_CHRONOLOGY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF TRADITION._
To many it may seem a fundamental objection that my theory supposes
a chronology altogether out of keeping with modern discovery; and I
fancy there is a somewhat general impression that modern science has an
historical basis, to which not even the Septuagint chronology can be
made to conform.
This really is not the case; but assuming it to be true, I must still
remark, that if facts of primeval tradition have been established, the
long lapse of ages will only enhance our notions of the persistency of
tradition; or if the lapse of ages is disproved, this conclusion will
be in recognition of a truth to which tradition testifies.
I shall now proceed to establish that the strictly historical
testimony, and the direct historical evidence, is strikingly concurrent
in favour of the scriptural chronology, allowing the margin of
difference between the Hebrew and LXX. versions.[48]
[48] "Aucune des trois chronologies bibliques, là ou elles ne
s'accordent pas entre elles, ne s'impose avec une autorite
suffisante soit au fidele, soit au savant. L'Eglise catholique
a laissé le choix libre entre ces chronologies et elles
n'oblige pas même à en adopter une."--_"Le Monde et L'Homme
Primitif selon la Bible," par Mgr. Meignan, Evêque de
Chalons-sur-Marne_, 1869.
With this view I shall successively examine the chronology of the
principal nations whose annals profess to go back to the commencement
of things--the Aryan (including the Indian, the Persian, the Greek, and
the Roman), the Babylonian, the Chinese, Phoenician, and Egyptian.
_Indian Chronology._--There was a time when the Indian (Aryan)
chronology was believed to attain to the most remote antiquity of all,
and this belief was sustained by the apparently irrefragable testimony
of astronomical evidence. Who upholds this evidence now? On this head
I must refer to Cardinal Wiseman's seventh lecture ("On Science and
Revealed Religion"), where the reader will find a clear and careful
_precis_ of the discussion on the subject between Bailly and Delambre,
the _Edinburgh Review_ and Bentley, to which I am not aware that
anything of consequence has to be added.
If, on the other hand, we turn to what I am exclusively directing
my attention--the strict historical investigation--we find that the
cautious inquiries of such men as Sir W. Jones and Heeren concur in
placing the Aryan invasion at the antecedently very probable date, from
the point of view of Scripture, of some 2000 years B.C.
At the present moment the discussion takes the form of philological
inquiry, and into the antiquity (upon internal evidence) of the ancient
Sanscrit literature. In so far, therefore, as it is philological,
it belongs to the indirect argument, which I am now excluding. In
so far as the Sanscrit literature is historical, I have discussed
the testimony which it brings in the preceding chapter. Professor
Rawlinson, however, in his recent "Manual of Ancient History," refuses
to discuss the question, as he does not regard the Maha-Bharata and
Ramayana as "trustworthy sources of history," and commences his
Persian history with the accession of Cyrus, previously to which he
does not consider the Aryan migration and settlement to have been
completed. Apart, then, from the peculiar line of argument to which
I shall presently refer, it would appear that the Indian chronology,
as reconstructed from history and tradition, falls easily within the
lines, not only of the LXX., but of the Hebrew version.
The Indians, it is true ("Hales' Chron.," i. 196), themselves say that
their history goes back 432,000,000 years. Although Hales gives a
solution which may be deemed satisfactory, I think that, if considered
in connection with the Babylonian computation, it will be seen that,
though inexact in their figure, they are accurate in their tradition.
_The primary figure in their (Indian) calculation_--432,000--_is
arrived at through the extended multiplication_ of the Chaldean sossos,
neros, and saros, _or of their own traditional figures_ corresponding
to them (_vide infra_).
In the Chaldean system (_vide_ Rawlinson, "Anc. Mon.," i.), 6 and 10
were employed as alternate multipliers. Thus a "soss" = 60 years (10
× 6), a "ner" = 600 (60 × 10), a "sar" = 3600 (600 × 6); and if the
multiplication be continued, