.  In  these  ten  verses,  when  compared  with  the 
English  version,  we  see  that,  in  the  original  school  lesson, 
the  butcher  of  the  eighth  verse  of  the  Talmud  variant  was 
the  sun-cock.  The  substitution  of  the  butcher  for  the  cock  is 
explained  by  the  Talmud  commentators  to  mean  the  vic- 
tory gained  by  the  men  of  Israel,  sons  of  Edom,  over  the 
armies  of  Gog  and  Magog,  Kush  and  Pul,  that  is  the  con- 
quering progress  of  the  victorious  king  of  Edom,  Baal 
Hanan  or  David,  the  eighth  son  of  the  Thigh,  the  sun-god 
of  this  epoch  3.  Also  the  nine  bricks  when  accumulated 
in  weeks  made  up  the  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation  from 

*  Number  ii.  25—31. 

"  Bnigsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alien  Mgypttr^  pp.  333,  649 ; 
Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy^  chap.  xxix.  pp.  289,  290,  xxxii.  p.  329. 

5  Patcrson  Smith,  The  Old  Documents  and  the  New  Bible,  The  Talmud  and 
the  Targums,  riii,  ;  The  House  that  Jack  Built,  pp.  141— 144. 

E  e 


4iS  History  and  Cknmobgjr 

which  the  barley  -  son  was  born,  to  become  tbe  malt  At] 
lay  in  the  house  that  Jack  boilt,  and  the  nindi  of  tihoe 
th«  Talmud  version  is  the  Angel  of  Deadi,  die  day  of  Ac' 
decease  of  the  conquering  sun  who  has  botdiered  kii 
enemies,  and  who  dies  when  he  has  done  his  work  ti 
rise  again  as  the  sun  of  the  age  of  solar  worship  '. 

This  interpretation  of  the  connection  between  die  Tal- 
mud version  of  the  poem  originally  describing  the  year  of 
nine -day  weeks  and  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation,  and 
this  year  of  eight-day  weeks,  is  confirmed  by  the  substiti' 
tion  of  the  kid  for  the  rat  as  the  first  brick. 

This  kid  and  that  given  to  Anna  in  the  story  of  Tobit 
is  the  constellation  of  Auriga,  the  charioteer  with  two  kids 
upon  his  wrists,  called  by  the  Akkadians  Askur  the  goat 
This  is  the  constellation  which  ruled  the  year  in  Bafayko 
when  that  of  the  Great  Bear  pointing  to  the  Pole  Star 
was  discarded  as  an  indicator  of  time.  It  was  believed  to 
watch  over  the  course  of  the  sun  through  the  zodiacal 
stars  ^  and  mark  the  star  constellation  into  which  the  sun 
entered  when  the  year  begun.  This  was  in  the  final  Baby- 
lonian year  the  constellation  Taurus,  in  which  the  sun  was 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  about  4200  B.C.,  but  its  functions 
began  long  before  that  epoch.  In  this  constellation  the 
chief  star  a  Auriga  was  Capella,  the  little  goat,  which  re- 
placed the  old  Pole  Star  goat  as  the  warder  of  time  It 
is  called  in  the  Rigveda  and  Zendavesta  Aryaman  and 
Airyaman,  the  ploughing  constellation,  the  Celtic  Alrem, 
the  ploughman.  This  star-god  is  called  in  the  Zendavesta 
the  great  healer  of  diseases  who  drives  away  the  pestilences 

'  See  Appendix  B,  where  the  English  and  Talmud  versions  of  Tk€  Houst 
that  faek  Built  are  given  in  full  as  well  as  the  Basque  version.  This,  as 
I  there  point  out,  throws  much  fresh  light  on  the  origin  of  this  prinueval 
nursery  lesson,  and  conclusively  proves  that  in  one  of  its  earliest,  if  not  its 
earliest,  forms  it  dates  from  the  age  of  the  cycle-year  ruled  by  the  Pole  Star 
goat. 

*  The  god  Uz,  the  goat,  is  depicted  on  Babylonian  monuments  as  sitting 
on  a  throne  watching  the  revolution  of  the  solar  disk.  Sayce,  Hihbert  Lectuns 
for  1887,  Lcct.  iv.  p.  285. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  419 

Irrought  by  Angra  Mainyu,  the  Southern  god  of  the  Pole  Star 
'era  of  the  worship  of  the  Southern  sun,  the  god  summoned 
^^by  Nairyo-Sangha,  the  perpetual  fire  burning  on  the  altar 
'of  the  sun-god.  In  the  Rigveda  he  is  one  of  the  six 
Aditya  belonging  to  the  father  triad  of  Mitra,  Varuna, 
Aryaman ». 

This  star  as  the  star  of  the  sun -physician  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  stars  Gemini^  the  Ashvins,  who  were 
in   Hindu  mythology  the  physicians  of  the  gods  who  reju- 
venated and  married  Chyavana.     It  was  these  stars  which 
Aryaman  Capella  was  employed  especially  to  watch  as  those 
of  the  Gate  of  God  through  which  the  sun  entered  the  year. 
This  was  the  triumphal  entry  of  the  sun-god  at  his  marriage 
in    Greece  with  Here,  the  moon,  in  the  month  Gamelion 
f  January — February),  and   that  of  the  Vedic   marriage  of 
Soma,  the  male  moon-god,  and  Chyavana  with  Su-konya, 
the  sun-maiden,  in  the  same  month.     This  was  the  Hindu 
Magh  (January — February),  and  the  sun  was  in  the  constel- 
lation or  car  of  the  Ashvins  in  this  month,  about  10,200  B.C. 
This  was  the  date  when  the  Babylonian  zodiacal  year  of  the 
ten  kings  began,  when  the  sun  was  in  Aries  in  November — 
December.    It  was  also  the  date  of  the  first  year  of  the  Thigh, 
the  conquering  year  of  the  eight-days  week,  the  year  of  the 
contest  which  ended  with  the  final  victory  of  the  sun-god 
and  the  consummation  of  the  marriage  of  Su-konya  or  Suria 
and  Soma,  which  took  place  in  Arjuna  of  Phalgun  (February 
— March),  the  month  assigned  to  it  in  the  Rigveda.     That 
is  to  say  the  astronomical  war  between  the  two  rival  systems 
of  lunar-solar  Pole  Star  worship  and  that  of  the  independent 
sun-god  lasted  till  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  February — 
March^  about  8200  B.C.,  that  is,  it  occupied  the  whole  period 
when  Vega  was  the  Pole  Star  from  about  10,000  to  8000 
B.C.,  and  ceased  with  the  final  victory  of  the  zodiacal  sun- 

'  Darmesteter,  Zendavesia  Vendiddd  Fargard,  xxii.  pp.  229,  235 ;  Rg.  vii. 
66,  3,  4;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  v.,  pp. 
416 — ^422,  where  the  question  as  to  the  stellar  position  of  Aryaman  is  fully 
discussed. 

E   e  2 


; 


420  History  and  Chronology 

god  when  the  Pole  Star  entered  Hercules,  the  sun  constella- 
tion, about  8000  B.C. 

We  have  now  to  complete  the  review  of  this  phase  of 
history,  as  told  in  the  various  forms  of  the  Tobit  story,  to 
return  to  that  telling  of  the  exploits  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer, 
the  builder  of  Jack's  house.  He,  as  we  have  seen,  first  built  the 
house  of  the  year  of  the  nine-day  weeks,  and  after  that,  in  the 
Talmud  story,  the  house  of  the  eight-day  weeks  of  the  present 
year.  In  his  wars  against  the  giants  of  the  eleven-months 
year  he  met  with  the  son  of  Arthur,  the  Celtic  ploughing- 
god  Echaid  Airem,  the  ploughman  or  farmer  who  sowed 
the  seed  whence  the  malt  seed  of  life  of  the  year  of  the 
eight-days  week  was  to  grow^.  This  prince,  the  counter- 
part of  Tobit,  released  and  buried  a  corpse  arrested  on 
account  of  the  dead  man's  debts,  the  corpse  of  the  dead 
year  of  the  rule  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  Thigh-god,  as  the 
reckoner  of  the  year.  He  spent  all  his  money  in  paying 
the  creditors  of  the  dead  year,  and  it  was  after  paymg  the 
last  penny  that  he  and  Jack,  whom  he  had  met  after  the 
burial  of  the  corpse,  set  out  on  their  travels  like  Raphael 
and  Tobias.  On  their  way  Jack  procured  from  a  three- 
headed  giant,  the  giant  of  the  year  of  the  three-headed 
Geryon,  the  Phoenician  Charion  {Orion) ^  the  god  of  the  year 
of  three  seasons,  the  coat  of  darkness,  the  cap  of  knowledge, 
the  sword  of  sharpness,  and  the  shoes  of  swiftness,  the  outfit 
of  the  sun-gods  Perseus  and  Sigurd.  Provided  with  these, 
the  equivalents  of  the  heart,  liver  and  gall  of  the  alligator  fish 
in  the  Tobit  story,  he  and  the  prince  arrive  at  the  house 
of  the  lady  the  prince  sought  to  marry,  the  Sara  with  seven 
husbands.  The  marriage  was  agreed  to,  provided  the  prince 
was  able  to  bring  her  handkerchief,  which  she  placed  before 
him  in  her  bosom,  and  to  guess  whose  lips  she  kissed  the 
last  thing  at  night.  She  gave  the  handkerchief  to  Asmodeus, 
here  called  Lucifer,  and  kissed  his  lips ;  but  Jack  followed 
her  in  the  sun's  night  disguise,  took  the  handkerchief,  and 

*  Rhys,  Tht  Arthurian  Legend ^  chap,  ii,,  Arthur  and  Airem,  pp,  25  ff. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  421 

cut  off  the  horned  head  of  Asmodeus,  which  he  gave  to  the 
princess,  who  is  shown  by  her  two-year  tasks  to  be  originally 
the  mother-bird  of  the  solstitial  sun-year  of  two  seasons.  It 
was  after  the  death  of  the  horned  stone  {ashma)  god  that  she 
recovered  her  beauty  and  became  the  bride  of  the  prince. 
For  the  transformation  scene  we  must  go  back  to  the  German 
version  of  the  story,  in  which  the  bride  when  plunged  into 
water  by  her  lover  becomes  successively  a  raven  and  a  dove» 
before  she  became  a  maiden.  These  changes  we  may  com- 
pare with  the  raven  and  the  dove  sent  forth  from  Noah's  ark, 
the  raven  bird-mother  of  the  matriarchal  races  who  dis- 
appeared like  the  evil  spirits  which  disfigured  the  princess* 
and  the  dove  who  returned  as  the  marrying-bird  of  the 
patriarchal  races  with  the  olive  leaf  of  the  tree -mother 
Athene  in  her  beak^  the  leaf  sacred  to  the  mother-goddess 
of  Asia  Minor.  These  changes  are  similar  to  those  made 
by  Thetis,  the  mud  {thith)  goddess,  when  wedded  to  Peleus, 
the  god  of  the  Potter's  clay,  before  she  became  the  mother 
of  the  sun-god  Achilles.  She  became  successively  a  lioness, 
a  dragon,  fire  and  water.  Also  the  seal-god  Proteus,  called 
in  the  Odyssey  the  Egyptian  god  assistant  of  Poseidon,  the 
ape-god  of  the  river  Nile,  became,  when  caught  by  Menelaus, 
a  lion,  a  dragon  or  serpent,  a  leopard,  a  boar,  water,  and 
a  lofty  tree'.  These  various  forms  depict  the  successive 
changes  in  the  symbolic  representations  of  the  god  who 
measured  time  in  the  images  I  have  recorded  in  the  previous 
pages  of  this  book. 

The  altar  or  house  of  the  sun-god  ruling  the  year  of  eight- 
day  weeks,  which  was  built  by  Jack  the  Giant-killer,  appears 
again  in  the  altar  built  by  David  on  the  threshing-floor 
of  Araunah  the  Jebusite,  the  Jewish  counterpart  of  the 
Hindu  year-altar  of  the  Brahmanas.  It  was  built  on  the 
mountain  of  Jerusalem,  which  became  the  site  of  the  later 
temple.  This  is  now  surmounted  by  an  octagonal  dome 
with  its  entrance  gate  at  the  North-west,  the  setting-point 

»  Homer,  Odyssey,  iv.  383,  386,  456—459. 


J 


422  History  attd  Chronology 

of  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice  ^,  David's  altar  was  bnilt 
to  stay  the  plague  among  the  people,  that  is,  the  ph^ 
brought,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  Angel  of  Death  on  the  dap 
of  the  ninth  brick.  This  plague  was  sent,  according  to  Ac 
Rabbinical  commentator,  when  the  conquering  sun-god,  the 
butcher,  had  overcome  all  his  enemies  3.  Similarly,  tbe 
plague  stayed  by  the  building  of  David's  altar  came  t 
the  close  of  his  career  after  he  had  conquered  all  his  oj^ 
nents.  Among  these  the  chief  were,  Hanan  the  merdfel, 
the  son  of  Nahash,  king  of  the  Ammonites  3,  that  is  himsdf 
as  Baal  Hanan,  who  had  caused  Uriah  the  Hittite,  whose 
name  means  Light  is  god,  to  be  slain  as  a  deceased  year-god, 
and  he  was  the  twenty-ninth  of  his  captains  4,  the  last  day 
of  the  month  in  the  year  of  Orion  of  twelve  months  rf 
twenty-nine  days  each.  After  his  death  he  married  his  wife 
Bath-sheba,  she  of  the  seven  {sfuba)  measures,  the  seven 
wine-bearing  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  and  became  the  father 
of  Solomon,  the  Akkadian  Salli-manu,  the  fish-sun-god,  who 
built  the  temple  of  the  yean  He  had  also  defeated  the 
conspiracies  of  Joab,  the  son  of  Zeruiah,  daughter  of  Nahash, 
the  Great  Bear  god,  who  sought  to  dethrone  him  and  set  up 
Absalom,  the  brother  of  Tamar,  the  date-palm -tree. 

This  consecration  of  the  sun-rock  at  Jerusalem,  dedicated 
to  the  god  of  the  eight-rayed  star  and  the  eight-days  week, 
as  the  navel  of  the  Semite  earth  marks  an  equally  decisive 
period  in  the  Hebrew  history  of  the  year  as  that  marked  in 
Hindu  history  by  the  sacrifice  of  Ashtaka. 

C.     Tfte  Hindu  gods  of  the  eight-days  week. 

This  god,  whose  name  means  the  eighth,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  son  of  the  two  Jarat-karus,  the  heavenly  fire-drill 

'  O'Neill,  Night  of  the  Gods,  vol  i.,  The  Number  Eight,  p.  167,  The  North, 

P-443- 
°  2  Samuel  xxiv.  19—25  \  Paterson  Smith,  The  Old  Documents  and  the  Nrai 

Bibliy  Second  Edition,  The  Talmud  and  the  Targums,  p.  143. 

3  2  Samuel  x.  i  ff.  4  i  Chron.  xi.  40. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  423 

and  socket  turned  by  the  axle-star  of  the  Great  Bear,  to 
which  Ixion  or  Akshivan  was  bound  as  the  turning-god. 
Ashtaka  officiated  as  the  chief-priest  at  the  sacrifice  at 
which  Janamejaya,  after  conquering  Takka-sila  {Taxila)^  the 
stronghold  of  the  Naga  power,  destroyed  all  the  Naga  snake- 
gods,  except  the  three  year-gods  of  the  Takkas,  Shesh  Nag, 
Vasuk  Nag,  and  Taksh  Nag.  Shesh  Nag,  the  god  of  the 
spring  season,  had  been  made  by  Vasuki  the  ocean-snake 
encircling  the  mother-mountain,  and  he  did  not  appear  at 
the  sacrifice.  Vasuk  Nag,  the  god  of  summer,  was  Ashtaka's 
maternal  uncle,  and  he  likewise  did  not  appear.  Taksh 
Nag,  the  god  of  winter,  who  had  slain  Parikshit,  one  of  the 
gods  of ^  this  epoch,  whose  history  I  will  tell  later  on,  was 
saved  at  the  special  intercession  of  Ashtaka '. 

The  altar  on  which  this  sacrifice  was  offered  was  that 
of  the  eight-rayed  star  of  which  the  image  was  drawn  on  the 
ground  consecrated  for  the  building  of  the  later  brick  altar 
of  the  year-sun-bird  rising  in  the  East,  the  altar  measuring 
in  the  number  of  its  bricks  and  stages  the  whole  year.  This 
altar,  of  which  I  have  given  a  short  description  in  Chapter  V. 
pp.  269, 270,  as  depicted  on  the  Breton  Linga  altar^,  is  ordered 
in  the  ritual  of  the  building  of  the  bird-altar  to  be  marked  on 
the  consecrated  ground  by  the  sacred  plough  made  of  the 
Udumbara  fig-tree  drawn  by  oxen  attached  to  the  plough  by 
traces  of  Munja  grass,  of  which  are  made  the  three-strand 
girdles  of  the  Brahmins,  denoting  the  three  seasons  of  the 
year.  The  sides  of  this  square  altar  face  the  cardinal  points, 
and  the  first  lines  marking  it  are  begun  at  the  South- 
west comer,  the  setting  point  of  the  sun-bird  of  the  year 
beginning  at  the  winter  solstice.  The  first  line  traced  is 
from  the  South-west  to  the  South-east  corner,  the  second 
from  the  South-west  to  the  North-west,  the  third  from  the 
North-west  to  the  North-east,  and  the  fourth  from  the  North- 
east to  the  South-east  completes  the  square  marking  the 


■  Mahabhirata  Adi  (JFaushya)  Parva,  iii.  p.  45. 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  (Astika)  Parva,  lyi.— ItuL  pp.  154^159. 


424  History  and  Chronology 

year  circuit  of  the'  sun-bird.  The  first  cross  line  drawn  is 
that  of  the  Pole  Star,  due  South  and  North  from  the  centre 
of  the  line  from  the  South-west  to  the  South-east  to  marie 
the  year  measured  by  the  Pleiades  and  Canopus  in  their 
annual  course  round  the  Pole.  Then  a  line  is  drawn  from 
the  South  -  west  to  the  North-east '  to  mark  the  year  of 
the  solstitial  flying- bird  beginning  with  the  setting  of  the 
sun  at  the  winter  solstice  in  ths  South-west.  Then  the 
line  drawn  due  West  and  East  from  the  centre  of  the  West 
line  to  mark  the  equinoctial  year  included  in  the  three-years 
cycle,  and  lastly  the  line  from  the  North-west  to  the  South- 
east to  denote  the  year  of  the  eight-rayed  star  as  measured 
from  the  setting  sun  of  the  summ&r  solstice,   the  year  of 

the  six-days  week  ^.   w  -^^  b       Under  this  arrangement  the 


BW' — 8^  SB 

altar  is  divided  into  eight  divisions,  representing  the  eight 
points  of  the  compass  and  the  eight  days  of  the  week,  and 
it  represents  all  the  primitive  ruling  years.  The  Hindu 
sun-god  of  this  year  was  the  sexless  sun-god  Bhishma,  also 
called  Dyu,  light.  He  was  the  son  of  Shantanu,  the  healer, 
the  great-grandfather  of  the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas  and 
of  Gunga,  the  river-mother  who  identified  him,  as  we  are  told 
in  the  Mahabharata  2,  with  the  god  Dyu  who  stole  Nandini 
the  year-cow  of  Vashishtha,  the  chief  star  in  the  Great  Bear 
and  the  god  of  the  perpetual  fire  on  the  altar,  for  the  daughter 
of  Ushlnara,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  wife  of  Kakshivat, 
the  god  of  the  eleven-months  year.  Bhishma  was  the  eighth 
son.  She  threw  into  the  river,  to  which  she  gave  her  name, 
her  first  seven  sons  as  soon  as  they  were  born,  that  is  to  say, 
killed  them  like  the  seven  husbands  of  Sara,  and  left  her 
husband  and  her  home  on  earth  directly  her  eighth  son 
was  born,  just  as  Jarat-karu  quitted  his  wife  when  he  had 
done   his   duty   as   the    departing    sun-god   and   given  life 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,^  vii.  2,  2,  3 — 14;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  326 — 330. 
'  Mahabharata  Adi  {SamdAava)  Parva,  xcviii.,  xcix.  pp.  293 — 297. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  425 

to  his  newly  born  son  Ashtaka.  Gunga  took  her  child 
also,  called  Devavrata,  or  the  law  {vratd)  of  God,  and  sent 
him  back  to  earth,  when  he  was  ^rown  up,  to  remain  there 
for  a  time  as  the  god  ruling  the  year.  He  was  thus  like 
the  sun  whp  was  nursed  for  the  first  three  months  of  his 
life  by  the  thirty  stars. 

His  genealogy,  as  told  in  Rg.  x.  72,  declares  that  he 
was  created  by  Brahmanas-pati,  the  Pole  Star  god  who 
from  the  non-existent  brought  forth  the  parent  of  the 
existent,  Uttanapad,  the  god  with  the  out-stretched  legs, 
the   roots   of  the   mother-tree,  the  original  female   symbol 

/\  of  the  two  productive  thighs.     From  this  was  born  Aditi, 

the  beginning  without  {a)  a  second  {diti)y  and  Daksha,  the 
showing  god  of  the  open  hand  and  the  five  fingers  of  the  five- 
days  week.  They  begot  the  gods  of  time  who  brought  the 
sun-god  Su-rya  from  the  sea  (with  the  rains  of  the  summer 
solstice).  To  Aditi  were  born  seven  sons,  which  she  took 
away  with  her,  leaving  on  earth  the  eighth,  the  Mart-anda 
or  dead  egg  {anda)^  the  sexless  sun-god. 

Thus  this  god,  as  Bhishma  Dyu  or  Mart-anda,  is  as  clearly 
born  from  the  seven  thigh  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  as  the 
other  national  sun-gods  of  this  epoch.  On  his  rising  on 
earth  he  became  the  king  of  the  land  of  Jambu-dwipa,  the 
Country  of  the  Jambu-tree  or  North  India,  the  home  of  the 
Bharata  race  lying  South  of  Sakadwipa,  the  Northern  land  of 
the  Kushika '.  He  ruled  during  the  reigns  of  Chitr-angada 
and  Vichitra  Virya,  sons  of  Shantanu  by  Satyavati,  the 
fish-mother-goddess,  and  during  the  infancy  of  the  Kauravya 
and  Pandava,  grandsons  of  Vichitra  Virya.  He  also  led 
the  Kauravya  army  during  the  first  ten  days  of  their  eighteen 
days*  battle  with  Pandavas.  He  bore  on  his  banner  the  date- 
palm-tree,  the  mother-tree  of  the  eleven-months  year,  sur- 
mounted with  the  five  stars,  called  in  the  Rigveda  "  five  bulls 
or  eagles "  which  sit  in  the  midst  of  heaven  and  hold  back 
the  "  devouring  wolf,"  who  tries  to  enter  the  watery  home 

*  Mahibharata  Bhishma  {Jamvu-khanda  Nirmand)  Parva,  ix.^xi.  pp.  29 — 39. 


426  History  and  Chronology 

of  their  realm,  the  treasure-house  of  the  rain  •god  ».  These 
stars  are  the  Pole  Star  and  the  four  stars  said  in  the  ZemUt- 
vesta  to  rule  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavens :  i.  Tishtrya  or 
Sirius,  ruling  the  East ;  2.  The  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
the  Haptoiringas  or  seven  bulls,  the  North ;  3.  Vanant  or 
Corvus,  the  West;  and,  4.  Satavaesa  or  Argo,  the  SoutL 
These  are  also  the  four  Loka-palas  of  the  Hindus  \  Of  these 
the  constellation  Hasta,  the  hand  or  Corvus,  that  of  Ac 
five-day  weeks  of  the  hand  of  Daksha,  is  the  ruling  constelli- 
tion  of  the  Pandavas,  who  are  compared  to  its  five  stars 
as  they  stood  round  Drona  their  tutor,  the  god  of  the 
tree-trunk  3.  It  was  to  the  centre  god  of  these  five  ruling 
bulls  that  the  Pandavas  betook  themselves  after  their  first 
victory  won  by  Arjuna,  who  alone,  except  Kama^  the  homed 
lunar-solar  god  of  tlie  three-years  cycle,  could  string  the  bow 
of  Krishanu,  the  rainbow-god,  provided  for  those  who  entered 
the  contest  for  the  hand  of  Drupadi.  Drupadi  refused  to 
accept  Kama  as  a  suitor.  Arjuna  after  stringing  the  bow 
in  Pushya  (December — January),  the  month  of  the  winter 
solstice,  when  the  wedding  took  place,  and  on  the  16th,  or 
full-moon  day,  shot  through  the  central  mark  in  the  sky, 
the  palace  of  the  Pole  Star,  five  arrows,  the  five  seasons  of  the 
year  of  the  five  Pandava  brethren,  of  which  I  shall  give  the 
full  account  in  Chapters  VIII.  and  IX.  He  thus  repeated 
the  feat  of  Krishanu  and  won  the  hand  of  Drupadi  for  the 
five  Pandava  brethren.  It  was  when  the  bride  was  won 
that  they  went  to  the  house  of  the  Potter,  the  master  Pole 
Star,  where  the  marriage  was  consummated  4. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  Magh  year,  the  end  of  December 
— January,  that  the  Pandava  wedding  took  place.  This  was 
the  year  of  Bhishma,  who  died,  as  we  are  expressly  told 
in  the  Mahabharata,  at  the  end  of  his  year  on  the  first  of 

'  Rg.  i.  105,  10,  II. 

=  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  iv.,  pp.  331,  33a. 
3  Mahabhirata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  cxxxvii.  p.  403. 

*  Mahabharata  Adi  (Swayam-vara)   Parva,   clxzxvii.,   cbcxxix.,   cxc,  cxcii. 
pp.  524,  526,  530,  532,  538,  558. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  427 

Magh  (January — February),  when  the  sun   had  begun  its 
Northward  course '. 

The  Hindu  god  who  was  the  counterpart  of  Bhishma 
and  the  charioteer  of  Arjuna  the  Pandava  leader,  as  Bhishma 
was  generalissimo  of  the  Kauravyas,  was  Krishna.  He  who 
was  like  David  the  youngest  of  eight  sons  was  born,  accord- 
ing to  the  popular  mythology  of  Mathura  his  birthplace, 
on  the  eighth  of  Bhadon  or  Bhadra-pada,  or  at  the  end 
of  the  first  week  of  the  second  six  months,  the  second  stage 
of  this  year  in  its  second  form  dating  from  8200  B.C.,  begin- 
ning in  Phalgun  (February — March)  «.  His  father  was  Vasu- 
deva,  the  son  of  the  creating-god  Vasu,  and  his  mother 
Devakr.  They  were  brought  from  Goburdhan  on  the  Jumna, 
the  place  sacred  to  the  keeper  of  the  cattle  of  Ra*hu,  to 
Mathura,  sacred  to  the  god  of  the  fire-drill  {math)^  by  Kansa, 
the  goose-king  of  the  eleven-months  year,  in  order  that  he 
might  prevent  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  that  the  eighth 
son  of  Vasudeva  and  Devaki  would  kill  him.  He  killed 
successively  their  first  six  sons,  but  to  avoid  the  slaughter 
of  the  seventh  the  embryo  from  which  he  was  to  be  born  was 
transferred  from  the  womb  of  Devaki  to  that  of  Jasoda,  mean- 
ing the  exhausted  or  superseded  goddess,  wife  of  Nanda  of 
Go-kul,  the  cow-pen,  the  male  god  of  the  Nand-gaon  hill. 
Nanda  was,  in  the  local  legend  of  the  birth  of  the  Bharata, 
husband  of  Ra-dha,  the  maker  {dJtd^  of  Ra,  the  sun-god, 
whose  sacred  hill  was  Barsana^  divided  from  Nandgaon 
by  the  valley  of  the  grove  of  Sanket  or  the  "  place  of  assig- 
nation" where  the  lovers  met,  as  the  matriarchal  village- 
mothers  met  their  lovers  from  the  next  village  in  the  village 
grove.  Barsana  and  Nandgaon  are  the  two  sacred  hills 
of  the  Bharatpur  range,  the  mother-hills  of  the  Bharatass. 
Nanda's  wife  Jasoda  is  also  called  in  local  legend  RohinI, 
the  star  Aldebaran,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  called,  like 

Ra-dha,  the  mother  of  the  sun-god,  and  she  as  wife  of  Nanda 

'  Mahabharata  Anushasana  {Swarj&rohanika)  Panra,  clxvii.  pp.  776. 

■  Mathuray  a  District  Memoir^  by  F.  S.  Growse,  pp.  $0 — 63. 

3  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay  r.,  pp.  450— 4S3« 


428  History  and  Chronology 

was  the  Nandini,  the  year-cow  of  Vashistha  stolen  by  Dyn, 
the  eighth  god  of  the  Bhishma  series  of  sun-gods. 

The  son  born  from  this  transferred  embryo,  a  process 
which  appears  in  the  birth  stories  of  all  Jain  Tlrthakaras^ 
was  Valarama,  the  seventh  son  of  Vasudeva  and  Devak^ 
called  Halayudha,  he  who  has  the  plough  {hal)  for  his 
weapon.  His  banner  was  the  date-palm-tree,  but  not  sur- 
mounted by  the  five  stars  crowning  the  palm-tree  of 
Bhishma  2.  He  who  stood  aloof  from  the  contest  between 
the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas  was  thus  the  leading  star  in 
the  Plough  and  Bear  constellations.  This  was  the  plough 
borne  on  the  banner  of  Shalya,  god  of  the  arrow-yearX 
He  was  king  of  the  Madras,  who  led  the  Kauravya  army 
at  their  final  defeat,  and  was  father  of  Madri,  the  intoxicated 
{mad)  mother  of  the  two  youngest  Pandavas,  whose  fathers 
were  the  Ashvins  4. 

The  birth  of  Valarama  from  the  six  mother  Pleiades,  his 
deceased  brethren,  signified  the  marriage  of  Rohini  their 
queen  with  the  seven  Rishis  or  antelopes  of  the  Great  Bear, 
a  marriage  succeeding  her  first  union  with  Orion.  It  was 
to  celebrate  this  union  that  the  year  of  the  god  of  the 
antelope's  head  [mriga  -  sirska)  was  made  the  national 
year  beginning  in  Mriga-sirsha  (November — December)  s, 
that  is  to  say  when  the  sun  was  in  Taurus  in  that  month 
about  12,200  B.C.,  a  year  of  the  age  of  the  eleven-months 
year. 

It  was  from  the  union  of  the  Pleiades  and  Aldebaran  with 
the  stars  of  the  Thigh  that  the  god  Krishna  was  bora. 
Though  the  local  legend  of  Mathura  fixes  his  birthday  on 
the  eighth  day  of  the  light  half  of  Bhadon,  yet  in  Bombay 
and  the  South  of  India  it  is  celebrated  on  the  eighth  day 

*  Jacobi,  /aina  Sutras^  Kalpa  Sutra,  Lives  of  the  Jainas,  30;  S.B.E.,  vol 
xxii.  p.  229. 
'  Mahabharata  Shalya  (Gut-Ayudha)  Parva,  xxiv.  and  Ix.  pp.  135,  233. 

3  Mahabharata  Drona  (Jayad-ratha-badha)  Parva,  cv.  p.  297. 

4  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  cxxiv.  pp.  364,  365. 

5  Eggcling,  Sat.  Brdh,<,  ii.  I,  2,  6—8;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  283,  284. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age.  429 

of  the  dark  half  of  Shravana  (July — August),  or  about  the 
8th  of  August;  and  it  is  stated  in  the  Harivansa  LVII. 
to  have  taken  place  on  the  eighth  day  of  the  dark  half 
of  Bhadon  [Bhadrapadd),  about  the  8th  of  September,  and 
this  is  the  date  at  which  the  festival  is  generally  celebrated 
throughout  Northern  India  ^ 

The  Harivansa  tells  us  it  took  place  like  that  of  the 
Kauravyas  and  Pandavas  under  Abhijit  the  Star  Vega, 
that  is  between  10,000  and  8000  B.C.,  and  as  the  date  varied 
from  July — August  to  August — September  it  marked  the 
middle  of  a  year  beginning  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini 
in  January — February  and  in  February — March. 

Krishna  when  born  was  carried  by  his  father,  who  eluded 
the  guards  of  Kansa,  across  the  Jumna  to  Gokul,  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  river,  and  there  consigned  to  Nanda  and 
Jasoda.  From  the  latter  Vasudeva  took  away  her  newly- 
born  daughter,  the  twin-sister  of  Krishna,  and  placed  her 
in  the  bed  of  Devaki,  the  bed  of  the  year-god  and  goddess. 
When  the  guards  of  Kansa  came  to  slay  the  newly-born 
eighth  son  she  rose  up  to  heaven  as  the  mountain-goddess 
Durga  or  Su-bhadra,  the  blessed  Su-bird,  the  goddess 
to  be  borne  in  the  chariot  of  the  Ashvins,  as  the  star 
Capella  in  the  chariot  constellation  Auriga,  to  her  wedding 
as  the  virgin  Suria  or  Su-konya  with  Soma  the  moon-god. 
She  is  called  in  the  Harivansa  LVHI.  the  goddess  of  the 
sun  and  moon,  and  is  described  as  Kushika,  the  goddess 
of  the  Kushika,  bearing  the  trident  of  the  year  of  three 
seasons  and  the  lance  of  KuntI,  the  lance-mother  of  the 
Pandavas,  the  lance  that  pierces  the  rain-clouds  and  lights 
the  year's  fires.  Her  dress  was  black  with  a  yellow  upper 
garment,  and  she  wore  a  collar  of  pearls  round  her  neck  and 
the  pearl  earrings  of  the  moon-goddess.  Her  banner  was 
a  peacock's  tail,  that  is  of  the  Greek  Here  married  to  Zeus 
in  Gamelion  Qanuary — February),  and  of  the  Mayura  kings 

'  Monier  Williams,  Religious  Thought  and  Lift  in  India^  Hindoo  Fasts, 
Festivals,  and  Holidays,  pp.  430,  431. 


430  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  Bharata.    She  is  called  the  goddess  of  the  ninth  day 
of  the  dark  end  of  the  eleventh  day  of  the  light  half  of  the 
month,  that  is  of  the  years  of  nine  and  eleven-day  weeks, 
who  was  worshipped  as  the  goddess  Kali,  to  whom  human 
and   animal   sacrifices  were  offered    during    those    epoch& 
Her  birthday,  the  8th  of  September,  is  the  day  consecrated 
as  the  birthday  of  the  Virgin  Mother  in  the  Roman  Church, 
which   took   place  nine   moitths   after  the   festival    of  the 
Immaculate   Conception  on  the  8th    of  December,  that  is 
in  the  dark  half  of  the  Hindu  month  Mrigasirsha  (November 
— December).      Both   the    Indian    and    Christian    goddess- 
mother  are  called  with  equal  reverence  The  Blessed  One. 
Krishna,  the  son  and  brother  of  the  virgin-mother-goddess, 
the  star  Aldebaran  who  had  become  in  astronomical  evo- 
lution Capella,  was  born  on  the  same  day  as  his  twin-sister. 
One  of  their  birthdays,  that  on   the  8th  of  Bhadon,  the 
23rd  of  August,  is  also  the  birthday  of  the  Pythian  Apollo, 
called  Paian  or  the  healing-god,  the  sun-physician.     He  was 
born   on    the    7th    of   Metageitnion    (August — September)^ 
called    Boukatios   at  Delphi ',  that   is  to  say  the  22nd  of 
August ;  but  this  number  seven  became  sacred  as  the  week 
of  Apollo  in   the  year  of  the   next   epoch,  the   seventeen 
months  of  seven  days  each,  and  was  doubtless  derived  from 
the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  his  father's  constellation. 
It  was  on  his  birthday  that  the  Pythian  games  began,  which 
were  originally  held  every  eighth  year  in  memory  of  the 
eight-days  week,   and   they   opened   with    hymns    sung  in 
honour  of  Apollo  Paian,  who  slew  with  his  arrows  the  Python 
snake  who  had  inspired  the  oracles  of  Delphi  during  the  age 
of  the  eleven-months  year  when  the  Ephod  was  worshipped^. 
This  snake  was  the  Dragon  of  the  oracle  which  Pausanias 
says  Apollo   slew  at   his  birth  3.     Its  name  Python  is  the 
Greek  form  of  Budhnya  in  the  name  of  the  Vedic  god  Ahi 
Budhnya,  the  snake  of  the  depths,  the  Greek  Buthos,  called 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days ^  771  sq.  ;  Frazer,  Pausanias ^  vol.  v.  pp  244,245. 
'  Frazer,  Pausanias^  vol.  v.  p.  242. 
s  Ibid.,  X.  7,  3,  vol.  i.  p.  507. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  431 

also  Ahi  Shuva,  or  the  swelling  snake,  which  Indra  slew 
when  accompanied  by  the  Maruts  ».  These  Maruts,  the 
daughters  of  the  tree  {marom)  ape-god  Maroti,  are  said 
in  the  sacrifice  oflTered  to  celebrate  the  great  victory  of  Indra, 
Apollo  or  Krishna  to  be  seven  in  number,  who  danced  round 
Indra  as  he  killed  the  Vritra  or  enclosing  snake »,  that  is 
to  say,  they  were  the  mother-goddesses  of  the  young  sun- 
god,  son  of  the  Thigh  with  its  seven  stars.  In  the  next 
hymn  to  that  describing  the  victory  of  Indra  and  the  Maruts, 
Indra's  mother,  called  Shavasi,  the  strong  one,  who  was,  as  we 
have  seen  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  350,  the  Polar  mother-tree  from 
whose  side  he  was  bom,  calls  her  dead  foe  Ahi-shuva  Aurna- 
vabhas^  the  son  of  the  weaver  of  wool,  that  is  of  the  spinning 
mother  Pleiades  who  bore  the  ram-sun  of  the  cycle  -  year. 
This  slain  snake  is  invoked  in  another  hymn  as  Ahi-budhnya, 
who  is  called  on  to  bestow  health  as  a  healing  god,  and 
to  come  accompanied  by  the  children  of  the  waters,  who 
bring  the  stallion  swift  as  thought,  the  god  Dadhiank  of 
the  horse's  head  4.  This  year  of  the  slaying  of  the  snake 
by  the  new-born  sun-god,  told  in  this  series  of  national  year 
histories,  is  the  year  of  Krishna,  the  black  sun-antelope,  and 
Valarama,  the  parent-plough  star-god  of  the  year  of  fifteen 
months.  It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  year  of  the  first  victory 
of  the  Pandavas  in  which  they  won  the  tree-mother-goddess 
Drupadi,  and  in  which  Arjuna  married  Su-bhadra  on  the 
Raivataka  hill,  on  which  Arishtanemi,  the  sun-god  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  attained  perfection  on  the  6th  day  of 
the  light  half  of  Shravana  (July — August),  about  the  20th 
of  Julys.  This  Raivataka  hill  is  consecrated  to  Revati 
f  Piscium,  the  27th  Nakshatra,  that  is,  to  the  star  marking 
the  close  of  the  year  of  one  epoch  and  the  beginning  of 

'  Rg.  viiL  65,  1—3. 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,^  IL  5,  3,  20;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  416. 

3  Rg.  viii.  66,  I,  2.  *  Rg.  i.  186,  5. 

s  Jacobi,  yinina  Suirds^  Kalpa  Sutra^  Life  of  Arishtanemi,  173;  S.  R.E., 
vol.  xxii.  p.  277.  We  have  seen  on  p.  428,  that  according  to  the  mythology 
of  Bombay  and  the  South  of  India  Krishna  was  born  on  the  8th  day  of  the 
dark  half  of  Shravana. 


432  History  and  Chronology 

another.  Hence  the  change  of  state  attained  by  Arishta* 
nemi  on  this  hill  marked  the  close  of  his  year  of  eleven 
months,  and  the  opening  of  that  ruled  by  Arjuna  and  Su- 
bhadra,  the  nominees  of  Krishna,  who,  with  Rama,  wor- 
shipped Arishtanemi  on  his  renunciation  of  the  rule  of  flie 
year  in  favour  of  the  new  gods  of  the  fifteen-months  year. 
He  was  followed  on  his  retirement  by  Raji-mati  or  Rai-mati, 
the  mother  of  Ra,  the  sun-god,  a  variant  form  of  Ra-dha, 
wife  of  Nanda.  She  who  was  in  the  Jain  birth  story  daughter 
of  Vasu-deva,  the  Bhoja  king  by  his  wife  Rohini,  the  star 
Aldebaran,  had  been  chosen  by  Krishna  as  the  bride  of 
Arishtanemi,  and  she  on  his  abdication  became,  like  him, 
a  naked  ascetic  ',  that  is,  they  were  stripped  of  the  panoply 
of  the  year-god  and  numbered  among  the  dead  years. 

D.     The  year  of  the  Mahommedan  Twins. 

We  have  seen  that  this  year  is  ruled  by  the  constellation 
Gemini,  and  valuable  historical  evidence  as  to  the  relations 
between  this  year  and  the  constellation  can  be  gained  from 
the  year  of  the  Mahommedan  Arabs  as  arranged  in  Mahom- 
medan ritual.  It  began  with  the  isth  of  July,  the  first  of 
Mohurrum,  when  Mahommed  went  from  Mecca  to  Medina, 
and  this  year  is  closely  connected  with  the  twifts  Al  Hasain 
and  Al  Hosein,  who  are  called  in  Mahommedan  history  the 
sons  of  AH  and  grandsons  of  Mahommed.  But  to  these 
have  been  attached  attributes  which  were  originally  those 
of  the  twin  year- gods  who  had  been  worshipped  in  South- 
western Asia  for  thousands  of  years  before  Mahommed. 
We  have  seen  that  this  year  of  fifteen  months  is  one  with 
two  beginnings,  one  in  January — February  and  the  other 
February — March,  marking  the  times  when  the  sun  was 
in  Gemini  in  those  two  months.  We  find  a  similar  change 
in  the  Arab  year  beginning  with  the  birth  of  the  Arabian 
twins.     Their  first  birth  is  said  to  be  on  the  3rd  Sha'ban, 

*  Jacobi,  /aina  Siiir&s   Uttaradhyayattay  Lect.  xxii.    I — 32  ;   S.B.E.,   vol. 
xxii.  pp.  112—  116. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  433 

>ruary — March,  when  Jerusalem  ceased  to  be  the  Kebla 
1  Mecca  was  substituted  for  it.  Jerusalem  was  the  site 
the   Sabxan   worship  in  which  men  prayed  turning  to 

North,  the  religious  attitude  succeeding  that  of  the 
rranites,  worshippers  of  Laban,  who,  as  Alberunl  tells  us, 
led,  like  the  Roman  augurs,  to  the  South.  The  second 
e  of  the  birth  was  the  6th  of  Ramadan  (March — April), 
iigurating  the  New  Year  beginning  at  the  vernal  equinox, 
it  these  births  marked  the  beginning  of  a  year  divided 
)  two  periods  of  six  months  each  is  shown  by  the  reputed 
th  of  the  twins.  This  is  celebrated  by  the  Shias  of 
sia  on  the  loth  of  Moharrum  (July — Augfust),  or  six 
nths  after  their  birth  in  February — March,  and  the  news 
;he  death  of  Al  Hasan  was  brought  to  Damascus  on  the 

of  Safar  (August — September),  six  months  after  the 
and  birth '. 

The  Roman  gods  of  tlu  year  of  eight^day  weeks  and  the 

year  of  Lug. 
The  history  of  the  earlier  Twin  year-gods,  beginning  their 
r  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  January — February, 
be  further  illustrated  from  the  Roman  ritual  chiefly 
ived  from  Umbria  and  Etruria,  that  is,  from  Tyrrhenian 
rces  which  go  back  to  India.  The  first  of  January  at 
me  was  dedicated  to  a  god  called  iEsculapius  Vediovis, 
island  Vediovis  worshipped  at  Rome  and  Bovillae.  At 
me  he  had  two  temples,  one  between  the  Arx  and  the 
>itol  hill,  and  one  on  the  Tiber  island.  He  was  repre- 
ted  as  a  young  god  holding  arrows  like  Arjuna  or  Apollo; 
pat  stood  beside  him  and  was  sacrificed  to  him  ^.  He 
s  resembles  the  Pre-Mahommedan  god  Hobal  at  Mecca, 
hi  seven  arrows  in  his  hand,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great 
ir,  in  whose  temple  there  were  360  gods,  the  days  of  the 

Sachau,  Alberuoi's  Chronology  of  Ancient  Nations^  chap,  xx.,  The  Festivals 
e  Moslems,  pp.  326,  328 — 330. 

W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals y  Januarius  I,  p.  277,  Maius,  21, 
21,  Martins  Non,  7,  p.  43. 

F  f 


434  History  and  Chronology 

year '.  He  is  one  of  three  gods  worshipped  at  Mecca  as 
three  stones,  Hobal,  Lata,  and  Uzza  «.  They  are  mentioned 
in  the  Koran  as  the  old  Arab  deities,  Allat,  Al  'Huzza,  and 
Manat.  Allat  is  the  god  called  by  Herodotus  Hi.  8,  Alilat, 
a  female  form  of  Dionysos  called  Orotal,  the  Akkadian 
goddess  of  the  nether  world  with  the  same  name,  a  form 
of  the  Southern  mother  Bahu,  worshipped  as  the  light  moon. 
Al  'Huzza  or  Uzza  was  the  bisexual  god  and  goddess  of  tte 
two  moons  united,  the  full-moon  goddess  worshipped  as  a 
acacia-tree,  the  tree-mother  of  the  sun-god  Manat,  the  dark 
moon  worshipped  as  a  huge  sacrificial  stone  3. 

Thus  this  god  Vediovis,  like  Hobal,  was  the  male  fonn 

of  the  bisexual  lunar  deities  of  the  cycle-year,  and,  as  the 

god  of  the  temple  between  two  groves,  he  is  the  Latin  fonn 

of  the  Hindu  Nanda  and  Radha  parents  of  the  Bharata  race, 

who  used    to  meet  at  Sanket,  the  "place  of  assignation' 

between  the  two  hills  dedicated  to  them.     As  he  was  or^- 

nally  a  god  of  the  cycle-year  of  nine-day  weeks,  his  festival 

took  place  on  the  9th  of  January.     He  is  then  called  a  god 

of  the  Agon,  that  is  of  the  Collis  Agonis,  another  name  for 

the   Quirinal   hill  of  the  Sabines,   which   was   outside  the 

Palatine  city  of  Romulus  4.     On  this  day  the  Rex  Sacronim, 

priest  of  the  Regia,  where  the  vestal  fire  was,  sacrificed  a 

ram  to  the  god  of  the  hill  called  Janus  Geminus,  the  twin 

(Geminus\  instead  of  the  goat  offered  to  him  as  Vediovis, 

the  god  of  the  Pole  Star  age.     As  the  name  Janus  comes 

from  the  same  root  as  Janua,  the  doors,  he  is  clearly  a  god 

strictly  analogous  to  the  Egyptian  and  Phoenician  Ptah,  the 

opener,  the  beginner  of  the  year,  and  a  Latin  counterpart 

of  the  Hindu  Varuna,  the  Lokapala  of  the  North,  whose 

victim  was  the  ram.     The  gate  called  after  him  Janus  was 

'  Movers,  Die  Phonitier^  vol.  i.  pp.  86,  263. 

»  Sayce,  Hihbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  vi.  p.  408. 

3  Palmer,  The  Quran^  cljap.  liii.  v.  19,  20 ;  S.6.E.,  vol.  ix.  p.  252,  voL  vi. 
Introduction,  p.  xii.  ;  Tide,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  the  Ancient  Religions, 
p.  67. 

*  Mommsen,  History  of  Romcy  Translated  by  Dickson,  Popular  Edition, 
vol.  i.  p.  86. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  435 

the  North-east  gate  of  Rome,  that  of  the  rising  sun  of  the 
summer  solstice,  and  his  images  on  coins  show  him  as  a  god 
with  two  heads,  that  is,  as  a  god  of  the  year  of  two  seasons 
of  the  solstitial  sun  who  originally  began  his  year  at  sunset 
at  the  winter  solstice,  the  god  of  the  South-west  and  North- 
east line  on  the  altar  of  the  eight-rayed  star.  But  as  the  god 
of  the  gate,  the  oldest  Roman  god,  whose  priest  was  the 
Rex  Sacrorum,  ruling  the  opening  of  the  year,  the  month 
and  the  day,  he  has  become  the  two  door-posts,  the  con- 
stellation Gemini  guarding  the  gate  of  the  Garden  of  God, 
the  constellation  in  which  the  sun  was  on  the  9th  of  January 
about  12,200  B.C.,  or  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  the  eleven- 
months  year '.  Following  this  festival  of  the  firstborn  of  the 
Twin  gods,  the  bisexual  twins  who  were  originally  male  and 
female  gods,  the  Mithuna  of  the  Hindu  zodiac,  we  have  the 
Carmentalia  of  the  nth  and  15th  of  January,  and  on  the 
former  day  the  fountain  of  Juturna,  that  of  the  sun-horse, 
was  worshipped. 

Carmenta  was,  as  Ovid  tells  us,  a  prophet-goddess  who 
told  the  fortunes  of  children,  and  had  apparently  two  forms 
called  Porrima  and  Postverta.     She  was  a  goddess  of  the 
South,  to   whom    no   animal   victims  were  offered,  for  no 
leather  or  anything  dead  was  allowed  near  her  temple.     She 
was  probably  a  form  of  the  solstitial  year-bird,  as  a  prophetess 
whose  festival  had  been  instituted  in  the  age  when  the  sun 
was  in  Gemini  in  December — January,  as  the  year-festival 
of  the  year-bird  originally  born  at  the  winter  solstice.     Her 
mid-year  festival  was  the  Lucaria  of  the  19th  and  21st  of 
July,  divided  like  the  January  festival  into  two  parts,  sepa- 
rated in  January  by  four  and  in  July  by  three  days.    The 
Lucaria  was  a  festival  of  the  goddess  of  groves  {lucar^  lucus\ 
and  was  apparently  a  tribal  festival  of  the  Luceres,  as  that 
of  Janus  was  of  the  Sabine  Titienses  «.     The  Luceres  were 

'  W.  Wardc  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  Januarius,  pp.  280 — 282, 
286—289. 

'  Ibid.,  Mensis  Januarius,  Carmentalia,  pp.  290—293,  Mensis  Quinctiljs 
Lucaria,  pp.  182 — 185. 

F  f  2 


436  History  and  Chronology 

not  only  sons  of  the  grove  but  of  the  wolf-sun-god,  the  Gred: 
Lukos,  who  had  come  to  Italy  with  the  Umbrians,  who 
brought,  as  we  have  seen,  the  priests  who  introduced  into 
Italy  the  Indian  ritual  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  and  who  wore, 
like  the  priests  of  the  Hindu  Pitaro  Barishadah,  the  sacrificial 
cord  on  the  right  shoulder. 

The  next  January  festival  was  the  Feriae  Sementivac,  or 
the  Paganalia  of  the  three  days  from  the  24th  to  the  2^ 
of  January.  This  was  the  Roman  ploughing  festival  of  the 
year,  when  the  plough  oxen  were  decorated  with  garlands 
and  cakes,  and  a  pregnant  sow  was  offered  ».  This  festival 
is  one  clearly  allied  to  the  great  Magh  (January — February) 
festival  of  the  Indian  Mundas,  and  other  cognate  tribes,  wiA 
which  they  begin  their  year.  Also  to  the  January  plough- 
ing festival  observed  in  most  countries  in  the  world,  which 
I  will  discuss  in  full  later  on  when  I  come  to  the  ploughing 
festival  of  the  Buddha. 

The  last  of  the  Roman  festivals  of  January  is  that  of  the 
27th  of  the  month,  the  dedication  at  Praeneste  of  the  temple 
of  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  Great  Twin  Brethren  who  bathed 
their  steeds,  after  the  battle  of  the  Lake  Regillus,  in  the 
Juturna  fountain,  worshipped  on  the  nth  of  January. 
They  were  the  twins  who,  as  we  have  seen,  ruled  all  the 
feasts  of  the  month  2. 

In  the  February  half  of  the  month  of  Magh  three  festivals 
intimately  connected  took  place  almost  simultaneously:— 
The  Fornicaria,  which  closed  on  the  17th  of  February,  but 
we  are  not  told  when  it  began  ;  the  Parentalia  lasted  for  eight 
days,  the  week  of  the  year,  from  the  13th  to  the  21st  of 
February,  and  the  Lupercalia  was  celebrated  on  the  15th  3. 
They  all  appear  with  the  festivals  of  the  end  of  January 
to  form  part  of  one  great  national  festival  inaugurating  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  and  consecrating  the  whole  month  of 

'  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals^  Mensis  Januarius  Feriae  Semen- 
tivce  Paganalia,  pp.  294—296. 
'  Ibid.,  Mensis  Januarius,  .'Edes  Castoris  et  Pollucis  dedicata,  pp.  296,  297. 
•'  Ibid.,  Mensis  Februarius,  pp.  302 — 324. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Agi,  437 

January — February  to  festivity,  as  the  Mundas  in  India 
consecrate  the  whole  of  Magh  to  dancing  and  revelry. 

The  Fornicaria  was  a  feast  of  grain  roasted  like  the  grain 
of  the  Picts  and  Indian  Pitaro  Barishadah,  and  made  into 
cakes.  These  were  eaten  at  a  common  meal  held  in  each 
of  the  Curiae,  or  thirty  villages,  communities  into  which 
the  Latins  were  divided ;  and  the  festival  of  the  Quirinalia 
on  the  17th  February,  which  ended  it,  was  a  meeting  of  all 
the  Curiae,  at  which  every  man  who  had  failed  to  celebrate 
the  feast  in  his  own  Curia  might  attend  and  remedy  his 
omission.  It  was,  in  short,  a  festival  beginning  the  year 
with  a  .'recognition  and  assertion  of  national  brotherhood. 
It  was  held  in  the  temple  of  Quirinus  on  the  Palatine  hill. 
The  two  myrtles  in  front  of  it  were  survivors  of  the  two 
Phoenician  pillars. 

The  Parentalia  was  the  national  feast  to  the  dead  of  the 
Vestal  Virgins  (Virgo  Vesta/is  Parentaiia),  that  is,  of  the  race 
who  introduced  the  sexless  gods  of  the  cycle-year,  and  the 
cult  of  the  household  fire  tended  by  the  virgin  daughters  of 
the  national  king.  While  it  lasted  all  temples  were  closed 
and  no  marriages  allowed.  This  custom  accords  with  the 
Ooraon  rule  that  no  marriages  can  take  place  till  the 
bones  of  the  dead  of  the  past  year,  who  have  been  burnt 
after  their  death,  are  collected  from  the  poles  in  front  of 
each  house  where  they  have  been  placed,  and  buried  in  the 
burying-place  of  the  family  of  the  deceased.  The  custom 
of  burying-the  dead  of  each  family  in  the  village  where 
their  ancestors  first  settled  is  a  survival  of  the  city  of  the 
dead  in  which  all  Akkadians  and  Mundas  used  to  be  buried. 
That  of  the  Mundas  is  in  the  province  of  Tamar,  in  the 
Lohardugga  district.  The  common  funerals  of  the  Ooraons 
take  place  in  December — January,  before  the  month  of 
Magh.  The  offerings  made  at  the  tombs  of  the  dead  during 
the  Parentalia  were  water,  wine,  milk,  honey,  and  the  blood  of 
black  victims.  In  each  household,  as  Ovid  tells  us,  a  family 
festival,  called  the  Caristia,  was  held  on  the  22nd  of  Feb- 


438  History  and  Chronology 

ruary,  the  ninth  day  of  the  Parentalia,  when  all  the  family 
ate  together.  On  the  night  before  this  festival,  called  the 
Feralia,  an  old  woman,  an  accredited  sorceress,  performed 
rites  to  the  goddess  Tacita  or  Dea  Muta,  the  silent^oddess, 
the  survival  of  Bahu,  the  mother-goddess  of  the  Abyss,  the 
female  pair  of  the  Hindu  Prajapati  [Orion)^  who  was  wor- 
shipped in  whispers  ^.  With  three  fingers  she  placed  three 
bits  of  incense  at  the  entrance  of  a  mouse-hole,  that  rf 
Apollo  Smintheus,  the  mouse-god  of  death,  to  keep  him  alorf 
from  the  house.  Muttering  a  spell,  she  wove  white  woollen 
threads  in  a  dark  coloured  web,  the  mingled  shades  rf 
day  and  night,  and  kept,  while  she  was  weaving,  seven 
black  beans  in  her  mouth,  sacred  to  the  seven  stars  of  the 
Great  Bear.  She  then  took  a  fish,  the  mcena,  the  wonder- 
working fish  of  the  Tobit  story,  smeared  its  head  with 
pitch,  sewed  its  mouth  up,  dropped  wine  on  it  and  roasted 
it  before  the  fire,  as  Tobias  roasted  the  entrails  of  the  fish 
to  drive  away  Asmodeus.  The  rest  of  the  wine  she  drank 
with  the  girls  of  the  house  who  assisted  at  the  service  *. 

The  Lupercalia  was  held  on  the  isth  of  February,  one  of 
the  days  of  the  Parentalia.  It  took  place  at  the  cave  called 
Lupercal,  in  the  South-western  corner  of  the  Palatine  hill, 
where  the  Tiber  had  deposited  the  wolf.nurtured  twins, 
Romulus  and  Remus,  under  the  sacred  fig-tree.  Hence 
it  was  a  festival  of  the  Ramnes,  sons  of  the  wolf,  and  the 
mother-tree  Silvia,  the  wood  {silvd)  goddess,  who  had,  as 
Leto,  the  tree-trunk,  borne  Apollo,  the  wolf,  and  Artemis,  the 
Great  Bear  goddess,  on  the  yellow  river  Xanthus  in  Lycia. 

The  festival  began  with  the  sacrifice  of  a  goat  and  a  dog, 
the  mother  of  fire,  the  Hindu  Matari-shvan,  the  mother 
of  the  dog.  They  were  sacrificed  by  the  two  Luperci,  Cakes 
were  also  offered,  made  by  the  Vestals  from  the  first  ears  of 
last  year's  harvest,  some  of  which  had  been  already  used  at 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh,  i.  4,  $,  12  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  131. 
»  Ovid,  Fasti,  2,  571  ff. ;  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  FtstiualSy  Mcoiis 
Febniarius,  pp.  308,  309. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  439 

the  Vestalia  on  the  9th  of  June  and  the  9th  of  September, 
the  first  offering  of  the  ears  being  more  than  eight  and  the 
second  more  than  five  months  before  this  last,  which  seems 
to  be  the  birth-festival  of  the  wolf-sun  born  of  the  last  year's 
corn  and  quickened  in  September.  After  the  sacrifices  the 
race  of  the  Luperci  began.  The  runners  were  divided  into 
two  companies,  each  headed  by  one  of  the  noble  Luperci 
youths,  one  of  whom  belonged  to  the  Collegia  of  the  Fabii 
of  the  Quirinal,  and  the  other  to  that  of  the  Quinctii  of 
the  Palatine  hill.  Their  foreheads  were  smeared  with  the 
knife  dyed  with  the  blood  of  the  victims  they  had  slain, 
and  were  then  wiped  with  wool  dipped  in  milk,  which  as  a 
bath  of  purification  cleansed  them  of  the  guilt  of  the  slaughter. 
They  were  then  obliged  to  laugh  as  children  of  the  goat 
and  dog,  who  rejoiced  over  their  new  birth  as  offspring 
of  the  sun-cow  bom  from  the  sun-ram.  They  who  had 
been  naked  hitherto  girt  themselves  with  the  skins  of  the 
goats,  the  dress  of  the  Akkadian  priests  and  of  the  Hindu 
Vaishya  at  their  initiation,  and  after  feasting  ran  round  the 
base,  or  part  of  the  base,  of  the  Palatine  hill,  striking  at  all 
the  women  who  came  near  them  or  offered  themselves 
to  their  blows  with  strips  of  skin  of  the  hides  of  the  victims 
which  were  supposed  to  produce  fertility. 

The  course  round  the  Palatine  hill  is  described  by  Tacitus 
as  starting  from  the  Lupercal  and  passing  by  the  shrine 
of  the  Lares  and  the  Forum.  This  ran  from  South-west 
to  North-east,  the  course  of  the  original  sun-bird,  and  the 
sunward  course  of  the  Roman  augurs  who  turned  their  faces 
to  the  South  with  the  West  to  their  right  hand,  so  that 
the  West  was  the  lucky  side  from  which  the  runners  were 
to  start  Northwards  by  West  to  East.  But  it  is  improbable 
that  both  the  bands  went  in  the  same  direction,  for  we  shall 
see  in  Chapter  VIII.,  when  I  describe  the  similar  race  round 
the  town  boundaries  of  the  Umbrian  Gubbio  on  Whit- 
Monday,  that  the  party  bearing  the  three  Ceri  representing 
the  god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  ran  with  the  course 
of  the  sun,  while   the  priestly  procession   went  against  it. 


440  History  and  Chronology 

and    both    parties    met    at    the    South-east    point  of  die 
course,  the  rising-place  of  the  sun  of  the  winter  solstice. 

The  festival  is  certainly  one  denoting  the  close  of  one 
year  and  the  beginning  of  another  consecrated  to  the  sun- 
god,  son  of  the  dog  Sirius,  who  as  the  dog-star  rules  the 
mid-months  of  the  year ;  and  the  two  bands  of  runners,  one 
taking  the  pre-solar  and  the  other  the  solar  direction,  marked 
the  union  of  the  worshippers  of  the  wolf  sun-god  of  the 
Palatine  with  the  Sabines  of  the  Quirinal  worshippers  of  the 
PhcEnician  cave-mother,  before  whose  temple  the  twin- 
pillars  were  placed. 

It  marks  a  year  beginning  about  the  isth  of  February, 
or  on  the  ist  of  February — March,  the  Hindu  month  Arjuna 
or  Phalgun,  that  of  the  consummation  of  the  wedding  of  the 
sun-maiden  Suria,  beginning  when  the  sun  was  in  February 
— March,  that  is  abput  8000  B.C.  The  year  thus  b^n 
corresponds  to  that  of  our  popular  mythology  beginning 
with  St.  Valentine's  Day,  when  the  birds  pair. 

The  inauguration  of  the  year  by  a  religious  ceremony 
designed  to  make  the  women  fertile  seems  to  show  clearly 
that  this  year  was  originally  begun,  like  the  Magh  year 
of  the  Ho  Kols,  by  a  general  pairing  of  the  population  at  the 
dances  introducing  it.     At  these  the  men  and  women  of 
adjoining  villages  met  as  the  people  of  the  Palatine  and 
Quirinal   did  at  the   Lupercal,  and  their  meeting  on  this 
authorised   day  of  union  was  followed  at  the  end  of  the 
period  of  gestation  by  the  birth  of  the  children   then  be- 
gotten.    Similar  tribal  birthdays  must  have  followed  other 
authorised  festivals  of  meeting,  at  which  alone  women  could 
legally  conceive.     Hence  we  understand  how  in  the  history 
of  Cuchulainn  he  and  his  father  Lug  were  alone  able  to 
defend  their  Ulster  possessions  against  the  Fir  Bolg  as  all  the 
other  men  were  laid  up  with  the  sickness  of  the  couvade'i 
the  simulated   lying-in   of  the   father   when   his   wife  was 
confined.      This   story  clearly  points   to   a   time  when  all 
the  Ulster  ladies  were  brought  to  bed  at  the  same  time. 

'  Rhys,  Uihbert  Lectures  for  1 886,  Lect.  vi.  pp.  627,  628. 


of  t/ie  Myth-Making  Age,  44 1 

The  beginning  of  this  year  was  apparently  celebrated 
by  a  second  sacrifice  on  the  24th  of  February,  at  the  end 
of  the  first  nine-days  week  of  this  year.  It  is  not  certain 
whether  the  victim  was  a  goat  or  an  ox,  but  Plutarch  says 
that  it  was  oflTered  in  the  Agora  or  central  market-place 
of  the  city,  and  that  the  Rex  Sacrorum  after  killing  the 
victim  ran  away.  The  flight  after  this  expiatory  sacrifice, 
oflTered  to  drive  out  malevolent  wizard-gods,  is  exactly 
similar  to  the  flight  of  the  Indian  priest  after  killing  the 
lamb  oflTered  at  the  autumnal  equinox  at  the  opening  festival 
of  the  cycle-year  described  in  Chapter  V.  p.  224.  Also  to 
that  of  the  sacrifice  of  a  bull-calf  to  Dionysos  at  Tenedos, 
when  the  priest  fled  away ;  and  this  may  have  been  the  spring 
sacrifice  to  Dionysos  said  by  Hesychius  to  have  taken  place 
in  Anthesterion  (February — March),  that  is  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Lupercalia  year  ^.  The  flight  apparently  represented 
the  disappearance  of  the  year-father  of  the  new  year,  when 
he  quits  his  functions  at  the  end  of  his  year  and  leaves  the 
rule  of  the  coming  year  to  his  son. 

The  Mid-year  Festival  of  this  year  in  the  Roman  ritual 
was  that  of  the  12th  of  August  to  Herculi-invicto,  the 
unconquered  Hercules  who  ruled  this  year.  It  is  the  first 
of  a  series  of  festivals  lasting  to  the  close  of  the  month. 
That  to  Diana  of  the  Aventine  and  other  gods  on  the  13th, 
the  Portunalia  on  the  17th,  the  Vinalia  on  the  19th,  the 
Consualia  on  the  21st,  the  Mundus  Patet  on  the  24th,  the 
Opiconsivia  on  the  25  th. 

The  first  of  these  is  clearly  the  festival  celebrating  the 
victory  of  Hercules  over  Cacus,  called  Kakios  by  Diodorus, 
who  has  been  proved  by  M.  Brdal  to  represent  the  god 
of  the  South-west  wind  Kaikias,  said  by  Aristotle  to  bring 
up  the  rain  2.  He  dwelt  in  a  cave  on  the  Aventine  to  the 
South-west  of  the  Palatine,  and  Hercules  is  said  in  Virgil's 

'  W.  Wardc  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals y  Mensis  Febiuarius  Regifugium, 

P-  327. 
'  M.   Breal,  Hercule  et  Cacus,  chap,  ii.,  La  Legende  Latine,  pp.  61,  62, 

chap.  ▼!.,  Formation  de  la  Fable,  p.  iii. 


44^  History  and  Chronology 

graphic  description  of  the  contest  to  have  fought  him  after 
he  had  slain  the  three-headed  Geryon,  the  Phoenidao 
Charion  or  Orion,  the  god  of  the  year  of  three  seasons'. 
Cacus  is  described  by  Virgil  as  a  half-human  Centaur,  that 
is  a  god  of  the  eleven- months  year,  who  belonged  to  the 
three-headed  brood.  The  Porta  Trigemina  commemorates 
the  victory  of  Hercules  over  this  three-headed  antagonist 

At  the  approach  of  his  vanquisher  Cacus  retreated  into  his 
cave,  which  he  closed  behind  him,  taking  with  him  four  bulls 
and  four  heifers^  tJu  eight  days  of  the  week.  He  drew  them 
inside  by  their  tails,  an  incident  denoting  the  retrograde  path 
of  the  zodiac,  from  right  to  left,  followed  by  the  astronomers 
of  the  eleven-months  year  and  still  preserved  by  the  Chinese*. 
But  the  Latin  god  Hercules,  who  advanced  directly  to  meet 
his  foe,  who  retreated  with  backward  steps,  is  not  the  Herakles 
of  the  Greeks,  the  Phoenician  Ar-chal,  but  the  guardian-god 
of  the  demarcated  family  properties  of  the  ploughing  race, 
the  god  of  the  enclosing  fence,  the  Greek  Herkos  (Ipicos), 
the  Hindu  Lakshman,  the  boundary-god  who  kept  the  sun 
in  his  ordained  course,through  the  stars.  He  was  the  Sabine 
sowing-god  Semo  Sancus,  who  is  also  said  to  have  conquered 
Cacus,  that  is,  the  sower  of  the  sacred  grass  {sagmen),  that 
carried  as  a  sign  of  their  mission  by  all  Roman  ambassadors3, 
and  the  Sabine  Salii  officiated  at  the  memorial  sacrifice  of 
the  victory  on  the  Ara  Maxima. 

The  other  name  of  the  conquering-god,  Recaranus,  clearly 
explains  the  meaning  of  the  story.  It  denotes  the  Re-creator 
(kar,  ker)f  the  second  creator,  called  by  Varro  with  reference 
to  Janus   Duonus  Cerus  cs,  duonus  Janus :   Thou   art  the 

*  Virgil,  y£n,,  viii.  201. 
=*  Ibid.,  viii.  207—211  :— 

Quatuor  a  stabilis  prsestanti  corpore  tauros 

Avertit,  totidem  forma  superante  juvencas. 

Atque  hos,  ne  qua  forent  pedibus  vestigia  rectis, 

Cauda  in  speluncam  tractos,  versisque  viarum 

Indiciis  raptos,  saxo  occultabat  opaco. 
3  M.    Br^al,  Hercule  et  CacuSy  chap,   ii.,  La  Legende  Latine,  Sancus  et 
Csecius,  pp.  55,  56  note. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  443 

second  creator,  the  second  Janus;  that  is  to  to  say,  he  and 
Cacus  were  two  heavenly\  ploughmen  ploughing  the  year- 
strips,  which  were  metaphorically  ploughed  by  the  Indian 
Kuru-Panchala  kings  at  the  beginning  of  this  year.  Cacus, 
the  retrograde  plougher  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  ploughed  the 
first  strip  during  the  six  months  when  the  sun  went  from 
South  to  North,  and  Hercules,  who  met  him  on  the  furrow 
as  the  forward  plougher  at  the  turning  point  of  the  goal,  the 
cave  of  Cacus,  proceeded  alone  to  plough  the  returning  strip 
from  the  North  to  the  South  of  the  heavenly  field.  Servius 
tells  us  that  Cacus'  sister  pointed  out  to  Hercules  the  path 
her  brother  had  gone  ^.  She  was  Diana  of  the  South-west 
Aventine  hill,  whose  festival  was  held  on  the  next  day, 
August  13th.  She,  who  was  the  goddess  of  the  sacred 
groves,  especially  that  of  Aricia,  had  been  originally  the 
mother-tree-goddess  of  the  mud  (tand)^  who  had  become 
in  the  age  of  lunar-solar  time  the  moon-goddess  measuring 
the  year.  It  is  also  clear  from  this  story  that  the  original 
contest  between  Hercules  and  Cacus  was  at  the  summer 
solstice,  when  the  sun  begins  its  returning  course,  and  when 
Indra,  the  rain-god  of  the  original  story,  killed  Ahi-shuva, 
the  god  of  drought,  who  became  the  Greek  oracular  snake 
Pytho  at  the  summer  solstice  when  the  rains  began  in  North 
India. 

That  the  sacrifice  offered  at  the  Ara  Maxima  to  celebrate 
this  victory  was  a  national  ceremony  of  the  ploughing  wor- 
shippers of  the  sun  is  proved  by  the  rule  that  only  free  men 
were  allowed  to  take  part  in  it.  This  rule  is  precisely  the 
same  as  that  laid  down  by  the  Raj  Gonds  of  Chuttisghur, 
sons  of  the  god  Ra,  who  only  allow  free  males,  members 
of  the  tribe,  to  join  in  the  sacrifice  to  their  supreme  god,  Sek 
Nag,  who,  as  the  snake  of  rain,  is  the  Gond  equivalent  of  the 
Vedic  Ahi-shuva.  Those  present  at  the  ceremony  attended 
it  with  bare  heads  crowned  with  laurels  sacred  to  the  sun- 
god  ;  and  similarly  all  Gonds  when  sacrificing  to  Sek  Nag 

*  M.  Breal,  HercuU  et   Cacus,    chap,  ii.,   La   Legendc   Latine,  Sancu  ct 
Caecius,  pp.  59—61. 


444  History  and  Chronology 

must  be  naked.  Also  the  rule  excluding  women  from  the 
ceremony  conclusively  proves  it  to  be  later  than  the  rites 
of  the  Pole  Star  and  Lunar  Solar  ages,  at  which  both  men 
and  women  assisted  ;  and  if  any  sex  was  excluded  from  any 
of  the  national  ceremonies  it  was  the  men,  who  left  the 
solemnisation  of  the  New  Year's  Feast  of  the  Pleiades 
year,  the  Thcsmophoria,  to  the  women,  the  only  recognised 
parents  of  the  village  races. 

The  sacrifice  was  followed  by  a  feast  on  the  flesh  of  the 
animals  sacrificed,  in  which  all  present  joined  ;  but  of  the  two 
priestly  families  who  with  the  Praetor  presided  at  it  only 
the  Potitii  could  eat  everything  offered  ;  the  Pinarii  were  not 
allowed  to  eat  the  entrails ;  and  this  prohibition,  together 
with  the  custom  of  dividinjr  the  officiating  Salii  into  two 
parties,  seems  to  show  that  it  indicated  a  union  between 
two  tribes  hitherto  opposed  to  one  another. 

Another  proof  of  the  alliance  is  derived  from  the  tithes  of 
the  booty  given  by  Hercules.  This  shows  that  the  union  was 
one  between  allies  among  whom  each  kept  the  produce  of  its 
own  lands,  and  only  devoted  a  part  to  the  public  benefit, 
instead  of  placing  the  whole  in  the  common  granaries 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  first  village  communities. 
Under  this  new  arrangement  each  family  maintained  itself 
on  the  lands  which  had  become  its  hereditary  property. 
A  modified  form  of  the  old  common  meals  was  maintained 
in  the  sacrificial  feasts  provided  from  the  tithes,  such  as  that 
at  which  Samuel  entertained  Saul. 

The  whole  ceremony  tells  of  the  formation  of  a  new  stock 
born  from  the  joined  Southern  and  Northern  races,  the 
Hindu  and  Jewish  Kathi,  similar  to  that  formed  by  the 
union  with  the  previous  population  of  the  Gonds,  who 
brought  from  Asia  Minor  to  India  millets,  sesame  oil,  and 
the  art  of  building  houses,  an  alliance  producing  the  con- 
federacy of  the  Vid-arba  or  double-four,  the  eight  tribes 
of  the  Gonds. 

The  consummation  of  this  alliance  between  the  ploughing 
immigrants  and  their  predecessors   was  celebrated   at  the 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  445 

banquet  of  Hercules  by  draughts  from  the  loving  cup,  the 
immense  wooden  goblet  given  by  the  conquering  god,  that 
of  the  united  Ribhus,  indicating,  not  the  division  of  the 
year  into  seasons,  but  the  union  of  its  compotent  parts  into 
the  complete  year  of  the  circling  sun-god. 

The  antiquity  of  the  ritual  of  the  Ara  Maxima  consecrated 
to  this  new  ploughing  sun-god  is  proved  by  its  situation  in 
the  open  air,  like  the  primitive  Hindu  Greek  and  Phoenician 
altars,  and  by  its  use  as  the  place  where  the  most  sacred 
contracts  were  made  by  men  with  bare  heads,  and  the 
flint  knife  in  their  hand.  It  was  to  Roman  ritual  the  great 
white  stone  of  the  Scandinavians  on  which  the  most  solemn 
oaths  were  sworn  '. 

The  characteristics  of  the  festival  of  the  13th  of  Aug^ust 
following  that  of  the  day  of  the  victorious  battle  of  Hercules, 
completely  confirms  these  conclusions.  It  was  a  festival  of 
the  South-west  Aventine,  in  the  temples  of  Diana  and 
Vertumnus,*  the  turning  (verto)  gods  of  the  year,  on  that 
hill,  and  also  of  Hercules  at  the  Porta  Trigemina.  It  was 
a  feast  of  the  Plebs  and  slaves,  not  of  the  aristocratic 
worshippers  at  the  Ara  Maxima,  and  indicated  the  earliest 
stage  of  those  national  autumnal  rejoicings  at  the  end  of  the 
first  six  months  of  the  year,  that  of  the  days  when  the  ruling 
year-god  was  not  the  male  sun-god,  but  the  sun-maiden,  the 
doe  brought  by  the  Ashvins  or  Twins,  whose  feast  was  held 
on  this  day  in  the  Flaminia  lucus,  to  wed  the  dcer-sun-god 
of  the  North,  the  plougher  Vertumnus,  who  turned  the 
direction  of  his  furrow  when  the  feast  was  first  instituted  at 
the  summer  solstice.  The  temple  was  especially  dedicated 
to  Diana  the  protectress  of  deer,  the  doc-goddess  of  Orion's 
year.  The  festival  of  Flora,  the  goddess  of  flowers,  was  also 
held  on  this  day  at  the  Circus  Maximus  2,  But  I  will  deal 
with  this  festival  and  its  historical  meaning  presently,  when 

»  M.  Brcal,  Ilercule  et  Cacus^  chap,  ii.,  La  Legende  Latinc*  Sancus  ct 
Caxius,  pp.  44—48. 

'  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals t  Mcnsis  Sextilis,  August  13th, 
pp.  19&— 202. 


446  History  and  Chronology 

I  have  completed  the  survey  of  the  Roman  Festivals  of 
August. 

The  next  of  these  festivals  to  be  reviewed  are  those  of 
the  Portunalia  on  the   17th  of  August,  the  Vinalia  on  the 
19th,  and  the  Consualia  on  the  21st.     They  all  seem  to  be 
festivals  of  a  race  who  came  into  Italy  before  the  sun-worship- 
pers of  the  eight-days  week,  and  whose  gods  were  those  of 
the  retrograde  year  of  Cacus.     The  Portunalia,  called  also 
Tiberinalia,  was  the  festival  of  the  river-god,  the  father  and 
mother  Tiber,  and  he,  as  Portunus,  was  a  god  who  presided 
at  the  opening  of  the  year,  for  according  to  Verrius  he  had 
a  key  in  his  hand,  and  on  this  day  Janus  was  worshipped 
at  the  Theatrum  Marcelli.     He  was  apparently  the  Etruscan 
god  Portumnus,  who  has  been  identified  by  Signers  Correra 
and   Milani   with   the   Greek    god    Palaemon,    called    both 
Portunus  and  Palaemon  in  Southern  Italy,  his  mother  being 
named  Mater  Matuta,  Eileitheia  and  Leukothea,  as  well  as 
Ino  ^.      Ino   was    wife  of  Athamus   Tammuz    or   Dumu-zi 
Orion.     Of  her  two  sons,  Learchus  and  Melicertes,  Learchus 
was  killed  by  his  father  as  the  offered  victim  of  his  madness, 
answering   to   the   madness   of   Kalmashapada    or    Pausya 
recorded    in    Chapter    VI.       Ino    escaped    with    her    son 
Melicertes  as  Arusha,  the  mother  of  Aurva,  the  thigh  {iiru) 
born  god,  fled  from  the  slaughterers  of  her  people.    Ino 
threw  herself  with  her  son  into  the  sea  from  the  Molurian 
rock  in  Megara,  and  Melicertes  was  saved  by  a  dolphin,  and 
changed  into  Palaimon,  the  god  who  was  landed  as  the  son 
of  the  mother-fish  on  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  where  he  was 
found  under  a  pine-tree  « 

This  god  Melicertes  is  the  Phoenician  Mclquarth,  the  lord 
{nialik)  of  cities  {karth)^  worshipped  as  the  sun-god  in  all 
Phoenician  towns.  His  festival  was  held  at  Tyre  on  the 
2nd  of  Peritius,  the  25th   of  December,  and  his  death  as 

'  Milani,  Studi  e  Materiali  di  Archeologia  e  Numismatica^  Part  i.,  Correra, 
Sul  Cuho  di  Leucothea  a  Napoli,  pp.  73—79  ;  Milani,  Ino  Leucothca  Imagine 
deir  Acque  e  dell'  Aria,  pp.  80 — 86. 

=»  Frazer,  Pausanias^  i.  44,  10,  ii.  I,  3,  vol.  i.  pp.  68,  71. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  447 

.  log,  the  yule  log,  and  his  resurrection  were  celebrated  in 
he  annual  festival  then  begun.  He  was  recalled  to  life  by 
iolaus »,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  V.  p.  263, 
Baal  lol,  charioteer  to  Baal  Makar  or  Melquarth.  He  was 
\  form  of  Lakshman,  the  boundary-god  of  the  story  of 
Rama,  who  kept  the  sun-god  in  his  right  place  in  the  sky 
furrow.  It  was  after  the  twelve  days  intervening  between 
this  and  the  5th  of  January,  of  which  we  have  seen  the 
neaning  in  Chapter  HI.  pp.  loi,  102,  that  this  god  awoke 
is  the  first  representative  of  the  sun-god,  in  the  form  of 
Palaimon  or  Baal  Yam,  the  sea  (^yam)  god,  the  counterpart 
>f  the  first  birth  of  the  Akkadian  Salli-manu,  the  fish-sun- 
jod,  the  Hebrew  Solomon,  born  under  a  pine-tree  on  the 
5th  of  January  ^ 

He  was  thus  the  sun-god  of  the  year  of  the  twins  Lcarchus 
md  Melquarth,  the  stars  Gemini  of  the  age  when  the  sun 
.vas  in  Gemini,  in  December — January,  about  12,200  B.C., 
ind  in  the  progress  of  time  he  became  god  of  the  year 
ivhen  the  sun  was  in  Gemini,  in  January — February  and 
February — March,  that  is  from  12,200  to  about  8ocx)  B.C., 
the  present  age.  It  was  to  him  as  the  god  whose  year  began 
on  St.  Valentine's  day,  the  14th*  of  February,  with  the 
Roman  festival  of  the  Parentalia  on  the  15th,  that  his  mid- 
y^ear  festival  took  place  on  the  17th  of  August.  In  his  first 
birth  as  year-god  of  the  year  beginning  in  January — February 
he  is  the  god  in  whose  honour  the  Isthmian  games  of  Corinth 
were  held.  They,  as  we  learn  from  Thucydides,  took  place 
in  the  early  spring,  for  he  tells  us  it  was  immediately  after 
these  games  that  the  Spartan  fleet  under  Alkimenes,  which 
had  been  waiting  for  spring  weather,  sailed  from  Kenchreae 
to  Chios  to  attack  the  Athenians  3.  The  prize  of  the  Victor 
in  these  games  was  a  wreath  of  pine  leaves  of  the  tree  under 
which  the  infant  god  was  found. 

The  Vinalia  festival  of  the  19th  of  August  was  the  mid- 

*  Bcrard,  Origine  des  Cultes  Arcadiens,  iv.,  Le  Dieu  Fils  des  Phoeniciens, 
p.  254.  ^  Tbid. 

3  Thucydides  viii.  6 — 10. 


448  History  and  Chronology 

year  festival  of  the  Vine-god  Dionysos,  whose  year  b^ifl 
with  the  Anthesteria  of  the  beginning  of  Anthesterion  (FA- 
ruary — March).  The  Consualia  held  on  the  Aventine  on 
the  2 1  St  of  August  was,  as  Tertullian  tells  us,  held  in  a 
subterranean  temple.  The  god  worshipped  was  the  guardian 
of  the  stored  {condere)  grain,  and  at  it  horses  and  asses  had, 
according  to  Plutarch,  a  holiday,  and  were  decked  wiA 
flowers.  This  is  the  sun-god,  the  equivalent  of  the  Celtic  sea- 
god  Llyr,  who  had,  as  we  have  seen,  p.  63,  an  underground 
temple  under  the  Soar  at  Leicester,  and  thus  the  male  form 
of  the  Southern  mother-goddess  Bahu,  who  had  become 
the  dolphin-mother  who  brought  Palaimon  or  Baal  Yam 
to  land.  This  mid-year  festival  of  Consus  was  also  con- 
nected with  the  Opiconsivia  held  at  the  Reg^a  at  the  hearth 
of  the  Vestal  Virgins  on  the  25th  of  August,  or  three  days 
after  the  Consualia.  It  was  probably  a  festival  of  the 
blessing  of  the  fires  at  the  half-year. 

The  whole  meaning  of  these  August  mid-year  festivab 
is  set  forth  in  the  ceremony  of  opening  on  the  24th  of 
August  the  Mundus  or  round  pit  on  the  Palatine  in  the 
centre  of  the  city.  This  was  sacred  to  Dis  and  Proserpine, 
the  two  goddesses  of  the  year  divided  into  two  seasons  of  six 
months  each,  the  pit  by  which  they  were  supposed  to  reach 
the  lower  world  of  the  South.  It  was  usually  closed  by 
a  lapis  manalis,  a  stone  of  fate.  This  was  taken  off  for 
three  days  at  the  turning  of  the  year,  when  the  sun  having 
reversed  its  course  reached  the  brink  of  the  Southern  pit. 

For  a  full  understanding  of  this  system  of  half-yearly 
festivals,  which  seems  to  have  formed  part  of  the  ritual 
of  this  year  of  eight-day  weeks,  we  must  turn  to  the  history 
of  the  Celtic  sun-god  Lug.  He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
son  of  Mackinealy,  that  is  of  the  Wolfs  Head.  He  wa.s 
thus  the  Celtic  form  of  the  Lycean  Apollo,  the  son  of  the 
wolf  of  light  (Itikos  lux).     He  was   also   the   successor  of 


'  W.  Wardc  Fowler,   The  Roman  Festivals,  Mensis  Sextilis,  pp.  202,  207, 
211— 214. 


of  the  Myth^Making  Age,  449 

^uada  of  the  Silver-Hand,  god  of  the  cycle-year  of  the  lunar 
rescents,  who  was  killed  by  Balor,  the  Pole  Star  father 
>f  Lug's  mother,  with  an  eye  before  and  behind  his  head. 
Jalor  in  his  turn  was  killed  by  Lug,  who  was  on  his  victory 
nade  king  of  the  Tuatha  De  Danann  ^.  Lug's  year  of  rule 
nust  have  begun  in  January — February,  for  his  mid-year 
estival  in  honour  of  his  nurse  Taill-tiu,  the  goddess  of 
lowers,  began  on  the  isth  of  July  and  continued  till  the 
[4th  of  August,  the  middle-day  of  the  feast  being  the 
[st  of  August,  our  Lammas  ^.  Hence  his  year  is  the  same 
is  the  Magh  year  of  Bhishma  and  of  Hindu  Mundas  and 
Doraons,  and  its  mid-year  festival  is  paralleled  by  the- great 
Kurum  festival  of  India  held  by  the  Ooraons  and  Mundas 
Dn  the  bright  half  of  Shravana  (July — August),  correspond- 
ing with  the  Hindu  Naga  Panchami  festival  of  the  five 
[punch)  Naga  snake-mothers  held  on  the  Sth  of  Shravana. 
This  festival  is  followed  by  the  harvest  festival  of  the  gora 
or  upland  rice,  which  takes  place  about  the  middle  of 
August.  The  Kurum  festival,  like  that  of  the  birthday 
of  Krishna,  takes  place  at  various  dates,  owing,  as  I  have 
shown,  to  tribal  astronomical  reasons  for  changing  the  New 
Year's  Day.  Among  the  Kharwars  of  Shahabad  it  begins 
in  the  early  part  of  Bhadon  (August — September),  and  lasts 
for  fifteen  days,  and  the  Bhumijes  of  Bankura  celebrate  it 
in  the  dark  and  not  the  light  half  of  Bhadon  3. 

This  most  significant  festival  is  held  in  honour  of  the 
Kurum-tree  {Nauclea  parvifolict)^  a  wild  almond-tree  answer- 
ing to  the  almond-tree  at  Luz  and  the  almond-rod  of  Aaron. 
The  tree  sacred  to  this  festival  is  cut  in  the  forest  by  youths 
and  maidens  who  fast  till  they  have  completed  their  task, 
and  is  brought  in  solemnly  with  dances  and  planted  in 
the  middle  of  the  Akra  or  dancing-ground.     On  the  chief 

'  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  i886»  Lect.  vi.,  pp.  611,612. 

*  Ibid.,  Lect.  v.  p.  414. 

3  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal,  vol.  i.,  Bhumij,  p.  125,  Ho,  p.  329, 
vol.  ii.,  Ooraon,  pp.  145,  146;  Crooke,  Popular  Religion  and  Folklore  of 
Northern  India,  pp.  245,  246. 

G  g 


450  History  and  Chronology 

night  of  the  festival,  before  the  dance  round  the  Kurum-trec 
begins,  the  daughters  of  the  head-man  of  the  vills^e  bring 
into  the  Akra  young  plants  of  barley  which  they  have  grown 
in  special  beds  like  the  pots  of  the  gardens  of  Adonis.  The 
seed  has  been  sown  in  sand  from  the  mother-river  mixed 
with  turmeric,  the  holy  plant  of  the  yellow  race.  When 
they  bring  the  yellow  shoots  thus  grown  into  the  Akra,  they 
first  worship  the  Kurum-tree  and  lay  some  of  the  plants 
before  it;  they  then  distribute  the  remainder  among  the 
dancers,  who  wear  them  on  their  heads  during  the  dance, 
which  lasts  all  night. 

A  very  remarkable  piece  of  national  history  is  told  in 
connection  with  the  change  from  the  worship  of  the  Kurum- 
trec  of  Magh  (January — February),  in  which  the  birth  of  the 
barley-sun-god  is  celebrated,  to  that  of  the  next  god  ruling 
the  month  of  Phalgun  (February — March),  the  second  month 
of  the  wedding  of  Suria  or  Sukonya  to  Soma,  the  month 
sacred  to  the  Pandava  Arjuna. 

The  sacred  river  of  the  Kharwars,  the  parent -tribe  of  the 
Cheroos,  rulers  of  Maghada,  is  the  Kurumnasa,  which  divides 
the  province  of  Maghada  or  Behar  from  that  of  Benares. 
Its  name  means  the  destruction  {nasa)  of  the  Kurum-tree, 
and  its  historical  significance  is  shown  by  the  horror  with 
which  it  is  looked  on  by  all  orthodox  Hindus.  None  of 
them  will  touch  the  water  or  wet  their  feet  in  it,  and  hence 
at  the  fords  or  roads  crossing  the  river,  before  the  present 
bridge  over  the  Grand  Trunk  Road  was  built,  the  Kharwars 
and  other  dwellers  on  its  banks  who  looked  on  it  as  sacred 
used  to  make  a  great  deal  of  money  by  carrying  pilgrims 
across  it  The  ritual  which  superseded  that  of  the  Magha 
Kurum  and  removed  the  river  from  the  list  of  holy  streams 
was  that  of  the  Pandavas,  the  ancestors  of  the  more  distinctly 
Northern  or  fair  (panda)  Hindus,  who  began  their  year  not 
with  the  Magh  festival  but  with  that  called  the  Huli,  begin- 
ning in  the  bright  half  of  Phalgun  (February— March)  and 
ending  on  the  full-moon  day.  This  festival  is  the  Hindu 
parallel  of  the  European  carnival  beginning  originally,  before 


of  tlie  Myth' Making  Age.  451 

t  varied  with  Lent,  on  the  r4th  of  February,  St.  Valentine's 
)ay  ;  and  at  the  Hull  the  Hindu  women  throw  red  powder 
it  their  lovers  as  confetti  are  thrown  at  the  Carnival. 
[t  marks  in  Hindu  history  the  victory  of  the  Pandavas  over 
he  Kauravyas,  who  measured  time  by  the  eleven-months 
^ear. 

This  great  national  birthday  of  February  —  March  is 
lommemorated  in  Hebrew  history  by  the  festival  of  Purim, 
/hich  plays  the  same  part  in  the  Jewish  national  story  as 
hat  of  the  Huli  does  in  that  of  the  Hindus.  Both  celebrate 
he  victory  of  the  men  of  the  red  race  over  the  yellow  sons 
>f  the  almond-tree.  The  Purim  victory  is  that  of  Mordecai, 
he  god  Marduk,  the  bull-calf  of  Babylon,  and  Esther,  or 
star,  the  morning-star,  over  Haman  and  his  ten  sons,  the 
jods  of  the  eleven-months  year,  who  were  slain,  as  we  have 
leen  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  303.  This  was  the  final  victory  of  Mar- 
iuk,  or  Merodach,  over  Tiamut  and  her  eleven-fold  offspring, 
[t  is  held  on  the  14th  and  isth  of  Adar  (February — March), 
Jiat  is  to  say,  at  the  full  and  not  the  new  moon  of  the 
Tionth,  and  it,  like  the  Roman  New  Year's  Day  of  the  1st 
3f  March,  tells  of  an  age  still  later  than  that  which  began 
Jie  year  with  the  14th  of  February,  when  the  sun  entered 
oremini  on  that  date,  about  8200  B.C.  At  the  beginning 
^f  this  epoch  the  old  reckoning  by  new  moons  was  that 
iised,  but  this  was  followed  by  the  substitution  of  full 
moons  for  the  crescent  moons,  as  we  see  in  the  Mahabha- 
rata,  that  Bhishma's  year  began  with  the  new  moon  of 
Magh  (January — February),  and  that  of  Parikshit  the  sun- 
god  succeeding  Bhishma  with  the  full  moon  of  Cheit 
(March — April),  when  he  began  to  run  his  year's  race,  fol- 
lowed and  guided  by  Arjuna  of  Phalgun,  the  Marduk  of 
Esther's  story,  the  young  bull-god  driving  the  white  sun- 
horses  of  the  sun  of  February — March. 

We  must  now  return  to  Lug  and  the  year  beginning  in 
January — February,  the  year  of  the  Greek  month  Gamelion, 
the  month  of  the  marriage  of  Zeus  and  Here,  and  origin- 
ally that   of  Esther    and    the    sun-king  of  Shushan.     The 

G  g  2 


452  History  and  Chronology 

Greek  mid-year  festival  of  this  year  is  the  Panathenaia  dl 
Athens  held  every  fifth  year  in  the  last  days  of  Hekatom-' 
baion  (July — August).  Its  great  day  was  the  28th  of  the 
month,  answering  to  the  1 3th  of  August,  the  festival  of  the 
goddess  Flora  and  of  Diana  of  the  Aventine  at  Rome,  and 
exactly  coinciding  with  the  second  stage  of  the  Lug  festival 
of  July — August. 

But  before  closing  the  account  of  the  parallelisms  con- 
nected with  the  year  of  Lug,  I  must  turn  to  another  account 
of  the  birth  of  a  sun-god,  the  equivalent  of  Lug  and  the 
Lycian  Apollo.  In  Franche  Comt6,  near  the  great  Frend 
shrine  of  Lug  at  Lug-dunum  or  Lyons,  the  Yule-log,  called 
La  Tronche,  was  almost  in  every  house  in  the  province,  about 
thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  taken  off  the  fire  on  Christmas  Eve 
almost  as  soon  as  it  had  been  placed  on  it.  When  it  had  thus 
been  baptized  with  fire  it  was  taken  apart  and  covered 
with  a  cloth.  Then  the  childen  came  in  and  beat  it  with 
sticks  to  make  it  bring  forth  {pour  la  faire  accouckir). 
Nothing  came  of  this  first  beating,  so  they  were  removed 
to  repent  of  those  sins  of  the  past  year  which  prevented 
the  mother  from  being  good  to  them.  After  a  time  they 
were  brought  back,  and  when  the  cloth  was  removed  after 
they  beat  it  their  Christmas  presents  were  disclosed ". 

Here  we  see  an  unmistakeable  survival  of  the  birth  of 
Melquarth  or  Archal,  the  sun-god,  from  the  funeral  pyre 
on  the  2nd  of  Peritius,  or  the  2Sth  of  December,  of  Apollo 
from  Leto,  worshipped  as  a  tree-trunk,  and  Krishna  from 
the  mother-tree,  the  black  virgin  Mari-amma.  She  is  the 
Czech  goddess  Leto,  who,  as  a  doll  made  of  straw,  the 
withered  sun-mother  of  corn,  is  clothed  every  year  in  summer 
with  a  shirt,  and  she  and  the  broom  and  the  scythe  she  bears 
in  her  hands  are  thrown  into  the  next  village  ».  This  god- 
dess-mother of  the  tree-trunk  was  the  Yule-log  lit  on  the 
New  Year's  festival  in  the  national  palace  of  the  bee-taught 


'  C.  Bcauquier,  Z^•J  Mois  en  Franche  Comti^  p.  137. 

"  Mannhardt,  Antikt  Wald  und  Feld  Kultur^  vol.  i.  chap.  iii.  pp.  155,  156. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  453 

race,  for  the  bees  are  called  to  in  their  hives  every  Christmas 
Eve  in  Franche  Comtd 

But  besides  the  tree-trunk-mother  who  gives  the  year 
gifts,  there  is,  in  some  parts  of  Franche  Comt6,  another 
called  Tante  Aric,  who  comes  riding  on  an  ass  and  places 
the  presents  on  the  Christmas  pine-tree,  the  mother-tree 
of  Germany,  and  this  mother  is  Su-koniya,  the  year-mother 
of  the  ass-riding  Ashvins  ^. 

Another  most  remarkable  survival  of  ancient  year  my- 
thology is  found  in  the  drama  of  La  Cr6che,  or  the  cradle, 
iirhich  begins  at  Besan^on  in  December  and  lasts  at  intervals 
till  the  end  of  January,  so  that  it  is  a  theatrical  represen- 
tation of  the  opening  of  the  year  in  December — January 
uid  January — February. 

The  three  actors  in  the  drama  are  those  who  are  in 
Srermany  the  Three  Kings  of  Cologne,  headed  by  the  black 
king  Melchior,  who  came  to  worship  the  young  child  on 
iie  6th  of  January.  But  in  Franche  Comt6  they  are  the 
3ld  wine-grower  Barbizier,  his  wife  Naitoure,  whom  he  con- 
stantly beats,  and  Verly,  who  tries  to  keep  the  peace  between 
:hem  ^.  In  these  three  persons  we  see  unmistakeable  sur- 
vivals of  Rama^  Sita  and  Lakshman,  for  in  their  journey  to 
ind  the  young  sun-god  in  his  cradle  in  the  plough-furrow 
>f  the  year-stars,  they  go  and  ask  counsel  of  the  old  hermit 
)r  astrologer,  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  with  its  guiding 
Dointers,  who  will  show  the  star  under  which  the  child  is  to 
>e  found.  The  story  tells  how  Rama,  the  god  who  ploughs 
lis  year-path  through  heaven  in  the  furrow  Sita,  whom  he 
irives  before  him,  finds  Sita  as  the  year-child  of  the  crescent 
moon  in  the  labyrinthine  Southern  castle  of  the  ten-headed 
Ravana  in  Lanka  (Ceylon),  after  reaching  his  journey's  end 
by  the  road  in  which  he  has  been  kept  by  Lakshman,  the 
guardian  of  the  boundary  stars  of  the  zodiac  in  which 
the  sun-god  is  born,  and  through  which  he  passes  in  his 
)rearly  circuit.     The  star  sought  for  in  the  cradle-drama  is 

■  C.  Beauqoier,  Les  Mots  en  Franche  Comiiy  pp.  136 — 138. 
•  Ibid.,  pp.  149—152. 


454  History  and  Chrofiology 

that  in  which  the  sun-child  of  Naitoure,  the  bearing  (inu^) 
mother,  is  to  be  born  as  the  Etruscan  Tages  was  bom,  from 
the  furrow.      It   is  a   perpetually   recurring  drama  of  the 
history  of  time  told  by  the  passage  of  the  sun  through  the 
Zodiacal  stars,  and  the   successive  changes  of  these  stars 
marking   the   monthly   resting-places,  and   especially  those 
of  the   solstitial   and   equinoctial    guiding  points.     In   this 
year  of  the  eight-days  week,  though  the  first  birth  of  the 
young  sun-god  takes  place  at  the  winter  solstice,  yet  the 
second  is  in  January — February,  and  the  mid-year  star  of 
this   second.]  birth   is  that   in   which  the   sun   is    found  on 
the  day  of  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin   on  August  the 
15th,  when  Athene  receives  her  year  Peplos  at  the  Pana- 
thenaia.     This  story  of  the  circular  year-track  of  the  sun 
followed  by  Rama,  Sita  and  Lakshman,  is  also  preserved  in 
that  of  the  universally  known  Punch,  who  beats  his  wife 
Judy,   and   is   always   quarrelling  with   the  policeman,  the 
guardian  Lakshman.     He  proves  his   Indian  origin  by  his 
name,  which  is  that  of  the  Indian  five  {panck)  days  week, 
the   five   Nag-Panchami   mothers.      The  birth-star   of  this 
cradle  drama  is  that  in  which  the  sun  was  to  be  found  on 
the  6th  of  January,  twelve  days  after  the  winter  solstice, 
and    these   twelve   days   added    to   the   twelve    before  the 
solstice    during    which    Archal    lay    on    the    funeral    pyre 
make  up  twenty-four  days  or  a  month  of  this  fifteen-months 
year. 

That  this  year  of  Lug  which  we  find  depicted  in  these 
various  forms  in  ancient  year-history  was  a  year  measured 
by  eight-day  weeks  is  proved  by  the  Celtic  week  of  the  eight 
Maini.  They,  as  the  seven  Great  Bear  stars  parents  of 
the  eighth  god,  the  sun-god  of  this  year,  were  originally 
the  Sccht  or  seven  Maini.  As  the  eight  Maini  they  are 
called  :  i.  Maine  Mathremail,  M  like  his  mother;  2.  Maine 
Athremail,  M  like  his  father;  3.  Maine  Morgor,  M  very 
dutiful  ;  4.  Maine  Mingor,  M  little  dutiful  ;  5.  Maine  mo 
Epert^  M  greater  than  is  said ;  6.  Maine  Milscothach,  M  of 
honey-bloom  ;  7.  Maine  And6e  (meaning  unknown)  ;  8.  Maine 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  455 

cotageib  Ule,  M  that  contains  them  all,  that  is  the  sun-god 
the  eighth.  They  are  the  eight  rings  dropped  every  ninth 
night  by  Odin's  ring  Draupnir.  This  week  of  eight  days  and 
nine  nights  is  that  of  Lug's  eight  warders  placed  to  guard 
him  after  he  became  king  of  the  Tuatha  de  Danann,  and  the 
eight  warders  of  the  court  of  Arthur,  the  ploughing-god 
Airem,  who  divided  the  year  between  them,  and  of  whom 
the  eighth  was  the  white  horse  of  the  sun,  Glewlwyd  Gavael- 
vaur.  Brave  Grey  with  the  Great  Grip  ^ 

F.     The  year  of  Odusseus  as  god  of  tlu  Thigh, 

In  the  survey  of  the  sun-gods  of  the  year  born  of  the 
Thigh  who  rule  this  year  of  eight-day  weeks,  I  have  now 
to    return   to   a  sun-god  whom  I  have   mentioned   several 
times  before.     This  is  Odusseus,  the  victor,  like  Arjuna,  in 
a  shooting  contest  for  the  goddess  of  the  year.     He  was 
originally  the   Northern   wandering-god   Orwandil    of   the 
North,  whose  great  toe  was  the  star  Rigel  in  Orion.     He 
was  married  to  Penelope,  daughter  of  Ikarios,  whom  he  won 
in  a  foot-race  as  leader  of  the  stars  going  round  the  Pole. 
His  wife,  as  weaver  of  the  web  (injvTj),  was  originally  the 
Pleiades  or  spinning-mother,  but  as  the  daughter  of  Ikarios, 
who  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  326,  changed 
into  the  constellation  Bootes,  she  became,  as  the  goddess- 
mother  of  the  corn-growing  races,  the  constellation  Virgo, 
one  of  the  zodiacal  stations  of  the  sun  ;  and  perhaps  she  was 
also  the  leader  of  the  three  weaving  sisters,  the  Pole  Star 
Vega,  who  was,  as  Gandhari,  a  child-bearing  mother  like 
Penelope.     Odusseus  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  IV. 
p.  144,  the  god  of  the  year-bed  of  the  olive  mother- tree- 
goddess  Athene,  and  his  connection  with  the  year  is  further 
shown  by  the  catalogue  of  his  swine  kept  by  his  Phoenician 
swineherd  Eumaeus.     He  owned  six  hundred  sows,  lodged 
in  twelve  pig-sties,  and  he  had  also  six  hundred  boars  who 

*  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1886,   Lect.  iv.   pp.  364—372,  Lect.   vi.   pp. 


456  History  and  Chronology 

lived  outside,  but  whose  numbers  had  been  reduced  to  thrct 
hundred  and  sixty  by  the  suitors  of  Penelope,  who  killed 
them  as  food.  They  were  guarded  by  four  dogs,  the  four 
Lokapala  stars  Sirius,  the  Great  Bear,  Corvus  and  Argo. 

Their  numbers  show  that  they  were  the  year-pigs  of  the 
twelve-months  year  of  the  boar-god,  and  in  this  reckoning 
fifty  sows  were  allotted  to  each  month  '.  These  fifty  answer 
to  the  fifty  great  gods  of  the  Akkadians,  and  the  fifty 
daughters  of  the  Hindu  god  of  time,  Daksha=»,  the  fifty 
daughters  of  Endymion  by  Selene,  the  moon,  the  fifty  sons 
of  Priam,  the  fifty  daughters  of  Danaus,  and  the  fifty  servant- 
wives  left  behind  in  Ithaca  by  Odusseus  when  he  went  to 
Troy,  of  whom  twelve  had  become  mistresses  to  the  suitors. 
They  were  the  year-goddesses  of  old  year  reckonings,  who 
were  to  be  replaced  by  the  newly-recovered  Penelope,  whose 
hand  he  has  to  win  in  his  contest  with  the  suitors  3. 

These  fifty  children  of  the  year-god  and  the  fifty  mother- 
sows  apparently  mean  fifty  days,  so  that  the  whole  year 
of  twelve  months  would  contain  six  hundred  days,  and  six 
hundred  is  the  number  of  the  Babylonian  cycle  of  the  Great 
Ner  of  600  years.  But  if  this  year  of  twelve  months  of 
Nergal,  the  Great  {^gal)  Ner,  contained  six  hundred  days,  the 
term  day  must  have  a  different  meaning  from  that  we  attach 
to  it,  and  if  the  Odusseus  year  of  six  hundred  days  equalled 
in  length,  as  it  must  have  done,  that  of  the  three  hundred 
and  sixty  boars  of  the  suitors  and  the  year  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty  days,  each  day  must  have  been  made  up  of  frac- 
tional parts  differing  from  those  which  make  up  our  day. 

An  explanation  of  this  difficulty  may  be  found  in  the 
Hindu  Tithis  or  lunar  days,  which  differ  in  length  from  the 
civil  days.  In  the  list  of  the  Tithi  days  of  the  lunar  month 
given  by  Alberunl,  the  eight  Vishtis  or  changes  into  which 
it  is  divided  contain  thirty  Tithis  or  lunar  days,  and  the  first 

'  Homer,  Odyssey^  xiv.  5 — 22. 

=  Sayce,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887,  Lcct.  iii.    p.    183 ;    MahabhSrata  Adi 
{Santbhava)  Parva,  Ixvi.  p.  189. 
3  Homer,  Odyssey y  xxii.  419—429. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  457 

of  these  Vishtis  is  called  Vadavamukha,  the  distorted  month, 
the  name  of  the  god  of  the  horse's  head  of  the  eleven-months 
year  of  p.  396 1.  But  Alberunl  does  not  tell  us  how  this  year 
of  Tithis  is  made  up  apart  from  their  use  in  the  year  of  the 
Karanas,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  measured  by  the  same 
days  as  we  use.  But  we  find,  perhaps,  a  clue  to  the  measure- 
ment of  this  year  of  Odusseus  as  Vadavamukha,  the  god  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  in  the  constantly  repeated  statement 
that  he  returned  after  his  wanderings  to  Ithaca,  and  resumed 
his  power  in  the  twentieth  year  since  his  departure,  when  his 
year-dog  Argus,  the  constellation  Argo,  fell  dead  at  his  feet 
from  joy  at  his  return  2.  This  number  in  the  account  of  his 
vagabond  career  as  an  unattached  sun-god  of  the  lunar-solar 
epoch  apparently  marks  the  number  of  lunar  months  in  his 
year,  which  was  measured,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  by 
twenty-four  lunar  phases.  This  year  of  twenty  months,  each 
containing  thirty,  or  of  twelve  months  each  of  fifty,  Tithi 
days,  would  be  one  of  600  days ;  and  if  every  Tithi  day 
contained  twenty  hours  equalling  our  twenty-four,  each 
month  of  thirty  days  would  contain  600  hours  instead  of 
the  720  of  our  month,  and  each  year  would  contain  7,200 
hours  instead  of  the  8,640  hours  of  the  year  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty  of  our  days.  Such  a  measurement  of  time  as  this 
is  quite  practical,  and  it  may  have  been  used  by  the  national 
astronomers  who  measured  in  the  Southern  observatories  the 
year  of  the  horse's  head  framed  in  the  North  as  the  eleven- 
months  year.  These  astronomers  of  Northern  descent, 
before  they  united  with  the  Southern  races  and  formed  our 
mixed  decimal  and  duodecimal  system  of  reckoning,  did  all 
their  reckoning  in  decimals,  and  this  is  the  reckoning  fol- 
lowed in  this  year  I  have  sketched  above.  Our  mixed 
system  is  based  on  the  Dravidian  duodecimal  measurement 
of  time,  which  divides  the  day  into  sixty  Ghatis  or  hours 
of  twenty-four  minutes  each,  an  order  reversed  by  the  Baby- 

•  Sachau,  Alberunl's  India,  vol.  ii.  chap.  Ixviii.  pp.  201 — 203  ;  Mahabharata 
Adi  (Chaitra-ratha)  Parva,  clxxxii.  p.  517. 
^  Ilomcr,  Odyssey^  xrii.  327. 


45  8  History  and  Chronology 

lonians,  from  whom  we  took  our  calendar.  As  the  Dravidian 
system  provided  a  most  elaborate  division  of  time  into 
seconds  and  more  minute  fractions,  it  was  much  more  usefiil 
for  astronomers  than  the  rougher  calendar  of  the  North; 
hence  the  latter  was  superseded  for  practical  use,  and  only 
survived  in  such  historical  tales  of  old  Northern  life  as  the 
original  story  of  Odusseus  Orwandil. 

The  correctness  of  this  hypothesis  has  no  bearing  what- 
ever on  the  main  argument  of  this  explanation  of  the  Odus- 
seus story,  for  which  it  is  only  necessary  to  prove  him  to 
be  a  year-god  of  the  primaeval  methods  of  reckoning  time. 
The  twelve  pigsties  for  his  sows  and  the  three  hundred 
and  sixty  boars  left  alive  prove  this,  and  further  complete 
proof  that  he  was  a  god  of  the  Thigh  year  is  given  by  the 
mark  on  his  thigh  by  the  gash  made  by  the  boar  of  Par- 
nassus which  he  slew  while  hunting  with  the  sons  of  Auto- 
lycus,  the  self  {auto)  shining  (lukos)  god,  the  independent 
sun-god  of  that  mountain  sacred  to  Bellerophon  or  Baal 
Raphon,  the  sun-physician,  and  his  horse  Pegasus,  who  made 
the  fountain  Hippocrene  at  its  foot  This  wound  was  above 
his  knee  {yovvbs  virep)^  and  immediately  after  receiving  it 
Odusseus  struck  the  boar  on  the  right  shoulder  and  slew 
it  ^.  The  poet's  description  of  the  fight  is  thrillingly  graphic. 
The  boar  charged  past  Odusseus  from  his  left  side,  and  as 
he  passed  gashed  with  his  tusk  the  spearman's  left  thigh, 
which  was  in  advance  of  his  right  leg.  He  kept  straight 
on  his  course  after  delivering  his  stroke,  and  Odusseus  struck 
him  on  the  right  shoulder  as  he  went  by  him.  The  spear 
went  home,  and  the  fighting  monarch  of  the  forest  fell  in  the 
dust  with  the  dying  grunt  of  defiance  (hreaev  iv  Kovirjai 
fbOKoiyp),  with  which  he  told  his  foe  that  he  would  die  fighting 
to  the  last.  This  story  is  one  which  could  only  have  been 
told  by  a  poet  who  had  hunted  and  slain  the  undaunted 
king  of  the  forest  who  dies  fighting  to  his  last  gasp. 

This  mark  imprinted  on  his  thigh  before  he  left  Ithaca 

*  Homer,  Odyssey^  xix.  449 — ^453. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  459 

on  his  twenty  years  of  wandering  was  one  by  which  he 
was  known  to  all  his  friends,  and  in  his  insistance  on  this 
point  the  poet  practically  tells  us  that  he  was  looked  on 
as  the  god  whose  left  thigh  was  torn.  It  was  by  this  mark 
that  his  nurse  Eurykleia,  also  called  Euronyme,  recognised 
him  as  she  washed  his  feet,  and  she  was  the  Phoenician 
Astro  Noema,  the  star  Virgo,  guardian  of  the  sun-god  of  the 
eleven-months  year  *.  It  was  by  this  that  he  made  himself 
known  to  Eumaios  the  swineherd  and  Philoitios  the  herds- 
man of  the  oxen,  who  apparently  represents  Aryaman, 
the  sun-physician,  in  his  first  form  of  Arcturus,  the  chief 
star  in  Bootes,  the  guardian  constellation  of  the  ox  (^ovs)  *. 
They  were  his  two  chief  assistants  in  his  contest  with  the 
suitors.  It  was  also  by  this  sign  that  he  revealed  himself 
to  his  father  Laertes  3.  Thus  as  the  god  with  the  wounded 
and  withered  left  thigh,  he  was  the  parallel  of  Jacob,  who 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  his  left  thigh  withered  in  his  contest 
with  the  god  whom  he  conquered,  as  Odusseus  conquered 
the  boar-sun-god  4, 

The  final  battle  of  Odusseus  with  the  suitors  is  an  exact 
parallel  with  that  fought  by  Arjuna  with  the  wooers  of 
Drupadl.  The  rules  of  the  contest  were  that  the  victor 
should  bend  and  string  the  bow  of  Eurytus,  given  by  his 
son  Iphitus  to  Odusseus,  and  shoot  an  arrow  right  through 
the  twelve  double  axes  {iriKe/cv^)  or  twenty-four  crescent- 
moons  of  the  twelve  months  of  the  year  of  the  twelve 
pigsties  5.  Whoever  should  succeed  in  performing  this  feat, 
requiring  the  supernatural  strength  and  skill  of  the  supreme 
god,  should  become  the  husband  of  Penelope.  Odusseus 
alone  was  able  to  bend  the  bow  and  shoot  the  arrow  through 
the  lunar  crescents  6,  and  his  bow  was  the  self-same  bow 
as  that  with  which  Arjuna  won  Drupadl,  for  Arjuna's  bow 
was  that  of  Krishanu,  the  rainbow-god,  drawer  (harsh)  of  the 
bow,  and   Krishanu's   name   is  exactly  translated   by  that 

»  Homer,  Odyssey,  xix.  388 — 393,  xx.  5.  ^  Ibid.,  xxi.  216 — 220. 

3  Ibid.,  xxiv.  330 — 332.  ^  Gen.  xxxii.  28. 

5  Homer,  Odyssey^  xxi.  10—32,  68—76.  ^  Ibid.,  xxi.  404—423. 


460  History  and  Chronology 

of  Eurytus  or  Eurutos,  the  drawer  (epw).  The  difference 
between  the  mark  aimed  at  in  the  two  contests  is  most 
noticeable.  Arjuna  aimed  at  the  Pole  Star  bird  encircled 
by  the  guardian  constellation  Draco,  while  the  arrow  of 
Odusseus  was  shot  through  the  twelve  double  axes,  the 
stations  of  the  twelve  zodiacal  stars,  which  were  twenty- 
seven  in  the  furrow  of  Rama,  and  became  twelve  in  our 
zodiac.  In  these  the  sun  rests  while  the  twenty-four  lunar 
crescents  mark  his  monthly  stay  in  each  star. 

The  fight  with  and  slaughter  of  the  suitors  which  suc- 
ceeded the  victory  of  Odusseus  was  preceded  by  the  capture 
of  Melanthios,  the  goatherd,  the  Pole  Star  goat  who  went 
to  get  arms  for  the  suitors  from  the  bedchamber  of  Odusseus, 
containing  the  heaven's  bed.  He  was  caught  in  the  act 
of  robbing  the  treasury  of  heaven  and  bound,  thus  succumb- 
ing to  Philoitios  as  the  star  Aryaman,  the  cattle  herdsman. 
Melanthios  had  been  cup-bearer  to  the  suitors,  the  filler 
of  the  cups  of  the  seasons,  and  had  always  derided  Odusseus 
when  he  returned  from  his  wanderings  disguised  as  a  beggar- 
man,  the  despised  sun-god,  who  was  only  recognised  by  his 
faithful  dog  Argus,  the  constellation  Argo,  who  died  to 
make  way  for  the  new  year  ruler  *.  The  doors  of  the  central 
hall  of  the  heaven's  palace  were  closed  by  Eurycleia  and 
Philoitios,  the  two  guardian-stars  Virgo  and  Arcturus  ^ ;  and 
Odusseus  then  slew  all  the  imprisoned  suitors,  the  false  gods 
of  the  ages  of  the  worship  of  the  gods  of  night,  those  buried 
by  Jacob  under  the  oak  tree  at  Bethel.  At  the  end  of  the 
slaughter  Melanthios,  the  goat-god,  was  brought  out,  his 
nose,  ears,  hands  and  feet  were  cut  off,  and  he  was  emascu- 
lated, that  is  changed  from  the  ape-god  of  the  Thigh  to 
be  a  sexless  gnomon-pillar  3. 

The  sun-god  went  after  his  victory  to  visit  his  father 
Laertes,  the  gardener  of  the  Garden  of  God  of  the  Zendavcsta. 
In  this  he  had  dwelt  with  his  wife  Antikleia,  the  backward 
(anti)  key,  the   year-goddess   of  the   retrograde  Pole  Star 

*  Homer,  Odyssey^  xvii.  212 — 216,  300 — 327,  369  if.,  xx.  172 — 184,  255. 
»  Ibid.,  xxi  376—391.  ^  Ibid.,  xxiL  135—193,  474—477. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  461 

years  wedded  to  the  gnomon  tree-trunk,  the  Indian  Lat,  the 
vernacular  name  for  the  Sanskrit  Yupa,  the  sacrificial  stake, 
the  Etruscan  Larth,  or  eldest  son,  the  Pelasgian  Lar,  or  na- 
tional father.  He  was  the  Greek  form  of  the  Roman  Latinus, 
the  father  of  the  Latins,  son  of  Faunus,  the  deer-sun-god, 
and  Marica,  the  sea  or  marsh-mother  of  the  tree-ape,  the 
Hindu  Maroti,  the  Latin  Mars  Mart-is.  He  was  the  god 
of  the  sacrificial  stakes  which  first  marked  the  seasons,  and 
became  those  denoting  the  months.  These  Lats  surrounded 
the  Hindu  Temples,  built  on  the  plans  of  this  age,  such  as 
that  at  Sando-paya  in  Burmah,  where  the  central  temple  is 
encircled  by  Chaityas  or  shrines,  between  which  are  posts, 
with  the  Garuda  eagle  cloud-bird  of  Vishnu  on  the  top. 
These  Chaityas  and  Garuda  posts  are  said  in  the  Mahabharata 
to  have  been  erected  by  Bhishma,  the  god  of  this  year,  round 
all  Indian  temples,  and  their  meaning  as  calendrical  signs 
is  shown  by  the  thirty  stone  pillars  surrounding  the  sun-circle 
at  Stonehenge,  denoting  the  thirty  days  of  the  month  ^ 

Thus  Odusseus  as  the  conquering  god  of  the  right  thigh 
is  the  son  of  the  fruit-bearing  tree-pillar,  the  earthly  emblem 
of  the  creating  fire-drill  which  begot  the  sun-god  as  the 
sun  of  the  nut-tree.  This  nut-tree,  the  fruit  of  which  was 
scattered  before  the  bridal  pair  at  Roman  weddings,  is 
believed  by  the  Jews  to  have  been  planted  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  It  became  the  almond-tree  of  the  Indian  Ooraons  and 
Kharwars,  and  the  sacred  walnut-tree  of  the  Italian  witches. 
This  holy  tree  grew  at  Bcneventum,  and  the  son  of  one  of 
the  peasants  who  sold  its  fruit  was  one  day  gathering  them. 
As  he  opened  the  fruits  to  eat  their  contents  a  fairy  came 
out  of  each,  and  they  surrounded  him  and  danced  with  him, 
as  the  stars  danced  round  the  beggar  sun-god  Odusseus. 
When  the  dance  was  over  they  gave  him  three  nuts,  told 
him  to  open  two,  to  keep  the  third  for  the  king's  daughter, 

'  Simpson,  *  The  Pillars  of  the  Thuparaina  and  Lankarama  Dagabas  in 
Ceylon.*  J.R.A.S.^  1896,  p.  361  ;  Mahabharat.i  Adi  (Sambhava)  Parva,  cix. 
13,  14,  p.  327;  Hewitt,  Ruiing  Races  0/ Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  viii., 
pp.  138  ff. 


462  History  and  Chronology 

and  to  take  a  basketful  of  nuts,  which  they  gave  him,  to  the 
king.  From  the  first  of  his  three  nuts  there  issued  so  mudi 
gold  as  to  make  him  the  richest  man  in  the  world,  and  from 
the  second  a  splendid  summer  suit  of  clothes.  He  then  went 
to  the  king  and  asked  for  the  hand  of  his  daughter,  but 
was  refused,  as  her  father  said  she  was  promised  to  another 
husband,  the  moon -god.  But  he  was  allowed  to  give  the 
third  nut  to  the  princess,  telling  her  not  to  open  it  till  she 
went  to  bed,  and  then  he  himself  came  out  of  it,  and  remained 
with  her  as  her  secretly  wedded  husband.  But  the  Indian 
custom  of  the  Swayamvara,  or  self-choice  of  the  year-bride, 
had  penetrated  to  the  Italy  of  this  age,  and  when  the  day 
came  when  the  princess  had,  like  Drupadi  and  Penelope,  to 
choose  her  mate  among  contending  suitors  summoned  by  the 
king,  she  chose  the  youth  of  the  walnut-tree,  who  had 
resumed  his  peasant's  garb.  In  contending  with  the  suitors 
who  exclaimed  against  her  choice,  the  beggar-sun-god,  like 
Arjuna  and  Odusseus,  vanquished  all  competitors,  and  be- 
came the  father  of  the  sun-god  born  of  the  walnut-tree  '. 

We  see  in  this  story  a  resume  of  the  numerous  variant 
forms  of  the  historical  tale  told  in  this  Chapter,  and  trace 
it  with  its  Indian  original  features  to  Italy.  We  also  see 
how  the  walnut-tree-trunk  became,  through  its  fruit,  the 
mother  of  the  sun-god  raised  from  earth  to  heaven.  This  is 
the  tree-trunk  which  was  beaten  as  the  lying-in  mother  in 
Franche  Comt6,  that  is  ploughed  and  stricken  like  the 
laboured  earth  to  make  it  yield  its  fruits,  and  we  find  in 
this  scries  of  symbols  the  historical  origin  of  the  old  rhyme, 

**  A  woman,  a  dog,  and  a  walnut  tree, 
The  more  you  beat  them  the  better  they'll  be," 


G.     The  year  of  the  birth  of  the  Buddha  and  Parikshii 

as  stiH'gods. 

I  have  now  in  this  survey  of  the  history  of  the  sun-god 
of  the  year  of  eight-day  weeks  the  sun-physician   to  deal 

*  Leland,  Etruscan  Roman  RemaitiSi  pp.  193,  194. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  463 

vith,  the  most  graphic  of  all  the  birth-stories  of  this  god, 
:he  Buddha,  the  Indian  sun-god,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen 
in  Chapter  II.  p.  31,  born  of  the  Sal-tree.  His  mother 
Maya,  a  form  of  Magha,  the  goddess  ruling  this  year,  was 
otherwise  Marlchi  or  Tara,  the  Thibetan  Pole  Star  goddess 
driving  the  Great  Bear  constellation  of  the  seven  pigs. 
But  this  god,  who  was,  as  we  shall  see,  born  as  the  sun- 
physician,  according  to  the  original  tradition  in  Magha 
(January — February),  was  in  the  orthodox  account  of  his 
birth  born  at  the  vernal  equinox.  That  is  to  say  he  was 
in  the  third  of  his  births  born  when  the  sun  entered  Gemini 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  about  62CX)  B.C.,  after  he  had  entered 
the  Tusita  heaven  of  wealth  in  his  Vessantara  birth,  when 
the  sun  was  in  Gemini,  in  February — March,  about  82CX)  B.C., 
and  the  Yamaloka  heaven  of  the  Twin  {Yanta)  gods  in  his 
Mah-osadha  birth  as  the  great  medicine  {Osadha)  god 
when  the  sun  was  *  in  Gemini,  in  January — February,  about 
10,200  B.C. 

In  his  history,  as  told  in  the  Nidanakatha,  he  was  in  his 
earliest  existence  as  the  first  of  the  twenty-seven  Buddhas, 
the  twenty-seven  days  of  the  month  of  the  .cycle-year  who 
preceded  him,  Dipankara  meaning  the  nascent  light,  the 
birth-star  Aries,  the  first  of  the  twenty-seven  Nakshatra  stars, 
the  sun-god  born  in  Aries,  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  in  the 
city  of  Ram-ma,  the  mother  of  the  ploughing-god  Ram,  who 
follows  the  furrow  Sita  round  the  heavens  2.  In  short  he  was 
the  sun-god  beginning  the  three-years  cycle. 

The  successor  of  this  sun-god  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox 
was  the  god  conceived  at  the  summer  solstice,  after  ten  lunar 
months  of  gestation.  And  it  is  the  story  of  this  conception 
at  the  summer  solstice  which  is  told  in  the  Nidanakatha. 
His  mother  Maya  was  then  borne  in  spirit  to  the  Great 
Sal-tree  of  the  Himalayas  standing  in  the  Mano-Sila-tal 
plain  {tal)  of  the  rock  {sila)  of  calculation  (mano),  the  world's 

«  Rhys   David,    Buddhist  Birth    Stories:     The   Nidanakatha,    Birth   of  the 
Bnddha,  pp.  67,  78. 
'  Ibid.,  Sumedha  and  Dipankara,  pp.  2fr. 


464  History  and  Chronoh^ 

gnomon-tree.   She  was  brought  thither  by  the  four  Lokapala 
angels,  the  four  stars  ruling  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavem 
They  bathed  her  in  the  Anototta,  the  "  not-heated  "  lake,  the 
cool  pool  of  pure  water,  whence  the  mother  rivers  rise.  Thqr 
laid  her  after  her  bath  with  her  head  to  the  Elast,  and  the 
young  sun-god  appeared  before  her  as  the  elephant  cloud-god 
Gan-isha,  who  came  from  the  North-east,  and  entered  ha 
right  side '.     The  sun-god  thus  conceived  was  bom  in  the 
Sal  grove  Lumbini,  the  village  grove  common  to  KafHla- 
vastu,  the  city  of  Suddho-dana,  the  pure  {suddhd)  seed,  and 
Koliya  the  town  of  Maya,  who  was  of  the  race  of  the  Mallis, 
This  grove  Lumbini  is  the  counterpart  of  Sanket,  the  place 
of  assignation,  where  Radha  and  Nanda,  the  parents  of  the 
Bharatas,  met. 

The  sun-child  when  born  was  received  by  the  four  Loka- 
pala angels  in  a  net,  the  star-net  of  the  zodiacal  stars.  He 
thence  stepped  out  on  the  antelope  skin  of  the  god  Krishna, 
the  black  antelope,  and  took  seven  strides  under  the  white 
umbrella  held  over  him  by  Su-yama,  the  twins  (ydrnd) 
of  Su,  the  stars  Gemini,  under  which  constellation  he  was 
born.  His  first  birth,  according  to  the  Nidanakatha,  was 
the  Mahosadha  birth,  followed  by  the  other  two  births 
named  above.  All  his  births,  like  those  of  the  Jain  Tir- 
thakaras,  were  accompanied  by  the  same  historical  phe- 
nomena, and  all  took  place  under  the  guardianship  of 
Su-yama,  the  stars  Gemini. 

In  his  Mahosadha  birth  as  the  sun-physician  he  came 
into  the  world  with  a  branch  of  Sandal  Chandanasaro  wood 
in  his  hand,  that  is  the  tree  (sdro)  of  the  moon  (chando)\ 
that  is  to  say  he  was  the  sun-god  born  of  the  moon-tree,  the 
Suria  wedded  in  the  Vedic  hymn  to  Soma.  He  told  his 
mother  this  was  medicine,  hence  he  was  called  Osadha- 
darika,  Medicine-child  \     This  medicine-plant  was  planted 


»  Rhys  David,   Buddhist  Birth   Stories:    The  Nidanakatha^    Maha  Ma)i's 
Dream,  py.  62,  63. 

^  Ibid.,  Birth  of  the  Buddha,  pp.  66—68. 


oJ[  the  Myth' Making  Age,  465 

in  an  earthenware  pot,  his  first  begging-bowl,  of  which  we 
shall  see  the  meaning  presently. 

His  first  appearance  in  public  was  at  the  Ploughing 
Festival  of  Jambu-dwipa.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  took  place 
among  the  Kuru-Panchalas  at  the  beginning  of  Magh 
(January — February),  and  it  answered  to  our  plough  festival, 
commemorated  in  the  name  Plough  Monday  given  to  the 
first  Monday  after  the  Epiphany.  It  was  the  ploughing 
of  Hercules,  the  forward  plougher,  ending  with  the  death 
of  Cacus,  and  still  celebrated  in  the  Chinese  festival  held 
on  the  first  day  of  the  year  beginning  in  January — February, 
when  the  sun  and  moon  are  in  the  same  constellation.  The 
Chinese  Emperor  then  ploughs  three  furrows,  each  of  the 
three  dukes  or  governors  of  frontier  provinces  five,  and  his 
nine  other  ministers  nine  each^  At  the  ploughing  of 
Suddho-dana  he  ploughed  two  furrows,  one  forward  and  the 
other  backward,  with  a  golden  plough ;  and  his  ministers, 
of  whom  there  were  one  hundred  and  seven,  nine  each. 
Thus  the  Chinese  year  is  one  of  three  and  the  Hindu  of  two 
seasons  of  five-day  weeks  commemorated  in  the  Chinese 
ritual,  while  the  nine-days  week  is  recalled  in  the  nine  times 
twelve  Hindu  ploughs  and  in  the  nine  Chinese  ministers  and 
the  nine  ministerial  furrows  ploughed  in  both  countries. 

The  Buddha  at  this  ploughing  was  seated  under  the  Jambu- 
tree,  the  central  parent-tree  of  the  royal  village,  which  like 
the  royal  province  was  the  centre  point  of  Jambu-dwipa. 
His  shadow  is  said  to  have  remained  stationary  as  repre- 
senting the  central  steadfast  point,  the  earthly  embodiment 
of  the  motionless  Pole  Star  2.  This  description  of  the 
Ploughing  Festival  is  clearly  taken  from  an  original  birth- 
legend  of  the  Kuru-Panchalas  of  Central  India,  brought 
by  the  Mallis  to  Kapila-vastu,  the  shrine  of  the  ancient 
Kapila,  their  yellow  {kapila)  divine  parent.    There  apparently 

■  Legge,  Li-chtf  The  Viieh  Ling,  First  month,  13;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvii.  pp. 

2S4»  255. 

'  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories :    The  Nidanakatha,  The  Ploughing 

Feitival,  pp.  74,  75- 

H  h 


466  History  and  Chronologx 

the  Indivfdual  Siddharta  Gotama,  the  preacher,  teacher  and 
founder  of  the  great  reh'gious  organisation  the  Buddhistic 
Church,  was  born  about  550  B.C.  This  is  the  date  given 
by  the  Chinese  for  the  birth  of  their  great  moral  teacher 
Confucius,  and  it  was  this  same  period  that  produced  the 
Hebrew  prophets.  These  men,  who  enthusiastically  devoted 
themselves  to  the  task  of  awakening  the  national  conscience, 
were  the  leaders  of  a  wave  of  religious  aspiration  after  mental 
and  practical  perfection  which  passed  over  the  whole  of 
Southern  Asia.  The  awakening  spirit  of  this  new  revival 
was  born  from  discontent  with  the  metaphysical  philosophy 
which  had  succeeded  the  formal  ritualism  in  which  the  early 
faiths  ended.  The  first  period  of  the  beh'ef  in  the  Chinese 
Tao  or  path^  the  yearly  recurring  round  of  the  imperishable 
germ  of  life,  had  passed  away.  The  Northern  sense  of 
individuality  and  desire  for  personal  success  had  made  the 
belief  in  the  T5o,  and  in  its  yearly  task  of  silently  creating 
life  and  promoting  the  physical  and  moral  progress  of  the 
nations  who  remained  true  to  the  teachings  of  its  ritual, 
become  unsatisfying  to  the  intellects  of  those  who  wished 
for  more  activity  and  less  somnolent  contentment  with  the 
present.  To  these  reformers  dutiful  submission  and  un- 
questioning obedience  were  no  longer  the  chief  virtues. 
Hence  the  nations  inspired  by  them  desired  as  a  leader 
a  divine  son  of  man  who  would  be  followed  as  an  example 
by  the  soldiers  who  joined  his  banner  in  the  war  against 
apathy  and  mental  stagnation,  and  this  conception  and 
aspiration  caused  the  older  belief  in  the  state  as  a  unit 
bound  together  by  strict  routine  to  disappear,  and  as  it  faded 
away  the  older  form  of  history  based  on  abstractions  which 
were  clear  to  the  initiated  but  dark  to  the  multitude  became 
changed  into  tales  in  which  the  names  which  had  been  first 
symbols  of  the  departed  dead  became  living  heroes  who  had 
each  lived  their  lives  on  earth  as  men.  When  the  older 
forms  of  history  were  thus  distorted  and  their  true  meanings 
forgotten  or  disregarded,  schools  of  philosophy  arose  which 
tried   to  substitute   for   traditional   history  answers   to  the 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  467 

riddles   of  existence  spun   from   thought.     It  was  on   the 
Vedanta  and  Sankhya  systems  of  philosophy  disseminated 
in  the  teachings  of  the  Indian  Upanishads  and  the  similar 
questionings  of  Chinese  metaphysicians  that  both  Confucius 
and    Siddharta  Gotama   founded    their  systems    of  ethical 
religion,  which  simply  taught  that  man's  chief  task  on  earth 
was  "  to  make  his  moral  being  his  prime  care."    According 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Indian  reformer,  he  was  to  dismiss 
from  his  thoughts  all  metaphysical  speculations  as  to  ulti- 
mate  causes  as  unprofitable  and  useless,  and  in  the  system 
of  self-education  to  which  he  was  to  devote  himself,  he  was 
to  abandon  the  ritualism  which  enjoined  the  needless  and 
sinful  offering  of  living  victims,  to  eschew  asceticism  and 
valueless  mortification  of  the  flesh,  and  follow  the  eight^fold 
noble  path  of  (i)  Right  views,   (2)   High  aims,  (3)  Right 
speech,  (4)  Upright   conduct,  (s)   Harmless  livelihood,  (6) 
Perseverance    in    well-doing,    (7)    Intellectual    activity,  (8) 
Earnest  thought.     By  this  discipline  men  and  women  were 
to  try   to   reach   a   stage   of   existence   in   which   sin   was 
impossible,  and  in  which  all  who  had  attained  to  or  were 
strenuously  striving  to  reach  this  state  of  perfection  became 
members  of  the  Sanga  or  community  of  the  faithful,  the 
reunited    body   who   had,   while    attaining   the   benefits   of 
individual  exertion,  purged  themselves  of  its  temptations. 

It  was  as  the  leader  in  this  return  to  a  re-glorified  past 
of  national  righteousness  recovered  by  those  received  as 
citizens  of  the  village  community  of  the  City  of  God,  that 
their  teacher  was  installed  by  his  disciples  as  the  Buddha 
or  god  of  knowledge  ;  and  though  he  was  actually  born 
as  the  son  of  the  Headman  of  the  Sakya  Gautama  village 
of  Kapila-vastu,  who  was  probably  also  a  Manki  or  pro- 
vincial chief  of  the  Sakya  clan  territory,  they  also  invested 
him  with  the  attributes  of  the  previous  national  gods  of  time, 
which  described  their  birth,  life  and  death  in  the  historical 
myths.  In  doing  this  they  merely,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
previous  chapters  of  this  book,  followed  the  examples  of 
their  predecessors,  who  gave  the  same  birth-history  to  each 

H  h  2 


468  History  and  Chronology 

successive  manifester  of  the  changing  forms  of  the  god  vho 
measures  time.  Consequently  in  the  picture  of  his  life 
handed  down  to  posterity  Siddharta  Gotama,  who  was  a 
teacher  imbued  with  religious  zeal,  an  ardent  desire  to 
discover  truth  and  a  rare  sympathy  with  the  mental  difficul- 
ties of  others,  was  born  and  died  as  the  year-god  who  passed 
through  the  ecliptic  path  of  the  stars  in  his  yearly  round 
of  birth,  growth,  extinction,  and  re-birth. 

It  was  as  the  young  sun-god  that  he  took  the  lead  in  the 
symbolic  ploughing  of  the  New  Year.  When  once  started  on 
his  career  his  first  task  was  to  beget  a  successor.  This  young 
sun-god  was  born  as  Rahulo,  the  little  sun  Rahu,  whose 
mother,  unnamed  in  the  Nidanakatha,  was  Bhudda  Kaccani, 
the  eleventh  of  the  Buddhist  Theris,  or  year-mothers,  preceded 
by  Gotami  Maha  Pajapati,  the  sister  of  his  mother  Magha, 
who  had  brought  him  up  when  his  mother  died  seven  days 
after  his  birth.  She  was  the  female  form  of  Prajapati  Orion, 
and  was,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  VI 1 1.,  the  goddess 
ruling  the  first  month  of  the  year  of  thirteen  lunar  months. 

Rahulo's  mother,  Bhudda  Kaccani,  the  Golden  Saint,  or 
Yasodhara,  the  renowned  [yaso)  stream  (dhdrd)  ',  was  the 
mother-river  of  the  sons  of  this  goddess  of  the  eleven-months 
year.  It  was  seven  days  after  Rahulo's  birth  that  the 
Buddha  started  on  his  career  as  the  historical  sun-god, 
whose  history  is  told  in  a  story  conceived  when  the  myth 
of  the  birth  and  life,  the  sun-physician,  was  first  made  the 
most  important  chapter  in  national  history  telling  of  the 
revolution  in  popular  theology. 

He  left  his  father's  capital  on  his  horse  Kanthika,  the 
star- horse  Pegasus  of  the  year  of  eleven  months,  accompanied 
by  his  groom  Channo,  the  concealed  one,  the  counterpart 
of  Lakshman  in  the  story  of  Rama,  the  hidden  power  which 
kept  the  sun  in  its  right  course  through  the  furrow  of  heaven. 
They  took  him  thirty  yojanas  through  the  heavenly  circle 
of  the  thirty  stars  to  the  banks  of  the  river  called  Anoma  the 

*  Hardy,  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  155. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  469 

illustrious,  consecrated  to  Anoma-dassin,  the  sixth  Buddha 
to  whom  the  Arjuna-tree  (Terfninalia  belericd)  was  sacred. 
This,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  story  of  Nala  and  Damayanti, 
was  the  tree  of  Calculation,  which  instructed  Nala,  the  year 
god,  in  the  true  history  of  annual  time '. 

It  was  when  he  reached  the  epoch  of  astronomical  cal- 
culation that  the  birth  of  the  sun-god  as  the  sun-physician 
took  place.  He  then  began  his  career  as  the  sun-god  of 
the  horse's  head,  and  polled  his  hair,  as  stated  in  the 
Nidanakatha,  according  to  the  custom  recorded  in  Chapter 
VI.  pp.  338  ff.  He  received  from  the  Archangel  Ghati-kara, 
who  measured  time  by  the  Dravidian  method,  which  divided 
the  day  into  sixty  Ghatis  of  twenty-four  minutes  each, 
the  eight  requisites  of  the  beggar  sun-god.  These  were 
the  three  robes,  the  leaves,  flowers  and  fruit  of  the  three 
seasons,  spring,  summer,  autumn,  and  the  winter  alms-bowl 
of  earth,  that  in  which  healing  plant  of  the  sun-physician 
was  planted  as  a  seedling  to  grow  into  the  year-tree  of 
the  next  year.  To  these  four  were  added  (i)  the  razor, 
the  pruning-knife,  which  gave  to  the  parent-god  of  the 
river-born  race  the  firstfruits  of  the  produce  grown  in  the 
year  symbolized  in  the  clipped  and  offered  hair;  (2)  the 
threading-needle,  which  united  all  the  days  of  the  year 
together  ;  and  (3)  the  girdle  of  the  circling  sun,  which  bound 
days,  nights,  weeks  and  seasons  in  the  perfect  whole.  The 
eighth  requisite  commemorating  the  eighth  day  of  the  week 
was  the  water-strainer,  the  clouds  which  sent  to  earth  the 
rain,  the  parent  of  the  life  disseminated  in  the  earth  by 
the  sowing-god,  the  Latin  Semo  Sancus  *. 

It  was  in  this  mendicant  garb  that  the  sun-god  of  this 
year  of  the  eight-day  weeks  proceeded  to  the  scene  of  his 
birth.  He  began  his  journey  after  the  death  of  Kanthika, 
the    star-horse   Pegasus,  who    passed    into  the  Tavatimsa 

'  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  pp.  79,  82,  85,  40;  Hewitt,  Ruling 
Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  L,  Essay  ii.,  pp.  71—82,  vol.  ii.,  Essay  vii., 
pp.  73,  82. 

=»  Rhys  Davids,  Dudilhist  Birth  Stories :  The  Nidanakatha,  pp.  86—88. 


476  History  and  Chronology 

heaven  of  the  thirty-three  gods  of  his  eleven-months  year 
as  a  star-angel,  the  son  of  god  [deva-putto) ".  He  rested 
on  his  way  under  the  Pandava  rock,  the  year-rock  of  the 
year  of  Bhishma  and  of  the  acquisition  by  the  Pandavas 
of  the  year-mother-tree  Drupadi,  won  by  Arjuna's  victory 
as  the  archer-god  of  this  year. 

The  final  destination  of  this  sun-god  about  to  be  born  was 
the  land  of  Uruvela,  that  is  of  extended  (uru)  time  \;vdS\, 
There  the  birth  village  was  that  called  Senani,  the  clustered 
army  {sena)  of  the  stars  ruled  by  the  Headman^  the  general 
Senani,  the  Pole  Star  god  whose  daughter  was  Su-jata,  the 
sun-mother  born  (j'atd)  of  the  mother-cloud-bird  Su  or  Khu, 
the  bird  in  the  nest  of  the  Pole  Star.  Her  tree-mother  was 
the  Nigrodha  tree  {Ftcus  Indicd),  the  Banyan  fig-tree-mother 
of  the  Kushika  and  of  the  Buddha's  predecessor,  the  twenty- 
seventh  Buddha  Kassapo  or  Kashyapa.  As  an  offering 
to  her  tree-mother  Su-jata  took  on  May  Day  the  full-moon 
of  Vaisakha  (April — May),  the  milk  of  ^ight  cows  selected 
odt  of  the  thousand  cows  of  light  which  fed  in  her  father's 
fields,  the  Nag-kshatra  or  fields  of  the  Nag  or  ploughing 
stars.  These  eight  selected  stars  were  the  seven  stars  of 
the  Great  Bear,  and  the  eighth  the  sun-god.  To  heat  this 
milk  and  make  with  it  rice  gruel,  the  food  of  the  ripened 
seed  of  life,  the  rice-mother-plant  of  the  first  founders  of 
villages,  a  fire  was  lit  by  Sakko,  the  wet  {sak)  god,  the 
leader  of  the  thirty-three  gods  of  the  month  in  the  calendar 
of  the  eleven-months  year.  He  and  the  other  three  Loka- 
pala  star-gods  and  the  Pole  Star  god  Brahma,  the  five  stars 
crowning  the  tree  of  Bhishma,  infused  into  this  rice  gruel 
the  madhu  or  honey-sweet  wine  of  the  Mahua  {Bassia 
latifolicL)^  the  Sap  of  life  of  the  races  born  from  the 
marriage  union  with  this  tree  in  quantities  sufficient  "to 
support  all  the  men  and  angels  of  the  four  continents  and 
two   thousand  islands  of  the  worlds"     In   short  the  food 

*  FausboU,  /aJaka^  vol.  i.  p.  85. 

^  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  68;   Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories:  The  Aidana- 
kat/idt  p.  90. 


From  a  pliulograph  of  Ihe  cast  yiven  hy  Mr.  A.  MaiuUlay  to  the  South 
Ken^inglon  Museum. 

t   VtCATAN    Gun    or    Ctil'AN    CIM-AHAU,    LuRD    OK    TUB    llOWL,    HKFlCTItl 

AS  inK  Inujan  f.lepkant-ukabed  God  Gas-isha,  Lori>  of  the  Land, 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  471 

>ffering  was  the  concentrated  essence  of  the  divine  creative 
Force. 

When  It  was  prepared  the  bird-mother,  the  May  Queen, 
sent  her  servant  Pufifia  Completion  to  the  Nigrodha  tree, 
under  which  she  saw  the  Buddha  sitting  as  the  rising-sun 
born  from  the  tree.  She  ran  back  to  tell  her  mistress,  who 
on  hearing  her  report  placed  the  oblation  to  the  rising-sun 
3f  the  eight-rayed  star  in  a  golden  bowl  and  herself  gave 
it  to  Buddha;  it  replaced  the  earthen  bowl  of  Ghati-kara, 
vhich  then  disappeared. 

I  must  here  turn  aside  from  the  narrative  of  the  Buddha's 
Mrth  as  sun-god  of  the  eight-rayed  star  to  call  attention 
o  the  annexed  representation  of  the  Buddha  in  the  act 
\i  taking  this  creating  bowl,  which  points  to  a  much  earlier 
orm  of  the  birtli-legend  than  that  which  has  come  down 
o  us  in  the  Nidanakatha.  This  picture  appears  in  one 
»f  thexsculptures  of  the  great  Mexican  temple  at  Copan. 
This,  as  shown  in  the  photograph  taken  on  the  spot  by 
Ar.  Maudsley ',  a  copy  of  which  is  here  reproduced,  depicts 
he  god  holding  in  his  right  hand  the  steaming  bowl  of  rice 
lot  as  the  man  Siddharta  Gotama  but  as  the  elephant- 
leaded  cloud-god  Gan-isha,  and  in  this  portrait  his  earliest 
orm  of  divine  existence  as  the  cloud-bird  is  also  recognised, 
or  the  bird's  tail  protrudes  from  the  back  of  his  head*     He 

s  seated  on  the  two  Suastikas,  the  female  Su-astika  r\^ 

epresenting  the  sun  going  northward  at  the  winter  solstice, 

md  the  male  Su-astika  ^  denoting  the  southern  path  of  the 

;un  after  the  summer  solstice.  These  are  combined  to  form 
L  square,  and  within  this  the  sun  and  rain-god  is  seated  with 

lis  legs  crossed  in  the  form  of  the  St.  Andrew's  Cross  ^^ 

he  sign  of  the  solstitial  sun.  The  seed-vessel  in  front  of  the 
fod  is  also  most  noteworthy.  It  answers  to  the  embryo 
)lant-god  in  the  bas-relief  of  Isilikaia  standing  between  the 
eed-bearing-mother  and  her  son,  the  god  with  the  double- 

*  Godman  and  Salvin,  Biologia  Centrale  Americana  ;  Maudsley^  Archaoh^s 
:opan,  Part  I.,  Plate  9. 


4^2  History  and  Chronology 

axe,  answering  to  the  Etruscan  god  Sethlans,  p.  259.  The 
embryo  seed-vessel  of  this  illustration  represents  the  cloud- 
god  Gan-isha  ready,  as  a  seed  made  fertile  by  the  raiD,  to 
enter  the  womb  of  his  mother,  the  mother-tree.  And  that 
Gan-isha  is  the  rain-god,  is  proved  by  the  trunk  whence 
the  elephant  emits  the  water  he  has  drawn  up  with  it  to 
wash  himself.  In  this  illustration  the  water  is  spoutiif 
from  the  trunk  on  to  the  three  balls,  the  three  apples  of  the 
year  of  life  of  the  three  seasons,  to  fertilise  them  as  the 
heaven-sent  rain. 

To  return  to  the  birth-story  of  the  sun-god,  when  he  had 
received  the  sun-bowl  of  the  Sap  of  life  he  rose  from  his  seat 
and  went  sunwise  round  the  Nigrodha  tree,  with  the  vessel 
in  his  hand,  to  the  banks  of  the  river  called  Niranjara.  This 
is  the  water  (niram)  of  age  (jara)  or  the  Fhalgu,  the  river 
of  February — March,  in  which  he  was  to  begin  his  year. 
It  was  the  river  of  the  ecliptic  stream  of  time  in  which, 
as  is  said  in  the  Nidanakatha,  so  many  thousand  previous 
Buddhas  had  begun  their  year's  reign  as  sun-gods.  He 
entered  the  river  at  the  Supathita  or  firmly-established  ferry, 
the  Star  into  which  the  sun  was  to  enter  on  his  New  Year's 
Day.  Having  bathed  he  sat  down  with  his  face  to  the  East, 
whence  he  was  to  rise,  and  divided  the  rice  into  forty-nine 
portions,  which  he  ate  as  the  food  which  was  to  support  him, 
the  god  born  in  his  Vessantara  birth  at  the  vernal  equinox 
on  the  20th  of  March^  for  forty-nine  days,  till  he  rose  on  the 
fiftieth  day,  the  lOth  of  May,  as  the  newly-born  emancipated 
sun-god,  whose  birth-history  is  told  in  the  Nidanakatha. 
These  forty-nine  food  portions  answer  to  the  forty-nine 
oblations  offered  after  the  sun-horse  of  the  Ashva-medha 
sacrifice,  the  horse  who  takes  the  sun-god  round  the  heavens 
on  his  annual  course,  had  been  started  on  his  year-race, 
and  after  the  national  history  told  at  this  yearly  spring 
festival  of  the  New  Year  had  been  recited  *. 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh,,  xiii.  I,  2,  I,  xiiu   I,  3,  5,  xiii.  4,  3,  2,  4;  S.B.E., 
Yol.  xliv.  pp.  276,  282,  notes  I,  2,  361,  363. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  473 

When  the  rising-sun-god  had  eaten  this  meal  he  threw  his 
golden  bowl  into  the  river,  which  bore  it  to  the  realm  of  the 
Kala  Naga  Raja,  the  snake-god  of  time,  and  took  its  place 
as  the  lowest  of  the  bowls  of  the  three  previous  year-gods  of 
epochs,  the  gods  of  the  three  Buddhist  heavens  of  the  Sha- 
tum  (hundred)  Maharajaka  Devaloko,  the  Tavatimsa  heaven 
of  the  thirty-three  gods  ruled  by  Sakko  and  the  Yama- 
devaloko,  when  the  year  was  ruled  by  the  sun  after  its 
entrance  into  the  twin  {Ydntd)  constellation  Gemini  at 
his  first  birth  in  Magh  (January — February)  as  the  sun- 
physician. 

He  then  in  his  Vessantara  birth  in  the  fourth  Tusita 
heaven  of  wealth  {tusd)^  entered  a  grove  of  Sal-trees  {Shorea 
robusta)y  his  birth-trees,  and  spent  the  day  there.  He  there 
received  from  Sotthya,  the  god  of  health  {sottht)^  the  father 
of  the  sun-physician^  eight  bundles  of  Kusha  grass.  He 
took  these  to  the  Bo  Pipal  or  Asvattha  {Ficus  religiosa)  tree, 
the  mother-tree  succeeding  the  Kushika  Banyan-tree.  This 
was  on  a  rising  ground  sacred  to  Durga,  the  mountain- 
goddess,  the  twin  sister  of  Krishna,  the  eighth  son  of  Vasu- 
deva,  and  the  counterpart  of  the  Buddha  as  the  son  of 
the  eight  bundles  of  Kusha  grass.  He  stood  under  the 
Bo-tree,  facing  the  North,  as  the  sun  going  northward. 
Thence  he  went  round  to  the  West,  taking  the  left-hand 
path  of  the  female  Su-astika,  whence  he  returned  to  the 
North  looking  southward,  and  came  back  to  the  West 
looking  to  the  East,  whence  he  was  to  rise  at  the  equinox. 
He  then  scattered  the  grass  on  the  East  so  as  to  form  a  seat 
fourteen  cubits  long,  or  the  length  of  the  lunar  period  inter- 
vening between  him  and  his  rising. 

These  eight  bundles  of  Kusha  grass  were,  in  the  orginal 
story,  the  eight  rays  of  the  eight-rayed  star.  In  the  birth- 
legend  of  the  caste  or  guild  of  the  Baidyas  or  physicians, 
the  men  of  knowledge  {budh\  they  appear  as  the  bunch  of 
Kusha  grass,  which  Galava  placed  in  the  lap  of  the  mother 
of  the  race  Bir-bhadra,  the  sainted  {bhadrd)  wood,  the  central 
tree  of  the  village  grove.     From  this  her  son  Dhanv-antari, 


474  History  and  Chronology 

the  internal  {antart)  flowing  stream  {dhanv\  the  ever-moving 
river  of  intellectual  thought,  was  bom  as  the  first  physidan, 
the  counterpart  of  the  Buddha '.  His  father  Galava,  mean- 
ing in  the  Rigveda  the  pure  Soma  or  Sap,  is  in  Pali  the 
tree  Symplocus  racemosa,  called  Lodh  in  Bengal.  The  baik 
when  mixed  with  that  of  Hari-taka  {Termifialia  chebuU^ 
a  myrobolan  tree  allied  to  the  Arjuna  {Tenninalia  beUrica\ 
Al  {morinda  tinctoria)  flowers  of  Dhowra  {Grislea  to- 
mentosd)  and  Munjit  {madder)^  forms  the  Ahur  or  red  powder* 
thrown  by  women  on  their  lovers  at  the  Huli  festival,  whidi 
ends  at  the  full  moon  of  Phalgun  (February — March).  Thus 
this  bundle  of  Kusha  grass,  the  eight-rayed  star,  \s  the 
traditional  parent  of  the  sun-god,  begetting  his  successor  in 
the  month  ending  at  the  vernal  equinox. 

When  the  sun-god  had  seated  himself  on  his  eastern 
throne  of  the  eight-rayed  star  he  was  attacked  by  Mara, 
the  Pole  Star  tree  (marom)  ape,  coming  against  him  from 
the  North,  and  stopping  his  Northward  progress,  heralded 
by  the  Vijayanuttara  trumpet,  that  of  the  double  (vi)  victory 
(jaydj  of  the  North  {uttara)^  blown  by  Sakko,  the  wet-god 
of  the  South.  Mara  wished  to  make  the  new  sun-god  of 
the  ecliptic  year-circle  the  god  of  the  vernal  equinox  of  the 
age  of  the  three-years  cycle.  He  launched  at  him  nine 
storms  of  (i)  wind,  (2)  rain,  (3)  rocks,  (4)  lightnings,  (s) 
charcoal,  (6)  ashes,  (7)  sand,  (8)  mud,  (9)  darkness ;  the  nine 
days  of  the  cycle-year  week.  He  then  threw  at  him  his 
sceptre-javelin,  with  **a  barb  like  a  wheel,"  the  spear  of  the 
god  of  the  year  of  the  wheel  revolving  like  the  fire-drill 
of  the  heavenly  oil-press  of  the  Chukra-varti,  or  wheel- 
turning  kings.  This  became  the  flower-garland  of  the  god- 
dess-mother of  spring,  which  over  canopied  the  new-born 
sun-god  as  he  entered  his  Vessantara  birth  in  the  month 
of  the  vernal  equinox  as  the  year-god  of  the  Tusita  heaven 
of  wealth,  the  god  of  the  trading  merchant  kings,  whose 
primitive  villages  had  become  ruling  cities.     This  god,  who 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Casks  of  Btn^al^  Baidya,  vol.  i.  pp.  46,  47. 
"  Clarke,  Roxburgh's  Flora  Jiidica^  pp.  415,  416. 


of  i/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  475 

puts  to  flight  tlie  armies  of  Mara,  celebrated  his  birth  by 
making  the  blind  to  see,  the  deaf  to  hear,  the  lame  to  walk, 
uid  by  healing  all  diseases  as  the  sun-physician  '. 

He  began  his  year  in  Cheit  (March — April)  with  the 
rernal  equinox,  to  become,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  account 
>f  his  birth  as  Parikshit,  the  circling-sun  of  the  Mahabha- 
ata,  the  white  horse  of  the  sun  which  entered  Gemini  at  the 
emal  equinox  about  6200  B.C.  This  was  the  year  sacred 
o  the  twin  children  of  the  Vessantara  god  Jali,  the  net, 
nd  Kanha  or  Krishna  Jina  ^,  that  is,  the  conquering  black 
Kanlid^  Krishna)  goddess,  the  goddess  Durga  of  the  year  of 
hirteen  lunar  months,  the  Pandavas  year  of  Chapter  VIII. 
This  year,  not  measured  by  the  sun,  was  that  which  the 
un-god,  spent  on  the  Vanka-giri,  or  crooked  mountain, 
nd  renounced  his  wife  Maddi,  the  honey-queen,  the  sun- 
ciaiden  Suria,  to  whom  he  had  been  married  as  Soma, 
he  moon-god. 

During  the  first  seven  days  of  his  new  year  as  the 
/essantara  god  he  sat  under  the  Pipal-tree,  and  on  the 
norning  of  the  eighth  day  he  went  to  the  North-east, 
vhence  the  sun  rises  at  the  summer  solstice.  He  spent 
seven  days  standing  steadfastly  on  this  spot,  and  then  be- 
tween this  and  the  Pipal-tree  he  made  the  walk  running 
from  South-west  to  North-east,  known  as  the  Path  of 
Nineteen  Steps  of  the  Buddha.  This  is  close  to  the  Vaj- 
rasun  or  thunder-bolt  {vajra)  throne  of  the  Buddha  at  Budh 
Gaya,  the  place  of  the  holy  Pipal-trce.  Underneath  the 
Vajrasun  there  were  found  a  number  of  relics  in  gold, 
silver  and  precious  stones.  There  are  nineteen  gold  relics 
and  seventy-six,  or  19  x  4,  disks.  In  a  small  stupa,  near 
the  end  of  the  Buddha's  walk,  two  small  trays  of  relics 
were  found,  among  which  were  nineteen  lapis-lazuli  beads 
and  nineteen  other  precious  stones  3. 

*  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories :   The  NidaiiakathCi,  pp.  96 — 104. 
^  She  is  called  Krishna  Jina  in  the  form  of  the  Buddhist  birth-story  given 
in  Hardy's  Manual  of  BucUihism,  pp.  180,  181. 
3  F.  PiDCott, '  The  Vajrasun  ur  Thunderbolt  seat  of  the  Mahabodhi  Temple. ' 


476  History  and  Chronology 

That  these  nineteen  steps  and  the  series  of  nineteci; 
sacred  objects  were  connected  with  the  measurement  of  a 
year  more  alien  in  its  forms  to  the  solar  years  measured 
by  zodiacal  stars  than  the  lunar  year  of  thirteen  months^ 
seems  to  be  proved  by  the  year  used  by  the  Babis  of  Persia 
and  by  other  evidence,  which  I  will  now  record.  The  Bali 
are  a  new  sect  which  arose  in  Persia  in  1843  A.D.,  who 
claim  to  be  recipients  of  special  divine  enlightenment  and 
a  new  revelation.  But  they  are  clearly  connected  with 
and  are  probably  a  revival  of  the  mystic  schools  of  the  Shia 
Mahommedans  of  Persia^  whose  year  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
ruled  by  the  twins  Hasain  and  Hosain,  the  stars  Gemioi 
The  prophet  who  introduced  this  new  faith  called  himself 
first  the  Bab  or  the  Gate,  that  is  the  Gate  of  the  Twin 
Stars,  and  afterwards  Nukta  or  fount  of  inspiration,  and 
with  him  were  eighteen  disciples,  a  number  probably  con- 
nected with  the  eighteen-months  year  of  Chapter  IX.,  a 
year  of  360  days.  It  began  in  the  history  of  the  Buddha, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  the  vernal  equinox.  Among  the  Babis 
the  months  are  not  divided  into  weeks,  but  there  are  in  the 
year  nineteen  months  of  nineteen  days  each,  and  361  days 
in  all,  one  day  more  than  the  year  of  360  days.  The 
Babis  cite  the  Koran  as  authorising  their  year,  as  in  the 
sentence  of  the  invocation  beginning  each  chapter  Bis- 
mi'llahiV  Rahmani'r  Rahim  there  are  nineteen  letters,  count- 
ing the  r's  as  one  letter,  and  the  total  numbers  of  Chapters 
is  114=19x6^ 

The  nineteen  days  of  the  month  of  this  year  are  repre- 
sented in  the  astronomical  temple  of  the  British  goddtsa 
Epona,  the  White  Horse  of  the  sun  at  Stonehenge.  This 
is  oriented  to  the  North-east  rising  point  of  the  sun  of  the 
summer  solstice  marked  by  the  gnomon-stone  called  the 
Friar's  Heel.  The  shadow  thrown  by  the  sun  rising  behind 
this  stone  falls  on  the  line  intervening  between  it  and  the 

Transactions  of  the  Ninth   Congress  of  Orientalists^   1892,  vol.   i.  pp.  247, 
248. 

K.  G.  Browne,  *  The  Babis  of  Persia.'    J,Rul,S.t  1889,  PP*  921 — ^i. 


of  the  My f/i- Making  Age,  477 

sun-circle.  It  is  on  this  line  that  the  sacrificial  stone  for  the 
sacrifice  of  animal  victims  is  placed.  The  sun-circle  is  formed 
by  thirty  lofty  Sarsen  stones,  the  produce  of  local  quarries, 
joined  in  pairs  to  represent  the  thirty  days  of  the  month. 
Inside  this  is  an  older  circle  of  thirty-six  syenite  stones 
brought  from  Dartmoor ',  to  indicate  probably  the  thirty-six 
half-months  of  the  eighteen-months  year  of  Chapter  IX., 
which  was,  as  we  shall  see,  a  year  of  the  white  sun-horse,  and 
one  of  five-day  weeks,  like  the  first  Pleiades  and  solstitial 
years  and  the  year  of  Orion.  To  this  have  been  added  four 
Sarsen  pillars  to  increase  the  number  to  forty,  the  forty 
months  of  the  three-years  cycle.  To  the  South-west  of  the 
sun-altar  of  micaceous  sandstone  from  Derbyshire,  which  is 
in  the  centre  of  the  circle,  is  a  semi-circle  or  horse-shoe 
of  nineteen  diorite  "stones,  and  behind  them  is  the  outer 
horse-shoe  of  fourteen  Sarsen  stones,  each  pair  united  by 
a  lintel  stone  at  the  top.  These  represent  the  horse-shoes 
of  the  White  Horse  of  the  sun,  drawn  on  so  many  of  the 
chalk  hills  in  the  neighbourhood,  the  god  worshipped  with 
the  bloodless  rites  of  the  earlier  sun-god  of  Orion's  year. 

These  two  horse-shoes  clearly,  like  the  other  arrangements 
of  the  stones,  indicate  year  measurements ;  the  horse-shoes 
of  fourteen  paired  stones  must  denote  the  fourteen  days  of 
the  lunar  phases  of  the  year  of  thirteen  lunar  months  of 
twenty-eight  days  each,  which  preceded  the  year  of  twelve 
months  of  thirty  days  and  denoted  by  the  thirty  stones  of 
the  outer  circle,  and  the  only  year  measurements  belonging 
to  the  earlier  age  of  the  sun-horse  of  the  diorite  stones  in 
which  nineteen  occurs  is  this  year  of  the  nineteen  steps 
of  the  Buddha  2. 

The  correctness  of  this  hypothesis  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the    nineteen  diorite  stones  of  Stonehenge  is  corroborated 

'  Or  perhaps  by  water  up  the  Avon  from  the  sacred  diorite  rocks  of  Britany. 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  Essay  viii.,  pp.  138 — 144. 
When  I  wrote  this  description  of  Stonehenge,  though  I  saw  that  the  temple 
was  connected  with  the  worship  of  the  Buddha,  I  had  not  yet  grasped  the 
fact  of  the  connection  between  it  and  the  Buddha's  nineteen  steps. 


478  History  and  Chronology 

by  the  stone  circles  of  Cornwall,  whence  the  diorite  stows] 
were  brought,  for  there,  near  Boscawen  and  its  neighbourhood 
in  Cornwall,  are  four  hundred  circles,  each  of  nineteen  stones, 
which  must  apparently  mean  the  months  of  the  year  of 
nineteen  months  of  nineteen  days  each '. 

The  third  week  of  the  birth  of  the  Buddha  as  the  sun-god, 
the  last  of  the  three  seven-day  weeks  making  the  twenty-oi»- 
days  month  of  the  seventeen-months  year  of  Chapter  VIII., 
was  spent  in  walking  up  and  down  the  path  of  the  nineteen 
steps.  The  fourth  week  he  passed  in  a  house  built  by  the 
angels  of  the  seven  sacred  jewels  to  the  North-west  of  the 
Bo-tree,  where  he  thought  out  the  seven  books  of  the  Abid- 
hamma  Pitaka,  that  is  to  say,  organised  the  next  year  in 
this  series,  the  first  year  of  the  seven-days  week. 

This  fourth  week  was  the  last  of  the  month  of  the  lunar 
year  of  thirteen  months,  and  at  its  end  he  left  the  Bo  or 
Pipal-tree  and  went  back  to  the  Nigrodha  or  Banyan-tree, 
where  he  spent  the  fifth  week  in  completing  his  task  of 
thinking  out  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  system  of 
ethical  religion. 

He  was  there  tempted  by  the  three  daughters  of  the  evil 
angel  Mara,  originally  the  god  of  the  winter  season  like  the 
Zend  Ahriman.  They  are  called  Tanha,  Craving,  Arati, 
Discontent,  and  Raga,  Lust,  and  are  parallel  with  the  creating 
principles  of  the  Sankhya  philosophy,  Tamas,  Darkness,  or 
the  void  ;  Rajas,  Desire  ;  and  Sattwa,  Completion  ».  These 
creating-gods  of  the  metaphysicians  were  the  algebraic  form 
of  enunciating  the  proposition  on  which  their  system  was 
based,  that  is  to  say,  they  believed,  like  Hegel,  that  non- 
existence was  stirred  into  activity  by  desire  of  a  change, 
and  that  from  the  union  of  the  two  being  was  evolved. 
That  is  to  say,  in  their  views  thought  was  the  origin  and 
measure  of  all  things,  and  they  ignored  as  inconceivable  the 
underlying  self  or  germ  of  the  Vedantists,  or  rather  they 

*  Thurnam,  on  Megalithic  Circles,  Decade  iv. ;  Lubbock,  Prehistoric  Times, 
2nd  edition,  chap.  v.  p.  117. 
"  BaUantyne,  Sankhya  Aphorisms  of  Kapila^  Book  i.,  Aphorism  61,  p.  71. 


of  tfu  Myth'MakinfT  Age.  479 

interpreted  this  self  as  aspiration.  But  to  the  Vedantists 
this  germ  was  the  sole  reality,  the  Tao  of  the  Chinese,  the 
indwelling  and  ruling  will,  the  Nameless  Simplicity,  which 
does  nothing  itself  but  drives  round  on  the  ordained  path, 
Tao,  the  whole  annually  recurring  succession  of  natural 
phenomena ;  it  is  the  inherent  electric  spark  which  makes 
life  differ  from  death.  In  the  words  of  the  Chinese  poet, 
the  Tao  or  path  charged  with  vital  electricity  is 

Simplicity  without  a  name 
Is  free  from  all  external  aim, 
With  no  desire,  at  rest  and  still 
All  things  go  right  as  of  their  will  *. 

It  was  this  driving-germ  which  was  brought  to  earth  by 
the  rain,  which  generated  in  the  mother-tree  the  fruit  which 
was  to  rise  to  heaven  as  the  sun  emanating  from  the  elephant- 
cloud-bird  Gan-isha,  and  in  analysis  there  seems  to  be  no 
difference  between  the  Sankhya  Desire  and  the  Vedantist  Self. 

It  was  these  metaphysical  cobwebs  which  were  the  temp- 
tations offered  to  the  meditating  Buddha,  and  he  cast  them 
aside  as  vain  and  frivolous,  forbade  his  followers  to  enquire 
into  the  mysteries  of  philosophy,  and  bid  them  accept  the  fact 
that  each  of  them  existed,  and  was  able  by  cultivating  his 
moral  being  to  make  his  existence  on  earth  a  blessing  to  all 
whom  he  or  she  influenced  directly  or  indirectly  during  their 
lifetime,  and  to  return  the  germ  to  the  other  world  so 
consecrated  as  to  be  incapable  of  being  defiled  by  sin  in 
a  future  existence. 

At  the  end  of  this  fifth  week  of  wrestling  with  philo- 
sophical tempters,  he  left  the  Banyan-tree  and  went  to  the 
first  mother-tree  of  edible  fruit  before  the  consecration  of 
the  Syrian  fig-tree.  This  was  the  Mucalinda-tree  (Barring- 
tonia  Aaitanguld),  the  Ijul  or  Indian  oak,  flowering  at  the 
b^inning  of  the  rainy  season,  which  had  been  the  sacred  oak 
of  the  Zends  and  Cymric  Druids,  the  nut*tree  of  the  Todas 
and  Jews,  and  the  walnut-tree  of  the  witch-mothers.     It  was 

'  Legge,  The  Texts  of  Taoism^  Introduction;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  26. 


480  History  and  Chronology 

under  this  that  he  spent  his  sixth  week.  The  seventh  wed! 
completing  the  forty-nine  days  of  his  sustenance  on  the 
creating  rice  of  the  eight-rayed  star-god  and  his  period  of 
Pentecostal  preparation  he  passed  under  a  Raja-yatana-trce 
(Bucfutnonia  latifolia),  the  Pyar  or  Chironji-tree,  bearing 
a  fruit  like  small  almonds,  eaten  by  all  the  forest-people  of 
Central  India.  On  the  forty-ninth  day  he  was  fed  bf 
Sakko  with  the  fruit  of  the  Haritaka  or  Myrobolan-trce  rf 
Calculation,  which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  ingre- 
dients of  the  Hull  red  powder,  sacred  to  the  sun-god  of  the 
vernal  equinox.  He  also  received  from  Sakko  as  a  tooth- 
cleaner  and  digestive  the  thorn  of  the  Nagalata  or  Piper 
Betul,  the  Betul  creeper,  of  which  the  nut  is  eaten  as  a 
digestive  by  all  rice-eating  Hindus. 

When  the  sun-god  had  thus  gained  complete  knowledge, 
mastered  the  arts  of  the  astronomical  calculation  of  time 
and  the  underlying  principles  which  make  spiritual  pw- 
fection  possible  and  attainable  by  every  human  being,  he 
was  visited  under  the  Pyar  almond-tree  by  two  travelling 
merchants  from  the  South,  who  were  going  North-west  to 
the  middle  kingdom,  Jambu-dwipa,  who  brought  him  a  rice- 
cake  and  a  honey-cake.  Their  names,  Tapassu  and  Bhalluka, 
show  them  to  represent  the  eight  rays  of  the  eight-rayed 
star ;  Tapassu  represents  the  heated  and  heating-sun  (tap). 
He  is  a  form  of  Tapati,  the  burning-one,  the  sun-maiden- 
mother  of  the  Kurus,  who  was  given  by  Vashishtha,  the  god 
of  the  altar-flame,  as  a  wife  to  Samvarana,  the  king  of  the 
Bharatas,  after  Vashishtha  had  enabled  him  to  overcome  the 
ten  Akshauhinis  of  the  Panchalas  ^  Bhalluka  is  a  form 
of  the  bear  Bhalla,  the  Hindi  Baluk,  and  represents  the 
seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  in  short,  they  represent  the 
eight  gods  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  of  which  the  sun  is  the 
eighth.  They  are  the  two  caskets  called  Tapas,  Penance,  and 
Diksha,  Consecration,  in  which,  according  to  the  Brahmanas, 
the  Soma  or  year-sap  of  the  Gayatri  metre  of  the  year  of  the 

'  Mahabharata  Adi   (Sambhava)   Parva,   xciv.   pp.   280,   281.      This    is  & 
variant  form  of  the  story  of  Kalmashapada  the  mad  king,  told  in  Chapter  VI. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  48 1 

eight-days  week  was  brought  by  the  Shyena  frost  {Shya) 
bird,  called  Su-parna  or  the  feather  of  Su,  from  Krishanu, 
the  rainbow-god,  and  given  to  Kadru,  the  tree  {dni)  of  Ka, 
the  tree-mother  of  the  Nagas '. 

It  was  these  gods  of  the  eight-rayed  star  who  consecrated 
:he  sun-god  as  the  ruler  and  teacher  of  the  united  races  of 
rlindus,  born  of  Northern  and  Southern  parents,  as  sons  of 
he  rice-mother-cakc  inspired  by  the  honey  of  the  Northern 
>rophets. 

To  receive  this  heavenly  food  of  the  rice-mother-sun,  the 
iifunda  sun-bird,  and  the  honey-eating  bear  of  the  North, 
he  sun-god  required  a  new  bowl  to  replace  the  earthenware 
,nd  golden  bowls  he  had  thrown  away.  To  supply  this  the 
^oka-pala  angels  brought  four  day  bowls  of  sapphire  from 
he  blue  sky  and  four  of  the  jet  of  night,  and  from  these 
hey  made  one  bowl,  said  by  Hiouen  Tsiang  to  be  of  a  deep 
Jue  colour  and  translucent «.  From  this  bowl,  the  vault  of 
leaven,  the  sun-god  ate  his  Pentecostal  meal  on  the  eve 
>f  the  fiftieth  day  after  his  Vessantara  birth  at  the  vernal 
!c|uinox,  or  about  the  loth  of  May,  when,  as  we  shall  see,  his 
lext  year  began,  that  described  in  Chapter  VIII.,  the  year 
bllowing  the  year  of  the  almond-tree. 

He  now  in  this  last  transformation  ceased  to  be  the  man- 
jod,  for  he  tore  all  his  human  hair  from  his  head  and  became 
the  independent  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth,  whose  unerring 
kvill  was  the  law  of  all  things. 

But  In  order  to  fully  understand  the  history  of  the  instal- 
lation of  sun-worship  as  told  in  the  birth  of  the  Buddha, 
ive  must  turn  to  that  of  his  duplicate  the  circling-sun 
Parikshit  of  the  Mahabharata.  His  father  was  Abhimanyu, 
:he  foremost  [abhi)  mind  (manyu),  son  of  Arjuna  and  Su- 
Dhadra,  the  mountain  goddess  Durga,  twin-sister  of  Krishna. 
fVbhimanyu  became,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Mahabharata,  the 

■  Eggeling,  Saf,  BrdA,,  iii.  6,  2,  7 — II  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  150,  151 

'  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories:  The  Nidanakatha,  The  Last  Epoch, 

jp.   105—110;  Beale,  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  Worlds  The  Travels 

>f  Hionen  Tsiang,  vol  ii.  p.  130. 

I   1 


482  History  and  Chronology 

moon-god  when  all  the  heroes  of  this  historical  poem  became 
stars '.  He  was  slain  on  the  twelfth  day  of  the  final  battk 
of  eighteen  days  fought  between  the  Kauravyas  and  Pan- 
davas,  and  his  slayer  was  the  son  of  Dusshasana  *. 

Dusshasana  was  a  son  of  Dhritarashtra  and  brother  rf 
Duryodhana,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  ruling  god 
of  the  eleven-months  year.  In  the  list  of  the  eleven  sons 
of  Dhritarashtra,  who  ruled  the  months  of  this  year,  Dussha- 
sana's  name  comes  second  after  that  of  Duryodhanal 
Its  four  seasons  were  ruled  by  Duryodhana,  Karna,  Shakuni 
the  raven,  and  Dusshasana,  the  ill-omened  {dus)  son  of  the 
moon-hare  {shasa),  who  ruled  the  autumn  rainy  season  and 
counselled  DrupadI  to  choose  another  husband  4,  when  the 
Pandavas  had  lost  their  wealth  in  gambling  with  Shakuni, 
the  summer  raven  of  the  hot  season.  This  husband  was 
to  be  Duryodhana,  who  sought  to  seduce  her  by  showng 
his  left  thighs.  As  the  god  of  the  eleven-months  year 
he  was  the  god  of  the  left  thigh,  and  it  was  as  the  god  of  the 
two  parent-thighs  that  he  was  slain  in  single  combat  by 
Bhima,  the  son  of  Maroti,  the  tree-ape,  when  he  as  selected 
champion  of  the  Pandavas  accepted  the  challenge  of  Duryo- 
dhana to  decide  finally  by  a  duel  to  the  death  of  one  or  other 
combatant,  the  contest  in  which  the  Kauravya  army  had 
been  annihilated.  In  his  challenge  Duryodhana  claimed 
to  be  the  ruling  god  of  the  year,  for  he  said,  "  Like  the  year 
which  gradually  meets  with  all  the  seasons  I  shall  meet  with 
all  of  you  in  fight  ^."  The  Pandavas  represented  the  five 
seasons  of  the  year,  and  Bhima  was  the  god  of  the  summer 
season  ending  with  the  summer  solstice.  It  was  this  con- 
quering god  of  summer  who  ended  the  war  between  the  gods 
of  the  eleven-months  and  those  of  the  solar-year  by  breaking 


'  Mahabharata  (Swarja-rohanika)  Parva,  iv.  19,  p.  12. 

'  Mahabharata  Drona  {Abhimanyu-badha)  Parva,  xlix.  13,  14,  p.  147. 

3  Mahabharata  Adi  (A divans havatar ana)  Parva,  Ixiii.  p.  180. 

4  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Anadyuta)^  Parva,  Ixxvi.  pp.  202,  204. 

5  Mahabharata  Sabha  {Anadyuta)  Parva,  Ixxi.  p.  191. 

*  Mahabharata  Shalya  {Gu^-AyudAa)  Parva,  xxxii.  17,  p.  127. 


of  the  Myih'Making  Age,  483 

both  the  thighs  of  Duryodhana ',  and  thus  killing  the  leader 
of  the  age  when  time  was  reckoned  by  the  fixed  stars. 

The  wife  of  Abhimanyu,  the  moon-god,  was  Uttara,  the 
North  Pole  Star  sister  of  Uttara,  the  Polar  constellation 
of  the  Great  Bear,  who  was  charioteer  to  Arjuna.  After  the 
final  defeat  of  the  Kauravyas  and  the  death  of  Duryodhana, 
Ashvatthaman,  the  son  of  Drona,  the  tree-trunk,  the  god 
Df  the  Ashvattha  tree  {Ficus  religiosa)  under  which  the 
Buddha  defeated  Mara  and  entered  on  his  Vcssantara  birth, 
entered  the  camp  of  the  Pandavas  by  night  and  slew  all  the 
sons  of  DrupadT,  leaving  the  Pandavas  without  living  heirs, 
as  Abhimanyu  had  also  been  slain.  Ashvatthaman  when 
arrested  by  the  Pandavas  prepared  a  weapon  for  their  final 
destruction  in  the  creating  blade  of  Kusha  grass,  which  he 
threw  into  the  wombs  of  the  Pandava  women  as  Galava 
threw  the  Kusha  grass  into  the  lap  of  Bir-bhadra,  the  mother 
of  the  sun-physician.  This  engendering  grass  begetting  the 
sun-god  liable  to  yearly  death  by  the  winter  withering  of 
nature  was  intended  to  cause  the  offspring  of  Uttara  to 
belong  to  this  class  of  dying  gods,  but  Krishna  frustrated 
this  intention  by  declaring  that  he  would  raise  again  to 
life  the  dying  child  who  would  rule  the  world  for  a  cycle 
of  sixty  years  as  Parikshit,  the  circling  sun. 

The  contest  between  Ashvatthaman,  the  last  year-god 
of  the  age  of  the  mother-tree,  and  the  Pandavas  ended  in  his 
release  on  condition  of  his  resigning  to  them  the  gem  which 
made  him  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth  *.  This  gem  was  the 
creative  force  residing  in  the  year-god,  who  became  hence- 
forth the  undying  sun-god  who  made  his  yearly  way  round 
the  heavens  in  the  path  of  the  ecliptic  stars. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  father  and  mother  of  Parikshit, 
the  sun-god,  were  Soma,  the  moon-god,  and  the  sun-maiden, 
the  Pole  Star  goddess-bird,  who  was  in  the  Vedic  marriage 
hymn  brought  to  the  wedding  by  the  Ashvins,  the  stars 
Gemini.     The  wedding   in   the   Mahabharata   is   described 

*  Mahabharata  Shalya  (Gut-^yudha)  Parva,  Iviii.  p.  227. 

*  ICahabharata  Sauptika  Parva,   xiii.  18 — 22,  xv.  27—35,  xvi.   i — 16,  pp. 
48,  52>  53- 

I  i  2 


484 


History  and  Chronology 


as  an  alliance  between  the  phallus-worshipping  Matsjw 
the  sons  of  the  river-fish,  the  eel^od,  and   the  Bharata^^ 
sons  of  the  mother-sun-bird  Sakuntala,  and  it  took  place 
after  Arjuna,  guided  by  Uttara  his  charioteer,  had,  under  \ 
the  banner  of  the  ape  with  the  lion's  tail,  the  meaning  of 
which  I  have  described  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  131,  and  VI.  p.  329', 
recovered  the  cows  of  light  from  the  Kauravyas.     That  the 
birth  of  the  sun-god  Parikshit  born  of  this  marriage  was 
parallel  with  the  Vessantara  birth  of  the  Buddha  in  the  Tusita 
heaven  of  wealth  is  proved  by  the  MahSbhSrata  narrative. 
Before  the  birth  took  place  the  Pandava  parent-gods  of  the 
coming  year  set  forth  to  the  South,  the  realm  of  Marutta, 
the  ape-tree-god,  under  the  constellation  Dhruva  pointii^ 
to  the  Pole,  explained  as  that  of  Taurus  in  which  Rohinf 
Aldebaran  was.     Their   camp  was  laid  out  with  six  roads 
and  nine  divisions,  exactly  on  the  model  of  the  Chinese 
Central  Sun  Palace  called  the  Hall  of  Distinction,  repre- 
senting the  year  which  the  Emperor  opens  by  the  Ploughing 
Festival  *. 

N 
Tenth  montli      Eleyenth  montli     Twelfth  month 


Tenth  month 


d  S 


W 


d 
^ 

S 


5 


a 


5 
5 


Eleventh  month 


Twelfth  month 


g 


I 


5 
§ 


■ 


Sixth  month 


Centre  month 


5 
g 


3 
g 


n 


Fifth  month 


Fourth  month 


Sixth  month 


Fifth  month 
S 


Fourth  month 


3 

o 

B 
I 


3 
I 


'  Mahabharata  Virata  {VaivdMka)  Parva,  Ixxi.,  Ixxii.  pp.  181— 185. 
»  Legge,  Lt-M,  The  Yueh  Ling,  Book  iv.,  sect,  i.,  part  i,  9  ;  S.B.E.,  foL 
xxvii.  pp.  251,  note  i,  252. 


of  tlu  Myth-Making  Age.  4^5 

In  this  historical  diagram  the  corner  squares  each  re- 
present two,  and  the  centre  squares  forming  the  equinoctial 
St.  George's  cross,  one  of  the  twelve  months,  and  the 
centre  square  the  thirteenth  month,  to  be  described  in 
Chapter  VIII. 

On  their  arrival  at  the  south,  that  is  at  the  winter  solstice, 
when  the  sun  was  in  Taurus,  about  10,200  B.C.,  they  offered 
sacrifices  to  the  gods  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  on  an  altar 
thatched  with  Kusha  grass,  including  the  three-eyed  Shiva 
of  the  cycle-year.  They  there  obtained  the  gold  of  the 
heaven  of  wealth  they  sought  for  in  the  gold-mines  ot 
Southern  India,  which  now  appear  to  have  been  first  worked, 
all  the  former  gold  being  supplied  by  the  river  sands  of 
Chutia  Nagpur,  and  the  hill  streams  of  the  Pamir  Himalayas. 
They  returned  northwards  by  short  marches  i,  arriving  at 
the  Kauravya  city  Hastinapur,  the  city  of  the  Hasta  or 
Pandava  constellation  Corvus,  the  modern  Delhi,  a  month 
after  the  birth  of  Parikshit,  that  is  at  the  end  of  Phalgun 
(February— March)  at  the  vernal  equinox  ». 

When  Parikshit  was  first  born  as  the  child  in  the  cradle 
of  the  Twins,  he  was  lifeless,  but  was  recalled  to  life  by 
Krishna,  the  god  of  the  year  beginning  January — February, 
and  began  his  life  in  Phalgun  (February — March)  3,  when  the 
Buddha  was  born  under  the  Ashvattha-tree,  that  is  when  the 
sun  was  in  Gemini  in  that  month,  about  8200  B.C.  It  was 
a  week  before  the  full-moon  of  Phalgun,  when,  according  to 
the  Brahmanas,  preparations  for  the  festival  of  the  annual 
circuit  of  the  heavens  by  the  sun-horse  were  made  4,  and 
according  to  the  Mahabharata  the  horse  Parikshit  started 
on  his  course  at  the  full-moon  of  Cheit  (March — April),  or 
about  the  ist  of  April.  But  the  race  was  begun  in  Phalgun 
(February — March),  for  Phalguna  or  Arjuna  was  appointed 


'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {Anugita)  Parva,  Ixiii.,  Ixiv.  pp.  164 — 171. 
'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (Anugita)  Parva,  Ixx.  13,  14,  p.  178. 
3  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {Anugi/a)  Parva,  Ixvi.— Ixx.,  pp.  170—179. 
*  Eggeling,  Sat,  BrdA,,  xiii.  4,  i,  4 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  p.  348. 


486  History  and  Chronology 

to  attend  Parikshit  ^.  Parikshit  is  not  named  in  the  poem 
as  the  horse,  but  is  spoken  of  as  a  man,  but  the  hofsc 
that  represented  him  is  said  to  have  had  a  head  like  a  blade 
antelope,  and  he  was  followed  by  Arjuna  in  a  chariot  drawn 
by  white  horses  \ 

The  course  of  the  white  sun-horse,  as  described  in  the 
Mahabharata,  was  first  to  the  North-west,  the  land  of  the 
Trigartas,  the  place  of  the  summer  solstice,  from  thence  it 
went  to  the  South-west,  through  the  country  of  Central  India 
ruled  by  Bhagadatta,  the  god  of  the  tree  with  edible  fruit 
{bitagd).  From  the  South  it  turned  to  the  North-east  to 
Manipur,  in  Assam,  the  land  of  the  Naga  races,  whidi 
it  reached  as  the  Equinoctial  states  of  the  Eastern  sun.  It 
was  here  that  Arjuna,  who,  as  protector  of  the  horse,  had 
to  meet  and  vanquish  the  rulers  of  the  solstices  and  equinoxes 
whom  he  had  to  pass,  was  all  but  slain  by  his  son  Vabhru- 
vahana,  son  of  Chitrangada,  daughter  of  Chitra-vahana,  King 
of  Manipur,  that  is  the  offspring  of  the  eleven-months  year 
ruled  by  the  star  Chitra  Virgo  3. 

This  contest,  in  which  the  Naga  rulers  of  heaven  tried  to 
bring  back  the  sun  under  the  rule  of  the  cycle-year,  is  exactly 
parallel  with  the  Buddha's  fight  with  Mara  at  the  same  period 
of  his  year's  course.  From  the  East  the  sun-horse  went  to 
Magadha,  whence  it  returned  to  Hastinapur,  where  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  sun-horse  took  place  at  the  full-moon  of  Cheit^. 
The  preparations  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  returning  sun-horse, 
who  began  his  year  with  the  full-moon,  and  not  with  the 
new-moon  of  Bhishma,  began  to  be  made  on  the  full-moon 
of  Magh  (January — February),  or  two  months  before  the 
sacrifice.  This  took  place  fifteen  days  before  the  Fordicidia 
at  Rome,  when  the  blood  of  the  October  horse  was  offered 
It   is  noteworthy   that   the   circuit   made   by   the  horse  as 

'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (Anusita)  Parva,  Ixxxii.,  Ixxxiii.  pp.  i8i — 185. 
°  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {Anugita)  Parva,  Ixxxii.  7,  p.  184. 
3  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {Anugita)  Parva,  Ixxix.,  Ixxx.  pp.    197^204, 
Adi  (Arjttna-vanav&sa)  Parva,  ccxvi.,  ccxvii.  pp.  593—598. 
*  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {AnugUa)  Parva,  Ixxiv. — Ixxxiv.  pp.  185—213. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  487 

^  described  in  the  Mahabharata  is  not  made  sunwise,  but 
^  contrary  to  the  course  of  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice. 
This  circuit  of  the  horse  of  the  eight-rayed  star  was 
therefore  not  that  of  the  sun-god  finally  accepted  as  the 
fully  emancipated  ruler.  This  last  circuit  is  that  of  the 
complete  Buddha  whose  final  installation  I  have  described, 
and  who  ended  his  forty-nine  days  of  sustenance  on  the  rice 
of  the  golden  bowl,  about  the  loth  of  May.  He  then  became 
the  sun-god  described  in  the  Buddhist  birth-stories,  who 
received  his  birth-offering  from  Su-jata  at  the  full- moon 
of  Vaisakha  (April — May),  or  about  May  Day,  and  who 
began  his  year  on  the  15th  of  April,  as  the  St.  George  of 
our  national  mythology,  the  sun-god  born  from  the  Easter 
egg  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  at  that  date,  or  about 
4200  B.C.,  the  same  epoch  as  when  it  was  in  Taurus  at  the 
vernal  equinox.  But  before  we  reach  that  date  there 
are  other  variant  forms  of  the  year  to  be  described,  and 
one  of  these,  the  year  of  eighteen  months,  introduced  at 
the  Horse  sacrifice  of  Parikshit,  will  be  the  subject  of 
Chapter  IX. 

In  the  history  of  the  births  of  these  sun-gods,  the  Buddha 
and  Parikshit,  we  have  a  panoramic  picture  of  the  march 
of  time  from  the  age  when  the  year  began  with  the  birth 
of  the  sun-god  in  the  constellation  Gemini  at  the  winter 
solstice.  This  was  about  12,200  B.C.  But  in  tracing 
the  stages  of  the  successive  births  we  must  begin  our  re- 
trospect before  the  Mahosadha  birth  of  the  Buddha  as  the 
sun-physician,  which  took  place,  as  we  have  seen,  about 
10,200  B.C.,  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  January — 
February,  in  the  year  he  appeared  at  the  New  Year's 
ploughing  ceremony,  and  also  before  his  Vessantara  birth, 
coinciding  with  that  of  Parikshit,  which  took  place  about 
8200  B.C.,  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  the  beginning 
of  February — March.  The  original  form  assumed  by  this 
conception  of  the  series  of  consecutive  births  was  apparently, 
as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  332,  the  calendar  reckoned 
by  both  Akkadian  and  Indian  astronomers,  which  began  the 


488  tiistory  and  Chronology 

year  with  the  three  months*  concealment  of  the  sun- 
god,  during  which  the  infant  sun  was  guarded  by  the 
moon-goddess,  called  by  the  Buddhists  Gotami  Mahapaji- 
pati,  the  first  of  the  thirteen  Theris  ruling  the  thirteen 
months  of  the  year,  and  the  female  form  of  Prajapati  Orion. 
During  these  three  months,  reckoned  in  the  Akkadian 
calendar  as  beginning  in  Kislev  (November — December) 
and  ending  at  the  close  of  Sebet  (January  —  February)! 
time  was  measured  by  the  track  of  the  moon  through  the 
thirty  stars.  These  three  months  were  also  those  of  the 
Hindu  Ashtakas  ending  in  the  last  fortnight  of  Magfaa 
(January  —  February)  with  the  Ekashtaka,  when  the  re- 
vealed sun-god,  released  from  his  dependance  on  his  moon- 
nurse,  was  born  "as  the  son  of  the  majesty  of  Indra,"and 
started  on  his  divine  mission  as  the  revealer  of  truth  on 
his  horse  Kanthika,  the  star  Pegasus,  the  second  of  the 
thirty  stars.  The  three  months  which  in  this  reckoning 
began  the  year  of  the  thirteen  Theris  ignore  the  earlier 
phase  of  the  history  of  this  three  months'  seclusion  of  the 
infant  sun-god  as  they  take  no  account  of  his  Mahosadha 
birth  in  January — February,  and  place  the  Vcssantara  birth 
of  the  released  sun-god  at  the  close  of  February — March, 
or  in  the  phase  of  the  moon  succeeding  the  birth  of  Parik- 
shit.  The  sun-god  who  emerged  from  obscurity  at  the 
New  Year's  ploughing  ceremony  of  January  —  February, 
must  have  begun  his  three  months*  seclusion  in  October- 
November  with  the  Dcothan,  or  lifting  up  of  Krishna  on  the 
nth  of  the  bright  half  of  Khartik  (October — November)  ^ 
This  is  about  the  date  assumed  as  the  beginning  of  the  three 
months'  trance  of  Cu-chulainn,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  sun-god  whose  strength  lay  in  his  left  thigh,  and  who 
therefore  in  his  first  avatar  was  a  god  of  the  eleven-months 
year,  who  began  his  career  by  wedding,  on  the  ist  of  Novem- 
ber, Emcr,  the  daughter  of  Forgall  of  the  Gardens  of  Lugh, 
the  home  of  the  Southern  sun,  and  who  gained  his  bride 

*  Elliot,  Memoirs  oj  the  Races  of  tfu  North-Western  Provinces  of  InMih 
vol.  i.,  Supplementary  Glossary,  Part  ii.,  Dithwan,  pp.  245—247. 


of  tfu  Myth-Making  Age.  489 

by  killing  twenty-four  of  her  twenty-seven  warders,  the 
twenty-seven  days  of  the  month  of  the  cycle-year.  Three 
of  them,  Scibur,  Ibur  and  Cat,  Emer's  brethren,  he  allowed 
to  escape.  The  contest,  in  which  the  sun-god  appeared 
after  his  three  months*  trance  as  the  warrior  sun-god,  seven- 
teen years  old,  was  that  waged  for  the  possession  of  the 
Brown  Bull  of  Cuailgne,  hidden  in  Glenn  Samaisce,  the 
Heifer's  Glen  in  Slieve  Gullion  in  North-east  Ulster.  Ailill, 
the  Welsh  Ellyll,  the  dwarf,  and  Medb  or  Meave,  who  ruled 
Connaught  and  the  Western  home  of  the  setting  sun,  wished 
to  add  this  eighth  solar  animal,  the  bull  of  the  rising  sun 
of  the  summer  solstice,  to  the  seven  they  already  possessed  : 
the  two  sun-rams,  two  sun-horses,  two  sun-boars  owned  by 
them  both,  and  the  white  horned-bull  of  Ailill  born  from 
Meave's  cows.  Daire  Mac  Fachtna,  the  guardian  of  the 
brown  bull,  refused  to  lend  it  to  Meave,  and  she  and  Ailill 
determined  to  take  it  by  force.  She  summoned  to  her 
aid,  among  others,  her  sons,  the  seven  Maine,  of  whom, 
though  seven  are  mentioned,  six  only  are  named  in  the 
Ta'in  Bo*  Cuailgne,  Maithremail,  Aithremail,  Cotageib  Ule, 
Mingor,  Morgor  and  Conda  or  Maine,  Mo*-epert,  leaving 
out  Milscothach  or  Honey  Bloom,  and  And6e,  which  appear 
in  the  list  of  the  Maine  of  the  eight-days  week.  The 
war  was  for  the  possession  of  the  eighth  Maine,  the  Brown 
Bull,  rising  in  the  North-east. 

The  chief  opponent  of  the  advance  of  the  armies  of  the 
setting  sun  was  Cu-chulainn,  who  contended  single-handed 
against  them.  It  was  during  this  contest  that  his  three 
months*  seclusion  took  place,  after  he  had  been  nearly  slain 
by  the  arts  of  the  Morrigu,  the  sea  {muir)  mother,  the 
goddess  Bahu,  who  appeared,  while  he  fought  with  Loch 
More,  as  a  white  red-eared  heifer,  the  star  Rohini  (Alde- 
baran)  of  Orion's  year,  an  eel,  the  mother  of  the  sons  of 
the  rivers  of  the  year  of  six-day  weeks ;  and  the  wolf  sun- 
mother-goddess.  The  wounds  she  got  in  this  combat  were 
healed  by  the  three  draughts  of  milk  Cu-chulainn  took 
from    her,   and   it   was   after   this   reconcilement  with  the 


490  History  and  Chronology 

Southern    mother    of   life    and   of  the   sun    of   the   winter 
solstice   that  Cu-chulainn's    trance   of  regeneration   hcpsu 
He  was  put  to  sleep  by  a  man-god  in  a  green  mantle,  comiif 
from  the  North-east,  and  his  sleep  lasted  "  from  the  Monday 
before  Samhain,  the  31st  of  October,  to  the  Wednesday  after 
the   feast  of  St.   Bridget,"   the    ist  of  February,  or  during 
the  months  of  October — November,  November — December, 
December — January.     It    was    during    this    time    that  his 
corps  of  boy-warriors,  the  companions  of  the  old   sun-god 
of  the  Pole  Star  age,  were  destroyed  by  the   hosts  of  the 
West.     After   awaking   from    his    trance   he    mounted  his 
scythed  chariot,  threw  off  his  mantle  of  invisibility,  and  ap- 
peared as  the  warrior  sun-god  clothed  in  a  deer-skin  gar- 
ment, the    Hindu   sacred    skin    of  the   black  antelope-god 
Krishna,  the  eighth  son  of  Vasudeva.     As  the  revived  sun- 
god  he  slew  the  twenty-seven  sons  of  Calatin,  the  twenty- 
seven  days  of  the  months  of  the  cycle-year.     We  are  told 
that  after  Cu-chulainn*s  victories,  and  the  death  of  Ailill's 
white   horned-bull,  slain    by  the    brown  bull  of  the  rising 
sun,   Ailill    and    Meave    sent    messengers   to    the   astrolo- 
gers of   Alba    (East    Europe)    and    Babylon    to    learn  the 
magical   arts   by  which  they  could  destroy  Cu-chulainn,  a 
tradition  which  adds  further  evidence  to  that  furnished  by 
the   mythology   of  the  Irish  and  Welsh  Celts  in    proof  of 
the   continual   emigration    to   Western    Europe    of    Indian 
and  Eastern  theology  and   astronomical    methods   of  mea- 
suring titnc  ^. 

H.     Patroclus  as  a  year-god  of  this  year. 

Before  closing  the  list  of  sun-physicians  the  gods  of  this 
year,  I  must  call  attention  to  the  historical  evidence  furnished 
by  the  story  of  Patroclus.  He  was  one  of  the  sun-physicians, 
for  it  was  he  who  tended  and  cured  Eurupulos,  when  besought 
by  him  as  one  skilled  in  medicine  to  heal  his  wound  inflicted 

*  Hull,  The  CuchulUn  Saga,  i>p.  60,  83,  114,  115,  119,  157,  164— 168,  170— 
174,  182,  236;  Rhys,  Ilibberi  Lectures  for  1886,  Lcct.  ii.  pp.  137,  138,  !▼. 
pp.  366,  367. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  491 

by  the  arrow  of  Paris,  which  afterwards  slew  the  sun-god 
Achilles,   by   piercing  his  heel,  his  only  vulnerable  parf^. 
Eurupulos,  whose  name  means  the  wide  gate,  is  said  to  have 
been  the  son  of  Poseidon,  married  to  Sterope,  the  daughter 
of  Helios  the  sun,  so  he  is  one  of  the  husbands  of  the  sun- 
maiden.     He  was  a  creating-god  of  this  year,  for  he  gave 
a  clod  of  earth  to  Euphemus,  who  threw  it  into  the  sea,  where 
it  became  the  island  Kallisto,  the  most  beautiful,  that  of  the 
Great  Bear  goddess  of  the  same  name,  also  his  connection 
with  the  gate  marks  him  as  one  of  the  Twins.     Patroclus 
took  the  arms  of  Achilles  when  the  sun-god  of  the  Naga 
worshippers    of   the    serpent    Echis,   from   which   Achilles 
derived  his  name,  was  obscured  by  the  mule  race  of  lunar- 
solar  gods.     As  the  sun-god  of  that  epoch,  the  equivalent  of 
the  sun-gods  Kama,  Perseus,  Sigurd,  he  wore  the  impenetrable 
coat  of  mail,  and  the  helm  of  awning,  the  cap  of  invisibility. 
These  were  the   arms   given   to  Achilles  by  Cheiron,  the 
Centaur,  but  he   could   not  wield   the   ashen   spear  which 
Cheiron  gave  Peleus,  the  god  of  the  potter's  clay.     This  was 
the  world's  ash-tree  Ygg-drasil,  the  supporting  pole  of  the 
heavens,  and  the  fire-drill  turned  by  the  Master  Potter,  the 
ape-father-god  of  the  Thigh.     Instead  of  this  he  bore  two 
spears,  the  two  lunar  crescents  \ 

He  was  slain  by  Apollo,  the  Mouse-god,  who  came  behind 
him  in  a  mist,  struck  him  between  the  shoulders,  and  knocked 
his  sun-helmet,  the  kunee  {/cwerj)  or  helmet  of  the  dog-star 
Sirius,  which  ruled  his  year  with  its  mid-day  in  the  dog-days. 
This  was  assumed  by  Hector  his  successors.  His  death  is 
precisely  similar  to  that  of  Sigurd,  who  wore,  like  Patroclus, 
armour  impenetrable  in  front  but  vulnerable  behind.  Sigurd 
was  killed,  like  Patroclus,  by  a  blow  dealt  by  Hagen,  the 
god  of  winter,  from  behind  between  his  shoulders.  The 
most  noteworthy  part  of  the  story  of  Patroclus  is  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  races  and  games  which  were  held  at  his 
funeral.     These  funeral  games  were,  according  to  tradition, 

*  Homer,  I/ioit,  xi.  821—848.  =  Ibid.,  xvi.  135 — 144. 

3  I«bid. ,  xvi.  790—800 


492  History  and  Chronology  oj  the  Myth-^Miiking  Age. 

instituted  by  Acastus,  the  husband  of  Hippolyte.     Her  name, 
meaning  she  who  is  released  from  horses,  describes  her  as 
the  moon-goddess  ruling  the  year,  and  making  her  own  way 
through   heaven   without   being  drawn   by   the    star-horses 
which  drew  the  chariots  of  the  sun-gods,  the  stars  of  day, 
Krishna  and  Achilles.    She  falsely  accused  Peleus,  the  father 
of  Achilles,  of  attempting  to  violate  her,  an  accusation  wbidi, 
as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  340,  note  i,  was  made  against 
other  ruling-gods  of  the  eleven-months  year.     Acastus,  by 
his  name,  shows  his  affinity  with  the  physicians,  for  it  means 
he  who  cuts  with  the  knife  (a/ci;),  that  is,  with  the  crescent- 
shaped  knife  of  the  male  moon-god,  the  god  of  the  crescent 
new-moon,  who  was  husband  of  the  fuU-mooiij  who  befoie 
the  lunar  age  had  been  the  year-sun-bird  of  the  Pole  Star 
god. 

I  shall  prove  in  the  next  Chapter  that  it  was  at  this  epoch 
of  the  close  of  the  year  of  eight-day  weeks  that  the  national 
chariot  races  inaugurating  the  year  of  the  independent  sun- 
god  were  instituted. 


CHAPTER    VIII 


The  years  of  seven-day  weeks  and  seventeen  and 

thirteen  months. 

THE  year  of  seventeen  months  succeeded,  as  we  are  told 
in  the  BrShmanas,  the  fifteen-months  year.  It  is  one 
of  five  seasons,  in  which  both  new  and  full-moon  sacrifices 
were  offered,  and  the  year-fires  lighted  at  its  commencement 
must  be  kindled  not  with  fifteen,  as  in  the  fifteen-months 
year,  but  with  seventeen  or  twenty-one  kindling  verses'. 
In  the  ritual  of  this  year  sacrifices  were  offered  in  libations, 
and  its  duration  of  seventeen  months  is  first  ritualistically 
attested  in  the  invocations  to  the  five  seasons  made  at  the 
opening  sacrifice  of  the  year.  The  summonses  to  the  season- 
gods  called  to  these  sacrifices  contain,  as  the  Brahmanas 
point  out,  seventeen  syllables,  for  Prajapati,  the  year-god, 
•'  is  seventeen  fold,"  and  they  end  with  the  vashat  or  varshat 
call  for  rain  (var) ;  so  that  it  is  a  year-offering  with  a  festival 
of  which  the  presiding  deity  is  the  rain-god  «.  The  number 
seventeen  is  also  brought  prominently  forward  in  the  chants 
of  the  ritual  of  the  Vajapeya  festival  with  which  the  year 
opens.  The  first  ceremony  performed  outside  the  sacrificial 
ground  was  that  summoning  the  Ashvins,  the  stars  Gemini, 
by  the  Bahish-pavamana  Stotra.  This,  as  we  have  seen  in 
Chapter  VII.  p.  392,  consisted  of  three  Gayatri  triplets,  each 
of  twenty-four  syllables,  so  that  the  whole  contained  seventy- 
two  syllables,  the  number  of  five-day  weeks  in  the  year. 
To  the  nine  lines  of  this  invocation  eight  are  added  at  the 

*  Eggeling,  Saf.  Brdh.^^  i.  3,  5,  10,  11  ;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  97,  98. 
"  Ibid.,  i.  5,  2,  16—20;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.   142—144;  Hewitt,  Ruling 
Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  !.,  Essay  iii.,  p.  165,  note  6. 


494  History  and  Chronology 

Vajapeya  festival,  so  as  to  make  the  whole  hymn  contain 
seventeen  lines.     Similarly  the  midday  chant  Madhj^ndina* 
pavamana  is  increased  from  fifteen  to  seventeen  verses,  and 
the  Arbhava-pavamana,  the  special  chant  of  this  festival,  is 
one  of  seventeen  verses  i.     Also  the  last  chant  at  the  Vaja- 
peya evening  sacrifice,  called  the  Brihat-stotra  or  hymn  of 
Brihati,  the  goddess  of  the  five-days  week,  has   the  same 
number  of  verses  2.     Similarly  the  Samidheni  stanzas  of  tbc 
kindling  hymn  used  at  the  animal  sacrifices  of  this  year  arc 
increased  from  eleven,  the  number  of  the  stanzas  of  Ac 
Apr!  hymns  of  the  original  animal  burnt-offering,  to  seven- 
teen  by   adding   nine  tristubh   verses   of    eleven    syllables 
each  to  the  original  eleven  Gayatri  stanzas  of  twenty-four 
syllables  each  3.     The  two  hundred  and  sixty-four  syllables 
in  the  hymn  of  eleven  Gayatri  stanzas,  when  added  to  the 
ninety-nine   tristubh   syllables,   make   up   a   total   of  three 
hundred  and  sixty-three  syllables,  the  number  of  days  in 
the  eleven-months  year.     Hence,  though  this  year  follows 
in  time  the  fifteen-months  year,  we  see  that  it  was  looked 
on  as   a  ritualistic   descendant  of  the  eleven  months,  both 
being  years  of  the  sun-horse. 

It  is  a  year  of  seventeen  months  of  twenty-one  days  each, 
divided  into  three  seven-day  weeks,  making  a  total  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  days,  and,  by  adding  a  week  to  this, 
the  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  days  of  the  lunar-year 
of  thirteen  months  of  twenty-eight  days  each  was  completed, 
and  this  year,  as  we  shall  see,  existed  simultaneously  with 
the  ritualistic  year  of  Prajapati.  That  the  month  of  this 
year  was  one  of  twenty-one  days  is  proved  by  the  twenty- 
one  verses  of  the  morning  hymn  sung  at  the  Keshava-panlya 
or  ceremonial  hair-cutting  of  the  king,  performed  as  part 
of  the  ceremonies  of  this  year  on  the  full-moon  of  Jalstha 


»  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,  v.  i,  2,  ii  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  8,  note  I. 
*  Ibid.,  V.  1,2,  19 ;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  ii,  note  I. 

3  Ibid.,  i.  4,  I,  7— 39>  vi.  2,  i,  22—24;  S.B.E.,  voU  xii.  pp.  102,  note  I— 
113,  vol.  xli.  p.  167,  note  I. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  495 

(May — June),   about    the   first    of  June,   a  year   after  his 
coronation '. 

This  hymn,  called  the  Uktha-stotra  of  twenty -one 
Ukthyas^,  is  that  addressed  to  the  rising  or  shining  {jikh^ 
sun,  symbolised  in  the  gold  plate  with  twenty-one  knobs, 
which  the  sacrificer  puts  on  when  he,  as  the  charioteer  of  the 
sun  who  watches  its  course  round  the  heavens,  carries  during 
his  initiation(  Dtkshd)  as  the  symbolic  sun,  the  fire  in  the  fire- 
pan, round  the  sacrificial  ground  from  the  North-east  point 
of  the  rising  sun  of  the  summer  solstice  to  the  South-east, 
where  the  sun  rises  at  the  winter  solstice  3. 

A.     The  ritual  of  the  making  of  the  fire-pan  (Ukha)  and 

the  birth  from  it  of  the  sun-god. 

The  whole  of  the  ritual  of  the  making  and  consecration 
of  the  fire-pan  {Ukha)  is  significant,  as  it  tells  by  ritualistic 
reproductions  of  past  beliefs  a  great  deal  of  the  history 
of  this  year.  The  preparations  for  making  the  fire-pan 
begin  with  the  full-moon  of  Phalgun  (February — March), 
the  full-moon  beginning  the  year  about  the  ist  of  March. 
Then  a  white  hornless  goat  is  offered  to  Prajapati  with 
a  silent  service,  and  the  fire  for  the  sacrifice  is  lighted  with 
seventeen  or,  as  is  said  further  on,  twenty-one  kindling 
verses.  On  the  eighth  day  after  the  full-moon,  about  the 
8th  of  March,  the  sacrificer  begins  to  collect  the  earth 
for  making  the  fire-pan  which  is  to  be  consecrated  at  the 
new-moon,  that  is  at  the  beginning  of  Cheit  (March — 
April)  4.  The  sacrificer  contemplated  in  this  ritual  is  almost 
certainly  the  Patesi  or  priest-king  of  this  epoch,  who  was, 
as  at  Girsu  and  in  Egypt,  the  national  High-Priest.  But 
he,  like  all  primitive  rulers,  was,  unless  he  had  exceptional 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  v.  5,  3,  2,  3 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  126,  note  2 
—127. 

»  Ibid.,  xii.  2,  2,  6;  S.6.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  150,  151. 

^  Ibid.,  V.  I,  7,  3,  I,  9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  277,  280. 

*  Ibid.,  vi.  2,  2,7,  8,  18 — 22,  23—27,  30;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  174,  179, 
180,  181,  182. 


496  History  and  Chronolof^y 

force  of  character,  scarcely  a  free  agent.     He  was  boand 
in  the   fetters  of  ritual   and   custom,  and   could    only  act 
in  strict  accordance  with  precedent  and  rule,    being  most 
carefully  watched  by  his  counsellors,  who,  like  the  Spartan 
ephors,  kept  the  king  in  the  straight  course  marked  out 
for  him.     The  lump   of  clay  of  which  the  fire-pan  is  to 
be  made  is  dug  with  a  spade  made  of  the  holloiv  female 
bamboo,  the  supposed  wife  of  the  Ahav&niya  or  libation-fire; 
to  the  north  of  which  it  is  placed  at  a  cubit's  distance  before 
being  used.     The  clay  is  sought  for  by  the  help  of  the  three 
animals  who  had  been  symbolic  rulers  of  time :    the  sun- 
horse,  the  ass  of  Piishan  and  the  Ashvins,  and  the  Pole  Star 
he-c^oat.     They  are  led  eastward  from  the  Shavanlya  when 
in  search  of  the  clay.     They  find  it  on   the  eastern  side 
of  an  ant-hill,  the  emblem  of  the  mother-mountain,  and  the 
horse  is  made  to  step  on  it*.     The  sacrificer  digs  up  this 
lump  and  puts  it  on  a  lotus  leaf,  sacred  to  Indra  as  the 
growing  water-plant,  a  plant-parent  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers. 
This  is  placed  on  a  black  antelope  skin  and  addressed  in 
three  Gayatrl  stanzas  of  seventy-two  syllables*,  as  conse- 
crated by  the  Atharvans  as  their  son,  the  sun-priest  Dadhiank, 
the  god  of  the  horse's  head  of  the  eleven-months  year,  and 
Pathya,  the  sun-bull,  who  makes  his  annual  journey  (pathi) 
through  the  ecliptic  star-path  of  the  suns.     He  takes  the 
clay  in  the  black  antelope  skin  to  the  fire,  where  he  moistens 
it  with  the  resin  of  the  Palasha-tree  {Butea  frondosa\  and 
mixes  it  with  goat's  hair,  thus  consecrating  it  to  the  parent- 
tree  and  star-gods  of  the  Pole  Star  age  4.     He  dedicates  the 
clay  which  is  to  make  the  bottom  of  the  pan  to  Makha,  the 
fighting  god  of  the  head  of  the  sun-horse,  and  makes  it  four 
square.     The  fire-pan  thus  made  is  consecrated  at  the  new- 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Bnih.,  vi.  3,   I,  25—30,  vi.   3,  2,   I— lo,  vi.  3,   3,  i-^; 
S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  197 — 200,  203 — 206,  207. 

»  Rg.  vi.  16,  13,  14,  15. 

3  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.,\\.  4,  2,  1—5,  vi.   5,   i,    1—4;    S.B.E.,   vol.   xli. 
pp.  217,  218,  229,  230. 

*  Ibid.,  vi.  5,  21  ff.  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  233  ff. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  497 

moon  of  Cheit  (March — April).  Inside  it  is  placed  a  layer 
of  powdered  hemp  {Cannabis  Indica),  the  inspiring  bhang 
or  hashish  used  by  the  Athravans  or  fire-priests  of  the 
Zendavestay  which  is  covered  with  a  layer  of  powdered 
Muftja  or  sugar-cane  grass,  of  which  the  Brahmins'  year- 
girdles  are  made.  He  puts  it  on  a  fire  lit  with  thirteen 
kindling  sticks,  the  thirteen  months  of  the  alternative 
measurement  of  this  year '. 

When  the  fire-pan  is  ready,  the  sacrificer  sews  the  gold 
plate  with  twenty-one  knobs  into  a  black  antelope  skin,  and 
hangs  it  round  his  neck  with  a  triple  hempen  cord  so  that 
it  hangs  over  his  navel.  He  then  places  the  fire  inside 
the  fire-pan  on  a  throne  [dsandi)  made  of  Udumbara  wood 
{Fiats  glonierata)  covered  with  treble  cords  of  reed  grass 
and  smeared  over  with  clay,  and  carries  the  pan  in  a  net, 
the  star  net  of  the  zodiacal  year.  And  this  throne,  with 
its  four  feet  and  four  sides,  the  netting  and  sling  of  the  gold 
plate,  the  pan-fire  and  the  gold  plate  itself  signify,  as  the 
author  of  Brahmana  expressly  tells  us,  the  thirteen  months 
of  this  year  ^  The  sacrificer  first  stands  with  his  face  to  the 
North-east  and  afterwards  to  the  South-east,  where  the  sun 
rose  at  the  summer  and  winter  solstices,  and  invokes  the 
gods  of  the  two  solstitial  seasons  3. 

The  sun  thus  bom  is  the  sun  Hiranya-garbha,  he  of 
the  golden  {lUranya)  womb  {garbha),  bom  of  fhe  twenty- 
one  and  seventeen  kindling  verses  of  this  year's  new-year 
fires  4.  He  represents  a  different  aspect  of  the  Deity  from 
tiiat  conveyed  by  the  name  Hiranyahasta,  the  god  of  the 
golden  hand  {/iasta)y  the  sun-god  of  the  five-day  weeks, 
born  of  the  bounteous  giver  {Puramdhi)^  the  Soma  cloud- 
bird,  and  the  sexless  father  of  the  Pole  Star  ages.     This 


*  Eggeling,  .Jfl/.  Brah.^  vi.  6,  i,  23,  24,  vi.  6,  3,   7,   16;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli. 
pp.  251,  252,  note  I,  258 — 260. 

=  Ibid.,  vi.  7,  I — 19,  28  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  265—269,  272. 
3  Ibid.,  vi.  7,  2,  I,  9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  272,  280. 

*  Ibid.,  vi.  2,  2,  3—5  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  172. 
5  Rg.  L  116,  13,  iv.  27,  2,  3. 

K   k 


49?  History  and  Chronology 

sun-god  Hiranya-garbha  is  also  the  son  of  Prajapati,  caDed 
Kumara,  the  ninth  of  his  forms »,  the  sun-god  of  the  fire- 
altar,  symbolised  in  the  year-plan  of  nine  divisions,  illustrat- 
ing, as  explained  in  Chapter  VII.  p.  484,  the  thirteen-monAs 
year  of  India  and  China. 

The  eighth  of  these  successive  forms,  of  which  Kuman 
is  the  ninth,  is  Ishana,  that  is  to  say  the  son  of  the  god  Isha 
or  Gan-isha,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  entered  the  womb  of  the 
mother  of  the  Buddha  when  he  was  conceived  as  the  son- 
physician.  This  eighth  god  is  thus  the  son  of  Gan-isha,  and 
his  predecessor,  the  seventh  form  of  the  creator  of  time,  was 
Mahan  Deva,  the  moon-god,  the  male  crescent  moon  Soma. 
Hence  in  this  descent  Kumara,  the  boy,  is  the  equivalent 
of  Rahulo,  the  little  Rahu,  the  son  of  the  Buddha  as  the  sun- 
physician,  and  of  the  eleventh  Therl,  the  mother-goddess  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  called  Bhudda  Kaccana,  the  golden 
saint,  that  is  the  mother  with  the  golden  womb. 

This  young  sun-god  of  the  nine  forms  is  the  god  of  the 
year  of  Solomon's  seal  of  nine  divisions  formed  by  the  union 
of  two  triangles  enclosed  in  a  circle.  This 
was  stolen  from  him  by  Sakhr,  the  wet  {sak) 
god,  king  of  the  White  Jinn  dwelling  in  the 
North  and  owning  the  sun-mare,  the  equivalent 
of  Sigurd*s  Grani.  This  god  of  the  North 
came  Southward  to  fight  the  black  Jinn  of  the  South,  the 
sun-fish  Salli-manu  or  Solomon,  and  to  slay  him  in  his 
winter  house.  He  found  the  sun-god,  the  young  sun  born 
at  the  winter  solstice,  absent,  and  his  kingdom  was  ruled 
by  Aminah,  the  faithful,  the  moon-nurse  of  the  young  sun- 
god,  during  his  journey  through  the  thirty  stars.  While 
Sakhr,  who  stole  the  year-ring  from  Aminah,  usurped  his 
throne,  Solomon,  the  young  sun-god,  wandered  as  a  beggar, 
like  the  outcast  sun  Odusseus,  and  became  cook  to  the  king 
of  Ammon,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  Nahash  the  Great 
Bear  constellation.  He  eloped  with  Na'uzah,  the  king's 
daughter,  the  morning-star,  and  when  boiling  a  fish  found 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,^  vi.  I,  3,  8 — 20;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  159,  160. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  499 

inside  it  his  year-ring,  which  Sakhr  had  thrown  into  the  sea 
and  which  the  fish  had  swallowed '.  This  year-ring  of  the 
fish-sun-god  rising  from  the  constellation  Pisces  has  become 
the  Fisherman's  ring  of  marriage  placed  on  the  finger  of 
each  Pope  at  his  consecration  and  broken  at  his  death.  The 
magic  sign  of  nine  depicted  on  it  is  the  topmost  keystone 
of  the  vaulted  temple  of  eight  sides,  the  Pantheon  of  the 
ruling  god  of  time,  the  heaven's  vault,  symbolised  on  the 
last  begging  bowl  of  the  Buddha  who  had  become  immortal 
and  omnipotent  as  the  never-dying  sun  who  pursues  his 
course  through  the  heavens  without  resting  or  delegating 
his  powers  to  a  succcessor  reborn  from  him  each  year.  The 
sign  of  the  interlocked  triangles  of  Solomon's  seal  is  a  sacred 
symbol  on  monuments  of  the  Bronze  Age  2,  and  must  date 
from  the  epoch  of  this  year,  which  began,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  the  new-moon  of  Cheit  (March — ^April)  at  the  vernal 
equinox,  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini,  the  ruling  constel- 
lation of  this  age,  that  is  about  6200  B.C.  This  is  the 
Masonic  sign  of  the  Royal  Arch. 

B.     T/te  Vajapeya  sacrifice  of  this  year. 

The  Vajapeya  sacrifice,  which  gives  us  the  fullest  account 
of  the  history  of  this  year,  is  said  in  the  Brahmanas  to  be 
that  offered  by  the  supreme  centre  ruler  of  a  circle  of  sub- 
ordinate kings  3.  Hence  it  is  one  instituted  at  a  late  period 
of  national  development,  when  confederacies  of  small  states, 
formed  by  the  union  of  united  provinces  and  villages  governed 
by  the  iron  discipline  of  their  hereditary  rules  and  customs, 
were  controlled  by  a  supreme  lawgiver  who  maintained  peace 
and  regulated  trade  over  a  large  area,  such  as  those  of  the 
seven  united  kingdoms  of  India  with  Jambu-dwipa  in  the 

"  Burton,  Arabian  Nights^  *  The  Adventures  of  Balukeya,'  p.  263 ;  *  The 
Tale  of  the  Fishennan  and  the  Jinni,'  vol.  i.  p.  38,  note  6,  *  Aladdin,  or  the 
Wonderful  Lamp,*  vol.  x.  p.  49,  note  2  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric 
Times y  vol.  ii..  Essay  ix.,  p.  295  if. 

^  Boyd  Dawkins,  Early  Man  in  Britain,  chap.  x.  p.  378. 

3  Eggelingy  Sai.  Brah,^  v.  i,  2,  13,  14 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  4. 

K  k   2 


500  History  and  Chronology 

centre  and  the  seven  of  Iran  with  the  centre  in  Elam  Shn- 
shan,  called  in  the  Zendavesta  Hvaniratha,  the  land  of  light 
or  Khvanlras  ^.  The  conception  of  these  seven  kingdoms 
is  one  belonging  to  this  age,  when  seven  first  became  the 
time  unit. 

According  to  the  account  of  the  installation  of  the  conquer- 
ing sun-god,  the  universal  ruler  as  given  in  the  Brahmaoas, 
the  control  of  this  year  was  retained  .by  Brihaspati,  the  Pole 
Star  god,  who  appointed  Savitri,  the  sun-god,  as  his  woik- 
ing  representative,  the  supreme  impeller   {pra-savitri) »  of 
this  year  of  Prajapati  {Orion).    The  first  special   ceremony 
inaugurating  the  birth  of  this  imperial  year  was  the  drawit^ 
of  the  five  Vajapeya  cups  for  its  five  seasons.     These  are  the 
five  cups  of  the  evening  libation.    At  it  was  chanted  the 
Arbhava  pavamana  Stotra  of  seventeen  verses  in  the  five 
metres,  Gayatri,  Kakubh,  Ushnih,  Anushtubh,  and  Jagati,  all 
of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  represent  time  measurements 
Thus  this  year  was  conceived  to  be  one  uniting  and  making 
use  of  all  previous  epochs  3  under  the  rule  of  Indra  the  eel- 
god  parent  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers. 

These  five  cups  or  seasons  are  called  in  the  ritual  of  the 
Madhyandina  or  Mid-day  Soma  feast,  the  Shukra,  Manthin, 
Agrayana,  Marutvatiya,  and  Ukthya.  They  are  specially 
connected  with  Indra,  who  is  summoned  first  to  the  sacrifice. 
The  Shukra  cup  is  called  after  him  as  the  cup  of  the  god 
Sak,  and  it  and  the  Manthin  cup  are  said  in  the  Brahmanas 
to  be  off'ered  to  the  gods  Shanda  and  Marka4.  These,  as 
I  have  shown  elsewhere,  mean  the  crescent  and  full-moon  s, 
the  moons  sacred  to  this  year,  and  the  course  of  the  year 
signified  by  these  five  cups  is  marked  by  the  third  cup,  the 
Agrayana,  which  is  that  of  the  firstfruits  offered  at  the  end 

'  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta    Vendtdad  Fargard,  xix.  39;    Farvardtn  Yaskt^ 
zxviii.  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  216,  notes  i  and  6,  xxiii.  p.  220,  note  i. 
'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh.y  v.  i,  i,  4,  15,  16;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  2,  5. 
3  Ibid.,  iv.  3,  3,  2,  iv.  2,  5,  21,  22 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  315,  note  2,  332. 
<  Ibid.,  iv.  2,  I,  1—4;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  278,  279. 
5  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  pp.  243,244. 


of  i/te  Myth'Making  Age,  501 

of  the  rainy  season,  and  the  cup  of  the  autumn  season 
ending  with  the  winter  solstice  on  the  last  day  of  the  month 
Agrahan  (November — December).  Thus  these  five  cups 
denote  a  year  of  five  seasons,  beginning  with  the  Shukra 
or  hot  season,  followed  by  the  Manthin  the  rains,  Agrayana 
the  autumn,  Marutvatiya  the  winter,  and  the  cup  of  the 
shining  (ukthd)  sun  the  spring.  The  New  Year's  cups  of 
this  year  celebrate  the  victory  of  Indra  or  Shukra  over  the 
Vritra  or  enclosing  snake  in  the  contest  with  the  Ahishuva 
or  swelling  cloud-serpent  described  in  Chapter  VII.  p.  431. 
In  this  battle  he  was  accompanied  by  the  seven  Maruts, 
the  seven  star-mothers  of  the  Great  Bear  to  whom  the  Marut- 
vatiya cup  of  winter  is  offered  in  the  services,  and  it  was  after 
his  victory  that  the  cup  of  the  victorious  spring-sun,  called 
the  Mahendra  cup  of  the  Great  Indra,  was  offered  '. 

It  is  after  the  offering  of  these  five  cups  to  the  gods  of  the 
seasons  of  the  year  that  the  most  distinctive  part  of  the  Vaja- 
peya  ceremonies  begins.  Two  mounds  were  raised  in  the 
Soma  consecrated  ground,  one  at  the  West  and  the  other  at 
the  East  end  of  the  Soma  cart  placed  in  the  centre  of  the 
space  thirty-six  steps  long,  from  East  to  West  between  the 
Sadas,  the  priest's  house  and  the  Uttara-vedi.  The  Adh- 
varyu,  the  ceremonial  priest,  places  himself  between  the  cart 
and  the  West  mound  looking  westward,  and  the  Neshtri 
priest  of  Tvashtar  god  of  the  year  of  two  seasons,  and 
of  the  female  mother-goddesses  between  the  cart  and  the 
East  mound  looking  eastwards.  The  Neshtri  is  directed 
to  buy  Parisrut,  apparently  the  rice-beer  usually  drunk  by 
the  Mundas  and  other  aboriginal  and  semi-aboriginal  races, 
for  a  piece  of  lead  from  a  long-haired  man  of  the  primitive 
tribes  who  had  not  cut  his  hair  according  to  the  orthodox 
Soma  tonsure,  which  required  all  the  hair  except  the  top- 
knot or  pig- tail  to  be  shaved.  He  and  the  Adhvaryu  offer 
together  one  after  the  other  seventeen  cups,  the  Adhvaryu 
offering  cups  of  the  orthodox  Tryashira  mixture  of  Indra, 

Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.t  iv.  3,  3,  i— 19 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp  331 — 340. 


So2  History  and  Chronology 

made  of  milk,  sour  milk,  barley  and  running  water,  and  |' 
the  Neshtri  cups  of  Parisrut  or  Sura.  The  Soma  cups  arc 
offered  above  and  the  Sura  below  the  axle,  and  the 
cups  after  being  offered  are  placed  on  the  West  and  East 
mounds.  The  whole  number  of  thirty-four  cups  is  said  to 
be  a  sacrifice  to  the  thirty-three  gods  of  the  months  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  and  to  Prajapati,  the  god  of  this  year, 
the  thirty-fourth  god '  of  the  sun-horse,  whose  thirty-four 
ribs  were  offered,  as  we  shall  see  directly,  at  the  Ashvamedha 
sacrifice  ^. 

Thus  the  ritual  of  the  Vajapeya  and  of  this  seventeen- 
months  year  is  clearly  deduced  from  the  previous  year  of 
eleven  months,  and  it  is  intended  as  a  means  of  consolidating 
a  reconcilement  between  the  unorthodox  worshippers  of  the 
gods  of  the  eleven-months  year  and  the  sun  worshippers  of  the 
year  of  fifteen  months.  That  this  union  between  the  Kathi  or 
Hittites  of  the  eleven-months  year  and  the  sun  worshippers 
of  that  of  fifteen  months  was  accomplished  by  the  men  of 
this  epoch,  is  proved  by  the  initial  sacrifices  in  the  ortho- 
dox ritual  of  the  Soma  sacrifice  to  the  sun-god,  the  crown- 
ing sacrifice  of  Hindu  theology.  These  are  a  cake  on  eleven 
potsherds  for  Agni  and  Vishnu,  and  rice  gruel  for  Aditi 
and  her  eight  sons,  including  the  eighth,  the  Martanda,  or 
dead  egg,  who  was,  as  wc  have  seen  in  Chapter  VII.  p.  425, 
the  sexless  sun-god  Bhishma  3.  These  are  offered  with  the 
seventeen  kindling  verses  appropriate  to  this  year,  and 
they  are  uttered  in  the  low  whisper  with  which  Prajapati 
was  addressed  before  the  chants  of  the  later  ritual  were 
introduced. 

The  horse-sacrifice,  described  in  the  Rigveda  is  the  same 
as  that  offered  at  the  Vajapeya  festival  opening  this  year. 
In  the  hymn  depicting  it  we  are  told  that  thirty-four  ribs 
are  to  be  cut  from  the  horse  answering  to  the  thirty-four 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.,  v.  I,  2,  ID— 18  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  8—11  ;  Hewitt, 
Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Iwtes,  vol.  i..  Essay  iii.,  p.  242. 
'  Rg.  i.  162,  18. 
3  EggeliDg,  Sat,  Brah,^  iii  I,  3,  1—6 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  autvi.  pp.  12,  13, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  503 

cups  of  Soma  and  Sura  offered  in  the  Vajapeya  ritual.     Also 
the  Vedic  horse-sacrifice  begins  with  the  offering  of  a  goat 
to  Indra  and  Pushan,  the  latter  being  the  god  called  Praja- 
pati  in  the  Brahmana  ritual.    Also  the  sacrifices  are  conducted 
by  seven  priests  and  there  are  seven  gods  invoked  in  the  Vedic 
hymn,  the  gods  of  the  seven  days  of  the  week  of  this  year. 
These  gods  Mitra,  Varuna,  Aryaman,  Ayu,  Ribhuksan  and 
the  Maruts,  are  the  counterparts  of  the  Brahmana  gods  to 
whom  the  Arbhava  Pavamana  is  chanted.     These  are  Indra, 
his   two   horses,   Pushan,  Sarasvati,  Mitra,  Varuna^.     Also 
the  Vedic  ritual  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse  is  further 
proved  to  be  especially  connected  Vith  this  year   for  the 
hymn  describing  it,  Rg.  i.  162,  is  one  of  the  series  of  twenty- 
fouf  hymns,  Rg.  i.   140 — 164,  the  twenty-four  days  of  the 
months  of  the  fifteen-months  year,  ascribed  to  Dirgha-tamas, 
the  long  darkness  (tamas\  father  of  Kakshlvat,  the  year-god 
of  the  eleven-months  year,  and  the  Apr!  hymn  in  this  col- 
lection is  of  thirteen  instead  of  the  eleven  stanzas  of  the 
other  Apri  hymns. 

After  the  offering  of  the  thirty-four  cups  at  the  Vajapeya 
sacrifice,  the  Adhvaryu  draws  a  cup,  called  the  Madhu-graha 
or  honey-cup,  in  a  golden  vessel,  the  golden  bowl  given 
to  the  Buddha  by  Sujata,  and  places  it  among  the  Soma 
cups,  and  then  he  offers  the  Ukthya  and  Dhruva  cups. 
These  are  the  cups  of  the  shining  sun  (uktka)  and  the 
steadfast  Pole  Star  2.  These  cups  in  the  full  Soma  sacrifice 
to  the  sun-god  of  the  twelve-months  years  arc  the  eighth  and 
ninth  3  of  the  ten  cups  offered,  of  which  the  tenth  and  last  is 
that  offered  to  the  Ashvins,  the  stars  Gemini.  They,  as  we 
have  seen  in  Chapter  VII.  pp.  391,  392,  were  first  made  par- 
takers of  Soma  at  the  wedding  of  Chyavana  and  Su-konya, 
and   their  cup   is   called   the   Madhu-graha,   or  honey-cup 


'  Kg.  i.   162,  1—3,  5—18;    Eggeling,   SaL   Brah.,   iv.   2,   5,  22;    S.B.E., 

vol.  xxvi.  p.  3'S* 
=»  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,,  v.  I,  2,  19 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  11. 
3  Ibid.,  iv.  2,  3,  I— 18,  iv.  2,  4,  I— 24;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  292—305. 


5C4  History  and  Chronology 

of  which  they  got  the  secret  from  Dadhiank,  the  god  of 
the  horse's  head  of  the  eleven-months  year  ^. 

There  is  a  further  and  very  significant  ceremony  con- 
nected with  this  honey-cup  of  the  Ashvins.  The  Adhvaryn 
and  sacrificer,  took  it  out  and  gave  it  to  one  of  the 
chariot  drivers  in  the  chariot-race  that  followed  the  sacri- 
fice, either  a  Vaishya  or  trader  or  a  Rajanya  or  warrior. 
As  soon  as  he  received  it  the  Neshtri  stepped  round 
from  the  East  of  the  Soma  cart  and  gave  him  all  the 
seventeen  Sura  cups  in  exchange  for  it,  and  then  took  it 
back  to  the  Adhvaryu.  This  ceremony  shows  the  consum- 
mation of  the  union  between  the  earlier  aboriginal  and  semi- 
aboriginal  races  and  the  northern  worshippers  of  the  white 
horse  of  the  sun  ^. 

In  the  ritual  of  the  sacrifice  the  offering  of  victims  follows 
that  of  the  libation  cups.  These  are  a  he-goat  to  Agni,  with 
a  chant  of  twelve  stanzas.  Two  he-goats  to  the  Ukthya 
god  Indra-Agni,  with  fifteen  stanzas,  and  two  he-goats  and 
a  ram,  with  sixteen  chants  to  Indra,  and  these  included  a 
record  of  earlier  time  reckonings  in  the  twelve  stanzas  for 
the  twelve  months  of  Orion's  year,  and  the  fifteen  and 
sixteen  recall  the  year  of  fifteen-months  and  eight-day  weeks. 

To  these  six  victims,  the  gods  of  the  early  six-days  week, 
is  added  the  seventh,  the  special  Vajapeya  victim,  a  goat 
offered  to  Sarasvati,  the  river-mother-goddess  with  the  Vaja- 
peya hymn  of  seventeen  stanzas.  The  last  victim  offered 
in  this  series  of  sacrifices  is  ;a  spotted  barren  cow  offered  to 
the  victorious  Maruts,  the  seven  Maruts,  the  mother-stars 
of  the  Great  Bear,  who  rejoiced  over  the  victory  of  their  son, 
the  newly-installed  sun-god,  whose  victory  extinguished  their 
rule  3.  Finally,  seventeen  grey  he-goats  are  offered  to  Praja- 
pati  4.  The  year-god  Prajapati,  to  whom  these  victims  are 
offered,  is,  as  we  are  specially  told  in  the  Brahmanas,  the  god 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,,  iv.  I,  5,  16 — 18  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  276,  277. 
»  Ibid.,  V.  I,  5,  28  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  29. 

3  Ibid.,  V.  I,  3,  1—3,  iv.  4,  2,  17,  iv.  5,  3,  i  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xlL  pp.  II— I3i 
xxvi.  p.  368,  note  2—370,  397,  note  2,  398. 
*♦  Ibid.,  V.  I,  3,  7—12;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  14 — 16. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  Joj 

called  Ka  or  Who.     This  is  the  name  given  to  Prajapati, 
the   creator  of  all   things,  in   each   of  the   ten   stanzas  of 
Rg.  X.  121,  the  Vedic  hymn  showing  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
mystery  of  creation    and   of   its   unknown    author.      It   is 
repeated  in  the  offering  and  initiatory  formulae  of  the  ritual 
of  the  worship  of  this  father-god  of  the  young  sun  Hiranya- 
garbha,  born  of  the  golden  womb  ^    The  inner  meaning  of 
the  name  given  in  this  later  ritual  to  the  god  who  was  once 
the  sun-deer  Orion  is  explained  in  a  parable  telling  us  that 
the  key  to  the  mystery  is  given  in  the  Arka  or  Shining  (ark) 
plant  {Calotropis  gigantea).     The  teacher  explains  that  in 
this  plant  is  the  hidden  soul  of  life  from  which  all  things  are 
born  conveyed  to  it  by  the  wind  and  the  rain.     This  is  the 
germ  of  life  which,  though  unseen,  invisible  and  intangible^ 
is  the  unknown  power  whence  the  living-fire  Agni  is  pro- 
duced to  create  plants,  animals  and  men.     This  divine  being 
is  known  by  the  name  of  Ka  who,  and  it  is  to  him  as  Vayu 
Niyutvat,  the  shut-in  wind,  the  bearer  of  the  Ka,  that  the 
white  goats  are  sacrificed  in  this  ritual  2.    The  victims  offered 
are  bound  to  an  eight-sided  sacrificial  post  seventeen  cubits 
long,  showing  that  it  represents  a  year  of  seventeen  months ; 
for,  according  to  the  Brahmana,  the  length  of  the  stake  and 
of  the  sacrificer's  year  should  coincide,  and  a  thirteen-cubits 
stake  is  prescribed  for  the  thirteen-months  year,  and  fifteen 
for  that  of  fifteen-months  3.     It  has  a  head-piece  of  a  cake 
made  of  wheaten  dough.     The  sacrificer  and  his  wife,  who 
is  robed   by  the  Neshtri  in  a  skirt  made  of  Kusha  grass, 
ascend  the  post  by  a  ladder,  and  proclaim  from  the  top  that 
they  have  become  Prajapati's  children  through  their  union 
with  the  sacred  creating-wheat  on  the  top  of  the  post.     The 
sacrificer  then  receives  seventeen  bags  of  salt  wrapped  in 
the  leaves  of  the  Ashvattha-tree  (Ficus  religiosa).     He  then 
descends  and  sits,  while  the  sacrifice  is  being  offered,  on  an 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  vi.  2,  2,  5,  12 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  173,  176. 
"  Ibid.,  X.  3,  4,  2—5 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliv.  pp.  333—336. 
3  Ibid.,  iii.  6,  4,  24 — 26 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  166,  167. 


5o6  History  and  Chronology 

Udumbara  [Ficus  glomerata)  throne,  over  which  a  goat-skin 
is  spread  i. 

C.     The  Chariot-races  of  the  sun-god  of  this  year. 

After  the  sacrifice  of  the  victims  the  chariot-race  is  run. 
The  sacrificer  yokes  to  the  chariot  first  two  horses,  yoking 
the  right-hand  horse  first ;  to  these  he  adds  a  third  beside  the 
right-hand  horse  and  a  fourth  in  front  as  leader,  and  offers 
seventeen  platters  of  gruel  made  of  wild  rice  to  Brihaspati, 
the  Pole  Star  god  «. 

In  the  ritual  for  the  consecration  of  the  race-course  it  is 
ordered  that  seventeen  drums  are  to  be  placed  along  the 
edge  of  the  altar,  and  that  an  archer  of  the  Rajaniya  or 
warrior  caste  is  to  shoot  seventeen  arrow  ranges  from  the 
Northern  edge  of  the  Uttara  Vedi  or  Northern  altar  between 
the  Utkara,  the  mound  formed  by  the  earth  dug  out  in 
constructing  the  altar  and  the  Chatvala  pit,  whence  the 
Ashvins  were  invited  to  drink  Soma  with  the  gods.  These 
are  both  to  the  North-east  of  the  consecrated  Soma  ground^ 
and  hence  the  race-course  was  to  He  to  the  North-east 
of  the  pillar,  which,  like  that  at  Stonchenge,  marks  the 
rising  point  of  the  sun  of  the  summer  solstice,  and  this  is 
exactly  the  position  of  the  old  race-course  at  Stonehengc. 
At  the  end  of  the  range  of  the  seventeenth  arrow  the  archer 
planted  a  branch  of  the  Udumbara-tree  [Fiats  glomerata) ^ 
of  which  the  sacred  plough  and  the  house-pole  of  the  Sadas 
or  house  of  the  gods  in  the  Soma  ground  were  made.  It 
was  round  this  goal  that  the  sacrificer*s  chariot  and  the 
sixteen  four-horse  chariots  accompanying  it  were  to  race. 
While  the  race  was  being  run  a  Brahmin  was  to  stand  on 
a  cart-wheel  placed  on  a  post  as  high  as  his  navel  near  the 
altar,  and  to  chant  the  prescribed  hymn  while  the  wheel  was 
made  to  revolve  sunwise  3.     Thus  the  race  was  to  represent 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  v.  2,  I,  I — 25  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  29 — 36. 
*  Ibid.,  V.  I,  4,  I — 14;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  19 — 22. 

^  Ibid.,  V.  I,  5,  I — 14;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  22,  note  i,  23,  note  i,  24,  note 
I,  25,  note  I. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  S07 

the  contest  between  the  months  of  the  year  marking  the 
annual  course  of  the  sun  going  from  the  South-west  to  the 
North-east  between  the  winter  and  summer  solstice,  and 
returning  from  the  North-east  position  of  the  summer  sol- 
stitial sun  to  its  winter  home. 

A  complete  parallel  to  this  race,  but  one  in  which  the  year 

is   measured  by  seasons  and  not  by  months,  is  to  be  found 

in  the  chariot-race  at  the  games  instituted  by  Achilles  at  the 

funeral  of  Patroclus.     Patroclus,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter 

VII.  p.  490,  was  the  sun-physician,  and  he  was  followed 

at    his  death  by  the  sun-god  of  the  new  year  and  epoch 

which  was  to  succeed  him.     It  is  the  contest  for  precedence 

as  the  ruler  of  the  opening  season  of  this  year  of  five  seasons 

which  is  depicted  in  the  chariot-race  described  by  Homer '. 

There  are  five  champions  contending  each  for  his  own  season 

among  the   season   cups,  and   these  seasons    are   not   the 

European  seasons  of  Greece,  but  those  of  India,  whence  this 

as  well  as  so  much  more  of  the  Greek  mythology  was  derived. 

These  were :   I.  Eumelus,  son   of  Admetus,  called   Hades 

Admetos  (ot&yy  aSfiriros),  the   untamed  god  of  the  lower 

world,  whose  wife  Alkestis,  the  sun-maiden,  went  down  like 

Istar  to  the  realms  of  death  to  save  his  life  as  the  dying 

sun,  whence  she  was  brought  back  by  Herakles,  the  sun-god 

of  the  age  when   the  Pole  Star  was  in  the  constellation 

Hercules.     He  was  the  year-god  of  the  rainy  season,  the 

god  who  sought  his  home  in  the  South.     H.  Diomedes,  the 

counsellor  {firjSos)  of  Zeus,  son  of  Tydeus,  the  hammering 

{tud)  god,  the  Northern  smith,  the  conquering-god  of  summer, 

the  Indra  who  slew  Vritra  at  the  summer  solstice.    He  drove 

the  two  horses  he  had  taken  from  -/Eneas,  which  were  two 

of  the  six  which  Anchises  stole  from  Laomedon,  substituting 

mares  for  the  horses  he  took,  so  that  of  the  twelve  year-horses 

which  Zeus  gave  to  Tros  in  exchange  for  Ganymede,  who 

was,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  145,  the  cupbearer 

of  the  gods  and  god  of  the  winter  season,  six  were  mortal 

'  Homer,  //iadf  xxiii.  287—538. 


5o8  History  and  Chronology 

mares   and   six  immortal  steeds.     Two  of  these  immortal 
sun-horses  had  become  the  property  of  Diomede,  who  todc 
them  from  iEneas,  son  of  Anchises,  who  was  the  grandson 
of  Assarakos,  the  god  of  the  bed  and  brother  of  Ganymede'. 
III.  Menelaus,  husband   of  the  immortal    Helen,   sister  of 
Polydeukes,  the  rain-twin   and   the  tree-mother  (ievhplr^ 
of  the  Dorians  of  Rhodes.     He  drove  the  pair  of  steeds 
of  the  original  Twin-gods,  the  mare  i£thiope  belonging  to 
Agamemnon,  husband  of  the  other  female  twin,  Cl3^em- 
nestra,  sister  of  Kastor,  the  pole  of  Ka,  and  his  own  horse 
Podargus.     He  was  the  god  of  the  autumn  season,  originally 
sacred   to  the  Twins.      IV.  Antilochus,  son   of  Nestor  of 
Pylos,  the  city  of  the  gates  {irvKai)  of  the  Garden  of  God, 
the  god  of  spring.     V.  Merione,  born  of  the  thigh  (f^vp^h 
the   son   of  Molos   (war)^  half-brother  of  Idomeneus,   the 
leader  of  the  Cretan  archers «,  the  god  of  the  bow,  whence 
the  winter-arrow  was  shot  that  pierced  the  mother-cloud- 
bird,  the  god  of  winter,  said  by  Homer  to  be  the  equal  of  the 
warrior  Ares,  the  god  of  war  Enyo.      He  was  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Thigh-born  sun-god  of  the  iifteen-months 
year. 

The  course  was  guarded  by  Phoenix,  the  year-bird  of  the 
date-palm-tree  {(f>o2vL^),  which  rises  yearly  from  its  own 
ashes  as  the  ever-living  sun-bird.  He  is  called  the  servant 
of  Peleus,  the  god  of  the  Potter's  clay,  father  of  Achilles, 
and  was  the  counterpart  of  Achilles  himself,  the  independent 
sun-god  who  steered  his  own  course  through  the  heavens 
without  being  led  by  the  moon-god  or  watched  by  the 
guardian-star  of  the  boundaries,  the  steerer  of  the  sun-ship 
Argo.  The  contest  bears  a  close  analogy  to  that  of  the 
Kauravyas  and  Pandavas;  in  both  the  victorious  season 
among  the  five  into  which  the  year  was  divided  was  the  god 
of  the  summer  season  ending  at  the  summer  solstice.  This 
was  the  season  of  the  Pandava  Bhima,  the  son  of  Maroti, 


*  Homer,  //tad,  v.  265—279,  323^327,  xx.  232—240,  xxiii.  291,  292. 
°  Ibid.,  ii.  651. 


of  t/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  5^9 

the  tree-ape-god,  who  fought  with  the  striking-club  or  tree- 
hammer,  whence  the  father  of  Diomedes  took  his  name ; 
and  the  Kauravya  leader  Duryodhana,  whom  he  finally 
vanquished  and  slew,  and  both  of  whose  thighs  he  broke, 
was  the  thigh-god  of  the  eleven-months  year,  who  appears 
In  this  horse-race  as  Eumelus,  whose  chariot  was  overthrown 
and  he  himself  maimed,  but  who  subsequently  was,  like  his 
Pandava  prototype,  Arjuna,  god  of  the  rainy  season  during 
the  Kauravya  war,  judged  to  be  in  merit  next  to  the  sun- 
god.  Arjuna  from  being  the  god  of  the  rainy  season  became 
the  god  of  the  month  Phalgun  (February — March)  ending 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  when  this  seventeen-months  year 
began,  and  the  god  who  drove  the  white  horses  of  the  sun- 
chariot  behind  Parikshit,  the  sun-horse  who  started  on  his 
course  on  the  ist  of  Cheit  (March — April).  As  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  changed  position  of  the  once  ruling  rain-god,  the 
Mahendra,  the  Great  Indra,  Eumelus  received  from  Achilles 
a  brazen  corslet  surrounded  by  a  band  of  glittering  tin,  which 
had  belonged  to  the  Paeonian  Asteropaios,  the  star  {aster) 
chief,  son  of  Pelagon,  the  stream  {Peleg)  god,  the  parent 
river,  the  Thracian  Axios  and  leader  of  the  Thracian 
Paeonians,  whose  god  was  the  sun-physician  (Traidv),  and 
who,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  measured  time  by  the 
thirteen-months  year,  the  predecessor  and  equivalent  of  this 
seventeen-months  year '.  In  other  words  he  was  proclaimed 
as  the  sun-physician,  the  guardian  of  the  young  sun-god 
of  this  year  of  the  chariot-race,  who,  as  Rahulo  in  the  form 
of  Parikshit,  had  superseded  his  father. 

The  course  over  which  the  race  was  run,  as  described 
by  Nestor  in  his  advice  to  his  son  Antilochus,  was  one 
round  a  withered  oak  or  pine  trunk  a  fathom  high,  marking 
the  tomb  of  an  ancient  chief,  which  was  almost  certainly 
in  races  run  at  Troy  the  tomb  and  altar,  that  is  the  dolmen 
of  Ilos,  marked  by  the  parent  wild  fig-tree  of  Troy  2,  the 


'  Homer,  I/iad,  xxiii.  558 — 562,  xxi.  135—199. 
'  Ibid.,  xi.  166,  167. 


5IO  History  and  Chronology 

Udumbara-tree  of  the  Indian  race-course,  and  described 
by  Homer  as  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  plain  \  Thb 
decaying  tree-pillar,  the  image  of  the  mother-goddess  of 
the  tree- trunk,  the  Indian  Drona  or  Mari-amma.  It  stood 
between  two  white  stones,  the  two  pillars  placed  in  froBl 
of  all  Phoenician  temples,  the  pillars  of  the  two  solstices; 
and  between  the  pillars  and  the  goal  there  was  space  enough 
for  the  chariots  to  turn  as  they  rounded  the  latter  in  thdr 
returning  course,  going  sunwise  from  left  to  right. 

In    the   beginning    of  the    race   Antilochus,    the    driver 
of   the    horses    of   the    gates,   was    first,   showing   that  it 
began    in    spring    under   the    guidance    of   the    gate-stars 
Gemini  ;    next  was  Eumelus,  the  rainy  season  ;    next  after 
him   came  Menelaus,  the  autumn,   followed   by    Meriones, 
the  winter  god  of  the  bow;    and  last  Diomedes  the  final 
victor.     But  he  caught  up  the  three  in  front  of  him,  while 
Eumelus  passed  Antilochus ;   and  in  the  returning  course^ 
after  passing  the  goal  he  was  inimediately  behind  Eumelus, 
when  Apollo  Smintheus,  the  mouse  Apollo  of  Troy,  caused 
him  to  lose  his  whip,  and  thus  cease  to  gain  on  Eumelus 
as  he   could  no  longer  urge  on  his  steeds.     But  Athene, 
the  tree-mother,  the  goddess  Pallas  of  the  seed-husk  {Pales), 
restored  it  to  him  and   secured  him  the  victory  by  over- 
turning the  chariot  of  Eumelus.     In  the  final  order  of  the 
competition   Diomedes  was  first,  Antilochus  second,  Mene- 
laus third,  Meriones  fourth,  and  Eumelus,  who  was  ultimately 
judged  to  be  second,  as  I  have  already  explained,  last ;  and 
he  received  the  prize  given  to  the  follower  and  guardian 
of  the  sun-god. 

The  other  prizes  arc  also  significant.  The  winner  received 
a  female  slave,  the  sun-maiden  of  the  eleven-months  year, 
bearing  a  cauldron  holding  twenty-two  measures,  its  half- 
months.  The  second  a  mare  with  a  mule  foal,  also  a  remin- 
iscence of  the  lunar-solar  year  of  the  male  crescent  moon 
and   the  sun   descended    from   the   sun-ass.      The   third  a 

'  Homer,  /Had,  xi.  i66,  167. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  511 

cauldron  holding  four  measures,  the  four  seasons  of  the 
eleven-months  year.  The  fourth  two  talents  of  gold ;  and 
the  fifth  a  double  cup,  marking  him  as  the  year  cup-bearer 
and  guardian  of  the  seasons  of  the  solstitial-year.  This  was 
given  to  Nestor,  the  ancient  warder  of  the  Gates,  father 
of  Antilochus,  the  god  of  spring,  recipient  of  the  mule  foal, 
which  he  handed  to  Noemon,  the  gnomon-stone '. 

In  the  succeeding  contests,  Odusseus  won  the  foot-race, 
beating  the  Locrian  Ajax  Oileus,  the  swiftest  runner  of 
the  Greeks,  and  Antilochus.  But  the  victory  of  Odusseus, 
like  that  of  Diomede,  was  gained  by  the  aid  of  Athene,  who 
caused  Ajax  to  stumble  and  thus  win  only  the  moon-ox, 
the  second  prize. 

The  cup  which  Odusseus  won  was  that  of  the  ruling  sun- 
god  of  the  three  contending  seasons,  the  cup  of  Thoas,  the 
king  of  the  Tauric  Chersonesus,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen 
(p.  93)  the  Phoenician  Tammuz,  the  Akkadian  Dumu-zi  Orion, 
in  short  Odusseus  himself  in  his  first  form  as  a  year-ruler. 
He  now  won  this  cup  of  the  leading  season  as  the  ruling 
sun-god  of  this  new  sun-year,  that  of  seventeen  and  thir- 
teen lunar  months  »• 

These  two  winning  year-gods  who  won  the  races  of  the 
sun-year  had  a  special  connection  with  this  thirteen-months 
year.  Both  were  favourites  of  Athene,  the  tree-mother  of 
the  South,  and  uniter  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  races, 
and  the  tent  of  Odusseus,  as  that  of  the  centre  star  Orion 
was  in  the  centre  of  the  Grecian  camp  3.  The  thirteen-months 
year  was  that  of  the  Northern  Thracians,  and  it  was  Dio- 
medes  and  Odusseus  who,  under  the  guidance  of  the  deceit- 
ful spy  Dolon,  sent  by  Hector,  found  the  year-king  Rhesus 
sleeping  in  the  centre  of  his  guard  of  twelve  surrounding 
months.  These  thirteen  were  slain  by  Diomede,  and  the 
horses  of  their  year-chariot  were  taken  by  Odusseus  4. 

»  Homer,  lliad^  xxiii.  262—270,  612—617.  '  Ibid.,  xxiii.  739—782. 

3  Ibid.,  xi.  5,  6.  *  Ibid.,  x.  471—501. 


512  History  and  Chronology 

D.     Odusseus  and  other  Greek  year-gods  rulers  of  the 
seventeen  and  thirteen-nionths  year. 

It  was  as  a  god  born  of  the  year  of  thirteen  lunar  months 
that  Odusseus  appeared  in  Ithaca  as  the  returning  pauper 
sun-god,  for  he  came  from  the  land  of  the  Phaeacians,  that, 
is,  of  the  dusky  {(f>airf)  land  of  night,  ruled  by  twelve  kings, 
whose  over-lord  was  Alkinoos  the   thirteenth,    and   it  was 
they  who  sent  him  to  Ithaca  in  their  year  -  ship  with  fifty- 
two  oarsmen,  the  fifty-two  weeks  of  the  year  '.     The  story 
of  his  arrival  at  Scheria,  the  Phaeacian  country,  clearly  shows 
him  to  be  a  risen  sun-god,  the  ruler  of  the  year.     He  came 
from  Ogygia,  the  island  of  Calypso,  the  hidden    (KaXufrrm) 
goddess,  where  he  had   remained   eight  years*.      He  was 
sent  from  thence  to  Scheria  at  the  command*  of  Hermes, 
the  god  of  the  sun-gnomon-pillar,  where  he  was  to  arrive 
on  the  twentieth  day  3,  and  whence  he  was  to  be  sent  to 
Ithaca.     He  thus  came  as  the  sexless  son -god,  hidden  in 
the  era  of  the  sun-god  of  the  eight-days  week.     Poseidon, 
the  snake-god  of  the  trident-year  and  owner  of  the  horses  of 
the  sun,  was,  on  his  return  from  the  Southern  land  of  the 
^Ethiopians,  aware  of  the  coming  of  this  new  sun-god  armed 
with  the  cap  of  darkness  {KaXxnrrfyq)^  the  golden  year-girdle, 
and  silver  white  (apyij<f>€09)  tunic  of  the  conquering  sun  of 
the  eight-days  week  measured  by  the  two  lunar  crescents  of 
the  double  axe  (ireXeKv^)  of  the  Carian  Zeus  which  he  carried 
These  arms,  marking  him  as  the  sun-god,  he  had  got  from 
Calypso.      Poseidon   fearing  this   new  usurper   of  the  rule 
of  heaven    raised   a   tempest  which   wrecked    the    raft   of 
Odusseus,  the  raft  of  the  transition  period  of  the  year  of 
the  eight-days  week,  immediately  after  he,  on  the  eighteenth 
day  of  his  voyage,  had  arrived  in  sight  of  Phaeacia4.    He 
was  saved  by  Ino,  the  daughter  of  Kadmus,  in  the  likeness 
of  a  sea-gull.     She  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  VII. 
P-  397 f  the  mother  of  Melicertes,  the  sun-god  Melquarth,  with 

'  Homer,  Odyssey,  viii.  390,  391,  35,  36,  48.  '  Ibid.,  vii.  253—263. 

3  Ibid.,  V.  34—38.  *  Ibid.,  v.  229—236,  277—318, 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  5 1 3 

whom  she  leaped  into  the  sea,  whence  he  was  conveyed 
by  his  mother  as  the  dolphin-mother-goddess  Tirhatha  to 
the  mother  -  pine  -  tree,  whence  he  was  to  be  bom  as  the 
sun-god  son  of  the  virgin  fir-tree.  She  gave  to  Odusseus 
the  magic  sail,  the  kredemnon  ^,  like  the  upright  fin  of  the 
dolphin,  which  gave  it,  in  the  Hindu  flood  story  of  Manu, 
the  name  of  the  horned  fish.  This  wing  of  the  sea-bird 
and  sea-dolphin,  he  put  on  after  he  had  taken  off  the  dress 
of  the  conquering  sun-god  given  him  by  Calypso,  and  thus 
after  two  days'  tossing  in  the  sea,  which  was  finally  calmed 
by  Athene,  it  brought  the  naked  sun-god  Odusseus  to  the 
Phseacian  coast,  where  he  made  himself  a  bed  under  the 
two  parent  olive-trees  of  the  sun-mother  Athene,  the  olive- 
tree-mother,  whose  tree,  as  we  have  seen,  made  his  olive-tree 
bed  of  the  sun-god  in  Ithaca.  These  trees  were  the  wild 
olive-tree  (^uXtiy)  and  the  cultivated  olive  (^Kala)^  and  it 
was  under  these  trees  that  he  awoke  as  the  new  sun-god 
of  this  year  on  the  twenty-first  day  of  its  first  month  passed 
in  the  voyage  from  Ogygia.  Here  he  was  met  by  Nausicaa, 
the  sun-maiden,  who  re-robed  him  and  brought  him  to  the 
palace  of  her  father  Alkinoos  and  her  mother  Arete  ^ 

In  this  story  we  see  clearly  that  the  new  sun-god  of 
this  year,  the  victor  in  the  chariot  and  foot  races  at  the 
funeral  games,  belonged  to  a  different  race  from  that  in 
which  he  was  born,  in  what  the  Buddha  of  the  Jataka,  or 
birth  stories,  would  call  his  former  births.  For  it  was  not 
till  Odusseus  had  lost  the  garments  of  the  sun-god  of  the 
year  of  the  eight-days  week,  who  was  slain  by  the  trident 
of  Poseidon  at  the  end  of  the  epoch  of  his  rule,  the  im- 
penetrable tunic,  the  cup  of  darkness  and  the  double 
axe,  that  he  became  the  naked  sun-god  of  the  new  era, 
'  the  sun-god  who  rose  from  the  salt-waters  of  regeneration 
to  be  the  sun-god  born  of  the  olive-tree,  the  immortal  ruler 
of  time. 

'  For  further  evidence  as  to  the  history  of  the  year-god  Odusseus,  god  of 
the  path  (58o5)  of  Time,  told  in  the  m3rthology  of  Ino  and  the  kredemnon, 
see  Appendix  C. 

•  Homer,  Odyssey,  v.  333— 350i  372»  373i  382— 38S,  459,  460,  476—493- 

L  1 


514  History  and  Chronology 

It  is  to  this  age,  when  Poseidon  was  the  enemy  of  the  son- 
god  of  the  post-lunar  age,  and  ruler  of  time  during  the  lunar- 
solar  epoch  when  he  owned  the  horses  of  the  sun,  that  the 
thirteen-months  year  of  Otus  and  Ephialtes  must  be  referrei 
They  were  the  reputed  sons  of  Aloeus,  the  god  of  the  salt 
sea,  the  son  of  Poseidon,  who  was  also  the  father  of  his 
twin  sons,  the  god  of  the  thirteen-months  year.  Their 
description  in  Homer  marks  them  as  dating,  like  thdr 
counterparts  the  twin  stars  Gemini,  from  the  age  of  the 
cycle-year.  For  when  they  were  nine  years  old  they  were 
nine  cubits  broad  across  the  shoulders,  and  three  fathoms, 
three  times  nine,  or  twenty-seven  cubits  high.  They  rebelled 
against  the  gods,  declaring  they  would  make  a  path  to  heaven 
by  piling  mountains  on  mountains,  that  is  to  say,  they 
changed  in  their  thirteen-months  year  the  course  of  the 
year  path  which  led  to  heaven,  and  made  it  no  longer  the 
path  of  the  sun,  but  that  marked  by  the  new  and  full-moons. 
Thus  in  this  year  they  bound  Ares,  the  ploughing  {ar)  god 
of  increase,  in  chains  for  thirteen  months,  but  they  were 
slain  before  they  attained  manhood  by  Apollo,  that  is  to 
say  their  system  of  year-measurement  was  rejected.  Ares 
was  released  from  his  captivity  by  Hermes,  the  god  of  the 
gnomon -pillar,  who  was  warned  of  his  captivity  by  the 
step-mother  of  Ares,  Eeriboia,  the  mist  or  cloud-goddess'. 

This  captivity  of  Ares,  brought  about  by  the  two  giant 
twins  born  of  the  salt  sea,  forms  of  the  constellation  Gemini, 
which  was,  in  this  age,  the  guiding  station  of  the  sun's  entry 
on  his  yearly  circuit  of  the  heavens,  appears  in  a  variant 
form  in  the  ballad  recited  by  Demodokos,  at  the  banquet 
in  which  Alkinoos  proclaimed  himself  the  thirteenth  and 
chief  ruler  of  Phaeacia,  the  supreme  centre  month  among 
his  twelve  subordinate  chiefs.  Demodokos  told  how  the  sun 
warned  Hephaistos,  the  god  of  the  fire-drill,  that  Aphrodite, 
the  fire-socket,  the  earth-goddess,  had  deserted  him  for 
Ares,  the  ploughing-god  of  the  plough  constellation  of  the 

'  Homer,  Odyssey ^  xi.  305 — 320;  Iliad^  v.  386 — 391. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  515 

Great  Bear.  He  accordingly  prepared  a  web  to  catch  this 
warrior  sun-god,  described  as  the  fastest  runner  of  the  gods, 
and  his  paramour  from  which  they  could  not  free  themselves, 
and  summoned  the  gods  to  behold  them  in  the  year-net 
he  had  made  for  them.  Hermes  and  Apollo  came  together 
with  Poseidon,  but  the  sun-god  and  the  god  of  the  gnomon- 
pillar  made,  in  this  version  of  the  story,  no  effort  to  free 
this  sun-dog,  to  whom  dogs  were  offered  as  the  year-god 
Sirius,  and  it  was  at  the  intercession  of  Poseidon,  who, 
through  his  twin  sons  was  the  creator  of  the  thirteen-months 
year,  that  Ares  was  released.  The  web  in  which  Hephaistos 
bound  the  warrior  year-sun  and  his  paramour,  the  Aminah 
of  the  story  of  Sakhr  and  Solomon's  ring,  was  clearly  the 
year-circle  of  the  lunar  phases,  which  kept  the  sun  from  its 
Northern  and  Southern  solstitial  paths ;  and  that  this  is  the 
correct  solution  is  made  most  probable  by  Homer's  state- 
ment that  Ares,  when  released,  went  North  to  Thrace,  and 
Aphrodite,  who,  like  Aminah,  ruled  the  South,  went  to 
Paphos  in  Cyprus,  where  the  three  Charitcs,  the  year  mother- 
goddesses  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  bathed  her  in  the 
regenerating  waters  of  the  Southern  sea,  and  re-robed  her 
as  the  sun-mother  of  the  released  and  ruling-sun '. 

We  find  also  a  picture  of  the  sun-god  of  this  era  in  the 
stories  of  the  marriage  of  Hippodameia  to  Pclops,  and  of  the 
battle  between  the  Centaurs  and  the  Lapithae,  which  took 
place  when  Hippodameia  was  wedded  to  Pirithoos.  This 
year-goddess  Hippodameia,  the  tamer  of  horses,  daughter 
of  CEnomaus,  the  only  (01V09,  Lat.  unus)  measurer,  the  Pole 
Star  god,  is  another  form  of  the  goddess  Hippolyte,  she  who 
is  released  by  horses,  wife  of  Acastus.  She  is  the  indepen- 
dent moon-goddess,  the  Here  or  mistress  who  is  wedded  to 
the  sun-god,  and  her  wedding  is  thus  clearly  distinguished 
from  the  wedding  of  the  parent-gods  of  the  year  of  eight-day 
weeks,  when  the  moon-father-god  was  married  to  Suria,  the 
sun-maiden.     In    the  chronology   of  the   present  year  the 

'  Homer,  Odyssey^  viii.  265 — 366. 
L    1   2 


5i6  History  and  Chronology 

moon  has  become  the  female  goddess  of  the  Southeni 
nations,  and  is  no  longer  the  male  moon  of  the  North, 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  sun  has  become  the  ruling 
king  of  the  North  born  of  the  Thigh  and  not  the  sun-bird 
of  the  South. 

In  the  story  of  the  wedding  of  Pelops  to  Hippodameia, 
she  is  won  from  her  father  CEnomaus  in  a  race  of  chariots 
drawn  by  four  horses,  like  those  on  the  Indian  racecourse. 
Pelops  won  the  race  by  bribing  Myrtilus,  the  charioteer  of 
CEnomaus,  to  take  out  the  linch-pins  of  his  master's  chariot, 
and  thus  he  escaped  the  fate  of  his  thirteen  predecessors,  who 
were  slain  by  the  conquering  CEnomaus.  In  the  present 
race  CEnomaus  was  killed  by  falling  from  his  broken  chariot, 
as  Eumelus  his  counterpart  in  the  race  with  Diomede 
was  also  disabled.  In  the  frieze  at  Olympia  depicting  the 
preparations  for  the  contest,  there  are  thirteen  figures,  that 
of  Zeus  in  the  centre  with  six  figures  on  each  side  of  him, 
those  of  Pelops  and  his  friends  on  one  side,  and  those  of 
CEnomaus  and  his  supporters  on  the  other  ^.  Thus  these 
thirteen  months  are  exactly  arranged  like  those  in  the 
Vedic  cosmological  hymn,  I.  164,  15,  with  the  supreme  month 
in  the  centre,  and  the  six  paired  months  on  the  two  sides. 
In  this  hymn  the  central  seventh  month  alone  is  self-created, 
the  others  are  said  to  be  born  by  divine  ordinance,  and 
each  discharges  the  functions  alloted  to  it  by  the  Creator. 
This  central  month  occupies  the  position  assigned  to  Jaistha 
(May— June)  in  the  ceremonies  of  this  year,  for  it  was  on 
its  full  moon,  about  the  ist  June,  that  the  twenty-one  and 
seventeen  versed  hymns  are  chanted  at  the  morning  and 
mid-day  services  of  the  Keshava  -  panlya  or  ceremonial 
shaving  of  the  king,  who  offers  the  New  Year  sacrifices. 

This  is  the  month  called  Krodha  in  the  list  of  the  thirteen 
months  of  this  year,  called  in  the  Mahabharata  the  thirteen 
wives  of  Kashyapa,  father  of  the  Kushite  race.  They  are : 
I.  Aditi,  2.  Diti,  3.  Danu,  4.  Kala,  5.  Danayu,  6.  Sinhika, 

'  Frazer,  Pausanias,  v.  10,  2,  vol.  i.  p.  250  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  505. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  517 

7.  Krodha,  8.  Pradha,  9.  Vishva,  10.  Vinata,  11.  Kapila» 
12.  Muni,  13.  Kadru.  That  Krodha,  the  central  month 
of  this  year,  is  one  close  to  the  summer  solstice  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  Pradha,  the  eighth  month,  is  said  to  be  the 
mother  of  the  thirteen  Apsarus  or  water-goddesses,  that  is 
of  the  month  in  which  the  rains  beginning  at  the  summer 
solstice  are  most  violent  ^. 

The  frieze  at  Elis  illustrating  the  fights  between  the 
Centaurs  and  the  long-haired  Lapithae  at  the  wedding  of 
Hippodameia  with  Pirithous  also  apparently  refers  to  the 
traditional  history  of  this  year.  It  contains  twenty -one 
figures,  of  which  the  central  is  Apollo.  He  must  certainly 
be  Apollo  Paean,  the  sun-god  of  this  epoch,  the  sun-physician 
of  the  Paeonians,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  measured  time  by 
the  thirteen-months  year.  On  the  right  of  Apollo  is  a  group 
in  which  Pirithous,  the  runner  (thoiis)  round  {peri)  the 
circling-sun,  the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  Hindu  Parikshit, 
who  was  king  of  the  Lapithae,  defends  Hippodameia  from 
a  Centaur ;  and  on  his  left  is  another  group,  in  which 
Theseus  rescues  from  a  Centaur  a  woman,  apparently  Hip- 
podameia's  mother  « 

In  this  battle  in  which  the  Centaurs  were  defeated  we  see 
a  picture  of  the  struggle  between  the  long-haired  race  of  the 
Lapithae,  the  men  from  whom  the  Sura  was  bought  at  the 
Vajapeya  sacrifice,  and  the  Centaurs,  sons  of  the  sun-horse, 
who  polled  their  hair  and  drank  milk  till  Pholos,  the  guard- 
ian of  the  national  cask  of  the  waters  of  life,  the  sacred  tree- 
trunk  Drona  containing  the  Soma,  opened  it  for  Herakles 
when  the  water  came  forth  as  wine.  It  was  when  the  vine 
of  Dionysos  and  the  Gis-kin  or  palm-tree,  whence  Dumuzi 
was  born  3,  became  the  parent-trees  in  the  days  of  Samlah 
of  Masrekah,  the  vine  lands  that,  according  to  Pindar,  the 
Centaurs  "  learnt  the  sparkle  of  the  honey-sweet  wine  and 


*  Mahabharata  Adi  {^Savibhava)  Parva,  cxv.  pp.  185,  187. 

^  Frazer,  Pausanias^  vol.  iii.  pp.  516 — 522. 

3  Sayce,  Ilibbcrt  Lectures  for  1887,  Lect.  iv.  p.  238,  note  2, 


5i8  History  and  Chronology 

pushed  the  milk  from  their  tables »."  The  stories  of  this 
series  are  shown  to  refer  to  the  question  of  the  sacramental 
drink  consumed  at  the  seasonal  festivals  by  the  name  of 
Pholus.  It  is  the  iEolic  form  of  yiXo^  y^^o^^  meaning  the 
golden-green,  and  is  an  exact  translation  of  the  epithet 
Hari-Zairi,  used  in  the  Z enclaves ta  to  denote  Soma.  Also 
Pholus  is  proved  to  be  the  Soma-god  filling  the  cups  of 
the  seasons  by  the  triple  flagon  {rpiXdyvvov  Seiras^),  the  three- 
cupped  cup  of  the  three  seasons,  which  he  gave  to  Geryon, 
the  Phcenician  Charion,  the  star  Orion  ruling  the  year 
of  three  seasons «.  The  Centaurs  were  apparently  of  the 
same  race  as  the  milk-drinking  Massagetae.  who,  according 
to  Herodotus,  worshipped  only  the  sun-god,  to  whom  they 
offered  horses  3.  They  on  reaching  the  country  of  the 
Lapithae,  whose  name  means  the  Plunderers  or  Destroyers 
(lap,  XaTra^o),  to  plunder),  the  fierce  long-haired  men  of  the 
Ugro-Finn  race,  the  Ugrosena  of  the  eleven-months  year, 
attacked  them,  and  the  war  ended  in  a  union  between  the 
two  races,  in  which  the  Northern  sons  of  the  sun-horse  took 
the  leading  place.  Their  union  is  marked  in  the  Vajapeya 
sacrifice  by  the  addition  of  the  pure  Soma  to  the  intoxi- 
cating Sura  of  the  long-haired  race.  But  in  the  contest 
there  was  developed  a  belief  in  a  more  refined  symbolism 
than  that  of  the  realistic  representations  of  the  gods  of 
the  Lapithae  phallus-worshippers,  the  linga-worshippers  of 
India,  called  in  the  Rigveda  Sisna-deva,  or  those  whose 
god  is  the  phallus.  Hence  after  the  defeat  of  the  Centaurs 
by  the  Lapithae,  when  the  year  of  Hippodameia  with  its 
seven-day  weeks  was  introduced,  the  Centaur  archer-god 
Eurytion,  the  rainbow-god,  was  thrown  out  of  doors  and 
his  nose  and  ears  were  cut  off 4.  That  is  to  say,  he  was 
made  like  Melanthios,  the  goat-herd-god  of  the  suitors  whom 

*  Pindar,  Fm^,   147,  Boeckh,   ii.   637 ;    Meyer,   /ndo   Germainsche  Mytken 
Gandliarva  Kcutauria,  p.  41. 

=  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay  vi.,  pp.  549 — 55 1. 
•*  Herodotus,  i.  216 

*  Homer,  Odyssey^  xxi.  295 — 303. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  519 

Odusseus  treated  in  the  same  way,  the  featureless  sun-gnomon 
pillar,  the  Hir-men-sul,  the  great  sun-stone  of  the  North ; 
and  the  pillar-worship  of  the  Fhcenicians  replaced  the  idol- 
worship  of  the  lunar  solar-era. 


E.     The  thirteen-months  year  of  the  SantalSy  the  thirteen 
wives  of  Kashyapa  and  the  thirteen  Buddhist  Theres, 

This  year  of  thirteen  months  is  the  sacred  year  of  the 
Santals^  and  its  adoption  by  them  throws  a  most  vivid  light 
on  its  history.  They  are  physically  nearly  a  pure  Dravidian 
race,  of  very  dark  complexions,  with  flat  noses,  large  mouths, 
thick  lips,  black  somewhat  curly  hair  and  doliko-kephallic 
skulls ;  and  their  traditional  history  shows  that  on  the 
father's  side  they  were  descended  from  Northern  ancestors. 
They  call  themselves  the  sons  of  the  wild-goose  {kasduk), 
and  their  original  settlement  in  India  was,  they  say,  at 
Champa  on  the  Ganges,  which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
capital  of  Karna^  king  of  Anga,  and  the  Angiras  priesthood. 
Their  chief  god  is  Marung  Buru^  the  great  mountain 
{fnarting)y  the  equivalent  of  the  mother-mountain-goddess 
Su-bhadra  and  the  Gond  mountain-mother  Koi  or  Koh 
{kai'kaia).  They  trace  their  descent  on  the  father's  side 
from  the  god  Moreko,  the  peacock  {mor)  god,  one  of  five 
brothers,  the  five  Pandava  brethren  called  the  Bharatas, 
born  of  the  peacock  [inayura  Hindi  mohr),  the  totem-god 
of  the  Bhars  and  the  Maurya  or  Peacock  kings.  Their 
maternal  ancestors  are  the  two  sisters  of  these  brethren, 
Jair  Era,  goddess  of  the  village-grove  (jahir)  and  Gosain 
Era,  the  saintly  {gosain)  goddess.  Thus  they  say  that  their 
separate  nationality  dates  from  the  age  when  the  peacock 
with  its  starry  tail  became  the  sacred  bird  of  Here,  the  moon- 
goddess,  and  when  men  began  to  measure  the  year  by 
the  track  of  the  moon  and  sun  through  the  zodiacal  stars. 
They  used  to  sacrifice  human  victims,  and  the  story  of  their 
descent  shows  that  they  belong  to  the  race  of  Kansa,  the 
goose-son  of  Ugra-sena,  the  Bhoja  king  ;  that  is  to  say  that 


520  History  and  Chronology 

their  Northern  ancestors  on  the  father's  side  were  the  Ugro- 
Altaic  Finns,  who  have,  as  Dr.  Sayce  tells  us,  from  time 
immemorial  used  a  year  of  thirteen  lunar  months,  whidi 
they  apparently  derived  from  the  Turkic  tribes,  and  who 
introduced  the  seven-days  week  among  the  Akkadians  ^ 
They  brought  into  Southern  Asia  their  knowledge  of  metab 
and  ores,  and  their  handicrafts  as  workers  in  gold  and  silver, 
leather,  fibres  and  wood. 

The  Finn  ancestors  of  the  Santals  who  came  to  India  with 
this  influx  of  artisan  immigrants  arc  shown,  by  the  Santal 
customs,  to  be  nearly  allied  to  the  patriarchal  anceston 
of  the  Kandhs  of  Orissa,  as  in  both  tribes  property  descends 
in  the  male  line.  The  matriarchal  side  of  Santal  descent 
is  shown  in  their  marriage  ceremonies,  in  which  both  bride 
and  bridegroom  are  separately  married  to  a  mahua-trec 
(Bassta  latifolia\  |the  tree  whence  the  honey  drink  of  the 
age  of  the  Ashvins  was  brewed,  and  in  the  orgiastic  fes- 
tivals with  which  they  celebrate  the  changes  of  the  seasons, 
especially  those  of  the  Sohrai  at  the  winter  solstice  and 
the  Magh  festival  of  January — February.  Also  one  of  their 
principal  septs  is  that  of  the  Sarens  or  descendants  of  the 
Pleiades,  and  among  the  Saren  clan  the  Naiki-Khil  Sarens 
are  a  sect  of  incipient  Lcvites  who  arc  so  careful  to  preservt 
their  purity  that  they  will  not  enter  a  house  where  any  of 
the  inmates  are  ceremonially  unclean,  and  have  a  special 
village  grove  and  priest  of  their  own. 

All  the  Santals,  both  women  and  men,  worship  as  family- 
gods  the  seven  Orakbonga,  called  i.  Baspahar,  2.  Deswali, 
3.  Sas,  4.  Goraya,  5.  Barpahar,  6.  Sarchawdi,  7.  Thunta- 
tursa.  These  seven  days  of  the  week  are  embodiments 
of  the  mountain  {pahar)  goddess,  the  goddess  of  the  village 
grove  {des-wali)  and  the  boundary-god  {goraya)^  and  most 
probably  were  originally  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
worshipped  as  the  Seven  Sisters  by  their  congeners  the 
Rautias  2,  and  they  are  certainly  parallel  deities  to  the  seven 

*  Sayce,  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Language,  vol.  ii.  pp.  195,  196. 

*  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal y  Kautia,  vol.  iL  p.  204. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  §21 

communal  ghosts  worshipped  by  the  BhuTyas,  called  Darha, 
Kudra,  Kudri,  Dano,  Pacheria,  Haserwar,  Pakahi '.  Here 
Darha  or  Dharti,  the  goddess  of  the  springs,  is  the  Kushika 
mother  Gandhari,  the  Pole  Star  Vega  ;  Kudra,  is  the  moon- 
goddess  ruling  our  Monday,  and  Dano  is  the  Pole  Star 
judge,  the  earlier  form  of  Odin,  the  god  of  wisdom  ruling 
our  Wednesday. 

But  though  these  gods  of  the  seven  days  are  generally 
worshipped  openly  by  both  sexes  in  each  family  as  a  survi- 
val from  the  days  when  they  represented  the  seven  stars  of 
the  Great  Bear,  the  ritual  of  the  worship  of  the  thirteen 
months  of  the  year  called  Abge-bongas  is  preserved  as  a 
profound  secret  among  the  male  Santals,  their  names  being 
only  known  to  the  head  of  each  family  and  his  eldest  son. 
They  can  only,  like  Sek  Nag,  the  secret  god  of  the  Raj 
Gonds,  be  worshipped  by  males,  but  not  like  Sek  Nag  by  the 
males  of  the  tribe  assembled  together,  but  by  the  males 
of  each  family  separately,  who  partake  together  of  the  offer- 
ings made.  Their  names  are  i.  Dhara-sor  or  Dhara-sanda, 
2.  Ketkomkudra,  3.  Champa-dena-gurh,  4.  Gurhsinka,  5.  Lila- 
chandi,  6.  Dhanghara,  7.  Kudra  Chandi,  8.  Bahara,  9.  Duar- 
seri,  10.  Kudraj,  11.  Gosain  Era,  12.  Achali,  13.  Deswah'. 
Here  the  thirteenth  goddess  is  the  queen  of  the  village  grove, 
the  mother-tree,  the  equivalent  of  Kadru,  mother  of  the  Na- 
gas,  the  thirteenth  wife  of  Kashyapa.  But  the  predominant 
god  in  the  list  is  the  moon-god,  especially  the  centre  seventh 
moon-goddess,  Kudra-Chandi.  In  her  name  we  find  both 
the  Hindu  word  for  moon  Chandi  and  the  Finnish  Ku,  which 
appears  in  the  Finnic  Kuta-ma,  the  Esthonian  Ku,  Mordvin 
Kua,  Ostiak  Khoda-j,  and  in  Kuhu,  a  name  for  the  waning 
moon  in  the  Atharvaveda  2,  also  in  Ku-ar,  the  name  of  the 
month  Ashvayujau  (September — October)  in  Western  India. 
It  is  also  noticeable  that  the  names  of  the  two  months  of 
generation,  the  tenth  Kudraj  and  the  eleventh  Gosain  Era, 

*  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  cj  Bengal y  Bhuiyas,  vol.  i.  p.  115. 
'  Lenormant,   ChalcUcan  Magic^  p.  304,  Atharvaveda,  v.  8,  47 ;    Ladwig* 
RigvedOf  voL  ill.  p.  189. 


522  History  and  Chronology 

are  masculine  and  feminine,  and  denote  the  marriage  of 
the  male  moon  -  god,  the  Soma  of  the  Vedic  marri^ 
to  the  saintly  {gosain)  goddess  of  the  mother-tree,  sisttr 
of  J  air  Era,  goddess  of  the  village  grove.  The  name  of  di 
goddess-mother  is  the  equivalent  of  the  eleventh  Buddhist 
Theri,  Bhudda  Kaccani,  the  Golden  Saint '. 

The  comparison  between  the  Santal  names  of  these  tto 
teen  year-gods  and  those  of  the  thirteen  wives  of  KlashyajB 
is  most  interesting,  for  it  shows  the  hatred  with  which  tbe 
later  Hindus,  who  had  learnt  to  read  and  write,  regarded  the 
year  reckoning  brought  in  by  the  artisan  races,  who,  like  the 
Peruvians  and  ancient  Chinese,  kept  their  records  by  tiic 
Santal  method  of  knotted  cords,  the  Peruvian  Quipas'. 
This  feeling  is  shown  by  the  name  Krodha  anger,  and  Kriirii 
the  cruel  one,  given  to  the  central-goddess  of  the  Kushite 
year,  and  marks  how  deeply  the  memory  of  their  ruthless 
conquest  was  impressed  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  a  me- 
mory which  has  extended  far  beyond  India,  and  has  caused 
the  number  thirteen  to  be  looked  on  as  unlucky  all  over 
Europe. 

The  evidence  as  to  this  thirteen-months  year  given  by  its 
adoption    as   the   Santal    year  and    its    incorporation  into 
Buddhist  theology  as  the  year  of  the  thirteen  Theris,  headed 
by  Maha  Gotami  Pajapati,  the  sister  of  the  Buddha's  mother 
and  his  nurse,  seems  to  show  that  this  year  with  its  week 
of  seven  days  was  first  brought  to  India  by  the  Northern 
artisan  races,  who  settled  in  the  country  as  conquerors  in  the 
beginning   of  the   Bronze   Age;    and   that   the   seventeen- 
months  year,  into  which   the   seven-days  week  was  incor- 
porated, was  one  framed  by  the  ritualistic  priesthood,  who 
tried  to  unite  the  two  races  of  the  Northern  conquerors  and 
their  Southern  predecessors,  and  to  combine  the  conservative 
tendencies  of  the  races  who  wished  to  retain  the  orgiastic 
festivals  and  the  sacrifices  of  the  earlier  epochs  with  those 

*  Rislcy,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  Santals,  vol.  ii.  pp.  225 — 233. 
"  Prescott,  History  of  Peru  y  vol.  i.  p.  II2  ;  Lcgge,  Texts  of  Taoism  ;  S.B.E., 
vol.  xxxix.  p.  122. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  523 

rof    the    moral   reformers   who   set  their    faces    against    in- 
dulgence  in  strong  drink  and  the  licence  of  the   national 
■  festivals,  and  who,  under  the  influence  of  the  Hittite  Jain 
teachers,  insisted   on    moral    self-discipline.      It    was    these 
reformers  who  banished  strong  drink  from  the  Soma  sacri- 
fice,   and   changed   the   Soma    cup    from    the    Sautramani 
cup,    described    in    Chapter    VI.    pp.    322,   323,    made    of 
Kusha  grass,  fruits,  malted  barley,  rice,  and  millets,  mixed 
-HiW^i  spirits  and  milk  into  the  pure  cup  of  Indra,  made  of 
svreet  and  sour  milk,  barley,  and  running  water.     We  find 
a,  similar  change  in  the  composition  of  the  Greek  sacramental 
cup  of  Demeter.     This  called  the  Kuke5n  [icvKkwv)  is  said 
in  the  Iliad  to  be  made  of  barley-meal,  grated  cheese,  and 
Pramnion  wine,  and  to  this  Circe  added  honey  and  magical 
drugs  \     But  in  the  hymn  to  Ceres  the  wine  is  left  out,  and 
it  is  made  of  barley-meal  {oK^vra),  water,  and  mint,  and  this 
was  the  cup  drunk  at  the  Eleusinian  mysteries «.   This  change 
was  brought  about  by  the  sons  of  the  date-palm-tree,  the 
Tamar  of  the  Jews,  the  water-drinking  race  of  horsemen 
of    the   desert   who   made   the   cult  of  the  date-palm   the 
national  creed  of  the  Babylonians,  who  in  their  bas-reliefs 
represent  their  priest-kings  or  demi-gods  as  impregnating 
the  mother-palm-tree  with  the  pollen  of  the  male  tree.     The 
leaders  in  this  belief  in  the  virtues  of  temperance  in  drink 
were  the  tribe  called  the  Banu  Hanlfa,  meaning  they  who 
do  what  is  right,  to  which  Abram  is  said  in  the  Koran  to 
have  belonged.     They  called  a  mixture  of  dates,  butter,  and 
dry  curds,  named  Hals,  their  god,  and  said  that  they  lived 
by  eating  him  3.     In  short,  they  believed  that  the  life-giving 
spirit  of  the  living  God  was  incorporated  into  their  inmost 
nature   by  this   sacramental  meal  which   made  them   sons 
of  God.   .  It  was  these  water-drinkers,  who  took  the  name 

*  Homer,  Iliad^  xi.  624,  641;  Ibid.,  Odyssey,  x.  234,  316. 

"  Ibid.,  Cer,^  208  ;  Hewitt,  RtUing  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times^  vol.  i..  Preface, 

p.  xlviii. 

3  Palmer,  Qur^an,  chap.  ii.  129;  S.B.E.,  vol.  vi.  p.  19,  note  i  ;  Sachau, 
Alberuoi's  Chronology  of  Ancient  hations^  chap.  viii.  p.  193  ;  Burton,  Arabian 
Nights^  *  Story  of  Gharib  and  his  brother  Ajib,'  vol.  v.  pp.  215,  216. 


524  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  Hanifa  or  the  Righteous,  who  made  Bhishma  and 
Valarania,  and  the  ruling  races  of  India  represented  by  these 
mythic  sun  and  moon-gods,  sons  of  the  date-palm ;  and  it 
was  the  union  between  these  reformers,  who  introduced 
among  the  upper  class  in  India  the  belief  in  the  duty  of 
abstinence  from  strong  drink,  and  the  earlier  and  moie 
savage  invaders  of  the  age  of  the  eleven- months  3^ar,  whid 
was  commemorated  in  the  ritual  of  the  Vajapeya  and  Raja- 
suya  consecration  sacrifices.  In  the  latter  of  these  tlie 
king,  newly  consecrated  on  a  tiger-skin  as  the  son  of  the 
tiger,  runs  a  chariot  race  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  four  horses^ 
and  as  he  ascends  the  chariot  claims  to  be  an  avatar  A 
the  Mahabharata  god  Arjuna^. 

F.     The  years  of  seventeen  and  thirteen  months  in  the 

Mahabharata  chronology. 

To  obtain  further  insight  into  the  history  of  this  year  we 
must  turn  to  the  Mahabharata.  There  we  find  its  origift 
mythically  attributed  to  the  fifth  year  of  the  Pandavas*  exile 
of  thirteen  years.  It  was  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  year  that 
they  went  Northward,  as  the  gods  of  the  year  they  began 
in  the  South,  on  their  tour  of  pilgrimage  of  the  sacred  shrines 
described  in  the  Tirtha-yatra  sections  of  the  Vana  or  Forest 
Canto.  They  reached  the  Northern  point  of  their  year's 
journey  in  the  Himalayas  on  the  seventeenth  day  of  their 
departure  from  the  South,  and  remained  for  seven  days,  the 
first  week  of  this  year,  at  the  GLandha-madana,  the  grove 
of  intoxicating  odours,  near  the  mount  Mainaka,  bom  of 
Meneka,  the  moon-goddess  who  measures  {tnen)  time*.  It 
was  there  that  they  were  joined  by  Arjuna,  the  god  of  the 
rainy  season  of  the  summer  solstice,  who  then  returned  to 
earth  from  his  five  years'  sojourn  in  Indra's  heaven. 

The  traditional  history  of  this  year  is  told   in  the  story 
of  Skanda,  the  sun-lizard,  the  god  who  was,  as  we  have  seen 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,  v.  4,  3,  i  flf.  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  98  ff. 

^  Mahabharata  Vana  (  YaksJui'  Yudhd)  Parva,  civil. ,  dxiv.  pp.  467,  46S,  497* 


of  t/ie  Myth' Making  Age.  525 

In  Chapter  V.  p.  279,  born  from  the  kettle  of  Kesari-tar.  In 
the  Mahabharata  story  he  is  the  son  of  Svaha,  the  daughter 
of  Prajapati  disguised  as  one  of  the  Pleiades  and  of  Agni, 
in  other  words,  the  god  born  of  the  union  of  the  matriarchal 
and  patriarchal  races,  sons  of  the  household  fire,  the  sun-god 
born  of  the  fire-flame.  He  was  born  in  the  land  of  Chaitra- 
ratha,  that  is,  in  the  land  ruled  by  the  star  Virgo  {Chitrd)y 
which  ruled  the  year  of  eleven  months,  and  was  called 
Kartikeya,  the  son  of  the  Krittakas  or  Pleiades.  He  was 
a  god  of  six  faces,  looking  North,  South  East,  and  West, 
to  the  zenith  and  the  nadir,  who  worshipped  the  sun-cock, 
that  is  to  whom  cocks,  the  offerings  to  the  sun-physician, 
were  sacrificed.  This  god,  also  called  Guha,  the  concealed 
one,  whose  sixth  face  was  that  of  the  Pole  Star  goat,  was 
attacked  by  Indra.  From  the  blow  of  the  thunderbolt  of  the 
god  of  the  rainy  season  the  second  Skanda,  the  god  Visakha, 
was  bom  as  the  ruler  of  the  month  March — April,  called 
after  him,  the  first  of  the  two  months  preceding  the  rainy 
season,  and  the  mid- month  of  the  Pleiades  year.  It  was 
after  the  birth  of  Visakha  on  the  fifth  day  of  the  bright  half 
of  Visakha  that  the  son  of  Skanda  and  seven  mothers,  the 
seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  called  Sisu,  the  child  of  the 
eight-rayed  star,  was  born  as  the  ninth  god  Kumara,  whom 
I  have  described  in  p.  498  as  the  god  of  this  year  ^. 

Skanda  was  married  to  Devasena,  known  by  the  eight 
names  of  Shashti,  Lakshmi,  Asa,  Sukhaprada,  Sinivali, 
Kuhu,  Satvritti  and  Aparajata,  that  is  to  the  goddess  of 
the  eight-rayed  star-mother  of  the  child  Sisu,  the  eighth 
ruling  god  of  a  year  measured  by  the  waxing  moon  Sinivali 
and  the  waning  moon  Kuhu,  the  year  of  new  and  full-moon 
sacrifices.  After  his  marriage  he  went  out  to  lead  the  seventh 
army  corps  of  heaven  in  its  search  for  a  ruler  of  time  to 
replace  Abhijit,  that  is  the  star  Vega,  who  had  ceased  to  be 
the  Pole  Star,  showing  that  the  rule  of  Skanda  was  after 


*  Mahabharata  Vana  (Mdrkaftdeya-Samdsyd)  Parva,  ccxxxii. — ccxxxvii.  pp. 
679—691. 


526  History  and  Chronology 

8ocx)  B.C.  and  during  the  age  when  the  Pole  Star  was  ia 
Hercules.  It  was  then  that,  according  to  the  Mahabharata 
story,  the  Krittakas  or  Pleiades  were  made  the  rulers  of 
heaven  succeeding  Abhijit  {Yegd).  Under  their  rule  the 
thirteen  wives  of  Kashypa,  the  thirteen  months  of  this  year, 
were  made  mothers  of  heaven  ;  and  of  them  Vinata  the 
tenth,  Aditi,  Diti,  the  mother  of  the  Asuras  and  Kadrii,  the 
mother  of  the  Nagas,  are  named,  and  they  are  said  to  be 
worshipped  as  Kadamba  or  almond-trees,  the  sacred  tree 
of  the  Ooraons  and  Kharwars.  It  was  after  the  installatiofl 
of  this  new  age  that  Skanda  and  Visakha  (April — May) 
destroyed  the  Danava  sons  of  the  Pole  Star  god  and  theff 
leader  Mahisha,  the  buffalo,  who  was,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  349)1 
once  the  god  Indra  ;  and  Skanda  became  after  his  victory  the 
god  with  the  fifty-one  names  recorded  in  the  Mahabharata, 
that  is  the  ruling  god  of  this  year  of  seventeen  months  and 
fifty-one  weeks  of  seven  days  each  *. 

This  year  of  Skanda  appears  also  in  the  history  of  the 
Pandavas  in  the  account  of  the  attempted  rape  of  Drupadi 
by  Jayadratha,  which  took  place  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
year  of  the  Pandava  exile,  and  after  Durvasa  the  ill-omened 
{dur^  emissary  of  Duryodhana,  Dusshasana,  Kama  and 
Shakuni,  the  gods  of  the  four  seasons  of  the  eleven-months 
year,  had  fled  from  Krishna,  who  was  on  his  arrival  especially 
summoned  by  Drupadi  to  replenish,  as  the  creator  of  time, 
her  "sun-vessel,"  the  beggar-bowl  of  the  Buddha,  "which 
till  then  always  remained  full  after  she  had  eaten."  She 
besought  Krishna  to  refill  the  exhausted  bowl  so  as  to 
enable  her  to  give  a  meal  to  Durvasa  and  his  attendants, 
which  they  would  not  stay  to  eat  2.  The  revolution  in  time- 
reckoning,  fore-shadowed  in  this  refilling  of  the  exhausted 
sun-bowl,  was  that  caused  by  the  arrival  of  Jayadratha, 
who  arrived  close  to  the  Pandavas  camp  after  the  reinstal- 


*  Mahabharata  Vana  (Maskandcya-Samasya)  Parva,  ccxxviii.,  ccxxix.,  ccxxLi 
pp.  695—710. 

'  Mahabharata  Vana  (tr^Ma-^a/rd)  Parva,  cclvii.,  cclxi.  pp.  763,  777 — 779. 


.of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  527 

lation  of  Drupadi  by  Krishna.  He  was  king  of  the  moon 
{sifi)  kingdom  of  Sin-dhu,  who  drove  in  his  chariot  horses 
of  the  Saindhava  or  moon-breed,  which  were  in  the  story 
of  Nila  and  DamayantT  driven  by  Nila  and  Rituparna,  the 
ruler  of  the  seasons  (f //«),  when  Nala  learnt  the  art  of  time- 
calculation  under  the  Arjuna  {Terminalia  belericd)  tree. 
Jaj^dratha  ruled  the  Sau-viras,  the  sons  of  the  mother-bird 
Su,  and  as  leader  of  this  year  of  thirteen  months  he  was 
followed  by  twelve  Sau-vira  princes  named  Angarika, 
Kunjara,  Guptaka,  Satrunjaya,  Srinjaya,  Suprabiddha 
{buddhaY),  Prabhankara,  Bhramara,  Ravi,  Sura,  Pratapa, 
Kuhana.  He  whose  banner  was  the  silver  boar »,  the  moon- 
year-god,  was  the  son  of  Vriddha-kshatra,  the  old  (vrtddhd) 
field  {kslietra\  and  the  husband  of  Dus-shala,  the  hundred 
and  first  child  and  only  daughter  bom  from  the  egg  laid 
by  Gandhari,  the  Pole  Star  Vega,  wife  of  Dhritarashtra ». 
She  was  the  Hindu  counterpart  of  Dinah,  the  female  form 
of  Dan,  the  Pole  Star  judge,  and  the  thirteenth  child  and 
only  daughter  of  Jacob. 

Jayadratha,  the  moon^-god,  the  silver-boar,  when  he  at- 
tempted to  carry  off"  Drupadi  was  seeking  for  a  bride 
to  replace  Dus-shala,  the  goddess  of  the  Kauravya  year 
of  eleven  months  ;  and  he  passed  the  Pandava  camp  while 
the  Pandava  princes  were  out  hunting,  each  of  them  as 
year-gods  ruling  the  seasons  of  the  year  having  gone, 
as  we  are  told  in  the  poem,  to  a  different  point  on  the 
horizon.  Yudishthira,  the  god  of  spring,  the  sun  rising  in 
the  East  between  the  winter  solstice  and  vernal  equinox, 
was  in  the  East ;  Bhima,  the  god  of  summer,  the  sun  com- 
ing from  the  South  to  reach  the  summer  solstice  in  the 
North  from  his  starting-point  in  the  South,  was  in  the 
South ;  Arjuna,  the  god  of  the  rainy  season  beginning  at 
the  summer  solstice,  was  in  the  West*;  and  the  twin-brethren 
Sahadeva  and  Nakula,  the  gods  of  autumn  and  winter,  were 

*  Mahabharata  Drona  (Abhimanyu-badha)  Parva,  xliii.  3,  p.  134. 
'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  cxvii.  p.  342. 


528  History  and  Chronology     . 

to  the  North,  the  point  from  which  they  started  for  their 
Southern  home. 

When  Jayadratha,  who  boasted  his  descent  from  the 
seventeen  high  clans,  the  seventeen  months  of  his  year, 
saw  Drupadi  leaning  on  a  Kadamba-almond-tree  as  the 
tree-mother  of  the  race  born  of  the  Kurum  almond,  the 
parent-tree  of  the  Ooraons  and  the  Jewish  prophet-priests, 
the  Kohathites,  and  of  the  thirteen  year-mothers  of  the 
year  of  Skanda  and  the  Kushika,  he  sent  an  emissary  to  try 
and  persuade  her  to  elope  with  him.  When  she  refused 
he  came  himself  with  six  followers,  as  the  year-god  of  the 
year  of  seven-day  weeks,  to  where  she  was  standing.  And 
when  she  declined  to  accompany  him  he  carried  her  off 
forcibly  and  placed  her  in  his  chariot. 

This  was  the  rape  of  the  goddess  of  the  Kurum-almond- 
tree  whose  sacred  river  was  the  Kurumnasa,  which  heralded 
the  fall  of  the  ancient  fi^ith  in  the  goddess  of  the  mother- 
tree  and  the  introduction  of  the  new  worship  of  the  rising 
white  horse,  the  sun  of  the  East,  who  succeeded  the  Pole 
Star  as  the  ruler  of  heaven  (p.  450). 

Jayadratha  was  followed  by  the  Pandavas  on  their  return, 
and  they  released  Drupadi  and  forced  Jayadratha  to  declare 
himself  the^  slave  of  the  Pandavas  and  the  god  of  their  year 
of  five  seasons.  When  he  escaped  from  his  captors  he 
implored  Shiva,  the  three-eyed-god,  for  aid  to  revenge  his 
defeat,  but  all  Shiva  would  grant  him  was  immunity  from 
death  at  the  hands  of  any  of  the  Pandavas,  except  Arjuna, 
and  one  victory  over  his  four  brethren  ^  As  for  Arjuna, 
Shiva  declared  that  he  was  the  counterpart  of  Vishnu,  the 
embodiment  of  the  primitive  water,  the  rain  impregnated 
with  the  soul  of  life  which  came  down  from  heaven  to  earth 
to  people  it  with  living  forms.  In  this  rhapsodical  panegyric 
we  have  apparently  a  historical  guide  mark,  showing  that 
in  this  year  the  fifth  or  rainy  season  was  added  to  the  four 


'  Mahabharata  Vana   {Draupadi-harana)   Parva,    cccxiii. — cclxxi.    pp.    780 
—801. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  529 

seasons  of  spring,  summer,  autumn  and  winter  of  the  eleven- 
months  year ;  and  we  find  in  this  further  proof,  in  addition 
to  those  already  given,  of  the  intimate  connection  between 
this  year  and  that  of  the  year  of  eleven  months. 

The  promise  of  the  short  career  of  victory  given  to 
Jayadratha  by  Shiva  was  fulfilled  in  the  eighteen-days 
battle  between  the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas.  When 
Abhimanyu,  the  son  of  Arjuna  and  Su-bhadra,  was  on  the 
day  of  his  death  overthrowing  all  the  foes  he  met,  Jayad- 
ratha checked  his  career,  and  defeated  in  single  combat 
Yudishthira  and  Bhima,  as  well  as  the  five  sons  of  Drupadl 
and  the  Panchala  chief  Dhrishthadyumna,  the  seen  {drishtha) 
bright  one  {dyumna).  But  he  met  his  doom  on  the  next 
day  after  Abhimanyu's  death,  the  fourteenth  day  of  the 
contest,  when  he  was  slain  by  Arjuna.  Arjuna  cut  off  his 
head  with  a  magical  shaft,  which  bore  the  head  to  the  lap 
of  Vriddha-kshatra,  the  Pole  Star  god,  and  thence  it  fell 
to  earth,  and  as  it  fell  the  head  of  the  Pole  Star  god  broke 
into  pieces,  and  his  career  as  the  world's  ruler  was  ended '. 
In  the  story  of  the  death  of  Jayadratha  and  Vriddha- 
kshatra,  and  the  miraculous  loss  of  the  head  of  the  former, 
we  have  a  parallel  to  the  disfigurement  of  Melanthios  and 
Eurytion.  Like  them  Jayadratha,  the  god  with  earrings 
ruling  the  year  of  the  new  and  full-moon  sacrifices,  was 
when  his  career  was  ended  changed  from  a  god  depicted 
in  human  form  to  be  the  sun-pillar  god. 

We  have  already  seen  in  the  history  of  the  thirteen-months 
year,  as  told  in  Santal  ritual,  that  it  came  to  India  during 
the  age  of  the  rule  of  Kansa,  the  goose-god  of  the  Ugro- 
Altaic  Finns,  and  this  conclusion  is  corroborated  in  the 
history  of  the  thirteen  Buddhist  Theris.  In  this,  as  recorded 
in  the  Manoratha  PuranI  of  Buddhaghosha,  we  are  told  that 
they  were  all  born  in  Hanisa-vati,  the  city  of  the  moon- 
goose  Hamsa  or  Kamsa,  when  Padumuttara,  the  Northern 

»  Mahabharata  Drona  {Abhimanyu-badha)  Paiva,  xliii.  pp.  133,  134,  {Jayad^ 
ratha-badha)  Parva,  cxlvi.  pp.  456,  457. 

M  m 


530  History  and  Chronology 

{utiara)  lotus  {paduma),  was  Buddha  ^.  He  was  the  thl^ 
teenth  Buddha,  that  is  to  say,  the  god  of  the  lunar-year 
of  thirteen  months,  whose  capital  was  Hamsa-vati,  the  son 
of  Ananda,  the  moon-bull-^od  Nanda,  and  of  Su-jata,  the 
goddess  who  consecrated  the  new-born  Buddha  under  the 
Nigrodha-tree  [Ficus  Indica),  the  parent-tree  of  the  Kushikas 
and  of  Kashyapa,  whose  wives  were  the  thirteen  months 
of  this  year.  Su-jata  gave  this  sun-god  of  the  Banyan  fig- 
tree  the  bowl  of  rice  cooked  with  the  milk  of  the  eight 
cow-stars  of  the  year  of  the  eight-days  week.  The  sacred 
tree  of  this  Northern  lotus-god  was  the  Sal-tree  {Skoru- 
robusta),  which  gave  birth,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  VTI. 
p.  464,  to  the  Buddha  who  entered  his  mother's  womb 
as  the  elephant-headed  rain-cloud,  the  god  Gan-isha« 

This  year  brought  into  Southern  Asia  by  the  Ugro-Altaic 
Finns  became  the  year  of  the  thirteen  children  of  Jacob, 
of  which  the  thirteenth  was  first  Dinah,  the  female  fonn 
of  Dan,  and  the  equivalent,  as  we  have  seen,  of  Dusshala, 
Jayadratha's  first  wife,  as  well  as  of  Kadru,  the  tree  [dn) 
mother  of  the  Nagas,  and  the  thirteenth  wife  of  Kashyapa. 
In  the  patriarchal  form  of  the  year  history  Dinah,  wife  of 
the  king  of  Shechem,  the  capital  of  Ephraim,  became  EphraiiB 
or  the  two  ashes  {epfira),  the  second  son  of  Joseph,  who  is 
represented  in  the  tribal  lists  by  his  eldest  son  Manasseh. 


G.     The  seventeen  and  thirteen-months  year  in  Egypt 

This  year  appears  in  Egyptian  mythology  in  Chapters 
CXLIV.— CXLVII.  of  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  describing 
the  journey  after  death  of  the  souls  of  Ani,  called  Ani- 
Osiris,  and  his  wife  Thuthu  through  the  Arits  and  Pylons 

'  Bode,  'Women  Leaders  of  the  Buddhist  Reformation.*  f.R.A.S.,  189^ 
p.  522  ff.  This  statement  as  to  the  birth  of  Maha  Pajapati  Gotami  is  repcatei 
in  the  life  story  of  each  successive  Theri.  Hewitt,  Kuiing  /iaces  of  Prfkistuft 
Times ^  vol.  ii. ,  Essay  vii. ,  pp.  69 — 83. 

»  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories:  The  NidanakathcLy  The  DistiS 
Epoch,  231,  p.  42. 


of  tJu  Myth' Making  Age,  531 

of  Sekhet  Aanre  to  the  house  of  Osiris  Nu,  the  god  of  the 
monthly  and  half-monthly  festivals  of  the  new  and  full- 
moons.  Sekhet  is  the  goddess  depicted  with  a  lion's  head 
and  also  as  a  scorpion  with  horns  and  a  disk.  She  is  sym- 
bolised in  astronomy  as  the  star  Antares  a  Scorpio  ruling 
the  autumnal  equinox,  and  the  temples  at  Thebes  dedicated 
to  her  as  Mat,  the  mother,  are  oriented  to  7  Draconis,  when 
it  was  the  nearest  rising  and  setting  star  to  the  Pole  Star  ^, 
It  was  the  seven  scorpions  sacred  to  this  lunar-goddess, 
called  Tefne,  Bene,  Mastet,  Mastetef,  Petet,  Thetet  and  Matet, 
which  showed  Isis  the  way  to  the  Papyrus  Marsh,  near  the 
crocodile  city  of  Pisni  sacred  to  Osiris.  She  was  there  to 
be  delivered  of  the  second  Horus,  the  sun-god,  the  older 
Horus  being,  as  we  have  seen,  the  son  of  Hat-hor,  the  earlier 
form  of  Isis  as  Nebt-hat,  the  mistress  of  the  house  {Jiat) 
dwelling  in  the  Pole  Star  2. 

The  souls  of  Ani  and  his  wife  pass  through  the  seven 
Arits  and  Pylons,  depicted  in  the  Papyrus  of  Ani,  illustrating 
the  Book  of  the  Dead,  as  stages  in  the  series  of  historical 
pictures  seen  by  the  souls  of  the  departed  on  their  way 
to  the  Elysian  fields.  In  these  are  portrayed  the  ritual  and 
symbolic  forms  of  the  successive  gods,  measurers  of  time,  who 
succeeded  the  original  tree  and  ape-gods  of  the  matriarchal 
age,  and  had  been  worshipped  as  rulers  of  time  by  the 
Egyptian  worshippers  of  the  household  fire,  the  sacrifice 
to  which  forms  the  subject  of  the  first  Vignette  of  the  series. 

The  first  and  second  Arits,  the  first  two  days  of  the  week 
of  this  year,  are  guarded  by  Sekhet,  and  the  remainder  by 
other  gods,  and  at  the  entrance  to  the  first  Arit,  a  hare,  the 
moon-hare,  a  serpent,  and  crocodile  are  sitting,  and  at  the 
second,  a  lion,  a  man,  and  a  dog,  who  also  guard  the  seventh 
Srit.  In  the  Vignette  of  the  Pylons  instead  of  twenty-one 
there  are  fourteen  shrines,  though  in  the  text  twenty-one 
Pylons    are    described,   thus    apparently  proving   that    the 


Lockyer,  Dcnvn  of  Astronomy ^  chap.  xxix.  pp.  289,  290. 

Bnigsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alien  jEgypter^  pp.  402 — ^404. 

M   m   2 


532  History  and  Chronology 

pictured  story  dates  from  the  earlier  age  of  the  thirteca- 
months  year,  while  the  verbal  text  was  composed  during 
the  time  when  the  year  of  seventeen  months  had  been  made 
the  national  ritualistic  year;  and  it  seems  to  be  all  but 
absolutely  certain  that  the  seven  Arits  and  fourteen  and 
twenty-one  Pylons  represent  the  weeks,  half-months,  and 
months  of  this  year '. 

The  year  of  the  sun-god  of  this  and  of  the  year  of  eight- 
day-weeks  is  apparently  that  called  in  Egyptian  mythologf 
the  year  of  the  Khepera,  the  beetle  whose   oval  body  0 

represents  the  union  of  two  crescent  moons,  that  is  to  sajr, 
it  depicts  a  year  in  which,  as  in  the  thirteen-months  year,  the 
months  began  with  the  new  moon.  The  birth  of  the  sun- 
god  of  this  year  called  Ra,  the  Kheper,  is  described  in  the 
account  given  by  Brugsch  of  the  picture  and  inscription  at 
Erment  telling  of  his  birth  ;  this  represents  it  as  taking 
place  in  Pharmuthi  (January — February).  His  mother  is 
in  the  pains  of  labour  supported  by  the  midwife  Renpit, 
the  year,  and  Nit  or  Neith,  the  vulture-weaving  («/itt) 
goddess,  the  constellation  Vega,  and  also  the  female  fonn 
of  Kheper,  the  beetle.  The  child  when  born  is  given  to 
a  waiting-woman  Menat,  meaning  the  breast,  that  is  to 
a  wet  nurse,  who  gives  it  to  Khnumet,  the  female  form  of 
the  architect-god  Khnum ;  and  Amen-Ra,  god  of  the  South, 
and  Rechebt,  the  Northern  goddess,  were  witnesses  of  the 
birth.  The  seven  Hat-hors  from  Upper  and  seven  from 
Lower  Egypt  fly  round  as  birds  to  protect  the  place  of 
birth.  They  were  the  seven  Khus,  the  masters  of  knowledge, 
raised  from  the  primaeval  water  by  the  eight  gods  of 
creation  to  be  the  directors  of  the  Meh-urt  cow,  the 
cow-goddess  {urt)  of  the  Flood  {meh\  that  of  the  era  of 
the  year  of  the  Ten  Kings  of  Babylon  of  Chapter  VIIm 
the  last  of  whom,  Xisuthros,  was  saved  from  the  flood. 
The  Meh-urt  cow  was  also  the  goddess  Nit.  The  Khus 
rose  on  earth  out  of  the  pupil  of  the  eye  of  the  rising  sun, 

*  Bujge,  Book  of  the  Dead^  Translation,  chaps,  cxliv.— cxlviii.  pp.  240—261. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  533 

and  ruled  the  world  with  the  god  Thoth  or  Dhu-ti,  the 
moon-bird.  They  were  the  seven  sparrow-hawks,  the  sun- 
birds,  and  the  seven  days  of  the  week  of  this  year  of  the 
beetle  ^ 

The  story  of  the  birth  of  this  sun-beetle  is  also  told  in 

Chapter  XVII.  of  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  where  he  is  said 

to   be  Ra,  who  gave  birth  to  himself,  and  rose  in  the  city 

of  Sutenhenen,  that  is  of  the  king  {suten)  of  advancing  time 

(Aenen),  as  the  god  Tem,  the  sun-god  of  day,  moving  from 

East  to  West.     He  came  forth  from  the  pool  of  Maat,  that 

IS  in  the  age  when  Vega  (Madt)  was  the  Pole  Star  in  the 

boat  in  which  Tem  goes  to  Sekhet  Aaru,  the  realm  of  the 

goddess  Sekhet  of  the  seven  scorpions.     He  passed  through 

the  gates  of  Shu,  the  fire-god,  called  Tchesert,  meaning  the 

gates  of  holy  things,  the  ^two  door-posts  of  heaven,  the  stars 

Gemini^  and  was  borne  in  the  arms  of  the  gods  Hu  and  Su, 

who  attend  upon  Ra.    They  are  described  as  the  two  drops 

of  blood  falling  from  the  phallus  of  Ra  when  he  mutilated 

himself,  that  is  became  the  sexless  sun-piUar-god.     Their 

names  are  the  dialectic  forms  of  the  primaeval  cloud-bird 

Khu^  the  two  birds  of  Night  and  Day,  who  in  Rg.  I.  164,  20, 

sit  on  the  top  of  the  world's  tree.     The  day  of  his  birth  is 

that  when  Horus  fought  with  Set,  and  when  Thoth  (Dhuti) 

emasculated  Set  and  brought  forth  and  healed  the  right  eye 

of   Ra.     This   god  of  the   rising   sun   was  born   from   the 

Meh  -  urt  cow,  the    vulture  -  goddess    Nit,    represented    in 

Vignette  VI II;  of  the  Papyrus  of  Ani,  with  disk  and  horns. 

His  eye  (utchat)  was  filled  by  Osiris  Ani,  after  it  had  been 

blinded  by  the  filth  cast  by  Set  at  Horus.     The  gods  of 

the  train  of  Horus,  who  were  summoned  by  Ra,  are  the  four 

sons  of  Horus,  the  four  stars  of  the  constellation  Pegasus, 

whom   he   addressed   as   followers   of  the  goddess   Hetep- 

sekhus,  that  is  of  the  sun  at  rest  {hetep),  the  setting  sun 

which  began  the  solstitial  year  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  and 

they   became   four  of  the   seven   Khus   who  attended   on 

»  Bragsch,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alien  ^gypier^  pp.  164,  1 16,  521. 


534  History  and  Chronology 

ilk 
Ra  when  he  declared  himself  to  be  the  divine  soul  dwdf 

ling  between  the   two  Tchafi,  the  Northern  and  Southail. 

sun,  and  also  the  divine   cat  who   fought   by  the   Persorr 

tree  when  the  foes  of  Neb-er-tcher,  the  lord   of  the  booi-f 


daries  {teller)^  were  destroyed.  He  is  finally  declared  to 
be  the  god  who  goes  round  heaven  robed  in  the  flame  of 
his  mouth,  who  commands  Hapi,  the  ape-god  of  the  Nile, 
He  is  Nemu,  the  reporter  of  Osiris,  Horus,  Thoth  {DhU'ti\ 
and  Anubis  rolled  into  one,  and  he  as  Kheper  is  watched 
over  by  the  mothers  I  sis  and  Nebt-hat,  who  are  called  in  line 
1 25  of  this  chapter  the  ape-goddesses'. 

Thus  this  conquering  sun-god  of  the  year  of  the  beetle, 
born  in  January — February,  when  he  came  from  the  pool 
of  the  Pole  Star  Vega  thi»ugh  the  gates  {tclusert)  of  the 
Twins,  the  stars  Gemini,  is  the  rising  sun,  son  of  the  sun-god 
of  the  eight-rayed  star,  the  eight  creating-gods,  who  was 
born  when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  in  January — February  and 
when  Vega  was  the  Pole  Star,  that  is  about  10,200  B.C., 
as  the  first  of  the  series  of  sun-gods  whose  evolution  has 
been  traced  in  this  Chapter  and  Chapter  VII.  He  was 
the  god  of  the  year  of  the  moon-cat,  who  ruled  the  second 
day  of  the  week  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer,  and  his  year  was 
controlled  by  Thoth  {Dhu-ti),  the  moon-god. 

The  sun-god  of  this  year  of  thirteen  months  also  appears 
in  Vignette  III.  of  the  Papyrus  of  Ani  as  Anubis,  the  Jackal 
of  the  constellation  of  the  Little  Bear,  who  tests  the  tongue 
of  the  Balance  in  which  the  soul  of  Ani  is  to  be  weighed  and 
judged  by  the  testing-god  and  his  twelve  colleagues,  who  are 
depicted  as  setting  behind  the  weighing  scales.  Their  judge- 
ment is  to  be  delivered  after  receiving  the  report  of  the 
weighing  given  by  Thoth  {Dhti-ti),  who  stands  ready  to 
prepare  it  with  the  scroll  in  his  left  and  the  pen  feather  in 
his  right  hand. 

The  representation  of  the  central  god  of  this  year  as 
Anubis,  the  jackal,  shows  that  this  thirteen-months  year 
belongs  to  the  second  stage  of  the  Horus  myth.     In  the  first 

'  Budge,  B^ok  of  the  Dcad^  chap.  xvii.  pp.  47—58. 


f 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  535 

lie  IS  the  bird-headed  sun-god,  born  of  Hat-hor,  and  his 
aissumption  of  the  head  of  the  jackal  marks  the  age  of 
"~  the  lunar  cult,  of  which  this  t hi r teen-months  year  is  the 
^  most  unequivocal  expression.  The  transition  from  the  bird- 
~  headed  to  the  jackal-headed  Horus  is  shown  in  the  figure 
~  found  in  Egyptian  temples  depicting  him  with  the  heads 
~  of  the  bird  and  the  Jackal '. 

The  connection  of  the  jackal-god  with  this  year  is  also 
preserved  in  the  Buddhist  cosmogony  of  the  thirteen  Theris, 
in  which  he  is  the  son  of  the  thirteenth  Theri  Sigala-Mata, 
the  mother  of  the  jackal.  The  Egyptian  biography  of  Ra 
also  shows  that  his  year  of  thirteen  months  was  made  the 
official  year  long  before  its  priestly  developement  of  the 
year  of  seventeen  months  of  twenty-one  days  each  was 
introduced. 

This  year  of  thirteen  months,  in  which  the  year-god  was 
delivered  by  the  midwife-goddess  Nit  or  Neith,  furnishes 
in  its  birth-story  further  evidence  of  the  connection  I  have 
already  noted  between  it  and  the  year  of  eleven  months. 
Neith,  the  weaver,  is  the  Egyptian  Athene,  the  goddess  of 
the  weaving  races  of  Lybyans  who  wove  the  flax  whence  the 
sacred  garments  both  of  the  Egyptian  and  Jewish  priests  were 
made.  I  have  already,  in  Chapter  VI.  p.  308,  shown  that  the 
Indian  Telis  or  oil-sellers,  who  worshipped  the  eleven  gods  of 
the  year  are  the  sons  of  the  Sesame  flax-plant,  which  also  yields 
oil,  and  that  they  brought  it  to  India  from  Asia  Minor.  It 
must  have  been  from  the  same  quarter,  and  probably  by  way 
of  India,  that  both  the  years  of  eleven  and  thirteen  months 
were  brought  to  Egypt  by  the  Kushite  merchant  kings. 

H.    The  thirteen-montlis  year  of  the  Nooktas  of  British 

Columbia. 

This  year  is  that  used  by  the  Nooktas  of  British  Columbia, 
who  show,  both  in  their  physique  and  their  mode  of  life, 
strong    affinities  with    the   Polynesians    and    the  seafaring 

'  Lockyer,  Dawn  of  Astronomy ^  p.  149. 


536  History  and  Chronology 

Dravidians  of  India,  That  have  flat  noses,  thick  lips  and 
broad  Dravidian  features,  and  both  long  and  short  heads  arc 
found  among  them.  They  clothe  themselves  in  bark  dresses 
and  wear  a  cap  in  the  shape  of  a  truncated  cone,  somewhat 
like  the  Hittite  cap.  They  wear  their  hair  either  hanging 
loose  or  divided  into  tufts,  and  the  only  Columbian  Indians 
who  cut  their  hair  are  the  Haidas.  They  tatoo  themselves 
like  the  Ooraons  and  Burmese,  and  pluck  out  the  beard. 
They  live  in  large  houses  capable  of  holding  all  the  living 
generations  of  a  family,  and  build  their  houses  on  piles,  both 
of  which  are  Polynesian  customs,  and,  like  the  Dravidian 
Males,  they  place  totem  poles  in  front  of  their  houses.  They 
use  the  bow  and  are  also  great  fishermen,  and  build  large 
flat  canoes  without  the  outrigger  of  the  Polynesians  and 
Malays,  and  which  are,  from  their  description,  very  like 
the  large  flat  boats  of  Madras.  They  make  fire  by  twirling 
a  stick  of  cedar  in  a  socket  of  softer  wood,  and  cover 
the  outside  of  their  houses  with  painted  designs,  like  those  I 
have  often  seen  on  the  houses  of  Santals  in  Bengal,  and 
the  Santals  are  the  only  forest  tribes  on  whose  houses  I  have 
seen  these  designs  ^.  In  short,  the  people  are  very  like 
maritime  Santals  and  the  Turano  Dravidian  coast  races. 
They  trace  their  descent  in  a  curious  way.  The  family 
descends  through  the  wife,  who  brings  her  father's  position 
and  privileges  to  her  husband,  but  he  avails  himself  of  them 
only  as  her  deputy,  the  real  possessor  being  her  son,  but  she 
on  her  marriage  goes  and  lives  in  her  husband's  village,  and 
certain  privileges  descend  in  the  paternal  line.  The  family 
crest,  representing  the  totem  ancestor  and  conferring  the 
privileges  of  noble,  free  or  slave  origin,  descends  through 
the  mother.  The  members  of  each  village  community  are, 
as  among  the  Khands  in  Orissa,  thought  to  be  descended 
from  a  common  ancestor.  The  strange  mixture  of  patri- 
archal and  matriarchal  customs  making  up  their  very  intricate 
system  of  tribal  law  clearly   marks  them  as  a  mixed  race 

*  Ratscl,    History  of  Mankind,  Translated  by  A.   J.   Butler,    vol.    ii.   pp. 
19,  91 — 100. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  537 

descended,  like  the  Indian  Dravidians,  from  matriarchal  and 
patriarchal  ancestors '. 

I.     The  May  perambulations  of  boundaries  dating  from 

this  year. 

Before  I  conclude  the  history  of  this  year  I  must  show 
by  its  connection  with  ancient  perambulations  of  boundaries 
in  May  how  widely  its  use  was  extended  over  Europe.  We 
have  seen  in  the  history  of  the  births  of  the  Buddha  that 
in  his  progress  through  the  Mahosadha  birth  as  the  sun- 
physician,  the  Vessantara  birth  in  the  Tusita  heaven  of 
wealth,  and  his  final  birth  as  the  deified  sun-god  who  had 
left  earth  for  heaven,  he  was  born  first  at  the  beginning 
of  Magh  (January — February),  that  his  Vessantara  birth 
took  place  about  the  end  of  Phagun  (February — March) 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  and  that  it  was  fifty  days  after  this 
that  he  became  the  sun-god,  the  supreme  ruler  of  heaven, 
who  circled  the  sky  on  the  path  he  had  marked  out  for 
himself  among  the  zodiacal  stars,  and  had  ceased  to  yield 
obedience  to  the  Pole  Star  god  or  to  the  crescent  and  full- 
moon-gods  of  the  lunar  era,  as  the  Pole  Star  god's  head  was 
broken  when  that  of  Jayadratha  with  its  lunar -earrings  was 
cut  off. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  son  of  Skanda,  the  new  sun- 
god  of  this  year  succeeding  that  of  Jayadratha,  was  born  on 
the  5th  of  Visakha  (April— May),  a  date  nearly  answering 
to  St.  George's  Day,  and  this  month  is  prominently  repre- 
sented in  the  lives  of  the  Buddhist  Theris,  for  both  the  third 
rheri  Padumavati  and  the  ninth  Bhudda  Kundalakesha,  the 
:urly-headed  saint,  also  called  Su-bhadda  or  Su-bhadra,  the 

*  Boas,  The  Social  Organisation  and  the  Secret  Societies  of  the  Kwaiiutl 
fttdians^  pp.  334—338.  The  Nootka  arc  a  branch  of  the  Kwatiutl  Indians, 
X  632.  They  used  to  sacriticc  human  beings,  the  sacrifice  taking  place  during 
he  great  annual  festival  lasting  from  the  middle  of  November  to  the  middle 
>f  January,  showing  that  like  the  Santals  they  kept  the  festival  of  the  winter 
K)lstice,  p.  636. 


538  History  and  Chronology 

mountain  ^goddess,  were  in  the  course  of  their  transforma- 
tions daughters  of  Visakha,  and  the  fifth  Dhammadinna  was 
once  his  wife;  that  is  to  say,  they  all  three  belonged  to 
years  beginning  in  Visakha  (April — May) '. 

The  sun-horse  Parikshit  was  offered  at  the  full-moon  (rf 
Cheit  (March — April),  when  his  successor  began  his  rule, 
so  that  the  beginning  of  the  year  of  this  changing  sun-god 
varied  like  our  Easter  from  the  vernal  equinox  to  the  23rd 
of  April.    And  with  this  variation  in  the  starting  date  there 
was  a  similar  variation  in  the  datq  of  the  birth  of  the  as- 
cended and  immortal  sun-god,  which  fell  fifty  days  after  that 
of  his   mortal   predecessors,  the    sun-horse  and   its    rider. 
Judging  by  the  persistent  endeavours  of  the  ancient  ritualists 
to  introduce  history  into  their  rites  by  the  very  recondite 
methods  I  have  noted  in  previous  chapters,  it  seems  probable 
that  these  fifty  days  were  connected  with  this  year  of  fifty- 
one  weeks  or  of  some  lunar  mode  of  reckoning  by  months 
of  fifty  Tithi  or  lunar  days^  measured  by  a  different  scale 
of  hours  from  that  which  we  use,  such  as  I  have  suggested 
in  Chapter  VII.  p.  457,  and  in  this  latter  case  the  fifty  days 
would  represent  one  month  of  the  year,  which  was  to  be 
completed   by  those   intervening   between   his   ascent  into 
heaven  and  the  end  of  his  year.     But  whatever  the  explan- 
ation solving  the  difficulty  may  be,  there  can  apparently  be 
no  doubt  that  the  assumption  of  an  interval  of  fifty  days 
between  the  Easter  birth  of  the  sun-god  and  his  ascent  into 
heaven  originated  in  this  epoch,  and  arose  out  of  the  history 
of  this^year  of  seventeen  and  thirteen  months ;  and  that 
it   was  then  that  the  birth  of  the  sun-child   Sisu,  son  of 
Devasena,  the  moon-bird-goddess  of  the  eight  names,  was 
celebrated   by  the   Easter-eggs   and   the  adoration  of  the 
moon-hare,  which  still  survive  in  the  symbolic  Easter  con- 
fectionery of  Germany. 

The  history  of  these  successive  rebirths  of  the  sun-god, 
beginning  at  Christmas  and  ending  at  Pentecost,  is,  as  we 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  vii.,  pp.  74— 77»  ^ 


of  tlu  Myth' Making  Age,  S39 

have  seen,  depicted  in  the  h'fe  of  the  Buddha,  and  the 
universal  diiTusion  of  this  dramatic  panorama  of  the  scenes 
of  the  moving  scroll  of  time  is  proved  by  the  reproduction 
of  the  Eastern  pictorial  series  in  the  life  of  the  Western 
king  Arthur.  The  story  of  Arthur  or  Airem,  the  plough*- 
man^  son  of  Uther,  that  is  Uther  Bran  of  the  wonderful 
head,  the  gnomon-stone  S  who  was  originally  the  ploughing- 
sun-god,  a  Western  form  of  the  Eastern  Rama,  has  been 
brought  in  its  modern  forms  into  accordance  with  Christian 
theology;  but  it  was  originally  a  history  of  pre-Christian 
faiths  culminating  in  the  worship  of  the  white  horse  or  mare 
of  the  sun.  Her  temple,  that  of  the  British  goddess  Epona, 
is  close  to  Amesbury,  whither  Guinivcre,  his  queen,  who  was 
originally  Gwen-hwyvar,  the  white  {gwen)  spirit  {/izvyvar), 
one  of  the  three-year  wives  of  the  ploughing-god  with  the 
same  name  2,  betook  herself,  after  Arthur  had  met  his  death 
at  the  hands  of  his  son  Modred,  the  archer  and  the  winter- 
king  3.  It  is  in  the  story  of  the  coronation  of  Arthur  that 
we  find  the  record  of  his  successive  rebirths  from  the  time 
when  he  as  the  sun-god  entered  Gemini  in  December — 
January,  about  12,000  B.C.,  to  his  Easter  birth  in  Gemini 
at  the  vernal^  equinox,  about  6000  B.C.,  and  his  final  con- 
secration at  the  end  of  fifty  days  at  Whitsuntide.  His  birth 
as  the  sun-god  was  manifested  by  his  drawing  from  the 
sun-gnomon-stone  the  sun-sword,  a  feat,  like  that  of  the 
stringing  of  the  year-bow  of  Arjuna  and  Odusseus,  only 
to  be  accomplished  by  the  ruling  year-god.  Arthur  proved 
that  he  alone  could  take  the  sun-sword  from  the  stone  in  five 
repeated  trials,  which  were  wholly  unnecessary  to  prove  his 
power,  for  which  one  trial  was  enough.  These  were  at  Christ- 
mas, Twelfth  Night,  Candlemas,  Easter  and  Whitsuntide, 
at  which  last  festival  he  was  finally  crowned  king  4.     Thus 

'  Rhys,  Hibbcrt  Lectures^  p.  97. 

^  Ibid.,  Thi  Arthurian  JU^end^  chap,  ii.,  pp.  25,  35,  36. 
3  Ibid.,   chap.   ii.  pp.  38,  39 ;    Malory,  Morte  d' Arthur^   Globe  Edition, 
Book  i.  chaps,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xxv.  pp.  42 — 44,  4S,  49,  Book  xxi.  chap.  vii. 
<  Malory,  MorUd^ Arthur ^  Book  i.  chaps,  iii.,  iv.,  v.,  pp.  2S,  31. 


540  History  and  Chronology 

this  story,  when  repeated  in  its  pre-Christian  form,  tdls 
us  that  in  the  progress  of  ages  he  showed  his  right  to  rule 
first,  as  the  sun-god  awoke,  like  the  Phoenician  Archal,  from 
his  twelve-days  sleep  at  Christmas;  secondly,  as  the  sun- 
child  born  on  Twelfth  Night;  thirdly,  as  the  ploughing* 
sun-god  of  the  year  beginning  in  January — February; 
fourthly,  as  the  god  of  the  Easter  year  of  the  vernal  equinox; 
and  fifthly,  as  the  ruler  of  the  universe  born  and  crowned 
in  heaven  at  Whitsuntide. 

In  the  interval  between  the  Easter  birth  and  the  ascen- 
sion and  rebirth  at  Pentecost  there  are  held,  almost  every- 
where throughout  Europe,  New  Year's  festivals,  in  which  the 
boundaries  of  each  village  and  parish  are  circumambulated. 
It  is  in  the  Roman  ritual  that  we  find  most  satisfactory 
evidence  of  the  ritualistic  teaching  conveyed  in  these  cere- 
monies. There  are  two  of  these  festivals  in  May,  one  on  the 
I  Sth  and  the  other  on  the  29th,  in  which  processions  went 
round  the  city  boundaries  as  the  representative  sun-god 
of  this  year  went  round  in  his  chariot  the  race-course,  sym- 
bolising his  zodiacal  circuit. 

The  festival  of  the  i  Sth  of  May  is  called  that  of  the  Argei, 
and  is  dedicated  in  the  Fa.sti  to  Jupiter  and  to  Mercurius 
of  the  Circus  Maximus,  the  god  of  boundaries.  The  pro- 
cession on  this  day  ended  at  the  Pons  Sublicius,  the  ancient 
bridge  over  the  Tiber,  in  the  construction  of  which  no  iron 
was  used.  It  was  led  by  all  the  Pontifices  or  priests,  by  the 
Flaminica  Dialis  or  female  priestess  of  Jupiter  in  mourning, 
and  by  the  Vestal  Virgins  carrying  twenty-four  Argei  or 
puppets,  made  of  rushes  to  resemble  men  bound  hand  and 
foot,  and  they  threw  these  into  the  Tiber  from  the  bridge. 
The  name  Argei  given  to  these  rush  dolls  shows  that  they 
were  connected  with  the  twenty-four  shrines,  the  Sacella 
Argcorum,  which  marked  the  boundaries  of  the  Servian  city 
of  Rome,  and  round  which  the  Salii  carried  the  year-shields 
in  the  March  festivals  beginning  the  year,  which  I  have 
described  in  Chapter  V.  p.  239.  No  one  who  has  read  the 
account,  which  I  will  give  presently,  of  the  ancient  procession 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  541 

of  the  1 5th  May,  held  at  Iguvium,  the  modern  Gubbio,  the 
capital  of  Umbria,  will  be  it  seems  to  me  able  to  doubt  that 
the  procession  of  the  twenty-four  Argei  went  round  the 
boundary  shrines  of  the  city  before  reaching  the  bridge,  and 
that  each  of  the  shrines  contributed  a  slain  victim  for  the 
final  sacrifice  to  the  river-parent- god.  Thus  the  whole 
ceremony  denoted  a  national  mourning  for  the  death  of  the 
old  year  of  fifteen  months  of  twenty-four  days  each,  or  of 
the  twenty-four  lunar  phases  of  the  year  of  twelve  months, 
a  mourning  marked  by  the  dress  of  the  Flaminica  Dialis 
representing  the  mother  of  the  dead  sun-god. 

That  this  sacrifice  of  the  puppets,  the  dead  remains  of  the 
old  year,  was  a  survival  from  a  more  ancient  human  sacrifice 
offered  throughout  Europe  and  Asia  at  the  end  of  the  year 
is  indubitably  proved  by  the  evidence  of  national  rituals. 
In  the  festival  of  Thargelion  (May — June)  at  Athens  to 
Artemis  and  Apollo,  corresponding  to  the  Roman  festival 
of  the  isth  of  May,  a  man  and  a  woman  crowned  with 
flowers  and  fruit,  like  sacrificial  victims,  were  thrown  from 
a  rock  with  curses  and  led  over  the  frontier*.  Similarly, 
in  Bavaria  at  Whitsuntide  a  boy  in  some  places,  a  puppet 
in  others,  is  decorated  and  carried  round  the  fields,  and 
thrown  from  a  bridge  into  the  river ;  and  there  is  a  similar 
Whitsuntide  sacrifice  at  Halle  of  a  straw  doll  called  Der  Alte 
or  the  old  man,  which  is  strictly  analogous  to  the  Roman 
festival,  in  which  the  victims  were  traditionally  old  men, 
as  is  shown  by  the  saying  "Sexagenaries  de  ponte" — The 
old  men  from  the  bridge.  The  observance  of  this  custom, 
almost  universal  throughout  Germany,  was  forbidden  at 
Erfurt  by  a  law  of  1551  prohibiting  the  ducking  of  people 
at  Easter  and  Whitsuntide  *.  This  sacrifice  was  also  simu- 
lated in  the  Indian  ritual  of  the  making  of  the  fire-pan,  in 
which  a  sham  man  was  carried  about  with  the  gold  plate 
and   twenty-one   knobs ;    and    in   the    consecration   service 

'  M  uller,  Die  Dorier,  Book  ii.  chap.  viii.  §  2,  p.  329. 

■  Mannhnnlt,    Baumkultus,   pp.  331,  35^,  420;    W.    Warde   Fowler,    The 
Roman  Festivals ^  Mensis  Maius,  ill — 121. 


542  History  and  Chronology 

beginning  the  building  at  the  new  year  of  the  brick  Aha- 
vanlya  altar  of  the  year-bird  rising  in  the  East  at  the  vemal 
equinox  a  human  sacrifice  was  actually  offered^  and  the  head 
of  the  victim  buried,  as  I  shall  show  in  Chapter  IX^  at  the 
East  end  of  the  altar. 

The  second  sacrifice  in  May,  accompanied  by  a  circuit 
of  boundaries,  is  the  Ambarvalia  or  solemn  perambulation 
of  the  fields.  Its  date,  as  given  in  the  calendars,  is  the  29th 
of  May.  Three  animals,  a  bull,  a  sheep  and  a  pig,  were 
driven  three  times  round  the  limits  of  each  estate  and  muni- 
cipality by  a  crowd  crowned  with  garlands  and  carryii^ 
olive  branches  in  their  hands,  and  the  animals  were  sacri- 
ficed when  the  third  round  was  completed '.  An  exactly 
similar  sacrifice  was  held  every  year  at  Athens  on  the  6th 
of  Thargelion  (May — June),  when  the  same  animals  were 
sacrificed  2. 

J.    The  perambulations  of  boundaries  in  Gubbio  and  Echtemach. 

We  have  fortunately  in  the  Eugubine  Tables  fuller  infor- 
mation about  this  sacrifice  and  its  early  ritual  than  is  extant 
for  any  other  religious  rite  of  ancient  worship  in  any  country, 
except  those  described  in  the  Indian  Brahmanas.  In  these 
we  find  a  minute  description  of  the  annual  circumambulation 
of  Gubbio,  the  Umbrian  capital  Iguvium,  and  we  can,  as 
I  shall  show  presently,  supplement  and  illustrate  these  old 
official  instructions  by  the  observances  of  the  modem  suc- 
cessor of  the  ancient  rite  which  takes  place  every  year  at 
Gubbio  on  the  isth  of  May,  the  same  date  as  that  of  the 
procession  round  the  Servian  walls  of  Rome. 

The  tables  give  the  rules  for  two  different  official  circuits 
of  the  boundaries  of  Iguvium,  dominated  by  the  sacred  hill 
Ingino,  a  name  which  irresistibly  connects  the  city,  its 
worship  of  the  household   fire,  and   the   mother- mountain, 

'  W.  Warde  Fowler,  The  Roman  Fistivais,  Mcnsis  Maius,  pp.  124— 1 28. 
'   Diogenes  Laertius  Socrates,  c.  23  ;  Fustcl  de  Coulanges,  La  Cite  Antiqve^ 
pp.  186,  187. 


of  i/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  543 

with  the  ancient  German  Ing,  Inguina,  the  Ingaevones  of 
Tacitus,  who  describes  them  as  the  eldest  sons  of  Mannus, 
son  of  Tuisco,  dwelling  nearest  the  ocean  ^.  They  are  the 
men  of  the  household-hearth  and  the  ingle-nook,  and  it  was 
to  these  ancient  parent-gods  that  the  Umbrian  city  and 
confederacy  were  dedicated. 

In  both  the  circuits  described  »,  the  priests  had  before  the 
ceremony  to  take  the  auspices  from  the  birds,  and  if  they 
were  favourable,  the  priest  called  the  Adfertor  or  arranger 
(answering  to  the  Hindhu  Adhvaryu,  the  advancer  on  the 
road  (adhvan) ),  and  his  two  assistants,  had  to  be  invested 
with  the  praetexta  or  official  robe  with  purple  stripes,  aftd 
to  place  tlu  sacrificial  cord  on  his  right  sJioulder^  according  to 
the  pre-solar  custom  of  the  Hindu  Pilar o-Barisliadah  of  tlu 
Pole  Star  Age.  He  was  then  to  pray  to  the  sacred  owl 
(parra\  and  again  to  take  the  auspices  at  the  augur's  chair 
in  the  sacred  augural  templum  or  enclosure,  which  was  with 
the  temple  of  Vista  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  whence  the  four 
roads  leading  to  the  four  points  of  the  compass  branched 
off.  He  must  then  make  the  circuit  of  the  city,  driving 
before  him  the  victims  for  the  sacrifice,  the  pigs,  sheep  and 
bulls,  and  must  on  reaching  the  boundary  expel  any  aliens 
who  have  settled  in  the  city  without  becoming  naturalised 
Umbrians.  At  the  end  of  each  of  the  three  circuits  silent 
prayers  must  be  said  to  Cerfus  Martius,  Praestita  Cerfia  and 
Tursa  Cerfia  of  Cerfus  Martius. 

In  this  ritual  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  we  have  a  very 
close  approximation  to  that  observed  in  the  old  pre-Vedic 
sacrifices  in  India.  The  rules  as  to  the  wearing  of  the 
sacrificial  cord  and  the  bearing  of  the  fire  on  the  right 
shoulder,  as  well  as  the  injunction  to  pray  silently,  are 
identical  with  those  of  the  worship  of  Prajapati;  also  the 
three  circuits  of  the  walls  must  like  the  three  Hindu  circuits 

'  Tacitus,  Germania,  2. 

'  Bower,  The  Ceri  at  Gubbio.  Published  by  the  Folklore  Society,  1897. 
Appendix,  Lustration  of  the  Iguvine  People,  Eugubine  Tables  vi.  and  vii. 
pp.  132—140. 


544  History  and  Chronology 

round  the  altar  in  the  Pole  Star  age,  have  been  left-handed 
against  the  course  of  the  sun,   the  direction    in   which  as 
will  be  seen  presently  the  priests  make  their  circuit  in  the 
modern  procession.     Furthermore  the  triad  to  whom  prayen 
are  addressed  is  a  reproduction  of  the  gods  of  the  Good 
trident  of  Pharsi-pen   and   of  the   three  tree-gods   of  the 
Tri-kadru-ka  sacrifice.     Both  Br6al  and  Biicheler,  the  editors 
and  interpreters  of  the  Eugubine  Tables,  agree  in  thinking 
that  Cerrus  is  the  Latin  equivalent  of  the  Umbrian  Cerfus, 
and  they  derive  it  from  the  root  Cer  or  Ker,  to  create,  whidi 
is  also  the  root  of  the  name  Ceri,  given  to  the  three  pedestals 
carried  in  the  modern  procession  at  Gubbio.     Cerrus  is  used 
by  Pliny,  Hist.   Nat.  xvi.  6,  as  the  name  of  a  species  of 
oak,  the  Quercus  Cerrus  of  Linnaeus,  which  grows  in  the 
Apennines  and  Piedmont.     Hence  these  three  Cerfi  would 
be  the  three  oaks,  the  Drei-eich  or  three  oak  mothers  of 
Germany,  of  Grimm,  and  the  Tri-kadru-ka  of  India.    The 
three  stems  of  the  three  parent  mother-trees,  the  goddess 
Mari-amma  or  the  tree-mother  of  India,  the  Sanskrit  Drona 
or  hollowed  tree-stem  holding  the   sacred  Soma,  and  the 
Greek   mother-goddesses    Leto   and   Artemis   Orthia,  wor- 
shipped as  tree-trunks.     The  Asherah  or  tree-pillars  of  the 
Jews,  which  became  among  the  Northern  races  who  wor- 
shipped the  Hir-mensul  or  great  gnomon-stone  of  the  sun, 
the  Perrons  of  Germany,  the  village  sun-stones,  surmounted 
as  in  the  Perron  of  Augsberg,  with  the  pine  cone  as  the 
sign  of  the  tree-mother.     It  was  this  stem  of  the  parent- 
tree  which  was  the  Thyrsus  of  Bacchus,  with  the  pine  cone 
on  the  top.     The  names  of  the  gods  of  this  triad  also  give 
further  proof  of  their  close  connection  with  the  Gond  and 
Takka  triads,  for  they  are  identical  with  the  gods  of  the 
Gond   triad   of  Pharsipot,  in  the  fact  that  they  represent 
the  central  father-god,  the  middle  prong  of  the  trident  and  his 
two  wives,  who  in  the  Gond  trident  are  the  two  tigerrmothers 
Manko  and  Janko  Rayetal  (p.  i6o).     These  last  are  here 
called  Praestita,  or  the  protecting,  and  Tursa,  or  the  towered 
Cerfia,  the  latter  being  the  goddess  wearing  the  tower  of 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  545 

Cybele  and  Isis,  and  she  is,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  the 
goddess  with  a  temple  consecrated  to  herself,  to  whom 
heifers  are  offered,  and  not  the  boars  and  sows  sacrificed 
to  Cerfus  Martius  and  Praestita  Cerfia.  That  these  three  gods 
were  represented  like  the  Indian  Jugahnath  by  consecrated 
logs  or  tree-stems  is  also  proved  by  the  modern  Ceri.  These 
are  made  of  stout  wooden  poles,  of  which  the  outward  shape, 
when  they  are  carried  in  procession,  is  that  of  hour-glasses, 
as  their  upper  and  lower  halves  form  a  cage-shaped  protu- 
berance, so  that  each  Cero  is  shaped  similarly  to  the  Hindu 
altar  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  broad  at  the  ends  and 
contracted  at  the  waist '.  The  modern  Ceri  are  doubtless 
imitations  of  those  of  the  three  mother-tree-goddesses  carried 
in  the  old  lustral  procession,  preserved  by  the  conservative 
instinct  which  is  so  strong  a  characteristic  of  the  Umbrian 
and  Tuscan  people. 

The  Eugubine  Table  VII.  gives  the  ritual  of  a  procession 
round  the  boundary  shrines  of  Gubbio,  which  is  clearly 
part  of  the  series  of  services  of  which  the  procession 
of  Table  VI.  is  the  opening  service.  It  tells  us  where  and 
how  the  sacrifices  offered  during  the  circuits  were  to  be 
made.  Three  of  these  were  offered  apparently  at  the  three 
gates  which  formed  the  entrances  to  Iguvium  as  to  other 
Etrurian  towns  2.  The  first  sacrifice  was  at  Fontuli,  where 
three  boars,  red  or  black,  were  offered  to  Cerfus  Martius 
with  silent  prayers  and  wavings  of  incense  censors,  as  in 
the  Indian  worship  of  the  age  of  the  Pandavas,  whose  priest 
was  Dhaumya  or  the  son  of  the  incense  smoke  (dhumd). 
Corn,  sour  wine  and  spelt  meal,  the  parched  meal  of 
the  Pitaro  Barishadah,  were  also  offered.  At  Rubinia  three 
sows,  red  or  black,  were  offered  to  Praestita  Cerfia  with 
drink  offerings  of  sour  wine,  corn,  and  cakes.  This  was 
followed  by  libations  and  silent  prayers  over  the  black 
vessels  consecrated  to  Praestita  Cerfia,  which  were  succeeded 


'  See  Plate  V.  ;  Bower,  The  Ceri  at  Gubbio,  p.  50. 
*  Bower,  The  Procession  of  the  Ceri  at  Gubbio  ^  p.  ill,  note  I. 

N  n 


546  History  and  Chronology 

by  those  over  the  white  vessels  dedicated  to  her,  and  the 
four  vessels,  two  white  and  two  black,  were  placed,  as  the 
ritual  expressly  says,  crosswise,  that  is  in  the  form  of  the 
St.  Andrew's  Cross,  representing  the  solstitial  sun,  so  that 
Praestita  Cerfia  was  the  sun-hen,  the  Indian  goddess  Ahalya, 
or  Vrisha-kapi,  the  rain-ape  with  the  lunar  earrings  given 
to  Utanka  (p.  313).  She  was  wife  of  Gautuma  or  Indra,  in 
the  days  when  he  was  the  rain-ape-god  Maroti,  the  god  of 
the  tree  (maroni)^  and  the  West  wind  Martu,  whence  he 
came  to  Italy  as  Martius. 

After  the  libations  to  the  goddess  of  the  solstitial  sea- 
sonal vessels  a  cake  and  spelt  meal  were  offered  to  Fisovius 
Sancius,  the  Iguvine  form  of  the  sowing-god  Semo  Sancus,  the 
god  born  of  the  sacred  grass,  who  slew  Cacus  (p.  442).  He  was 
the  god  of  the  Fisian  hill,  now  called  Ingino,  the  god  of  the 
cleft  {fissus)y  perhaps  the  male  form  of  the  Syrian  Tirhatha, 
the  cleft,  and  of  the  river  issuing  from  the  cleft  to  form 
the  town  brook.  He  clearly  is  a  god  belonging  to  the  ritual 
of  the  Southern  mothers,  to  whom  only  first-fruits  and  no 
living  victims  were  offered.  The  third  sacrifice  was  offered 
after  the  third  circuit  beyond  Sata,  and  after  the  Adfertur 
and  his  two  assistants,  wearing  the  lustral  praetexta,  had 
prayed  in  silence  in  the  temple  of  Cerfia  Tursa,  called  Tursa 
Jovia,  whence  it  appears  that  this  goddess  was  worshipped 
in  a  shrine  consecrated  to  her  instead  of  in  the  open  air, 
like  the  two  other  gods.  She  was  the  goddess  of  the  later 
age  following  that  when  men  worshipped  on  the  mountain 
tops  or  on  artificial  hills.  It  was  from  her  temple  that  the 
three  heifer-calves  to  be  sacrificed  to  her  were  driven  to 
the  decurional  or  centre  forum.  After  they  were  caught  in 
a  sham  hunt  they  were  taken  to  Aquilonia,  and  there  sacri- 
ficed to  Tursa  Jovia  with  drink-offerings,  corn  and  a  cake. 
At  each  of  the  sacrifices  pieces  were  to  be  given,  these 
were  doubtless,  as  in  Indian  ritual,  the  pieces  of  the  victims 
given  to  the  townspeople  to  bury  in  their  fields  to  secure 
good  crops.  We  see  in  this  ritual  that  it  is  female  animals 
that  are  sacrificed  to  female  goddesses,  and  the  heifers  offered 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  547 

to  Tursa  are  like  the  Jewish  heifer-offerings  and  the  sacrifice 
of  a  cow  on  the  Indian  Ashtaka,  and  belong  apparently  to 
an  older  ritual  than  those  in  which  the  oxen  of  the  age  of 
the  sexless  gods  and  bulls  were  offered. 

The  whole  of  the  ritual  of  Iguvium  was  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  twelve  Attidian  brethren,  who,  whether  they 
were  priests  of  the  Phrygian  god  Attis  or  not,  were  clearly 
a  branch  of  the  same  order  of  dancing  priests  originating 
in  Asia  Minor,  to  which  the  Roman  Salii,  the  priests  ot 
Mars,  belonged,  and  who  succeeded,  in  South-western  Asia, 
the  female  dancers  of  the  Indian  matriarchal  villages,  the 
offspring  of  the  mother-tree  and  the  tree-ape-god  Maroti, 
the  prototype  of  the  Umbrian  Martins,  who  became  the 
Etruscan  Maso,  the  god  of  increase. 

There  is  no  mention  in  the  ritual  of  the  Iguvine  circuit  pro- 
cessions of  the  sacrifice  of  a  sheep,  which  was  apparently  an 
addition  to  the  earlier  ritual  in  which  pigs  first  and  aflter- 
wards  heifers  were  offered.  But  the  ritual  of  a  sheep  sacrifice 
is  given  in  the  Eugubine  Tables,  and  it  apparently  be- 
longed to  the  series  of  those  offered  at  the  birth  and 
ascension  to  heaven  of  the  Easter  sun-god.  The  object  of 
the  ritual  of  this  sheep  sacrifice  is  the  sanctification  of  the 
temple  spring,  the  fountain  welling  forth  from  the  prints 
of  the  hoof  of  the  sun-horse.  For  this  a  special  priest  was 
appointed  from  the  Collegia  of  the  Attidian  brethren.  He 
chooses  a  sheep  for  the  sacrifice,  which  is  brought  in  from  the 
country  with  the  sacred  fire.  The  sheep  is  carried  on  a  litter 
divided  into  two,  an  upper  and  lower  compartment,  like  those 
of  the  Ceri.  The  sacrifice  is  offered  after  the  priest  enters 
the  temple,  apparently  that  of  Tursa,  to  various  deities, 
among  whom  are  Jupiter,  Pumunus  Publicus  and  Tursa, 
and  wine  and  com  are  offered  with  it.  But  the  fact  that  it 
is  a  sacrifice  in  v/hich  the  priest  turns  to  the  right,  shows  that 
it  was  an  offering  of  the  solar  age,  belonging  to  the  creed 
of  the  worshippers  of  the  male  Su-astika,  the  sun  who 
begins  his  annual  journey  by  going  South  at  the  summer 
solstice.    The  sheep  sacrificed  is  the  Easter  lamb  eaten  by 

N  n  2 


548  Historjf  and  Chronology 

the  Jews  at  the  Passover,  the  lamb  of  the  year  beginning 
with  the  feast  of  Purim,  that  sacrificed  by  the  Bulgarians 
to  St.  George  on  his  day,  and  that  eaten  on  Easter  day  in 
almost  every  house  in  Greece.  It  was  the  substitute  for 
the  animal  sacrifice  of  the  eldest  son,  the  child  eaten  by 
the  Sabaean  Haranites,  who  pray  turning  not  to  the  North, 
like  the  Mandaite  Sabaeans,  but  to  the  South,  and  who  were 
the  followers  of  the  White  God  Laban  in  the  age  of  the 
eleven-months  year.  In  the  Mandaite  New  Year's  sacri- 
fice at  the  autumnal  equinox,  a  wether  and  not  a  lamb  is 
slain  I. 

We  have  now,  in  seeking  further  illustrations  of  the  inner 
meaning  and  historical  significance  of  the  ceremonies  be- 
ginning the  Umbrian  New  Year  of  the  Easter  sun-god,  to 
turn  to  the  festival  celebrated  every  year  at  Gubbio  on  the 
15th  of  May,  of  which  Mr.  Bower,  in  his  account  of  the 
prqpession,  has  given  us  a  picture  in  which  the  smallest 
details  are  artistically  recorded.  He  begins  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  three  Ceri.  The  first  of  these  is  now  dedicated 
to  St.  Ubaldo,  but  formerly  it  was  that  of  St.  Francisco, 
and  originally  the  Cero  of  Ingino,  the  mountain-mother. 
The  other  two  are  called  those  of  St.  George  and  St. 
Anthony,  a  dedication  marking  the  festival,  in  which 
they  appear  as  principal  actors,  as  one  to  the  year-gods 
of  the  year  of  three  seasons,  originally  that  of  Orion, 
but  beginning,  when  it  was  dedicated  to  St.  George, 
at  the  autumnal  equinox.  This  was,  as  we  have  seen  in 
Chapter  V.,  the  season  sacred  to  St.  George  as  the  ploughing- 
god,  who  was  originally  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox  as 
god  of  the  upright  four-armed  cross  with  equal  arms,  called 
after  him,  but  who  became  in  the  course  of  the  evolution 
of  religious  belief  I  have  described  in  this  and  the  previous 

'  Bower,  Procession  of  the  Ceri^  pp.  114,  115;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  0} 
Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  ii.,  Preface,  p.  xvi.,  Essay  vii.,  pp.  SSi  56;  Essay  viiii 
p.  164;  Chwolsohn,  Ssabier  und  der  Sabiismus^  ii.,  Excursus  to  chap,  i^ 
PP-  3^9i  3^4  J  Gamett  and  Stuart  Glennie,  Women  of  Turkey y  chap,  xii- 
PP-  332,  333- 


of  tlu  Myth-Making  Age.  S49 

• 

chapters,  the  god  of  the  Easter  sun.  St.  Anthony,  who 
carries  a  fire-ball  in  his  hand  ^  is,  in  Italian  popular  my- 
thology, the  god  of  the  household  fire-place,  and  the  especial 
protector  of  pigs  «.  In  considering  the  history  of  these  three 
survivals  of  ancient  creeds,  we  must  not  forget  that  St.  Ubaldo's 
body  is  believed  to  be  imperishable,  that  he  is  reclothed 
every  year  before  his  festival,  and  that  one  of  his  titles  to  the 
supremacy  among  the  three  Cero  saints  is  that  he  conquered 
eleven  cities  for  the  Iguvians3.  In  these  attributes  he  is 
clearly  declared  to  be  the  never-dying  sun-god  of  this  epoch, 
who  yearly  reclothes  himself  in  the  green  leaves  and  flowers 
of  summer,  and  who,  as  the  conqueror  of  the  god  Dadhiank 
of  the  horse's  head  ruling  the  eleven-months  year,  has  become 
the  supreme  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth.  These  properties 
and  victories  of  the  conquering  sun-god,  set  forth  in  the 
original  ritualistic  history,  have  been  transferred  to  St. 
Ubaldo  in  the  modern  transformation  of  the  old  birth-story. 

The  bearers  who  carry  these  Ceri  in  the  procession  wear 
a  uniform,  of  whiph  the  most  noticeable  articles  are  the  red 
cap  with  its  long  strings  and  tassel,  and  the  white  or  red 
shirt.  The  red  colour  marks  the  wearers  as  members  of  the 
red  race  of  Adam,  the  red  earth,  but  the  cap  is  the  most 
significant  part  of  the  dress.  It  is  the  cap  of  the  red-capped 
goblin,  the  Leprechaun  of  Ireland,  who  is  believed  to  guard 
treasure,  and  who  is  the  parent-god  of  the  dwarf  mining 
races;  and  his  red  head  is  an  inheritance  from  his  bird- 
parents,  the  red-headed  wood-pecker.  This  wood-pecker,  the 
wood-king  Picus,  was  beloved  by  the  witch-goddess  Circe, 
the  hawk  (kirke)  ruler  of  time  in  the  West,  the  land  of  the 
setting  sun.  He  refused  her  advances,  and  was  changed  by 
her  into  a  wood-pecker  4.  He  was  the  father  of  Faunus,  the 
deer  or  antelope  sun-god,  and  the  grandfather  of  Latinus. 
He  is,  in  short,  the  bird-parent  of  the  forest  miners,  whose 

*  Bower,  Procession  of  the  Ceri^  p.  114. 

'  Lelandf  Etruscan  Roman  Remains^  pp.  238 — 240,  252. 
3  Bower,  Procession  of  the  Ceri^  pp.  13,  17,  22,  30,  123. 

*  Virgil,  ^neid,  vii.  189— 191. 


A 


SSO  History  and  Chronology 

emigration  I  have  traced  from  the  Ural  mountains  through 
Europe  and  Asia,  where  their  memory  has  been  preserved 
in  the  traditional  history  of  every  country  where  they  have 
settled.  They  were  all  sun-worshippers,  and  their  red-capped 
goblin-parent,  soji  of  the  red-headed  wood-pecker,  is  believed 
to  be  a  guardian  of  mineral  wealth  by  the  Algonquin 
Indians,  as  well  as  by  the  Italian,  Irish,  and  German 
peasants'.  It  was  the  believers  in  this  bird  as  the  messenger 
and  embodiment  of  the  god  of  wealth,  who  made  the  female 
Su-astikas  found  in*  old  Indian  tombs  in  Mississipi  and 
Tennessee,  in  which  the  beak  and  head  of  this  wood-pecker 
form  the  arms  of  the  Su-astika  \  This  was  the  bird-guardian 
of  the  treasure  of  the  dwarfs,  who  is  said  by  Pliny  to  have 
the  power  of  opening  any  mountain  or  closed  place  by  the 
virtue  of  a  plant  it  gathers  at  the  night  season  of  the  moon, 
and  he  calls  it  Picus  Martins,  or  the  bird  sacred  to  the  god 
Martins  of  Gubbio,  the  divine  wood-pecker.  He  is  said  by 
Suidas  to  be  worshipped  in  Crete  as  Pekos  Zeus  (wiyicoj 
Zeus\  and  to  foretell  rain ;  and  is  apparently  identical  with 
the  sacred  bird  of  St.  Martin,  the  Saint  of  November,  who 
ruled  the  original  year  of  the  Pleiades,  the  ice-bird  of  Aris- 
totle who  sits  on  her  eggs  in  winters.  It  was  this  bird, 
whose  history  shows  it  to  have  been  looked  on  as  a  bird 
ruling  time  in  the  earliest  year-reckonings,  who  led  the  Finn 
miners  to  India,  where  they  disseminated  their  belief  in  the 
Southern  god  of  the  winter  solstice  as  the  god  of  wealth,  and 
as  the  god  who  brings  from  the  South  the  rich  gifts  of  spring 
at  the  vernal  equinox.  It  was  under  the  banner  of  this  god 
that  the  Pandavas  came  back  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  sun- 
horse  with  the  wealth  they  had  taken  from  the  Southern 
mines;  and  it  was  from  the  Tusita  heaven  of  this  god  of 


*  Leland,  Etruscan  Roman  Remains ^  pp.  162—165. 

»  See  Figures  263,  264,  269,  Wilson  on  the  Suastika,  pp.  906,  907.  Reporti 
of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  United  States  National  Museum,  1896. 

3  De  Gubernatis,  Die  Thiere  (German  Translation),  chap.  vii.  pp.  543,546; 
Pliny,  10,  18,  20 ;  Aristotle,  De  Gen.  Animalium,  v. 


of  the  Myth-Afaking  Age.  551 

wealth  {tuso)  that  the  Buddha  was  born  in  his  Vessantara 
birth  at  the  vernal  equinox. 

These  red -capped  Ceraioli  wearing  the  livery  of  this 
treasure-guardian  are  divided  into  three  bodies.  The  first, 
who  bear  the  Cero  of  St.  Ubaldo,  belong  to  the  Society  of 
the  Muratori  or  Masons.  Their  leader  is  the  First  Captain 
or  chief  director  of  the  festival,  who  entertains  the  principal 
guests  present  at  the  feast  celebrating  the  day.  He  is 
elected  by  lot  on  St.  Ubaldo's  day,  the  i6th  of  May,  from 
among  the  Society  of  Masons,  but  he  must  be  of  noble  birth. 
He  holds  office  for  twelve  months,  and  in  the  days  when 
Gubbio  was  the  capital  of  a  republic  he  was  the  national 
President  ^  The  Ceraioli  of  St.  George  belong  to  fhe  Guild 
of  Traders,  and  those  of  St.  Anthony  are  Contadini  or 
countrymen  ;  so  that  the  three  saints  are  the  patron-gods 
of  the  Nobles,  the  Traders,  and  Cultivators,  answering  to 
the  Indian  castes  of  the  Kshatrya  or  warriors,  Vaishya, 
village  {vish)  artisans,  and  Sudras  or  farmers. 

The  day  of  the  procession  is  the  eve  of  St.  Ubaldo's  day, 
and  therefore  a  fast.  Hence  the  principal  dish  at  the  feast 
held  before  the  procession  is  one  of  boiled  peas  and  cuttle- 
fish, the  millets  and  river-fish  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers.  This 
is  followed  by  a  number  of  fish  courses,  the  sacramental 
dishes  of  the  fish-sun-god  Salli-manu'  or  Solomon,  who  died 
yearly  in  the  constellation  Pisces,  or  the  fish,  the  last 
Nakshatra  Revati,  and  rose  again  in  the  constellation  Aries 
of  the  sun-rain  as  the  bearer  of  the  Seal  of  Solomon, — the 
mystic  marriage  ring  of  the  Pope,  with  its  nine  divisions, 
which  was  to  be  the  topmost  stone  of  the  vaulted  roof  of  the 
heavenly  palace  of  the  immortal  sun-god  built  by  the  Masons 
of  the  holy  craft,  who  first  began  the  year-palace  by  arranging 
the  bricks  of  the  days  of  the  weeks  by  which  time  was 
measured.  It  is  they  who  rule  this  Gubbio  festival,  and  who, 
as  the  widely-disseminated  association  of  Free  Masons,  have 
adopted  the  seal  of  the  two  interlocked  triangles  enclosed 

'  Bower,  The  Procession  of  ike  Cerit  pp.  6,  7,  65,  66. 


552  History  and  Chronology 

in  a  circle  as  the  signet  of  the  Royal  Arch,  their  highest 
grade. 

This  meal  is  washed  down  with  large  draughts  of  wine, 
which  is  also,  as  we  shall  see,  consumed  during  the  proces- 
sion, which  takes  place  in  the  evening,  thus  marking  it  as  a 
survival  of  the  early  orgiastic  festivals  to  the  seasonal  gods 
of  the  setting  stars  and  sun. 

While  the  Cero  of  St.  Ubaldo  is  being  raised,  and  before 
the  procession  starts,  water  is  thrown  on  it,  thus  showing 
that  the  original  festival  was  a  national  prayer  for  rain,  like 
the  water-throwing  festivals  of  the  Sal- tree,  held  at  the  end 
of  March  or  the  beginning  of  April  in  India  and  Burmah. 
The  cortege  is  arranged  at  noon,  and  is  led  by  the  Captain 
with  a  drawn  sword  and  a  man  in  a  red  shirt  carrying  an 
axe  covered  with  a  white  cloth,  the  survival  of  the  double- 
headed  axe  of  Parasu  Rama  and  the  Carian  Zeus,  which  had 
cut  down  the  mother-trees  carried  at  the  ancient  procession, 
when   the   trees  were,   like   the  Kurum   or   almond-tree  of 
Chutia  Nagpur,  solemnly  cut  by  fasting  villagers,  who  went 
into   the   forest  to  seek    it.     These  two  march  in  front  of 
St.  Ubaldo's  Cero,  which  leads  the  way,  but  before  starting 
the  Cero  is  turned  violently  round  three  times  against  the 
course  of  the  sun.     At  first  the  bearers  of  the  Ceri  visit,  one 
after  another,  the  houses  of  a  number  of  prominent  citizens, 
and  opposite  each  house  the  Cero  is  turned  three  times  as 
at  starting.     During  these  visits  each  Cero  takes  its  own 
independent  course,  and  after  them  they  all  meet  for  the  final 
procession  at  the  Piazza  Signorina,  the  town  market-place. 
There  they  have  the  third  meal  of  the  day,  the  second  being 
taken  at  the  various  houses  they  visit.     These  are  the  three 
meals  of  the  sun-god  of  the  early  mythology  of  the  North, 
breakfast,  dinner  and  supper. 

After  Vespers,  the  final  procession  begins  with  the  Cero 
of  St.  Ubaldo  in  front,  followed  by  St.  George  the  summer 
and  autumn  saint,  next,  and  by  St.  Anthony  the  winter  saint, 
last ;  and  the  great  bell  only  rung  five  times  in  the  year 
announces  the  time  of  departure.    The  Ceri  are  carried  by 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  553 

the  bearers  at  a  rapid  rate,  and  they  start  on  a  sunward 
course  round  the  town  till  they  meet  near  the  South-east 
gate  with  the  episcopal  procession.  This  is  led  by  men  in 
white  garments  with  black  mourning  capes,  like  the  mourning 
worn  by  the  Flaminica  Dialis  in  the  Roman  procession 
of  the  isth  of  May.  They  are  the  attendants  of  the  dead, 
and  the  death  they  mourn  is  that  of  the  departing  year. 
They  are  followed  by  the  members  of  the  Society  of  Santa 
Croce  wearing  blue  capes,  the  garments  of  the  day-sun  of 
the  new  year,  and  after  them  more  mourners  in  black.  The 
last  in  the  procession  was  the  Bishop,  who  was  preceded 
by  the  Canons  of  the  Cathedral  walking  behind  the  picture 
of  St.  Ubaldo.  They  began  their  tour  of  the  town  by  going 
first  Northward,  then  Westward,  and  thence  by  the  South  to 
the  East,  so  that  their  course  was  contrary  to  that  of  the 
sun,  a  course  prescribed  in  Canonical  rules  for  Penitential 
processions  ^.  When  they  reached  the  South-east  point  of 
the  circuit  at  the  end  of  the  Via  Dante,  they  were  met  by 
the  Ceri  and  their  bearers,  who  dash  at  full  pace  South- 
wards till  the  Bishop  stops  their  career  by  holding  up  the 
Host,  answering  to  the  ancient  emblem  of  the  rising  sun. 

After  acknowledging  the  holy  symbol  the  bearers  with 
the  Ceri  rush  past  the  clergy  till  they  arrive  at  the  first 
halting-place ;  which  is,  when  we  consider  the  extraordinary 
conservatism  of  ritual,  almost  indubitably  either  the  actual 
spot  where  the  first  sacrifices  were  offered  in  the  procession 
described  in  the  Eugubine  Tables,  or  a  substitute  for  it.  It 
is  at  the  Palazzo  Ferranti,  the  South-west  point  of  the 
circuit,  and  therefore  the  setting  place  of  the  sun  of  the 
winter  solstice  which  rose  in  the  South-east,  where  the 
Ceri  met  the  clergy.  It  is  on  the  banks  of  the  stream 
flowing  through  the  city.  Here  they  halt  for  a  draught 
of  wine,  and  the  First  Captain,  mounted  on  horseback  and 
attended  by  a  trumpeter,  takes  command  of  the  whole  body, 
and  under  him  is  the  Second  Captain  with  two  axe-bearers. 

*  Bower,  The  Procession  of  the  Ceri,  p.  125. 


SS4  History  and  Chronology 

They,  followed  by  the  Ceri,  go  North  and  then  East  to  the 
Great  Piazza.  There  a  second  halt  for  rest  and  wine  is 
made,  after  the  Ceji  have  gone  several  times  round  the 
Piazza  against  the  course  of  the  sun.  They  start  thence 
for  their  final  halt  and  a  draught  of  wine  at  the  Porta 
Ingino,  leading  up  to  Mount  Ingino.  They  then  take  the 
Ceri  up  the  hill,  and  carry  them  three  times  round  the  court 
of  the  Monastery.  The  ceremonies  end  with  the  lighting 
of  the  year's  fires  and,  like  other  ancient  New  Year  festivals, 
with  a  two  days'  fair. 

I   have   now,  before  closing  the  account  of  these  May 
Pentecostal  processions  celebrating  the   New  Year  of  the 
sun-god  enthroned  in  heaven,  to  turn  to  another   similar 
festival  to  that  of  Gubbio.     This  is  the  dancing  procession 
at  Echternach  in  Luxemburg,  held   yearly  on  Whit  Mon- 
day.    Echternach  is  dedicated  to  St.  Willibrod,  who  died 
there  in  a  monastery  he  founded  after  he  had  converted 
the  people  of  Echternach  and  its  neighbourhood  to  Chris- 
tianity.    He  was  an  English  monk  who  took  the  vows  in 
the  monastery  at  Ripon  in  Yorkshire,  and  it  was  he  who 
first  converted  the  Frisians.     He  came  to  Trier,  the  seat 
of  the  Roman  provincial  government   near  Echternach  in 
698  A.D.,  and  died  in  739  A.D.     Echternach,  on  the  right 
bank   of  the   Sauer,   had   been    probably   for    ages  before 
Willibrod  came  there,  the  site  of  a  holy  well :  one  of  those 
welling  forth  under  the  hoofs  of  the  sun-horse,  to  whom 
the   well   and   the   small   conical   hill   rising  above   it  was 
dedicated.     It  was  a  typical  Celtic  site,  hallowed  by  a  hill 
sacred  to  the  mountain-mother,  and  a  well  near  the  village 
grove  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.     It  is  in  the  country  of  the 
Eburones,  whose  territory  extended  from  the  Eiffel  country 
on  the  North  as  far  South  as  Lake  Neufchatel,  of  which  the 
Roman   name   is   Lacus   Eburodunensis,  the   Lake  of  the 
fort  {dufC)  of  the  Eburi,  and  they  ruled  the  whole  of  the 
country  of  the  Ardennes.     They  probably  take  their  name 
from  the  boar  Eber,  the  sun-boar  of  Orion's  year,  and  the 
Wild  Boar  of  the  Ardennes. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  555 

When  WilHbrod  came  to  Echternach  as  a  missionary,  he 
found,  as  we  are  told  in  his  life,  that  an  annual  dancing 
festival  was  held  there  every  year  in  honour  of  the  sun- 
physician,  who  gave  healing  properties  to  its  waters,  and 
to  whom  the  conical  hill  on  which  the  parish  church  now 
stands  was  dedicated.  The  people  danced  there  for  three 
days  and  three  nights  together,  just  as  they  do  at  the  Munda 
seasonal  festivals  ;  and  this  sun-festival  was  attended,  as  it  is 
now,  by  people  from  a  considerable  distance,  so  that  it  must 
have  originated  in  very  ancient  times.  It  was  held  like  that 
at  Gubbio  at  about  the  same  time  when  the  present  Christian 
festival  takes  place ;  that  is  to  say,  it  was  a  May  festival  of 
the  consecration  of  the  boundaries  of  holy  sites  hallowed  by 
the  healing-sun-god»  When  the  people  were  won  to  Chris- 
tianity by  St.  Willibrod*s  preaching  they  agreed  to  change 
their  dancing  festival  into  a  Christian  procession,  but  the 
change  was  really  merely  nominal,  and  they  substituted  the 
name  of  St.  Willibrod  in  their  prayers  for  health  and  pros- 
perity for  that  of  the  heathen  sun-god '.  Both  here  and  at 
Gubbio,  the  clerical  teachers,  who  taught  the  people  to  call 
themselves  Christians  and  tried  to  train  them  in  the  practice 
^nd  love  of  Christian  virtues,  followed  the  advice  given  by 
Gregory  the  First  to  St.  Augustine  and  the  missionaries  he 
was  taking  to  England,  and  did  not  alter  the  festivals  of 
the  people  beyond  bringing  them,  as  far  as  they  found  it 
possible  to  do  so,  to  renounce  practices  denounced  as  sinful 
by  Christian  ethics. 

Hence  the  dance  which  distinguished  the  ancient  heathen 
procession  was  still  performed  at  Echternach,  with  its  remark- 
able step  of  three  paces  forward  and  two  backwards,  and 
its  own  special  music  =».  It  is  apparently  a  survival  of  the 
ancient  Tripudium  or  measured  step  of  the  Dionysian  Choric 

*  Die  Spring  prozession  und  der  Wallfahrt  zum  Grabe  des  heiligm  Willibrod 
in  Echternach^  von  J.  Bern ;  Krier,  Religions  lehrer  am  Progymnasium  su 
Echternach^  pp.  66  ff. 

»  Purior,  Echternach  St,  Willibrod  et  la  Procession  dansanie^  P«  '3 ;  Krier, 
Die  Spring  prozession^  p.  113. 


5S6  History  and  Chronology 

dances,  and  its  five  steps  point  to  a  connection  with  the 
Celtic  five-days  week.  It  is  with  this  step  that  the  Echter- 
nach  processionists  now  make  the  circuit  of  their  town,  and 
a  similar  step  was  probably  used  at  Gubbio,  which  has  now 
degenerated  into  the  running  pace  of  the  Ceraioli  bearers 
of  the  Ceri. 

We  have  a  minute  account  of  the  procession    recorded 
by  Brower  in  1617  A.D.,  in  his  Metropolis  Ecclesicg  Treviria 
and  Annates  Trevirenses^  which  shows  that  it  then  differed 
in  some  respects  from  that  of  the  present  day.     It  began, 
as  now,  at  the  linden-tree  of  St.  Willibrod  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Sauer,  the  mother-tree  of  Echternach,  and  a  linden 
is  the  sacred  tree  of  almost  all  villages   in   Belgium  and 
the  Eiffel  country.     There  they  danced  three  times  round 
the  cross  of  St.  Willibrod  under  the  tree  facing  the  crossing 
of  the  Sauer  leading  to  the  town.     At  Echternach,  as  at 
Gubbio,  there  were  three  special  stages  in  the  procession, 
which  went  sunwise  round  the  town,  and  this  circumambu- 
lation  of  the  cross  was  the  first  of  the  three.      The  triple 
circuit   round   St.   Willibrod's  was  repeated  in  that   round 
the   interior   of  the   Abbey   Church   and   round   the  cross 
outside   the   Parish   Church  ^     In  the  Abbey  Church  they 
danced  under  the  great  chandelier  in  the  centre  dedicated 
to  the  twelve  Apostles,  and  fitted  for   seventy-two  lights, 
to  represent,  as  we  are  told,  the  seventy-two  disciples  sent 
out  by  our  Lord    to   preach   the  gospel  2.     This   certainly 
looks  very  much  like  a  survival   of  the   ancient    tradition 
of  the  seventy-two  five-day  weeks  of  the  year,  which  were 
still  remembered  by  the  very  conservative  people  who  have 
kept   intact  so  many  old   beliefs  and  customs   in  Gubbio 

*  Krier,  Der  Spring prozession,  pp.  158,  63,  68. 

'  Luke  X.  I — 17.  Our  version  speaks  only  of  seventy  disciples,  but  many 
ancient  manuscripts  give  the  number  as  seventy-two,  and  this  was  certainly 
the  number  recognised  by  the  makers  of  the  Echternach  chandelier,  unless* 
indeed  they  had  the  Celtic  number  of  the  seventy-two  five-day  weeks  of  the 
year  in  their  mind.  The  original  dancing  festival  was  certainly  one  which  had 
descended  from  the  ancient  Pre-Celtic  Picts  and  the  earlier  sons  of  Dagda 
and  Brigit  to  the  Goidelic  and  Brythonic  Celts. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  557 

and  Echternach,  and,  as  we  have  seen  in  so  many  instances 
recorded  in  this  work,  in  all  the  countries  peopled  by  the 
successive  ruling  races  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  arrangement  of  the  procession  is  most  interesting 
and  instructive.  No  one  who  has  seen  it  can  •fail  to  see 
in  the  demeanour  of  the  processionists  that  it  is  looked  on 
by  all  who  take  part  in  it  as  a  most  solemn  religious 
ceremony.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  divided  into  two 
separate  services,  and  the  second  of  these  was  reserved 
for  the  creeping  penitents,  who,  like  the  priests  at  Gubbio, 
made  their  way  slowly  round  the  circuit,  beginning  their 
journey  by  creeping  through  a  hole  in  a  holy  stone  near 
St.  Willibrod*s  cross,  which,  like  the  similar  holy  stone  at 
Anderlecht  near  Brussels,  was  supposed  to  possess  healing 
virtues.  Sick  human  beings  and  Easter  lambs  used  to  be 
passed  through  the  Anderlecht  stone.  The  Echternach  stone 
was  originally  about  two  feet  high,  and  it  was  raised  a 
foot  higher  by  Paschasius,  who  was  abbot  from  1657  to 
1667  A.D. 

The  pilgrims  who  attend  the  festival  come  from  con- 
siderable distances,  and  the  first  place  in  the  dancing  pro- 
cession immediately  after  the  walking  priests,  headed  by 
the  Dean,  is  reserved  for  the  people  of  Priim,  the  capital 
of  the  Eiffel,  about  sixty  miles  from  Echternach.  For  some 
days  before  Whit  Monday  pilgrims  begin  to  come  in,  and 
it  is  almost  more  interesting  to  watch  their  arrival  than  to 
see  the  procession  itself.  All  the  pilgrims  from  each  village, 
men,  women,  boys,  girls,  and  children,  come  in  together  in 
one  troop  accompanied  by  their  village  band,  and  they  spend 
their  time  on  the  journey  in  reciting  the  Litanies  of  St. 
Willibrod.  Certainly  all  that  I  met  near  the  town  were 
thus  engaged,  though  whether  they  continually  recited  the 
services  throughout  the  long  journey  on  foot,  that  some  of 
them  had  to  take,  I  cannot  say. 

The  procession  begins  with  a  sermon,  and  in  it  each 
village  takes  its  allotted  place.  The  men,  women,  boys, 
and  girls,  in  separate  rows  for  each  sex  and  age,  dance  in 


558  History  and  Chronology 

step  behind  their  village  band,  and  take  with  them  their 
village  flag.  It  is  a  surviving  likeness  of  the  processions 
of  matriarchal  communal  villages,  each  having,  like  those 
in  Chutia  Nagpur,  their  own  flag  and  village  musicians; 
and  I  am  tertain  that  in  the  days  when  the  pilgrims^ 
was  made  to  the  healing  well  of  the  sun-physician,  the 
pilgrims  looked  on  their  journey  and  the  ritual  of  the 
services  as  an  equally  holy  duty  as  that  their  modem 
descendants  now  perform  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  the 
intercession  of  St.  Willibrod.  Any  one  in  those  remote 
ages  staying  in  Echtemach  for  some  days  before  the  festival 
would  have  met  the  villagers  coming  to  the  town  in  groups, 
reciting  prayers  to  the  sun-physician,  who,  as  the  Buddha 
of  the  Vessantara  birth,  healed  the  diseases  of  all  those 
whom  he  was  pleased  to  help. 

The  festival  ends,  like  that  of  Gubbio,  with  a  faur,  and 
though  no  bonfires  are  lighted  at  it,  yet  from  the  close 
similarity  between  the  two  feasts  it  is  certain  that  those 
who  introduced  it  among  the  Eburones  brought  it  from 
some  town  centre,  inhabited  by  a  section  of  amalgamated 
tribes  who  had  formed  themselves  into  the  nationality  of 
the  sons  of  the  Easter  lamb,  and  adopted  a  new  sun-year 
for  their  national  use.  By  these  it  was  regarded  as  a  New 
Year's  feast,  but  when  incorporated  into  the  ritual  of  the 
Celts,  who  retained  their  old  November  year  of  the  Pleiades, 
it  was  looked  on  as  a  holy  festival  which  would  bring 
blessings  to  the  country,  and  accepted  without  any  alteration 
of  their  previous  annual  reckonings.  These  latter,  in  the 
conservative  countries  of  primaeval  times,  could  only  be 
changed  by  an  immigration  of  the  men  of  the  new  year 
large  enough  to  make  the  new  comers  much  more  numerous 
and  powerful  than  their  predecessors ;  and  even  then  the 
change  in  any  of  the  town-centres,  whence  all  innovations 
started,  was  first  made  by  the  assignment  of  a  special  quarter 
to  the  new  comers,  wherein,  as  in  the  separate  divisions  of 
the  seven  hills  of  Rome,  they  could  follow  their  own 
ritual.     It  was  only  after  a  long  series  of  quarrels,  recon- 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  559 

ciliations,  and  general  amalgamation  of  the  alien  sections 
with  each  other  by  intermarriage,  that  the  composite  ritual  of 
the  primitive  mythologies  which  have  come  down  to  us  were 
made  into  one  national  round  of  annual  festivals,  embodying 
those  of  the  component  tribes  united  as  one  state.  It  is 
as  one  of  these  incorporated  festivals  that  the  New  Year 
processions  and  verification  of  boundaries,  which  began  the 
year  of  the  Easter-born  sun-god  raised  to  heaven  at  the 
Pentecost,  survive  in  all  countries  of  Europe,  and  are  retained 
in  England  in  the  circuits  made  round  parish  boundaries 
in  Rogation  week. 

To  complete  the  account  of  this  year  and  to  show  its  posi- 
tion in  the  history  of  human  developement,  marked  by  the 
successive  measurements  of  annual  time,  I  must  close  this 
Chapter  with  a  description  of  the  altar  of  the  Garhapatya 
hearth  dedicated  to  this  year,  and  designed  in  India  at 
this  epoch  as  the  first  of  the  two  brick  altars  embodying 
the  final  record  of  the  history  of  the  year  told  in  Hindu 
ritual. 


K.     Tlie  ritual  of  tlie  building  of  the  Garhapatya  altar  of  this 

thirteen-tnonths  year. 

The  space  for  the  altar  was  swept  by  a  Palasha  {Butea 
frondosa)  branch,  and  was  sprinkled  with  the  river  sand, 
whence  the  sons  of  the  rivers  were  born,  mixed  with  salt, 
so  as  to  consecrate  it,  in  the  language  of  the  Brahmanas, 
to  those  united  races,  sons  of  the  river  and  sea-mothers, 
who  trace  their  descent  from  the  inner  membrane  (ammon) 
of  the  womb  of  the  flax  {umd)  mother,  the  oil-bearing  flax- 
plant,  the  Sesamum  orientale  ^.  The  ground  for  the  altar 
was  enclosed  with  twenty-one  enclosing  stones,  the  twenty- 
one  days  of  the  month  of  this  year,  and  in  placing  them 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.   Brdh,^    vii.    i,    i,  i — 7,  vi.   6,    i,  24;    S.B.E.,    vol.   xli. 
pp.  298,  299,  252. 


560  History  and  Chronology  of  the  Myth^Making  Age. 


/ 

12 

I 

13 

6 

2 

7 

5 

3 

8 

II 

4 

9 

s 

10 

a  sunwise  direction  was  to  be  followed.   The  bricks  were  then 
to  be  laid   down   in  the  order  __ 

stated  in  the  accompanying 
diagram,  representing  the  altar 
inside  the  circle  of  twenty-one 
stones.  The  first  four  bricks 
are  to  be  laid  down  from  North  ^ 
to  South  to  represent  the  body 
and  arms  of  the  sun-god  going 
Southward  at  the  summer  sol- 
stice. After  these  the  builder, 
proceeding  sunwise,  is  to  place 

the  two  Western  bricks  to  represent  the  two  thighs, 
placing  the  Southern  brick  first.  He  then  goes  round 
and  places  the  Eastern  bricks  to  represent  the  head, 
placing  the  North  bricks  first,  so  that  the  first  eight  bricks 
form  a  cross,  representing  the  ^^^  of  the  father  of  fire 
lying  on  his  back  with  outstretched  arms  and  his  head  to  the 
East.  To  complete  the  year-square,  represented  by  the  altar, 
four  more  bricks  are  added,  the  ninth  brick  in  the  South-east 
being  divided  into  two  parts,  so  that  the  whole  makes  the 
square  of  the  thirteen  months  of  this  year,  measuring  one 
fathom  in  diameter,  placed  inside  the  circle  of  twenty-one 
stones  I.  This  altar  or  hearth,  is  to  be  built  of  one  layer 
as  the  womb  of  life  2,  that  of  the  birth-year  of  the  worship  of 
the  sun,  who  was  to  rise  to  heaven  as  the  sun-bird  born  from 
this  year  of  seventeen  and  thirteen  months,  the  bird  of  the 
Ahavaniya  brick  altar,  to  be  described  in  the  next  chapter. 
This  sun-bird  was  to  be  born  from  this  hearth  of  national 
generation  as  the  offspring  of  the  fire  kindled  on  it, combined 
with  that  of  the  fire-pan  which  was  transferred  to  it. 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  vii.  i,  i— 12,  37;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  301— 309. 
^  Ibid.,  vii.  I,  2,  15  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  315. 


CHAPTER    IX. 


The  years  of  eighteen  and  twelve  months,  and 

of  five  and  ten-day  weeks. 

A.     The  Hhidti  year  of  eighteen  months  and  that  of  the 

Mayas  of  Mexico* 

WE  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  that  the  seventeen- 
months  year  closing  the  exile  of  the  Pandavas  of  the 
Mahabharata,  ended  before  the  sacrifice  of  the  sun-horse 
at  the  full  moon  of  Cheit  (March — April),  and  it  was  at  this 
sacrifice,  as  we  learn  from  its  ritual  described  in  the  poem, 
that  the  eighteen-months  year  began.  These  months  were 
represented  by  the  eighteen  sacrificial  stakes  set  up  for  the 
victims  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  gods  of  this  year,  instead 
of  the  eleven  stakes  set  up  for  the  gods  of  the  eleven- 
months  year  of  the  AprI  hymns.  Six  of  these  were  of 
Bilva  or  Bel-wood  {^gle  marmelos),  the  sacred  tree  of 
the  sun-physician,  and  one  of  the  totems  of  the  Bhars. 
Six  of  Khadira-wood  {Acacia  catechu),  the  tree  of  Kadru, 
mother  of  the  Nagas,  of  which  the  eleven  stakes  of  the 
ritual  of  the  eleven  and  thirteen-months  year  were  made, 
and  the  wood  of  the  sacred  fire-socket  or  mother  of  fire '. 
Six  of  Sarvavamin  or  Palasha-wood,  the  mother-tree  of 
the  Soma  sacrifice  of  the  sun-bird.  Besides  these,  two 
stakes  were  made  of  Devadaru  {Pinus  deodara)  wood,  of 
which  the  triangle  enclosing  the  fire  on  the  altar  of  animal 
sacrifices  was  made,  and  one  of  Cleshmataka  {Cordia  latifolid)^ 
the  fruit  of  which  is  eaten  medicinally  and  for  food.  It 
furnishes  the  drug  called  by  Roxburgh  Sepislan  or  Sebes- 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh,,  iii.  4,  i,  20,  iii.  6,  2,  12;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp. 
90,  note  5,  151. 

O  O 


562  History  and  Ckrofwlogy 

tena  \  These  three  stakes  were  probably  added  to  make 
the  numbers  of  the  stakes  twenty,  or  the  number  of  da>'s 
in  the  month  of  the  eighteen- months  year,  and  twenty-one  or 
the  number  of  days  in  that  of  seventeen  months.  A  brick 
altar  was  also  built  on  the  sacrificial  ground,  said  to  be  made 
of  golden  bricks,  and  called  the  Agni  Chayana,  or  altar  of 
heaped-up  fire.  It  was  ten  cubits  long  and  eight  cubits 
broad,  and  was  thus  an  altar  of  the  year  of  8  + 10,  that 
is,  of  eighteen  months.  It  was  made  of  four  rows  or  layers 
of  bricks  and  not  of  five,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  the 
orthodox  number  in  the  great  Ahavanlya  altar  of  the  Brah- 
manas,  and  was  surmounted  by  a  golden  bird  in  the  shape 
of  a  triangle,  to  represent  the  Garuda  or  Gadura,  the  sun- 
bull  {gud)  and  sacred  bird  of  Krishna.  This  Gadura  was 
the  second  son  of  Vinata,  the  tenth  wife  of  Kashyapa,  bom 
from  an  egg,  and  the  devourer  of  the  Nagas  «.  This  is  the 
earlier  sun-bird  of  Indian  ritual,  which  was  originally  the 
sun-hen,  and  differs  from  the  cloud-bird  of  the  brick  altar 
of  the  Brahmanas,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  depicted  on 
its  lowest  layer. 

This  year  of  eighteen  months  of  twenty  days  each,  divided 
into  four  five-day  weeks,  marks  the  culmination  of  the  ritual- 
istic eras,  of  which  the  history  is  given  in  the  Mahabharata 
It  marks  a  return  to  the  earlier  year  of  three  hundred  and 
sixty  days  and  seventy-two  weeks,  and  was  the  outcome 
of  the  final  victory  of  the  Pandavas  fighting  under  Arjuna's 
banner  of  the  ape-father-god.  It  denoted  the  birth  of  a 
union  of  originally  alien  people,  comprising  in  the  one 
nationality  of  the  Great  Bharata  all  the  different  alien  races 
of  Southern  and  Northern  origin  which  made  up  the  popu- 
lation of  India.  It  is  their  history  which  is  told  in  the  eigh- 
teen cantos  of  the  poem.  This  was  the  year  which  was 
taken  from  India  to  Mexico  in  the  Bronze  Age,  which 
lasted   in   America  till   after  the   Spanish   conquest.     For 

'  Clarke,  Roxburgh's  Flora  Indica^  pp.  198,  199. 

'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  {Anugitd)  Parva,  kxxviii.  pp.  222,  223 ;  Adi 
{^Astika)  Parva,  xvi.  p.  77. 


of  t/ie  Myth-Making  Age,  563 

when  the  Spaniards  came  to  Mexico  the  highly  civihsed, 
learned,  and  accomph'shed  natives  of  the  country  were  ig- 
norant of  the  use  of  iron,  though  iron-stone  of  the  purest 
quality  abounds  all  over  the  Mexican  territory  ^  Hence 
all  Indian  computations  of  time  and  of  the  ritual  of  the 
worship  of  Indian  year-gods  brought  thither  must  have  left 
India  before  the  use  of  iron  was  known  in  that  country, 
for  if  the  emigrants  had  left  India  in  the  Iron  Age  they 
would  have  brought  the  knowledge  of  iron-work,  now  known 
to  all  metal-working  castes. 

This  eighteen  -  months  year  is  that  of  the  Mayas  or 
Toltecs,  meaning  the  architects,  and  also  of  four  other 
Mexican  tribes,  the  Tzental,  Quiche-Cakchiquel,  Zapotec, 
and  Nahuatl,  who  also  used  a  sacred  year  of  thirteen 
months.  These  tribes  used  hieroglyphic  characters  no 
longer  intelligible  to  their  descendants,  and  unfortunately 
no  one  has  succeeded  in  finding  such  an  exact  clue  to 
their  interpretation  as  will  enable  them  to  be  read  easily. 
Each  of  the  twenty  days  of  the  month  has  a  name,  and  the 
first  and  eleventh  days  arc  named  after  the  alligator  and 
monkey-god,  both  of  whom  held,  as  wc  have  seen,  a  promi- 
nent position  in  Indian  Chronography  2. 

In  Mexico  the  Toltecs,  who  came  from  the  North,  ruled 
the  country  long  before  it  was  conquered  by  the  cannibal 
Aztecs,  who  governed  it  when  the  Spaniards  came.  But 
these  Aztecs,  though  they  became  rulers  of  the  land  after 
the  Toltecs,  were  probably  the  descendants  of  earlier  immi- 
grants into  America,  who  belonged,  like  the  Carib  canni- 
bals of  the  West  Indian  islands,  to  the  Neolithic  Stone  Age, 
and  had  not,  like  the  Toltecs,  learnt  the  art  of  making 
bronze.  The  level  of  the  civilisation  of  these  men  of  the 
Bronze  Age  far  exceeded  that  of  other  Indian  tribes,  and 
they  never  sacrificed  human  beings,  but  only  animal  victims 
on  their  altar.     The  cannibal  tribes  offered  human  sacrifices, 

*  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico ^  vol.  i.  p.  117. 

'*  Ibid.,  chap.  iv.  p.  92  ;  Thomas,  *  Day  Symbols  of  the  Maya  Year,*  vol.  16, 
Publications  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology^  pp.  206,  212,  243. 

002 


564  History  and  Chronology 

especially  of  children,  to  Tlaloc,  the  rain-god,  and  they  also 
offered  special  victims,  generally  captives,  who  were,  like 
those  sacrificed  by  the  Khands  of  Orissa  in  India,  chosen 
for  the  sacrifice  a  year  before  the  festival  of  Tezcatlipoca, 
the  creating-god,  at  which  it  took  place.  During  this  period 
the  victim,  like  the  Meriah  victims  of  OrissaJ  lived  in  the 
midst  of  every  luxury  and  indulgence.  The  god  to  whom 
this  victim  was  offered  was  represented  as  a  handsome 
young  man,  whose  image  was  made  of  black  stone,  gar- 
nished with  gold  plates  and  ornaments.  His  most  cha- 
racteristic ornament  was  a  shield  polished  like  a  mirror, 
in  which  he  could  see  the  doings  of  the  world  reflected  ^ 
He  is  represented  also  as  the  one-footed  Pole  Star  god, 
bound  like  Ixion,  to  the  wheel  of  Time,  the  Great  Bear  2. 

His  description  reads  very  much  like  that  of  the  ninth 
form  of  Prajapati,  the  Kumara  or  young  sun-god,  with  his 
gold  plate,  to  whom,  as  we  shall  see,  a  human  victim,  whose 
mouth,  nostrils,  and  ears  were  stuffed  with  gold  chips,  was 
offered  at  the  building  of  the  brick  altar  of  the  year-bird. 
These  Mexicans  also  in  their  chronometry  showed  a  fur- 
ther approach  to  that  of  the  Pandavas  of  the  Mahabharata, 
for  they  divided  time  into  cycles  of  fifty-two  years,  divided 
into  four  periods  of  thirteen  years,  each  answering  to  the 
thirteen  years'  exile  of  the  Pandavas.  At  the  close  of  this 
cycle,  which  ended  with  the  culmination  of  the  Pleiades  at 
midnight  in  November,  the  month  sacred  to  the  Pleiades  in 
India,  all  fires  were  put  out,  and  were  only  re-lighted  from 
the  fire  kindled  on  the  breast  of  a  slaughtered  human  victim 
taken  by  the  priests  to  the  top  of  a  mountain  and  there 
slain  and  burnt  on  a  funeral  pyre,  lit  with  the  fire  kindled 
on  his  breast  at  the  auspicious  moment ;  and  from  this  fire 
all  the  fires  in  the  country  were  lighted  3.  This  sacrifice 
probably  took  place  about  the  new  moon  of  Agrahayani  or 

'  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico y  vol.  i.  pp.  9,  10,  62,  63,  70,  vol.  ii.  p.  128. 
•  Zelia  Nuttall,  Fundamental  Principles  of  Old  and  New  World  Civilisation, 
pp.  9,  10,  Papers  of  Peabody  Museum^  Harvard  University,  vol.  ii.  1901. 
3  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico^  vol.  i.  pp.  105 — 107. 


of  the  My  til- Making  Age.  565 

Mriga-sirsha  (November — December),  the  month  which,  as 
dedicated  to  Orion  of  the  deer  s  {mriga)  head  (sirshd),  was 
intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  Pleiades  or  Krittakas 
(October — November),  and  their  queen-star   RohinI  [Aide- 
haran)^  for  Manu  says  that  all  Brahmins  should  offer  the 
Ishti,  that  is,  the  new  and  full-moon  sacrifices  of  new  grain 
in  Agrahayani,  together  with  an  animal  sacrifice,  and  this 
is  to  be  offered  at  the  solstices  called  Turayana.     Hencew 
the  normal  winter  animal  ^  sacrifice  was  offered  at  the  end  of 
Mriga-sirsha,  which  closed  the  night  before  the  winter  solstice 
with,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  III.  p.  89,  the  death  of  the 
year-deer '.     This  special  cycle  sacrifice,  if  it  was  derived  by 
the  Mexicans  from  India,  was  probably  offered  at  the  meet- 
ing-point of  the  solstitial  month  Mriga-sirsha  (November — 
December),  and  the    Pleiades   month    Khartik   (October — 
November),  as  that  on  which  the  union  between  Orion  and 
RohinI  took  place,  from  which  Vastospati,  the  god  of  the 
household  fire,  was  born. 

In  the  cosmogony  of  the  Sias,  a  tribe  of  artistic  potters 
occupying  in  Mexico  a  position  similar  to  that  of  the  sons 
of  the  Great  Potter  in  early  European  and  Asiatic  history, 
their  descent  and  that  of  other  Mexican  tribes  is  traced  to 
Sus-sistinnako,  the  Spider.  He  is  the  exact  counterpart 
of  the  Hindu  Krittikas,  the  goddess  Kirat  or  Krittida,  the 
Spinner,  the  Pleiades  constellation  which  appears  in  the 
Vedic  birth  story  of  Vastospati,  and  in  the  Mexican  fire- 
lighting  sacrifice  at  the  end  of  the  cycle  as  the  mother  of  the 
year's  fires.  Sus-sistinnako,  in  creating  life  on  earth,  sat  in 
the  South-west  quarter  of  the  sun-circle,  divided  into  four 
equal  parts  by  the  meal  cross  of  the  ploughing-corn-god 
St.  George,  that  is  to  say,  at  the  point  where  the  sun  set 
at  the  opening  of  the  year  of  the  winter  solstice.  He  there 
sang  into  life  the  two  seeds  he  had  placed  in  the  North-west 
and  North-east  quarters.  From  these  were  born  Now-ut'set, 
the  buffalo-mother  of  the  West,  and  of  those  who  lighted 
their  fire  with  the  West  stick  used  to  light  the  fire  on  the 

'  Buhler,  Manu,  iv.  26,  27,  vi.  10;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  pp.  133,  200. 


566  History  and  Chronology 

Hindu  altar ;  and  Ut'set,  the  mother  of  corn  and  of  the  race 
born  of  the  deer-sun  rising  in  the  East,  who  lighted  their  fire 
with  the  East  stick  of  the  four  laid  in  the  form  of  St.  George's 
Cross  as  the  kindling-sticks  of  the  tribal  fires  i.  Among  the 
tribes  born  from  these  mothers,  two,  the  Maya  and  NahuatI, 
to  whom  the  Aztecs  belonged,  had  brought  with  them  to 
Mexico  the  custom  of  circumcision  practised  by  the  Col- 
chians,  ancient  Egyptians,  and  some  races  of  Asia  Minor 
and  Syria,  but  not  by  all  Semites ;  for  it  was  unknown  among 
the  Phoenicians  and  Philistines  2,  who,  as  Kaphtorim  or  sons 
of  the  ape  Pole  Star  god,  were  the  Kcftenu  or  Phoenicians 
of  Egyptian  theology.  These  Mayas  and  NahuatI,  both  of 
whom  use  the  eighteen-months  year,  have  names  very  like 
those  of  the  Hindu  maritime  Maghas  or  Mughs,  the  Hindu 
mother  Magha,  Maya,  the  mother  of  the  Buddha,  and  of  the 
Nahusha,  sons  of  the  Naga  snake,  whose  worship  survives 
in  Mexico  in  the  snake-dance.  This  takes  place  at  the  great 
August  festival,  one  of  those  founded  by  the  sons  of  the 
united  buffalo  and  deer-born  races,  who  inhabited  Mexico 
when  the  Spaniards  conquered  it. 

B.     The  antelope  and  snake-dances  of  Mexico, 

It  corresponds  in  its  ritual  with  the  Hindu  consecration  of 
July — August  to  the  Naga  snake-gods,  whose  festival,  called 
the  Naga-panchami  or  the  feast  of  the  five  snakc-mothcrs, 
is  held  on  the  fifth  of  Shravana  (July — August);  a  month 
also  dedicated  in  Celtic  chronometry  to  the  marriage  of  Lug. 
The  whole  of  a  Mexican  month  of  twenty  days  is  devoted 
to  this  festival,  which,  in  its  Celtic  form  of  that  of  Lug's 
marriage  month,  lasts  from  the  fifteenth  of  July  to  the  fifteenth 
of  August  The  reports  of  the  three  village  celebrations  seen 
by  Mr.  Fewkcs,  who  visited  them  as  the  delegate  of  the 
American    Bureau   of  Ethnology  3,  show  that  they  do  not 

'   Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times  y  vol.  ii.,  Essay  ix.,  pp.  248  ff.,  237. 

-  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  Esiiay  v.,  p.  492;  Chcync,  'Circumcision,'  Encyc.  Brit., 
Niiitli  Edition,  vol.  v.  p.  790;   Bancroft,  Natii'e  Races  of  America ^  vol.  iii. 

^  Ecwkcs,  'Tusayan  Snake  Ceremonies,'  Publications  of  the  Bureau  cj 
Affu'rican  Ethnology ^  1 894— 1895,  vol.  xvi.  pp.  274 — 308, 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  $67 

begin  exactly  on  the  same  day  everywhere,  but  that  the  nine 
ceremonial  days  of  the  festival  must  fall  some  time  in  August 
The  dates  when  these  nine  days  begin,  as  given  by  Mr. 
Fewkes,  are :  Oraibi,  nth;  Cipaulovi,  15th;  Cuflopavi,  i6th 
of  August ;  and  he  says  that  the  exact  date  is  determined 
sixteen  days  before  it  actually  takes  place.  The  first  seven 
of  the  twenty  days  allotted  to  it  are  spent  in  preparations 
by  the  priests  of  the  antelope-god.  The  next  nine  days, 
each  of  which  has  its  special  name,  are  devoted  to  the  secret 
ceremonies  of  antelope  and  snake-worship,  ending  with  the 
dances  held  on  the  last  two  or  last  of  these  days.  The 
remaining  four  days  of  the  month  are  days  of  purification  or 
general  rejoicing,  answering  to  the  Hindu  orgiastic  feasts. 

The  directors  of  the  proceedings  are  the  antelope  and 
snake-priests,  chosen  in  the  village  from  the  members  of  the 
priestly  clan,  answering  to  that  of  the  Pahans  or  priests 
of  the  Ooraon  villages  of  Chutia  Nagpur.  These  are  the 
descendants  of  families  who  have  handed  down  to  their  sons 
from  generation  to  generation  the  knowledge  of  the  ritual 
of  the  national  festivals  observed  in  each  township,  together 
ivith  the  words  and  music  of  the  songs  to  be  sung  at  them, 
ind  who  thus  maintained  the  unbroken  continuity  of  the 
*orm  of  worship  established  in  each  village. 

Among  the  village  gods  the  Mexican  antelope-god,  answer- 
ng  to  the  Hindu  Krishna,  the  black  antelope,  occupies  a  very 
mportant  place.  In  the  Sia  cosmogony,  of  which  I  have 
riven  a  full  abstract  in  the  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^ 
he  antelope-god  ruled  the  zenith  from  the  top  of  the  moun- 
ain  where  he  dwelt.  He  was  the  last  of  the  old  false  gods 
){  the  land  killed  by  the  twins  Uyunyewe  and  Ma'asewe, 
ent  by  their  father  with  bows  and  arrows  and  three  rabbit 
ticks,  the  three  seasons  of  the  years  of  the  Mexican  cycles 
leginning  with  the  yea^  of  the  Rabbit  ^,  to  banish  idolatrous 
/orship  from  the  land.  These  twins  successively  killed  the 
Volf  of  the  East,  the  Cougar  or  Tiger  of  the  North,  the  Bear 

'  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico t  vol.  i.  p.  97. 


568  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  West,  the  father  and  mother  Eagle  of  the  South  with 
their  offspring,  and  the  Fire-mother  of  the  Nadir,  the  fire- 
socket,  whom  they  burnt  in  her  own  fire.  They  next  attacked 
the  Antelope  of  the  Zenith,  described  as  the  eater  of  children, 
the  god  to  whom  children  were  offered.  They  were  led  up 
his  mountain  by  the  mole,  who  made  an  underground  way 
enabling  them  to  approach  him  unseen.  Through  this  hole 
Ma*asewe  shot  the  antelope,  who  was  looking  westward  from 
below '.  He  thus  killed  the  antelope-sun-god  of  the  setting 
sun  in  the  same  way  as  Sigurd  killed  Fafnir,  the  snake-ruler 
of  time,  by  digging  a  hole  in  the  path  traversed  by  him 
in  his  yearly  circuit  of  the  heavens,  in  which  he  hid  himself 
and  shot  him  from  below ;  as  Krishanu,  the  rainbow-god, 
shot  the  Shyena-bird  in  the  Pole  Star  circle  at  the  winter 
solstice. 

These  twins  play  in  Mexican  historical  chronology  the 
same  part  as  that  assigned  to  the  stars  Gemini  in  the 
zodiacal  records  of  past  years.  They,  as  I  have  shown  in 
Chapters  VII.  and  VIII.,  guarded  the  gates  or  months 
through  which  the  sun  entered  on  his  yearly  course,  and  thus 
marked  the  dates  of  the  successive  changes  in  the  year- 
reckoning,  ritual  and  doctrines  of  sun-worship,  beginning 
with  the  birth  of  the  young  sun-god  at  the  winter  solstice. 
Consequently  the  death  of  the  antelope  in  Mexican  history 
corresponds  with  the  death,  which  I  shall  describe  presently, 
of  Krishna,  and  all  the  Mahabharata  gods  of  the  age  which 
worshipped  the  sun  as  the  star  of  light  going  round  the 
Pole,  born  as  the  year-god  at  the  beginning  of  his  year's 
course  and  dying  at  its  end  to  make  way  for  his  son  and 
successor. 

This  form  of  worship  of  the  age  of  the  Mexican  twins 
ended  with  the  revels,  at  which  they  celebrated  their  victories 
in  feasts,  where  honey-drink,  the  Hindu  Madhu  of  the  age 
of  the  Aslivins,  was  consumed.     After  this  they  went  up  the 

'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Timcs^  vol.  ii.,  Essay  ix.,  pp.  266— 
272  ;  Stevenson,  *  The  Sia,'  Publications  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology y 
vol.  ii.  pp.  52,  S3. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  569 

rainbow  bridge  to  their  father,  the  Pole  Star  god,  and  were 
succeeded  as  rulers  of  time  by  the  sun-god  Poshai-yanne, 
born  of  a  virgin-mother  made  pregnant  by  eating  two  nuts 
of  the  Piflon-tree,  the  tree  reaching  up  to  heaven,  down 
which  the  twins  had  come  from  the  nest  of  the  Eagle  of 
the  South.  This  god  born  of  the  nut-tree,  the  sacred  almond 
tree  of  India  and  of  the  Jews,  began  his  career,  like  the 
beggar  sun-god  Odusseus,  as  servant  to  the  Tiamoni,  or 
priest-king,  the  Patcsi  of  the  Akkadians ;  and  won  from 
him,  by  his  skill  at  games,  the  rule  of  the  regions  of  the 
North,  South,  East,  West,  Nadir  and  Zenith.  He  is,  as 
I  have  shown  in  the  complete  account  I  have  given  of  his 
history,  the  reproduction  of  the  Buddha  sun-god  of  India 
in  his  final  transformation  as  the  immortal  and  unchanging 
ruler  of  time ;  and  his  name  as  completely  reproduces  that 
of  the  Chinese  Fo-sho,  meaning  the  Buddha,  as  the  Mexican 
year  reproduces  the  Rabbit  year  of  China.  That  the  Indian 
Buddhist  birth-stories  of  the  Indian  double  of  the  Mexican 
Poshai-yanne  were  conveyed  to  Mexico,  and  received  there  as 
sacred  legends,  is  proved  by  the  picture  of  the  Buddha  found, 
as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  VII.  pp.  471, 472,  among  the  bas- 
reliefs  of  Copan,  representing  him  as  Gan-isha  sitting  on  the 
double  Suastika,  marking  the  year  sun-god,  and  holding  in 
his  hand  the  steaming  bowl  of  rice-gruel  he  received  from 
Su-jata  as  his  pentecostal  food  for  the  fifty  days  spent  in 
preparing  for  his  ascent  into  heaven. 

To  return  to  the  antelope  and  snake  dance  which  repro- 
duce the  revels  of  the  conquering  twins,  who  ruled  time 
before  Poshai-yanne.  The  August  festival  at  which  they 
take  place  is  held  almost  at  the  same  time  as  the  birth- 
day of  Apollo  Paian,  the  sun  -  physician.  At  it  both  the 
antelope  and  snake-priests  have  "  kivas,"  or  closed  circular 
bhrines,  erected  for  this  festival,  in  which  their  secret  rites 
are  carried  on.  Only  the  antelope-priests  have  altars,  which 
are  made  during  the  first  days  of  the  festival  according 
to  elaborate  patterns  prescribed  by  ancient  custom.  The 
antelope  Kiva  is  placed  at  the  East  and  tlie  snake  Kiva  at  the 


570  History  and  Chronology 

West  of  the  road  entering  the  town  where  the  feast  is  cele- 
brated.    The  altar  is  not  built  of  earth  or  brick  but  is  made 
of  Sand  strewn  on  the  ground,  like  that  scattered  on  the 
ground   where   the   Garhapatya  hearth   was  built,  and  the 
oblong   figure   of  sand    is   adorned   with    symbolic    figures, 
representing  horned  males  and  hornless  females,  and  also 
with   cloud   and   lightning  symbols.      It   is   bordered   with 
bands  of  sand  of  different  colours.     At  Oraibi  there  are  two 
antelope-heads  placed   at    the   North-east  and   South-west 
comers  of  the  altar.    The  antelope-priest  is  also  distinguished 
from    the  snake-priest  by  carrying  during  the   ceremonies 
a   tiponi  or  idol.     This  is  called  by  the  Sia  Ya'ya,  a  name 
similar  to  the  Hittite  Ya,  meaning   the   full   moon,  which 
appears  in  India  in  the  names  of  the  god  Yayati  and  his  son 
Yadu,  the  twin   brother  of  Turvasu,  who,  as    sons    of  the 
goddess  Devayani,  rule  the  Devayana  and  Pitriyana,  the  two 
seasons  of  the  solstitial  year  in  the  Brahmanic  ritual.    The 
Ya*ya  is  said  to  be  an  image  of  Ut^set,  the  corn-mother,  and 
is  an  ear  of  maize,  the    Indian    corn,  placed  in  a  basket 
woven  with  cotton-wool  and  crowned  by  eagles*  and  parrots' 
feathers,  which  completely  conceal  it.     It  is  renewed  at  the 
end  of  every  four  years,  that  is, 'at  the  end  of  each  of  the 
thirteen   divisions    into    which   the   fifty-two-years  cycle  is 
divided.     This  seems  to  me  to  be  derived  from  the  "Rice* 
child  "  of  the  Malays,  which  it  exactly  resembles,  and  to 
be  a  form  of  the  corn-baby  cut  as  the  last  sheaf,  which  is 
common  all  over  the  world,  and  which  was  almost  certainly 
adopted  from  the  Malay  Malli,  as  a  symbol  of  the  virgin- 
grain-mother,   by   the    Indian   Panchala  Srinjayas,   or   men 
of  the  sickle  (srini ),  with  which  they  cut  their  com.     This 
image  of  the  virgin-mother  of  cora  is  placed  near  the  North- 
east corner  of  the  antelope  altar,  the  point  whence  the  sun 
rose  at  the  summer  solstice. 

The  dances  all  took  place  at  sunset  in  front  of  the  "  kisi," 
or  shrine  built  of  the  sacred  cotton  wood,  the  Vedic  Shalmali- 
tree  {Bombax  tieptaphylla)^  of  which  the  car  of  the  Indian 
Gemini,  the  Ashvins,  was  made.     This  was  placed  in  the 


I 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  57 1 

South  of  the  piazza  or  market-place,  and  in  the   centre  of 
this  piazza  there  was  the  Pahoki  or  principal  shrine. 

The  only  public  ceremony  occurring  at  sunrise  at  this 
festival  was  the  snake-race,  a  reproduction  of  the  Greek  year- 
race  in  which  Atalanta  was  defeated,  and  won  as  his  bride 
Uz,  the  victor  sun-god,  who  delayed  her  steps  by  throwing 
before  her  the  three  golden  apples,  the  three  seasons  of 
the  year.  This  was  run  on  the  morning  after  the  antelope- 
dance,  and  on  the  same  day  on  which  the  snake-dance 
was  danced  in  the  evening.  All  the  circuits  made  during 
the  performances  both  by  the  antelope  and  snake-priests, 
each  performance  beginning  with  four  circuits,  were  made 
to  the  left  against  the  course  of  the  sun.  Also  the  antelope- 
priests  at  Oraibi  wore^  like  the  Hindu  and  Umbrian  priests^ 
the  sacrificial  cord  over  their  right  shoulder  and  a  band  of  wool 
round  t/ie  left  knee,  but  no  cord  was  worn  by  the  snake- 
priests.  The  antelope-chief-priest  carried  the  tiponi  or  corn 
idol  over  his  left  arm,  and  he  also  carried  in  one  hand  a 
bow  with  red  horsehair  attached  to  the  string.  This  bow 
of  the  rainbow-god,  which  became  the  weapon  of  the  Mexican 
twin-gods,  was  also  carried  by  the  snake-priests,  who  had 
no  idol. 

At  the  snake-dance,  after  the  four  circuits  to  the  left 
had  been  made,  the  priests  were  divided  into  parties  of  three  ; 
one  of  each  party  knelt  before  the  kisi  or  shrine  and  there 
received  a  snake,  which  he  took  up  and  placed  in  his  mouth 
with  its  head  to  the  left.  He  then  carried  it  round  the 
piazza  accompanied  by  the  second  priest  with  his  hand 
on  his  shoulder.  When  he  had  reached  the  end  of  his 
circuit  he  took  the  snake  out  of  his  mouth  and  put  it  on 
the  ground,  when  it  was  picked  up  by  the  third  man  of 
the  group,  who  threw  it  into  a  ring  circled  with  sacred  meal- 
and  divided  into  four  parts  by  the  cross  of  St.  George, 
formed  by  meal  lines  drawn  to  each  of  the  four  points  of 
the  compass.  This  is  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  creating- 
circle  of  Sus-sistinnako  in  the  Sia  cosmogony.  When  all 
the  snakes  had  been  carried  round  the  priests  rushed  into 


57^  History  and  Chronology 

the  snake-ring,  and  each  took  up  as  many  as  he  could  get 
hold  of  and  threw  them  outside  to  the  cardinal  points  as 
marked  for  them  in  the  meal  cross. 

At  the  antelope-dance  the  antelope-priest  carried  in  his 
mouth  instead  of  a  snake  a  bundle  of  corn  and  vine  stalks 
round  the  ground,  just  as  the  snake-priests  carried  the  snakes, 
and  he  was  accompanied  by  the  snake-priest  who  kept 
his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

In  these  ceremonies,  the  evening   dances,  the   left-hand 
circuits,  the  wearing;  of  the  cord  on  the  right  shoulder,  and 
the  binding  of  the  left  knee  are  exact  copies  of  the  Hindu 
ritual  of  the  barley-eating  fathers.     Also  the  corn-god  is  a 
reproduction   of  the   Malay   rice-child,   the   first   and    best 
bunch  of  seven  female  ears   wrapped   up  in  a  white  cloth 
like   babies'   swaddling-clothes,   and    tied   with    a    cord  of 
"  tcrap  "  bark,  which  is  placed  in  a  small  basket  and  pre- 
served as  the  soul  of  the  rice  to  be  mixed  with  the  grain 
thrashed  from  the  last  sheaf  cut  at  the  next  harvest  *.     The 
deity  worshipped  in  these  Mexican  ceremonies  as  well  as 
the    Malay  rice-god,   and   the  firstfruits  of  the  corn   borne 
in  Bacchic  processions  in  the  basket  called  the  mystic  win- 
nowing basket  of  lacchus,  the  young  sun-god,  is  the  germ 
of  life  infused  into  the  national  food  by  the  rain  from  heaven, 
which   disseminates    the   indwelling   god,  giving   life  to  all 
who  partake  of  the  rain-born  food. 

In  these  Mexican  dances  the  dancers  are  the  men  of  the 
village,  and  not  the  women  dancers,  who  among  the  Indian 
Mundas  and  other  cognate  tribes  keep  up  the  custom  of 
seasonal  dances ;  and  therefore  they  are  much  more  like  those 
of  the  Salii,  Dactyli-Kouretes,  and  other  associations  of 
dancing-priests  of  Asia  Minor,  Greece  and  Italy,  than  those 
of  the  matriarchal  races.  These  latter  succeeded  the  matri- 
archal dances  when  the  family  became  the  national  unit 
instead  of  the  village,  and  it  is  this  stage  which  has  been 
reached  by  the  Mexican  tribes,  who  all  Hve  in  long  houses 

*  Skeat,  Malay  AlagtCj  pp.  225,  226,  249. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age.  573 

large  enough  to  contain  several  generations  of  a  family  ;  and 
their  ritual  also  seems  to  date  from  the  Kushika  age  when 
the  priests  formed  guilds,  which,  after  passing  through  the 
stages  indicated  by  the  barber -priests  and  the  Ooraon 
Pahans  or  village-priest  clan,  developed  into  the  Indian 
caste  of  the  Brahmins.  But  these  patriarchal  tribes  retained, 
in  their  mixed  ritual,  the  ancient  seasonal  festivals  with  their 
dances  and  offerings  of  fruit  and  flowers  without  the  sacrifice 
of  living  victims;  and  it  was  the  transition  stages  of  the 
ancient  rites  which  were  reproduced  in  this  Mexican  August 
festival,  answering  to  that  of  the  Panathenaia  at  Athens, 
where  Athene,  the  mother-goddess  of  weavers,  received  the 
peplos,  her  woven  year-garment.  The  corresponding  Hindu 
age  of  this  festival  was  that  of  the  Kushika  trade  guilds, 
the  barber-priests  of  Bengal,  Behar  and  Orissa,  and  tl\jB 
Ooraon  Pahan  clans ;  and  the  Mexican  ceremonies  point  to 
a  ritual  derived  from  the  Indian  and  Malay  worshippers  of 
the  grain-soul  and  the  Naga  snake.  These  latter  are  called 
in  the  Rigveda  Varshagiras,  or  praisers  of  rain  as  the  parent 
of  life,  and  Nahusha,  or  sons  of  the  ploughing-snake  {Nagur\ 
whose  name  seems,  as  I  have  already  suggested,  to  be  repro- 
duced in  America  in  that  of  the  Mexican  Nahuatl. 

It  was  the  age  of  the  worship  of  the  Great  Bear  constel-' 
lation,  which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  as  the  Thigh  of  the 
ape-god,  the  parent  of  the  sun-god  ;  and  that  this  was  the 
traditional  epoch  of  the  Mexican  immigration  is  shown  by 
the  story  of  the  escape  of  Ut'set,  the  corn-mother,  from  the 
lower  world  to  the  upper  corn  land,  whither  she  was  led  to 
save  her  and  her  people  from  the  floods,  which,  like  those 
which  nearly  drowned  the  newly-born  millet-growing  Gonds 
at  the  sources  of  the  Jumna  river  of  the  twins,  made  her 
ancient  home  uninhabitable.  She  made  her  way  up  to  this 
Mexican  reproduction  of  the  Gangetic  Doab,  enclosed 
between  the  Ganges  and  Jumna,  by  the  river  reed.  The 
way  into  the  corn  plateau  was  opened  for  her  first  by  the 
locust,  and  then  by  the  badger.  After  her  came  the  deer 
and  buffalo  and  the  beetle  carrying  the  star  bag,  which  may 


574  History  and  Chronology 

indicate  the  epoch  of  the  immigration  as  that  of  the  thirteen- 
months  year  of  the  Egyptian  Kheper-Ra,  the  beetle-sun-god, 
of  which  I  have  given  the  history  in  Chapter  VIII.  The 
last  comer  into  the  new.  land  was  the  turkey '.  The  beetle 
had  allowed  all  the  stars  to  escape  except  the  Pleiades,  the 
three  stars  of  Orion's  belt,  and  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great 
Bear.  These  last  Ut'set  placed  in  the  sky  as  the  parent-stars 
of  the  nation. 

It  was  thus,  according  to  national  tradition,  in  the  age 
of  the  r-ule  of  the  Great  Bear  constellation  that  these  ante- 
lope-born  sons   of  the   corn  ^and   snake  came   to   Mexico, 
bringing  with  them  the  worship  of  these  parent-stars.     And 
with   the  worship   of  the  three  stars  of  Orion's  belt  they 
brought  with  them,  in  a  variant  form,  the  Indian  story  of 
the   birth  of  the  Palasha-tree,   bringing   to   earth    the  sap 
oT  life  sent  down  from  heaven  in  the  blood  of  the  Shycna 
Soma  bird  of  frost  (shy a),  the  Pole  Star  bird  of  the  winter 
solstice.     This  story  of  Krishanu,  the  rainbow-archer-god, 
the  rainbow-father  of  the  Mexican  twins,  is  depicted  on  the 
cross  at  Palenque,  as  is  shown  in  the  annexed  illustration. 
The  stem  of  the  cross  is  shaped  as  the  feathered  arrow,  the 
traditional  arrow  of  the  three  stars  of  Orion's  belt,  the  three 
^seasons  of  the  year.     It  shoots  the  turkey  seated  on  the  top 
of  the  cross.     On  each  side  of  the  cross  stands  a  priest,  and 
the  left-hand  priest  who  is  cutting  up  the  slain  turkey,  to  con- 
sult the  augural   signs.     He  wears  a  cap  crowned  with  a 
sheaf  of  corn  and  a  flcur-de-lys,  a  reproduction  of  the  trident- 
god,  a  pig-tail,  and  a  girdle,  which  is  probably  tied  with  the 
three  knots  of  Orion's  stars,  tying  the  girdles  of  Brahmins 
and  Asiatic  dervishes. 

That  the  Mexicans  were  emigrants  from  a  country  where 
the  ruling  races  were  of  mixed  Southern  and  Northern 
nationality  is  proved  by  their  parent-stars,  the  Pleiades 
mother  of  the  Southern  Indian  forest  races,   Orion  parent 


'  Stevenson,  *  The  Sia,'  Publications  of  the  American  Bureau  of  Ethnoiost^ 
PP-  35—37. 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  575 

)f  the  Northern  sons  of  the  sun-deer,  and  the  Great  Bear 
)arent  of  the  wizard  races  of  the  West,  who  adored  the 
)ear-mother  Artemis  and  sacrificed  human  victims  to  her. 
The  Naga  Kushikas  who  ruled  India  in  the  epoch  of  Great 
?ear  worship,  worshipped,  h'ke  the  Mexicans,  the  moon  as 
L  goddess,  the  Gond  Pandhari  or  Mu-chundri,  the  Greek 
jlere  or  Selene,  the  Latin  Luna ;  and  the  sun  as  a  male  god, 
he  sun-lizard  Skanda,  the  Greek  Helios,  the  Latin  Sol. 
Consequently  their  theology  differed  from  that  of  the  early 
•Cushikas,  who  worshipped  the  sun  as  Ahalya,  the  hen,  who 
vas  wife  to  Gautama,  the  moon-bull,  and  from  that  of  the 
/edic  hymn,  in  which  Soma,  the  moon-god,  was  married  to 
5uria,  the  sun-maiden.  The  date  of  the  first  worship  of  the 
nale  sun-god  seems  to  go  back  to  Orion's  year,  in  which 
he  sun-god  was  the  male  deer  of  the  herd  of  deer-stars,  who 
>ecame  the  rider  on  the  sun-horse.  This  was  followed  by 
:he  first  worship  of  the  male  moon-god  as  the  crescent-moon 
rearing  the  Harpe  and  begfinning  the  months.  But  this 
nethod  of  measuring  time  apparently  did  not  penetrate  to 
VIexico,  and  the  ruling  god  of  their  thirteen-months  lunar 
^ear  was  the  moon-goddess,  answering  to  the  Greek  Here, 
vho  in  Greek  mythology  was  the  ruling  goddess  before  the 
)irth  of  Herakles,  the  young  sun-god,  whom  she  hated  ;  and 
he  stage  of  belief  indicated  in  the  Sia  cosmogony  as  that 
vhich  was  the  national  faith  when  the  Toltecs  established 
heir  rule  in  Mexico  seems  to  be  that  which  prevailed  in 
ndia  during  the  seventeen-months  year,  when  Skanda  was 
he  sun-god.  And  it  was  at  the  close  of  this  period  that  they 
00k  the  eighteen-months  year  of  the  Pandavas  with  them 
o  America,  which  they  apparently  reached  by  Behring's 
Jtraits,  whence  they  made  their  way  along  the  coast  to 
Mexico,  though  perhaps  some  adventurous  navigators  of 
hose  days  may  have  made  their  way  across  the  open  sea 
o  a  more  Southern  part  of  the  American  coast  than  that 
)f  Behring's  Straits. 


576  History  and  Chronology 

C.     Indian  history  of  the  epoch  following  the  etghUen-months 

year  as  told  ift  tlu  Mahdbhdrata, 

To  return  to  the  history  of  India  after  the  introduction  of 
the  eighteen-months  year.  The  horse-sacrifice  which  inau- 
gurated it  was  the  last  of  the  orgiastic  festivals  in  which 
animals  were  sacrificed  and  spirits  drunk  as  sacramental 
drink  by  the  orthodox  Hindu  priesthood.  It  was  after  this 
sacrifice,  according  to  the  Mahabharata,  that  the  revisor 
of  the  ritual  appeared  in  Nakula  the  mun-goose,  one  of  the 
two  Pandava  twins,  sons  of  the  Ashvins  and  of  Madri,  the 
intoxicated  {mad)  prophetess,  the  second  wife  of  Pandu. 
He  was  engaged  as  the  trainer  of  the  horses  of  the  king 
Virata  during  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  Pandavas*  exile, 
which  they  spent  among  the  Matsyas  as  the  hidden  sun- 
gods,  that  is  to  say,  during  the  age  when  time  was  measured 
by  the  thirteen  lunar  months.  He  as  the  fifth  Pandava  was 
the  god  of  the  winter  season  of  the  year,  who  trains  the 
sun's  horses  for  their  yearly  circuit  round  the  heavens  ^, 

He  as  the  sacrificial  reformer  preached  the  doctrine  that 
''the  destruction  of  living  creatures  can  never  be  said  to  be 
an  act  of  righteousness,"  and  that  sacrifices  should  be  "  of- 
ferings of  seeds  and  liquids,  not  of  animals  2.**  This  was  one 
of  the  cardinal  doctrines  taught  by  the  Jain  priests,  and  was 
in  accordance  with  the  rule  governing  the  earliest  sacrifices 
of  the  primitive  village  races,  at  which  flowers  and  fruit  were 
offered.  This  primitive  sacrifice,  with  the  addition  of  the 
sacramental  Soma  or  mingled  milk,  sour  milk,  barley,  and 
water,  poured  forth  as  libations  to  the  gods,  and  drunk  by 
the  worshippers  joining  in  the  sacrifice,  was  finally  accepted 
as  the  orthodox  sacrifice  of  Indian  ritual.  At  the  sacrifice> 
held  after  the  new  rule  was  made  the  law  of  the  land,  the 
only  drink  allowed  to  those  who  took  part  in  the  sacrifice 
was  the  vrata  or  fast  milk,  which  was  their  only  sustenance 

*  Mahabharata  Virata  (Pandava -praves ha)  Parva,  sect.  xii.  pp.  26,  27. 
'  Mahabharata  Ashvamedha  (Anu^a)  Parva,  xci.  14,  20,  p.  239. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  577 

during  its  continuance  ^  At  the  sacrifice  itself  the  sacra- 
mental cup  was  the  mixture  of  milk,  sour  milk,  barley,  and 
running  water  mixed  with  the  sap  of  the  Soma  plant;  and 
it  was  these  ingredients  which  were  offered  in  all  libations, 
except  that  to  Mitra-varuna,  in  which  the  libation  was  of 
Soma  and  milk^  No  intoxicating  liquid  was  allowed  to 
be  used  in  any  part  of  the  sacrifice.  Also  it  was  at  this 
time  that  all  high-caste  Hindus  became,  like  the  Arab  sons 
of  the  date-palm-tree,  total  abstainers,  who  thought  it  dis- 
graceful to  drink  any  spirituous  liquids,  even  the  palm  wine 
made  of  the  fermented  sap  of  the  date-palm-tree,  a  favourite 
drink  in  North-western  India,  being  forbidden. 

The  inauguration  of  this  new  age  is  described  in  the 
Mausala  Parva,  the  seventeenth  canto  of  the  Mahabharata. 
It  is  traced  to  the  iron  bolt  conceived  by  the  hermaphrodite 
Camba,  child  of  the  lance  {Shamba)^  and  said  to  be  heir  to 
Vasu-deva,  the  father  of  Krishna,  the  god  Vasu,  who  set 
up  on  the  Sakti  mountains,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  IV. 
p.  190,  the  bamboo  pole  of  Vasu,  the  Asherah  of  the  Jews. 
This  iron  bolt  apparently  denotes  the  beginning  of  the  Iron 
Age.  In  order  to  avert  any  evil  portended  by  the  iron 
thunderbolt,  it  was  ordained  that  the  Vrishnis,  Andhakas 
and  Bhojas  should  cease  to  make  intoxicating  drinks.  But 
this  decree  did  not  avert  the  portents  nor  prevent  the  onward 
march  of  epoch-making  time,  which  showed  by  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  four  sun-horses  of  Krishna's  car  that  the 
yearly-dying  sun,  the  charioteer  of  heaven,  should  rule  the  year 
no  more  ;  and  with  the  sun-horses  Krishna's  standard  of  the 
Garuda  or  sun-bird  and  Valarama's  banner  of  the  date-palm- 
tree  also  vanished.  The  doomed  heroes  betook  themselves 
to  Prabhasa,  that  is  to  the  port  of  Baragyza  or  Pragjyotisha, 
the  modern  Broach,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nerbudda.  There 
they  indulged  in  one  last  orgy,  which  ended  in  a  mutual  fight, 
in  which  all  the  Yadava  demi-gods  slew  one  another,  and 


'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh,,  iii.  i,  2,  I ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  5,  6. 
'  Ibid.,  iv.  I,  4i  8;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  271. 

1>    rh 


578  History  and  Chronology 

Krishna  joined  in  the  slaughter.  When  they  had  all  been 
slain,  Krishna,  sending  Daruka,  his  charioteer,  to  fetch  Arjuna 
as  his  successor,  went  to  Valarama,  whom  he  found  under 
a  tree,  and  watched  his  death,  accompanied  by  his  trans- 
formation into  a  Naga  snake.  After  the  disappearance  of 
Rama  among  the  gods  of  the  past,  Krishna  laid  himself 
down  to  die,  and  was  slain  by  an  arrow  shot  from  the  bow 
of  Jara,  old  age,  which  entered  his  heel,  which  was  like  that 
of  the  sun-god  Achilles,  the  only  vulnerable  part  of  his 
body. 

Arjuna,  on  his  arrival  at  Dwaraka,  collected  all  the 
Vrishni  and  Andhaka  wives  who  had  lost  their  husbands 
and  having  seen  Vasu-deva,  father  of  Krishna,  the  creating- 
god  of  the  bamboo  sun-pole,  the  tree  Asherah,  die,  he  left 
Dwaraka,  which  was  swallowed  up  by  the  sea  on  his  de- 
parture. He  took  the  Yadava  wives  to  Indraprastha  {Delhi), 
though  many  of  them  were  taken  away  by  the  Abhirya 
tribes,  the  modern  Ahirs  or  cattle-herdsmen,  on  the  march, 
an  incident  indicating  the  amalgamation  of  alien  races,  which 
marked  the  change  in  religious  belief. 

When  this  duty  was  done,  all  the  Pandava  princes,  the 
rulers  of  the  transition  age,  decided  to  leave  their  kingdom, 
resign  their  sovereignty  to  their  sun-worshipping  successors, 
and  betake  themselves  to  a  life  of  penance  in  the  woods. 
Yudishthira  accordingly  gave  up  his  throne  to  Yuyutsu, 
son  of  Dhrita-rashtra  by  a  Vaishya  wife  of  the  village 
{vish)  races,  and  therefore  born  of  the  mixed  Northern  and 
Southern  stocks,  who  now  became  the  united  Hindu  nation. 
Yuyutsu,  their  new  king,  was  the  god  of  the  eleventh  month 
of  the  eleven-months  year  of  the  Kauravyas,  ruled  by  Du- 
ryodhana'.  That  is  to  say,  he  was  the  equivalent  in  the 
national  genealogical  history  of  Rahulo,  the  young  sun-god 
Rahu,  son  of  the  Buddha,  and  the  eleventh  Theri  Bhudda 
Kaccani,  the  Golden  Saint. 


'  Mahabharata  {Afah&prasthanika)   Parva,   pp.    i — lo,    Adi   {Adivanshiva- 
tama)  Parva,  Ixiii.  p.  i8o. 


of  the  Myth'Making  Age,  579 

ive  brethren,  accompanied  by  Drupadi,  were  followed 
dog  of  Yudishthira,  the  dog-star  Sirius,  which  had 
le  year  of  the  white  horse  of  the  sun,  that  of  the  Zen- 
,  in  which  Tishtrya  {Sirius\  as  a  white  horse  pierced 
vthe  black  horse,  the  black  rain-cloud  of  the  summer 
'.  He  was  the  dog-star  to  whom  the  dog-day  festivals 
and  August  were  dedicated.     After  Arjuna  had  cast 

sea  his  bow  Gandiva,  whence  the  year-arrows  of  the 
d  of  the  old  faith  were  shot,  and  his  two  inexhaus- 
ivers  of  year-arrows,  indicating  the  two  seasons  of 
ititial  year,  they  made  the  year  circuit  of  the  earth 
mwise  course.  They  went  first  Southward  with  the 
[le  summer  solstice,  and  afterwards  Westward, 
ey  marched  onward  on  their  yearly  course  the  god  of 
ison  died  as  his  season  was  ended.  Drupadi  died  first, 
oddess  of  the  rainy  season.  Her  name,  meaning  the 
da)  or  root  of  the  tree  {dru)^  marks  her  as  the  tree 
•n-goddess  of  the  ploughing  Kuru-Panchalas,  called 
I,  or  men  of  the  sickle.  She  is  the  goddess  answering, 
:osmogony  of  the  eighteen-months  year  of  the  dying 
is,  to  the  Mexican  corn-mother  Ut'set  of  the  Maya 

eighteen  months,  who  was  superseded  as  ruler  by 
.^anne,  the  sun-god  born  of  the  nut-tree.  She  was  the 
ddess  of  the  August  antelope  festival,  and  the  Ka- 

or  almond-nut-tree-mother  of  the  barley-growing 
rs  and  Ooraons,  who  celebrate   her   festival  as  the 

of  the  Kurum  almond-tree  in  July — August.  She 
I  tree-goddess  who  received  the  Peplos  of  Athene  in 
Sahadeva,  the  fire-god,  god  of  the  autumn,  died 
id  he  was  followed  by  Nakula,  the  winter-god.  After 
una,  the  spring-god,  died,  who  had  followed  the  sun- 
arikshit  in  his  circuit ;  and  the  last  of  the  seasonal 
die  was  Bhima,  the  summer-god. 
shthira,  as  the  leader  of  the  year-star  Sirius,  went  on 

ssteter,   Zendavesia    Ttr    Yashty    12 — 34;    S.B.E.,    vol.    xxiii.    pp. 

P    p   2 


58o  History  and  Chronology 

alone,  and  was  taken  up  to  heaven  in  the  car  of  Shukra, 
the  rain-god.  But  at  first  his  dog  was  not  allowed  to  ac- 
company him ;  Shukra  saying  that  he  was  looked  on  by 
the  Krodha-vashas  as  unclean,  that  is  to  say,  he  was  looked 
on  as  an  unclean  animal  by  the  Semite  moon-worshippers, 
who  measured  time  by  the  thirteen-months  year,  and  called 
the  mid-ruling  month  of  their  year  Krodha.  The  dc^  was 
finally  received  as  the  god  Dharma,  the  ruler  of  law  and  order, 
the  director  of  the  year's  course  beginning  at  the  summer 
solstice,  when  the  season  of  Sirius  began. 

Yudishthira,  when  he  arrived  in  heaven,  found  all  those 
whom  he  had  known  as  rulers  on  earth  and  all  the  heroes 
of  the  Mahabharata  transformed  into  stars  or  directing 
powers  of  nature,  as  Vyasa,  the  alligator  encircling  the 
Pole  as  Draco,  had  previously  told  him  would  be  the 
case  ^. 

These  closing  scenes  add  further  proof  of  the  correctness 
of  the  conclusion  conveyed  by  every  part  of  the  poem,  that 
it  is  an  allegorical  history  of  India  during  the  ages  which 
intervened  between  the  first  entry  into  the  country  in  the 
Neolithic  Age  of  the  Northern  tribes,  who  brought  in  the  oil, 
millet  and  corn  crops  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  close  of  the 
Bronze  Age.  The  period  comprised  in  the  original  nucleus 
of  the  poem,  which  has  been  translated  from  its  original 
language  and  edited  and  re-edited  by  many  generations 
of  Sanskrit-speaking  bardic  poets,  was  that  of  the  eleven, 
fifteen,  thirteen  and  seventeen-months  years.  The  object 
aimed  at  by  the  original  author,  who  grouped  together  the 
picture  of  the  events  which  made  the  history  of  these  ages  of 
progress  of  vital  importance  to  the  nation,  was  apparently  to 
paint,  in  his  panoramic  narrative,  a  vivid  and  consecutive 
story  in  dramatic  form.  The  successive  acts  were  repre- 
sented as  following  one  another  in  an  ideal  year  of  eighteen 
months  or  cantos,  culminating  in  the  rule  of  a  new  and 
righteous  race  who  had  been  moulded  into  a  nation  in  India, 

*  Mahabharata  {Acramavasika)  Parva,  xxxi.  pp.  69—71. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  581 

and  who  were  to  give  to  it  the  government  which  the  Pan- 
davas  had  tried  to  introduce  under  Yudishthira,  but  which 
was  overthrown  in  the  epoch  of  the  thirteen-months  year  by 
the  revolt  of  the  Kauravyas.     It  was  then  that  the  rule  of 
India  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  mixed  race,  whose  theology 
was  founded  on  the  worship  of  the  sun-god  of  the  North  as 
the  god  of  light  and  the  ruler  of  annual  time.     They  sub- 
stituted  a   system   of  education   based   on   individual   self- 
improvement  for  the  communal  ethics  of  the  earlier  ages. 
And   the  votaries  of  the  various   forms  of  this  new  creed 
grouped  themselves  into  associations,  which  separated  them- 
selves in  a  greater  or  less  degree  from  the  castes  or  unions 
founded  on  supposed  community  of  birth  or  on  community 
of  function.     The  religious  movement  following  the  intro- 
duction of  sun-worship  originated,  as  it  has  done  among  the 
Jains,  some  entirely  new  castes  or  communal  associations, 
and  left  certain  of  the  old  associations  apart,  such  as  the 
Kurmis    and   Koiris,  who   were   the   unitarian    believers  in 
Kabir,  the   Pole   Star  ape-god,  whose  image  was  on   the 
banner  of  Arjuna. 

This  individualism  engendered  by  the  new  creed  replaced 
in  a  great  measure  the  teachings  of  the  earlier  ages,  in  which 
all  were  trained  to  follow  the  rules  of  conduct  laid  down  by 
the  heads  of  their  village,  their  tribe,  or  their  family.  And 
the  revolution  thus  caused  was  the  result  arising  out  of 
the  increase  of  wealth  which  followed  the  continual  ex- 
tension of  land  and  maritime  trade  brought  about  by  the 
trade  guilds  ruled  by  the  sons  of  the  date-palm-tree. 

They  in  their  trading  voyages  settled  members  of  the 
guilds  as  agents  in  Western  Europe,  for  it  was  only  a 
resident  population  who  could  have  set  up  the  calendar 
stones  of  Carnac  in  Britany,  or  made  there  the  multitudes 
of  oriented  chambered  tombs  on  patterns  brought  from  Asia 
Minor ;  and  it  is  Indian  and  Phoenician  theology,  derived 
from  India,  which  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  dominant  factor 
in  Greek  and  Roman  ritual  and  belief.  And  this  same 
people  also  went  in  large  numbers  to  America,  and  thus 


582  History  and  Chronology 

included  in  their  sphere  of  influence  the  whole  of  the  then 
civilised  world.  The  prosperity  engendered  by  this  world- 
wide trade  caused  the  growth  on  the  shores  of  the  Indian 
Ocean  of  a  population  which  had  become  like  that  depicted 
in  that  most  vivid  description  of  Oriental  life,  the  Arabian 
Nights.  There  all  classes  of  the  community,  including  the 
kings  and  their  ministers,  are  engaged  in  trade ;  and  when 
a  prince  or  man  of  high  birth  falls  into  misfortune  and 
finds  himself  an  unacknowledged  outcast  in  a  foreign 
country,  he  becomes  a  trader,  just  as  Prince  Zan-al-Makan 
in  the  story  of  Omar-bin-al  Nu'uman  and  his  sons  becomes 
assistant  to  the  man  who  lighted  the  fires  in  the  public 
baths  of  Damascus,  and  Badr-al-Din  Hasan,  the  son  of 
the  Wazir  Nur-al-Din  Ali,  became  a  cook  and  confectioner 
in  the  same  city '.  There  is  little  or  no  indication  in  these 
stories  of  the  existence  of  settled  landowners  holding  large 
estates,  or  of  a  division  of  ranks  based  on  birth ;  and  the 
marriages  to  the  king's  daughter  of  Abdullah  the  fisherman, 
and  Ala-ed-din,  the  son  of  a  poor  widow,  when  they  were 
enriched  by  the  gifts  of  Abdullah  the  Merman,  and  of  the 
slaves  of  the  wonderful  lamp  and  ring,  are  spoken  of  as 
quite  consonant  with  propriety  2.  All  people  seem  to  be 
equal  in  birth,  and  to  move  up  or  down  the  scale  of  rank 
according  to  their  good  fortune,  their  industry  or  their 
talents ;  and  they  seem  to  live  in  the  midst  of  settled 
communities,  whose  relations  were  generally  peaceable,  for 
war  is  scarcely  ever  spoken  of  in  this  whole  collection  of 
stories  telling  the  national  history  as  handed  down  by  the 
successors  of  official  framers  of  historical  tales,  and  depicting 
the  characters  of  the  people.  In  the  whole  twelve  volumes 
of  Burton's  Arabian  Nights  there  are  only  two  stories,  those 
of  Omar-bin-al  Nu'uman  and  his  sons,  and  of  Gharib  and 
his  brother  Ajib,  in  which  the  chief  actors  are  soldiers  3, 

*  Burton,  Arabian  Nights,  *  Story  of  Badr-al-Din  Ali  and  his  son  Badr-al' 
Din  Hasan,'  vol.  i.  pp.  179!!". 

'  Ibid.,  'Abdullah  the  Fisherman  and  Abdullah  the  Merman,'  vol.  viL  p. 
237  ff'»  *  Ala-ed-din  and  the  Wonderful  Lamp,'  vol.  x.  p.  33  flf. 

3  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Frehistoric  Times^  vol.  ii..  Essay  ix.,  pp.  306— jio. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  583 

It  was  only  in  an  age  of  peace,  when  the  kings  and  their 
principal  advisers  were  merchants  like  Anatha  Findika,  the 
:chief  adviser  of  the  king  of  Sravasti  in  Buddhist  history, 
Hand  the  Kewat  or  fishermen  kings  of  Tamralipti  and  South- 
west Bengal,  that  the  commerce  of  the  Turvasu-Yadavas, 
^sons  of  the  date-palm-tree,  with  China  and  the  islands  of  the 
^Malay  Archipelago  on  one  side,  and  Syria,  Egypt,  North 
^Africa,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Asia  Minor,  could  be  kept  up. 
.  But  the  ruling  chiefs  of  these  trading  states  were  not  Turano 
^  Dravidians,  but  belonged,  like  the  Beni  Hanifa,  the  Arab 
-  sons  of  the  date-palm-tree,  to  races  of  much  purer  Northern 
descent.    For  the  evidence  of  their  marriage  customs  proves 
that  under   their   rule   the   endogamous   marriages  of  the 
Northern    Gothic    races    superseded    among    the    trading 
population  of  Arabia,  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  Western  India, 
the   exogamic   unions   of  the  Turano-Dravidians.     Almost 
all  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  stories  in  the  Arabian 
Nights  are  endogamous,  and  entirely  ignore  the  exogamous 
restrictions  of  India  caste  rules ;  the  marriage  most  sought 
after  was  that  of  first  cousins,  and  the  Persian  kings,  like 
Abram  of  the  Beni  Hanifa,  used  to  marry  sisters.     In*  India 
similar  disregard  of  the  earlier  laws  which  made  endogamous 
marriages  of  near  relations  or  of  members  of  the  same  gotra 
or  village  unlawful  is  shown  by  some  of  the  castes,  who  prove 
their  Kushika  descent  by  binding  the  hands  of  the  bride 
and  bridegroom  together  with  Ku$ha  grass  as  the  sign  of 
marriage.     The  Kooch   Rajbunsi,  who  are  all  children  of 
Kashyapa,  and  who  are  not  divided  into  septs,  profess  to 
disallow  marriages  between  relations  nearer  to  one  another 
than  seven  generations   on  the  father's  and  three  on  the 
mother's  side,  but  they  are  very  lax  in  the  observance  of 
this  rule,  and  prefer  to  marry  a  daughter  of  a  neighbour,  even 
when  nearly  related  to  them,  to  leaving  home  to  seek  a  wife '. 
But  from  the  evidence  of  the  Satapatha  Brahmana  we  learn 
that  in  the  West  of  India,  among  the  Yadu-Turvasu  races, 

'  Risley,  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal^  vol.  i.,  Koocb,  p.  494. 


584  History  and  Chronology 

who  oflFered  the  new  and  fuIUmoon  sacrifices  of  the  >*ear 
of  seventeen  months  and  five  seasons,  the  marriage  laws 
were  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  lax  as  to  the  marriages  of  near 
relations  as  those  of  the  people  described  in  the  Arabian 
Nights.  It  says  that  both  husband  and  wife  may,  among 
the  observers  of  this  ritual,  be  no  more  distant  from  one 
another  than  the  third  generation  from  the  common  father. 
And  Harisvamin,  the  commentator  on  this  passage,  says 
that  the  Kanvas  allow  intermarriages  from  the  third  genera- 
tion, the  Sau-rashitras  or  trading  Saus  from  the  fourth, 
and  that  the  Dakshinatyas,  that  is  the  people  of  the  Malabar 
coasts,  permit  marriage  between  first  cousins  either  on  the 
father's  or  mother's  side  ^.  The  Kanvas  here  mentioned 
are  the  men  of  the  new  {kana)  race  of  priests,  who  are  the 
reputed  authors  of  the  Eighth  Mandala  of  the  Rigveda  and 
the  priests  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu,  the  trading  races  of  the 
Hittite  land  of  Khatlawar. 

A  similar  state  of  society  to  that  existing  in  the  lands 
ruled  by  these  peace-loving  merchant-princes  seems  to  have 
prevailed  among  the  Mexican  Toltecs,  whose  historical 
mythology  is  so  similar  to  that  of  the  Antelope  and  Naga 
races  of  India,  and  who  measured  time  by  the  Pandava 
year  of  eighteen  months.  Among  them,  as  among  the 
Kushikas,  each  trade  had  its  own  guild,  a  special  quarter 
of  the  city  was  appropriated  to  it  as  in  Indian  bazaars,  and 
each  guild  was  ruled  by  its  chief,  and  worshipped  its  own 
tutelar  deity  at  the  festivals  held  as  enjoined  in  the  guild 
ritual  The  profession  of  artisan  was  looked  upon  as  es- 
pecially honourable,  and  the  merchants  held  the  highest  rank 
in  the  state.  Those  who  traded  to  foreign  countries  travelled 
in  caravans  guarded  against  attack  by  an  armed  escort,  which 
was  sometimes  so  large  as  to  amount  to  an  army,  as  in  the 
case  where  a  trading  caravan  stood  a  siege  of  four  years  in 
Ayotlan  and  finally  were  left  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the 
town.     These  traders  assumed  insignia  and  devices  of  their 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,,  i.  8,  3,  6  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  238,  note  I,  239. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  585 

own,  like  the  banners  of  the  Yadu-Turvasu  chiefs,  and  in 
Tezcuco  they  controlled  by  a  council  of  finance  the  expen- 
diture of  the  State.  They  were  called  "  Uncle"  by  the  king, 
and  held  their  own  courts  both  for  civil  and  criminal 
cases  I,  and  they  were,  in  short,  the  chief  rulers  of  the 
land. 

The  supremacy  in  India  of  the  merchant  traders  seems  to 
have  originated  in  the  age  of  the  fifteen-months  year,  when 
the  Northern  sun-worshippers  reorganised  the  country'  after 
the  disturbed  age  of  that  of  eleven  months,  and  it  was  under 
their  rule  that  standing  armies  for  defensive  purposes  begun 
to  be  entertained.  These  were,  as  I  have  shown,  organised  by 
the  chiefs  of  the  border  provinces  of  each  state,  and  were 
only  clansmen  trained  in  military  exercises,  who  appeared  at 
musters,  but,  when  not  summoned  for  duty,  were  ordinary 
husbandmen  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  their  lands  ;  and 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  trade  of  soldier  was  looked 
upon  in  those  days  as  a  separate  profession ;  the  people  were 
all  Vaishya  or  men  of  the  villages. 

D.     Tlie  conquest  of  tlu  B/idrata  mercltant-kings  by  the 

Sanskrit-speaking  sun-worshippers. 

The  rule  of  these  peace-loving  merchant-kings  of  the  age 
of  Sallimanu  or  Solomon,  the  fish-sun-god,  was  that  of  the 
epoch  when  the  year  began  with  the  entry  of  the  sun  into 
Gemini  at  the  vernal  equinox,  that  is  between  6000  and  7000 
B.C.,  when  the  Pole  Star  was  in  Hercules.  It  was  apparently 
at  the  close  of  this  age,  when  the  sun  entered  Taurus  at  the 
vernal  equinox,  about  4000  B.C.,  that  the  iron  bolt  introducing 
the  Iron  Age  descended  in  the  irruption  of  the  poor  but 
warlike  races  of  the  North,  who  coveted  the  wealth  of  the 
prosperous  traders.  An  invasion  ending  in  a  dislocation  of 
the  allied  confederacy  of  the  trade  guilds  and  the  separation 
of  the  united  links  of  the  chain  of  alliances  which  bound 

*  Prescott,  History  of  Mexico^  voL  i.  chap.  v.  pp.  124 — 126. 


586  History  and  Chronology 

together  the  merchant  states  into  alien  kingdoms^  each  of 
which  looked  on  its  neighbours  not  as  friends,  but  as  foes 
meditating  projects  of  conquest.  The  history  of  this  war 
which  made  the  Sanskrit-speaking  races,  who  called  them- 
selves Arya,  or  the  noble  people,  the  rulers  of  India,  is  told 
but  v^ry  cursorily  in  the  Rigveda  and  the  national  chronicles. 
In  the  history  of  the  war  between  the  Kauravyas  and  Pan- 
davas  they  appear  on  the  side  of  the  Kauravyas  as  the 
Sarasvatas,  led  by  Uluka,  the  owl,  the  son  of  Shakuni,  the 
raven-mother-bird.  They  formed  the  last  remnant  of  the 
Kauravya  army  destroyed  on  the  eighteenth  day  of  the 
battle  by  Sahadeva,  the  fire-god,  and  Nakula,  the  mun-goose, 
the  two  Fandava  twins  '.  Their  name  shows  that  they  had 
then  become  settlers  in  the  holy  land  of  the  Kuni-kshethra, 
between  the  Sarasvati  and  DrishadvatL  They  appear  in  the 
Rigveda  as  the  Arya,  who,  with  their  allies  the  Arna  or  men 
of  the  Aruna  or  fire-drill,  and  the  Chitra-ratha^  or  sons  of  the 
star  Virgo  {Chitra)^  the  mother  of  corn,  were  defeated  by  the 
Yadu-Turvasu  on  the  Sarayu  or  Sutlej,  and  this  war  shows 
them  to  be  the  enemies  of  the  trading  Hittite  races,  who 
ruled  the  country  as  the  merchant  kings  ». 

But  it  is  in  the  story  of  the  battle  of  Sudas  and  the  Tritsu, 
the  people  who  make  fire  by  rubbing  (trit)^  with  the  ten 
kings  of  the  Bharatas,  that  we  find  the  most  satisfactory 
account  of  the  war.  Sudas,  the  king  of  the  Tritsu,  is  called 
the  son  of  Divo-dasa,  that  is,  of  the  ten  {das/ia)  months 
of  gestation,  and  Divodasa  is  called  the  son  of  Vadhri-ashva, 
the  gelded-horsc,  the  sexless  sun-god  of  the  fifteen-months 
year  and  of  the  river-mother  Sarasvati  2.  This  king  is  the 
son-god,  the  giver  {das)  of  Su,  the  sun-bird,  descendant 
of  the  river-mother,  whose  name  as  the  goddess  Shar  was 
brought  to  India  by  the  fire- worshippers  of  Asia  Minor,  who 
first  adored  her  as  the  tribal  river-goddess  of  the  Harah-vaiti 


'  Mahabharata  Udyoga  {Yana-sandhi)  Parva,  Ivi.  p.  202,  Shalya  {SAalyC' 
badha)  Parva,  xxviii.  pp.  lo6,  107. 

^  Rg.  iv.  30,  17,  18.  3  Ibid.  vii.  18,  25,  vi.  61,  I. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  587 

[erat  in  Kandahar,  the  tenth  of  the  good  lands,  created 

\hura   Mazda  ^     Hence   he   was  the   sun-god   of   the 

rian  races  of  Ragha,  the  Asiatic  home  of  the  worshippers 

le  sun-god  Ra,  the  speakers  of  the  inflexional  languages 

orth-western  Europe. 

is  prophet-priest  was  Vashishtha,  who  was,  as  we  have 

in  Chapter  VII.  p.  396,  the  god  of  the  sacrificial  flame 

he  altar,  and  the  father  of  the  sun-god   Aurva,  born 

le  Thigh-stars  of  the  Great  Bear. 

le  Bharatas,  foes  of  the  Tritsu,  were  the  followers  and 

of  Vishvamitra,  the  god  of  lunar  time,  and  opponents 
ashishtha,  priest  of  the  sun-god,  whose  cows  of  light  he 
:.  He  was  the  father  of  Sakuntala,  the  bird-mother  of 
Bharata,  the  offspring,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  three- 
s  cycle. 

ence  the  two  armies  which  were  to  contend  for  the  rule 
ndia  were  those  of  the  fire  and  sun -worshippers,  the 
ders  from  the  North,  and  those  of  the  lunar-solar  race 
lie  Bharatas  and  Kushika  Khati  or  Hittites,  who  en- 
i  India  in  the  epochs  of  the  three-years  cycle,  and  the 
m-months  year,  and  who  had  amalgamated  themselves 

the  previous  dwellers  in  the  land,  and  established  the 
r-year  of  thirteen,  and  the  lunar-solar  year  of  seventeen 
ths  together,  with  the  government  of  the  merchant  kings 
le  Ikshvaku  and  Yadava  races. 

iie  list  of  the  tribes  on  each  side  is  given  in  the  graphic 
unt  of  the  decisive  action  of  the  war  told  in  the  battle 
n,  Rg.  vii.  1 8,  attributed  to  Vashishtha.  There  the 
ing  tribe  of  the  sun-worshippers  is  called  Tritsu,  but  in 
vii.  33,  I — 6,  and  vii.  83,  i,  these  Aryan  conquerors 
le  Bharatas  arc  called  Pritha-Parshu.  This  name  shows 
1  to  belong  to  a  mixed  tribe  formed  from  the  union  of 
Parthians  with  the  Persians  or  Parsis,  the  fire-wor- 
Ders.  These  Pritha  are  the  sons  of  Pritha,  the  Pandava 
tting  {peril)  mother,  also  called  KuntI,  the  lance,  and 

armestctcr,  Zctuiavesta  Vendidad  Fargardy  i.  13  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  iv.  p.  7. 


588  History  and  Chronology 

throughout  the  Mahabharata  the  Pandavas,  and  especially 
Arjuna,  are   called    Partha   or   Parthians.    They,   the  sons 
of  the  begetting  {peru)  mother,  bom,  like  the  sons  of  Pritha, 
the  virgin  made  pregnant  by  the  gods  without  the  inter- 
vention of  a  human  father,  were  originally  the  sons  of  the 
mother-tree.     Their  name  of  Parthava  the  Parthian  is  given 
in  the  Rigveda  to  Abhyavartin  Cayamana,  who,  as  leader 
of  the  Srin-jayas  or  Panchalas,  conquered  the  Vrishivans  or 
Yadavas    and    the   Turvasu   at   Hariyupiya,   the   sacrifidal 
stakes  {yupd)  of  Hari  or  Shari,  that  is  Mathura  '•     Also  in 
the  Periplus  Minnagora,  the  port  on  the  Indus  which  suc- 
ceeded Patala,  is  said  to  be  ruled  by  the  Parthians  ^.     In  the 
Rigveda  Parshu  is  used  as  the  name  of  a  tribe  in  the  passage 
where  Tirindira  is  called  the  Parshu  3,  and  in  the  feminine 
form  Parshu,  whose  name  means  also  the  ribs  or  a  crescent- 
shaped  knife^  is  said  to  be  with  Manavi,  the  daughter  of 
Manu    the    measurer,  the   mother   of  twenty   sons,    which 
may  be  the  twenty  days  of  the  month  of  the  eighteen-months 
year  4.     These  Parthians  and  Persians  are  clearly  the  men 
of  Central  Asia,  also  called  Scythians  or  Sakyas,  the  name 
of  the   clan  in  which  Siddartha  Gautama,  the  real  living 
Buddha,  was  born.     They  were  the  fire-worshippers  of  the 
Zoroastrian  birth-land  of  Ragha  or  Media,  who  had  invaded 
India  and  established  themselves  on  the  Sarasvati  as  San- 
skrit-speaking immigrants  into  the  country  of  the  Turano- 
Dravidians. 

The  allies  of  the  Tritsu,  named  in  Kg.  vii.  i8,  are :  (i)  The 
Paktha,  (2)  Alinas,  (3)  Bhalanas,  (4)  Vishanin,  and  (5)  Shiva. 
The  Paktha  are  clearly  the  people  called  by  Herodotus 
Paktues,  who,  he  says,  wear  goat-skin  tunics,  and  are  armed 
with  bows  and  daggers.  He  describes  them  as  Bactrians, 
whose  native  home  was  near  Armenia,  but  who  had  settled 
in  India,  and  occupied  the  city  of  Kaspaturos,  that  is  Multan, 
or  the  place  of  the  Malli,  which   they  called   the  city  of 

»  Rg.  vi.  27,  5,  7,  8. 

^  Periplus,  38;  Zimmer,  Alt  Indischet  Ld>en,  p.  433. 

3  Rg.  viii.  6,  46.  *♦  Ibid.,  x.  86,  23. 


of  the  Myth' Making  Age,  589 

Kashyapa^  said  by  Hecatseus  to  belong  to  the  Ghandari,  the 
native  tribes  of  Kandahar '.  They  are,  in  short,  the  Afghan 
Pathans  or  mountaineers,  who  speak  Pushtu,  that  is  the 
Paktian  or  Pushtian  language.  It  belongs  to  the  Indo- 
European  family  of  inflectional  languages,  but,  like  that  of 
their  Sanskrit  and  Zend-speaking  allies,  it  uses  the  Dravidian 
cerebral  letters,  thus  showing  that  they,  who  when  they 
invaded  India  married  Dravidian  wives,  had  children  who 
learnt  to  speak  their  Northern  tongue  with  a  Dravidian 
accent. 

These  Afghans,  with  the  Parthians  and  Persians,  were  the 
leaders  of  the  invading  armies  of  Sudas,  who  brought  into 
India  the  iron-bolt  which  destroyed  the  confederacy  of  the 
Yadavas  and  Bhojas,  and  dethroned  their  year-god  Krishna. 
For  the  Bhavishya  Purana  tells  us  that  Shamba,  the  son 
of  Krishna,  brought  Magian  priests  from  Saka-dwipa  to 
officiate  in  the  temple  of  the  Sun  at  Multan  «.  This  Shamba, 
the  throwing  spear  or  javelin  of  the  Sakyas  and  Homeric 
heroes,  was  the  tribal  symbol  carried  in  front  of  their  armies 
as  the  united  fire-drill  and  socket  of  the  American  warrior 
Indians,  and  it  in  its  female  form  as  the  fire-socket  was  the 
Shamba  who  brought  forth  the  iron-bolt  which  destroyed 
the  empire  of  the  Vishnuite  merchant-kings  of  the  Western 
sea-board. 

The  whole  story,  when  translated  from  allegorical  language 
to  a  plain  statement  of  facts,  tells  how  the  worship  of  the 
old  gods  was  overthrown  by  the  fire-worshippers  from  Saka- 
dwipa,  the  land  of  the  Sakyas,  who  substituted  temples  to 
the  sun  for  the  shrines  dedicated  to  the  creating-god,  who 
descended  from  the  mountain-tops  wreathed  with  mist  to 
bring  to  earth  the  rain-water  which  was  to  fill  the  rivers 
and  fertilise  the  soil  with  the  germs  of  life,  and  who  as 
the  Pole  Star  father-god,  the  creating  goat,  ruled  time  and 

*  Herodotus,  iii.  93,  102,  vii.  67 ;  A.  Weber,  India  and  the  West  in  Ola 
Days,  p.  6 ;  Hewitt,  *  Early  History  of  Northern  India,  Part  ii.  /,R,A,S,y 
1889,  p.  224. 

*  A  Weber,  India  and  the  West  in  Old  Days y  p.  20. 


590  History  and  Mytlwlogy 

made  the  moon  and  sun  measure  the  3rear  by  moving  round 
the  heavens  in  the  star-marked  path  he  bade  them  tread. 

Thus  this  historical  tale  tells  us  of  the  Aryan  invaaoa 
as  an  irruption  led  by  the  nomad  warlike  tribes  of  Sq^tiiia, 
the  early  Persian  races,  who  were  taught  to  ride,  shoot  wiA 
the  bow,  and  speak  the  truth,  and  of  whose  language  the 
Vedic,  Sanskrit,  Zend  and  Pushtu  are  dialectic  forms. 

These  Northern  invaders  as  they  settled  in  the  country 
found  allies  in  the  Alinas,  Bhalanas,  Vishanin,  and  Shiva 
The  two  first  I  am  unable  to  identify,  but  the  Vishanin  seem 
certainly  to  be  connected  with  the  god  Vishnu,  and  the 
votaries  of  Vishnu,  who  allied  themselves  with  the  son- 
worshippers,  must  be  those  who  worshipped  him  as  the 
sun-god  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  the  eighth  son  of  Vasudeva, 
the  year-god  of  the  fifteen-months  year  who  was  bom  in 
Mathura.  They  were  the  tribe  also  called  the  §hura-sena 
or  army  of  heroes,  who  are  named  in  the  Mahabharata  and 
Manu  as  adherents  of  Krishna,  who  lived  near  Mathura'. 
They  were  the  class  of  Rajputs  called  the  Agni-kulas  or  men 
of  the  fire  family.  They  are  called  in  the  Vaya  and  Matsya 
Puranas  the  Saisa-nagas,  and  belong  to  the  Gaur  Tagas, 
a  mixed  race  allied  to  the  Gonds  and  the  Jat  Takkas,  who 
were  supporters  of  the  Buddhist  doctrines  ^,  and  whose  parent- 
king  Sisu-nag  was  the  first  of  the  traditional  Chiroo  kings 
of  Magadha. 

The  Shiva  are  undoubtedly  the  shepherds  and  cattle- 
herdsmen  whose  god  was  the  white  {sveta)  Shiva,  the  three- 
eyed  bearer  of  the  trident,  and  the  Pinaka  bow-husband  of 
the  weaving-goddess  Uma  {flax).  He  was  the  son  of  Ushi- 
nara,  the  man-god  {nara)  of  the  East,  and  the  shepherd- 
god  of  the  pastoral  races  who  had  been  the  earliest  invaders 
of  India  from  the  North,  and  who  were  the  Takkus  or 
Tri-gartas  who  marched  under  the  banner   of  the  Yupa, 

*  Mahabharata  Sabha  (Rdjasuya-rafnbha)  Parva,  xiv.  pp.  46,  47  ;  Biihier, 
Manut  ii.  19,  vii.  193;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxv.  pp,  32,  247. 

'  Beames,  Elliot's  Memoirs  of  the  Races  of  the  North-  Western  Provinces  0} 
India,  vol.  i.,  Gaur  Taga,  pp.  108,  109,  vol.  ii.  p.  77. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age^  591 

or  sacrificial  stake  borne  by  Bhuri-shravas,  the  grandson  of 
Vahlika,  their  leader  and  brother  of  Shantanu.     His  name, 
meaning  the  man  of  Balkh  on  the  Oxus,  shows  his  Bactrian 
origin.    They  are  named  in  the   Rtgveda,  x.  59,   10,  the 
Ushinara,  and  are  said  in  the  Aitareya  Brdhmana  to  live 
in  the  middle  country,  the  Gangetic  Doab,  with  the  Kuru- 
Panchalas'.     They  are  called  the  Seboi  in  the  history  of 
the  Indian  campaign  of  Alexander  the  Great,  and  Strabo 
places  them  near  Multan,  between  the  Indus  and  Acesines 
{Chifiab)^.     They  are  thus  the   early  worshippers   of  the 
household  fire  Agni  Valshvanara,  the  fire  of  the  men  (nara) 
of  the  villages   (vtsh)y  the   Northern  cultivators  who  now 
allied  themselves  with  the  new  comers  who  had  afdded  the 
worship  of  the  sun-god  to  that  of  the  holy  fire. 

The  invading  Aryan  forces  therefore  included  the  Par- 
thians,  Persians,  and  Pathan  hill  tribes,  led  by  the  Scythians 
of  Medea  and  North  Persia,  who  had  allied  themselves  in 
India  with  the  cattle-herdsmen  and  corn-growers  of  the 
central  country  of  the  Gangetic  Doab,  the  Shiva  or  Tugra, 
and  the  Srinjaya  Panchalas. 

Their  opponents  were  the  Bharata  followers  of  Vishva- 
mitra,  the  father  of  Bharata's  mother  Sakuntala,  and  the 
protecting  god  of  the  mad-star  king  Kalmasha-pada,  he  of 
the  spotted  (kalniasha)  feet,  whose  epoch  was,  as  we  have 
seen  in  Chapter  VI.,  that  of  the  eleven-months  year.  These 
Bharatas  are  called  in  Rg.  vii.,  18,  18,  19,  the  Bheda,  that 
is  sons  of  the  cleft  {bheda),  the  female  symbol,  the  yoni 
of  the  linga.  Hence  they  were  the  Linga  worshippers,  the 
followers  of  the  bisexual  parent  gods,  whose  goddess-mother 
in  Syria  was  Tirhatha,  the  cleft. 

The  ten  tribes  led  by  their  ten  kings,  the  ten  lunar  months 
of  gestation,  were  :  (i)  The  Turvasu,  whose  leader  is  called 
Puro-dasa,  the  sacrificial  rice-cake  offered  at  the  New  and 
Full  Moon  sacrifices  of  the  seventeen-months  year  to  Pushan, 


'  Act.  Brdh.y  8,  14 ;  Zimmer,  Alt  Indisches  Lehetty  p.  130. 
*  Diodorns,  17,  19 ;  Strabo,  xv.  8. 


592  History  and  Mythology 

the  hands  of  Savitri,  that  is  to  Push,  the  first  month  of  the 
year^  This  cake  is  called  in  Rg.  vii.  i8,  19,  the  Yakshu, 
that  is  the  firstfruits  offering  of  the  year  of  the  moving  or 
hunting  {yaksh)  sun-star  going  round  the  Pole  Tur,  Hence 
Puro-dasa,  the  leader  of  the  Turvasu,  seems  to  be  the  leading 
god  of  their  year,  the  god  of  its  first  month.  (2)  The  Matsya 
sons  of  the  eel-fish-god  bom  of  Adrika,  the  sun-hawk  in  the 
river  Tamas,  the  darkness,  whence  their  eel-parents  Matsya 
and  SatyavatI  passed,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  IV.  p.  191, 
into  the  Yamuna  or  Jumna,  where  SatyavatI, *s  wife  of  Shan- 
tanu,  became  the  mother  of  the  Kauravyas  and  Pandavas. 
(3)  The  Bhrigu,  the  original  fire-worshippers,  who  also  adored 
the  linga.  (4)  The  Druhyu  or  sorcerers,  sons  of  the  Vedic 
witch-goddess  Druh,  the  Druj  of  the  Zendavesta,  (5)  The 
Vaikarna  or  two  (z;/)  horned  {karna)  people,  whose  country 
Vi-kamika  is  identified  by  Hema-chandra  with  Kashmir. 
They  were  the  Naga  races,  worshippers  of  the  two-horned 
sun-god  Karna.  Their  twenty-one  warriors  are  said  in 
Rg.  vii.  18, 1 1,  to  have  been  slain  by  Su-das,  who  thus,  as  the 
sun -god  of  the  new  era,  slew  the  twenty-one  days  of  the 
month  of  the  seventeen-months  year.  (6)  The  Anu.  (7)  The 
Purus.  These  two  tribes  and  the  Druhyu  were  the  descen- 
dants of  the  three  sons  of  Yayati  and  Sharmishtha,  the 
mother-banyan-fig-tree  of  the  lunar  races,  speakers  of  non- 
Aryan  languages,  as  shown  by  the  epithet  mridha-vac  applied 
to  the  Purus  in  Rg.  vii.  18,  13,  meaning  the  speakers  of  the 
soft  Dravidian  speech.  (8)  The  Ajas  or  sons  of  the  goat,  the 
Pole  Star  goat-god  of  the  cycle-year.  (9)  The  Shigru,  whom 
I  am  unable  to  identify.  (10)  The  Yakshus.  These  are 
certainly  identical  with  the  very  ancient  race  who  in  Greece 
called  the  young  sun-god  born  at  the  Eleusinian  mysteries 
lakkhos,  which  is  the  same  word  as  Yak-shu.  The  name 
of  this  parent-god  {XaKxos)  also  appears  in  that  of  the 
Akkadian  la-khan,  the  fish-god,  that  is  the  sun-god  who  at 
the  close  of  his  annual  circuit  through  the  heavens  marked 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  £rah,y  i.  2,  2,  1—4,  i.  6,  2,  5  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  pp.  42, 43, 162. 


of  tlie  Myth-Making  Age.  593 

by  the  stars  of  the  Hindu  Nakshatra  emerged  as  the  sun -fish 
from  the  constellation  Revati  Pisces  to  become  the  sun-god 
of  the  new  year  in  Aries.  This  god,  the  ever-living  fish,  was 
the  sun-god  of  the  cycle  formed  by  the  procession  of  the 
equinoxes,  beginning  with  the  entry  of  the  sun  into  Aries 
at  the  autumnal  equinox.  In  this  cycle,  after  each  of  the 
other  zodiacal  stars  have  in  their  turn  become  the  star  in 
which  the  sun  enters  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  the  sun  returns 
to  the  original  Aries,  which  opened  the  original  cycle-year 
24400  years  before.  The  name  of  the  father-god  of  these 
Yakshu,  who  measured  the  year  by  the  passage  of  the  moon 
and  sun  through  the  zodiacal  stars  of  the  Nakshatra,  is  in 
Genesis  Joktan  or  Jokshan,  the  mover  or  advancer  {yak), 
who  in  one  account  of  his  birth  was  the  son  of  the  Iberian 
father  Eber,  and  the  brother  of  Peleg,  the  stream,  in  whose 
time  the  earth  was  divided  into  the  lands  of  the  sons  of  the 
rivers,  and  of  the  worshippers  of  the  moon  and  sun,  who 
measured  their  year  by  their  passage  through  the  stars.  In 
another  genealogy  Jokshan  is  the  son  of  Keturah,  the  encir- 
cling {ketur)  or  incense-mother,  the  eastern  wife  of  Abram  '. 
His  thirteen  sons  are  called  the  children  of  Shem,  the  name 
of  God,  that  is  of  the  bisexual  mother  Shemi-ramot,  and 
their  Eastern  boundary  was  the  mountain  of  the  East,  the 
Akkadian  Khur-sak-kurra,  and  the  Kushika  mother-moun- 
tain 1  Two  of  their  thirteen  sons  were  Havilah  and  Ophir, 
representing  the  Indian  lands  watered  by  the  Indus,  the 
Sindhu,  and  the  Yavana  of  the  Mahabharata.  These  Yakshus 
thus  belong  to  the  tribes  of  South-western  Asia,  who  as  the 
astronomical  Indian  tribes  and  the  Chaldaeans  of  Babylon, 
whose  Indian  origin  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  II.  p.  48,  were 
careful  observers  of  the  stars.  They  founded  the  Babylonian 
Zigurats  or  towers  of  observation.  They  mapped  the  annual 
and  monthly  paths  of  the  sun  and  moon  in  the  Hindu 
Nakshatra,  and  the  Arabian  and  Sabaean  lists  of  Lunar 
mansions.  Their  year-god  was  the  antelope-sun-god  Krishna, 
the  bearer  of  the  discus  or  year-circle  of  zodiacal  stars,  and 

»  Gen.  X.  25—31,  XXV.  2. 

9q 


594  History  and  Mythology 

they  were  thus  the  Yadavas,  who  measured  their  year  by  thir- 
teen lunar-months  ;  a  year-measurement  which,  as  we  have 
seen  in  Chapter  VIII.,  was  very  ancient,  and  which  became 
in  the  solar-lunar  chronometry  of  the  worshippers  of  the  son 
of  the  eight-rayed  star,  the  seventeen-months  year. 

Hence  we  see  that  the  army  of  the  Bharata  was  composed 
of  the  pre-Sanskrit  races  of  the  Turvasu  -  Yadavas,  the 
Druhyu,  Anu  and  Puru,  that  is  of  the  five  tribes  descended 
from  Yayati,  Devayani  and  Sharmishtha,  who  were  the 
Kushika,  ruled  by  the  Khati  or  Hittites,  the  founders  of 
the  mercantile  dynasties,  together  with  the  Bhrigu,  wor- 
shippers of  the  fire  and  the  linga,  the  Vaikarna  Nagas, 
worshippers  of  the  horned  sun-horse,  and  the  Ajas,  wor- 
shippers of  the  Pole  Star  goat.  These  tribes,  representing 
the  rich  trading  population  who  ruled  the  rivers  and  sea- 
coasts  of  India,  united  to  overthrow  the  Northern  sun-wor- 
shipping invaders,  whose  indigenous  allies  were  the  corn- 
growing  farmers  of  the  country  villages  and  the  shepherd 
and  pastoral  races.  It  was  a  war  of  the  rude  inland 
population  against  the  traders  and  artisans,  who  had  founded 
the  commerce  of  the  country. 

The  most  graphic  account  of  the  combat  is  that  given 
in  the  war-song  of  the  Vashishtha  party,  Rg.  vii.  i8,  a  poem 
which  re-echoes  the  battle  paeans  telling  the  victorious  sun- 
worshippers  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  the  hero-soldiers  of  the 
sun.  It,  with  the  two  other  Vashishtha  poems  telling  of  the 
war,  Rg.  vii.  33  and  83,  and  the  Vishvamitra  hymn,  Rg.  iii. 
33,  sums  up  in  one  battle,  in  which  Su-das  overthrew  the 
ten  kings,  the  story  of  what  was  doubtless  a  contest  pro- 
longed for  many  years.  The  Bharata  kings,  the  rulers  of 
the  land,  led  the  army  they  collected  to  drive  out  the 
Sanskrit-speaking  intruders  who  had  settled  on  the  Saras- 
vati,  whence  they  could  command  the  navigation  of  the 
Jumna,  and  paralyse  the  trade  both  of  the  Jumna  and 
Ganges,  by  seizing  Kosambi  at  the  junction  of  the  two 
rivers,  which  became  the  capital  of  the  Sakya  kings ».     The 

*  Cunningham,  Ancietit  Geography  of  I naia^  pp.  391  ff. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  595 

importance  attached  to  the  Jumna  by  both  parties  is  proved 
in  Stanza  19  of  Rg.  vii.  18,  where  Indra  is  said  to  have 
helped  the  Yamuna  and  Tritsu. 

It  was  to  oust  the  invaders  from  the  land  between  the 
SarasvatI  and   DrishadvatT,   whence  they  commanded   the 
very  important  strategic  post  of  Indra-prastha,  or  Delhi,  on 
the  Jumna,  that  the  Bharata  attacked  the  Tritsu  from  the 
North-west,   and  collected  their  forces  in  the  country  as- 
signed by  Arrian  to  the  Kathi  or  Hittites',  between  the 
Purushni  or  Ravi  and  Chinat     The  Tritsu  and  their  allies 
were  assembled  south  of  the  Beas  or  Vepash,  and  the  Sutlej 
or  Shatudri,  and  it  is  to  these  two  rivers  that  Vishvamitra, 
in  Rg.  iii.  33,  prays  to  give  an  easy  passage  to  the  Bharata 
forces.     But  the  Tritsu  would  not  await  the  attack  of  their 
antagonists^  and  determined  to  be  themselves  the  attacking 
party.     Hence  they  marched  through  the  country  of  their 
aUies  the  Trigartas  or  Shivas,  lying  between  the  Beas  and 
Sutlej,  the  modern  districts  of  Jalandhur  and  Hoshiarpur, 
and  found  the  Bharata  encamped  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
Purushni  or  Ravi.     They  were  surprised   and  confused  at 
the  appearance  of  their  enemies,  and  rashly  determined  to 
cross  the  river  and  destroy  them.     But  in  their  hurry  they 
failed  to  find  a  practicable  ford,  and  rushed  into  the  rapidly 
flowing   stream,   "thinking,"   according   to   the   picturesque 
language  of  the  warrior  bard,  "  fools  as  they  were,  to  cross 
it   as  easily  as   on  dry  land ;    but  the  lord   of  the  earth, 
Prithivi,"  the  parent-god  of  the  Parthians,  "  seized  them  in 
his  might,  and  herds  and  herdsmen  were  destroyed."    They 
were  thus  easily  and  completely  routed  by  Su-das,  who  fol- 
lowed up  his  victory  by  crossing  the  river  and  taking  their 
seven  cities.     Here  the  narrative  ceases  to  be  the  dramatic 
tale  of  an  eye-witness  and  becomes  the  historical  story  of 
the  conquest  of  the  Bharata  year-god  by  a  god  introducing 
another  epoch.     Hence  the  seven  cities  were  the  seven  days 
of  the  week  of  the  thirteen  and  seventeen-months  year,  just 

*  Cunningham,  Ancient  Geography  of  India ^  pp.  215  ff, 

Qq  2 


596  History  and  Chronology 

as  the  twenty -one  Vai-karna  champions  slain  by  Su-das 
were  the  twenty-one  days  of  the  month  of  the  latter  year. 
Su-das  established  himself  as  the  year-god  who  divided  the 
goods  of  the  Anu  and  Druhyu  among  the  Tritsu,  conquered 
the  Purus,  and  made  the  Ajas,  Shigrus,  and  Yakshus  pay 
horses'  heads  as  tribute '. 

But  to  understand  the  history  of  this  momentous  war 
clearly  we  must  turn  to  the  account  given  of  it  in  the 
Mahabharata,  where  the  Vedic  Su-das,  the  giver  of  Su,  the 
sap  of  life,  the  year-god,  descended  from  the  Sarasvati  and 
Vadhri-ashva,  the  gelded-horse,  the  sexless  sun-god  of  the 
fifteen-months  year,  is  called  Samvarana.  This  name  means 
the  Place  of  Sacrifice,  the  ground  consecrated  as  the  site 
of  the  national  altar  of  the  year,  said  in  the  Brahmanas  to 
represent  the  whole  earth «.  The  creating  spirit-god,  Sam- 
varana, whose  earthly  dwelling-place  is  the  central  national 
altar,  is  the  giver  of  the  Su  or  germ  of  life.  Samvarana  is 
mentioned  once  as  an  individual  in  Rg.  v.  33,  lo^  where 
he  is  called  the  Rishi,  the  antelope -god,  "who  gathers 
wealth  by  his  might,  to  whose  stalls  the  cows  (of  light) 
come,"  that  is  to  say,  he  is  the  sun-god.  This  will  appear 
still  more  clearly  when  we  examine  his  genealogy,  the 
history  of  his  reign,  and  the  story  of  his  marriage  to 
Tapatl.  In  the  Mahabharata  he  appears  as  the  ruler  who 
was  summoned  by  Vashishtha  to  reign  as  the  supreme 
king  of  the  Bharatas,  and  as  the  father  of  Kuru,  in  whose 
name  the  holy  land,  watered  by  the  Sarasvati  and  Drish- 
advati,  was  consecrated  as  Kuru-kshetra,  the  field  of  the 
Kurus.  This  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  land  of  Taneshur, 
where  the  mother-tree,  born  of  the  southern  mud  {tan), 
emerged  on  earth  as  the  mother-banyan-fig- tree,  the  tree 
of  Sharmishtha,  the  wife  of  Yayati.  But  to  bring  out  fully 
the  meaning  of  the  history  we  must  look  to  the  ancestry 
of  Samvarana. 

*  Rg.  vii.  18, 19. 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.y  iU.  7,  2,  i  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  175. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  597 

He  is  directly  descended  from  Bharata,  son  of  Dushmanta 
and  Sakuntala^  who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  p.  280,  born  as  the 
son  of  the  three-years  cycle,  that  is  as  the  god  of  the  eleven- 
months  year.  Hence  his  reign,  according  to  the  genealogist, 
was  a  time  of  confusion.  He  begat  nine  sons,  the  nine 
days  of  the  week  of  the  cycle-year,  but  slew  them,  and 
remained  childless  till,  by  the  help  of  Bharadvaja,  the 
sun-lark>  the  father  of  Drona,  the  holy  Soma  tree-trunk, 
he  became  the  father  of  Bhumanyu,  the  son  of  the  soil 
{bhuman)y  who  ruled  in  the  epoch  of  the  eleven-months  year 
the  united  races  of  the  Kurus,  the  Northern  conquerors 
and  the  previous  dwellers  in  the  land.  Bhumanyu's  son  was 
Su-hotra,  the  pourer  {hotra)  of  Su,  a  name  equivalent  to 
that  of  Su-das,  the  giver  of  Su,  and  his  son  was  Aja-midha, 
the  warring  [mid/ia)  goat  {flja)^  who  is  said  in  Rg.  i.  67 ^  5, 
to  sustain  the  earth.  The  word  ajA  {goat)  also  means  creator, 
and  in  Rg.  v.  82,  6,  he  is  said  to  be  the  creating  germ 
taken  by  Visvakarman,  the  maker  {karman)  of  living  things 
(visva)  from  the  waters  whence  all  the  gods  were  born. 
He  found  himself  alone  in  the  navel  of  the  unborn  where 
all  life  is  hidden.  In  other  words,  this  creating  father-goat 
is  the  germ  of  life,  the  Chinese  Tao,  dwelling  in  the  navel 
of  the  heavens,  the  Pole  Star,  surrounded  by  the  mists  of 
the  mother  waters.  This  Pole  Star  creating-god  married 
Dhuminl,  the  daughter  of  smoke  {dhumo),  the  sacrificial 
flame  on  the  Southern  altar  of  burnt-offering,  which  dis- 
seminated life-giving  heat  through  the  world.  From  her 
was  born  Riksha,  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear^  who, 
as  we  have  seen,  begot  as  the  Thigh  of  the  ape-god,  united 
with  the  Pole  Star  goat,  the  sexless  sun-god  of  the  year  of 
fifteen  months,  the  god  of  the  sons  of  the  date-palm-tree. 
This  was  the  god  Samvarana,  who  was  in  his  first  Avatar 
the  sexless  sun-god  of  the  fifteen-months  year.  He,  accord- 
ing to  the  genealogist,  was  attacked  by  the  Panchalas  with 
ten  Akshauhinis  of  troops,  those  of  the  ten  months  of 
gestation  of  the  cycle-year,  and  driven  to  the  forests  at 
the  foot  of  the  Himalayas  on  the  banks  of  the  Sindhu  or 


598  History  and  Mythology 

Indus.     There   he   remained   childless   and   in    exile   for  a 
thousand  years,  during  the   rule   of  the   mercantile   kings 
of  the   seventeen   and   thirteen  -  months   year,   till   he  was 
brought  forth  by  Vashishtha,  who  set  him  on  the  throne 
as  the  ruling  sun-god  of  a  new  era '.     His  return  to  power 
as  the  conquering  sun-god  who  was  to  unite  the  new  sun- 
worshippers  with  the  Bharata  is  told   in  the  story  of  his 
marriage   to   TapatI,   the  heating   [tap)  mother.     She  was 
the  daughter  of  Vivasvat,  the  god  of  the  two  lights  called 
Surya,  the  sun,  and  was  the  younger  sister  of  Savitri  the 
sun-maiden.     She  was  the  mother-goddess  of  the  South, 
the  home  of  the   Southern  sun,  whence  it  brings  heat  to 
the  earth.    Samvarana,  who  as  the  rising  sun  of  the  coming 
era  awaited  his  hour   of  enthronement  in   the    forests  of 
the   South,  died  there   for   love  of  this  goddess,  and  lay 
insensible   for    twelve    days,   till   he    was   recalled   to  life 
by   Vashishtha,   as    the    Ribhus,   makers   of   the   seasons, 
were  awoke  by  the  dog  sent  by  the  Pole  Star  goat,  after 
sleeping  twelve  days  in  the  house  of  Agoya,  the  Pole  Star  2. 
Vashishtha  united  the  reborn  sun-god  to  TapatI,  the  sun- 
goddess  of  the  winter  solstice,  and  thus  made  him  a  year 
sun-god,  who  reproduced  the  year  of  Orion  in  which  the 
sun-god  slept  for  the  last  twelve  days  of  his  year  3. 


E.    The  tzvelve-months  year  of  the  sun-ivor shippers. 

The  year  of  this  sun-god  was  like  that  of  Orion,  one 
of  twelve  months  and  three  hundred  and  sixty  days,  but 
it  was  not,  like  Orion's  year,  divided  into  months  of  twenty- 
nine  days,  but  into  thirty-day  months,  and  it  was  not 
measured  by  seventy-two  five-day  weeks,  but  by  thirty- 
six  weeks  of  ten  days,  the  decades  of  the  Egyptians  and 
Athenians.     These  were  the  weeks  of  the  two  hands  cx- 

'  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  xcIt.  pp.  279 — 281. 

"  Rg.  i.  161,  13. 

3  Mahabharata  Adi  {ChaUra'ratha)  Parva,  clxxiii.— clxxv.  pp.  492— 50a 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age.  599 

hibiting  the  completeness  of  the  power  of  the  sun-god  ; 
the  weeks  of  the  Afijah'ka  weapon  of  the  joined  hands 
with  their  palms  placed  together  with  which  Arjuna  slew 
the  year-god  Karna,  after  he  had  overturned  his  car  with 
the  iron  arrow,  the  thunderbolt  of  this  era  which  destroyed 
all  the  old-year  gods'.  The  year  thus  measured  was 
one  which  could  be  easily  manipulated  by  the  priests,  who 
had  exactly  learnt  the  length  of  the  year,  and  could  always 
add  an  intercalary  month  of  thirty  days  every  sixth  year 
to  maintain  the  average  length  of  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  days  for  the  year,  and  the  error  still  left  uncorrected 
by  this  process  was  repaired  in  a  system  of  cycles  like 
the  fifty-two-years  cycle  of  Mexico,  in  which  the  intercalary 
days  necessary  to  make  the  calendar  exactly  correct  were 
added.  We  shall  see  in  the  sequel  that  in  the  instructions 
for  building  the  year-altar  the  Hindu  priests  actually,  ac- 
cording to  the  Brahmanas,  added  thirty-five  or  thirty-six 
intercalary  days  every  sixth  year,  which  was  more  than  . 
enough.  It  was  a  year  in  which  constant  astronomical 
observations  could  be  dispensed  with,  and  was  therefore 
one  suited  to  the  unastronomical  warriors  of  the  North. 

The  sun-god  who  ri^Jed  this  year,  which  began,  as  we  have 
seen  in  discussing  the  fifty  days  reckoned  for  his  resurrection 
interval  in  April— May  and  May — June,  was  under  this 
change  of  time-reckoning  released  from  the  yoke  of  the  stars 
Gemini,  and  it  was  no  longer  neccessary  to  begin  the  year 
when  the  sun  entered  that  constellation.  The  last  year 
apparently  measured  by  this  constellation  was  that  begin- 
ning when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  at  the  vernal  equinox. 
This  year  calculation  lasted  till  the  sun  entered  Taurus 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  and  it  is  from  this  epoch,  about  4200 
B.C.,  that  modern  zodiacal  observations  have  been  held  to 

date. 

This  change  in  the  year-reckoning  accompanying  the 
victory   of  the  sun-worshippers  of  the   rising  sun  of  day, 

*  Mahabbarata  Kama  Parva,  xc.  80—84,  xci.  39— 49»  PP-  359»  S^S*  366. 


6oo  History  and  Chronology 

and  the  total  discomfiture  of  the  votaries  of  the  moon-god 
and  those  who  began  their  year  with  the  settings  sun  and 
stars,  seems  to  furnish  an  explanation  of  the  Bible  story 
of  the  disruption  of  society  consequent  on  the  fall  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel.  The  Tower  of  the  Gate  {bab^  of  God  {d) 
is  a  metaphorical  name  for  those  successive  measurements 
of  annual  time  which  were  ruled  by  the  stars  Gemini,  the 
guardians  of  the  gate  of  the  divine  garden,  the  field  of 
heaven  circuited  by  the  sun  in  its  annual  journey  through 
the  zodiacal  stars  which  bounded  it. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  reckonings  of  the  zodiacal  year 
from  the  epoch  of  the  year  of  fifteen  months  annual  time  was 
measured  by  the  entry  of  the  sun  into  Gemini^  a  mode  of 
reckoning  beginning  when  the  sun  entered  Gemini  at  the 
winter  solstice,  between  1 2,000  and  1 3,000  B.C.  There  was  also 
long  before  this  a  persistent  deification  of  the  Ashvin  twin 
stars,  for  in  the  Hindu  constellation  of  Shimshu-mara,  the  alli- 
gator, which,  with  its  fourteen  stars^  drove  the  stars  round  the 
Pole,  the  twin  stars  Gemini  were  its  hands  and  the  divine  phy- 
sicians. It  was  the  new  deification  of  the  sun-god  as  a  god 
independent  of  the  Pole  Star  governing  the  tower  of  the 
Garden  of  God,  which  overthrew  thi^  tower,  overturned  the 
trading  governments  of  the  merchant-kings,  which  united  all 
the  maritime  people  in  a  confederacy  of  allied  states  and 
replaced  the  age  of  national  brotherhood  and  friendly  trade 
rivalry  by  one  of  international  suspicion  and  jealousy,  in 
which  every  state  feared  its  neighbours  as  possible  robbers 
who  were  scheming  to  appropriate  their  lands.  Hence 
every  national  tribe  used  only  its  own  language,  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  common  language  of  commercial  inter- 
course disappeared  from  the  earth.  This  revolution  ap- 
parently dates  from  the  time  when  the  sun  entered  Taurus  at 
the  vernal  equinox.  It  was  then  that  the  Kirubi  or  flying 
bulls  of  Assyria,  the  Hebrew  Cherubim,  replaced  the  t^^in 
stars,  the  giants  Gog  and  Magog,  as  guardians  of  the  Gate 
of  God,  and  as  warders  of  the  doors  of  the  temples.  It  was 
as  a  consequence  of  this  revolution  and  the  disruption  of 


of  the  Myth- Making  Age,  60 1 

society  it  caused,  that  Adam,  the  red  man,  who  had  been 
beguiled  by  the  serpent,  ruler  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  was 
sent  forth  from  the  peaceful  settlements  of  the  trading  age 
to  till  the  waste  earth,  which  was  henceforth  to  be  disturbed 
by  the  wars  of  conquest  and  spoliation  waged  by  the  united 
tree  and  sun-worshippers  against  the  money-making  progeny 
of  the  Naga  snake.  On  his  departure  from  the  land  of  the 
mother-tree,  the  tree  of  life,  the  Eastern  gates  of  his  former 
home  were  guarded  by  the  two  Cherubim  or  flying  bulls '. 
In  this  story  the  triumph  of  the  son  of  the  sun-god  and 
the  enmity  between  the  old  and  new  beliefs  is  told  in  the 
sentence  of  punishment  passed  on  the  serpent. 

F.     History  as  told  in  tlie  ritual  of  the  building  of  the  brick 
altar  of  the  sun-bird  of  the  twelve-montfis  year. 

It  was  for  the  worship  of  this  new  sun-god  introducing 
Orion's  year  of  twelve  months,  who  rose  from  the  East  as  the 
sun-bird,  that  the  new  brick  Ahavaniya  altar  of  libations  was 
built  in  India  as  the  culminating  embodiment  of  the  theology 
of  the  Brahmanas.  It  was  devoted  to  the  celebration  of  the 
ritual  in  which  living  victims  were  no  longer  to  be  offered, 
but  the  sacrifices  were  to  consist  of  libations  of  milk,  sour 
milk,  barley,  running  water,  and  the  sap  of  the  Soma  plant, 
poured  on  the  altar  and  consumed  by  the  worshippers  as 
sacramental  food  which  incorporated  into  their  frames  the 
spirit  of  the  living  god. 

This  altar  was  not  a  brand  new  creation  of  a  revolutionary 
sect  whose  object  was  to  entirely  obliterate  the  old  faiths, 
but  of  one  which  sought  to  retain  the  recollection  of  and 
reverence  for  the  ancient  creeds  while  they  substituted 
for  their  errors,  improvements  taught  by  the  advance  of 
knowledge  and  experience.  It  was  intended  to  unite  the 
new  comers  with  the  ancient  population  in  a  bond  of  national 
union,  and  this  intention  is  manifested  in  every  stage  of 
the  ritual  of  the  building  ceremonies. 

*  Gen.  iii.  22 — 24. 


6o2  History  and  Chronology 

These  begin  with  the  foundation  of  the  altar.  The  land 
on  which  it  was  to  be  built  was  ploughed  with  the 
sacred  plough  made  of  the  Udumbara  fig-tree  (Fiau 
glonteratd).  To  this  the  oxen  were  yoked  with  traces  of 
the  Munja  sugar-grass  {Saccharum  Munja)  of  which  the  Brah- 
mins' year-girdles  of  three  strands  are  made.  In  yoking  the 
oxen,  a  Gayatri,  or  eight -syllabled,  and  a  Tristubh,  or  eleven- 
syllabled  verse,  were  recited,  so  that  they  were  dedicated  to 
the  god  of  the  years  of  eleven  and  eight-day  weeks.  In  this 
ploughing,  as  I  have  said  in  Chapter  VII.  pp.  423,  424,  the 
first  furrow  was  ploughed  from  the  South-west  to  the  South- 
east, according  to  the  diagram  there  drawn  ;  the  second  from 
the  South-west  corner  to  the  North-west,  then  from  North- 
west to  North-east,  and  from  North-east  to  South-east,  so  as 
to  form  a  square  representing  the  annual  course  of  the  sun-bird 
beginning  its  year  at  sunset  at  the  winter  solstice,  and  going 
round  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavens  to  return  to  its  South- 
west home  at  the  next  winter  solstice.  This  South-west 
quarter  from  which  the  sun  starts  is  called  in  the  Brahmanas 
the  Nirriti  or  unorthodox  quarter  '. 

After  finishing  the  year-square  the  cross-lines  are  ploughed 
to  form  the  eight-rayed  star  of  the  fifteen-months  year  en- 
closed in  it.  The  first  line  is  the  North  and  South  line 
going  from  the  middle  of  the  South-west  to  South-east  line, 
to  the  North-west  and  North-east  line.  This  is  the  line 
of  the  Pole  Star  and  of  the  year  measured  by  the  circuit 
round  it  of  the  stars  led  by  the  Pleiades  and  Canopus  first 
and  the  Pleiades  and  Orion  afterwards,  when  the  year  was 
changed  from  the  two-seasons  year  of  the  Pleiades  to  Orion's 
year  of  three  seasons.  After  this  the  line  from  South-west 
to  North-east,  indicating  the  course  of  the  solstitial  year- 
bird  round  the  ploughed  square,  was  drawn.  Then  the  line 
from  West  to  East,  indicating  the  year  measured  by  the 
equinoxes  as  well  as  by  the  solstices,  beginning  with  the 
cycle-year  of  three  years  opening  at  the  autumnal  equinox, 
the  age  in  which  the  zodiacal  path  of  the  moon  and  sun 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  vii.  2,  I,  8  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  p.  320. 


of  the  MytJi-Making  Age,  603 

began  to  be  measured.  The  last  line,  from  North-west 
to  South-east,  was  the  line  of  the  white  sun-horse  of  the 
healing  fountains  and  wells,  or  white  bull  of  the  year  of 
the  eight-days  week,  who  began  his  year  at  sunset  at  the 
summer  solstice  ^ 

The  next  process  is  the  consecration  of  the  altar  site  on 
which  the  sacred  sign  of  the  eight-rayed  star  in  the  sun- 
square  has  been  ploughed.  First  a  bunch  of  Kusha  grass 
{Poa  cynosuroides)  was  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  star,  and 
five  libations  of  ghi  or  clarified  butter  are  poured  on  it 
as  offerings  to  the  gods  of  the  five-days  week  and  the  five 
seasons  of  the  year,  and  then  the  priest  consecrated  the 
ground  to  the  year-god  by  thirteen  sentences,  indicating, 
as  we  are  told,  the  thirteen  months  of  the  year.  These  set 
forth  the  inner  meaning  of  the  five  layers  of  bricks  of  which 
the  altar  was  built,  and  declare  that  it  was  built  to  the  year- 
god  of  a  year  measured  by  lunar  phases  and  the  rising 
sun  bringing  forth  the  cows  of  light.  It  is  said  to  be  the 
altar  of  the  year  of  the  Ashvins,  the  stars  Gemini,  and  the 
sun-god  and  sun-horse,  of  the  household-fire  and  the  mother- 
mountain  Ida,  mother  of  the  cows  of  light,  and  of  the  creat- 
ing-god  invoked  at  it  *. 

Then  twelve  jars  of  water,  denoting  the  twelve  months 
of  the  year  which  was  to  be  henceforth  the  national  year, 
were  poured  over  the  ploughed  ground,  and  three  addi- 
tional jars  over  the  whole  site  of  the  consecrated  area, 
making  fifteen  jars  poured  over  the  whole  area,  indicating 
the  twelve  months  and  three  seasons  of  Orion's  year,  the 
model  of  that  now  instituted.  Then  seeds  of  corn  and 
healing  herbs  were  sown  on  the  whole  consecrated  area 
from  a  jar  of  Udumbara-wood  {Ficus  glomerata).  While 
sowing  this  seed  fifteen  Gayatrl  stanzas  were  recited  of 
Rg.  X.  97,  attributed  to  Bhishak  Atharvana,  the  healing  fire- 
priest,  and  called  Osadhastuti,  the  praiser  of  medicine,  twelve 
stanzas  during  the  sowing  of  the  ploughed  area,  and  three 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  vii.  2,  2,  I— 14 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxi.  pp.  325 — 330. 
'  Ibid.,  vii.  2,  3,  I — 9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  332—335. 


6c4  History  and  Chronology 

during  the  sowing  of  that  unploughed.  This  hymn  of  the 
sun-physician  traces  the  healing  virtues  of  the  plants  whose 
effects  it  extols  to  the  holy  trees,  the  Ashvattha  {Fiats 
religiosa)  and  the  Farna  or  Palasha  {Butea  frondosd)^  the  two 
Soma  trees,  and  ascribes  their  growth  to  Brihaspati,  the  Pole 
Star  god.  It  dedicates  the  seed  sown  while  reciting  them 
to  the  god  of  the  fifteen-months  year.  In  the  thirteenth 
of  these  stanzas  Yakshman  {fever)  is  called  on  to  fly  forth 
with  the  jay ',  and  we  learn  from  the  lives  of  the  Buddhist 
Theris  that  the  blue  jay  was  the  sacred  bird  during  the 
age  of  the  year  of  thirteen  months  and  seven-day  weeks. 
Padumavati^  the  third  Theri,  was  born  as  one  of  the  seven 
sisters,  the  seven  days  of  the  week,  in  the  palace  of  Kiki,  the 
blue  jay,  king  of  Kashi^  and  in  the  birth  after  this  she  was 
born  as  a  village  maiden,  who  gathered  the  mother-lotus  of 
five  hundred  seeds^  which  gave  her  in  her  next  birth  her 
child,  the  eldest  son  of  the  king,  called  Mahapadumo  the 
great  lotus,  and  sons  to  each  of  the  other  four  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  kings*  wives  «. 

It  is  the  leaf  of  this  lotus  that  was  placed  in  the  centre 
of  the  site  of  the  Ahavanlya  altar,  but  before  it  was  laid 
down  sand  was  scattered  over  it,  and  the  whole  area, 
measuring  about  forty  feet  each  side,  was  made  level  with 
the  square  mound,  the  Uttaravedi,  measuring  seven  feet 
on  each  side,  which  was  its  centre.  The  sand  was  scattered 
with  a  six-versed  hymn,  and  these  six  stanzas,  with  the  four 
bricks  placed  on  the  boundary  lines  and  two  verses  sung 
to  make  the  seed  grow,  make  up,  we  are  told,  the  twelve 
months  of  the  year,  that  is  of  the  Brahmins*  year  divided 
into  two  seasons  of  six  months  each,  the  Devayana  season, 
in  which  the  sun  goes  North,  and  the  Pitriyana,  in  which 
it  goes  South  3. 

The  next  ceremony  is  that  of  the  Pravargya,  or  the 
offering  of  the  large  pot  and  the  Upasads.     The  ritual  of 

*  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah.^  vii.  2,  4,  I — 30;   S.B.E.,  voL  xli.  pp.  335 — 342. 
'  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  TimeSy  vol.  ii.,  Essay  vii.,  pp.  74—77. 
3  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,^  vii.  3,  I,  I — ^47;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  342 — 355. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age,  605 

the  Pravargya  is  somewhat  complicated,  but  it  may  shortly 
be  described  as  representing  the  birth  of  the  twelve-months 
year  of  the  altar  from  the  thirteen-months  year  and  those 
preceding  it.    The  earth  for  the  Pravargya  pot  is  dug  with 
a  spade  made  of  Udumbara  wood,  and  it  is  made  of  five 
materials^  the  five  days  of  the  week :    (i)   potter's  clay, 
(2)  clay  from  ant-hills,  (3)  clay  from  earth  torn  up  by  the 
year  boar,  (4)  Adari  or  Soma  plants,  and  (5)  goats'  milk. 
Three  pots,  two  milking-bowls,  and  two  platters  consecrated 
to  Rohini,  the  red  cow  Aldebaran,  are  made,  and  goats'  milk 
IS  poured  on  these  seven  representatives  of  the  seven-days 
week.    When  the  materials  are  ready,  the  great  pot  Mahavira 
is  placed   on   the  fire,   surrounded  with  thirteen  pieces  of 
Vikuntula  {Flacourtia  sapida)  wood,  to  denote  the  thirteen 
months  of  the  year,  and  a  gold  plate  is  placed  on  its  top. 
The  milk  heated  in  it  is  that  of  the  cow  Rohini,  who  is 
accompanied  by  her  calf,  the  young  sun-god.     She  is  milked 
into  the  pot,  goats'  milk  being  afterwards  mixed  with  her 
milk.     On  the  fire  are  burnt  successively  three  bundles  of 
fire  faggots.     During  the  burning  of  the  first  and  second  the 
Agnldhra  or  fire-priest  stands  up,  while  the   last  is  being 
burnt  he  sits  down  like  a  woman  being  delivered  of  a  child. 
These  three  faggots  denote  the  three-years  cycle  of  the  year 
of  the  goat  from  which  the  sun-god  was  born,  and  before 
the   milk   is  boiled   the  twelve  gods  of  the  new  year  are 
invoked.     The  whole  ceremony  closes  with  the  offering  of 
thirteen  libations  to  the  thirteen  gods  of  the  months,  among 
whom  Surya,  the  sun-god,  is  given  the  seventh  or  central 
place.    These  are  offered  after  the  heated  milk  has  been 
drunk  by  those  taking  part  in  the  sacrifice  ^     This  sacrifice, 
and  that  of  the  Upasads  to  the  three  seasons  of  Prajapati's 
{Orion's)  year  of  the  arrow,  cover  in  their  ritual  the  whole 
history  of  the  solstitial  sun-year  2 

After  these  ceremonies  a  red-ox  skin  is  placed  in  front 

*  Eggeling,   Sat,   Br&h.,   xiv.   I,   I,   I— xiv.   3,   2,   31;    S.B.E.,   vol.  xliv. 
pp.  441—510. 
»  Ibid.,  iii.  4,  4,  14—17;  S^B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  108. 


6o6  History  and  Chronology 

of  the  Garhapatya  altar  with  its  neck  to  the  East      It  is 
consecrated  to  Rohini,  and  it  is  on  a  similar  skin  that  Hindu 
brides  are  seated  after  their  marriage ',  and  before  its  con- 
summation.    The  bricks  for  the  first  layer  are  placed  on  it 
and  sprinkled  with  a  bunch  of  Kusha  grass  dipped  in  ghi 
or  clarified  butter,  and  then  a  white  horse  is  led  up  to  the 
bricks  at  sun-set  *.     In  laying  down  the  first  layer  of  bricks 
a  gold  plate  with  twenty-one  knobs  on  it  was  placed  over 
the  lotus  leaf  laid  in  the  centre  of  the  raised  altar  mound. 
On  the  plate  there  was  put  the  gold  image  of  a  man  lying 
on  his  back  with  his  head  to  the  East.     Over  him  the  first 
five  stanzas  of  Rg.  iv.  4  were  repeated,  calling  upon  Agni 
to  drive  away  the  wicked  fiends.     Beside  the  man  were  laid 
two  offering  spoons,  one  of  Karshmarya  {Gmelina  arborea) 
wood  of  which  the  enclosing  triangle  was  made  on  the  Soma 
Uttaravedi  altar  3,  succeeding  that  in  the  form  of  a  woman 
with  its  triangle  of  Palasha  twigs ;  the  other  oflTering  spoon 
was    made    of    Udumbara    {Ficus  glomerata)  4.      Then   a 
Svayam-atrinna,  a  self-perforated  brick  made  with  a  hole 
in  it,  was  placed  on  the  man,  and  there  are  three  of  these 
in  the  altar  in  the  centre  of  the  first,  third  and  fifth  layers, 
so  as  to  leave  an  open  passage  through  the  altar.      This 
aperture   is   that   for  the  stalk  of  the   lotus   called   in  the 
Zendavesta  the  golden  tube  of  Saokanta,  the  mountain  of 
the  wet  {sak)  god.     It  is  through  this  that  the   life-giving 
water  generated  in  the  lotus  growing  beneath  the  mother- 
mountain  represented  in  the  altar  goes  up  to  its  top  as  the 
mist  which  descends  to  the  earth  in  rain  and  dew  5.    This 
self-pierced  brick  is  called  Durva,  or  that  born  of  the  firm 

*  Oldenberg,   Grihya  Sutras,  Grihya  Sutra  of  Hiranyakeshin,  i.   7,   22,  S ; 
S.B.E.,  vol.  XXX.  p.  193. 

'  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brdh.,  vii.  3,  2,  I— »9;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  355—362. 
3  Ibid.,  iii.  4,  i,  16;  S.  B.E.,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  89. 

*  Ibid.,  vii.  4,  I,  I — 45;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  362—376. 

5  Ibid.,  vii.  4,  2,  I — 9,  viii.  i,  i,  i  ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  377 — 379,  xliil 
pp.  I,  note  I,  2;  Darmesteter,  Zendavesta  Khorshed  Nyayis,  8  ;  S.B.E.,  vol. 
xxiii.  p.  352,  note  3  ;  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  vol.  i.,  Essay 
iii.,  p.  144. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  607 

(dhruva)  Pole  Star,  and  on  it  is  laid  a  plant  of  DurVia  or  Dub 
grass  {Panicum  dactylon)^  the  creeping  grass  growing  near 
the  banks  of  rivers  and  watercourses,  which  always  remains 
green  during  the  hottest  and  driest  weather.  Next  to  this 
central  brick  on  its  East  side  a  brick  called  Dvi-yajus,  or 
the  double-worship,  was  placed,  and  then  five  more  bricks 
with  different  names,  representing  the  generating  Agni  and 
the  spring  season^  were  laid  in  the  same  direction  leading 
up  to  the  most  important  brick  of  all,  the  eighth  brick  from 
the  centre  Polar  brick.  This  is  called  the  Ashadha  brick, 
sacred  to  the  month  of  that  name  (June — July),  which  begins 
the  year  opening  with  the  rains  of  the  summer  solstice. 
This  eighth  centre-brick  is  the  beak  of  the  year-bird  of  the 
altar  ^       * 

South  of  this  Ashadha  brick,  representing  the  beak  of  the 
sun-bird  rising  in  the  North-east  at  the  summer  solstice,  and 
which  rises  in  the  East  at  the  vernal  equinox,  the  live  tortoise 
of  Kashyapa,  the  father-god  of  the  Kushikas,  was  buried  with 
its  head  to  the  West,  and  anointed  with  curds,  honey  and 
ghi-  It  was  placed  between  two  rows  of  Avaka  (Blyxa 
octandra)  plants,  growing  like  the  lotus  on  marshy  lands. 
To  the  North  of  the  Ashadha  brick  a  pestle  and  mortar 
of  Udumbara  wood  for  the  pounding  of  Soma  was  buried, 
and  on  the  top  of  this  Northern  effigy  of  the  generating  Pole 
Star  revolving-god  was  placed  the  fire-pan  (tikhd),  the  making 
of  which  I  have  described  in  Chapter  VIII.  pp.  495  ff.,  and 
it,  which  conveyed  the  heat  which  begot  life  in  the  sons  of 
the  rivers  and  the  cow,  was  filled  with  sand  and  milk  2. 

The  heads  of  the  five  victims  slain  at  this  sacrifice  of 
consecration  were  then  placed  in  the  fire-pan.  Those  of  the 
horse  and  the  ram  on  the  North  side,  the  bull's  and  goat's 
heads  on  the  South,  and  the  man's  head  in  the  centre  on  the 

»  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah,^  vii.  4,  2,  10 — 40;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  379—389; 
also  see  the  plan  of  the  first  layer  of  bricks,  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brdh.^  S.B.E., 
vol.  xliii.  p.  17* 

'  Ibid.,  vii.  5,  I,  I — 34,  vii.  I,  i,  40—44;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli.  pp.  389 — 399, 
310,311. 


1 


6o8  History  and  Chronology 

sanded  milk,  after  putting  chips  of  gold  in  their  mouths, 
nostrils,  eyes,  and  ears. 

Then  the  building  of  the  altar  was  proceeded  with.  Five 
bricks  called  Ahasya  or  water-bricks,  reminiscences  of  the 
mother-sea  surrounding  the  mother-mountain,  were  laid  at 
the  West,  South,  and  East  ends  of  the  cross,  inside  the  drcle 
forming  the  skeleton  of  the  body  of  the  altar  bird,  and  five 
more  bricks  called  Chandrasyah  or  metrical  bricks  dedicated 
to  the  five  metres,  Gayatri,  Tristubh,  JagatI,  Anushtubh  and 
Pankti,  representing,  as  we  are  told,  the  five  seasons  of  the 
year,  that  is  of  a  year  beginning  when  the  sun  was  in  the 
North,  the  place  of  the  metres.  The  Gayatri  represented 
the  spring,  Tristubh  the  summer,  JagatI,  the  rainy  season, 
Anushtubh  the  autumn,  Pankti  the  winter  ^  * 

Thus  we  see  that  the  history  of  the  year  is  wrapped  up 
in  the  rules  for  laying  this  first  layer  which  represents  the 
spring  season.  I  shall  not  give  the  details  of  the  building 
of  each  of  the  other  layers  with  the  same  minuteness  as 
I  have  described  the  first,  as  to  do  so  would  be  merely  to 
repeat  for  each  layer  the  year  history  I  have  given  for  the 
first,  for  each  layer  illustrates  a  separate  section  of  the  suc- 
cessive sequence  of  years  I  have  depicted  in  the  previous 
chapters  of  this  book. 

Each  layer  represents  a  season  of  the  year,  the  first  layer 
the  spring,  the  second  summer,  the  third  the  rainy  season, 
the  fourth  autumn,  the  fifth  winter. 

The  second  layer,  begun  by  laying  down  five  Ashvini  bricks 
to  the  five  seasons  of  the  year,  is  especially  dedicated  to  the 
Ashvins,  the  stars  Gemini,  and  the  ritual  of  the  laying  of  the 
bricks  closes  with  an  invocation  in  fifteen  stanzas  to  the  gods 
of  the  fifteen-months  year,  beginning  with  the  goat  and 
ending  with  the  four-year-old  bull  2.  The  third  layer  is  by 
the  first  eleven  bricks  laid  down   dedicated  to  the  eleven- 

'  Eggeling,  Sat,  Brah,,  vii.  5,  2,  I — 62,  v.  4,  i,  3 — 7;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xli. 
pp.  401—417,  91. 

'  Ibid.,  viii.  2,  I,  i — 9,  16,  viii.  2,  4,  I — 15;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  pp.  22—27, 
29.  37—39. 


of  t/ie  Myth-Making  Age.  609 

months  year,  preceding  that  of  fifteen  months'.  In  the 
fourth  layer  of  the  autumn  season  the  first  eighteen  bricks 
are  dedicated  to  the  eighteen  months  of  the  year  or  the 
eighteen-fold  Prajapati,  and  the  latter  part  of  the  layer  to 
the  seventeen-months  year  of  the  seventeen-fold  Prajapati, 
with  a  hymn  of  praise  to  the  thirty-three  gods  of  the  year 
of  eleven  months  of  thirty-three  days  2.  The  fifth  or  top 
layer  of  the  winter  season  represents  the  vault  of  heaven 
encircling  and  overarching  the  altar,  and  it  rests  on  the 
outside  twenty-nine  Stomabhaga  bricks,  called  Nakasads  or 
bricks  of  the  firmaments,  the  twenty-nine  days  of  the  months 
of  Orion's  year  of  the  Karanass.  Inside  this  fifth  layer 
a  new  Garhapatya  hearth  is  inserted.  It  is  dedicated,  like 
the  hearth  described  in  Chapter  VIII.  pp.  559,  560,  to  the 
year  of  thirteen  months.  It  is  built  of  eighteen  bricks,  two 
rows  of  eight  bricks,  the  first  called  Chiti,  and  the  second 
placed  on  it  Punashchiti,  and  on  these  are  placed  two 
Ritavya  or  seasonal  bricks,  the  whole  representing  the 
eighteen-months  year,  and  on  the  top  are  placed  two  Vis- 
vajyotis  or  living  star  bricks,  to  make  up  the  twenty  days 
of  the  months  of  the  year  4. 

The  altar  thus  built  was,  as  the  Brahmana  tells  us,  encircled 
with  three  hundred  and  sixty  enclosing  stones  distributed  as 
follows  round  the  altars :  twenty-one  round  the  Garhapatya 
hearth,  seventy-eight  round  the  eight  Dhishnya  hearths 
appropriated  to  the  priests,  and  two  hundred  and  sixty-one 
round  the  Ahavaniya  altar.  These  represent  the  three 
hundred  and  sixty  nights  of  the  year.  The  days  are  repre- 
sented by  the  three  hundred  and  sixty  Yajush-mati  bricks 
laid  down  with  formulas,  and  the  hours  are  represented  by 
the  ten  thousand  eight  hundred  Lokamprini  or  space-filling 
bricks  denoting  the  Mohurtas  of  forty-eight  minutes  each, 
of  which  there  are  thirty  in  a  day,  and  ten  thousand  eight 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  viii.  3,  4,  ii  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  p.  57. 
^  Ibid.,  viii.  4,  i,  27,  28,  viii.  4,  3,  I— 20 ;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  pp.  68,  71—77- 
3  Ibid.,   viii.   5,   3,  1—8,  viii.  6,  I,   I,   2;    S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  pp.  92—94. 
97,  note  I,  98. 

^  Ibid.,  viii.  6,  3,  I,  viii.  7,  i,  24;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  pp.  117 — 131. 


ft         a. 


6 10  History  and  Chronology 

hundred  in  a  year  of  360  days.  But  in  the  verbal  instruc- 
tions for  laying  the  bricks  on  each  layer,  three  hundred  and 
ninety- five  are  ordered  to  be  laid '.  The  extra  thirty-five, 
with  an  additional  day  added  for  the  earth  used  in  the  altar, 
represent  the  thirty-six  days  intercalated  every  six  years 
to  make  the  year-reckoning  correspond  with  actual  time. 
But  this  number  or  that  of  thirty-five  days  for  the  intercalary 
month  would  make  the  six-years  cycle  too  long.  It  would 
seem  that  the  number  thirty-six  appears  in  the  calculations 
as  a  reminiscence  of  the  thirty-six  stones  which  originally, 
as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  III.  p.  105^  surrounded  in  the 
Neolithic  Age  the  sun-circle  of  three  hundred  and  sikty 
degrees.  The  official  explanation  of  the  intercalary  month 
given  in  the  Brahmana  is  that  stated  in  the  commentary  on  the 
sixty-six  stanzas  of  the  Shata-rudriya  hymn  of  the  hundred 
{sitatd)  Rudras,  the  hundred  gods  of  the  oldest  Buddhist 
heaven  of  the  Shatum  Maharajaka  Devaloko,  recited  on  the 
Mahavrata  day  when  the  altar  was  consecrated.  This  hymn 
contains,  according  to  the  Brahmana,  three  hundred  and 
sixty  invocations  representing  the  three  hundred  and  sixty 
days  of  the  year,  thirty  representing  the  thirty  days  of  each 
of  its  twelve  months,  and  thirty-five  for  the  intercalary  days 
added  at  the  end  of  every  six  years  2. 

The  Dhishnya  or  priests'  hearths  are  built  with  Lokam- 
prini  bricks  laid  without  formulas,  thus  showing  them  to 
represent  the  years  before  that  of  the  building  of  the  altar 
of  the  risen  sun  ;  and  the  rules  for  their  construction,  like  that 
of  the  chief  altar,  reproduce  a  record  of  the  history  of  time. 
Thus  the  Hotri's  hearth  contains  twenty-one  bricks,  the  days 
of  the  month  of  the  scventeen-months  year  of  libations. 
The  hearth  of  the'  Brahmanacchamsin  or  Indra  contains 
eleven  bricks,  the  eleven  days  of  the  week  and  months  of  the 
year  of  the  rain-god  of  the  South-west  wind,  the  Indra  who 
brought  up  the  rains  of  the  summer  solstice  with  the  help 

'  E|TgelHig,  Sat.  Brah.y  x.  4,  2,  I — 27,  x.  4,  3,  8—21,  ix.   4,   3,  9  ;    S.B.E., 
vol.  xliii.  pp.  349—354.  note  2,  357—360,  244,  245,  note  I. 
=  Ibid.,  ix.  I,  I,  43,  44;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  pp.  167,  168,  150—155. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  6iT 

of  the  seven  Maruts,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  as 
I  have  shown  in  Chapter  VII.  p.  431'.  The  Margaliya 
altar  of  the  antelope  {mriga)  is  built  of  six  bricks,  the  six 
days  of  the  week  of  the  first  antelope-year,  in  which  the 
circling  {mriga)  antelope  was  the  sun-bird.  The  other  five 
altars  are  each  made  of  eight  bricks,  the  eight  days  of  the 
week  of  the  fifteen-months  year^. 

The  reproduction  of  the  ancient  time  measurements  is 
further  shown  in  the  use  of  the  ten-days  week,  which  besides 
its  meaning  of  the  double  hands  or  of  the  sacrifice  of  the 
whole  man^  also  commended  itself  to  these  Northern  ritualists 
by  measuring  the  year  in  decimals.  The  altar  was  especially 
consecrated  to  the  thirty-six  weeks  of  this  year  by  the  recita- 
tion of  the  Brihat-Saman,  sacred  to  the  goddess  Brihati  of  the 
thirty-six  syllabled  metre,  who  is  said  to  make  the  year. 
This  was  chanted  at  the  consecration  of  the  altar  at  its 
North-east  corner,  the  rising  place  of  the  sun-bird  3.  These 
weeks  are  called  in  the  Rigveda  the  Dashagva  or  the  ten. 
They  are  said  to  be  descended  from  the  nine  Aflgiras,  the 
nine-days  week  of  the  three-years  cycle  4,  and  to  be  their 
best  representatives  ;  also  to  be.  as  directors  of  the  course  of 
the  independent  sun,  irresistible  and  uncontrollable  5.  They 
help  Indra  in  bringing  forth  the  cows  of  light  and  find  them 
in  the  darkness,  that  is  at  dawn^.  These  decades  were 
therefore  the  weeks  of  the  rising  and  not  of  the  setting  sun, 
the  course  of  which  was  measured  by  the  five-day  weeks. 

This  record  of  national  history  told  in  the  ritual  and  rules 
for  building  the  brick  altar  of  the  sun-bird  is  the  crowning 
achievement  of  the  Indian  historiographers  who  drew  the 
pictures  of  the  past  in  symbols,  the  meaning  of  which  was 
thoroughly  understood  by  the  educated  people  of  the  age 
in  which  they  lived.     These  had  all  been  instructed  in  the 

*  Eggeling,  Sat.  Brah.^  ii.  5,  3,  20;  S.B.E.,  vol.  xii.  p.  416. 

^  Ibid.,  ix.  4,  3,  9,  iv.  6,  6,  I — 5  ;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  p.  245,  note  I,  xxvi. 

pp.  433»  434- 

3  Ibid.,  ix.  I,  2,  37,  vi.  4,  2,  10;   S.B.E.,  vol.  xliii.  p.  179,  vol.  xli.  p.  220. 

♦  Rg.  X.  62,  6.  5  Ibid.  viii.  12,  2.  ^  Ibid.  i.  62,  iii.  39,  5. 

R   r   2 


6i2  History  and  Chronology 

national  schools  in  the  rules  laid  down  for  their  interpretation 
by  the  priests  and  expounders  of  the  meaning  of  the  my- 
thological stories  and    ritual.     In  this  age  the  priests  and 
teachers  of  the  people  were  in  India  distributed   over  the 
country  as  members  of  the  local  schools  of  Brahmanic  learn- 
ing, who  wrote,  as  ritualistic  hymns,  the  poems  of  the  Rig- 
veda.     These  are  divided  into  Mandalas   or  sections,  each 
of  which  contains  the   selected  poems  of  the  guild   named 
in   its  title.    Thus  the  second   Mandala  is  the  work  of  the 
Bhargavas  or  sons  of  Bhrigu,  the  Median  priests,  the  third 
of  the  Vishvamitra  Kushikas,  the  fourth   of  the    G5tamas, 
the  fifth  of  the  Atriyas,  the  sixth  of  the  Bharadvajas,  the 
seventh  of  the  Vashishthas,  and  the   eighth  of  the    Kansa 
priests  of  the  Yadu  Turvasu.     The  first  and  tenth  Mandalas 
are  made  up  of  grouped  contributions  from  separate  schools, 
the  works  of  each*  being  placed  in  its  own  section,  and  the 
authors  of  the  hymns  of  the  ninth  Mandala  are  the  priests 
of  the  Soma  moon-god,   called  Soma   Pavamana,   the  god 
of  the  rain-bringing  wind   {pavana).    The  gods  invoked  in 
the  1,028  hymns  preserved  in  this  collection  are  all  year-gods, 
measurers  of  time,  and  the  intensity  of  the  conservative  belief 
in  and  reverence  for  the  oldest  national  creating  gods,  the 
rain  and  tree-gods,  is  shown   in  the  very  large  proportion 
of  the  hymns  addressed  to  them.     Six  hundred  and  eighty- 
one  hymns  are  invocations  to  the  three  chief  gods  of  the 
Soma  sacrifice.     In  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  of  these 
the  god  invoked  is  Soma,  the  creating  sap  of  the  mother-tree 
brought  by   the   cloud-bird   Su    or   Khu,  called   the   father 
and  begetter  of  the  gods  i,  the  lord   of  thought  (jnanasas- 
pati)^  and  of  speech  {vacas-pati)  X     Three  hundred  and  fifty- 
four  are  hymns  to   Indra,   the  rain-god,   father  of  life,  and 
the  especial  parent  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers  and  of  the  river 
eel ;  and  two  hundred  and  four  to  Agni,  the  god  of  the  house- 
hold and  altar  fire,  and  their  associate  gods.     There  are  also 
thirty-five  hymns  to  the  Maruts  or  wind-bringing  goddesses, 

'  Rg.  ix.  87,  2.  »  Ibid.  ix.  99,  6.  ^  Ibid.  ix.  26,  4,  101,6. 


of  the  Myth-Making  Age.  6 1 3 

daughters  of  the  tree-ape-god  Maroti.  Sixty  to  the  Ashvins 
or  the  stars  Gemini,  which  were,  as  we  have  seen,  gods 
who  take  a  most  prominent  place  in  the  history  of  this 
year,  and  there  are  eleven  hymns  to  the  Ribhus  or  makers 
of  the  seasons.  In  short  the  whole  ritual  of  the  Indian 
Church  as  expounded  in  the  Rigveda  and  the  Brahmanas 
or  ritualistic  manuals,  is  that  of  the  worship  of  the  gods  who 
measure  time,  and  it  was  the  successive  phases  of  their  wor- 
ship marked  in  the  changing  computations  of  the  year  which 
formed  the  epochs  of  the  national  chronology.  It  was  these 
records  which  were  preserved  by  the  schools  of  the  prophets 
among  the  Jews,  by  the  Collegia  or  Leagues  of  Dervishes  or 
ceremonial  priests  of  Asia  Minor,  South-western  Asia  and 
Egypt,  who  also  organised  the  national  rituals  in  Greece,  Italy 
and  all  other  countries  where  the  trading  merchants  of  the 
Indian  Ocean  and  their  Mediterranean  brethren  settled. 

But  the  memory  of  the  methods  of  these  ancient  historians 
decayed  under  the  rule  of  the  Northern  sun-worshippers,  who 
apparently  introduced  into  the  countries  they  conquered 
a  long  period  of  confusion  and  anarchy,  similar  to  that 
which  marked  the  later  ages  of  the  Roman  empire  when 
Roman  law  and  order  was  trampled  under  foot  by  the 
Northern  invaders.  During  this  period  the  priestly  his- 
torians were  replaced  by  the  genealogical  bards,  who,  in- 
stead of  making  the  personified  nation  or  tribe  the  heroes 
of  their  fiarratives,  and  telling  the  history  of  the  nation's 
fortunes,  filled  their  songs  with  recitals  of  the  deeds  of  indivi- 
duals. Thus  they  were  the  records  of  personal  prowess, 
and  in  their  genealogies  all  the  persons  named  were  con- 
ceived as  individuals  who  were  once  actually  existing, 
ancestors  of  the  kings  and  warriors  whose  praises  they 
sang.  It  was  also  owing  to  the  growth  of  individualism 
that  state  astronomy  became  judicial  astrology,  employed  in 
the  making  of  horoscopes  predicting  the  good  or  evil  for- 
tunes of  the  persons  at  whose  birth  were  drawn  those  pro- 
phetic pictures  of  the  positions  then  occupied  by  the  stars 
which,  according  to  astrological  belief,  then  dealt  out  the 


6i4  History  and  Chrotwlogy 

changes  and  chances  allotted  by  them  to  each  human  life. 
Another  cause  of  the  gradual  disuse  of  the  methods  and 
forgetfulness  of  the  meanings  of  the  ancient  histories,  was 
the  introduction  of  annals  in  which  the  national  scribes  re- 
corded the  events  of  successive  years,  characterising  each 
year  by  some  remarkable  event  occurring  in  it,  or  by  its 
place  in  the  years  of  the  reigns  of  their  kings.  These 
annals  formed  the  groundwork  of  the  national  chroni- 
cles of  the  Babylonians,  Assyrians  and  Egyptians,  and  to 
make  their  records  complete  imaginary  figures,  which  some- 
times, like  those  of  the  Ten  Kings  of  Babylon,  reproduced 
astronomical  computations,  were  assigned  to  the  reigns  of 
pre-annalistic  rulers,  whose  names  had  been  symbols  in  the 
pre-solar  histories.  This  introduction  of  annalistic  chronicles 
separates  the  age  when  history  was  told  in  symbolic  stories 
depicting  the  institutions,  customs  and  daily  lives  of  the  people 
who  framed  them,  from  that  of  modern  history,  which  gives  us 
detailed  biographies  of  individuals,  kings,  warriors  and  law* 
givers,  but  which,  until  recently,  almost  ignored  the  social 
movements  they  directed  and  the  influence  they  exercised 
over  the  progress  of  the  people  whom  they  ruled.  Under 
these  influences  the  old  system  of  recording  the  lapse  of  past 
time  by  the  apparent  movements  of  the  stars,  sun,  and  moon 
round  the  Pole,  the  changes  in  the  Pole  Stars  and  the  month 
by  stations  of  the  sun  and  moon  in  the  zodiacal  circle,  were 
discarded  and  almost  forgotten  in  popular  ritual. 

The  stories  of  the  old  gods  recording  the  sequence  of 
natural  phenomena,  the  conclusions  of  primitive  science, 
and  the  history  of  the  past  as  told  in  the  astronomical  suc- 
cession of  different  methods  of  reckoning  the  year,  became 
in  the  new  literature  narratives  of  somewhat  superhuman 
magnified  men  and  women.  They  were  thus  so  distorted 
that  when  their  original  forms  and  meanings  were  forgotten, 
they  seemed  to  describe  the  gods  of  our  forefathers  as  mon- 
sters of  iniquity.  Hence  the  divine  origin  of  this  mythology 
was  disbelieved  by  the  philosophical  teachers  of  the  new 
spiritual  religion  based  on  the  study  of  the  mental  and  moral 


of  the  Myth" Making  Age.  6 1 5 

faculties  and  the  standard  of  duty  they  taught.  And  they 
like  Plato  denounced  the  ancient  myths  as  blasphemous  lies 
invented  by  the  poets,  and  banished  the  works  in  which  they 
were  used  as  dramatic  plots  from  the  curriculum  of  their 
ideal  schools  \ 

It  is  only  by  a  study  of  the  old  rituals,  tribal  and  local 
customs  and  institutions,  religious  and  historical  myths, 
the  stages  of  advance  in  the  knowledge  and  practice  of 
methods  of  government,  agriculture,  fruit-growing,  phar- 
macy, architecture  and  mechanical  arts,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  international  trade  by  land  and  sea,  that  we 
can  correct  these  erroneous  interpretations  of  ancient  my- 
thology, and  reproduce  a  correct  picture  of  life  in  the 
ancient  world.  In  doing  this  we  interpret  the  old  national 
histories  in  the  sense  in  which  they  were  composed  by 
the  national  historiographers,  the  Pra-shastri  or  teaching- 
priests  of  the  Hindus,  the  Asipu  or  interpreters  of  the  Akka- 
dians, who  became  the  Semitic  Rabbi,  the  Exegetae  of  the 
Greeks,  and  the  Druid  bard-priests  of  the  Celts.  These  were 
prepared  with  careful  deliberation  and  enquiry  and  with 
scrupulous  regard  to  the  truths  as  believed  in  by  their 
authors,  and  they  were  handed  down  to  their  successors  as 
divinely  inspired  lessons  teaching  them  the  methods  by  which 
national  prosperity  was  secured  and  the  faults  by  which  it 
was  lost.  We  must  no  longer  look  on  these  old  mythologies 
as  unintelligible  records  of  a  time  when,  as  some  assert,  men 
deliberately  cultivated  the  mythopaeic  art  of  compiling  na- 
tional stories  as  a  means  of  amusement,  answering  to  the  most 
frivolous  of  our  modern  novels,  but  as  the  solemnly  recorded 
teachings  of  ancestors  who  bequeathed  these  symbolic  his- 
tories to  their  descendants  for  their  instruction  and  guidance. 

I  have  tried  in  this  work  to  set  forth  their  true  meaning  as 
far  as  they  record  the  methods  of  computing  time,  and  the 
attempts  made  in  the  past  to  find  out  the  real  nature  of  the 
creating  powers  who  ordained  natural  and  moral  laws,  and 

*  Jowett,  Pla/o,  The  Republic,  Book  ii.  vol.  iii.  pp.  249 — 257. 


6io     History  and  Chronology  of  the  Afyth- Milking  Age. 

I  only  hope  that  I  may  have  succeeded  in  stimulating  otherj 
to  work  in  this  field  of  research,  in  which  innumerable  dis- 
coveries can  yet  be  made  by  those  who  read,  interpret  and 
edit  the  numerous  works  which  were  once  the  sources  whence 
ancient  sages  drew  their  lore,  but  which   now  only  exist  as 
almost  neglected   manuscripts.     It    is    not   only  from  these 
that  additional  knowledge  is  to  be  gained,  but  also  from  the 
buried  relics  of  the  ancient  and  unexplored  cities  of  India, 
of  the  countries  on  the  shores  of  the   Indian  Ocean,  and 
between  the  Mediterranean  on  the  West  and   the  Caspian 
Sea  and  the  Euphrates  Valley  on  the  East.     There,  and  al:* 
in    Europe,   are   many  sites   which   will,    when    thoroughly 
excavated,  furnish  harvests  of  relics   no   less  valuable  than 
those  which  have  revealed  to  us  so  much  of  the  previously 
obliterated   history  of  Babylonia,   Assyria    and    Egypt    It 
is  in    India   that  we  shall  find   in   the  ruins   of  such  cities 
as  those  of  Pushkala-vasti,  or  Hastinapore  in  the  Swat  valley, 
in  Taxila  or  Takshasila,  Kapila-vastu,  Mathura  and  many 
others,  authentic  records  of  the  rule  of  the  Kushika,  Khati 
or  llittite  merchant-kings, and  probably  recover  pre-Sanskrit 
tablets  in  the  ancient  Hittite  syllabic  alphabet.     This  must 
certainly  have  been  used  in  the  country  in  combination  with 
the    indigenous    methods   of    preserving    and    transmitting 
oral  records  committed    to   memory  by  successive   genera- 
tions of  pupils  and  teachers. 


APPENDIX   A. 


List  of  the   Hindu   Nakshatra  Stars  by  Brahma 

Gupta. 


I. 

2. 

3- 

4. 


6. 

7. 
8. 

9. 
10. 

II. 

12. 

13- 
14. 

16. 

17- 
18. 

'9. 
20. 

21. 
22. 


23. 
24. 

25- 
26. 


Ashvini  or  Ashvayujau. 

Bharani  or  Apa  Bharani. 

Krittaka  or  Kpttakas. 

RohinI  (Aldebaran). 

Mrigasirsha,  Andhaka,  Aryika, 
Invika  or  Ilvala. 

Ardra  or  Bahu. 

Punarvasu. 

Pushya,  Tishya,  or  Sidhya. 

Ashlesha,  Asresha,  or  Ashleshas. 

Magha  or  Maghas. 

Purva,  Phalguni  or  Arjuni. 

Uttara  Phalguni. 

Hasta. 

Chitra. 

Svati  or  Nishtya. 

Visakha  or  Visakhi. 

Anuradha. 

Jyeshtha. 

Mula  or  Vichritau, 

Purva,  Ashadha  or  Apya. 

Uttara,  Ashadha  or  Vaishoa. 

Abhijit,  meaning  now  {abhi)  con- 
quered (>//).  This  sign  was 
omitted  after  Vega  ceased  to 
be  the  ruling  Pole  Star,  that 
is,  after  8000  B.C. 

Shravana,  Shrona,  or  Ashvattha. 

Shravishtha  or  Dhanistha 

Sata  bhisaj. 

Purva  Bhadrapada,  Proshthapada 
or  Pratishana. 


3  Arietis. 

a  Muscoe. 

23  Tauri  (Pleiades). 

a  Tauri. 

X  Orionis. 
o  Orionis  (?). 
/3  Geminorum. 
8  Caneri. 
€  Hydrae. 
Regulus  a  Leonis. 
8  Leonis. 
/3  Leonis  Alsarfa. 

7  or  5  Corvi. 
Spica  a  Virginis. 
Arcturus. 

t  Librae. 

8  Scorpionis. 
Antares  a  Scorpionis. 
A  Scorpionis. 

8  Sagittarii. 
(T  Sagittarii. 


Vega  a  Lyrae  Al  nasr  alwaqi. 
a  Aquilae,  Al  nasr  altair. 
/3  Delphini. 
A  Aquarii. 

a  Pegasi. 


6i8 


Apftndix  A. 


27.    Uttan  Bhidnpada. 

iS  '.  Rrraix  this  after  tbe  eliskMi  of 
\'tg2,  Abhxjit)  was  the  27th 
Nakshatra,  and  probably  was 
the  original  27th  star  before 
Ve^  became  the  Pole  Star 
when  it  was  hrst  included  in 
the   list  as    the  mler  of  the 


y  Pegasi  or  «  Andromedz. 


f  Pisciuxn. 


J.  Bargesi.  C1.E^  *  Hindu  Astronomj/  /^,A.S,,  Oct.,  1893,  p.  756 


APPENDIX    B. 


The    House   that   Jack   built. 


English  Version, 

1.  This  is  the  Malt  that  lay 

In  the  House  that  Jack  built. 

2.  This  is  the  Rat 
That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built 

3.  This  is  the  Cat 
That  killed  the  Rat 
That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built. 

4.  This  is  the  Dog 
That  worried  the  Cat 
That  killed  the  Rat 
That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built. 

5.  This  is  the  Cow  with  the  crum- 

pled horn 
That  tossed  the  Dog 
That  worried  the  Cat 
That  killed  the  Rat 
That  ate  the  Malt 
That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 

buUt. 

6.  This  is  the  Maiden  all  forlorn 
That  milked  the  Cow  with  tke 

crumpled  horn 
That  tossed  the  Dog 
That  worried  the  Cat 
That  killed  the  Rat 
That  ate  the  Malt 
That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 

built. 


Version  of  the  Talmud. 


I.  A  Kid,  a  Kid,  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


2.  Then  came  the  Cat  and  ate  the 

Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 

3.  Then  came  the  Dog  and  bit  the 

Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 

4.  Then  came  the  Stick  and  beat 

the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


5.  Then  came  the  Fire  and  burnt 
the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


620 


Appendix  B, 


7.  This  is  the  Man  all  tattered  and 

torn 

That  kissed  the  Maiden  all  for- 
lorn 

That  milked  the  Cow  with  the 
crumpled  horn 

That  tossed  the  Dog 

That  worried  the  Cat 

That  killed  the  Rat 

That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built. 

8.  This  is  the  Priest  all  shaven  and 

shorn 

That  married  the  Man  all  tat- 
tered and  torn 

That  kissed  the  Maiden  all  for- 
lorn 

That  milked  the  Cow  with  the 
crumpled  horn 

That  tossed  the  Dog 

That  worried  the  Cat 

That  killed  the  Rat 

That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built 


6.  Then    came    the    Water  i 
quenched  the  Fire 
That  burnt  the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  iSy  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


7.  Then  came  the  Ox  and  dn 
the  Water 
That  quenched  the  Fire 
That  burnt  the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


9.  This  is  the  Cock  that  crowed  in 
the  mom 

That  waked  the  Priest  all  shaven 
and  shorn 

That  married  the  Man  all  tat- 
tered and  torn 

That  kissed  the  Maiden  all  for- 
lorn 

That  milked  the  Cow  with  the 
crumpled  horn 

That  tossed  the  Dog 

That  worried  the  Cat 

That  killed  the  Rat 

That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
^    'It. 


8.  Then  came  the  Butcher  and  si 
the  Ox 
That  drank  the  Water 
That  quenched  the  Fire 
That  burnt  the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
Chat  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


Appendix  B. 


621 


10.  This  is  the  Farmer  that  sowed 
the  com 

That  fed  the  Cock  that  crowed 
in  the  mom 

That  waked  the  Priest  all  shaven 
and  shorn 

That  married  the  Man  all  tat- 
tered and  torn 

That  kissed  the  Maiden  all  for- 
lorn 

That  milked  the  Cow  with  the 
crumpled  horn 

That  tossed  the  Dog 

That  worried  the  Cat 

That  killed  the  Rat 

That  ate  the  Malt 

That  lay  in  the  House  that  Jack 
built. 


Basque  Version, 

1.  Akherra  hor  heldu  da 
Arthoaren  yatera 
Akherrak  arthoa 

Akherra  khen !  khen  !  khen  ! 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 

2.  Otsoa  hor  heldu  da 
Akherraren  yatera 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 

Akherra  khen  !  khen  !  khen ! 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 


9.  Then  came  the  Angel  of  Death 
and  killed  the  Butcher 
That  slew  the  Ox 
That  drank  the  Water 
That  quenched  the  Fire 
That  burnt  the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 


10.  Then    came    the    Holy    One, 
blessed  be  He, 
And  killed  the  Angel  of  Death 
That  killed  the  Butcher 
That  slew  the  Ox 
That  drank  the  Water 
That  quenched  the  Fire 
That  burnt  the  Stick 
That  beat  the  Dog 
That  bit  the  Cat 
That  ate  the  Kid 
That  my  father  bought 
For  two  pieces  of  money. 

Translation. 

The  Goat  has  come  there 
To  eat  the  Corn  (maize) 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours. 

The  Wolf  has  come  there 
To  eat  the  Goat 
The  Wolf  (eats)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours. 


622 


Appendix  B. 


3.  Chakurra  hor  helrfu  da 
Otsoaren  yatera 
Chakurrak  otsoa, 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 

Akheira  khcn  I  khen  !  knen  ! 
Anhoa  gurea  wn. 

4.  Makhila  hor  faeldu  da 
Chakurrareh  hiltzera 
Makhilak  chakurra 
Chiikurrak  utsoa 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khen  !  khen  !  khen 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 

5.  Sua  hor  heldu  da 
Makhilaren  errel  zera 

Siiak  makliil.i 
M.ikhilok  chakurra 
Chakurrak  otsoa 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khen  !  khen  I  khen 
Anhoa  t;urea  zen. 

6.  Ura  hor  hddu  da 


Suj 


n  hilt  z< 


Urak  sua 
Suak  makhila 
Makhilak  chakurra 
Chakurrak  otsoa 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khcn !  khen  !  khen 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 

7.  Idia  hor  heldu  da 
Ur.iren  edatcr.i 
Idiak  ura 
Urak  sua 
Suak  makhila 
Makhilak  chakurra 
Chakurrak  otsoa 


The  Dog  has  come  there 
To  eat  the  Wolf 
The  Dog  (eats)  the  Wolf 
The  Wolf  (eats)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Com 
Drive  away  the  Coal 
The  Com  was  ours. 

The  stick  has  come  there 
To  kill  the  Dog 
The  Stick  (kills)  the  Dog 
The  Dog  (kills)  the  Wolf 
The  Wolf  (kllb)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours. 

The  Fire  has  come  there 
To  burn  the  Stick 
The  Fire  (bums)  the  Stick 
The  Slick  (kills)  the  Dog 
The  Dog  (kills)  the  Wolf 
The  Wolf  (kills)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Com  was  ours. 

The  Water  has  come  there 
To  quench  the  Fire 
The  Water  (quenches)  the  Firt 
The  Fire  (burns)  the  Slick 
The  Stick  (kills)  the  Dog 
The  Dog  (kills)  Ihe  Wolf 
Ihe  Wolf  (kills)  the  Goal 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours. 

The  Ox  has  come  there 

To  drink  the  Water 

The  Ox  (drinks)  the  Water 

The  Water  (quenches)  the  Fire 

The  Fire  (burns)  the  Slick 

The  Slick  (kills)  the  D<^ 

The  Dog  (kills)  the  Wolf 


Appendix  B. 


623 


Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khen !  khen  !  khen 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 

8.  Buchera  hor  heldu  da 
Idiaren  hiltzera 
Bucherak  idia 

Idiak  ura 
Urak  sua 
Suak  makhela 
Makhelak  chakurra 
Chakurrak  otsoa 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khen  !  khen  I  khen 
Arthoa  gurea  zen. 

9.  Herioa  hor  heldu  da 
Bucheraren  hiltzera 
Herioak  buchera 
Bucherak  idia 
Idiak  ura 

Urak  sua 
Suak  makhela 
Makhelak  chakurra 
Chakurrak  otsoa 
Otsoak  akherra 
Akherrak  arthoa 
Akherra  khen  !  khen  !  khen 
Arthoa  gurea  zen  *. 


The  Wolf  (kills)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Com  was  ours. 

The  Butcher  has  come  there 
To  kill  the  Ox 
The  Butcher  (kills)  the  Ox 
The  Ox  (drinks)  the  Water 
The  Water  (quenches)  the  Fire 
The  Fire  (burns)  the  Stick 
The  Stick  (kills)  the  Dog 
The  Dog  (kills)  the  Wolf 
The  Wolf  (kills)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Com 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours 

Death  has  come  there 
To  kill  the  Butcher 
Death  (kills)  the  Butcher 
The  Butcher  (kills)  the  Ox 
The  Ox  (drinks)  the  Water 
The  Water  (quenches)  the  Fire 
The  Fire  (burns)  the  Stick 
The  Stick  (kills)  the  Dog 
The  Dog  (kills)  the  Wolf 
The  Wolf  (kiUs)  the  Goat 
The  Goat  (eats)  the  Corn 
Drive  away  the  Goat 
The  Corn  was  ours. 


On  comparing  the  stones  of  this  House  of  the  Year-weeks 
in  these  three  versions,  we  find  them  arranged  in  the  follow- 
ing order  : — 

12345  6  7 

English — Rat     Cat     Dog  Cow    Maiden  Man       Priest 
Talmud — Kid    Cat     Dog  Stick  Fire         Water  Ox 
Basqtie  —  Goat  Wolf  Dog  Stick  Fire         Water  Ox 


*    J.    Vinson,   Folklore  du  Pays  Basque^    Cantilenes    et    Formulettes,   Les 
Litteratures  Populaires,  Tome  XV.,  p.  216,  Maisonneuve  et  Cie,  Paris. 


624  Appendix  B, 

8  9  lo 

English — Cock  Farmer       Malt 

Talmud — Butcher       Death         God 
Basque  —  Butcher       Death         Corn 

Here  we  have  in  all  three  versions  the  re-riscn  sun-god 
who  was  to  return  to  life  after  being  slain  by  the  evolution  of 
the  nine  days  of  the  cycle-week  embodied  in  the  conception 
of  the  Barley-Malt,  the  maker  of  the  Water  of  Life,  the  Com 
and  the  Creating  gods.  This  is  the  revealed  form  of  the 
Being  who  has  implanted  in  the  barley,  maize  and  the 
creating  week  of  time  his  innermost  essence,  the  life  which 
is  God-born  and  re-born  from  his  temporary  death.  We 
also  see  in  the  Basque  version  the  oldest  form  of  the  brick 
house,  that  built  by  the  Pole  Star  Goat,  who  precedes  the 
Kid  star,  the  constellation  Auriga,  and  the  Rat,  the  Chinese 
Aquarius.  Also  in  this  Basque  version  we  find  the  Wolf 
of  Light,  the  mother  of  Apollo  in  Greece,  and  of  the  Vedic 
Golden-handed  sun  Hiranyahasta,  born  of  the  blind  sexless 
father  Rijrashva,  the  upright  horse,  the  gnomon-stone,  and 
his  wolf  consort ',  who  is  the  predecessor  of  the  cat- 
goddess  of  the  Egyptians  and  the  witches  of  the  fully  de- 
veloped science  of  sorcery.  We  also  find  in  the  Basque 
and  Talmud  versions  an  epitome  of  the  creed  of  the  fire- 
worshippers,  who  worshipped  the  fire-dog,  the  star  Sirius, 
the  dog  which  still  attends  all  Parsi  funerals,  and  who  sends 
on  earth  the  seed  of  fire  transmitted  through  the  Stick,  the 
fire-drill,  which  generates  fire  in  the  fire-socket,  the  mother 
of  fire,  the  fifth  of  these  algebraic  signs.  It  was  this  fire  in 
the  form  of  the  lightning  -  charged  cloud  which  produced 
the  rain,  the  water  of  life  drunk  by  the  Ox,  the  sexless 
parent  of  the  offspring  born  from  the  ten  months  of  gesta- 
tion of  mother-moon -cow  of  the  cycle-year.  From  this 
ox  and  the  life-giving  water  there  was  generated  the  change 
of  state  of  the  embryo  born  to  the  birth  of  death,  followed 

'  Rg.  i.  ii6, 13, 17,  18,  117, 17, 18,  24. 


Appendix  B,  625 

by  emergence  into  the  new  life  opening  out  at  the  end 
of  the  ten  months  of  gestation  signified  by  the  tenth  sign. 

In  the  English  version  the  creation  creed  symbolised  in 
signs  5  to  9  differs  from  the  spiritualistic  belief  of  the 
fire- worshippers  in  sexless  generation.  In  this  Northern 
creed,  the  heavenly  parents  of  life  are  the  dog-star  Sirius, 
and  the  moon-cow,  from  whom  are  born  the  parent  Twins, 
the  Hindu  Mithuna,  the  mother-night  and  the  sun-father 
of  day.  They,  united  by  the  sexless  fire-priest,  the  Hindu 
Agnidhra,  the  guardian  of  the  fire  on  the  altar  of  the  sun- 
cock,  give  birth  to  the  ploughing-farmer  Rama,  who  sows 
the  corn,  whence  the  sons  of  the  barley  and  its  life-giving 
malt  are  to  be  born. 

What  is  most  certainly  proved  by  these  three  versions,  to 
which  further  research  would  probably  add  others,  is  that 
this  ancient  school-lesson  was  disseminated  from  Asia  to 
Europe  by  the  worshippers  of  the  Pole  Star  Goat,  who 
afterwards  in  Babylon  substituted  for  the  Pole  Star  the 
Kid  constellation  Auriga  as  the  director  of  the  year.  Also 
that  the  original  version  was  altered  into  a  variant  form  by 
the  believers  in  the  anthropomorphic  parent-gods  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  who  began  their  year  when  the  sun 
was  in  the  Rat  constellation  Aquarius,  that  of  the  last  of  the 
ten  star-kings  of  Babylon.  These  believers  in  the  bisexual 
creating  parent-gods  were  the  second  race  of  fire-worshippers, 
described  in  Chapter  V.  Section  C,  whose  priests  were  the 
Hindu  Aftgiras,  who  offered  human  sacrifices  and  dedicated 
their  children  to  the  Fire-god.  They  substituted  for  the 
sexless  fire-drill  and  socket  the  Stick  and  Fire  of  the 
Talmud  and  Basque  versions,  the  Moon-cow  Maiden  and 
Man.  These  last  the  Hindu  male  and  female  Twins  Mithuna 
were  the  parents  of  the  race  born  in  the  Zend  Garden  of  God, 
laid  out,  planted  and  tended  by  Yima  the  Twin.  This  was 
the  Garden  of  the  cycle-year  described  in  the  Zendavesta,  the 
gates  of  which  were  guarded  by  the  twins  Gemini,  its  door- 
posts, and  on  the  gate  was  the  Tower  where  the  sun-god 
of  the  three-years  cycle  was  born.     It  was  built  of  kneaded 

S  s 


6^6  Appendix  B. 

clay  "with  a  window  sclf-shining  within"  (the  gencntia? 
m.^>n  and  su:0  *'  and  a  door  sealed  up  with  the  golden  rinf 
of  the  ten  months  of  gestation.  In  this  garden  were  so^mtt 
seeds  whence  were  bom  the  oflTspring  of  the  Sun-Cock,  tbc 
>un-phy>ician  .-Esculapius,  to  whom  cocks  were  sacred.  Tbe 
pnxluce  yielded  the  best  and  finest  trees  and  plants,  and  thi 
bc<t  bred  sheep  and  oxen,  and  none  of  the  human  duldic 
of  the  seed  sown  by  the  Twins  was  to  be  hump-backed  a 
deformed,  insane,  impotent,  or  leprous.  They  were  all  tob 
men  and  women  endowed  with  full  strength  bodily  ao 
menta!.   who   were   to   become   the    parents   of  the  pcrts 

hi::rar.  race,  the  Sons  of  God  of  the  fifteen-months  year^ 

■  l^iTr*.-^:.--?.  Zcri^r-::^  l\'nJiJJJ  Far^arJ^  \\.  27.  28,  29,  30,  31;  S-Bl 


APPENDIX    C. 


History   as   told   in   the  variant   forms   of  the 

LEGEND    OF    INO,  THE    MOTHER  OF   MELICERTES,   OR 

Melquarth,  the  Tyrian  Herakles,  the  goddess 

OF  THE   KREDEMNON    OR    ZODIACAL   RIBBON. 

INO  was  the  daughter  of  Kadmus  and  Harmonia,  the 
latter  being,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  Preface,  the  goddess- 
mother  crowned  with  the  bridal  veil  of  the  starry  heavens, 
within  which  Kadmus,  the  creator  or  arranger,  carried  on 
his  creating  trade.  They  both  drove  the  ploughing  oxen 
of  light,  the  sun  and  moon,  round  the  heavens  in  their 
appointed  path  through  the  zodiacal  stars.  Ino  was  the 
sister  of  Semele  or  Samlah,  the  vine  mother,  the  birth-tree 
of  the  creating  wine-god  Dionysus.  Semele  died  after  the 
conception  of  her  son,  and  the  embryo  was  born  from 
the  Thigh  of  his  father  Zeus,  and  thus  she  was  the  mother 
of  the  sun-god,  son  of  the  seven  Thigh  stars  of  the 
Great  Bear,  the  god  of  the  year  of  fifteen-months  and 
eight-day  weeks.  This  god  born  of  the  Thigh,  whose 
mother  died  at  his  conception,  is  the  equivalent  of  the 
Indian  sun-god,  the  Buddha,  whose  mother  Maya  died 
seven  days  after  his  birth,  and  who  was  brought  up  by  her 
sister  Maha  Gotami  Pajapati,  the  female  form  of  the  star- 
god  Prajapati  Orion,  and  the  star  and  moon  mother-leader 
of  the  thirteen  Theris,  the  thirteen  months  of  the  year  in 
which  Rahulo,  the  young  sun-god,  son  of  the  Buddha,  was 
born  in  the  eleventh  month.  In  the  story  of  Semele  the 
part  of  Maha  Gotami  Pajapati  fell  to  Ino,  for  she  nursed 
the  young  Dionysos  in  the  sea-shore  cave  at  Brasiae,  the 
womb    of  the   pregnant    mother-mountain   rising  from  the 

S  S   2 


r)28  Appendix  C. 

sea  on  the  site,  as  Pausanias  tells  us,  of  the  Garden  of  God^ 
She  also,  like  Gotami,  was  the  double  of  the  Star  Orion,  for 
she  was,  as  the  successor  of  Nephele  the  cloud,  the  secwl 
wife  of  Athamas.  the  Ionic  Tammas,  the  Hebrew  Tamraia, 
and  the  Akkadian  Dumu-zi  Orion.  She  was  oricnnallvthe 
goddess  of  the  age  of  human  sacrifices,  when,  according  to 
Semite  custom,  the  eldest  son  was  ofTered.  The  eldest 
children  of  Athamas,  bom  of  Nephele,  the  mother-cload- 
bird  of  early  m>'thology,  were  Phrixus,  the  roasted  or 
parched  {<f>pirfoi))  barley  grain,  and  Helle  its  husk.  Th«y 
were  to  be  sacrificed  by  their  father  to  the  Laphystian  Zcos, 
whose  image  was,  as  Pausanias  tells  us,  set  up  at  Coronet 
next  to  that  of  the  Itonian  Athene.  Both  images  were  ifl 
her  temple,  where  the  perpetually  burning  national  fire  was 
preser\'ed  upon  her  altar,  thus  showing  her  to  be  the  hous^ 
mother  of  the  nation.  The  Zeus,  her  male  counterpart,  was 
the  Cretan  god  Itanos  ^  and  therefore  the  Akkadian  god 
Danu  or  Tanu  3,  the  Pole  Star  god  of  the  world's  tree,  unth 
its  roots  in  the  creating-mud  (fan)  of  the  South. 

The  festival  at  which  this  sacrifice,  instituted  by  Athamas^ 
was  to  be  offered  was  that  of  the  Pan-Boeotian  New  Years 
Day.  that  of  the  autumnal  equinox  beginning  their  year. 
At  that  festival,  according  to  the  author  of  the  Minos,  the 
eldest  sons  of  the  family  which  claimed  descent  from 
Athamas  used  to  be  sacrificed  down  to  the  4th  century  RC 
This  sacrifice  is  also  spoken  of  by  Herodotus  vii,  197,  and 
according  to  him  it  was  instigated  by  Ino  4.  But  as  the 
legends  tell  us  not  only  of  the  sacrifice  of  Phrixus,  but  also 
of  that  of  Learchus,  Ino's  son,  her  share  in  their  institution 
is  merely  a  form  of  the  statement  that  human  sacrifices  of 
the  eldest  son  began  to  be  offered  when  she  was  first  ^wor- 
shipped as  the  goddess-mother  of  life. 

Learchus  is  said  to  have  been  slain  by  Athamas  when 

*  Fraser,  Pausanias^  iii.  24,  3,  vol.  i.  pp.  173,  174. 
'■'  Ibid.,  ix.  34,  I — 5,  vol.  i.  pp.  486,  487. 

^  Lenormant,  La  Langue  Primitive  de  ia  Chtddie^  pp.  99,  loa 

*  Frazer,  Pausanias ^  Y.  pp.  169^172. 


Appendix  C.  629 

mad,  and  this  phase  of  the  story  shows  it  to  be  one  which 
told  how  Athamas  became  in  the  course  of  his  avatars  a 
mad  star-god,  who  instituted  human  sacrifices,  and  who  was 
thus  the  counterpart  of  the  Hindu  mad  king  Kalmashapada, 
he  of  the  spotted  or  starry  feet,  the  Pole  Star  god  who  first 
introduced  human  sacrifices.  The  pairs  of  victims  in  the 
story,  Phrixus  and  Helle,  born  of  Nephele,  and  Learchus  and 
Melicertes,  sons  of  Ino,  are  the  two  seasons  of  the  solstitial 
sun  whose  annual  course  was  ruled  by  Harmonia,  mother 
of  Ino. 

These  sacrifices  of  the  eldest  son  mark  the  beginning 
of  the  rule  of  the  Northern  races,  who  worshipped  the  creator 
as  the  god  of  generation  and  looked  on  blood  and  not  on 
water  as  the  source  of  life.  In  accordance  with  this  belief 
the  land  was  each  year  to  be  fertilised  by  the  blood  of  the 
eldest  son  of  its  ruler  or  by  some  specially  selected  human 
victim,  representing  the  sun  of  the  old  year  as  dying  at  his 
year's  end  and  fertilising  with  his  dying  blood  the  land  to  be 
ruled  during  the  next  year  by  his  successor. 

The  identification  of  Athamas  with  Kalmashapada  shows 
him  to  be  in  oi\e  phase  of  his  history  the  god  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  this  being  that  of  the  sacrifice  of  Learchus. 
But   in  that  of  Phrixus  preceding  it,  Athamas  is  the  god 
of  the  cycle-year  of  three  years,  beginning,  like  the  Boeotian 
and  Jewish  year,  with  the  autumnal  equinox,  when  the  sun 
was  in  Aries,  the  star  of  the  Ram  with  the  Golden  Fleece 
which  carried  off  Phrixus  and  Helle.     This,  as  we  have  seen 
in  Chapter  V.  p.  207,  fixes  the  date  of  the  legend  as  between 
14,000  and   15,000  B.C.     It  was  after  this  that  Ino  escaped 
from  her  mad  husband  with  her  son  Melicertes,  the  Phoe- 
nician Melquarth,  the  sun-god,  and  leaped  with  him  into  the 
sea,  whence  he  was  saved  by  the  dolphin  which  landed  him 
by  the  mother-pine-tree  of  Cybele ;   and  it  was  in  honour 
of  this  god  that  the  Isthmian  games  were  held  at  the  winter 
solstice,  in  which  the  prize  of  the  victor  was  a  pine  wreath. 
The  leap  into  the  sea  of  the  goddess-mother  of  the  year-sun 
betokens  the  descent  into  the  constellation  Pisces  and  the 


^     f  ^    _ 


izt  S-D-ithem  stars  of  winter  of  the  god- 
le-??  n'Z'Z  triCJii  ih;  ipc-:^lntcd  path  of  the  sun  through  tie 
-"LL-— ■  bcii^r-5.  A-i  ::  is  as  a  star-goddess  of  the  South 
ir.iz  I='.\  nichir  ;f  the  iun  bom  at  the  winter  solstia, 
»i  ir  i;7  :::i  :r.  ih:  ocigiaal  form  of  her  legend,  when  sfe 
■*  i5  rs-^^-ci-i.  i5  size  wai  in  Southern  Italy,  as  the  Mater 
Mit-ii.  thf  -r.rth^T  oi  life.  «iio  was,  as  we  have  seen,  die 
J  :•-  -  f<^  ?.L  -  -  r-I  r^  the  Southern  abyss.  As  the  Queen 
:c  rrti  Sii.-  .:*  the  Socth  she  is  represented  as  riding  od 
i  ~j^--e  r::-?ter  called  in  Latin  Pistrix,  which  is  the  name 
~.ir  r/  C:::er:  t3  the  constellation  Cetus,  the  WTialC. 
I:  -5  :-  tjiis  mocster  that  she  rides  in  two  of  her  statues 
it  P:re:::e  ire  in  one  at  Naples,  and  it  is  depicted  in 
th:  \E:ii.e  A-e  traditional  illustrations  of  Aratus  as  a 
irj.^:r.  ijenticil  in  form  with  that  of  the  Florence  and 
Nirl:n>  statuis,  with  stars  on  its  tail  ^.  As  the  rider  od 
th;  -tj.r  Wjiiale  shr  is  not  accompanied  by  her  son,  but 
..:  tr.cic  :llu5trati_ns  she  holds  in  her  hands  the  two  ends 
cc"  i  ribbjr...  cjLltd  in  Greek  the  Kredemnon,  which  fonns 
i-t  irch  .-.er  h;.r  I.eaJ  ;  and  that  this  arch  is  the  zodiacal 
I'-e  ntirk:::-  the  a::nual  path  of  the  sun  through  the  heavens 
i<  Lro\-ed  by  its  appearance  on  a  coin  of  M.  Aurelius,  where 
:t5  cnis  are  held  by  the  Twins,  the  stars  Gemini,  who 
ushered  in  the  vears  of  fifteen  and  thirteen  months  3. 

Further  proof  that  the  Kredemnon  indicates  the  suns 
:\i:h  through  the  stars,  which  was  first  thought  to  be  marked 
by  the  Milky  Way.  the  original  Kredemnon,  is  given  in  the 
stor\-  of  Oviusseus.  He,  when  he  left  Ogygia,  the  island 
of  Kalypso,  the  hiding  (koXuttto^)  goddess,  after  being 
iietaincd  by  her  for  seven  years,  was  arrayed  in  the  panoply 
of  the  sua-^ovi  she  gave  him,  the  imi>enetrable  coat  of  mail, 


-   Milia;^  S:mM  t  Ma/inaS:  di  ArckiTjiop*:  t  Xumismaiu'a,  voL  i.,  PaouIaL 
pp.   77— So;   K.  Browo,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  Aratms,  or  the  Heavenly  DisfUfy  39^ 

P-  4+ 

'  MiUni,  Siu^U  e  MaUriali  di  Arck^ohgia  e  Nmmismaika^  vol.  i..  Paotala  i- 
.  \6,  p.  .4& 


( 


Appendix  C.  631 

the  silver-white  mantle  or  veil  (dpyv<l)€ov  (jApos)  worn  by 
Kronos,  the  year  girdle,  the  covering  helmet  of  invisibility 
(tcaXihrTfyrj)  and  the  double  axe  {iriXeKus;)  of  the  Carian  Zeus, 
the  Cretan  Itanos  ^.  His  voyage  from  Ogygia  to  Scheria, 
the  land  of  Alkinoos,  the  god  of  the  thirteen-months  year, 
was  one  of  twenty-one  days  2,  the  month  of  the  seventeen- 
months  year,  the  temporary  year  which  finally  became  that 
of  thirteen  months  of  twenty-eight  days  each.  On  the 
eighteenth  day  his  raft  was  wrecked  by  the  storm  sent 
by  Poseidon  on  his  return  from  the  ^Ethiopian  realms  of 
the  Southern  sun  of  winter,  and  he  was  saved  by  Ino  or 
Lencothea  in  the  shape  of  a  seagull,  who  told  him  to  divest 
himself  of  his  solar  garments  and  to  trust  to  the  Kredemnon 
she  gave  him  for  safety  3.  After  two  days  and  two  nights 
in  the  water,  during  which  he  was  supported  by  the  Kre- 
demnon 4,  he  reached  the  Phaeacian  coast  on  the  twentieth 
day,  and  slept,  after  throwing  the  Kredemnon  into  the  sea, 
on  a  bed  made  of  the  leaves  of  the  wild  {(l)v\lij)  and  cultured 
{iXalf})  olive  5,  before,  on  the  twenty-first  day,  he  was  found 
as  the  sun  of  the  zodiacal  chain  of  stars  rising  from  Pisces, 
to  be  the  sun  of  the  thirteen-months  year  saved  from  the 
sea  by  Nausicaa,  the  sun-maiden.  Ino  in  this  story  appears 
in  her  original  form  of  the  cloud-bird  bringing  the  storms 
from  the  South,  the  home  of  the  Southern  constellation 
of  Cetus,  the  Whale,  the  storms  which  were  driving  the 
sun  Northward.  It  is  in  her  other  form  of  the  goddess  Scylla 
that  we  find  the  classical  story  of  Ino  as  the  goddess  of  the 
South  dwelling  in  the  constellation  of  the  Whale.  In  this 
phase  of  her  history  she  appears  again  in  the  Odyssey  as 
connected  with  Odusseus  in  his  adventures  as  a  year-god 
before  he  reached  the  island  of  Ogygia,  wherein  he  dwelt 
as  the  concealed  sun -god  of  the  cycle  and  eleven-months 
year.  Ino  as  Scylla  is  depicted  in  the  Odyssey  as  a  mon- 
strous whale  (ktjtos)  barking  like  a  dog,  who  dwells  in  a 


»  Homer,  Odyssey^  v.  228—236.        "  IbicL,  v.  34.        3  Ibid.,  v.  279—376. 
*  Ibi<i.,v.  38S.  5  Ibid.,  V.  477. 


632  Appendix*  C. 

cave  in  the  straits  between  Italy  and  Sicily.  She  is  said 
to  have  twelve  feet  and  six  heads,  each  furnished  with  three 
rows  of  teeth,  and  her  name  Scylla  means  the  tearer.  She 
exacts  a  toll  of  six  men,  whom  she  devours,  from  each  ship 
that  approaches  her  cave  while  passing  through  the  Straits  *, 
and  she  took  this  number  of  victims  from  the  ship  of  Odus- 
seus  immediately  before  it  reached  the  land  of  Trinacria^. 
This  was  the  island  of  the  triangle  where  the  three  hundred 
and  fifty  oxen  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  sheep  of  the  sun 
were  pastured  by  the  nymphs  3.  The  comrades  of  Odusseus, 
after  they  had  consumed  the  provisions  on  their  ship,  killed 
as  sacrifices  and  ate  for  seven  days  these  oxen,  in  spite 
of  his  prohibitions.  Consequently  when  they  put  to  sea 
again  the  ship  was  sunk  by  a  storm  sent  by  the  gods  from 
the  West,  and  Odusseus  alone  was  saved  by  lashing  himself 
to  the  mast  and  ship's  keel  with  a  rope  of  ox-hide.  This 
saving  girdle  and  gnomon-tree  of  the  sexless  gods  of  the 
cycle-year  brought  him  again  to  the  Straits  of  Scylla  and 
Charybdis,  and  took  him  to  the  rock  of  the  latter  goddess, 
on  which  grew  the  world's  tree  of  the  Kushika  and  Dardanian 
race,  the  great  wild  fig-tree  (iptveos),  the  tree  of  Troy,  under 
which  lay  Charybdis.  He  clung  to  the  branches  of  this 
tree,  and  thus  saved  himself  from  being  swallowed  up  by  her 
when  she  first  drank  up  the  waters  of  the  sea  and  all  they 
contained  three  times  daily  and  then  vomited  them  up. 
He  waited  there  holding  on  to  the  branches  like  a  bat 
{pvKTcpk)  till  the  mast  and  ship's  keel  she  had  swallowed 
appeared  again^  and  when  they  came  bound  together  by 
the  ox-hide  rope  he  dropped  on  this  raft,  and  using  his 
hands  as  oars  arrived  on  the  tenth  day  at  Ogygia,  the 
world's  navel,  the  island  of  Calypso  4. 

Here  we  have  clearly  a  year-story  of  Odusseus  as  the 
year-god  before  he  became  the  sun-god  of  the  seventeen  and 
thirteen-months  year,  and  the  beggar-sun-god  who  bent  the 
bow  of  Eurytus,  and  vanquished  the  suitors  who  competed 

'  Homer,  Odyssey^  xii.  84 — icx>.  *  Ibid.,  xii.  246. 

3  Ibid.,  xii.  loi — 136.  ■♦  Ibid.,  303 — 452. 


Appendix  C.  633 

with  him  for  the  rule  of  the  year  and  the  hand  of  Penelope, 
who  was  first  the  goddess  Rohini,  queen  of  the  spinning 
Pleiades,  and  afterwards  the  Star  Vega,  the  weaving-sister 
who  wove  the  web  {Tn^vrj)  of  Time.  The  present  episode 
was  subsequent  to  that  in  which  he  became  the  year-god 
of  the  right  thigh,  whose  left  had  been  disabled  by  the  gash 
of  the  tooth  of  the  year-boar. 

This  story  of  the  year-god  saved  from  death  by  the  world's 
fig-tree  which  he  grasped,  is  one  evidently  concocted,  not  in 
the  lands  and  islands  of  the  tideless  Mediterranean,  but 
in  those  washed  by  the  ocean  where  the  tide  ebbs  and  flows 
daily  like  the  water  swallowed  by  Charybdis  and  by  the 
Hindu  Agastya,  the  controller  of  the  tides,  the  star  Canopus. 

The  story  of  the  year-god  saved  from  death  by  clinging 
to  the  branches  of  the  world's  tree  appears  in  its  Indian  form 
in  that  of  Bhujyu,  the  Tugra,  the  son  of  the  Tugras  or  Tir- 
gartas,  the  men  of  the  three  {tri)  pits  {garta\  who  worshipped 
the  Takka  trident  as  the  Yupa  or  sacrificial  stake.  This  was 
the  weapon  of  Poseidon,  who  raised  the  storm  in  which 
Odusseus  was  saved  by  Ino.  Bhujyu,  whose  name  means 
either  he  who  bends,  the  god  of  the  circle  of  time  or  the 
enjoyer  or  devourer,  is,  like  Odusseus,  a  time-god  of  the 
theology  of  the  year  of  three  seasons  and  the  cycle-year. 
His  story  in  the  Veda  is  told  in  several  fragments  which 
have  to  be  pieced  together.  It  tells  how  he  was  three  days 
and  nights  in  the  ocean,  and  was  being  carried  away  by  the 
floods,  its  swiftly  moving  tides,  when  he  saved  himself  by 
clinging  to  a  tree  standing,  that  of  Charybdis,  in  the  midst 
of  the  roaring  flood  of  the  rushing  waters  she  swallowed. 
He  was  taken  thence  by  the  circling-bird  {MrigUy  Zend 
Mereghy  Hindi  Murghi)^  the  year-bird  who  takes  the  sun 
yearly  round  the  Pole.  It  was  sent  to  his  aid  by  the 
Ashvins,  who  were  first  the  Twins  Day  and  Night  {Ushasa- 
nakta)y  and  afterwards  the  stars  Gemini.  This  bird  bore 
him  aloft  to  heaven  as  the  year-god,  and  becomes  in  the 
variant  forms  of  the  story,  one  ship  with  a  hundred  oars, 
four  ships,  three  waggons  with  six  horses  having  a  hundred 


634  Appendix  C, 

feet,  also  winged  brown  horses,  and  the  special  team  of  the 
Ashvins,  which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  asses  which  drew 
their  year  s  car '. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Twins  Day  and  Night,  and  the 
stars  Gemini,  play  a  most  important  part  in  astronoinical 
time  reckonings  from  the  days  of  the  cycle-year  downwards, 
and  doubtless,  if  we  had  the  myth  of  Bhujyu  before  us  in  the 
same  detail  as  that  in  which  the  transformations  of  Odusseus, 
the  year-god,  are  told,  we  should  find  him  spoken  of  as  the 
year-god  or  bird  drawn  by  the  hundred-oared  ship,  the  con- 
stellation Argo,  called  Satavaesa  or  that  of  the  hundred 
creators  or  rowers,  by  the  four  year-ships  or  four  sections 
of  the  cycle-year,  and  by  the  asses  and  horses  of  the  sun- 
god's  chariot,  where  he  would  be  the  counterpart  of  the  bird 
Garuda,  sitting  at  the  back  of  that  of  Krishna.  We  have 
no  indications  in  the  story  of  Bhujyu  to  show  us  the  exact 
date  when  he  first  became  the  year  sun-god,  who  sank  at  his 
setting  into  the  roaring  waters  of  the  Southern  sky  ocean, 
those  of  the  constellation  Pisces.  But  in  that  section  of  the 
story  of  Odusseus,  which  is  a  variant  of  that  of  Bhujyu,  we 
ought  to  be  able  by  the  numbers  of  the  oxen  and  sheep 
of  the  sun  to  locate  the  age  in  the  history  of  annual  time  in 
which  it  must  be  placed. 

The  three  hundred  and  fifty  oxen,  and  the  like  number 
of  sheep,  making  up  seven  hundred  in  all,  recall  the  seven 
hundred  and  twenty  days  and  nights  into  which  the  360 
days  of  the  year-sun-calf  bom  of  the  moon-cow  are  divided 
in  the  cosmological  hymn  of  the  Rigveda  i.  164,  11.  Thus 
the  story  seems  to  be  one  of  a  year-measurement,  like  that 
of  the  Hindu  Karanas,  in  which  there  were  twelve  months 
of  twenty-nine  days  each,  making  up  a  year  of  348  days, 
or  twelve  days  short  of  the  360  days  of  the  Vedic  year. 
These  twelve  days  were,  as  we  have  seen,  added  to  the  year 
by  the  twelve  days'  rest,  revel  or  sleep,  of  the  sun-god,  who 
awoke  or  rose  from  the  dead  to  be  the  sun-god  of  the  nev 

*  K^.  i.  182,  s— 7,  L  116,  3—6,  i.  Ii7i  14.  i-  "8,  6,  i.  I19,  4. 


Appendix  C,  635 

year  bom  at  the  winter  solstice.  The  ten  days  of  the  year 
of  Odusseus  still  left  uncompleted  at  the  end  of  the  time 
when  he  quitted  the  fields  of  the  350  slain  day  oxen,  appear 
to  be  those  which  he  passed  in  reaching  the  world's  tree 
and  the  island  of  Calypso,  to  which  he  came  on  the  tenth 
day'. 

Thus  the  story  seems  to  be  a  variant  of  that  of  the  year 
of  the  sun-deer,  and  in  this  Odusseus*  year  the  Northern 
decimal  ten  was  the  unit  instead  of  the  Southern  duodecimal 
of  the  deer  year.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  division 
of  the  sun-circle  of  360  degrees  into  tenths  was  a  very  ancient 
custom  observed  by  the  Neolithic  erectors  of  the  sun-circles 
of  Solwaster  in  Belgium,  and  the  ancient  custom  was  recalled 
again  to  life  by  the  Athenians  and  Egyptians,  who  divided 
their  year  into  thirty-six  decades  of  ten  days  each.  If  these 
decades  were  grouped  into  months  of  thirty-six  days  each 
we  should  have  a  reproduction  of  the  old  Romulean  ten- 
months  year  of  the  Roman  kings  ^,  This  is  the  same  year 
as  that  called  in  the  Mahabharata  the  year  of  the  ten 
daughters  of  Daksha,  named  Kirti,  Lakshmi,  Dhriti,  Medha, 
Pushti,  Cradha,  Kria,  Buddhi,  Lajja,  and  Mati  3.  They  are 
the  wives  of  Dharma,  the  god  of  law  and  order,  the  months 
of  the  year  of  the  showing-god  Daksha,  denoting  his  ten 
fingers  and  the  ten  divisions  of  his  sun-circle,  beginning  with 
the  October — November  month  of  the  Kirats  or  Pleiades,  and 
ordered  by  the  boundary-god  Lakshman,  who  marked  the 
course  of  the  year  of  Rama. 

This  year,  when  adapted  to  the  Northern  custom  of  leaving 
a  number  of  days  at  the  end  of  the  year  which  were  not 
included  in  the  monthly  measurement,  would  be  one  of  ten 
months  each  of  thirty-five  days  divided  into  seven  five-day 
weeks,  followed  by  the  two  five-day  weeks  during  which 
Odusseus  went  to  the  island  of  Kalypso.     These  answer  to 

*  Homer,  Odyssey ^  xii.  447. 

'  See  for  the  Romulean  Year,  Hewitt,  *  Early  History  of  Northern  India,' 
Part  V.     f.R.A^S.f  1890,  pp.  569,  570. 
3  Mahabharata  Adi  {Sambhava)  Parva,  cxvi.  p.  189. 


6t^6  Appendix  C. 

the  Vedic  days  of  rest  of  the  sun-god  after  he  had  reached 
the  house  of  Agohya,  the  Pole  Star,  at  the  top  of  the  world's 
tree.  This  was  the  resting-place  of  the  Kibhus,  the  makers 
of  the  seasons »,  where  they  lay  twelve  days  among  its 
branches,  where  Zikum  and  Europa,  the  Akkadian  and 
Western  mothers,  dwelt  under  the  starry  veil  which  covered 
it,  as  explained  in  the  Preface,  p.  xxi. 

These  ten  days  made  up  the  tliree  hundred  and  sixty  days, 
and  the  division  of  the  year  into  fives  enabled  the  year 
regulators  to  add  an  extra  five-days  week  to  make  up  the 
365  days  of  the  year,  an  addition  which  was  made  in  very 
early  times  by  the  Egyptians,  as  we  learn  from  the  story 
of  the  killing  of  Osiris  by  Set  and  his  seventy-two  assistants, 
that  is  by  the  seventy-three  weeks  of  the  year. 

This  reckoning  of  seventy  instead  of  seventy-two  five-day 
weeks  as  the  number  completing  the  year  of  months  enables 
us  to  account  for  the  frequent  substitution  of  seventy  for 
seventy-two  as  the  number  of  sacred  messengers,  such  as  the 
seventy  ruling  elders  of  Israel  appointed  by  Moses  ^,  who,  as 
in  the  story  of  Set,  are  increased,  in  Exodus  xxiv.,  to  seventy- 
three  by  the  addition  of  Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu.  Similarly 
the  seventy  Budela  or  assistants  under-propping  the  hierarchy 
of  Dervishes,  as  explained  in  the  Preface,  p.  xlvi.,  are  increased 
to  seventy-three  by  the  addition  of  the  three  head  Dervishes, 
the  Kutb,  or  Pole  Star  Pillar,  and  his  two  Umena  or  faithful 
ones. 

This  year  of  ten  months  of  thirty-six  days  each  was  ap- 
parently that  of  the  Ten  Star-kings  of  Babylon,  for  the 
432,000  years  of  their  reign  are  the  number  of  seconds  in 
the  circle  of  360  degrees  ;  and  this  number  is  also  that  of 
the  Hindu  Kali-Yuga  on  which  the  whole  of  their  calendar 
is  based.  It  began  when  the  sun  was  in  Hamal  a  Arietis, 
the  star  of  the  first  king  Alorus,  the  king  of  the  Akkadian 
sheep  (/«),  the  sheep  of  the  sun  of  Odusseus'  year,  and  the 
last  star  of  the  ten,  the  star  of  Xisuthrus,  the  king  of  the 

'  Kg.  iv.  SS)  12.  '  Numbers  xi.  16. 


Appendix  C,  637 

Flood,  Is  Skat  in  Aquarius '.  This  is  the  first  star  of  the 
thirty  stars  marking  the  track  of  the  moon  through  the  first 
three  months  of  the  Akkadian  year,  beginning  in  Kislev 
(November — December),  with  the  entry  of  the  moon  into 
the  star  Skat  in  Aquarius.  Thence  it,  during  the  months 
of  Kislev,  Tebet  and  Sebet,  from  November — December 
to  January — February,  t(3ok,  according  to  the  words  of  the 
Akkadian  tablet  describing  the  year,  "  the  road  of  the  sun," 
and  this  star  is  also  said  to  be  "  a  gate  to  be  begun,"  in 
short,  the  gate  through  which  the  young  sun-god,  nursed 
by  the  moon,  entered  the  year  2. 

Thus  according  to  the  combined  history  of  the  year  be- 
ginning with  the  passage  of  the  moon  through  the  thirty 
stars,  which  it  enters  from  the  star  Skat  in  Aquarius,  in 
November — December,  and  the  year  of  ten  months  of  the 
ten  kings,  beginning  when  the  sun  passed  from  Skat  in 
Aquarius  to  Aries  in  November — December,  the  year  was 
one  which  began  about  10,000  B.C.,  when  the  sun  entered 
Aries  in  November —December.  This  entry  into  Aries  fol- 
lowed the  flood  of  Marchesvan  (October — November),  the 
month  of  the  Flood  of  Noah,  the  tenth  of  the  patriarchal 
kings  of  Genesis.  This  began  on  the  seventeenth  day  of 
Marchesvan  in  the  six  hundredth  year  of  Noah,  when  he 
had  completed  his  Ner  or  Babylonian  epoch  of  600  years  3. 
It  was  at  the  close  of  the  Flood  season,  when  the  sun  entered 
Aries  in  November — December,  that  the  dove  sent  forth 
after  the  disappearance  of  the  primaeval  mother-bird,  the 
raven,  announced  the  birth  of  the  new  earth  of  the  olive-tree 
mother  Athene  by  returning  with  the  olive-leaf  in  its  beak  4. 
This  flood,  which  thus  ushered  in  the  year  of  the  Itonian 
goddess  of  the  tree  of  which  the  year-bed  of  Odusseus, 
described  in  Chapter  IV.  p.   144,  was  made,  appears  to  be 

*  Hewitt,  Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times ^  vol.  i.,  Essay   iv.,   pp.  383, 

384,  385. 
=»  R.  Brown,  jun.,  F.S.A.,  'Tablet  of  the  Thirty  Stars.*   Proceedings  of  the 

Society  of  Biblical  Archaology^  January,  1890. 

3  Gen.  vi.  II.  ♦  Ibid.  viii.  11. 


638  Appendix  C, 

the  same  traditional  catastrophe  as  that  in  which  Bhujyu 
and  Odusseus  were  all  but  overwhelmed,  when  Bhujyu  wa* 
saved  by  the  Ashvin  stars  Gemini,  who  sent  him  a  year-cai 
and  brought  him  forth  as  the  risen  sun-god  who  enterec 
Gemini  in  January — February,  after  being  in  Aries  in  No 
vember — December.  Similarly  Odusseus  was  finally  saved 
from  the  Flood  by  Ino  in  the  foTm  of  a  seagull,  the  hire 
which  appears  in  the  Bhujyu  legend  as  the  M riga,  or  circling 
year-bird. 

The  year  thus  introduced,  about  10,000  B.C.,  began  wher 
Vega,  the  Egyptian  goddess  Maat,  meaning  The  Truth 
was  the  Pole  Star,  and  this  star  sacred  to  the  goddess  ol 
law  and  order,  was  depicted  on  the  jewel-locket  worn  round 
the  neck  of  the  Egyptian  judges  ^,  answering  to  the  breast- 
plate of  the  Jewish  High-priest.  It  appeared  in  Indian 
historical  mythology  as  the  star  of  the  god  Dharma,  the  god 
of  right  and  justice  {dkarm),  and  the  husband  of  the  ten 
daughters  of  Daksha,  the  ten  months  of  the  year  which  I 
have  just  sketched.  This  was  apparently  the  year  of  Ino, 
and  the  original  form  of  the  thirteen-months  year  of  the 
thirteen  Buddhist  Theris,  led  by  Maha  Gotami  Pajapati,  the 
female  form  of  Prajapati  or  Orion,  the  husband  of  Ino,  who 
was  the  sister  of  Semele,  mother  of  Dionysos,  son  of  the 
Thigh,  and  the  counterpart,  as  we  have  seen,  of  Maga,  the 
mother  of  the  Buddha,  the  sun-physician. 

Ino,  as  the  goddess-mother  of  the  year,  the  year  bird  who 
saved  Bhujyu  and  rescued  Odusseus  with  the  zodiacal  Kre- 
demnon,  was  also  the  goddess  Scylla,  represented  in  the 
ancient  statues  I  have  named  as  ridinsf  on  the  marine  monstei 
or  Pistrix,  which  depicted  in  primitive  pictorial  astronomy  th( 
Southern  constellation  Cetis.  It  is  in  the  form  of  the  goddes* 
with  the  body  of  the  whale  that  she  appears  in  the  ^neid 
where  Scylla  is  described  as  having  a  human  face,  woman'* 
breasts,  the  body  of  a  whale  {pistrix),  the  tail  of  a  dolphin 
the  dolphin  mother  of  Melicertes  or  Melquarth,  and  the  womt 

*   H.  Brugsch,  Religion  und  i\fythologie  der  Alten  Aig^ypta-y  pp.  477,  478. 


Appendix  C,  639 

of  a  wolf »,  the  wolf-mother  of  the  sun-god.  But  the  most 
si^ificant  appearance  of  the  goddess  Scylla  and  her  com- 
panion whale  Pistrix  in  the  iEneid  is  that  given  fn  the 
accounts  of  the  race  between  the  Trojan  ships.  The  story 
of  the  ^neid  is,  like  those  of  the  Odyssey  and  Iliad,  founded 
on  old  historical  legends,  and  among  these  latter,  as  I  have 
shown  in  Chapter  VIII.  Section  C,  the  chariot-race  won 
by  Diomedes  at  the  burial  of  Patroclus  tells  a  most  remark- 
able history  of  changes  in  the  year's  reckoning.  The  year 
horses  which  won  this  race  were,  as  we  have  there  seen,  two 
of  those  horses  of  the  sun  taken  by  Anchises,  the  father  of 
iEneas,  when  he  substituted  six  mares  for  the  six  horses  he 
stole  2,  and  thus  made  a  year  which  replaced  that  of  the 
twelve  horses  of  the  sun  of  Orion's  year  by  one  measured 
by  six  paired  months,  six  male  and  six  female,  with  the 
thirteenth  month  described  in  Rg.  i.  164,  15,  in  the  centre. 
The  year  games  described  in  the  iEneid,  which  correspond 
to  those  at  the  burial  of  the  year-god  Patroclus,  whom  we 
have  seen  in  Chapter  VII.  Section  H.  p.  490,  to  be  a  counter- 
part of  the  sun-physician,  are  those  which  took  place  on  the 
ninth  and  last  day  of  the  festival  held  to  inaugurate  the 
year  of  Anchises,  the  founder  of  this  year  reckoning.  It  was 
held  at  the  port  in  Sicily  of  Acestes,  son  of  the  river  Crimisus, 
who  was  clothed  in  the  skin  of  a  she-bear  3.  This  was  the  first 
port  touched  at  by  the  Trojan  fleet  after  it  had  sailed  north- 
ward from  Africa,  leaving  the  sun-maiden  Dido  burning  on 
her  funeral  pyre  as  the  dead-year-goddess,  and  it  was  here 
that  the  New  Year  was  ushered  in,  measured  by  the  sun-god  of 
the  sons  of  the  rivers  and  the  Great  Bear  mother  constellation, 
a  year  beginning  with  a  nine-days  festival,  reproducing  the 
nine-days  week  of  the  cycle-year.  The  race  which,  like  the 
chariot-race  of  Diomedes,  began  the  year  games  held  on  this 
ninth  day  was  that  of  the  four  picked  ships  of  the  Trojan 
fleet.     These,  which  were  all    emblems   of  successive  year 


»  Virgil,  j^neid^  iii.  424 — 428.  ^  Homer,  Iliad,  v.  268—  270 

3  Virgil,  yEneidy  v.  I — 65, 


^■4^  Appendix  C. 

reckonin^-j,  were  {\S  The  Chimera,  the  ship  of  the  qrck- 
>-ear.  the  mi^riNter  with  the  head  of  a  lion,  the  body  of  a  goat, 
and  the  tail  of  a  drasjjon,  slain  by  Bellerophon  or  Baal 
Raph'-^n,  the  >iin-physician  of  the  eleven-months  year;  (2I 
The  Centaur,  the  Vcdic  Dadhiank,  with  the  head  of  a  horse 
and  the  body  of  a  man,  who  was  in  Greece  Chiron  the 
Centaur,  with  the  horse's  body  and  man's  head,  and  thus 
both  the^e  were  personations  of  the  mythology  of  the  eleven- 
month<  year  ;  '3'  Pistrix  the  whale  ;  and  (4)  Scylla  its  head- 
piece, to  which  the  honours  of  the  race  were  to  fall,  and  they 
represented  the  thirteen-months  year  of  I  no  and  Gotaini 
Paiapati. 

The  race,  like  the  Trojan  chariot  contest,  was  run  on 
a  course  represcntini;^  that  of  the  sun  round  the  zodiac 
The  solstitial  tumingj-point,  which  was  in  the  race  at  Troy 
the  pine  or  fig-tree  of  lies,  was  a  rock  rising  from  the  sea 
at  >ome  distance  from  the  shore.  In  rounding  this  rock 
the  Centaur  struck  on  it,  broke  its  oars  and  was  disabled, 
while  the  Pistrix  passed  her  and  almost  caught  the  Scylla, 
which  won  the  race,  being  brought  to  the  winning  goal  by 
the  hand  of  Port un us,  the  god  who,  as  we  shall  now  see,  was 
the  son  of  Ino,  who  secured  the  victory  of  the  year-reckoning 
of  his  mother,  the  goddess  riding  on  the  back  of  the  whale 
constellation  of  the  South,  the  ruler  of  the  mid-month  of  the 
thirteen  which  measured  the  year '. 

The  G^od  Portunus  who  gained  the  race  for  his  mother 
as  Athene  by  confounding  the  machinations  of  Apollo 
Smintheus.  the  mouse-god,  gained  the  Trojan  chariot-race 
for  Diomedes,  was  originally  the  god  Melicertes  or  Mel- 
quartli,  the  sun-master  {malik)  of  the  city  {kart/i),  who  was 
awoke  from  his  twelve  days'  sleep  at  the  close  of  his  year 
by  the  quails  who  arrived  at  the  winter  solstice.  He  was 
changed  into  the  god  Palaimon  or  Baal  Yam,  meaning  the 
god  of  the  seas  2,  by  the  descent  of  his  mother  into  the 
Southern  Ocean,  whence  the  sun  rose  from  the  constellation 

»  Virgil,  ^neid^  iv.  104—243. 

-  Bcrard,  Origim  cUs  CuUes  Atxadiens^  p.  234. 


Appendix  C.  641 

Pisces  to  tread  the  circle  of  the  zodiacal  stars.  It  was  as 
the  god  of  the  seas  born  of  the  dolphin  or  womb  (SeX^v^) 
mother,  the  dolphin  Apollo,  that  he  became  the  Etruscan 
god  Portunus,  god  of  the  ports  depicted  as  holding  the  keys 
of  the  gates  of  time.  His  festival  was  held  at  Rome  on  the 
17th  of  August,  almost  simultaneously  with  that  of  his 
counterpart  the  god  Vertumnus,  ruling  the  turning  (verto) 
of  the  year  held  on  the  Aventine  or  the  13th  of  August'. 
He  was  the  tutelary  god  of  the  Etruscan  seaport  Populonia 
or  Papluna,  the  city  of  Papluna  or  Fufluns,  the  Etruscan 
Dionysos,  who  was  identical  with  the  Greek  Dionysos,  the 
Roman  and  Etruscan  god  Vertumnus,  and  the  god  Janus 
or  Dianus  with  the  double-axe  of  the  Carian  Zeus,  and 
all  were  later  male  forms  of  the  Etruscan  mother  Voltumna, 
at  whose  shrine  the  annual  national  councils  of  Etruria  were 
held  ». 

This  male  god  was  the  sun-god  originally  born  from  the 
mother-tree  growing  in  the  Southern  mud,  and  now  reborn 
from  the  whale  or  dolphin-mother,  the  goddess  of  the 
Southern  Ocean,  whose  son  started  on  his  annual  journey 
from  the  constellation  Pisces.  His  year  coincided  with  that 
of  Portunus,  and  their  mid-year  festival  was  in  August, 
answering  to  that  of  Lug  and  Tailltiu,  the  flower-goddess, 
to  whom  the  month  July — August  was  dedicated.  Hence 
it  began,  like  that  of  Lug  in  February — March,  with  the 
entry  of  the  sun  into  Gemini  in  that  month  between  8000 
and  9000  B.C.,  and  it  is  apparently  this  year  which  is  sym- 
bolised in  the  installation  of  Odusseus  as  the  year-god 
rising  from  the  sea  by  the  help  of  the  Kredemnon. 

As  the  outcome  of  this  analysis  of  these  connected  myths 
we  see  that  the  drownings  of  Bhujyu  and  Odusseus,  the  god 
of  the  year  of  the  sun-horse  with  the  impenetrable  armour, 
before  they  rose  from  the  sea  as  sun-gods  pursuing  their 

'  Fowler,  The  Roman  Festivals ^  pp.  201,  202,  203. 

»  Milani,  Museo  Topografico  delP  Etruria^  pp.  31,  43—46,  143— 145>  notes 
39,  41,  47  ;  Deecke,  Etruria,  Ettcyc.  Brit.^  Ninth  Edition,  vol.  viii.  634 — 636; 
Leland,  Etruscan  Roman  Remains^  p.  70. 

T  t 


I- 
I    4 


I    P 


fl 


J 

I 
°l 


642  Appendix  C. 


paths  through  the  stars,  the  myth  stories  of  Ino,  MeUccrtR 
Palaimon  and  Portunus,  and  the  victory  of  the  year-ship 
r*i  of  Ino  as  Scylla,  the  year-mother  riding  on  the  whale,  whid 

,  .  are  told  in  the  dramatic  narratives    I    have   quoted,  wen 

.  /I  intended   by  their  original   authors   to  tell   of  the  contcsi 

1^  lasting  for  thousands  of  years   between    the  year-gods  a 

;\  the  Pole  Star  and  lunar  solar-age  and  the  sun-god  of  th 

\  solar   epoch.     This  contest   ended    in    the    final  victory  a 

the  sun-god  of  the  seventeen  and  thirteen-months  year. 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  the  holy  ark  of  the  law,  the 
chest  or  breast  of  God,  29,  123,  297, 
449.     See  Chista 

Abantesy  their  tonsure,  338 

Abhimanyu^  son  of  Arjuna  and  Su- 
bhadra,  who  became  the  moon-god, 
191,481.483,  529 

Abram,  the  father  \flb)  Ram,  the 
Indian  year-god  Rama,  the  Assyrian 
Ram-anu,  the  Ram  or  Rimmon  of 
Syria,  51,  52,  252,  411,  523,  583, 

593 

Abyssinia,  53 

Achai,  sons  of  the  snake  Echis,  the 
Sanskrit  Ahi,  32,  57 

Achan,  152 

Achilles,  the  little  snake  (lx<0*  ^^^ 
sun-god,  son  of  Thetis,  the  mud 
{thith)  mother  of  the  South,  and 
Peleus,  the  northern  Polar  Potter 
of  the  potter's  clay  (mjA^s),  28,  143, 
329,  33«.  339»  492,  507,  508,  509, 

578 
Adam,  the  father  of  the  red  race,  215, 

221,  349 

Adhvaryu,  the  leader  of  the  ceremonial 
priests  in  the  Hindu  ritual,  220,  226, 
227,  232,  501,  503,  504,  543 

Aditi,  she  who  is  without  {a)  a  second 
(diti\.  The  primxval  mother,  sister 
of  Daksha.  the  god  of  the  showing 
hand,  whose  five  fingers  indicate  the 
five-days  week,  and  daughter  of 
Uttana-pada,  she  with  the  out- 
stretched legs,  the  canopy  of  heaven 
with  its  two  productive  thighs,  the 
two  Bear  constellations,  425,  502, 
516.     See  Uttana-pada 

Aditya,  the  six  days  of  the  creating- 
week  of  the  age  of  the  belief  in  pair- 
gods,  that  of  the  Kabiri,  65,  186. 
See  Kabiri,  Tri-kadru-ka 

Admetus,  the  god  of  the  unsubdued 
(aS^^iY^rof)  nether  world,  507 

Adonis,  the  Phoenician  Adon,  the 
Master,  the  son  of  the  Cypress-tree, 
the  Phoenician  equivalent  of  the 
Hebrew  Tammuz,  the  Akkadian 
Dumu-zi,  the  son  \dumu)  of  life,  the 
year-star  Orion,  29,  59,  60,  204,  257 


Adrika,  the  rock-mother,  the  sun-falcon 
mother  of  the  eel -parent  gods  of  the 
Hindu  royal  races,  191,  592 

/Efieas,  146,  148,  152,  508 

/Esculapius,  the  sun-physician,  marked 
as  a  Hindu  god  by  his  serpent  form, 
the  snakes  and  cocks  sacred  to  him, 
"63,  255,  305,  306,  626 

Aeshma-dcva  Asmodeus,  the  stone 
{ashman)  god  of  the  worship  of  the 
homed  gnomon  stone  pillar,  412, 
421 

Ethiopians,  collectors  of  incense,  At- 
jub,  52,  252,  257 

Aga-medes,  the  Pole-star  goat  (Aja) 
to  whom  black  rams  were  offered, 
god  of  the  age  of  the  eleven-months 
year,  one  of  the  two  thieves  who 
robbed  the  Treasury  of  the  heaven 
of  the  inspired  bees.     See  Bee,  368, 

371,  372 
Agastya,  the  singer  {ga\,  the  leader  of 

the   harmony  of   the  spheres,   the 

raven  and  ape-star  Canopus  in  Argo, 

23,  40,  63,  108,  228,  286 
Agni,  the  Lettic-god  Ogan,   the  fire- 
god  of  Hindu  ritual,  42,  186,  216, 

299,  400,  502,  504,  525,  591,  606, 

607 
Agni-chayana,  altar  and  ceremony  of 

the  heaping  up  (chayana)  of  Agni  in 

the  building  of  the  final  brick  altar, 

67,  68, 103,  562 
Agtttdhra,  the  unsexed  priest  of  Agni, 

180,  226,  232,  605,  625 
Agni  Jatavedas,  which  knows  {^edas) 

the  secrets  of  birth  (A0»  ^^  central 

fire  on  the  altar,  220 
Agni'kulas,  the  men  of  the  fire-family, 

the  Saisa-Nagas,  or  sons  of  the  son 

[sisu)  of  the  Nagas,  590 
Agnishvattah,    the    Fathers    of    the 

Bronze  Age  who  burnt  their  dead, 

226,  363 
Agni     Vaishvanara,     the    household 

fire  of  the  yellow  Vaishya,  or  sons 

of  the  village,  186,  591.     See  Vas- 

tospati 
Agohya,  she  who  cannot  be  concealed 

the  Pole  Star,  loi 


T  t   2 


644 


Index. 


A^j?ra/ka,  he  of  the  foremost  (agra) 
chariot   {ratka\^  the   star  Canopus, 

_«73*  "74 
A^rahikyani^    Ap^akan    (November — 

I>ccembcr),  332,  501,  564,  565.   See 

Mirga-Ursha 
Agurnalh,  353,  354 
Ajntrzi-aJas,  353.  354,  355 
AAa/jra^  the  sun  hen-wife  of  Gautama 

and  Indra,  146,  163,  255,  313,  314, 

546.  S75 
Ahaianiya,  square  altar  of  Hbalions,  * 

"03.  496,  54^,  560,  562,  6oi,  604, 

60S 
A  hi,  the  eel  or  holy  snake,  215.    Ahi- 

ii^/ra,  the  land  oftheAhis,  15, 106, 

196.  204 
Ahi     Budhnya,    the     snake    of    the 

depths,  the  Greek  P)thon,  430,  431. 

See  Python. 
Akura  or  Asura  AfazJa,  the  breath 

{jAu  or  asu)  uf  knowledge,  the  su- 
preme Zend-god,  124,  126,  155,  170, 

256 
Ai/t//,  IVehk,  EUyl.  the  dwarf,  489 
Ainos,  116 — 118,  119,  120  I 

Aja-eka-pad,  the  one-footed  goat,  the    I 

Pole  Star  god,  142 
Aja-midka^  the  fighting  (muika)  goat 

('?/'').  597 
if/oj,    sons    of   the  goat,    592,    594, 

596 
Akastos,  340,  492,  515 
Akkadians^  24,  26,  51,  520,  569 
Akkhadi  or  Akktuj^  Gond  and  North 
Indian    ploughing    festival    of    the 
axle  (akkha\  64,  164,  324 
Akm*m,  the  stone  (askman)  anvil,  the 
father  of  fire  and  of  Eurytos,  the 
heavenly  archer,  the  rainbow-god, 
and  giver  of  rain,  149.     See  Eurytus 
AkrOf  the  sacred  dancing-ground  under   ' 
the  shade  of  the  Munda-Dra vidian 
Sama,  or  central  grove  of  the  village, 
14,  16,  449,  450  ! 

Akropo/tSf  the  central  hill  of  the  city,    ; 

57,  383.  384,  398 
Akskauktm,  or  axle  (akska)^  divisions 

of  the  year  of  the  Kauravyas  and 

Pandavas,  309,  597 
Aldebaran^  the  Queen  Star  leading  the 

Pleiades,  23,  60,  84,  89,  93,   162, 

210,  228,  243,  399,  411,  427,  432, 

484,  565,  605 
Algonquin  Indians^  550 
Alt  Baba  and  the  Forty  Tkui'es^  368, 

370 
Alkinoos^  king  of  Phseacia,  512,  513 
AlleU^  Alilat,  Akkadian  and  Arabian 


goddess    of    the    South  or  Kkr 
world,  53,  434.     See  Baba 
AlU^at,yr  or    CrocodiJe-^pd.  and  C» 
stellation,   S5,   100,    156,  221,  329, 

378*  379.  S3^ 
Aimond'tree,  sacred  tree  of  the  Jets, 

29. 123.  405.  449,  526.  5^  Seils. 

Altar ^  and  its  forms,  beginning  v^ 
the  earth  altar  in  the  form  oft 
woman,  67,  68,  103,  164,  1&4,  aj, 
zz%^  245,  248,  269,  270,  301,  421, 
422,423,545,601—611.  SuK^ar 
vaniya,  Dakshina,  Garhaptirp, 
Linga,  and  Vedi  altars 

Am^  the  mother  mango-tree,  167 

Amazons,  the  Greek  and  Asiadc  d^ 
scendants  of  the  Indian  Matiiirdal 
races,  12,  57,  120,  133 

Amba,  the  chief  star  in  the  Pldids, 
one  of  the  three  Indian  star-oiothersr 

96,97 
AmbdJikd,  the  Great  Bear  mother,  sister 

of  Amba,  96,  98,  195,  362 

Ambatva/taf     boundary    processioe. 

Ambikd,  the  Pole  Star  mother  in  Cj|- 
nus,  sister  of  Amba,  96,  97,  1% 

309,  362 
Ammon,   Amen,   the  supporter,  253, 

317 
Am-nor,  the  North  mother-land  of  tae 

Todas,  121 
Am-riAi,  the  Water  of  Life,  155 
Anakita  Ardvi  Surd  Anahi/a,\ht pore, 

holy,  undefiled   mother  of  life,  tk 

Greek  Anaitis,  the  river  Euphzates, 

125,  214,  235,  273 
Anehises,  husband  of  Aphrodite,  and 

stealer  of  the  sun-horses  of  the  yen* 

146,  147,  148,  507 
Andromeda,  Phoenician  Addmatk^  ibe 

red-earth  mother,  209,  305 
Andvari^  the  wary  dwarf  guardian  01 

treasure,  357 
Anga,  the  Volcanic  land  of  the  A^ins, 

199,  212,  353,  359,  519 
Aflgirasy  priests  of  the  burnt  offerings 

which   succeeded    those  eaten  n», 

210,  212,   222,  224,  296,  297,  35i 

5i9 
Am,  the  E^gyptian  guide  to  the  realos 
of  the   dead,    the   recorder  of  the 
Papyrus  of  Ani,  150,  530,  53i,53> 

534 
Afijalika,  weapon  of  the  folded  hands, 

meaning  of,  213,  519 
Anna,  Phoenician  and  Roman  goddess, 

the  Akkadian  Anu,  240,  241,4^^ 

411,  418 


Index. 


64s 


Annamesey  43,  90 

Aniares  a  Scorpionis,  147,  417 
intelop€y  the  god  of  the  Kushikas, 
descendant  of  the  deer-sun -god  of 
Northern  Europe,  and  fat  her -god  of 
the  Indian  Brahmins,  7,  9,  q8,  135, 
I42ff,  147,  307,  496,  567,  568,  569, 
584.    See  Krishna,  Deer-sun-god 

Anthesteria^  year  festival  of  the  Recall 
of  the  Dead,  399 

Anthony y  St. ,  the  father  of  the  house- 
hold fire,  151,  549,  551,  552 

AntUochuSy  508,  509,  510 

Anubisy  the  Jackal,  534 

Anus,  sons  of  Sharmishtha,  the  Kushi- 
ka  mother  Banyan-tree,  215,   242, 

270,  592,  594»  596 
AptUurtafestivaly  58 
Ape^  female  and.male  parent-god,  xvii. , 

35»   36,   37,   38,    39,    44,    74—76, 
no,  143,  151,  164,  199,  364,  313, 

376 

Aphrodite,  56,  135,  148,  189,  231 

Apollo^  Aplu,  Ablut  or  Abel,  the  son, 
256 

ApolU,  the  dolphin-god,  177 

Atoilo  Lycceus,  the  wolf-god  of  the 
yellow  race,  born  on  the  Xanthus,  the 
yellow  river,  son  of  Lato,  the  tree 
trunk,  247,  345,  391 

Apollo  Paian,  the  healer,  the  sun- 
physician,  315,  430,  517.  569 

Apollo  Smintheus  fthe  Mouse  (Sminthos) 
god  of  Troy,  148,  265,  380,  404, 416, 
491,  510 

Apple  of  the  Hesperides,  384,  571 

Aprl,  ten  hymns  of  the  Rigveda  to  the 
gods  of  the  eleven,  twelve,  and  thir- 
teen months  of  the  year,  recited  at 
the  animal  sacrifices,  49,  299,   301, 

3«9,  494,  503,  562 
Apsara,  water  \ap)  goddesses,  279,  517 

Aptya,  water  gods,  226 

Aquarius,  332,  414,   415,  624,    625. 

.Sir^.Rat 

Aquiiaine,  land  of  the  goat  {Aker), 

141 
Arabia,  20,  52—54,  56,  203,  234 
Arabian  Nights,  Historical  value  of, 

582,  583,  584 

Arabs,  223 

Ara  Maxima,  164,  442,  443,  445 

Ararat,  mother  mountain  of  the  fire- 
worshippers,  25,  137,  153,  214 

Araxes,  or  Kur,  river-mother  of  the 
fire-worshipping  Kurds, Kurus,Kaur- 
avya,  25,  121,  279 

Arbuda,  364,  365 

Arcadians,  11 


Ar-chal,  the  Phoenician  Herakles,  102, 
145,  164,  286,  397,  454,  540 

Argei,  239,  540,  541 

Argo,  the  mother  constellation  of  the 
raven  and  the  ape  {rapha),  xvl,  12, 
19,  26,  40,  48,  74,  119,  123,  135, 
260,  286,  298,  305,  341,  373,  408. 
See  Agastya,  Canopds,  Ma,  Kapha 

Argus,  281,  317,  408,  466 

Ariadne,  xliii.,  xlv.,  339 

Arianrhod,  moon -goddess  of  the  silver 
wheel,  283,  284 

Aries,  Constellation  of  the  Ram,  into 
which  the  sun  entered  at  the  autum- 
nal equinox  at  the  beginning  of  the 
cycle-year  of  three  years,  between 
14,000  and   15,000  B.C.,  206,   208, 

415,  463,  551,  593.  604 

Arjuna,  the  third  of  the  five  Pandava 
leaders,  the  son  and  counterpart  of 
Indra,  the  rain-god  ruling  first  the 
rainy  season  and  afterwards  February 
— March,  called  after  him  Arjuna  or 
Phalgun,  when  he  followed  Parikshit 
the  sun-horse  in  his  annual  course 
round  the  heavens,  beginning  in 
Cheit,  March — April,  xliv.,  83,  151, 
213,  218,  235,  258,  261,  275,  318, 
346/  373.  376,  426,  457,  459,  460, 
470,  483,  484,  485,  486,  509,  524, 
527,  528,  529,  539,  578,  581,  599 

Ark,  or  ship  of  the  gods,  265 

Artta,  sons  of  Aruna  the  fire-drill, 
586 

Arpachsad,  Armenia,  the  land  (arpa) 
of  the  conquerors  (kasidi),  137 

Arrow,  marking  the  course  of  the  year, 
73,  86,  89,  96,  98,  112,  173,  490, 
605 

Artemis,  goddess  ot  the  great  Bear 
Arktos,  93,  102,  no,  133,  134,  148, 

398,  544,  575 
Arthur  or  Airem,  the  ploughing  (dr) 

king,  72,    102,  202,  335,  336,  418, 

420,  539 
Arvalia,  189 
Aryaman,  the  ploughing  star  Arcturus 

in  Bootes  first,  afterwards  Capella  in 

Auriga,  68,  85,   186,  400,  418,  460, 

503 
Aryans,  Celto-Goths,  conquerors  of  the 

Bharatas,  586,  587,  590,  591 
Ash,  sacred  mother-tree  of  the  Edda 
and  of  the  Centaur  sons  of  the  horse- 
headed  sun-god,  29,  306,  309.     See 
__Ygg-drasil. 

Ashddhd,  Ashur,Assur,  the  sun-god  rul- 
ing the  summer  solstice,  the  month 
Ashadha  (June— July),  91,  198,  607 


646 


Index, 


AsAeraA,  wooden  posts,  the  sacred  tree- 
trunks  of  the  Jews,  109,  190,  196, 

41 1 »  544.  577.578 
Ashman,  the_stone-god,  42,  149 

Ashtaka  or  Astika^  the  sun-god  of  the 
eight  {ashia)  rayed  star,  the  corn- 
god  of  the  year  of  fifteen  months, 
xxxvi.,  270,  332,  333,  357,  390,  488, 

547 

Ashva-medkay  the  horse  {askva)  sacri- 
fice, 99,  472,  502 

Askvattha,  the  mother  fig-tree  {Ficus 
religiosaY  the  Bo  or  Pipal  succeed- 
ing the  Nigrodha  (Ficus  Indica),  the 
Banyan-tree,  473,  483,  505 

Ashvatthdman,  the  god  of  the  Ashvat- 
tha-tree,  son  of  Drona  the  tree-trunk, 
whence  the  Soma  or  sap  of  life  was 

.  drawn,  slayer  of  the  Panchalas,  sons 
of  the  five  (panch)  days  week,  483 

AsAvinSf  the  twin  creators,  who  were 
first  Ushasa-Nakta,  day  and  night, 
afterwards  the  stars  Gemini,  whose 
car  was  drawn  first  by  the  asses  and 
afterwards  by  the  horses  of  the  sun, 
71,  102,  206,  208,  220,  322,  356, 
370,  400,  419,  483,  493,  496,  503, 
504.  5o6»  520,  568,  570,  576.  600, 
603,  608,  613. 

Asipu,  the  interpreter,  the  interpreting 
god  Joseph,  304,615 

Ass,  the  sacred  animal  of  the  sun-god 
before  the  sun-horse,  xxiii.,  xxiv., 
XXV.,  198,  200,  201,  202,  206,  213, 
220,  222,  232,  262,  328,  370,  496 

AssarakoSy  the  god  of  the  year-bed 
(asurra),  142,  144,  146,  41 1.  See 
Odusseus 

Assur,  144,  403,  410.     Sfe  Ashadha 

Asura,  successors  of  the  Danava,  sons 
of  the  Pole  Star  God  Danu,  the 
workers  in  metal,  the  sons  of  Diti, 
the  second  mother  whose  priests  were 
the  Angiras,  offerers  of  burnt  offer- 
ings, 215,  216,  230,  300,  321,  322, 

,  352,  356,  363,  526 

Atar  or  AM,  the  fire-god,  107,  138, 
153.  288,  296,  353 

Ataro  Patakauy  the  modern  province 
of  Adar-baijan,  the  petroleum-yield- 
ing Baku  on  the  Caspian,  the  first 
home  of  the  fire- worshippers  after 
they  left  Phrygia,  153,  162 

Atergatis,  the  fish-mother  goddess,  33. 
A  variant  form  of  Tirhatha  i^which 
see) 

Athamas    Tamntas,    244,    397.      See 

Dumu-zi     _ 
Atkarvans,    Athravans,    fire  -  priests. 


successors  of  the  Angiras,  188,  395, 
296,  297.  353,  496 

Athene,  the  Boeotian  Itonian  goddess 
Tan  or  Tana  of  the  southern  mud 
{tan),  31.32.  33 

Athene,  of  the  olive-tree  which  was 
first  the  sacred  oil  plant  Sesame 
(Sesamum  orient  ale),  and  afterwards 
the  sacred  mother-tree  of  the  Ionian 
race,  whence  the  year-bed  of  Odus- 
seus was  made,  31,  144,  163,  256, 
257.  258,  353,  510,   511,  S13.  534» 

573.  637 

Athene  Pallas,  the  goddess  of  the  Pal- 
ladium or  national  parent -god,  the 
Palea  or  protecting  grain-husk,  31, 
143,  324  note  4 
'Athenians^  17,  229 

Attis,  the  emasculated  grandfather  ape- 
god  of  the  Phrygian  sons  of  the 
pine-tree,  151,  547 

Au^irs,  222,  405,  433,  439 

Auriga,  the  leading  constellation  of 
the  year  of  Poseidon,  and  Hippo- 
lytus,  that  of  fifteen  months  succeed- 
ing the  years  ruled  by  the  Great 
Bear,  xlv.,  338,  400,  413,  418,  429* 
624,  625 

Aurva,  son  of  the  Thigh  (uru),  312, 

391,  394,  395,  587 
Australian    native    tribes    and     their 

legends,  4,  23,  63,  90 

Auxesia,  Azesia,  142,  162 

Avalokitcsvara,  36,  333 

Aventinc  Hill  of  Cacus   and  Diana, 

441,  443 

Axe,  the  double-axe  of  the  two  lunar- 
crescents,  the  symbol  of  Parasu- 
Kama  and  the  Carian  Zeus,  xliv., 
xlv.,  260,  261,  512,  513,  552,  631. 
_»Sf^  Parasu-Kama,  Pelekus 

Ayuy  the  son  of  Time,  166,  503 

Azaf,  son  of  Barkhya,  the  lightning- 
god.  Vizir  to  Solomon  or  Salli- 
mannu,  50 

Azi  Dahdka,  the  biting-snake  Zend 
god  of  the  year  of  three  seasoni, 
xxviii.,49,  155,  213 

Aiiz  Azazel,  the  scape-goat,  its  mean- 
ing, 142,  241 

Aztecs,  563,  566 


Ba,  Baau,  the  southern  mother  of 
life,  the  starless  abyss  of  the  Ant- 
arctic Pole,  135,  148;  also  called 
Bahu  {which  see) 

Baal,  spelt  with  an  ain,  Bahal,  the 
Indian  Bagha,  the  god  of  the  tree 


Index, 


647 


with  the  edible  fruit,  the   Persian 

Bagh  garden,  the  Slavonic  Bog,  308 
B€tal  lol^  lolaus,  263,  447 
Baal  MakuTy  263.     See  Melquarth 
BcmI  Raphon^  the  god  of  healings: 

Bellerophon,  304  {which  see) 
Baal  7><?/Art=»Trophonius,  372 
Baal  Tsephotiy  god  of  the  north,  37, 

76 
Babel,  the  gate  [bob)  of  God  (^/),  600 
Babhuns,  the  caste  to  which  most  of 

the  ruling  families  of  Behur  belong, 

162,  188 
Bdbis,  Persian  sect,  476 
Babylon,    Bab-ili,   the   Gate   {bab)  of 

God,  233,  236,  303,  341 
Badagas,  122,  172 
Badr  Basinty  71,  72 
Bd'DiU-chua^  five  Annamite  goddesses, 

Bagdis,  172,  356 

Bahrein,  250,  264 

Bahu,  Bohuy  the  southern  mother  Ba 
of  the  starless  void  of  the  Antarctic 
Pole,  24,  53,  63,  75,  92,  434,  438, 

489 
Baidyas,  the  caste  of  the  Physicians, 

473 
Balkh,   sacred  city  on  the  Oxus  or 

Ji-hun,  the  river  of  life  {ji),  178 

Balor,  277,  282,  284 

Bamboo,  sacred  post  and  weapon,  81, 

197 
Bantu  races  ana  the  musical  bow,  83, 

Banyan-tree,  {Ficus  Indtca),  parent- 
tree  of  the  Kushikas,  26,  181,  215, 
261,  470,  596.  See  Nigrodha  Shar- 
mishtha 

Baptism  oftheToda  High  Priest,  123; 
of  the  partakers  of  the  Soma  sacra- 
ments, 268;  of  Hindu  children  by 
the  barbers,  345 

Baragyza,  ancient  port  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Nerbudda,  249,  577 

Barbers,  the  ancient  priests  and  sur- 
geons of  the  Kushikas,  202,  219, 
342 — 347,  361.  See  Bhandaris,  Ha- 
jams,  Napits 

Baresma,  the  magic  rain  {bares)  wand 
of  the  Zends,  7,  42,  123,  227 

Barhis,  sacred  sheaves  of  Kusha  grass 
of  Hindu  Kushika  ritual,  226,  227, 
301.     See  Pitaro  Barishadah 

Barley,  the  plant  of  life  infused  in 
Soma,  and  the  cup  of  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries,  the  plant  of  and  offering 
to  Varuna,  the  food  of  the  Pitaro 
Barishadah  and  Gnishvattah  of  the 


Neolithic    and   Bronze   Ages,    129, 

138,  184,  205,  220,  228,  229,  249, 

321,  323.  337,  363.  37o»  523.  624 
Baruk  Barkhya,  the  lightning-god. 

Basket-mother  of  the  rice-baby,  the  com 
sun-god,  139,  572 

Basques,  Iberian  race,  sons  of  the  ri- 
vers from  Mt.  Ararat,  formed  from 
the  union  of  the  northern  hunters, 
Indian  matriarchal  farming  races, 
and  the  Finn  worshippers  of  the 
household  fire,  xxxiii.,  87,  129,  130, 

139,  140,   141,  153,  212,254.     See 
Vasu  Vasuki  or  Basuk  Nag 

Bast,  Egyptian  cat-goddess,  191 

BcUh-sheba,  she  of  the  seven  {sheba) 
measures  {bath),  the  seven  stars  of 
the  Great  Bear,  mother  of  Salli- 
mannu  or  Solomon,  the  fish  sun-god, 
278 

Bauris,  172,  183 

Bear,  mother  and  her  sons,  who  made 
the  Bear  their  totem  and  painted  it 
in  India  on  their  foreheads,  85,  109, 
no,  117,  118,  119,  138 

Bear,  the  Great  Bear  parent  Constella- 
tion, symbolised  as  the  mother  wag- 
gon or  cradle  of  the  sun-god,  the 
plough,  the  thigh  of  the  ape-father- 
god,  the  seven  Bears,  the  seven 
antelopes  {rishya),  the  seven  Maruts 
or  tree  {marom)  'ape  mothers,  the 
seven  sisters  of  the  Chamars,  Rautias, 
and  Kaurs,  the  seven  pigs,  the  seven 
oxen  {septemtriones),  the  seven  bulls 
{haptoiringas).  It  was  with  the  four 
stars  of  Pegasus,  the  ruling  constella- 
ation  of  the  eleven-months  year,  and 
as  the  Thigh  of  the  ape-father-god, 
the  parent  of  the  sun-god  of  the 
fifteen-months  year,  xxii.,  xxix.,  xlii., 
xliii.,  xlv.,  85,102,  109,110, 117,118, 

I34»  138,  139,  154,  195.  197—207, 
219,  278,  304,  309,  312,  334,  336, 

376,  379,  390,  396,  397,  401,  403. 
405,  411,  413,  428,  456,  463,  480, 

483,  491,  504,  520,  564,  574^  611. 
See  Artemis,  Ixion,  Kallisto,  the 
Thigh  constellation 

Bee,  the  world's  beehive  of  the  Mord- 
vinian  Ugro-Finns,  the  bee  prophet- 
esses and  priests  of  the  ancient 
world,  169,  170,  369,  417.  See 
Deborah  Melissai 

Beer,  made  of  rice  or  Murwa  (Eleusinc 
coracana),  the  drink  of  the  Dravido 
Mundas,  used  as  a  sacramental  drink 
by  the  Thibetan  Buddhists,  168,  334, 
356.  501 


648 


Index, 


Beetle^  symbol  of  the  creating  full- 
moon>god  of  the  two  united  cres- 
cents, 253,  532,  533,  573,  574.  S(e 
Khepera 

Bel,  the  fire-god,  132,  144,  145,  147, 

193 

Belaspur,  193 

Bellerophon^  the  sun-physician  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  the  rider  on 
Pegasusi  ts  ruling  constellation,  202, 
304,  340.     See  Baal  Raphon 

Belt  of  Orion,  symbolising  in  its  three 
stars  the  three  seasons  of  Orion's 
year,  89,  136,  574 

Beltis,  female  form  of  Bel,  70 

Benjamin,  son  of  the  right  hand,  403 — 
405 

Berezi  Savangha,  the  eastern  {savangka) 
fire  of  rain  {bares),  the  first  of  the 
five  Zend  sacred  fires,  42,  131,  155 

Bes,  Egyptian  ape-god,  150,  151,  372, 

373 
Bethel Baitulos,  the  house  [betk)  of  god, 

the  divine  gnomon-stone,  37,  405 
Beth'lehem,   the  house  of  Lehem   or 

Lakhmu,  154,  405,  406 
Bkadra-pada    (August  —  September), 

xviii.,  209,  225 
Bhaga,  the  parent-tree  with  the  edible 

fruit,  186 
Bkaga-datta,  the  king  of  the  Yavanas 

or  barley-growers,  sonofBhaga,  249, 

486 
Bhanddris,  342,  343,  357 
Bharadvajas,  sons  of  the  lark,  69,  597, 

612 
Bharata^    son   of  Kaikaia,   the  Gond 

mother,  and  Raghu,  half-brother  of 

Rama,  and  of  Dushmanta  and  Sa- 

kuntaia  the  little  bird  of  the  Malli 

race,  father  of  the  Bharatas,  279,  280 
Bhdrata-varsha,  the  land  of  the  Bha- 

raia,  the  name  given  to  India  in  the 

Mahabharata,  the  epic  history  of  the 

Great  Bharatas,  281 
Bharatas,  84,  279,  360,  427,  519,  562, 

567,  591,  594,  595»  598 

Bharati  or  Alahi,  one  of  the  three 
mother-goddesses  of  the  Apr!  hymns 
recited  at  animal  sacrifices,  300 

Bhars,  the  tribe  of  the  Bharatas,  280, 
281,  360 

Bhils,  the  men  of  the  bow  ij>illa\  81, 
157,  172,  183,  338,342 

Bhima,  son  of  Maroti  the  tree  (marom) 
ape-god,  the  second  of  the  five 
Pandava  brethren  ruling  the  summer 
season,  xl.,  197,  362,  482,  527,  529, 

579 


Bhim-sen,  Gond-god,  xl.,  165,  16S 

Bhishma,  called  Mart-anda  the  dead 
egg,  the  sexless  eighth  son  of  Sbam- 
tanu  and  Gunga  or  Aditi,  the  river- 
mother  whose  first  sons  were  the 
seven  stars  of  the  Great  Bear.  Hu 
ruling-god  of  the  fifteen-months  yen 
beginning  in  Magh  (January— Fel> 
ruary),  whose  cognizance  was  tb 
date-palm-tree,  and  the  five  star 
ruling  space  with  the  Pole  Star  ii 
the  centre,  29,  96,  167,  424, 425, 416 
428,  486,  502 

Bhojas,  157,  181,  317,  355,  432,  577 

Bhrigu  Brigus,  the  Indian  sons  of  fir 
descended  from  the  Thracian  Bm-gcs 
the  first  priests  before  the  Angiras 
135,  183,  i86,  201,  216,  224,  230 
295,  296,  297 

Bhuiya,  16,  192,  521 

Bhujyu,  the  Tugra  year-god,  633,  634 
638,  641 

Bhumij,  449 

Bhunhiars,  Ooraon  tenure-holders,  an 
swering  to  the  Welsh  Uchelwyr,  2SS 
289,  290 

Bhurishravas,  178,  179 

Bil-gi  or  Gi'bii,  Akkadian  fire-godj 
xxi.,  xxviii.,  45,  283 

Billah,  the  old  wife  of  Jacob,  motba 
of  Dan,  the  Pole  Star  god,  403,  411, 
416 

Bindo-bird,  the  cloud-bird  of  the  Song 
of  Lingal,  which  brings  up  the  rains 
of  the  monsoon,  156,  170 

Bird-mother,  xv.,  xvi.,  22,  55,  63.95, 
96,  97,  I2S,  166,  192,  235,  275, 
279,  298,  337,  470,  474-  ^ee  Adrika, 
Khu,  Su,  Hu,  Kirke,  Rukh 

Black-Virgin,  134— 137 

Blood,  generative  efficiency  of,  in  the 
theology  of  the  animal  Totem-gods, 
xxxiii.,  185,  223,  224,  244,  320,  629 

Blood-bathy  to  wash  away  guilt,  in 
Phrygian  theology,  188 

Boar  sun-god  ruling  Orion's  year,  83, 
189,  275,  334,  335,  456,  458,  554 

Boat,  the  golden-pillar-god  of  the  two 
pillars  before  all  Phoenician  and 
Egyptian  temples,  the  husband  of 
Rahab,  the  alligator  constellation 
Draco,  379,  380,  396,  407 

Boomerang,  3,  81 

Bootes,  the  guardian  constellation  of 
the  year- cows,  68,  326,  425,  459 

Booths  Feast  of  the  Saka,  its  history  a^ 
the  festival  inaugurating  the  year,  49» 
233,  234,  235,  236,  242,  404,  Set 
Sakut,  Succoth 


Index. 


649 


Boreas,  xxiv.,  43,  305,  329,  408 

Borsippa^  the  artificial  Holy  Hill  or 
High  Place  near  Babylon,  142,  144, 
227,  233 

Borw^  History  ^  as  the  bow  of  the 
Indian  Bhils,  the  musical  bow  of  the 
Bantu  of  Africa,  the  Indian  Mundas, 
the  Pinaka  of  Shiva,  81,  83,  85,  114. 
As  the  weapon  of  the  year-gods 
Hayagriva,  tne  god  with  the  horse's 
(^j'fli)  neck  (^/z/fl),  Eurytos,Arjuna, 
and  Odusseus,  337,  346,  426,  459 

Brahmins,  sons  of  the  black  antelope 
worshippers  of  the  white  year-pig 
Vishnu,  and  reciters  of  the  national 
history,  135,  158,  188,  297,  307 

Bran,  the  raven  Celtic  god,  xiv.,  xvi., 
64,65 

Bratsvo,  Bauerschaft,  385,  386 

Bres,  Celtic  god  of  war  king  of  the 
Fomori  or  men  beneath  {fo)  the  sea 
(muir),  the  husband  and  son  of  Bri- 
git,  which  see,  70,  71,  277 

Bridge  of  Heaven,  the  Milky  Way, 
the  yearly  path  of  the  sun-god,  74,. 

77 
Brihas-pati,  Brahmanas-pati,  the  Pole 

Star  god,  68,  69,  142,  178,317,  400, 

500,506 

Brihatiy  the  Sanskrit  cquivjilent  of  the 
Celtic  Brigit  or  Bride,  the  goddess 
of  the  thirty-six  five-day  weeks  of 
the  half  of  the  whole  year  of  seventy- 
two  weeks,  making  up  the  Pleiades 
year,  the  solstitial  sun-year  of  two 
seasons  each,  and  Orion's  year  of 
three  seasons,  xiii.,  xiv.,  65,  66,  67, 
68,  69,  70,  71,  72,  105,  166,  210, 
277,  278,  611 

Brisaya,  the  sorcerers  of  the  Rigveda, 

131 
Brito-martis,  the  cypress- tree  {berut) 

mother  of  the  sun-god,  29 
Bronze  Age,  177,  317,  348,  351.  498, 

562 
Bru-ges  of  Thrace,  ancestors   of  the 

Phrygians,   and  the  Indian  Bhrigu, 

130.  183,  201 
Brythonic  Celts,  201,  273,  274,  277, 

343.  403 
Buddha,  his  history  in  hts  successive 

births,  first  as  a  national  year-god, 
the  god  of  wisdom  and  knowledge, 
the  Indian  equivalent  of  Odin  in 
the  Edda,  and  secondly  as  an  inspired 
teacher  invested  by  his  disciples  with 
the  attributes  of  the  previous  year- 
gods  recorded  in  their  ritualistic 
history,  xxvii.,  xxviii.,  30,  36,  91, 


104,  242,  330,  331,  413,  463—481, 

498.  530.  569*  607 
Budur,  the  full-moon  year-goddess  of 

the  cycle-year,  285,  287 
BulU  buffalo  cow  and  calf,  successive 

rulers  of  the  year,  xiv.,  25,  83,  loi, 

120,  197,  198,  2H,  223,  323,  349, 

350.  35 1 »  352 
Burials  of  Neolithic  Age,  Position  of 

bodies,  267,  268 
Byblos,  an  Akkadian  Phoenician  city, 

xxviii.,  45 
Byga,  Primoeval  provincial  priests   of 

India,  13,  15 

Cacus,  165,  441,  442,  443,  446 
Caduceus,  160 

Caer  Sidi,  the  world's  Turning  Tower, 
the  revolving  earth,   xvi.,  64,   249, 

315 
Caleb,  his  history  as  the  dog  (halb), 

the  year  star-god  Sirius,  366,  367, 

376,  405 

Calypso,  the  goddess  concealing  (ico- 
\u9ru)  the  year-god  Odusseus,  xliv. , 
512,  5?3,  632,  635 

Cancer,  its  history  as  a  zodiacal  con- 
stellation ruling  the  cycle-year  of 
three  years,  xviii.,  174,  207,  208,  311, 
316 

Canopus,  xiv.,  xxi.,  24,  28,  32,  38,  40, 
43,  48,  63,  64,  69,  73,  74,  75,  76,  77, 
87,  144,  174,  260.     See  Agastya 

Capella,  the  star  of  the  little  goat  in 
Auriga,  ruling  the  fifteen -months 
year  of  Poseidon  and  Hippolytos  in 
super- session'of  the  Great  13ear,  xiv., 
340,  341,  400,  418,  419 

Capricornus,  the  star  of  the  goat  with 
the  fish's  tail,  the  star  of  the  dolphin 
mother- fish  Makara,  177,  414,  415 

Carians,  worshippers  of  the  god  sym- 
bolised by  the  double  axe  of  the  two 
lunar    crescents  and    the  sun-cock, 

255 
Caristta^  437 

Carmenialia,  435 

Carnac,  254,  266,  267,  368,  435, 
581 

Carnival,  242.  451 

Caroline  Islands,  1 1 

Castes,  formed  from  the  unions  of 
members  of  the  village  communities 
of  the  matriarchal  age.  These  were 
changed  by  the  Naga  Kushikas  into 
communities  united  by  community  of 
function  as  trade  guilds,  352,  362 

Castor,  the  imsexed  beaver  twin-god, 
xix.,  436.    See  Kastor 


650 


Index. 


Cat,  161,  416,  623 

Cauldron  of  Lije,  of  Bran  the  raven- 
god  of  ine  Southern  sun,  xvL,  64, 
71,  72,  278,  279 

Cecrops,  248 

Celtic  races,   138,  273,  288,  289,  290, 

291,  338,  347.  363*     ^^e  Brythonic 

and  Goidelic  Celts 
Centaur,  640 

Centaurs,  149,  306,  515,  517,  518 
Ceres,  168,  189,  523 
Cerfia    Tursa,    544,    546.     See   Tursa 

Cerfia 
Cerfus  Martins,    543,   544,    545.     See 

Mars 
Ceri,  the  three  pedestal-gods  carried 

in    the    May    circumambulation    at 

Gubbio,  439, 545,  547,  548,  549,  551. 

552,  553.  554,  556 
Cernunnos,   the  homed  deer-sun-god 

of  the  Celts,  88,  93 

Ceylon,  xiv.,  37,  63,209,  238,  252,  274 

Chakra-varti,  or  wheel-turning  kings, 
317,  362,  474 

Chaldaans,  Kalda,  48 

Chalkeia,  58 

Chamars,  Hindoo  workers  in  leather, 
their  history,  217,  219,  220,  223, 
236,  285,  343,  348 

Champa,  2 1 2,  519 

Chandra,  the  moon-god  husband  of  the 
Nakshatra,  65 

Chandra  •  Kushika,  father  of  Jara- 
sandha,  the  son  of  Kakshivat,  the 
father-god  of  the  eleven  -  months 
year,  120,  195,  311 

Charites,  515 

Charybdis  =  Canopus,  632,  633 

Chatitr-masiya,  loi,  184 

Chedi,  190 

Cheiron,  the  Centaur  physician,  305, 
306,  491 

Chcit^  March — April,  month  of  the 
Sal  water  festival  of  the  Mundas  and 
Ooraons,  and  of  the  sacrifice  of  the 
sun-horse  Parikshit,  242,  485,  486. 
See  Chitra 

Cherubim^  600,  601 

Chimicra,  the  symbol  ot  the  three  years 
cycle-year  destroyed  by  Bellerophon 
or  Baal  Raphon  the  sun-physician, 
304,  640 

Chinescy  5,  30,  139,  337,  347,  522 

Chiroos,  sons  of  the  bird  {chir)  the  sun- 
falcon  of  Asia  Minor,  40,  108,  109, 
146,  I53»  190,  216,  302,  342,  343,348 

Chista,  in  Zend  theology  the  Chest  of 
the  law,  the  Ephod  which  inspired 
.   the  priest,  262,  297 


Chitra  ( Virgo),  316,  318,  327,  341,  486 

586 
Chitrahgada,  425,  486 
Chiun,  the  pillar,  230,  246 
Chiusi  {Clusium),  264 
Chnum  or  Khnum,  the  Egyptian  Potto 

god,  150,  377 
Cholas,  Kols,  Kolarians,  40 
Churruk,  or  Swinging  Puja,  345 
Chutia  Nagpur,  the  mother  (C4v/)  lain 

of  the  Nagas,  3,  10,  12,  13,  16,  22 

36,  82,  83,  108,  127,  128,  170,  192 

I93»  194,  196,  198,  248.  268.  287 
288,  289,  292,  343,  352,  358,  359 
360,  362,  485,  558,  567 

Chuttisgurh,  14,  82,  134,  192,  193 
194,  219,  292,  300,  443 

Chyavana,  the  moving  god,  391,  394 
395,411,  419,  503 

Cinderella,  Annamite  story  of,  59, 
60,  64,  411 

Cinnamon,  brought  by  Phoenidani 
from  Ceylon,  252 

Circe,  523,  549.  See  Kirke 
.  Circuits  of  the  altcLr  and  national  boun- 
daries. Left-hand  circuits  prescribed 
in  the  Pre-solar  ritual,  changed  to 
right-hand  circuits  those  of  the  male 
Su-astika  in  the  solar  ritual  of 
Book  III.,  xxxix,  98,  99,  225,  226, 

227,  351.  459,  543,  544,  571,572 

Ctrcumctsion,  introduced  from  Colchis 
in  the  Stone  Age,  its  existence  ir. 
Mexico,  355,  379,  405,  566 

Cities  of  the  Dead  oi  the  Akkadians  and 
Mundas  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  85,  437 

Clytemneslra,  sister  twin  of  Kastor, 
508 

Cocks  and  hens  in  the  ritual  of  India, 
South  Western  Asia  and  Europe, 
XXXV.,  90,  255,  256,  525 

Common  meals,  a  social  institution  ot 
the  early  matriarchal  village  commu- 
nities and  its  extension  to  Europe,  1 1 

Conchobar,  283,  284 

Consus,  a  Roman  god,  Consualia,  243, 
441,  446,  448 

Copper  Age,  intervening  between  the 
Neolithic  and  Bronze  Ages,  348,  352^ 
361 

Copper-mines  of  Chutia  Nagpur  and 
Udaipur,  359,  364 

Cord,  The  sacrificial,  the  ritual  re- 
quiring it  to  be  worn  on  the  right 

^  shoulder  in  the  Pole  Star  Age 
traced  to  India,  Umbria  aod 
Mexico.  It  was  first  worn  as  a  girdle 
round  the  waist,  the  year-girdle  of 
the  early  gods  and  priests ;  lastly  in 


Index, 


65 1 


the  solar  age  on  the  left  shoulder, 
225,  227,  257,  351,  403,  543,  571 

Corinth,  II,  135,  446 

Corn-baby,  139,  452,  570,  572 

Corona  Borealis,  xliii.,  xlv.,  339.  See 
Ariadne 

Corvus,  the  constellation  ruling  the  West, 
426,  456,  485 

Cotton,  251,  252 

Cotton  tree,  sacred  to  the  Indian  Ash- 
vins  and  the  snake  and  antelope 
gods  of  the  Mexican  Sias,  25 1, 395,570 

Coui'ade,  a  custom  introduced  by  the 
Basques  from  Iberia  in  Asia  Minor 
and  brought  to  Europe  and  Ireland  its 
historical  significance,  129,  130,  440 

Cradle  of  the  Sun-god  (the  Great  Bear), 

85,  453 
Crete,  Cretans ,  x\\n. — xlv.,  11,  17,  29, 

33,  148,  162,  171,  229,  263,  370,  404, 

508,  590 
Cro-Magnon,  men  of,  86,  87,  88,  no, 

III,  112, 113, 116,  121 
Cross,  first  the  solstitial  St.  Andrew's 

cross  y^,  secondly,  the  fire-cross  of 
St.  Anthony,  the  cross  of  the  fire- 
worshippers  I  ,  thirdly,  the  equi- 
lateral upright  cross  of  St.  George 
J—   the  cross  of  the  cycle-year  found 

at  the  autumnal  equinox  when  the  j 
cycle  began  with  the  entry  of  the  Ram  1 
sun  into  Aries.  The  union  of  the  | 
solstitial  cross  with  that  of  St.  George 
formed  the  eight-rayed  Star  {which 
see),  xli.,  68,  151,  222,  223,  270,  271, 

378,  546,  566,  571 
Crucifixion  of  Haman  or  Baal  Kham- 

man  as  the  year-god  of  the  dying 

year  of  eleven  months,  303 
Cu-chulainn,  the  hound  of  Cu,  Celtic 

sun-god,   137,  202,   407,  408,  440, 

488,  489,  490 
Cups    of    the   seasons   made   by  the 

Indian  Ribhus,  99,  145,  163,  301, 

500,  501,502,511 
Curia,  323,  437 
Cybele,  the  Phrygian  cave-mother  of  the 

sons  of  the  pine-tree,  56,92,116,  121, 

201,  223,  231,  232,  302,379 
Cyclopaan  architecture,  26,  262,  263, 

264 
Cyclops,  the  one-eyed  Pole  Star-god, 

124,  I33»  »68 
Cygnus,  Pole  Star  in,  xl.,  97,  311.    See 

Ambik^ 
Cymri,  followers  of  Hu  the  bird,  63, 

165,  288,  289,  290,  291,  293 


Cypress,  mother-tree  of  the  Phoenicians, 
and  of  their  sun-god,  29,  93,  204, 
275,  335 

Cyprus,  177,  189,  216,  390 

Dadhiank,  the  god  with  the  horse's 
head  ruling  the  eleven  -months  year, 
27,  294, 295,  298,  314,  352,  431, 496, 

504,  549 

Dagda^  Dagb-devos,  father  of  Briget  the 
Celtic  Daksha,  65,  69,  71 

Dakota,  the  joined  races  who  repro- 
duced the  Indian  swinging  sacrifice 
in  America,  345 

Daksha,  the  god  of  the  showing  hand 
ruling  the  year  of  the  five-days  week, 

65.  69,  71,  186,  278,  425,  426,  456, 

635  . 

Dakshina,  the  southern  semi-circular 
altar  of  the  earlier  Hindu  fathers,  the 
Pitarah  Somavantah  sons  of  the 
crescent  moon,  226,  227 

Dakshindthyas,  the  people  of  the 
South,  584 

Daktuloi;  the  finger  (8cJictuAoj)  danc- 
ing priests  of  the  god  of  the  five-days 
week,  136,  263,  572 

Dama,  Dame,  Damia,  the  house 
builders,  sons  of  the  tortoise,  100, 
156,  160,  161,  162,  163,  164,  167, 
176 

Damayanti.     See  Nala 

Dan,  Danu,  or  Danft,  the  female 
form,  the  Pole  Star  god  father  of  the 
Indian  Danava,  the  Greek  Danaoi, 
the  Zend  sons  of  Danu,  the  Hebrew 
sons  of  Dan,  xxxi.,  9,  26,  27,  39,  66, 
79,  loo,  211,  230,  276,  277,  282, 
349.  376,  416,  516 

Danae,  female  form  of  Danu,  mother 
of  Perseus,  the  sun-god  born  in  the 
tower  of  the  three-years*  cycle-year, 
282,  283 

Danaus,  456 

Danava,  Danaoi,  sons  of  Danu  in 
India  and  Greece,  xxxi.,  26,  27,  29, 

66,  100,  130,  216,  230,  376,  403,  526 
Dances  held  on  the  seasonal  festivals 

in  the  Indian  village  Akra  and  the 
Temenoi  or  consecrated  enclosures 
of  the  temples  of  South-western  Asia, 
Europe  and  Mexico,  their  origin 
and  the  reason  of  their  institution, 
3,  16,  56,  136,  163,   179,   187,  238, 

239,  449,  555,  556,  570,  571,  572 
Dara,  Darda,  tlve  antelope-father-god, 

140,  142,  151,  152 
Dardanians,  sons  of  Dara,  143,  147, 

148,  152,  265 


■-:  :s 


"■   -  •      — ~    .     .■  ."      .r",  ~-   ■    ■      -"      -■-.     1'    ■-  ^--.r 

■^  "  "  ■  ^«    ..  .:.      ...'^     .-...^_. 

--_■*--.      ^^_  *  •  "' 

-•■  ...  •.-^—. .....        .-" 

'■    I".  ..".    :.:   :'--   t_-.>  .  f  -i-,.  v---. 
-.1.-1.  ;7.  ic^i,  jco,  310.  4ii,4>i 

-■  ■-:.-  r.  ::.-^  r.'.e  Siir,  4S4,  503 
-  ■■_■•■'.•.  -..-.e  rir::  i.:'4.v    of  life  1.*.  .  th; 
F^;.i :■.:::>  rc:c  :.ur  of  time.  .vx..  55- 


:ti  <i:-  .:       /.'::kj.  The  Etruscan  Tana,  the  poJ- 

de^-mother  of  groves,  34,  443»  445r 


:--•  'Sr  -3:   -'5-  -3'3  452 


Index, 


653 


Diarmait,  the  Celtic  year-god  who 
killed  the  year-boar-god  on  the  last 
day  of  the  year,  275 

Dibaii,  DtpavcUi^  Dewali,  the  feast  of 
lamps  held  in  India  to  celebrate 
the  beginning  of  the  Pleiades  year, 
322 

Dido,  the  female  form  of  Dod,  Dodo, 
or  David  {which  5ee\  241,  639 

Diffrobani  {Ceylon) f  63 

Diksha,  baptismal  consecration  of  the 
Indian  partakers  of  the  Soma  sacra- 
ment, 480 

Dii-gan,  Lord  (dil)  of  the  land  {gan\ 
the  star  Capella,  340 

Dil-mun,  the  island  of  God  (flfiT),  Bah- 
rem,  250 

Dimvaka,  196 

Dinahy  female  form  of  Dan,  527,  530 

Dingir^  the  creating  ear  of  corn,  the 
eight-rayed  star,  270 

Diomedes,  winner  of  the  sun-race,  son 
of  Tydeus,  the  hammer  {tud)  god, 
the  Northern  sriiith,  his  mytho- 
logical history,  148,  507,  508,  511, 
516 

Dionysia,  244,  398 

Dionysos,  son  of  Semele,  the  Phoe- 
nician goddess  Pen  Samlath  or 
Shemiramot,  also  the  god  born  of 
the  Thigh,  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
xliv.,  56,  243,  244,  259,  315,  316, 

326,  347,  380.  397,  398,  399,  627 
Dlpankara,  463.     See  Aries 
Dirgha-tamasy  the   blind  god   of  the 

long  (dirgha)  darkness  {tamos)  of  the 

three-years  cycle,    father   of    Kak- 

shivat,   god   of  the  eleven-months 

year,  199,  311,503 
Diti,  216 
Divo-ddsa,  586 
Dodona,  28 
Doe,  the  mother-star-goddess,  89,  445. 

See  Aldebaran  Rohini 
Dog  of  the  Fire-worshippers,  Do^Star, 

73,  74,  1^3,  116, 183,  184,  185,  186, 

237,  350.  378,  440,  456,  457,  579, 
580,  622,  623.     See  Argus,  Caleb 
Dogs,  sacrifice  of,  184,  185,  186 
Dokana,  the  stars  Gemini,  door-posts 

of  heaven,  222 
Doliko-kephalic  races,  80,  115,  ii6 
Dolmens,  Palaeolithic  altars,  Neolithic 
tombs,  105,  107,  207,  268,  269,  272, 
273,  300 
Dolphin  mother-goddess  and  constel- 
lation, 176,  177,  446,  629,  638,  641 
Doms,  early  rulers  of  Ayodhya  (Oude), 
17,  161,  162 


Dorians,  sons  of  the  Spear  {dor),  \\, 

17,  229,  254,  341,383 
Dorji,  the  double-thunderbolt  of  the 

two  solstitial  seasons,  the  parent  of 

the  six-rayed  star,  ^^  157,  160 

Dosadhs,  priests  of  Ra-hu,  57,  165, 
187,  188,  308 

Dove,  the  spirit -bird  of  the  age  of  the 
worship  of  the  olive-tree,  90,  230, 
231,421 

Draco,  constellation  of,  97,  119,  134. 
137,  '44,  320,  329,  349,  384,  412. 
See  Alligator,  Vyasa 

Draupnir,  the  ring  of  Odin,  the  year- 
god,  455 

Dravtdians,  Z>ravii/r7,menof  the  yellow 
race  of  the  Dravida  {Curcuma  Zed- 
oaria),  the  wild  Turmeric  Bun  Huldi 
{see  Turmeric),  the  sacred  plant  of  the 
mixed  Malayan  races,  9,  12,  15,  18, 
21,  44,  62,  71,  74,  80,  81,  io8,  120, 
187,  194,  203,  243,  266,  341.  536 

Dravido  Mundas,  74,  77,  92,  i68 

Drishthadyumna,  the  seen  \drishtha) 
bright  one  {dyumna),  god  of  the 
sacrificial  flame,  leader  of  the  Pan- 
chalas,  men  of  the  five-days  week, 
529 

Drolma,  36 

Drona,  the  parent  tree-trunk  contain- 
ing the  Soma  or  sap  of  life,  the 
hollowed  Soma  receptacle  and  the 
leader  of  the  Kauravyas,  183,  196, 

204,  483,  510,  544,  597 

Druhyti,  the  race  of  sorcerers  {druh), 
157,  215,  592,  594 

Druids,  priests  of  the  oak-tree,  xiv., 
xxi.,  xxxi.,  28,  62,  282,  297,  310, 
479,  615 

Drum,  the  magic  drum  of  the  Finns 
and  Lapps,  79 

Dmpada,  the  foot  {pada)  of  the  tree 
{dru),  the  tree-pillar-god  of  the 
Panchalas,  135,  185 

Drupad'i,  the  tree  {dru)  mother-god- 
dess of  the  Kadamba  almond-tree 
ruling  the  rainy  season,  wife  of  the 
five  Pandava  season  gods,  171,  327, 
426,  462,  470,  482,  526,  528,  529, 

579 

Dry  St  an  ( Tristram),  336 

Dumu-zi,  the  son  {dumu)  of  life  {zi), 
the  Akkadian  god,  son  of  the 
mother-tree,  the  star  Orion,  29,  30, 
31,  59.  1 10,  139,  154,  167,  335,  369, 
511,  517,  628 

Duodecimal  method  of  time  measure- 
ment, 103,  458,  469 


654 


Index. 


Durgii^  the  mother-mounUin -goddess, 
99,  I9i»  235,  318,  349,  429,  473, 
475,  4^'-    ^^  Su-bhadra 

Durgd  Piija,  210,  235 

Dun>a^  Pole  Star  brick,  606 

DHryodhana,  the  leader  of  the  Kaura-    ' 
vyas,    ruling    god    of   the    eleven - 
months  year,  the  god   of  the  left 
thigh,  82,  151,  180,  213,309,  310, 
374,  482,  483,  509 

Dushmanta^  280,  597 

DuS'Shala,  527 

Dus-sAtlsana,  the  ill-omened  {dus) 
moon -hare  (sAJsa)  god  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  482,  526 

Dwar/jiiods,  149,  168,  265,  358 

Ihvdrika,  the  Yadava  port  in  Khatia- 
war,  249,  283,  318,  578 

Dyaks,  19 

Dyu^  424.     See  Bhishma 


Eastfr,  538,  539,  540,  541,  548,  549, 

559 
Easter  ej^s,  538 

Easter  Island,  1 14 

Eber^  Iberian  father  of  the  Hebrews, 

137,  »39.  593 
Ebony ^  history  of  its  ritualistic  use,  51, 

133,  134.  135.  136 
Eburones^  rulers  of  the  country  of  the 

Ardennes,  109,  558 
Eehternach^  Whitsuntide  Procession  «/, 

554,  555,  556,  557,  558 
Edonty  land  of  the  red-men,  230,  380, 

417 
Education  of  the  early  founders  of  vil- 
lages^ xi.,  xii.,  XXV. — xxvii.,  11,  12, 

17.  18 
Eel'god  of  the    Iberian   sons  of  the 

rivers,  xxxiii.,   126,   127,   128,   129, 

133,   153,  155,  I9»,  205,  411.     See 

I^a 
Eg^'ptians,  17,  56,  189,  229 
Eight-rayed  star^   the  symbol   of  the 

sun-god  of  com  of  the  fifteen-months 

year,  formed  from  the  union  of  the 

solstitial  cross  of  St.  Andrew   ^^ 

with   the   equilateral    cross    of   St. 

George  -4—  of  the  equinoctial  year 

of  the  three-years  cycle,  38,  270, 
271.  365,  377,  380,  390,  406,  424, 
454,  455,  470,  473,  474,  480,  530. 
See  Ashtaka  Cross. 

Eileitheia^  446 

Ek-Oshtaka,  332,  448 

Elaniy  the  land  of  the  mountaineer 
Akkadians,  87,  153,  154,  378,  500 


Eleusinian  mysteries^  140,  523 
EUven-monihs  year  of  the  Head  ofiki 
Sun-horse,  272,  294,  295,  298,  299, 
300.  302,  303,  304,  308,  309,  3i4r 

319,  323,  327,  Z^y*  334,  357,  371. 

379.  430,  45  ^  468,  47°^  502,  503. 

631 
Eli'un,  Elias,  Elt-JaM,  the  Phoeniciaa 

rain-god  called  El-khudr,  the  creat- 
ing water  (^«p),  126,  127,  222,  247. 
See  St.  George  . 

Emasculation  a  ritualistic  rite,  232, 
260,  460 

En/enamasluv^the  constellation  Hydra, 
the  divine  foundation  of  the  prince 
of  the  Black  Antelo{>e,  367,  373 

Eochaid,  Celtic  sun-god,  202 

Ephesus,  133,  369 

Ephod,  the  Chista  of  the  Zendavesta, 
its  ritualistic  history,  262,  274,  297. 

380,  390,  430 

Ephraim,  the  son  of  the  god  Joseph, 
the  tribe  of  the  two  ashes  [ephra] 
uniting  the  sun -worshippers  with  the 
devotees  of  the  star  and  moon- 
worship,  377,  530 

Epidaurus  consecrated  to  iCsculapios, 
the  divine  physician,  163,  164,  255 

Epona,  the  British  white  horse  sun- 
goddess,  476,  539 

Erech^  the  first  recorded  city  in  the 
land  of  Shinar  the  Euphratean  Delta, 
48 

Erectheus,  Ericthonius,  the  holy  snake- 
god  of  the  Erectheum,  Athens,  the 
equivalent  of  Poseidon,  xxiv.,  57, 
143,  152,  163,  248.  357,  369 

Ert-du-Eri-duga^  the  holy  {duga)  city 
(m)  the  sea-port  of  Erech,  29,  48, 

55 

Erina-vach,  she  who  speaks  the  speech 
Iran,  the  land  of  the  sons  of  Ida-Ira. 
the  second  wife  of  Azi-dakaka  an«l 
Thraetaona,  155.  170,  176.  See 
Savangha-vach 

Erycina,  Erigonr,  the  Phoenician  Erek- 
hayim.  the  star  Virgo,  325.  326,  372. 
374,  worshipped  at  Rome  on  the  2311! 
April,  St.  George's  Day,  325 

Esau,  Usof  Utsaua,  the  goat  and  green 
pillar  parent-god,  142,  246,  403 

Eshmun,  Eshman^  Esh-shu,  the  Phoe- 
nician and  Akkadian  eighth  god 
called  Paian,  the  healer  offspring  of 
the  seven  Thigh-stars  of  the  Great 
Bear,  270,  365,  390 

Esther,  the  equivalent  of  Istar,  the 
destroyer  of  the  eleven-months  year, 
303,  451 


Index. 


655 


Etruscans,  17,  229,  263,  264;  266,  402 
Eugubine  Tables,  257,  542,   544,  545, 

547,  553 
Eumelus,  the  overthrown  god  of  the 

chariot  race  of  Achilles,  507,  509,510 
Euphrates,    the   river  of  the  channel 

Nahr  or  Nahor,  the  mother-river  of 

the  Gaurian  race  and  of  the  sons  of  the 

antelope,  56,  81,  125,  139 
Europa,  the  goddess  of  the  West  {ered), 

sister  of  Kadmus  the  god  of  the  East 

{Kedem),  xxi.,  636 
Eurupulosy  490,  491 
Eurydice,  year-mother  raised  from  the 

dead  by  Orpheus  the  Greek  Ribhu, 

3H 
Eurynome,  Eurykleia,  Erebh-noema, 

27,  209,  459,  460 

Eurytion,  Eurytos,  307,  460,  518 

Fafnir,  the  snake-god  slain  by  the 
sun-god  Sigurd,  185,  186,  296,  352, 
568 

Father  gods,  first  worshipped  by  the  sons 
of  the  eel  and  antelope,  131,  169.  See 
Kabiri 

Faunus,  121,  1 96 

FaunuSy  Italian  deer-sun-god,  xxxix., 
461 

Feast  to  the  dead  beginning  the  year, 
the  dates  varying  according  to  the 
National  New  Year's  Day,  xiv., 
xxxviii.,  34,  58,  59,  185,  219,  224, 
225,  226,  228,  234,  399,  437 

Feria  Marti,  239 

FeriiB  Sementivce  or  Paganalia,  436 

Fifty  Pentecostal  days  passed  by  the  sun- 
god  in  reaching  his  perfect  develop- 
ment, a  ritualistic  epitome  of  the 
history  of  successive  year- reckonings, 
474,  480,  481 

Fig-tree,  parent-tree  of  the  Syrians  and 
Kushika,  29,  40,  144,  380,  411.  See 
Ashvattha,  Banyan,  Udumbara 

Fiji,Fijians,  ii,  114 

Finns,  xvii.,  xxiii.,  36,  79,  80,  81,  86, 
89,  109, 122,  126,  131,  193,  20I,  2l6, 

278,  356,  357,  520 
Fir  Bolg,  men  of  the  Bag  or  Womb,  a 

Celtic  race  who  traced  their  descent 

to  the  ten  months  of  gestation  into 

which   the  cycle-year  was  divided, 

275.  277»  284,  440 
Fir  Domnann,  sons  of  the  goddess  of 

the  deep  Domnu,  202,  275,  277,  284 
Fire,  sanctity  of,  3,  42,  43,  170,  228 
Fire-drill  and  socket,  creating  gods  of 

the  fire-dog,  the  dog-star  Sirius  and 

of  the  household  and  national  fire-* 


parents  on  earth  of  the  tree-fire 
socket  Kadru,  the  tree  of  Ka  the  thir- 
teenth wife  of  Kashyapa,  and  mother 
of  the  Naga  races.  The  Khadira  tree 
Acacia  Catechu  of  which  the  ritual- 
istic fire-drill,  and  the  eleven  sacri- 
ficial stakes  of  the  eleven-months- 
year  were  made,  58,  183,  221,  561 

Fire-mother,  the  mother-goddess  of  the 
yellow  Finn  race  of  the  Licchavis, 
sons  of  the  Akkadian  Lig,  the  dog, 
the  race  called  in  the  Rigveda  Sau- 
naka  or  sons  of  the  dog  {svan),  whose 
mother  -  goddess  was  Matarisvan, 
the  mother  of  the  dog.  They  were 
the  originators  of  the  Jain  doctrines, 
.161,  363 

Fires,  kindling  of  years' -fires  on  the 
national  New  Year's  Day  in  Asia, 
Europe  and  America,  xliv.,  58,  62, 

^.185,  235,  263,  453,  564,  565,  566 

First  fruits  the  original  sacrifice  of  the 
village  races,  57,  59,  135,  140,  248, 

^344 

Fish-god,  the  mother-fish,  the  eel,  the 
Finnic  Il-ja,  the  mother-goddess 
Ida,  Ila,  or  Ira,  the  little  fish  of 
Manu  who  became  the  mother- 
dolphin,  the  horned- fish  ;  and  she 
became  the  fish  -  father  -  god  Nun 
of  the  Akkadians,  Egyptians  and 
Hebrews,  who  was  finally  the  year- 
god  Salli-mannu  or  Solomon,  the  wise 
fish  ruling  the  year.  The  belief  in 
the  fish-mother  originated  in  the 
history  of  the  birth  of  life  from  the 
Southern  Ocean  and  from  the  Indian 
mother-sun-fish,  the  Rohu,  which 
hybemates  in  the  mud  during  the 
hot  weather  which  dries  up  the  pool 
in  which  she  lives,  33,  50,  71,  126, 
176,  177,  230,  378,  410,  499.  See 
Dolphin,  Eel,  Pisces,  Cetus 

Five  sanctified  as  the  five-days  week 
which  in  various  symbolic  forms  lies 
at  the  base  of  the  history  of  the 
reckoning  of  time,  xiv.,  23,  41,  42, 

45,  47,  65,  210,  387 

Flamen  Quirinalis,  243 

Flaviincs,  xxi. 

Flaminica  Dialis,  540,  553 

Flax,  the  mother-planetof  the  weaving 
immigrants  into  India  from  Asia, 
who  reverenced  it  as  Uma  Flax,  the 
wife  of  Shiva,  83,  250,  251,  559. 
See  Uma 

Flint  knives,  ceremonial  use  of,   123, 

379 
/7(jw</ legend,  95 


r  .^ 


u.—     X.  zsjoe    -f'  1.    Tin 
37.2.   lif.    5j:i.   jM 

^■•^  -     ;  "T-  ,   ST  Z»    SIK'    ZIZ..  2.ZZ.    TT'^- 


zscezzi 


•—- iz«:,    :r    !.:n:a     :f   lie   V.r^    :c 
ttj-Zls.  :•>  :*4-  :*i.  zxT 


ji^.  :]L  ixt 

*-r  "*'r»:  ""-f  :  e-c  'iiis?  ir-:  afrtr- 

f-y:-:,   \l-t   T^nziir    Z<=i    302i  of 
;-t  V_r;  ::  riLa_1->-  151    170 


-biri  been  ci  :i»  egg 


r-mother  (dOJn) 
2f  -Je  liai.  the  Valmre  Pole  Stir 
Vi^i.  biri-=»xlicr  of  the  KuriTjas. 
*-»---  iT^-,  xl^  97.  50^  310,  311 

---«--=Tj.  the  god  of  the  Und  {£n\ 
'±tc  ZK^  of  Arpauu  346,  579 

Szr-z-Ls^  :he  lord  {tska)  of  the  land 

,'x«  .  the  elephirt  -headed  nin-god, 

"iit  £rs:  i=i;3crsociation  of  the  Bod^ 

»i-:  was  £rst  the  cIocd-bLrd,  xur., 

jC.  35a.  464.  47^  47^  479-  49^ 
--;:«r'^brxr.    a  male   and  female  god, 
i   er  It  the  caps  of  the  seasons,  145, 


-  ■"  * 


liii  rr  Vinaii,  '±t  ret  A  wife  c-f 
KAshvar-A,  fiihsr  cf  the  Koshites 
tie  ::-i  »'~o  sat  c-  the  year -chariot 
cf  Kr.rh^LU  the  j;i=-ir.telcf>e  de- 
f  ;;te-i  as  sitr.r:*;  en  the  sacred  posts, 
--•irrivals  c{  the  cother-tree  rocx>d 
the  Iniian  tertrles^  iLxiia..  197. 
461.562 
Ca:.  c-i.-v./j,  meapon  of  Ccnchnliinn. 
the    Cel::c    >ur--j;:d,    the    heavenly 

CnX'-tK.  s-  =5  of  the  Gai,  202,  275 
(7J.'^rc,  the  p-re  Soma  and  the  tree 
from  which  the  red  powder  thromn 
at  the  Hull  spring  festival  is  made, 

473'  474?  4^5 
Ga/.i,  I  he  unscxed  priests  of  Cybclc, 

220,  232 

Candkara,  the  river  {dkarS)  land  (jvir)    , 

Seistan,  310 


;,  d-kard^  or  Wliite  Horn- 

'J  G.'J  guarded  by  the  Stan 
*-je=iii,  xxxiv.,  2Z\ — Z23,  252,  286, 

^571-  455-  600 

v---;^--/^>»,  the  mistress  (/oZ/j)  of 
the  h;:3e,  the  circular  Hindu  fire- 
altar.  103,  226,  227,  22S,  606 

L-.-ari.  the  wild  cow,  the  Indian  god- 
dess* ihe  wiJd  cow  Ganr,  mother  of 
the  men  of  Gatiam,  the  land  of  the 
hcll  I  ^-at:»  and  of  the  Indian  race  of 
Ga^mma.  S4,  344 

G^n^n  r^v.  So,  Si,  S3,  84,  122 

^'«*-'*^w,  father  of  the  bull  {gut)  and 
cow  \  ^-r).  and  his  sons  the  Gantmna, 
also  the  Bear  race,  84,  I20, 124, 146, 
»7>  ^55'  5"»  31^  l^l^  361,  546, 

CzyzZTi^  eight -syllabled  metre  con- 
5<-CTa:ed  to  the  fire-god  of  the  eigbi- 
days  week  of  the  fifteen-months  year. 

?^-  3^'    39^   394-  493.  494,  49^. 

«>2,C0S 

Gz'mznit  the  twin  stars,  gnardians  of 
the  gate  of  the  Garden  of  God 
through  which  the  sun  entered  al 
the  yearly  beginning  of  his  drcular 
coarse  roand  the  heavens,  xxit.,  U"- 
221.  222,  230,  233,  371,  391,  39*. 

401.   433-  435-  447.  463^  464,  4«5t 

,  539,  599 

G^\''s^t  St.,  the  plooghing-god  of 
Syria,  Asia  Minor  and  Greece,  the 
worker  (o€p7»s)  of  the  land  (ri). 
originally  the  ploughing-stars  of  the 
Great    Bear,  the   god   of  the  qui- 

lateral    equinoctia]    cross   -4-  the 

symbol  of  the  cycle>year  measored 
by  the  equinoxes  and  solstices. 
xrxviL,  xL,  222,  270,  271,  324,  32> 
54S,  566,  S7i 
Gfryim^  the  Phoenician  CharioB, 
the  three-headed  star-god  Orion  of 


Index. 


657 


the  year  of  three  seasons,  266,  420, 
442.  51S 

Ghati '  kdra,  the  maker  of  Ghatis, 
Dravidian  measures  of  time,  104, 
469,  471 

Gilganus^  Akkadian  year-god,  73,  102 

Girdle^  the  circular  year-waistband  of 
the  age  of  Pole  Star  worship,  pre- 
ceding the  sacrificial  cord  worn  on 
the  rieht  and  left  shoulders  of  the 
worshippers  of  the  Zodiacal  sun-god. 
45,  82,  123,  135,  136,  233,  257,  631 

Girsu,  Akkadian  city,  56,  83, 120,  122, 

321,  495 

Gnatikas^  the  Jain  sons  of  the  fire- 
goddess  Gna,  the  Greek  7w>'^,  the 
Goidelic  Cven  our  queen,  363 

Gnomon-stont^  xxxv.,  xl.,  29,  109,  272 

Gout  Pole  Star  god^  xxiv.,85,  121, 140, 
141,  142,  175,  598,  624 

Goat-skin  dresses  of  Akkadian  priests 
and  Hindu  Vaishya,  141,  439 

GoatSy  sacrifice  of  to  the  gods  of  the 
Pole  Star  Age  preceding  that  of  the 
sun-ram  and  wether,  108,  318,  322, 

434.  438,  495»  496,  503.  504,  607 
Gog  and  Magog,  354.  355,  356,  417, 

606 
Goidelic  Celts y  201,  273,  288,  363,  386 
Gonds,  a  mixed  race  formerly  ruling 

Northern  and  Central  India,  called 

Gaudia  orGondwana,  13,  14,  15,  16, 

108,  155,  156,  157,  158,  159,  i6i, 

168,  176,  182,  193,  194 
Goose-goddess  of  Greece    and    Egypt, 

I5'»  372»  373*    S^  Ericyna,  Kansa 
GoraitSy  boundary  wardens,  priests  of 

Goraya,  16 
Gorayay  Gond  boundary  god,  16,  i88, 

.  197.  308 

Gothsy  Gettiy  121,  124,  273,  384,  386 

Graniy  grey  cloud -horse  of  Sigurd,  296, 

352 

Gnyvesy  sacred,  14,  15,  23,  29,  34,  49, 

56,  303.     See  Sama,  Vanaspati 
GuancheSy  natives  of  the  Canary  Is- 
lands, 87 
Gubhioy  once  the  capital  of  the  Umbrian 

races,  542 
Gild- lay  the  bull  {gud)  la,  83,  I20 
GttduOy  Akkadian  city  of  the  Dead, 

141 
Gugtty  Ghazi  Miyan,  and  the  Five  PirSy 

353.  354,  355,  356 
Guilds  of  traders  in  Asia,  Europe  and 

Mexico,  XXXV.,  352,  362,  368,  383, 
504,  551,  573.575,612 
Gumi  Gosainy  the  central  pole-god  sup- 
porting the  house,  108,  127,  302 

U 


Gutiuniy  land  of  the  bull  (gut),  early 
name  of  Assyria,  84,  120,  124 

Gwalch-meiy  the  Hawk  of  May  {Ga- 
7vain)y  73,  202,  336 

Gwenhwyvar  {Guinevere) y  72,  539 

Gwydion,  283,  284,  285 

Hadady  the  pomegranate  sun-god,  52, 

58.  231 
H adding,  185 
Haetumant  or  Helmendy  mother-river  of 

the  Kushika,  51,  79 
Haiy  Hiy  Egyptian  ape-god  preceding 

the  ape  and  goose-god  Bes,  150,  151, 

373 
HathayaSy   Haiobunsiy    sons    of    Hai, 

Indian    ruling    race    governing    all 

North  India  before  the  Gonds  and 

Kushika  Kaurs;  they  were  destroyed 

by   Parasu-Kama,   the   god  of   the 

double-axe  {parasn)y  xlv.,  151,  194, 

196,  199,  261,  287,  295 

Ilaniry  sun-horse  of  the  Edda  brought 
to  the  North  from  Asia  Minor,  146 

Hairy  ceremonial  culture  of,  by  the 
barber-priests  of  the  age  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  and  its  subse- 
quent total  tonsure  except  the  scalp- 
lock,  xxi.,  326,  328-347,  354,  469, 
481 

Hairy  races y  1 10,  116,  120,  1 21 

Hajamsy  barber  marriage-priests  and 
surgeons,  342,  343 

Haman  or  Baal  Khammany  246,  303, 

355 
Hammer-cross    of    St.    Anthony    and 

Thor,  151.  152 

Handy  sign  of  the  god  of  the  year  of 
five-day  weeks,  xiv.,  17,  65,  380. 
Sec  Daksha 

Hanifa  Beniy  the  sons  of  the  Righteous, 
the  tribe  of  Abram,  their  sacrament 
on  dates  and  curds  as  sons  of  the 
date-palm  and  cow,  and  their  tem- 
perate avoidance  of  intoxicating 
drinks,  523,  524,  583 

Haniiviany  the  striker  (//a«w),  the  year- 
ape-god  son  of  Pavana  the  wind,  and 
brother  of  Su-griva  the  bird-headed 
Pole  Star  ape  {which  see)y  36,  40,  82, 
119,165 

Haomoy  the  Zend  Soma,  25,  182,  299, 
321 

Hapiy  the  Egyptian  ape-god,  38,  39, 

44.  75.  76,  151.  534-     ^^e  Kapi 
Hapto-iringasy  the  seven  bulls,  Zend 

name  of  the  Great   Bear  Septem- 

triones,  xlv.,  124 
Harah'Vaitiy  thc.riVer  on  which  Herat 

U 


6s8 


Index. 


stands,  the  original  Sarasvati,  170, 

187.  587 
Haran  or  Kharran^  the  road,  the  city 

of  Laban,  the  white  god  {whick  ste)^ 

252,  253,  383,  402,  40s 
Hari^  the  son  of  the  goddess  Shar,  a 

name  of  Krishna,  184,  211,  383,  588 
Haris^  a  caste  of  scavengers,  67 
Hamtoniay  Kharmano^  Kharman^  the 

snake-wife  of  Kadinus,xx.,xxi.,xxiv., 

xxviii.,  627 
Harpies.,  the  three  devouring  seasons 

of  the  year,  305 
Hasaifty    Hosain^    the    Mahommedan 

twins,  432,  433 
Hastay  the  hand  constellation  Corvus 

ruling  the  West,  the  c^ardian  star  of 

the  Pandavas,  426,  485 
Hastinapur,  city  of  Hasta,  the  capital 

of  the  Bh&ratas,  485,  486 
Hai-hor,  the  house  Oiat)  of  Hor,  the 

Pole  Star  mother  of  Horus  in  his 

first  avatar  as  the  bird-headed  ape 

ruling  the  year,  39,  75,  276,  378, 

531,  532  (the  seven  Hat-hors,  stars 

of  the  Great  Bear),  535 
Havilahy  son  of  Joktan,  the  valley  of 

the  Indus  in  India,  52,  138,  593 
Haya-griva,  the  horse  (haya)  necked 

or  headed  {^riva)  god  of  the  Budd- 
hists, 334,  337,  353 
HeavenSy  the  four,  the  four  historical 

ages  of  Buddhist  history,  298,463,473 
Ilebe^  the  female  form  of  Ganymede, 

wife  of  llerakles,  145 
/hctor,  26s,  330,  491.  511 
/IcifcTy  offering  of  by  the  Jews  and  to 

female  goddesses,  its  meaning,  411, 

546,  547 

llckatty  the  mother  of  a  hundred 
(cicaToV),  ihe  witch-mother,  the  con- 
stellation Ma  or  Argo,  the  Zend 
Sata-vaesa  of  the  hundred  creators, 
184,  186,  310 

HtUtiCy  the  tree- mother-goddess,  twin 
sister  of  I'oludeukcs  the  much  \polu) 
raining  {deukes)  god,  xli.,  508 

Hcphaistos^  the  Sanskrit  yavishtha,  the 
most  binding  [yu)^  the  lame  one- 
legged  god  of  the  fire-drill  of  the 
revolving  heaven,  28,  58,  148,  I49, 

5H.  515 

Ihraklcs^  the  Phoenician  Archal,  102, 
145.  186,  229,  232,  235.  266.  369, 
395»  575-     ^'^^  Archal,  Melquarth 

Here  tiles  y  the  Latin  god  of  fenced  boun- 
daries  {^pKos)y   163,   441,  442,  443, 

444,445 
Hercy  the  moon-mistress  ruler  of  the 


star  peacocks,  wedded   to  Zeus  in 
Gamelion  (January — February),  281, 

375,398,429,451,  519,  575 
HermeSy  the  god  of  the  gnomon-pillar 

{%puLa)y  the    ram    and   calf-bearer  as 

Kriophoros  and  Moskophoros,  160, 

278,  279,  281,  300,  339,   354,  5»2, 

5'4. 515  ,  ,   ^    , 

Heme  the  hunter,  a  form  of  the  deer- 

sun-god  Cemunnos,  88 

Hestia,  the  Greek  goddess  of  the  house- 
hold fire,  the  Latin  Vesta,  58 

High  place fm  plain  countries,  artificial 
hills  of  Shem-i-ramot,  232  235,  236 

Hi'isiy  the  Finn  wooded  mother-moun- 
tain, 279 

HimyariteSy  the  black  Dravidian  and 
Sabxan  race  of  Southern  Arabia 
54,80 

Hippodameiay  306,  515,  516,  517,  518 

HippolyUy  339,  340,  491,  515 

HippolytuSy  son  of  Theseus,  the  chariot- 
eer of  the  year -star  Auriga  {^ImK 
see)y  xlv.,  338,  339,  340 

Hiranya-garbhay  the  sun  of  the  Golden 
Womb,  497,  498 

Hiranyahasta,  the  sun-god  of  th< 
Golden  Hand,  497,  624 

Hir-men-soly  great  stone  of  the  sun, 
the  centre  stone  of  the  sun-circles 
and  the  earlier  solitary  Men-hirs, 
106,  379,  519 

IlittiteSy  the  Khati  or  joined  race  ol 
India,  Assyria,  and  South-western 
Asia,  the  Indian  rulers  of  Khaiiawar, 
sons  of  the  goat  and  antelope,  xxxiv., 
140,  214,  217,  259,  348,  362,  581, 

587'  594,  595 
Hobaly    Arabian    god    bearing    seven 

arrows  in  his  hand,  the  leader  of  the 

360  year-gods,  433,  434 

Ho'kols,  16,  440 

Ho-MundiiSy  146 

Ilorse-gody  the  black  horse  of  night, 
the  god  of  the  horse's  head  of  the 
eleven-months  year  succeeding  the 
sun-ass  and  the  white  horse  of  the 
sun  of  day  of  solar  worship,  xxiii., 
xxiv.,  xxxiv.,  xxxvii.,  141,  202,  294, 
295,  304,  314,  3'5'  318,  327,  329, 
330.  357,  485,  486,  496,  502,  503, 
538.  554,  576,  577.     ^^i  Pegasus 

Hor-shesuy   the    primitive    people  of 

Egypt.  40,  340 

HoruSy  first,  the  bird-headed  ape,  son 
of  Hat-hor  the  Pole  Star;  after- 
wards, the  son  of  Isis,  the  goddess  of 
the  Sekhet  constellation  Scorpio,  the 
god  born  at  the  autumnal  equinox. 


Index. 


659 


and  the  Jackal-god  Anubis  of  the 
thirteen-months  year,  39,   75,  276, 

277.  377.  378,  53i»  533.  534.  535  . 
Hoskea,  the  Yah  of  the  Hus  who  with 

Caleb  the  dog  (katb),  the  dog- star 

Sirius,  took  Jericho,  the  moon  city, 

and  established  the  solar  worship  of 

the  fifteen- months  year,  376,378,379. 

See  Caleb 

Hotar,  Hotri^  the  priest  who  pours  (hu) 
libations  and  utters  the  invocations 
to  the  gods,  the  speaking-priest,  216, 
22S,  298,  299,  3cx>,  610 

Hottentots^  114 

Houses t  hoiise-buildingt  156.    See  Dame 

HUf  Zend  form  of  the  mother-bird  Khu, 
182,  232.  274,  376,  533 

Hu-kairya^  the  creating  (kairyd)  Hu, 
the  creating  cloud-bird  of  the  mother- 
river  Euphrates,  125,  214,  235,  246 

Hull,  spring  festival  of  the  red  race, 
the  successors  of  the  sons  of  the 
almond-tree  Kurum,  187,  450,  451, 

474 
Hushanty  the  Hebrew  form  of  the  Zend 

Hu-shrava,  the  glory  of  the  Hus  and 

conqueror  of  the  heathen,  the  king 

of  the  Temanites  of  Southern  Arabia, 

230 

Hushitn,  the  Hu  or  bird-sons  of  Dan 
the  Pole  Star  god,  also  called  Shu- 
ham,  230,  376 

Hu-shrava^  the  Zend  conqueror,  glory 
of  the  Hus,  the  Su-shravas  of  the 
Rigveda,  182,  230 

Hvogvh  the  coming  Shu,  the  bird- 
mother-wife  of  Zarathustra,  262 

Hyades,  398 

Hydra  constellation,  367,  374 

la^    la-khan   la,    the.,  fish-son  of  the 

"TiouseX^  of  the  waters  (a),  Akkadian 
Iish-god  issuing  from  the  constella- 
tion Ma  Argo,  19,  24,  29,  71,  73, 
410,  41 J 

lakJ^os,  the  Greek  form  of  the  Vedic 
Yakshu,  the  Akkadian  la-khan  la, 
the  fish,  the  son  of  the  Hebrew  Jok- 
shan,  592 

Iberians,  the  Basque  Ibai-erri  or  people 
{erri)  of  the  rivers  (ibai),  xxxiii. ,  129, 
136,  138,  140,  203,  354,  355 

Ida,  Ila^  Ira,  the  mother- goddess  of 
the  sons  of  Manu  the  measurer,  first, 
the  little  fish,  the  eel,  which  be- 
came the  dolphin,  the  horned-fish  ; 
secondly,  the  sheep-mother  of  the 
sun-sheep  {Eda)  \  and  thirdly,  the 
mountain-mother  of  the  sons  of  the 


cow,  the  goddess  of  the  central  navel- 
altar  of  the  nation,  the  mother  of  the 
Iranian  race  and  the  Indian  Iravati, 
xxxiii.,  124,  176,205,  225,  228,  300, 
404 

I4ah,  the  goddess-mothers  of  the  rainy 
season  in  the  Apr!  hymns,  299 

Id'khu,  the  constellation  Aquila,  367, 

373 
Iguvtum,  542.     See  Gubbio 

Ikshvaht,  the  sons  of  the  sugar-cane 

{iksha),  an  Indian  dynasty,  8,  167, 

270,  358 

Ila-putra,  the  snake-son  of  the  eel- 
mother  I  la,  176 

H'li-ja,  the  eel,  Finnish  name  for  God, 
126 

Ilos,  Ilu,  Assyrian  god  and  first  king 
of  the  Trojan  Dardanians,  31,  143, 
144,411,509 

Indra^  the  eel-god  (Indu  Aind)  of  the 
Indian  sons  of  the  rivers,  who  be- 
came in  the  Rigveda  the  buffalo- 
rain-god,  son  of  Vyansa  or  Vyfisa, 
the  alligator  constellation  Draco  and 
the  mother-tree  out  of  whose  side  he 
was  born.  He  succeeded  Gautuma, 
the  father  of  the  bull  race,  as  hus- 
band of  Ahalya,  the  sun-hen,  and 
was  the  yoke-fellow  of  Kutsa,  the 
moon  (ku)  god  of  the  Purus,  M'ho 
was  his  charioteer.  He  was  the 
god  of  the  sons  of  the  sun-dog,  the 
dog-star  Sirius  who  succeeded  the 
sous  of  his  father  Vyasa,  the  alligator 
or  snake  constellation  Draco.  He 
beguiled  Kama,  the  horned-sun-god 
of  the  cycle-year,  of  his  golden  im- 
impenetrable  armour,  the  panoply 
of  Perseus,  Sigurd  and  Achilles ; 
and  found  the  head  of  Dadhiank, 
the  sun-horse  of  the  eleven-months 
year,  in  Sharya-navan,  the  ship 
(fiavdn)  of  the  year-arrow  {skarya), 
in  the  plain  of  Tan-eshur,  sacred  to 
the  god  Tan.  He  slew  the  Vritra 
or  circling-snake  of  the  early  Pole 
Star  Age,  and  killed  Ahi-shuva,  the 
swelling-snake,  the.  Ahi-budhnya, 
the  snake  of  the  depths,  the  Greek 
god  Python,  with  the  help  of  the 
seven  Maruts,  the  seven  stars  of  the 
Great  Bear;  and  finally  introduced 
the  pure  Soma  unmixed  with  intoxi- 
cating drink  as  the  national  sacra- 
mental drink,  the  Tri-ashira  or  three 
mixings  of  Indra,  31,  69,  70,  loo, 
loi,  127,  132,  146,  180,  184,  212, 
213,  216,  295,  314,  321,  322,  332, 


U    U    2 


66o 


Index. 


349»  350»  352»  3^6,  399.  43i.  50'» 

509 
Indrajit^  the  god  of  the  third  year  of 

the  cycle  of  Ravana,  the  teu-headed- 

god,  slain  by  Lakshman  and  Kama, 

237,  238 
Indu  Aindy  the  eel,  root  of  Indra,  127, 

128 
Ingino^  Ingf  Ingavones^  sons  of  the 

household-fire,  542,  543,   546,  548, 

554 
Ino^  the  bird- mother  of  the  sun-god 

Melicertes,  Melquarth,  who  became 

the  dolphin-mother  and  the  possessor 

of  the  zodiacal  ribbon,  the  ICredem- 

non,  397,  512,  627,  628,  629,  630, 

631,  642 

lolausy  Baal  lol,  charioteer  of  Herakles, 
263 

lonians^  31 

Ir&n^  Iranians^  155,  225 

Ir&vata^  Irdvati^  sons  of  Ir&  and  the 
rivers  consecrated  to  her,  xxxiii. ,  1 76 

Ishdna^  the  supreme  Lord  (isk),  the 
elephant-rain-god  Gan-isha,  the  equi- 
valent of  the  Buddha,  the  eighth  of 
the  successive  forms  of  Prajapati, 
the  supreme  god  Orion  and  begetter 
of  the  ninth,  the  boy  Kumara  the 
perfect  sun-god,  equivalent  of  RS- 
hulo  the  little  Rahu,  son  of  the 
Buddha,  498 

l-sharay  the  house  of  Shar  the  corn- 
mother,  138 

Isis,  xxviii.,  45,  231,  377,  531,  545 

Js-tar,  50,  56,  100,  188,  233 

I-tanos^  Zeus,  as  the  god  Tan,  the  mud, 
of  whom  he  and  the  Itonian  Athene 
are  duplicate  forms,  29,  33,  258,  263 

Ixion,  the  Greek  form  of  the  Sanskrit 
Akshi van,  the  god  of  the  axle  {akshd)^ 
bound  to  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 
which  he  made  to  turn  and  thus 
mensure  the  year,  134,  308,  423 

Izii-nagiy  /za-nami\  the  Japanese  cre- 
ating-twins,  148 

Jachin,  Hiphil  form  of  Chiun,  the 
pillar,  246,  379 

yizr^=5  la  Khan  la,  the  fish,  413,  420, 
421 

J,Hoh,  the  supplanter,  the  twin-brother 
of  Ivsau  or  Usof,  the  Pole  Star  goat- 
go'l  {7u!nch  sec),  304,  341,  377,  402, 
403,  404,  405.  407,  460,  527,  530 

JaiftSy  the  Hittite  religious  confeder- 
acy of  Khatiawar,  316,  318,  319, 
358,  359»  428,  576 

Jatshtha,    May— June,    meaning    the 


oldest,  the  mid-month  of  the  year, 

147,  354 
Jamad-agniy  the  god  of  the  twin-nre$. 

son  of  Richika  the  fire-spark  and  the 
two  mother-trees,  the  Banyan  {ficui 
Jndica)  and  the  Pipal  (Ficus  reli^- 
iosa)y  father  of  Parasu-Rama,  the 
god  of  the  double-lunar-axe,  the 
supreme  god  of  the  plant  worship- 
pers, 261 

Jambu-dwipay  Central  India,  the 
land  of  the  sons  of  J  am  va  van,  the 
bear-father  of  the  sons  of  the  Jamb- 
bu-tree  who  painted  the  bear  Tilokha 
or  totem  mark  on  their  foreheads, 
157,  158,  425,  465,  480 

Jambu-tree,  Eugenia  Jambolana,   1 19, 

158,425,465 

Jananujaya,  he  who  is  victorious  {jaya\ 
over  birth  (/anarn),  the  sun-king  ol 
the  worshippers  of  the  never-dying 
sun  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  his  high 
priest  Ashtaka  who  destroyed  the 
Naga  gods,  271,  423 

Jantu,  the  eldest  son  of  King  Somaka 
offered  in  sacrifice,  245 

Janus,  the  Latin  god  of  the  doon 
{janua)  of  time,  434,  435,  442,  443 

Jard-sandha,  the  union  {sandka)  b]! 
old  age  or  lapse  of  time  (jarS),  the 
god-king  of  Magadha  bom  from  the 
two  halves  of  the  mango,  the  mother- 
tree  of  the  worshippers  of  the  two 
lunar-crescents.  Slain  by  Bhima 
and  Krishna,  the  antelope-god,  his 
successor,  195,  197,  234,  249 

Jarat-karu,  Jarat-kama,  makers  of 
time  {jara)j  parents  of  Ashtaka,  the 
sun-god  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  271, 

364.  365.  422 
Jasodii  =  Kohivii,   the   star   Aldebarln, 

mother  of  Vala-rama,   the  circhng 

(vala)  Rama  whose   weapon  is  the 

plough,  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear, 

427 
Jason,  the  healer  (ias),  the  pilot  of  the 

year-ship  Argo,  305,  341,  407 
Jilts,  Indian  Getie  who  superseded  the 
matriarchal  form  of  communal  pro- 
perty by  allotting  it  to  families,  153, 

293.  385,  386,  387 
Jayadratha,  the  silver  boar-god  ruling 

the  seventeen-months  year,  526,  529 
Jericho,  the  yellow  (yareK)  moon  city, 

378 

Jesse  or  Ishai,  he  who  is  the  supreme 
god,  father  of  Dodo  or  David,  the 
year-god  of  the  eight-rayed  star  of 
the  fifteen-months  year,  406 


Index. 


66i 


Jharas^  the  gold-washers  of  Chutia 
Nagpur,  358 

Jo-bab^  the  gate  [bob)  of  God  {yo)^  230, 
299 

Joktan  or  Jokshan^  brother  of  Peleg 
the  stream  and  son  of  £ber  or  Abram, 
the  father  of  thirteen  sons,  the  thir- 
teen months  of  the  year,  and  of  the 
race  who  ruled  the  coasts  of  South- 
western Asia  from  Arabia  to  the 
land  oi  the  Mountain  of  East  India, 

5i»  52,  53»  54,  593 
Jordan^  lardantUy  the  yellow  \yareh) 

moon-river  of  the  Minyans,  the  suc- 
cessor as  parent-river  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, 404 
Joseph^  the  interpreter  (asipu)  god,  the 
eleventh  son  of  Jacob  and  god  of  the 
eleventh-months  year,  304,341,  403, 

405,  530 
Joshua^  376.     See  Hoshea 

Judah^  the  praised  fourth  son  of  Jacob 
and  Leah  the  wild  cow  (Z^),  father 
of  the  twin  sons  of  Tamar,  the  date- 
palm  mother-tree,  137,  158 

Jugah-ncUh^  the  Lord  of  space  (jugah), 
the  temple  at  Puri  where  the  god 
worshipped  is  the  stem  of  the  parent- 
tree,  the  log  of  wood  called  Vishnu 
the  year-god,  31,  343,  545 

Jumna  or  Yamuna^  the  river  of  the 
twins  {yarna),  131,  183,  191,  301 

JCa  IVhOy  mystic  name  of  the  year-god 
Prajapati  (Orion\  204,  205 

JCabir,  the  wise  ape  {kapi)^  god  of  the 
Kabiri  of  Indian  Kurmis  and  Koi- 
ris  called  Kabir-puntis  and  the  Sikhs, 
I5i»2i6,  352 

Kabiriy  the  believers  in  creation  by 
pairs,  whose  creed  was  that  univer- 
sally distributed  over  India,  South- 
western Asia  and  Europe  by  the  sons 
of  the  antelope,  xxiv. ,  147,  148,  149, 
151,  221,  254 

Kabir-puntis y  2 1 6,  220 

Kadamba^  the  mother-almond-tree,  a 
form  of  the  tree-goddess  Drupadi, 
526, 528 

KadmuSy  the  creating  -  god  of  the 
Boeotians  or  sons  of  the  ploughing- 
oxen  of  the  East  {kedem)^  brother  of 
Europa  the  West  {ereb)  mother,  and 
husband  of  Harmonia  (which  see), 
XX.,  xxi.,  32,  138,  258,  512,  627 

Kadi-u,  the  tree  {dru)  of  Ka,  the  thir- 
teenth wife  of  Kashyapa,  the  Kushite 
father  and  mother  of  the  Nagas, 
xxxbc,  106,481,  5»7»  526,  530 


Kahtan,  53,  sons  of  Joktan  {which  see) 
Kai-kaia,  the  mountain  -  mother  of 
Bharata,  wife  of  Dasa  -  ratha  or 
Raghu  the  sun-god,  and  mother  of 
the  Gonds  call^  Koi-tor,  sons  of 
the  mountain,  180,  279 
Kakshisha,  Akkadian  name  for  Sirius, 

367,  373 
Kakshivan^  Kctkshvuaty  son  of  Dirgha- 

tamas,  the  long  {dirgha)  darkness  of 

the  cycle-year,  and  of  Ushinari,  sister 

of  Shiva,  and  the  ruling  god  of  the 

eIeven-monthsyear,2ii,  31 1,424, 503 

Kdiij  a  form  of  the  goddess  Durga  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  318,  320, 
360,  430 

KallistOy  the  female  Great  Bear  god- 
dess, a  name  of  Artemis,  138,  491 

Kalmasha-pada,  the  Pole  Star  with  the 
spotted  (kalmasha)  feet,  the  stars, 
311,312,313,397,446,  591 

Kamar-al'taman,  the  moon  of  the  age, 
the  crescent-mate  of  Badar  the  mil 
moon,  285,  286,  287 

KamarSj  Bengal  workers  in  metal,  357 

KambhojaSy  13,  251 

KandhSj  sons  of  the  sword,  the  Ugur 
or  lunar  falchion  of  the  Ugro-Finn 
races,  and  worshippers  of  Tari  pennu, 
the  Pole  Star  goddess,  and  the 
eleventh  god  of  the  eleven-months 
year,  36,  308,  317,  320,  564 

Kang-desh,  Kangra  in  the  Punjab,  174 

Kansa,  the  moon  -  goose  slain  by 
JCrishna,  king  of  the  Ugro-Finns, 
196,  316,  320,  362,  519,  529 

Kattthika,  the  horse  of  the  Buddha 
which  died  at  the  end  of  his  journey 
of  thirty  yojanas  through  the  thirty 
stars,  and  was  raised  to  heaven  as 
the  star-horse  the  constellation  Pega- 
sus, 466,  469,  488 

Kanva,  the  new  {kana)  priests  of  the 
Yadu-Turvasu,  the  parent-priests  of 
the  Bharatas,  sons  of  Sakuntala, 
the  daughter  of  Vishvamitra  and 
Menaka,  the  moon-god  and  goddess, 
280,  363,  584,  612 

Kaphtorim,  the  Philistines,  sons  of  the 
ape  Kapi,  38,  566 

fCapiy  the  Dravidian  ape-god  who  be- 
came the  Polar  constellation  Kepheus, 
37,  39,  44,  216,  3S2 

Kapila,  the  father-god  of  the  yellow 
(kapila)  race,  465 

Kapila-vastUy  birth-place  of  the  Budd- 
ha, 464,  465,  467 

Karambha,  the  barley  •  offering  to 
Piishan,  348 


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l:-:  »"l»  -:  »rm  zj  Z^\t^^,  lie 
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i:z.  111,  i::^  ijj.  r4?»  290-  5^ 
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■•  J» 


Si>»*  'g,  ue  sei  Zirih  is  Seistxn 
ji::  »i.ci  lie  HdLaeai  5;w5,  51, 

Xjl  1^    .-.•atrr.T%.  91.  q6l  i;^^  190,  604 
±'^  ty-£^i^  i2£  iiiisr  c<  the  K;uiiika 

:c   Kts^  :-r^  ulxli.,  a6,   104,    334, 

5xx.  55S.  4?=^  516 

£'2si.'.  -^  z*:liS    -i.-r    rt  Ka,  the  nn- 
*cL*i  bciT-r  ^'  lie  rwias  Gemini, 

221,  222,  255.  254.  50S 

AVa'-ir^-.  lie  Kjl=x>  cr  Ksrcs  of  the 
MiJiir'iLinu-  lie  egg -bom  sobs  of 
Gi^'iiirt  ih-  t^: -re-star  Vegx.  and 
nlir>  ci  I=?iia  frxa  their  Knni- 
kii^Mn  circiil,  xrii..  xxii^29,  S2, 97, 
ic*.  irx'irS,  iSo,  191.  245,  249, 
255,  3::v.  574,  451.  4^4-  508,  509 

A'iai--.   Aan*.,   wi,    193,    194,    195, 
106,  I^,  219.  596.  597 

A'-iriX  ihf  £i:her  of  the  Kari  Knsh 
ki=^  xi.iii.,  51.  376 

A'jTz  AV't,  xxiii.,  174,  1S2,  216 

•A'ajs.':i^  :he  writer  caste,  307 

AVp^ji,  Egypiian  name  of  the  Pbce- 
mcaa  ape-gods^  3S,  566 

A'gfinu,  constellation  of  the  Pole  Star 
of  the  ape   Kapi    from    21,000  to 

19,000  B.C.,  37,  38,  39.  7>  7^.  «43. 

209,  260,  329,  397 
Arreslsfii,  the  homed     krra)   horse, 

Zend  god,  213,  214 
Kmresmvatda^  he  of  the  homed  (kera) 


cl^'i.  L*r<xber  of  the  Tciaiuaa  kng 
Fraz^rasyan,  the  god  of  the  tndm 
Vtpa,  the  sacrificial  stake  of  the 
Takkas^  175,  175,  182 

Kerufi.  the  djring  balls  of  Asspiaa 
theotogr,  the  tvins  in  Taunis,  197. 
600 

Kiszfi-tar,  the  daoghter  {tar\  of  the 
Kec:]e  or  Canldroo  of  Life,  mother 
of  the  san-lixard  after  three  yean' 
p-regnancy,  266 

K^MTzk^  the  Eastern  vife  of  Abna, 
the  enclosing  {katar)  incense-motba, 
the  Vcdic  Vritra,  253,  593 

KiT-^rul,  Kaxzart£L,  the  fisher-merdaot 
kirgs  of  Tamra-lipti,  360 

Kkidtr^'tm  {Acacia  Caticku\  tbe 
tree-mot ber  of  fire  of  the  Hiadc 
ritxul  of  animal  sacrifices,  of  which 
were  made  both  the  Soma  fire-sockei 
asd  the  eleren  stakes  to  which  the 
rictims  offered  to  the  gods  of  the 
eleren-months  year  were  tied,  561 

Kkar-joi-kurra,  the  mocher-moootais 
of  the  East  in  Akkadian  and  Kb- 
shika  theology,  xxiL,  51,  154 

Akartik,  October — November,  moo^h 
sacred  to  the  Krittakas  or  Pleiades, 
the  first  month  of  the  Pleiades  year, 
21.44,  197,  234,  316,  318,  322,4SS, 

565 
Khar-mars^    the    parent-tribe   of  ibc 

Chiroos,    108,   128,   193,  449.  450. 
P6,  579 
Kkati,  the  Hittites  {tcJucA  see)  of  India* 
xxxiv.,  214,  217,  235,  345,  362, 387. 

444.  502.  594»  595 
A'id.'tawar,    the    Indian    land  of  the 

Khati,  176,  252,  361,  584 

Alkepera,  the  Egyptian  beetle,  year  of, 

552.  533.  574 
Kkcrias,  A'kanaSy  108,  109,  128 
JCk^rasan,  Khvaniras^  71,  500 
Kkuy  the  sacred   mother-bird  of  the 
Akkadians  and  Egyptians  and  under 
dialectic  forms  of  all  the  people  of 
Southern  Asia  and  maritime  Europe, 
xv^  xxiii.,  xxxviii.,  25,  55,  63,  125, 

156.  175,  193.  27«.  293,  388,  41^ 
470,  612.     See  Bird-mother  Ha  ^ 
Kkkaka^  the  hill-bamboo,  81,  192 
Kirke^  the  hawk-mother-goddess  (cif- 

K»i),  192,  549.  See  Circe 
KohatkiteSy  the  prophet -priests  of  the 
Jews,  the  wearers  of  the  ephod,  the 
^rmbol,  under  the  name  Aaron, 
the  Chest  or  Breast,  of  the  will  of 
God  revealed  to  the  inspired  priest- 
hood.    They  were  the  third  of  the 


Index. 


6^3 


Jewish  priestly  orders,  their  prede- 
cessors being  the  sons  of  Gershom 

and  Merari  ;  the  three  answer  to  the 

Bhrigus,  Angiras  and  Atharvans  of 

Hindu    theology,    297,    391,    405, 

528 
Koikcpal,  the  cow-keepers,  the  ruling 

tribe  of  the  eight  tribes  of  Gonds, 

157,  176,  180,  200 
Kolamis^  a  tribe  of  Gonds,  108,  157 
JColiya,  the  Kol  parent  village  of  llikyk 

or  Magha,  the  Malli  moQier  of  the 

Buddha,  31,  464 
AV/j,    KolarianSf  or    Cholas^    13,  40, 

loiS.     See  Mundas,  Mallis 
Kooch'Raj-bunsi^  583 
Karkus  {Mundas)^  one  of  the  Gond 

tribes,  108,  157 
Koronis^  the  raven  or  flower-mother  of 

/Esculapius,  the  sister  of  Ixion,  134, 

136,  162,  308,  389 
KonvaSf  12,  15,  128,  193 
Kasala^  land  of  the  Kushika,  16,  160, 

198 
Kototyul^  sons  of  the  log  of  wood,  mane 

of  the  Marya  or  tree  \marom)  Gonds, 

108,  157 
Kouretes^Kuretes^  dancing-priests  of  the 

Pole  Star  god,  xxv.,  136 
Kredemnon^  the  zodiacal  ribbon  of  Ino, 

5I3»  630,  631,  638 
Krodhd,  central  month  of  the  year  of 

the  thirteen  wives  of  Kashyapa,  516, 

Krishanu^  the  drawer  [karsh)  of  the 

bow  of  heaven,  the  rainbow-god,  95, 

98,  99,  102,  306,  321,  39 1 1  426,  459, 

481.  568,  574 
Krishndt  female  form  of  Krishna,  475 

Krishna^  meaning  the  black  antelope, 
also  called  Vishnu,  the  ruling  year- 
god  of  the  sons  of  the  antelope  and 
of  the  Bharatas,  the  god  who  drives 
the  year-chariot  of  the  sun  culmi- 
nating as  a  god  of  the  fifteen- months 
year,  the  eighth  son  of  Vasu-deva 
and  Devaki,  xxxix.,  31,  135,  143, 
172,  189,  196,  237,  244,  278,  316, 
328,  329.  354,  373,  387,  427,  428, 
429,  430.  431,  432,  449,  485,  488, 
526,  527,  568,  577,  578,  634 

KrUtakas,  the  Spinners,  name  of  the 
Pleiades,  xiii.,  21,  322,  525 

Kronosy  the  god  of  the  lunar-sickle, 
xxiv.,  204,  631 

Kshatryay  the  warrior  or  archer  master 
i^kshd)  race  of  Finno-Bactrian  origin, 
82,  loi,  307,  551 

A»,  Kuhuy  the  moon  of  the  Finns,  the 


root  of  Kutsa  (whkh  see\  182,  521, 

525 

Kumdra^  the  boy,  the  ninth  of  the 
forms  of  the  Supreme  God  Prajapati 
{Orion),  the  creating-god  of  the  year 
of  three  seasons,  begotten  by  Ishana 
(which  see),  the  elephant -rain -god 
Gan-isha.  This  ninth  sun-god  was 
the  god  called  Hiranya-garbha,  he 
of  the  golden  womb  (garbha)  bom 
of  the  consecrated  fire-pan  on  the 
Hindu  Garhapatya  fire-altar,  the 
equivalent  of  Rkhu-Io,  the  little 
Rahu,  the  son  of  the  Buddha  in 
Buddhist  theology,  498,  564 

Kumbha-karna,  the  maker  of  the  year 
water-jars  {kumbha),  the  god  of  the 
second  year  of  Ravana's  cycle,  237,238 

Kumhars,  Indian  potters,  1 14,  308 

Kunti,  the  lance  or  fire-drill,  the 
mother  of  Kama  and  the  Pandavas, 
211,  249,  373 

Kunti'bhojas,  the  warrior  sons  of  the 
lance,  355 

Kurmis,  Kurumbas,  the  most  skilled 
caste  of  Indian  agriculturists,  17,  115, 
124,  132,  151,  167,  172,  195,  197, 
205,  219,  251,  348 

Kuru-PafUhdlas,  4CX),  401,  465,  579 

Kuru-kshethra,  the  land  [ksheira)  of 
the  Kurus  or  Kaurs,  xvii.,  26,  27, 
164,  170,  180,  196,  261,  295,  586, 
596 

Kurum  {Nauclea  parvifolid),  the 
mother-almond-tree  of  the  Ooraons, 
Chiroos  and  Kharwars,  and  its 
annual  festival,  346,  449,  450,  528, 

579 
Kurum-nasa,  the  destruction  {nasa)  ot 

the  Kurum  almond-tree  history  of 

the  name,  450,  528 

Kusambi^  mother  city  of  the  Kushikas, 

156,  355 
Kusha  grass  (poa    cynosurotdes),    the 
parent -grass  of  the  Kushika  sons  of 
the  antelope,   7,  8,   159,  188,  191, 
226,  227,  239,  301,  306,  322,  323, 

345.  346,  473,  474,  4^3,  505,  603, 
606 
Kushika  or  Kushites^  sons  of  the 
Kusha  grass  of  Kush  the  tortoise, 
also  of  Kaus  the  bow,  the  warrior 
conquerors  of  the  antelope  race, 
xviii.,  xxii.,  7,  8,  9,  16,  29,  51,  86, 
118,  121,  158,  159,  161,  168,  173, 
190,  198,  203,  210,  226,  238,  280, 

390,429 
Kush-aloya,  the  house  or  mother  {aloya) 

of  the  Kushika  mother  of  Rama, 


664 


Index, 


wife  of  the  sun-god  Raghu,  xl.,  50, 

237.279  ^    ^ 

Kutsa^   the    moon    {Jtu)    god   of  the 

Nahusha  or  Naga  Parus,  charioteer 

of  Indra,  180,  iSi,  182,  218 

Labariy  the  white  god  of  Assyria,  builder 
of  the  brick  foundations  of  heaven, 
the  moon-god  of  Haran,  252,  402 

L^br aid  Lore ^  202 

La^rtesy  the  Lar  or  Lath  father  of 
Odusseus,  459,  460,  461 

Lakhtnu,  Lakhdmu,  the  Akkadian 
creating  pair,  154,  407 

Lakshmufty  son  of  Raghu,  the  boun- 
dary {laksh)  guardian,  the  watcher 
of  the  sur-track  of  Kama,  xvii.,  208, 
22!^,  279,  340,  442,  453,  454 

Lamb,  sacrifice  of  as  a  substitute  for 
the  eldest  son,  224,  232,  547,  548 

Lantech  Langa,  an  Akkadian  and 
Hebrew  god,  the  equivalent  of  the 
Gond  Lingal,  154,  403 

Langa-vira,  a  clan  of  the  Yaudheyas  of 
the  Punjab,  men  of  the  Linga,  215 

Lapiiha,  305,  515,  517,  518 

Lar^  Lares,  265,  461 

Larissa,  Pelasgian  capital  of  the  Lar, 
265 

L&t,  Indian  sacred  wooden  pillar,  461 

Latinus,  461 

Latona,  Leto,  the  goddess  of  the  tree- 
trunk,  148,  247,  438,  452,  544 

Leah,  the  wild  cow  (Z^),  wife  of  Jacob, 
daughter  of  Laban,  377,  402 

Leda,  the  incense  (Ledon)  mother  of 
the   Twin-gods,   the   stars   Gemini, 

253,  374 
Leo  constellation,  373,  376 

Liban,  the  sea-born  (muir-gen)  sun- 
goddess  of  the  South,  wife  of  Labraid 
Lore,  202 

Licehavi,  sons  of  the  Akkadian  dog 
{Lig)  belonging  to  the  Vajjian  or 
tiger  race,  161,  304,  362 

Likbarra,  the  Akkadian  tiger  or  striped 
dog  constellation  Pegasus,  331,  332 

Linga,  altar  of  India  and  Britany,  xxix. , 
269—273,  591,  594 

Lingal,  father-god  of  the  Gonds,  xxix., 

100,  154,  15s.  156,  157,  158,  159, 
161,  403 

Llyr,  Celtic-god  of  the  sea  ruling  the 
year,  and  father  of  Bran,  the  raven, 
63,  448 

Lohar,  originally  copper  now  iron- 
smiths  in  India,  128,  172,  352 

Loka-palas,  the  wardens  of  space, 
(ioka),  27,  104,  434,  456,  481 


Lokamprlni,  bricks  indicating  the  Mo- 
hiirtas,  or  Indian  hours  of  the  year, 
103,  609,  610 

Lolos,  a  Chinese  race  ruled  by  Qoeens, 
119,  120 

Lot,  the  Hebrew  god  of  incense,  252 

Lotus,  orginally  consecrated  as  a  divine 
symbol  in  India,  158,  190,  496 

Lucaria,  mid-year  festival  of  the  grove 
(lucar)  goddesses  of  the  Luceres,  435 

Lug,  Celtic  god  of  light,  son  of  the 
wolf,  born  in  the  tower  of  the  three- 
years  cycle,  282,  283,  284,  448, 449, 
451,  452,  641 

Lugaid,  year-god  of  the  Bftecn-months 
year  of  the  eight-days  week  of  the 
eight  Maine,  slayer  of  Cn-chulainn, 
the  sun-god  of  the  left  thigh  of  the 
eleven-months  year,  407,  408 

Lumdsi,  the  seven  historical  stars  of 
Akkadian  astronomy,  85,  367 

Zm8,  the  shrine  of  the  Hebrew  parent- 
almond  -  tree,  called  Beth  •  el»  the 
house  of  God,  405 

Lycaon,  Arcadian  wolf-god,  who  sacri- 
ficed his  eldest  son,  248. 

M&,  Akkadian  mother-ship  Aigo,  xv., 

30,76 
McCat,  the  Egyptian  goddess  of  justice, 
the  Vulture,  Pole   Star  Vega,  xL, 

107,  368,  533  ^      _ 

Mabug,    Hierapolis    or    Carchemisb, 

Hittite   capital   on   the    Euphrates, 

230,  231 
Madhava,  a  name  of  Krishna,  the  god 

of  Madhu,  intoxicating  drink  made 

of  the  flowers  of  the  Mahua  tree,  171 
Madhu,  mead  made  of  the  flowers  of 

the  Mahua- tree,  171,  568 
Madhu-graha,  the  Madhu-cup  given  to 

the  Vaishyas  and  Kshatriyas  at  the 

Vajapeya  sacrifice  and  repurchased 

by  the  Neshtri,  503 
Madhu-parka,  an    Indian    ceremonial 

drink,  made  of  Madhu  and  honey, 

171 
Madhu-vira,  a  clan  of  the  Yaudheyas, 

of  the  Punjab,  the  men  of  Madhu, 

215 
Madri,  the  intoxicated  {mad)  mother- 
goddess  of  Madhu,  wife  of  Panda, 

178,  428,  576 
Madrikas,  subjects  of  Shalya,  father  of 

Madri,  178,  179 
Maga,  Afaga-sebeJ^,   Afugger,   Mu£rai, 

the    Alligator   of    the    Gonds   and 

Egyptians,  100,  177,  178 
Magana,  Al  Makahy    Akkadian   and 


Index. 


665 


Arabic  names  of  Sinai,  the  moon 
(sin)  mountain  and  its  god,  79,  80, 
250 
Mdgh  (January— February),  the  month 
sacred  to  Magha  beginning  the  year 
of  the  Mundas,  Ooraons,  Santals, 
Bhishma,  Lug,  the  Chinese  and  that 
of  the  Mahosadha  birth  of  the  Bud- 
dha as  the  sun -physician,  187,  395, 

398.  399.  401,  419.  426,  436,  437, 
450,  451,  465,  473,  486,  488 

M&ghUy  At&ySj  reputed  mother  of  the 
Buddha,  the  goddess  of  the  Mallis  or 
Mundas,  31,  332,  463,  464,  468,  627 

Maghada^  land  of  the  Maghas  or 
Mughs,  sons  of  the  alligator,  57, 
153,  187,  188,  190,  192,  195,  199 

McUi-osadha.  birth  of  the  Buddha,  son 
of  Magha,'  463,  464,  488,  537 

Mahio,  the  village  guardian  and  ac- 
countant of  the  Ooraons,  2S8,  289, 

343 
Mahua-tree,  yielding    the    madhu   or 

honey  drink  of  the  Hindas,  one  of 

the  three  mother  Tri-kadru-ka- trees, 

and  the  marriage-tree  of  the  Bagdis, 

Bauris,   Lobars,  Kurmis,    Mundas, 

and   Santals,   167,    171,   172,    356, 

470 

Maine^  the  seven  and  eight  Celtic  time 

goddesses,  the    seven  stars  of   the 

Great    Bear,    and    the    eight -days 

week  of  the  fifteen-months  year,  408, 

454,  455,  489 
Makaruy  Tamil  Makaraniy  Akkadian 

Makkhar^  the  porpoise  or  dolphin- 
god,  successor  of  Maga  or  Muggar, 
the  Alligator,  and  the  fish  of  the 
tail  of  the  constellationqCapricomus 
with  a  goat's  head,  177,  278 
Malay t  the  mountain  {nial)  race  of 
Southern  India,  Malacca,  and  the 
Indian  Achipelago,  174,  342,   346, 

350,  361,  536,  570 

Malts,  Mai  Paharias  of  Anga,  South 
Behar,  the  Finn- Dravidian  mountain- 
race,  108,  109,  121,  302,  536 

Mallis  J  mountain  (mal)  races  of  India, 
13,  40,  82,  160,  182,  215,  280,  304, 

342,  363,  387,  464,  465.  570 
Mamurtus,m9\Q  form  of  Anna  Perenna, 

counterpart  of  Ninus  or    Nimrod, 

239,  240,  241 

Manasdy  the  female  Manu,  356,  357 

Manavi,  588 

Mandaite  Sadaans,  405,  ^48 

Mandara^  the  revolving  (mand)  moun- 
tain of  the  Kushika,  the  hill  Paris- 
nath,  lord  {nath)  of  the  traders  (Paris 


PaHris)  on  the  Barrakur  in  Chutia 
Nagpur,  xxiii.,  198,  212,  238 

MangOy  mother-tree  of  the  Kaurs  and 
Kurmis,  preceding  the  date-palm  of 
Bhishma,  one  of  me  three  Tri-kadru- 
ka  parent-trees,  and  that  of  Jara- 
sandha,  the  god  born  of  the  two 
halves  of  the  mango  fruit,  and  grand- 
son of  Vasu,  the  Kushika  god  of 
Mandara,  167,  195 

Maujhusy  the  share  of  land  assigned  to 
Ooraon  kings  in  every  village,  289, 

290,  343 
Manki,  the  chief  of  a  Munda  Parha  or 

province,  15,  467 
Manuy   the  measurer  of  the   Minyan 

race,  176,  205,  228,  291,  513,  565, 

588 
Maray  meaning  of  the,  in   Buddhist 

theology,  474,  475,  478,  486 
March   ah  Meirchion,   the    Brythonic 

horse  [march)  god  with  asses  ears, 

201,  202 
Marduky  Bel  Merodach,  the  year-calf, 

the  conquering  god  Mordecai  of  the 

Purim  festival,  25,   204,   303,  347, 

451 
Margaliya  altar  of  the  antelope  (niriga) 

god,  61 1 

Marga-sirsha,  Mriga-sirsha,  Novem- 
ber— December,  month  of  the  deer's 
[fnriga)  head,  89,  428,  430,  565 

^an-fl w/wfl, the  Dravidian  tree(»iMn7»/) 
mother  {amma)^  the  Hebrew  Miriam, 
the  Greek  Mariam,  who  became  the 
star  Virgo,  the  mother  of  corn  watch- 
ing over  the  reed-cra«lle  of  the  sun- 
god,  the  stars  Su-gi  of  the  Wain, 
the  Great  Bear,  that  of  Moses  or 
Masu,  the  star  Regulus  in  Leo  {sec 
Lumasi).  She  was  the  first  goddess- 
mother  of  the  Dravidians,  the  only 
Indian  god  whose  image  is  always 
made  of  wood,  31,  133,  452,  510 

Marlchi,  the  spark  of  light,  a  tree 
{marom)  parent-god  of  the  Pole  Star 
Age  who  became  one  of  the  stars  in 
the  Great  Bear,  119,  149,  334,  463 

Maroii,  the  tree  {marom)  ape-god  of 
the  Gonds,  father  of  Bhima  the  Gond 
Bhim-sen,  the  Pandava  god  of  Sum- 
mer, xl.,  16,  35,  82,  165,  197,  461, 
482,  508,  546,  547,  613.  See  Mars, 
Maruts 

Marriage  cv&ioms,  107,  108,  I2I,  122, 
129,  172,  186,  343 

MarSy  MartiuSy  Etruscan  MasOy  the 
Roman  form  of  the  Indian  Maroti, 
xxxix.,  189,  255,  339,  461,  546,  547 


666 


Index, 


Martu,  Akkadian  South-west  wind, 
xxxix.,  335,  339,  546 

MarutSj  the  tree  {marom)  and  wind- 
goddesses  of  the  Rigveda,  xxxix., 

185.    431.    501,     503.     504,     611, 

612 
Marut-vafiya,  the  winter  cup  of  the 

year  of  five  seasons,  500,  501 
Mary  a  or  tree  {marom)  Gonds,  the 

early  Dravidian  founders  of  villages, 

10,  13,  14,  16,  193,  194 
Afarzawan,  warden  of  the  boundaries, 

the  constellation  Argo,  286,  287 
Masons t  Free  Masons,  551,  552 
Massa  Geta^  the  greater  {tnassti)  Getae, 

121,  168, 518 
Maiar-i-svan^   the  fire-mother  of  the 

dog  {svan)^  161,  363,  438 
Mathura,    the    city    of   the    twirling 

{math)  god  of  the  fire-drill,  131,  211, 

237.  427,  428,  590,  616 
Matriarchal  primitive  village  commu- 
nities   and    their    customs,    I — 17, 

129,  337 
Matsyay  the  sons  of  the  eel- fish -god, 

the  ancestors  of  the   Hindu   royal 

races,  131,  178,  180,  191,  484,  576, 

592 

Maurya  or  peacock  kings,  281,  519 

May  /estiva/  of  the  Pleiades  year,  49 

Mayas  of  Mexico  and  their  year,  xxxv., 

563,  566 

May-day  and  its  antiquity  as  a  national 
feast-day,  49,  62,  163,  164,  470 

May-pole  of  the  Pleiades  year,  49,  62 

MayurUf    the   peacock   totem    of   the 
Bharatas,  281,  360,  362 

Meadf  the  sacred  honey  drink  of  the 
North  consecrated  to  the  dwarf-gods 
of  the  Finn  races,  who  in  Europe, 
Asia  and  America  looked  on  the 
world  as  a  beehive  peopled  by  work- 
ing bees  or  ants,  the  Myrmidons  of 
Achilles  (/.  28),  superintended  by 
the  prophet  and  queen  bees.the  priests 
and  priestesses  of  Rai  or  Raghu,  the 
sun-god,  inspired  by  the  holy  mead  ; 
the  races  whose  gods  and  votaries 
drank  Madhu  in  India,  168,  171, 
178,  179,  187,  188,  568 

Medd  or  Meave,  the  wizard  queen  of  the 
Celtic  West,  mother  of  the  Seven 
Maine,  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great 
Bear,  wife  of  Aillil,  the  dwarf-god 
who  tried  to  get  the  eighth  bull  of 
the  fifteen-months  year  from  Cu- 
chulainn,  the  sun-god  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  488 — 490 
Medea,  341 


Mediterranean  race,  its  special  t]rpe 
of  scull,  II,  12 

Medrody  Modred  or  Mehvas,  the  wintei- 
archer -god  of  the  Arthusian  Legend, 
the  counterpart  of  the  Vedic  Krish- 
anu,  72,  73,  539 

Meh-urt  cow,  the  vulture- weaving-god- 
dess, the  star  Vega,  the  midwife  of 
Khepera  the  beetle,  377,  532,  533 

Melanthius,  goat-herd -god  of  the  Odjs- 
sey,  460 

Melicertes,  Melquarth,  the  mastff 
{malik)  of  cities  {karth),  the  Celto- 
Phoenician  sun-god  of  the  Celtic  city 
(Caer),  the  equivalent  of  Archal  the 
son  of  Ino  {which  see),  244,  263, 397, 
446,  447,  452,  512,  629,  638,  640 

Melissai,  the  bee-priestesses  of  the 
mead-drinking  age,  171.  See  Bee, 
Mead 

Mena-ka,  the  time-measuring  {wun) 
moon-goddess,  mother  of  Sakuntali, 
279,  280,  524 

Mendh  Ishwara,  the  ram -god  of  boun- 
daries, the  god  Daksha,  father  of 
the  twenty-seven  Nakshatra  or 
Zodiacal  stars  of  the  cycle-year  of 
the  Ram-sun,  278 

Menelaus  as  a  year-god  of  the  year  of 
five  seasons,  508,  510 

Menhirs,  sun  gnomon-stones  of  the 
Palreolithic  Age  preceding  the  sun- 
circles,  106,  107,  108,  273 

Merione,  son  of  the  Thigh  (iiiipia),  as  a 
year-god  of  the  year  of  five  seasons, 
508,  510 

Meru^  central  world-mountain  of  Hindu 
theology,  xxii.,  238 

Metres  of  tM  Vedic  hymns,  reminis- 
cences and  memorial  records  of  the 
successive  vear-reckonings  of  the 
theological  history,  66,  67,  389,  392, 

394.  493,  495.  608 
Miao  Tsu,  cat  tribes  of  China,  119, 

161 
Midas,  generic  naihe  of  the  kings  of 

Phrygia  of  the  age  of  the  worship  of 

the  sun-ass,  201,  203,  264 
Midir,  Celtic  god  of  the  nether  world 

of  the  winter-sun,  the  equivalent  of 

Medrod,  202,  203,  407 
Milesians,  sons  of  Mile  or  Bile,  the 

mother-tree  shadowing  the  holy  well 

of  the  sun -god,  130,  277,  305 
Min^  the  mother-goddess  of  the  Minyan 

race,  the  star  Virgo,  mother  of  com, 

xxiv.,  xxxv.,    190,    259,   316,   317, 

325 
Minerva,  Mena,  Menfra,  the  Latin  and 


Index. 


667 


Etrurian  form  of  the  measuriDg-god- 
dess  Min,  259,  325 

Minos  J  Minyan  king  of  Crete,  254,  255 

Minotaur^  the  bull  of  Minos,  the  con- 
stellation Taurus  with  its  queen-star 
Aldebaran  ruling  the  year  of  Minos, 
that  of  the  god  of  the  Double  Axe 
measured  by  the  revolutions  of  the 
Great  Bear,  xliii.,  xliv.,  339 

Minyans,  xxiv.,  xxxv.,  203,  2l6,  229, 
255,  256,  259,  316,  404 

MUhuna^  male  and  female  twins  of  the 
Hindu  zodiac,  147,  435,  625 

Mitra^  one  of  the  six  Aditya  or  six 
days  of  the  week,  186,  419,  503 

MUra-Varuna^  parent-gods  of  Vashish- 
tha,  the  god  of  the  altar-flame,  who 
were  refused  as  parents  by  Ida  when 
she  became  the  cow-molher  of  the 
cycle  -  year  of  intoxicating  drink ; 
they  were  the  gods  of  the  preceding 
age  of  milk  Ubations,  that  of  the 
Todas,  for  to  them  only  pure  Soma, 
the  sap  of  the  mother- tree  and  milk, 
are  offered  at  the  annual  Soma  sacri- 
fice,  42,  205,  577 

MocJf^  father  of  waters  (mo\  one  of  the 
twin  sons  of  Lot,  the  Hebrew  in- 
cense-god, the  equivalent  of  the 
Greek  Polu-deukes,  the  much-raining 
{dcukes)  god,  253,  254 

Mohurtas^  the  hours  of  the  Indian  duo- 
decimal system  of  time  reckoning, 
103,  609,  610 

Moloch^  the  master  {ffiaJtA),  the  un- 
sexed  fire  and  sun-god  Herakles,  to 
whom  eldest  sons  were  sacrificed,  232 

Mooft,  the  year-measurer  in  the  age  of 
the  first  earth-altar  made  in  the  form 
of  a  woman,  that  of  the  Kushika 
worshippers  of  the  Prastara  or  magic 
rain-wand  of  Kusha  grass  when  New 
and  Full  Moon  sacrifices  were  pre- 
scribed, that  of  the  age  of  the  wor- 
ship of  High  Places,  the  Hills  of 
Shem-i-ramot  and  bisexual  and  sex- 
less gods.  At  first  the  sacrifice 
bc^nning  the  year  or  the  season  was 
the  New  Moon  sacrifice,  but  the  Full 
Moon  sacrifice  was  made  the  initial 
sacrifice  in  the  ritual  subsequent  to 
the  fifteen-months  year  of  Bhishma. 
The  earliest  moon-worshippers  were 
the  Northern  races  who  worshipped 
the  moon  as  a  male  god  and  the  sun 
as  the  hen-goddess,  but  the  Naga- 
Kushikas  changed  the  sexes,  and 
like  the  Mexicans,  the  Latin  wor- 
diippers  of  Luna   and  the  Greek 


worshippers  of  Here,  Selene  made 
the  moon  a  goddess  and  the  sun  the 
male  sun-lizard,  the  Greek  Helios, 
the  Latin  Sol,  7,  8,  179,  233,  239, 
322.  326,  575,  591 

AforrigUt  a  Celtic  sea  (muir)  goddess 
and  her  historical  change  of  forms, 
489 

MoseSf  MasUj  367,  376 

MossooSi  the  Chinese  and  Thibetan 
Mons,  330,  331,  333,  336,  337,  338, 

342»  353 
Mountain-mother i   56,   92,   356.      See 

Cybele 
Mouse-god  J  265,  266,  414.     See  Apollo 

Smintheus 
Mule-godj   intermediate    between    the 

sun-ass  and  the  sun-horse,  310,  370 
Multan^   Malli-tana,   the   city  of  the 

Mallis.  215,  387,  588,  589,  591 
Munda^  head  man  of  the  village,  15, 

288,  290 
Mundas,  Mons,  mountain-races,  5,  13, 

14, 15,  22,  28,  36,  40,  74,81,  82,  91, 

108,  109,  149,  160,  168,  193,   194, 

242,  338,  437»  449,  501 
Mundus  Patet  festival,  441,  448 
Miiflja,  sugar-cane  grass,  parent-grass 

of  the  Brahmins,  136,  423,  497,  602 
Murwa  {E/eusine  Coracana),  and  beer 

made  from  it,  2,  22,  178 
My/itta,  Babylonian  goddess,  56,  232 
MythSf  Mythic  history^  their  reliability, 

ix.,  13 

N&bha-nedishthay  the  nearest  {nedish- 
tha)  to  the  navel,  the  central  fire  on 
the  altar,  43,  137,  210,  228 

Ndgasy  sons  of  the  rain-snake  {ndg) 
and  plough -god  (nagur),  xxxvi.,  15, 
53,    161.   166,    181,    196,  229,  314, 

344,  353,  355,  359,  3^5,  49i,  520, 
521,  578,  584 

Nag-Panchami,  festival  of  the  five 
{panch)  Nags  in  Shravana  (July — 
August),  318,  449,  454 

Nahash,  the  Naga  king,  406,  422 

A'ahor,  Nahr,  the  channel,  the  Eu- 
phrates parent-river  of  the  Semites, 
125,  140 

Nahuat/f  Mexican  Naga  or  snake  race, 

563,  566,  575 
Nahushdy  sons  of  the  Nag,  69,    161, 

181,  406,  575 
Nairs  of  Southern  India,  a  matriarchal 

race,  17,  229 
Nakshatray    Ndg-kshethra^    the    field 

(kshethra)  stations  of  the  Nags,  the 

zodiacal  stars  showing  the  paths  of 


668 


Index, 


the    moon    and    sun   through    the 
heavens,  xviii.,  205,  208,  209,  237, 

278,  397,  593 
Nakulay  the  mungoose,  the  youngest 
Pandava,  the  winter-god,  527,  576, 

579 
Nala  {the  channel)  and  DamayanH^ 

the  earth  it  tames,  story  of,  xxv.,  9, 

10,  217,  218,  313,  469,  527 
Na-muchh  the  antelope-god  of  drought 

who  does  not  (na)  release  (muchi) 

the  rain,  321 
Nana,  Akkadian  fish-mother  goddess, 

xix.,  177,  209,  410 
Nanda,  the  bull-husband  {Taurus)  of 

Jasoda  RohinI  {Aldebaran\  427, 429, 

432,  464.  530 

N&pit,  a  caste  of  priest-barbers,  344 

Naryo  Sang-ha,  Nardshamsd,  the 
praised  of  men,  the  developed  form 
of  Nabha-nebhishtha  as  the  per- 
petual fire  on  the  altar,  42,  137.  See 
Judah 

Niavagva,  the  priests  of  the  nine  {nava) 
days  week  of  the  cycle-year,  210,  296 

Navigation,  primitive  in  the  Indian 
Ocean,  18—20 

Neanderthal  or  Cannstadt  race,  88, 1  lo, 
III,  112,  113,  115 

Nebt'hat,  the  house  {hctt)  mistress 
(nedt),  a  form  of  Hat-hor  {zvhich  see), 

IS*  377 

Nemcd,  the  grove  {menuton  nemus) 
parent  of  the  Celtic  races,  275 

Neolithic  Age,  xl.,  79,  226,  272,  273, 
610 

Ner,  Ner-gal,  the  great  {gat)  bright 
one,  the  Akkadian  Pole  Star  goat, 
456 

Neshtri,  the  priest  of  Tvashtar,  god  of 
the  year  of  two  seasons  of  the  Matri- 
archal Age,  501,  502,  504,  505 

Nestor,  the  guardian  of  the  gates,  404, 

509,  511 

Nigrodha-tree  {Ficus  Indica),  26,  104, 
472,  478.     See  Banyan 

Nine,  its  sanctity  as  a  historical  num- 
ber, 210,  214,  246,  353,  356,   498, 

499.  597 
Nineteen,  its  historical  meaning,  475, 

476,  477»  478 
Ntfi'lil,  Akkadian  goddess,  70 
Ninus    or   Nimrod,    the    hunter- star 

Orion,  84,  86,  236,  237,  240,  244 
Ntshadhas,  91 
Nit  or  Neith,   the  Egyptian  Vulture 

weaving  goddess  of  flax,  252,  253, 

.533. 535 
NJord,  the  Edda-god  of  the  North,  88 


Noah,  637 

Nooktcu    of    British    Columbia,  535, 

536 

Now-ufset,  Mexican  buffalo  goddess 
of  the  West,  565 

Nuada  of  the  Stiver  Hand,  Celtic  year- 
god  of  the  age  when  time  was  mea- 
sured by  the  crescent  New  Moons, 

277.  449 
Nun,  Num,  the  fish-god  of  the  eight 

creators  of  the  fifteen  -  months  year 

of  Samoyede,  Akkadian,  £g3rptian, 

and  Hebrew  theology,  377,  378 

Nunet,  the  Vulture  wife  of  Nun,  377, 

378 
Nut-tree,  the  parent-tree  of  the  Todas 

and  Jews  preceding  the  almond-tree, 

122,  461,  479.     See  Walnut 

Oak,  a  parent-tree  of  the  Druids, 
Arcadians,  Greeks,  and  Italian  wor- 
shippers of  the  goat-god  Pan,  the 
god  of  the  hairy  Satyrs,  xxi.,  28, 
121,  135,  169,  369,  479,  509 

Odin,  the  god  of  knowledge  {odf), 
170,  521 

Odusseus,  the  god  of  the  road  (^t), 
the  path  of  the  year,  xiil.,  144,  455, 
462,  512,  513,  630,  631,  632,  633, 
634,  635 

Og,  King  of  the  Rephaim  sons  of 
Kepha  Canopus,  80,  144,  145,  354 

Oil,  the  holy  oil  of  the  sacred  Sesame, 
xxxiv.,  31,  162,  307,  308,  309 

Oil-press,  or  year-bed,  144 

Ojhas,  men  of  knowledge  {odj)t  or 
Pradhans  Gond  and  provincial 
priests  in  Chutia  Nagpur,  158,  170, 

290.  356 
Olive-tree  of  Athene,  the  parent-tree, 

the  tree  form  of  the  sacred  Sesame, 

31,  144.421,  513.631 
Omphalc,  the  navel,   wife  of  the  un- 

sexed  Ilerakles  Sandon,   and  slave 

of  the  parent  river  lardanus,  Jordan, 

145,    232,    235,    395.       See  Nabha- 

nedishtha 
Onga,Onha,  the  heated  Itonian  Athene, 

the    Southern    goddess,    32,    353, 

357 
Ooraons,   sons   of  the   Malay  Orang, 

meaning  Man,  the  Dravido-Turanian 

ruling  race  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  before 

the  Kharwars,  sons  of  the  ass  and 

the   Kurum    almond-tree,    1 1,  268, 

288,  289,  290,  292,  344,  346,  360, 

449 
Ophir,  son  of  Joktan,  the  gold  land 

of  India,  52,  138,  593 


Index. 


66g 


Opiconsiviat  a  mid-year  festival ,44 1, 448 
Orion,  the  hunting  star  of  the  Northern 
hunting  races,  sons  of  the  deer-sun. 
It  became  the  leading  star  which 
led  the  Pleiades  and  their  attendant 
stars  round  the  Pole,  when  the  Rep- 
haim  sons  of  the  giant  (repha)  star 
Canopus  reached  lands  in  the  north 
where  Canopus,  the  former  star 
leader,  was  invisible,  xiii.,  77, 87, 88, 
89,  90,  102,  144,  147,  167,  174,  179, 

283,  349.  354»  377»  391.  399.  40i, 

602,  603.    See  Ninus,  Praja-pati 
Orpheus,  the  Greek  form  of  the  Vedic 

Ribhus,  149,  313 
Orwandel,  Orendel,  the  Orion  of  the 

North,  xiii.,  64 
Osiris,  the  Egyptian  barley-god  Orion, 

xlvi.,  44,   45,    76,    151,    377,   53^ 

533-  534 

Otus  and  Ephialtes,  their  year  of  thir- 
teen months,  514 

Owl,  the  Indian  god  Uluka  of  the  Sa- 
ras vatis  mother- bird  of  the  incense 
-Ethiopian  merchants,  of  Athene  and 
Minerva,  the  Minyan  mother  god- 
desses also  of  the  Umbrians  of  Gub- 
bio,  257,  258,  543,  586 

Oxtts  or  Jihun,  the  river  of  life  ^Ji), 

154»  178*  591 

Padum-uttara,  the  Northern  {uttara) 
lotus  {padttma),  the  thirteenth  Bud- 
dha, god  of  the  Ugro  Altaic  Finns 
who  introduced  into  India  the  thir- 
teen -  months  year  of  the  thirteen 
Buddhist  Theris,  529,  530 

Pahan,  village  or  parish  priest  of  the 
Ooraons,  243,  288,  356,  567 

Paian,  the  healer  epithet  of  the  Phce- 
nician  eighth  god  Eshmun,  and  the 
Greek  Apollo,  390,  430,  569 

Pajapati,  Mahd  Gotami,  the  l:iuddhist 
female  form  of  the  male  god  Praja- 
pati  {Orion).  She  was  the  leader 
and  goddess  of  the  first  month  of  the 
thirteen-monthb  year  of  the  thirteen 
Theris,  xxxvii.,  468,  488,  522,  627, 
630 

Palaimon,  Baal  Yam,  the  sea-god,  son 
of  Ino,  and  the  equivalent  of  Meli- 
certes,  Melquarth,  Portunus  {which 
see),  446,  447,  448,  640 

Paldsha-tree  {Butea  frondosa),  sacred 
tree  of  the  Mundas,  and  the  first  most 
holy  tree  from  which  the  creating 
Soma  sap  of  the  bird  Su  was  ex- 
tracted as  that  of  the  growing  year  of 
spring,  also  that  of  which  the  typical 


triangle,  the  Paradhis,  representing 
the  year  of  three  seasons,  was  made 
and  placed  on  the  navel  of  the  altar, 
made  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  before 
it  was  superseded  by  the  triangle  of 
Pitu-daru  wood  {Pinus  Deodara) 
of  the  offerers  of  animal  sacrifices. 
The  car  of  the  Ashvins,  the  stars 
Gemini,  was  made  of  Palksha  wood, 
95,  144,  228,  251,   271,  275,   30^ 

391 »  393»  395.  496,  574.  604,  606 
Palatitu  Salii,  239 
Palatine,  hill  of  the  god   Pales,  438, 

440,  441 
Pales,  Palea,  the  year-god  of  the  grain 

husk  {palea),    168,   324,   325.     See 

Pallas 
Palici,  the  Italian  twin  creating  gods, 

the  cotyledon  or  husk  leaves  of  the 

growing  plant,  325 
Palilia,  festival  of  Pales  held  on  the 

2 1st    of    April,    answering    to    St. 

George's  Day  of  the  23rd  April,  324, 

327 
Pallas,  goddess  of  the  Palladium,  and 

mother-year-goddess  of  the  grain 
husk  {palea),  31,  324.  325 

Pallika,  Procyon,  the  Akkadian  star  of 
the  crossing  dog,  73 

Palm-tree,  date-palm  mother- tree  of 
the  Hindu  god  Bhishma  and  Vala- 
rama  of  the  fifteen  months  and  of  the 
Hebrew  sons  of  Tamar  and  Judah 
{which  see),  7,  17,  167,  425,  428 

Pan,  goat  -  god  of  the  hairy  Satyrs, 
121,  141 

PafuUhenaia,  mid -year  feast  of  Athene 
as  the  tree-mother-goddess  of  the 
Peplos  {which  see),  34,  454,  573 

Patuha-bila,  offering  to  the  five  ruling- 
gods  of  space  at  the  Dasha-peya 
sacrifice  to  the  ten  {dasha)  gods  of 
the  ten  lunar  months  of  gestation, 
68,  400 

Panchdias,  the  men  of  the  five  {panch) 
claws  {alas),  the  five  days  of  the 
week,  rulers  of  Northern  India  be- 
fore the  Kurus,  41,  204,  401,  570, 
597.    See  Srinjayas 

Panchayats,  village  and  state  councils 
of  five,  41,  387 

Pandavas,  the  five  sons  of  Pandu  and 
grandsons  of  Ambalika,  the  Great 
Bear  mother  {p,  98),  the  conquering 
Bharatas  of  the  Mahabharata,  ruling 
the  five  seasons  of  the  year,  97,  151, 
152,  178,  179,  195,  211,  213,  218, 
248,  249,  258,  279,  309,  327,  328, 
346,  348,  361,  367,  424,  425,  426, 


670 


Index, 


431,  470,  482,  483,  562,  576,  578, 

579 
Panduy  the  fair  (pandu)  and  sexless 

sun-god,    son    of   the    Great    Bear 

mother    Ambalika  and  Vyasa,   the 

constellation  Draco,  reputed  father 

of  the  Pandavas,  the  representative 

of  the  Northern  immigrant  sons  of 

the  Bear,  98,  178 

Pandyasy  the  fair  {pandu)  race  of  the 

corn-growing  sons  of  the  North,  sons 

of  Agastya  Canopus  and  successors 

of  the  Chiroo  sons  of  the  bird  (cAir), 

40,  348 
Panis  PaHriSf  the  traders  of  the  Rig- 

veda,  210 
Papil-saky  Akkadian  constellation  Leo, 

367,  373 
Par&shara,   the  overhanging  (para) 

cloud  (sAara)j  312 

Parasu-Z^dma,  of  the  Double  Axe 
( parasii)j  son  of  Jamadagni,  the  twin 
(jama)  fires  and  Renuka  the  flower 
pollen,  the  destroyer  of  the  Hai- 
hayas,  xliv.,  260,  261,  295,  343 

Parka y  a  province  of  the  Munda  ma- 
triarchal stale,  12,  15,  16,  17,  193 

ParidhiSy  sacred  triangle  first  of 
Palasha  and  afterwards  of  Pitudaru 
wood  placed  on  the  navel  of  the 
altar,  228,  393.     See  PalSsha. 

Parikshit^  the  circling  sun  of  the  sun- 
horse,  son  of  Uttara,  the  Pole  Star 
mother,  and  Abhimanyu,  son  of 
Arjuna  and  Su-bhadra,  who  became 
after  his  death  the  moon-god,  175, 

191,  312,  475»  481,  483.  484,  485, 

486,488,517,538 
Paris-nathy  lord  \nath)  of  the  Pa?iris 

or  traders,  the  sacred  Jain  mountain 

on  the  Burrakur  in  Chutia  Nagpur, 

the  ancient  Kushika  mountain  Man- 

dara  {which  see),  198,  212 
Parisrui,  rice  beer,  502 
Parjanya,  the  rain-god,  350 
Parsvoy   the   Jain   Tirthakara,   whose 

birth    coincides  with    that    of   St. 

George,  324 
Pdrthavay  Parthus,  or  Pritha  Partha^ 

the    Parthians,    also     a     name     of 

the  Pandavas,  211,  328,  373,    587, 

588 
Pasisy  the  caste  who  extract  palm-wine 

from  the  date-palm-tree,  17 
Pdtdla,  ancient  port  of  the  Ikshvaku 

and  Su-varna  kings  of  the  Indus,  55, 

362,  383 
Palest,   Akkadian    priest  -  kings,   321, 

495»  5<^ 


Pataikoi,  dwarf-gods  of  the  Phoenidans, 

149,  265 
Patriarchal  age  succeeding  the  Mi- 

triarchal  instituted  by  the  Basques, 

129,  130 
Patroclus,  a  form  of  the  sun-phjrsiciiii, 

149.  306,  338, 400,  491,  507*  639 
Paushya,    PushyOy    the    constelUtkm 
Cancer,    175,    207,    311,    313.     Bee 
Push,  Pushan 
Peacock,  totem  of  the   Bharatas,  the 
sacred  bird  of  the  Greek  Here,  281, 
360,  362,  429,  519 
Pegasus,  the  four-starred  constellatioo 
of  the  sun -horse  ruling  with  the  seven 
stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  eleven- 
months  year,  and  also  the  star-hone 
of  the  sun-god,  208,  304,  306,  329. 

332,  333,  458,  468,  469.  533-    ^ 
Kanthika,  Lik-barra. 

Pelasgi,  sonsof  Peleg,  138,  149,  265 

Peieg,  the  stream  Pelagon,  Pela^ns, 

139,  H9,  150,  151.  509.  593 
Peleus,  the  god   of  the   Potter's  clay 

{in)K6%),  father  of  Achilles,  who  got 

the  horses  of  the  sun  from  Poseidon, 

28,  143,  169,  309,  371,  421,  492,  508 
Pelops,  winner  of  the  chariot-race  of 

the  thirteen-months  year,  515,  516 
Pen,  Pen  Samlatk,  the  Brythonic  Lady 

( pen)  Samlath  or  Semele,  mother  oif 

Dionysos,  347 
Penelope,  the  weaver  of  the  web  (fii*^ 

of  Time,  the  star-w^ife  of  Odusseus, 

the  year-star-god  Orion,   xiii.,  459, 

462 
Pentecost  and  the   May  perambulation 

of  boundaries,  538,  540,  559 
Pen-u-el,  the  tower  of  the  image  {pen) 

of  God,  a  conical  triangular  s)naibol 

of  the   divinity,    succeeded   by  the 

worship  of  the  Ephod,  262,  380,  403 
Peplos,  the  creating  Veil,  xx.,  4S4,  579 
Penz^  the  cleft,  the  male  form  of  Tir- 

hatha,  the  twin  son  of  Tamar,  the 

date-palm-tree,  152,  366 
Persephone,    the    May-Queen    of    the 

Pleiades  year,  34,  59.  62,85,  I37.»39. 

163.  369,  375'  401 
Perseus,  Assyrian  fish-sun-god,  bom  of 
Danae,  the  Pole  Star  mother,  in  the 
tower  of  the  three-years  cycle,  282, 

296.  303*  498 
Phallic  worship  of  the  sons  of  the  eel 
and  the  antelope  plough -god,  and  of 
the  date-palm -tree,    132,    147,  152, 

154,  155 
Pkarsi-pen,    the     female    {pen),    and 
Pharsi-pot,  the  male,  trident  {pharsi 


Index. 


671 


with    two  tiger  wives,  the  trident- 
god  of  the  Goods,  159,   160,   173, 

I75»  544 
Philistines,  called  Kaphtorim,  sons  of 

the  ape,  uncircumcised  Semites,  38, 

566 

PkiloitioSy  herdsman  of  the  oxen  of 
Odusseus,  the  star  Arcturus,  459, 
460 

Phineusy  the  sea-eagle,  305,  407 

PhlegyaSy  Phlegyans,  Finn  warrior  fire- 
worshippers  of  Greece,  votaries  of 
the  Pole  Star  god,  132,  133,  136 

Pkanicians  or  sons  of  the  date-palm 
(^o^vt{),  the  Semite  offspring  of  the 
Indian  Tur-vasu,  29,  38,  149,  230, 
234,  247,  250,  265,  368,  519,  566 

Pkctnix,  the  date-palm  warden  of  the 
sun  race-course,  508 

Pholosy  the  Centaur  Soma  guardian, 

517,  518 
Phrixus,  the  roasted  {^piyv)  barley  son 

of  Athamas  or  Dumu-zi,  Orion  ,628, 

629 

Phrygia,  Phrygiatis^  land  and  sons  of 
the  fire-god  Phur  or  Bhur,  56,  130, 
141,  201,  325 

Picts^  the  painted  races  who  ate  par- 
ched barley,  painted  their  tribal 
totems  on  their  foreheads,  and  traced 
descent  in  the  female  line,  229,  291, 

293»  3io»  335»  336,  437-    ^^^  Pitaro 

Barishadah 
Picust  the  red-headed  wood-pecker,  the 

sun-bird  of  the  forest  races,  xxxviii. , 

xxxix.,  549,  550 
Pi^j  a  sacred  animal  of  the  Phrygians 

and  early  fire-worshipping  races,  37, 

176,  189 
Pigs,   seveuy  the  constellation   of  the 

Great  Bear,  and  a  pig  triad  of  gods, 

334.  402 
Pig-tail  tonsure  of  theMossoos,  Chinese, 

Mundas,   Mexican    priests    and    all 

high-caste  Hindus,  347,  574 
PiliyaMkha,  the  god  of  the  Piliyakko 

Plaksha-trec,  91,  92 
Pindka,  Pinga,    the   musical    bow   of 

Shiva  and  the  Munda  races,  88, 132, 

^390 

Ptne-tree  as  a  parent-tree  of  the  Bear 
race,  sons  of  Cybele,  29,  109,  116, 
"8,357,509,  513 

Pifton-nut-tree^  parent-tree  of  the  Mexi- 
can sun-god  Poshai-yanne,  569. 
See  Nut-tree 

Pipal'tree^  sacred  Hindu  fire-drill,  261, 
473»  475»  478.    See  Ashvattha 

Pirithous,  515,  517 


/Vrr,  the  five  Pirs,  sons  of  the  barley 
mare,  worshipped  by  the  Telis  and 
the  Hindu  races  whose  priests  were 
the  barber-surgeons,  337,  342,  343 

PUarah  Somavantah,  the  rice-eating 
£eithers  of  the  Palaeolithic  founders 
of  village  communities,  226,  232 

Pitaro  Barishadah  of  the  Neolithic 
Age,  the  Kushika  ancestors  who, 
like  the  Picts  and  American  Indians, 

Eainted  their  totems  on  their  fore- 
eads,  ate  parched  barley  and  called 
themselves  sons  of  the  Kusha  grass 
and  buried  their  dead  unbumt,  1 78, 
226,  227,  232,  257,  294,  348,  363, 

436,437  ,    , 

Pitaro   Gnishvattahy  the  men   of  the 

Bronze  Age,  eaters  of  barley-por- 
ridge and  milk,  who  burnt  their 
dead,  226,  348,  349,  363 

Pitri-yajha  sacrifice  to  the  fathers, 
225,  348,  351 

PUri-yanOy  the  six  months  from  the 
summer  to  the  winter  solstice  con- 
secrated to  the  fathers,  22,  570 

Plaksha  oxPakur'tree{Ficusinfectoria\ 
the  parent- tree  of  the  offerers  of 
animal  sacrifices,  91,  184,  301 

Pleiades,  the  leaders  of  the  stars  round 
the  Pole  in  the  Matriarchal  Age, 
xiii.,  xiv.,  XV.,  xliv.,  21,  23,  33,  44, 

45.  48,  5o»  54,  55.  63,  90,  93.  97. 
109,  137,  160,  164,  231,  283,  428, 

431.  526,  558,  564,  565.  574.  602 

Plough,  rules  for  the  construction  and 
ceremonial  use  of  Hindu  plough 
made  of  the  sacred  fig-tree,  68,  423, 
424,  602,  603 

Ploughing  festivals  beginning  the  year, 
401,  436,  443.465 

Pole  Star,  navel  of  the  sky,  house  of  the 
Supreme  Goddess  and  God,  xii., 
xiv.,  XV.,  xvi.,  36—40,  75,  79,  126 

Pole  Star  god  with  one  leg  and  one 
eye,  58,  90,  148.     See  Cyclops 

Pollux,  Poludeukes,  the  raining  Twin- 
god,  xix.,  254,  263,  508 

Pomegranite,  a  sun-fruit  sacred  to 
Rimmon,  7,  57,  58,  123 

Pongol,  Dravidian  festival  of  the  winter 
solstice,  187,  243 

Portunalia,  441,  446 

PortunuSf  Portumnos,  Etruscan  god- 
son of  I  no,  446,  640.  See  Ino, 
Palaimon,  Melicertes 

Poseidon,  originally  the  snake-god 
Erectheus,  the  holder  of  the  creat- 
ing-trident  and  the  parent  of  the 
horses  of  the  sun,  xxiv.,  xxxvii ,  xiv., 


672 


Index, 


143.  148,  152,  163.  169,  329,  339, 
360,  37i»  5*2,  513.  514,  515.  631, 
633 

Poshai-ydnne^  Mexican  sun-god  bom 
of  a  nut -tree,  569 

Pot-raj^  a  Dasahadl  festival  of  the 
autumnal  equinox,  223,  224 

Potters,  sons  of  Shelah  jand  the  Great 
Potter  the  Creator,  xxi.,  xxii.,  28, 
32,  137,  140,  168,  169,  .198,  207, 
220,  221,  329,426,491 

Pottery,  history  of,  1 13— 1 17 

Pra-hasia,  the  foremost  (pro)  hand, 
the  first  year  of  the  three-years  cycle- 
year  of  Havana,  237 

Prahastri^  Hindu  teaching-priest,  the 
Zend  Frashaostra,  the  national  his- 
torian, xxvi.,  290,  386 

Praja-pati,  lord  {patt)  of  cultivators 
(praj&\  the  creating-star  Orion,  43, 
148,  204,  210,  250,  399,  438,  493» 
494,  502,  503,  504,  505,  525,  543, 
564,  605 

Prastara,  the  Hindu  magic  rain-wand, 

,   first  made  of  Kusha  afterwards  of 

'  •  Ashva-vala  grass,  7,  124,  227 

Pravargya,  ceremony  representing  the 
birth  of  the  twelve-months  year  from 
that  of  thirteen  months,  604,  605 

Prithl,  Prit/tUy  the  mother  of  the  Par- 
thian Pandavas,  211,  249,  328,  373. 
See  Kunti 

Proryon,  73,  74,  77,  129.     See  Pallika 

l^roperty  communal  among  the  Dra- 
vidian  matriarchal  founders  of  vil- 
lages and  its  consequent  descent  in 
the  female  line  ;  tribal  and  appro- 
priated to  families  and  afterwards  to 
individuals  among  the  Gotho-Celts, 
13—17,  384—388 

Protctts^  the  seal -god  and  his  historical 
transformations,  421 

Ptah,  the  Egyptian  dwarf-ape-god,  the 
opening  Xj^alah)  god  of  the  year- 
wielder  of  the  hammer  {pattish),  and 
subsequently  the  Great  Potter,  149, 
150,  151,  341.434 

Punch,  the  Hindu  god  of  five  {pancJi), 
the  equivalent  of  Rama,  454 

Purim  Festival  of  the  Jews,  451,  548. 
See  Esther 

Pums,  Pauravas,  sons  of  Yayati,  the 
full  moon  {ya)  god,  and  Sharmishtha, 
the  Banyan-tree  worshippers  of  Kut- 
sa,  the  moon  (/•//)  god.  too,  1 81, 182, 
190,  215,  218,  594,  596 

PuryaiT^  Junction  of  the  Jumna  and 
Ganjjes,  place  of  union  between  the 
immigraiing  Naga-Kushikas  and  the 


earlier    population    of    India,  92, 
301 

Puse,  the  alligator  in  the'Gond  Song 
of  Lingal.^ioo,  156,  177 

Push,  Pushya  (December — ^Januaiy), 
first  month  of  the  Hindu  year  datuig 
from  the  days  when  the  sun  was  in 
Pushya  Cancer  at  the  winter  solstice 
from  14,000  to  15,000  B.C.,  174,207, 
243,  311,  401,  592 

Pushan,  Pashang,  from  Push,  to  grow, 
the  Indian  form  of  Lettic  Perkunas, 
our  Puck,  the  barley -eating-god  who 
married  the  sun's  daughter  and  whose 
car  was  drawn  by  goats,  174,  175, 
208,  313,  317,  401,  496,  503,  591 

Pushtu,  Afghan  language.  589 

Pytho,  Python,  the  prophetic  snake  of 
the  depths,  god  of  the  Delphic  orade, 
the  Vedic  Ahi  Budhnya,  430 

QuipuSy   recording    knotted    cords  of 

Chinese,  Peruvians  and  Santals,  523 

Quirinal  Hill  consecrated  to  Quirinns, 

434»  439,  440 
Qutnnal  Salii,  his  dancing-priests,  259 
Quirinalia,  437 
Quirinus,  Kurinus,  the  revolving  {kur) 

god  of  the  Sabines,  239,  243,  437 

Pd,  Pat,  Ragh,  Raghu,  sun-god  of  the 
North  whose  worship  was  thence 
brought  by  the  worshippers  of  the 
household-fire  to  India  and  Egypt, 
XXXV.,  xl.,  50,  151,  152,  154,  207, 
2I9»  279,<'354,  408,  421.  432,443^ 

587 
Raaviah,  the  god  Rama,  Raghu.  father 

of  the  Sabaean  sons  of  Sheba,  50 
Rachel,    the   ewe   wife   of  Jacob  and 

mother  of  Joseph,  god  of  the  eleven 

months,  and  the  sun-god  Benjamin, 

377.  403,  405 

Rddhd,  the  giver  of  Ra,  wife  of  Nanda 
the  bull,  the  star  Rohinl  Aldebaran, 
427,  432,  434,  464.-  ^^^  Jasoda 

Rat:;ha,  on  the  South  of  the  Caspian 
Sea,  land  of  Ra  and  of  the  three 
races,  154,  40S,  587,  588 

Ragu-el,  the  god  Raghu,  father  of  Sara, 
408 

Rahab,  Rahabu,  the  alligator  constel- 
lation Draco  of  the  Akkadians, 
I'hcenicians  and  Jews,  100,  137,  378, 

379.  380 
Rd-hu,  Raghu,  the  sun-god  worshipped 
by  the  Dosadhs,  his  priests,  in  Behar 
and  Kumaon,  xl.,  50,  57,  165,  186, 
187,  18S,  322 


Index. 


673 


R&kulo,  the  little  Ri^hu,  son  of  the 
Buddha,  332,  468,  498 

Rai'Das,  parent-god  of  the  Chamars, 
219 

Rai'pur^  city  of  Ra  or  Rai»  194 

Rain-god^  the  first  god  worshipped  by 
prayer,  7,  132 

Raja-Suya^  Hindu  coronation  cere- 
mony, 322 

Raj'GondSf  sons  of  Ra  or  Rai,  158, 
194,  443.  521 

Ram,  the  Supreme  God,  52,  58,  152, 

463 

Ram-sun  and  sacrifice  of  a  ram  to  the 
year-god,  xxix.,  xli.,  184,  187,  204, 
205,  278,  322, 434 

Rdma^  son  of  Raghu,  the  plougher  of 
the  sun*s  year-furrow  through  the 
zodiacal  stars,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xl.,  49, 
50,  52,  119,  152,  153,  187.  189,  207, 
208,  237,  238,  279,  318,  337,  340, 
432,  453,  454.     See  Abram 

Rilm-anUf  Rama  Hvastra,  52,  188 

Ramnesy  sons  of  the  wolf-sun-god,  the 
tree-branch  {ramus),  438 

Rapha,  Repha,  the  giant-star  Canopus, 

73—76,  77 
Raphael i  god  of  the  giant-race,  408,  412 
Rat,  the  constellation  Aquarius,  413, 

414,  416,  624,  625 
Rath  -  jutra,    or    summer    marriage- 
chariot  {rath)  procession  of  Krishna 
and  Su-bhadra  b^inning  the  year 
with  the  setting  of  Orion,  236,  237, 

354 
Rathaniura  or  Ratha-tur  SUman,  the 

turning  (jur)  of  the  sun-chariot  in 

the  last  six  months  of  the  solstitial 

year,  70,  168 

Rautias,  a  clan  of  the  Kaurs,  93,  128, 
520 

Rdvana,  the  ten-headed  giant  of  the 
cycle-year  overthrown  by  Rama  and 
Lakshman,  64,  119,  208,  237,  238, 

-♦53 
Raven    mother -bird,    25.      See    Bran, 

Canopus,  Shakuna 

Recaranus,  the  re-creator  {kar)  of  the 
Cacus  legend,  442 

Reed-mother  of  the  sons  of  the  rivers, 
85,  139.     See  Kavad 

Regiti,  the  rain-god  guardian  of  Sig-urd 
the  sun -god,  186 

Rein-deer  god  and  chief  domestic  ani- 
mal of  the  Glacial  Epoch,  79,  88, 

"3 

Rephaim,  early  settlers  in  Syna,  sons 

of  the  giant  Repha,  xxi.,  12,  77,  80, 
144 

X 


Revdti,  the  constellation  Pisces,  208, 

209.  235,  318,  431.  593 
Rex  Sacrorum,  priest  of  the  Roman 
Regia,   home  of  the  national   fire, 

434.  435»  441 
Ribhus,  sons  of  Su-dharvan,  the  bow 

{dharvan)  of  Su  the  mother-bird,  the 

rainbow-god,  and  makers  of  the  cups 

of  the  seasons,  99,  100,  lOi,  130, 

145,  184,  287,  301,  598 

Ribhu-ksha,  the  third  or  master  {Jtsha) 
Ribhu  of  Indra  who  adds  a  fourth 
season  to  the  year,  loi 

Rishabha,  the  bull,  son  of  Marudevi, 
the  mountain  {maru)  goddess,  and 
Nabhi  the  navel,  the  altar  fire,  first 
Tirtha-kara  of  the  Jains,  born  about 
15.000  B.C.,  198,  358,  359,  364 

Rishts,  the  antelope  {rishya)  priests  of 
time  representing  the  months  of  the 
year  and  the  seven  stars  of  the  Great 
Bear,  147,  178 

Ritual  essentially  conservative,  6,  7 

Rohiniy  mother-river  of  the  Gautuma 
and  Dom  building  race,  162 

Rohini,  the  doe  and  red  cow-mother- 
star  Aldebaran,  Queen  of  the 
Pleiades,  43,  60,  93,  143,  210,  219, 
399,  411,  427,  489,  565,  606,  633 

Romulus  and  Remus,  twin-sons  of  the 
wolf-mother-goddess  of  the  Ramnes, 
438 

Ruadan,  son  of  Bres  and  Briget,  the 
year-mother,  71 

Rudra,  the  red  {rud)  god  ruling  the 
year,  the  equivalent  of  the  Gond 
Bhim-sen,  the  red-headed-stick-god, 
husband  of  the  three-year  star- 
mothers,  xl.,  71,  90,  96,  97,  98,  99, 
300 

Rukh,  the  bird  of  the  breath  (ruakh) 
of  God,  xvi. 

Rukhmi,  the  tree  (rukh)  god,  and  his 
sister  Rukmini,  157 


Sabaan  Mandaites,  48,  405,  548 

Sabaans  of  Southern  Arabia,  50,  51, 
52,  63  ;  of  Haran,  405,  433,  548 

Sacrifice  of  eldest  sons  to  Hindu, 
Semitic,  Greek  and  Celtic  sun-gods, 
232,  234,  244—248,  628 ;  of  the 
Jains,  the  sacrifice  of  the  former 
man  to  God  by  the  ascetic  culture  of 
his  moral  intuitions,  320 

Sacrifices  originally  first-fruit  offerings 
and  sacramental  meals  of  the  sap 
and  seed  of  the  year-mother-tree  or 
plant,  the  milk  of  the  mother-cow 


674 


Index. 


and  the  pure  water  brought  from 
God  as  the  sap  of  heaven  to  generate 
fresh  life  on  earth  during  the  year, 
and  its  renewal  in  the  bodies  of  the 
children  of  the  offered  gifts.  These 
Southern  sacrifices  became  in  North- 
ern ritual  offerings  and  sacramental 
meals  of  the  human  and  animal 
parent  totems  slain  to  generate,  by 
their  blood  consumed  by  their  sac- 
rificing children  or  poured  on  the 
earth,  the  birth  of  a  new  year-god, 
the  re- risen  duplicate  of  his  slain 
predecessor ;  also  to  renew  fresh  life 
in  the  children  of  the  victim  who 
consume  their  parent  god  at  the 
annual  sacrament,  34, 57,  59, 66,  67, 
96,  98,  108,  122,  123,  146,  159, 
184,  185,  187,  223,  244—248,  251, 
268,  308,  309,  320,  398 

Sadas,  holy  house  of  the  Hindu  priests 
supported  by  a  pillar  of  Udumbara 
or  sacred  fig-tree  wood,  393 

Sahadeua^  the  fire-god  of  the  twin-sons 
of  Madri  by  the  Ashvins,  the  fourth 
Pandava  ruling   the  autumn,   258, 

527,  579,  586 
Saivya^  the  Shiva  sun-horse  of  Krishna, 

328 
S&ka'dwipay    Seistan,    154,    170,   173, 

387,  425,  589 
Sdkahy  Sangitla^  capital  of  the  Mad- 

rikas,  179 
Sdka-medha,  autumn   sacrifice   to   the 

god  Sak  or  Sukra,  the  earliest  form 

of  Indra  the  rain-god,  loi,  184,  234, 

347 
Sakas^  Sdkyas^  sons  of  the  wet  {sak) 

god,  154,  355.  467,  589 

Sakh,  Sakhr^  Snkh,  Sttkkht\  Sakko, 
Sukus,  Sukra,  the  Indian  and  Ara- 
bian rain-trod,  originally  the  Akka- 
dian wet  {sak)  god,  50,  69,  lOi,  154, 
159,  184,  234,  285,  298,  346,  396, 
470,  580.  In  Soma  ritual  the  god  of 
the  vShukra  cup  of  summer,  500,  501 

Sakti  mountains,  190,  197,  577 

Sakiitttala^  the  little  bird,  Malli  mother 
of  the  Bharatas,  279,  280,  363,  591 

Sakut  (Heb.  Succoth),  the  booths  of 
Saka  annual  New  Year's  Festival, 
231,  262,  404 

Salai  {Bos7vdlia  thurifera)  of  Indra, 
the  original  incense-tree,  53,  248 

Salii,  dancing-priests,  239,  242,  442, 
540 

Salli'tnannUy  Solomon,  the  Akkadian 
sun-fish-god  ruling  the  year,  50,  152, 
278,  55i»  585 


Sdi'tru  {Sharea  robusia),  parent-tree 
of  the  Buddha  and  the  Mundas, 
xxvii.,  14,  28,  127,   134,  167,  172, 

242»  330,  357.  463.  464 
Sdmidhenij  hymn  of  eleven  stanzas  r^ 

cited  at  the  opening  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  302,  309;  of  fifteen 
stanzas  at  the  opening  of  the  fifteen- 
months  year,  389 ;  increased  to 
seventeen  stanzas  in  the  New  Year's 
hymn  of  the  seventeen-months  year, 

494 
Samidhs,   the   kindling-sticks  of  the 

gods  of  Spring,  the  first  gods  of  the 

eleven-months  year  of  four  seasons 

invoked  in  the  Apri  hymns,  299 

Samirus,  Sem-i-ramoty  Semiramv^ 
bisexual-goddess  of  the  Phcenician 
Saka,  84,  230,  231,  233,  236,  237, 
240,  243,  244,  247,  250,  257,  259, 
267,  276,  347,  354,  403,  593 

Samoyedes,  119,  378 

Samuel,  son  of  Hannah  the  fig-tree, 
380,  391 

Sam-z'arana,  the  place  of  sacrifice,  his 
two  Avatars,  596,  597,  598 

Santals,  127,  128,  172,  242,  519,  520, 
521,  522,  536 

Sar,  Sara,  Shar,  the  cloud -mother  of 
com  and  grass,  138,  139,  140,  184, 
211,  363.  408,  411,  412,  420 

Saramil,  the  bitch  of  the  gods  who 
seeks  the  cows  of  light,  the  constel- 
lation Argo,  74,  123,  210 

Sarasvati,  goddess-mother  and  river, 
170,  196,  258,  300,  322,  504,  586 

Sardis^  capital  of  Lydia,  consecrated 
to  Sard  Pater,  the  year  {sar,  sal)  god 
of  the  Tursena,  262 

Sarganu,  Sarovn,  Sc'ru^,  1 38,  1 39 

Sartta,  sacred  grove  of  the  primitive 
villages,  14,  15,  16,  25,  127 

Sat-nam,  the  true  (sat)  Name,  the 
Chamar  God,  220 

Saturn,  335 

Saturnalia,  243 

Satyaki,  son  of  Shini  the  moon-god- 
dess and  year-go<l  of  the  year  of 
eleven  months,  179,  329,  330 

Satyavati,  goddess  of  truth  {Satya\, 
eel-mother  of  the  Hindu  royal  races, 
131,  191.  425,  592 

Satyrs,  hairy  races  of  Asia  Minor, 
their  ethnology,  120,  121,  201 

Sau-rdshtra,  kingdom  [rdshtra)  of  the 
Sans.  Guzerat,  55,  252,  358,  361, 
584 

Sautrd-mani,  sacrifice  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  301,  321 — 323,  327 


Index. 


675 


Savangha-vachf  the  eastern  {savangha) 
spcdcer,  155,  170 

Savitart  Savitrty  the  sun-god  and  sun- 
maiden,  71,  364,  500 

Savul,  Savm/,  Saul,  sun-god  of  the 
left  thigh,  380,  390,  403,  406 

Saxons,  385 

Scylla,  variant  ot  Ino,  631,  632,  639, 
640 

Seboi,  84,  591 

Stkhit,  the  lion-headed  and  scorpion- 
goddess,  531,  533 

S^k  Nag,  Gond  god,  worshipped  as 
a  wooden-snake,  the  Iree-mother- 
snake,  158,  159,  443,  521.  See  Shesh 
Nag 

Semele,  Samlath,  Samlah,  of  Masrekah, 
the  vine-land -mother  of  Dionysos, 
243.  244,  259,  316,  347,  380,  397, 
398,  517,  627 

Senio-Sancus,  sowing-god  of  the  parent- 
wet -grass  [sag  sak),  164,  442 

Septemiriones,  124,  335.  See  Hapto- 
Iringas 

Sesame,  Sesamum  orUntale,  the  sacred 
oil-plant,  xxxiv.,  31,  307,  370,  535, 

559 
Set,   Suit,   Sutekh,  the  Egyptian  ape 

and  pig-god,  75,  76,  260,  332,  377, 

533.     See  Hapi,  Kapi 

Sethlans,  Etruscan  god,  son  of  the 
creating-plant,  260,  261 

Seven  offerings  to  Sek  Nag,  seven 
Maruts  dancing  round  Indra  as  he 
slew  Vritra,  indicating  the  seven 
stars  of  the  Great  Bear  as  the  source 
suggesting  the  seven-days  week  of 
the  seven  teen-months  year,  159,  431, 

478 
Seventeen-months    year    of   seven-day 

weeks,  430,  478,  493^ 

Seventy,  its  historical  meaning,  xlvi., 
636 

Seventy 'two  weeks  of  the  Pleiades  sol- 
stitial and  Orion's  year,  xlvi.,  44, 

45»  46,  47,  76,  556 

Shakuna,  Shakuni,  the  raven-star 
Canopus,  brother  to  Gan-dhari,  the 
starVega,  23,  24, 218,  258,  309,  482, 
586 

Shalmali  {Bombax  Heptaphylla),  cot- 
ton tree,  wood  used  with  Palaisha  in 
the  cars  of  the  Ashvins,  the  Simul, 
the  sacred  tree  of  the  offerers  of 
human  sacrifices,  395,  570 

Shalya,  the  year-arrow  (shary a), Vinf^  of 
the  Madras,  whose  cognizance  is  the 
plough,  the  plough  constellation  of 
the  Great  6c»ir,  78,  179,  213,  428 


Sham-tanu,  the  healing-god,  father  of 
the  Kauravya  and  Pandava  kings, 
178,  191,  424,  425 

Shami'tree  {Prosopis  spicegerd),  346 

Shar-ad,  the  season  of  the  cloud-god- 
dess Shar,  the  autumnal  equinox 
beginning  the  cycle-year,  the  season 
of  Shraddas  or  festivals  to  the  dead 
fathers,  the  Pitaro  Barishadah,  225, 
234,  262,  357 

Sharmishtha^  the  most  protecting  {shar- 
man)  mother,  daughter  of  Vrisha- 
parva,  the  rain-god,  wife  of  Yayati, 
the  Banyan-tree  (Ficus  Indicd),  181, 

592,  594 

Sharya-N&van,  the  ship  (navan)  of 
the  year-arrow,  of  which  the  feathers 
are  the  Spring,  the  shaft  the  Sum- 
mer, the  point  the  Winter,  26, 
295 

Sharyata,  son  of  Manu,  the  measuring- 
eod  of  the  year-arrow,  father  of  Su- 
Konga,  391 

Shelak,  the  spear,  the  creating  fire- 
drill,  137,  148,  159,  306 

Shesh-Ndg,  Shesh-ai,  the  Spring-god 
of  the  Takka  trident  of  the  year 
of  three  seasons,  the  Gond  god  Sek- 
Nag  {which  see),  175,  366,  367,  423 

Shimsu-mdra,  the  constellation  of  the 
Alligator  of  fourteen  stars  round  the 
Pole,  a  form  of  Draco,  85,  144,  329, 

379 
Shinar,  48,  250 

Shivd,  female  form  of  Shiva,  317 

Shiva,  Sib,  Saiv,  the  three-eyed  god  of 

*the  white  shepherd  races,  the  Altaic 

Finns,  83,  85,  250,  313,  329,  344. 

347,  362,  377,  403,  528,  529,  590, 

595 
Shuna-shepa,  sacrificed    as    the  New 

Year's  dog  {svan)  of  the    summer 

solstice,  184,  185 
Shurasena,  590.     See  Agni-kulas 
Shus,   Shu,   Shuham,  Su,  Sous,   Su- 

varna,   Sauri,   trading  sons  of  the 

bird  Khu,  xv.,   55,  230,  252,  258, 

362,  527 
Shushan,  land  of  the  Shus,   56,  303, 

449 
Shyena,  the  frost  (shyd)  bird,  the  Polar 

cloud-bird,  whose   blood,  the  rain, 

came  to  earth  as  the  creating  Soma, 

95,  96,  184,  350.  391,  481 
Sig'urd,  the  pillar  {urdr)  of  victory 

{sig),  the  conquering  sun-god  of  the 

North,  186,  296,  352,  353,  354,  357, 

420,  491 
Sikhs ^  followers  of  Kabir,  157 


676 


Index. 


SUures^  Basques  of  South  Wales,  276 
Simton^  the  great  sorcerer,  turner  of 

the  Wheel  of  Fal,  the  time-god,  the 

Celtic  IxioD,  276 
Simula  the  red  cotton-tree,  sacred  to 

the  Ashvins,  251 
Simurgh^  Sin-MurgA,  the  moon-bird, 

xvi. 
Sin,   the  moon,    Sinai   its  mountain, 

250 
Sindhu,  2SO»  252,  527,  597 
Sindur-dan,    red    mark    of    marriage 

traced  on  the  parting  of  the  hair  of 

Hindu   brides,   indicating  fusion   of 

blood,  172,  179,  343 
Sirius,  Sharvara,  the  dog-star,  73,  74, 

143.  296,  366,  376,  440,  456,  579. 

580,  625.     See  Caleb. 

Sisu,  the  son,  the  Easter  son  of  Skanda, 

the  sun-lizard-god  of  the  seventeen- 

months  year  and  the  seven  stars  of 

the  Great  Bear,  525, 538.  5>^  Kumara 

Sisu-ndg,  king  of  Magadha,  590 

Slid,    the    star    furrow    marking    the 

annual  path  of  the  sun,  xviii.,  37, 

118,  119,  208,  209,  237,  384,  453» 

454,463 
Six  Gond  gods,  six  days  of  the  week, 

beginning  the  year  of  the  Tri-kadru- 

ka  festival,  165,  166,  186 

Skanda,  the  sun-lizard-god  of  the 
seventeen -months  year,  524,  525, 
526,  528,  537,  575 

Snake,  the  sacred  snake  ring  of  the 
cultivated  land  round  the  Sarna  or 
central  village  grove,  16 

Snake-race  and  dance  of  the  Sias,  571, 
572 

Sothtt,  the  Egyptian  serpent-goddess 
of  the  constellation  Scorpio,  416, 
417.     Ar  Sekhet. 

Sotwaster,  stone  circles,  105,  247 

Soma,  from  root  Su,  the  sacred  annual 
sacramental  meal,  eaten  at  the  New 
Year's  sacrifice  by  all  who  had  been 
consecrated  by  the  Diksha  baptismal 
ceremony.  It  was  taken  from  the 
Drona  or  hollowed  tree-trunk,  the 
receptacle,  together  with  the  other 
authorised  sacrificial  ingredients,  of 
the  rain  sent  from  heaven  by  the 
cloud-bird  Su  or  Khu,  to  become 
the  sap  of  the  holy  mother-tree  origi- 
nally the  Palasha.  Soma  became 
also  the  male  moon-god,  the  crescent 
moon,  sender  of  the  rain,  25,  71,  95, 
96, 123,  167,251,  268,  269,  299,  301, 
346,  347,  350,  364,  365,  392,  393. 
395,  450,  475,  483,  501,  502,  503, 


504,  S17,  518,  522,  523,  57S»  57^ 

577,  012 
Soma  Pavamana,  the  wind  and  nis- 

god,  to  whom  all  the  hymns  of  the 

Ninth  Mandala  of  the  Rigveda  ue 

addressed,  392 
Sone,  the  river  of  gold,  157,  248, 35S 
Sona-pet,  the  womb  of  gold,  249, 358 
Sonar,  the  Sau  dealers  in  gold,  358 
Spy  Onoz,  its  cave  and  skeletons,  1 10^ 

III,  112,  113,  114,  115,  116,121, 140 
Srinjayas,  men  of  the  sickle  {srini^, 

name    of  the    PanchiUas,  mien  of 

North  India,  41,  204,  211,  588,  591 
Stan-eskuara,   the    gnomon -pillar-god 

(eshvar),   the  leader  of  the  eleven 

Rudras,  the  months  of  the  eleren- 

months  year,  295 
Stone  Ccdendars  d  Britany,  266—269 
Stonehenge,  105,  476,  477 
Su  or  Shu,  the  cloud-bird  Khn,  xv., 

55,  391.     i^^Shus,  Khu. 
Suasttka,  Su-asktaka,  the  sacred  sjm* 

bol    of    the    circling    sun,    xxxr., 

xxxvi.,  271,  272,  471,  547,  550 
Su-barna  or  Su-vama  Baniks,  361 
Su'bhadrd,  the  blessed  {bkadra)  Sa* 

bird,  twin  sister  of  Krishna,  99, 191, 

234,  235,  244,  327,  354,  481,  519, 

521,  537 
Sudon  •  rikha,  Su  •  vama  -  rikska,  the 

river  of  the  Su-vama,  the  sons  of  Sn, 

248,  359 
Sudas,  the  giver  of  Su,  son  of  Divo- 

dasa,  and  grandson  of  Vadhri-ashva, 

the  gelt  horse,  586,  592,  594,  595, 

596 

Su'dharvan^  the  bow  [dharvan)  of  So, 
father  of  the  Ribhus,  99 

Snevi,  Swabians,  385 

Su-griva,  the  ape  with  the  neck  {griva) 
of  Su,  the  bird -headed  Pole  Star  ape 
who  married  Tara  the  Pole  Star 
after  the  death  of  Vali  the  drclcr 
{vri\  the  ape  who  turned  the  stars 
with  his  hand.  The  substitution  of 
Su-griva  for  Vali  recorded  in  the 
story  of  R&ma  marks  the  change  in 
the  year- reckoning  adopted  in  the 
year  of  Rama  and  Sita,  the  furrow, 
between  14,000  and  15,000  B.c, 
when  the  change  of  Pole  Stars  in 
the  Polar  circle  and  the  measore- 
ment  of  time  by  the  passage  of  the  son 
through  the  zodiacal  signs  was  recog- 
nised, 36,37, 97,1 19, 143, 199,328,334 

Su-jdtd,  and  the  Buddha  god  of  the 
year  of  the  eight-rayed  star,  470^ 
487,  503,  530 


Index. 


677 


Su'koniy&y  Surid,  the  sun-bride  of  the 
moon-god  Soma,  wedded  in  Magh 
(Janunry — February)  about  io,cxx) 
B.C.,  the  marriage  being  consum- 
mated in  February — March,  391, 
395,  419,  440,  450,  475,  515.  575 

Sumerians,  the  Indian  settlers  in  the 
Euphratean  Delta,  48 

SurS^  intoxicating  drink  originally 
drunk  at  sacriBces,  infused  in  the 
Soma  of  the  Sautramani  sacrifice  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  and  pre- 
pared apart  from  the  pure  Soma  in 
the  Vajapeya  sacrifice  of  the  seven- 
teen-months  year,  301, 321,  322, 328, 

502,  503,  504,  517,  518 
Susi'fta^,  the  snake-god  of  the  Shus  of 

Shushan  whose  image  was  depicted 

on  the  Parthian  banners,  56,  211 
Su-skravas,  the  glory  of  the  Shus,  the 

Sanskrit  form  of  the  Zend  Hu-shrava, 

conqueror  of  Kutsa  the  moon  [Au) 

god  of  the  eleven-months  year,  182, 

230 
SuS'Sistiftftako^  the  creating-spider   of 

the  Sias  of  Mexico,  the  Spinning 

Pleiades,  565,  571 
Su-ydmOf  the  twin  (yama)  birth  stars 

Gemini  presiding  at  the  births  of  the 

Buddha,  464 


Ta-khu  Aquila,  367,  373 

Takka-sila,  Taxila,  the  city  ot  the 
Takkas,  383,  423,  616 

TakkaSf  Tugras,  Trigartas^  the  wor- 
shippers of  the  Yiipa  or  trident 
sacrificial  stake  and  the  sacrificers 
of  three  animal  victims  in  three  [tri) 
pits  {gartas)  bound  to  three  sacri- 
ficial stakes  {drupadas^xjxi.y  xxiv., 
>35.  I75t  176,  178,  180,  182,  184, 
185,  198,  200,  486,  590,  591,  595, 

633 

Taksh-ndg,  Takshaka^  the  v^inter-god, 

the  third  prong  of  the  Takka  trident 
of  the  three  seasons,  175,  191,  313, 

367.  423 
TamoTf  the  date-palm-tree-mother  of 

the  Semite  Phoenicians,  sons  of  the 

date-palm   {<poivt^),   152,   275,   366, 

422,  523 

Tamluky     TdmralipH,      the     copper 

{tdmra)  port  of  Bengal,  359,  360, 

361,  583 
Tammuzt  Hebrew  form  of  Dumn-zi 

{whuk  see) 
Tatty   Tana,   the  mud  {tan)  goddess 

and  god  author  of  life,  the  Soatheni 


goddess  Bahu  (whuk  see)^  26,  27,  29, 
32,  33»  34,  261,  295.  397 
Tanais,    Tant't,    Thenet,  the  Cartha- 
ginian goddess  Tan,  235,  397 
Tan-esktiTf  the  Indian  shrine  of  the 

god  (eshur)  Tan,  26,  261,  295 
Tan-nim,  Hebrews  sons  of  Tan,  27 
Tanu-napdty  the  self-producer,  the  god 

of  summer,  299 
Tdo,  the  creating-path,  xiii. ,  479,  597 
Tapasm,  Tapas^  Tapa4i,  480,  598 
Tary  the  Hittite  goat-god,   17a     See 

Dara 
Tdrdt  the  ape  Pole  Star  goddess,  36, 

97,  199,  333,  334 
Tari  Pennu^  the  female  {pen)  Tara 

goddess  of  the  Kandhs  of  Orissa  and 

the  Indian  Tur-vasu,  274,  309,  347 

Tdrkshyay  son  of  Trikshi,  271,  316. 
See  Trikshi 

Taurus^  constellation  of,  xix.,  143, 415, 
418,  484,  585,  599,  600 

Tavat%msay\)^t,  second  historical  heaven 
of  the  Buddhist  chronology  ruled  by 
the  god  Sakko,  that  of  the  thirty- 
three  gods  ruling  the  thirty-three 
days  of  the  month  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  298,  470,  473 

TeUhines,  their  place  in  history,  xxiv., 

XXV. 

Telis^  the  caste-guild  makers  of  the 
sacred  Sesame  oil,  31, 307, 308, 333, 

335 

TemenoSj  sacred  enclosure  round  Gre- 
cian temples  answering  to  the  land 
consecrated  in  a  Hindu  village  to 
the  snake-guardian  of  the  mother- 
grove,  247 

Templum,  the  consecrated  field  of  the 
Roman  augur,  the  Greek  Temenos, 
the  Indian  four-cornered  field  of 
Varuna,  256 

Ten  kings  of  Babylon,  their  year,  414, 
415,  532,  636,  637,  638 

Tenth  cup  allotted  to  the  Ashvins,  the 
stars  Gemini,  as  gods  of  the  ten 
months  of  gestation  of  the  cycle-year, 

394 
Teuccr,  404 

TheseuSy  239,  404 

Thesmophoria^  Greek  festival  answer- 
ing to  the  Southern  Feast  of  First- 
fruits  at  the  beginning  of  the  Pleiades 
year,  57,  59.  62,  135,  203,  404 

Thetis f  the  mud  (M//^)  goddess- mother 

of  Achilles  the  sun-g<xl,  27, 306, 309, 

371.421 
Thigh  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear, 

parent  of  the  sun-god,  the  Thigh  of 


678 


333.  39'.  403.  407.  4t>8, 
the  righl  thigh,  390,  391,  406 

Thigh,  the  wounded  and  withered  left 
Ihifih  of  the  year-cods  of  the  eleven- 
months  year,  Cuchalaian,  Jacob 
and  Odusseus,  403,  407,  408,  458, 
4S9 

High,  the  year  of  Ihe,  beginning  about 
10,000  B.C.,  when  the  sun  was  in 
Gemini  in  January — February,  419 

Thighs,  both  thighs  of  the  year-god 
of  the  lunar  solar  age  broken,  ^2, 
483.  509 

Thirlctn  Buddhist  Thtris,  and  thirteen 
wives  of  Kasbyapa,  ruliag  the  thir- 
teen months  of  the  year,  48S,  521 

Thirty-three  days  of  the  month  of  the 
eleven'inoDlhs  year,  298 

Tkirly-six  weeks  of  the  half-year  of  the 
year  of  sevent^-lwo  weeks,  the  Ihirty- 
six  steps  of  Vishnu,  Ihe  year-god,  46, 
47,67-     &<BrihaIi 

TAaas,  Tii'm,  forms  of  Dumu-ii(ii'A(V^ 
J«).  3'.93.  35* 

Thor,  god  of  the  hammer,  drawn  by 
goats.  152 

TAalh,  Taut,  Tut,  forms  ofDhu-ti.the 
bird  idhu)  of  life  {li),  (which  see), 
"-.  "xL,  534 

Thraelatma,  the  Semite  Zend  god  of 
the  cycleyeor,  49,  213,  214 

Three  months  passed  by  the  infant  sun- 
god  in  traversing  the  thirty  stars 
under  the  guardianship  of  Ihe  moon, 
and  the  three  months'  trance  of  Cu- 
chulainn,  332,  333,  488.  489 

TTiuroh,  Hebrew  Thorah,  the  law, 
name  of  Harmon ia,  xxi. 

TiS-mut,  mother  of  living  things  (/W), 
goddess  of  the  Pole  Star  age,  mother 
of  eleven-fold  offspring,  the  months 
of  the  eleven-months  year,  24,  303, 
451 

Tiger  jt'iiis  ol  the  trident  of  Pbarsi- 
pot,  mothers  of  the  sons  of  the  tiger, 
160,  161.  331,  333.  336 

Tirhatha,  fish-goddess  of  the  Cleft  or 
rock -pool,  also  called  Derceto  Ater- 
galis,  177,  209,  130,  231,  233,  366, 
591 

Tishlrya  Siriuj,  183,  198,  203,  366 

n-lans,  27,  399 

Tithis,  Hindu  lunar  days,  measure- 
ment of  time  by,  456,  457,  538 

Teiil,  Tobias,  4^,  409,  410,  411,  412, 
413,  420 


Index. 


679 


home  of  the  Phoenicians  in  the  Per- 
sian Gulf,  38,  250 
Tursa,  Cerfia^  the  tower  (////•)  goddess 
of  the  Iguvine  triad,  to  whom  heifers 
and  sheep  were  offered,   543,   544, 

546,  547  ,    .  . 

Tur  Turn,  the  Pole  Star  god  of  night, 

who  turns  the   Pole  and   the  stars 

ruling  the  year,  75,  256 

Tur-vasUf  Tursetia^  Tursha^  Turano- 
Dravidian  Semites,  the  parents  of 
the  Phoenician  trading  races,  who 
first  from  India  established  maritime 
trade  in  the  Indian  Ocean  and  Medi- 
terranean, XXXV.,  II,  38,  177,  182, 
217,  229,  249,  250,  253,  256,  2^7f 
262,  266,  347,  367,.  368,  391.  583. 
588,  591 

Tusita^  the  fourth  of  the  historical 
heavens  of  Buddhist  theology,  that 
of  wealth  (tuso)  and  of  the  Vessan- 
tara  birth  of  the  Buddha,  463,  473, 

537 
Tkfashtar^  the  god  of  the  solstitial  year 

of  two  (tva)  seasons,  22,  298,  300 
Twelve  days'  rest  of  the  sun-god  at  the 

end  of  the  year,  and  the  historical 

meaning  of  Twelfth  Night,  89,  loi, 

102,  103,  454,  540 
Twenty-seven  days  of  the  month  of  the 

cycle-year,  xli.,  xlii.,  205,  206,  488 
Twin-gods  of  time  of  the  Kabiri  and  of 

the  Mexicans,  xxiii.,  147,  567,  568. 

S^  Milhuna 
Tii^rch   Trwyth^  the  boar-god  and  his 

seven  pig-sons,  the  seven  stars  of  the 

Great  Bear,  335,  336 
Tyndareusy  Tydetis,  the  hammer  {tttd) 

god  of  the  Kabiri,  father  of  Diome- 

des  and  Kastor,  254 
Typhoon,   Greek    Tuphon,   the   storm- 
wind  of  Baal   Tsephon,    Pole   Star 

god  of  the  North,  37,  76 


Ucchai-shravasy  the  ass  of  Indra  with 

long  ears,  xxiii.,  198,  202 
Uchelwyr^     Cymric     equivalents     of 

Ooraon  Bhunhiars,  288,  290 
Udumbara,    Ficus   Glomerata,  sacred 

Hindu   fig-tree,  its  ritualistic  uses, 

270,  393»  423,  497.  506,  510,  602, 

603,  605,  606 
Ugro-Finn  races,  sons  of  Ukko,  xvii., 

168.  194,  294,  328,  357,  362,  378, 

518,  520,529 
Ugras  or   Ogres,  sons   of  Kansa  the 

moon -goose,  xvii.,  317,  319 
Ugrosena,  father  of  the  Ugras  of  the 


moon-falchion  {ugur)  and  Kansa, 
^vii.,  3I7»  362,  374»  518,  519 

C/H'o,  the  Finn  rain  and  storm-bird, 
third  god  of  the  national  Triad  who 
dwells  in  the  navel  of  heaven,  the 
Pole  Star,  xvii.,  126 

Ukthya,  Springcup  of  the  Vajapeya 
sacrifice,  500,  501,  503 

Uluka,  owl -god  of  the  age  of  incense- 
worship,  son  of  Shakuni  the  raven, 
257,  258 

Uma,  Flax  wife  of  Shiva,  83,  250,  590 

Umur-kuntak,  where  the  Sone  and 
Nerbudda  rise,  the  navel  of  Indra, 

157 
Upasads,  Soma  sacrifices  to  the  three 

seasons,  604,  605 
Ural-Altaic  Finns,  85,  86 
Urdar,    fountain    of   the   Ygg-drasil, 
__xxii.  __ 
Urja,  Urja  Stambha,  the  Thigh  (firw) 

god,  396 
Uriah  the  Hittite,  422 
Ursula  Horsel,  the  Little  Bear,  337 
Ushinara,    man    of   the    East    (usK), 

father  of  Shiva  ;  his  daughter,  Ushi- 

nari,  mother  of  Kakshivat,  64,  311, 

590,  591 
Utanka,  the  weaver  («/)  of  time,  312, 

313,  314 

Uther  Br  an  of  the  wonderful  head, 
the  gnomon-stone  father  of  Arthur 
or  Airem  the  plough-god,  64,  539 

Wset,  the  Sia  mother  of  com,  566, 

570,  573,  574,  579 
Uttanapad,  the  mother-goddess  with 
the  outstretched   {uttana)  legs,  the 
two  productive  thighs  of  the  firma- 
ment-mother of  Aditi  and  Daksha, 

425 
Uttara,  the  Great  Bear  constellation, 

the   North   charioteer  son   of  king 

Virata,  151,  190,  329,  367,  484 
Uttara,  the  Pole  Star  mother  of  the 

sun  -  god     Parikshit,    daughter    of 

Virata  the  Vim,  190,  483 
Uz'Uzava,  the  goat-god,  85,  141,  376 


Vadava-makha,  he  who  speaks  with 
the  left,  the  left  thigh-god,  396 

Vadhri  Ashva,  the  gelded  (vadhri) 
horse,  the  sexless  sun-god  of  the 
fifteen-months  year,  father  of  Divo- 
dasa,  the  father  of  Sudas,  586 

Vdhlikas,  men  of  Balkh,  Bactrian 
sons  of  Vahlika,  the  Takka  bearers 
of  the  trident  of  the  Yupa  or  sacri- 
ficial stake,  178,  591 


68o 


Index. 


Vai'karna,  two-horned  Naga  races  of 
Kashmir,  worshippers  of  Kama  the 
horned-god,  592,  594 

Vcund  moineHy  the  senior  god  of  the 
Finn  triad,  226 

Vaishvadtvay  the  gods  of  the  village 
{vish),  loi,  347,  400 

FdishvUnara,  Agni  household-fire  of 
the  village  {visA)  and  son  of  the  tree 
{vanam),  186,  591.    5(^  Vastospati 

Vaishyay  men  of  the  village  (wjA),  the 

yellow  race,  141,  308,  504»  55>.  578 
VAjapeya^  sacrifice  of  the  seventeen- 

months  year,  492,  499,  500,  502,  503 
Vajjians,  sons  of  the  tiger  (via^kra), 

their    eighteen    tribes,     160,     161, 

333 
Vajrdiun^   the    thunder   bolt   (vajra) 

throne  of  the  Buddha,  475.  476 

Vala-rdma,  the  revolving  {vri)  Rama 
called  Hal-ayudha,  he  who  has  the 
plough  (Jial)y  the  Great  Bear,  for  his 
weapon,  son  of  Rohini  Aldebaran, 
the  Queen  of  the  Pleiades,  and 
Nanda  the  bull  constellation  Taurus, 
the  Naga  Great  Bear  ruler  of  the 
eleven-months  year  preceding  Krish- 
na ruling  the  fifteen-months  year, 
427,  428.  43 !»  577,  578 

Vali^  the  turning  {vri)  Pole  Star  god, 
first  husband  of  Tara  the  Pole  Star 
mother,  199 

Vanaut^  the  Zend  constellation  Corvus, 
426 

VafMs-pati\  Vena^  Vcnus^  Lord  {pa/i) 
of  the  wood  {z'aftam),  the  central 
mother-tree  of  the  village  grove, 
the  tenth  god  invoked  in  the  Apr! 
hymns,  49,  300 

Varska-giraSt  praisers  {giras)  of  rain, 
name  of  the  Nahusha,  126 

I'arumiy  the  covering  (var)  rain-god, 
the  Lokapala  of  the  North  god  of 
summer  and  of  barley,  27,  loi,  301, 
302,  321,  346,  347.  393,  434,  503 

Vashistha^  Zend  Vazista,  god  of  the 
most  creating  (vasti)  fire  burning 
perpetually  on  the  altar,  42,  70,  181, 
311,  312,  396,  424,  587,  594,  596 

VastoS'pati,  Lord  (pati)  of  the  house 
or  city  {vastos)^  the  household  and 
national  fire-god,  son  of  Orion  and 
Aldebaran,  the  star  rulers  of  the 
year,  43,  89 

Vasuy  the  creator-god  of  the  Chiroos, 
sons  of  the  bird  {chir\  xxxiii.,  131, 
190.  197.  213,  427,  577 

Vdsu-deva,  father  of  Krishna,  the  black 
antelope-god,  427,  490,  577,  578 


Vasuk^  Vasukif  central  summer-god  of 
the    Takka    trident,    xxii.,    xxxiii,     j 
xxxvi.,  175,  190,  197,  198,  271,  3S7, 

365,  367,  423 
Vedi  Utiaray  North  altar  of  knowledge, 

originally  made   in   the   form  of  a 

woman,  227,301,  393,  501,  506,604, 

606 

Vega  in  Lyra,  Pole  Star  from  10,000 

to  8cx)0  B.C.,  xl.,  8,  97,  207,  280, 

309,  311,  324,  368,  373.  419,429. 
455,  526.  527 

VertumnuSf  the  turning  {verto)  mid- 
year-god of  the  year,  34,  445,  641 

Vessantara,  birth  of  the  Buddha  in  the 
Tusita  heaven  of  wealth  {tuso)^  when 
the  sun  was  in  Gemini  about  8200 
B.C.,  463,  472,  473,  474,  475;  484, 

487,  537 
Vestal  Virgins  consecrated  to  the  ser- 
vice of  the  goddess  Vesta,  the  Greek 
Hestia,  the  centra]  fire-goddess  in 
every  village,  survivals  of  the  age 
when  the  priestesses  and  guardians 
of  the  household  and  national  fires 
were  the  wife  and  daughters  of  the 
master  of  the  household-fire,  and  in 
villages  of  the  Headman  of  the  vil- 
lage dwelling  in  the  central  Gemeinde 
Haus  or  Hotel  de  Ville  of  the  vil- 
lage {p.  12).  This  became  in  Rome 
the  Regia,  the  home  of  the  fire  of 
Vesta  ruled  by  the  Rex  Sacrorum, 
the  survivor  of  the  village  Headman, 

315,323 

Vetasu^  sons  of  the  reed  (vetasu),  wor- 
shippers of  Kutsa  the  moon  (/6»)god, 
180,  182 

Vi'Chiira  Vifya,  the  Polar  father  {viru) 
of  the  two  (vi)  colours  (chitra), 
reputed  father  of  the  Kauravyas  and 
Panda vas,  replaced  by  Vyasa  the 
constellation  Draco,  97,  195,  425 

Vid-arha^  the  double  four  {ar^)  name 
of  Central  India,  the  home  of  the 
eight  tribes  of  Gonds,  365,  366,  444 

Vinalia  on  the  23rd  of  April,  St. 
George's  Day,  325  {see  Falilia); 
as  a  mid -year  festival  on  the  19th 
August.  447,  448 

Vinafd,  tenth  wife  of  Kashyapa  and 
tenth  month  of  the  year  of  thirteen 
months,  517,  526,  562 

Virata,  sons  of  the  Viru  or  phallus, 
the  Polar  fire-drill ;  also  called  the 
Matsya,  sons  of  the  eel,  131,  151, 
182,  328 

VirbiuSj  a  form  of  Hippolytus  {whi^h 
see),  the  male  form  of  the  goddess 


Index. 


68 1 


Tana,  goddess  of  the  sacred  groves, 

34,  340 
Virj^Oy  star-mother  of  corn,  xxiv.,  28, 

180,  191,  316,  324,  325,  326,  327, 

341,  374.  375»  415.  455.  586.  See 
Chitra,  Min 

fTrw,  the  phallic-father-god,  42,  131, 
132,  182,  191 

V  l-sakhoy  Vaisakh  (April — May),  mid- 
month  of  the  Pleiades  year,  22,  23, 
64,  165,   174,  324,   326,  487,   525, 

526,  537,  538 

Vishnu,  the  year-god  of  the  village 
{vish)t  a  log  of  wood,  the  trunk  of 
the  parent -tree  measuring  time  by 
its  spring  leaves,  its  summer  flowers 
and  fruit,  and  its  winter  nakedness, 
31,  46,  67,  69,  70,  72, 158,  184,  349, 
350»  351,  360,  361,  362,  461,  528, 
590 

Vishva-mitra,  the  friend  (mi/ra)  of  the 
village  (vtsA)  races,  father  of  Sakun- 
tala,  the  little  bird,  the  cloud-bird 
of  the  Mallis  and  mother  of  the 
Bharatas.  He  was  the  priest -god  of 
the   Bharatas,  279,   280,  311,    502, 

587,  591,  594 
Vh/asva/f    Vivasimu^   the    two    lights 

morning  and  evening,  305,  598 
Vohu-FryanOy  second  of  the  five  Zend 

parent-fires,  that  of  the  Viru,  42,  131 
Volterra    beginning    its    year    at    the 

autumnal  equinox,  263 
Vriddka-kshatra,   the   Pole  Star  god, 

527,  529 

Vrisha-kapiy  the  original  rain  {vrisha) 

ape  {kapi)  mother,  35,  397,  546 
Vritra,  the  circling  (rn)  snake,  the 
original  guardian-snake  of  village 
matriarchal  theolot^y  slain  by  Indra, 
xxviii.,  100,  295,  349,  350,  352. 
367,  431,  501,  507.  See  Azi  Da- 
haka 
Vydsa,  Vyansa,  the  alligator  constel- 
lation Draco,  son  of  batya-vati,  the 
eel-mother-goddess  of  the  sons  of 
the  rivers  and  grandfather  of  the 
Kauravyas  and  Panda vas,  97,  184, 
I9i,36i»379,  580 

lyalnut-mother-iree  of  the  sun-god, 
461,  462 

Wether^  the  sexless  animal  sacrificed 
on  their  New  Year's  day,  by  the 
Sabsean  Mundaites  and  the  men  of 
the  eleven-months  year,  302,  405 

Wolf,  goddess  of  light  of  the  fire- 
worshippers,  185,  245,  282,  283, 
438.     See  Apollo  Lyceus 


Wood-pecker,  red-headed,  the  original 
sun-bird  which  became  the  red- 
capped  Goblin,  the  Irish  Lepre- 
chaun, guardian  of  treasure,  xxxviii., 
xxxix.,xl.,  549,  550 


Xanthus,  the  yellow  river  where  Apollo 
the  wolf-sun -god  and  Artemis  the 
Bear  mother  were  bom,  383,  391, 
438 

Xtsuthros,  tenth  king  of  Babylon, 
saved  from  the  Flood,  the  Star  Skat 
in  Aquarius,  414,  415,  636 


Yadcevas^  sons  of  Yadu,  the  full -moon 
(Yd)  god,  249,  391,  577,  578, 
588 

Yadu-Turvasu,  181,  249.  361,  584, 
585,  586,  612.     See  Turvasu 

Yajitsh-mati,  the  360  bricks  of  the 
brick-altar  laid  with  ritualistic  for- 
mulas, 609,  610 

Yakshus,  592,  593,  596 

Yanialoka,  the  third  of  the  historical 
heavens  of  Buddhist  theology,  that 
of  the  Twins  Gemini,  under  whose 
care,  as  the  twins  Su-yama,  the 
Buddha  was  bom  in  his  Mah-osadha 
birth  as  the  sun  physician  about 
10,200  B.C.,  463,  464,  473 

Yamuna^  the  Jumna  river  of  the  twins 
{yama),  191,  592,595  . 

Yatudhana,  the  wizard  Finns  of  Seis- 
tan,  79 

Yavcuiiya,  the  barley-sun -mare,  mother 
of  the  horse  of  Guga,  one  of  the 
Pive  Pirs,  337,  353 

Y&vafias,  sons  of  the  barley  [yava), 

249,  350»  362,  368,  592 

Yav-yilvati,  river  of  the  barley  (^tizw) 
granaries,  name  of  the  Jumna, 
211 

Yii^ya,  the  Mexican  corn-baby,  the 
idol  of  the  Sia  antelope-priests  re- 
newed every  four  years,  570 

Yayilti,  the  full-moon  ( Yd)  god,  son  of 
Nahusha,      181,     271,     365,     592, 

594 
Yd-ydvaiGi  full -moon  (Yd)  sect,  271, 

365 
Yeltaiu  Finn  races,  sons  of  turmeric, 

80,  308,  309,  465 
Ygg-drasii,  the  parent  ash-tree  of  the 

Edda,  xxii.,  29,  306,  309,  338 
K//;/«,   the   roaring  creating-gianl   of 

the  Edda  whose  hair  was  grass  and 

trees,  338,  342 


Y  y 


682 


Index, 


Yudishthira^     the     eldest     Pandava, 
born  under  Virgo  about  10,200  B.C., 

368,  373,  374,  375,  527,  579,  580, 
581 
Yupa^   the    three-pronged    sacrificial- 
stake    of    the    Takkas,    178,    271, 

633 
Yuyutsuy  the  Vaishya  king  succeeding 

the  Pandavas,  578 
ZarathusUa^  Zaotar,  the  inspired  pro- 


phet born  from  a  tree,  who  spoke 

the  language  of  birds,  26,  28,  262, 

2^ 
ZfuSf  originally  the  god  Tan  or  Dana, 

xxi.,  29,  32,  33 
Zeus  Lykaios  and  Laphystios^  to  whom 

human  sacrifices  were  offered,  245, 

246,  247,  248,  628 
Z»,    Akkadian    storm-bird,    form    of 

Khu,  XV.,  55 


1)rfnteb  b^e  5ame6  parlier  anb  Co.,  Crown  ]Bar^,  ^rfcrb. 


c 


Vv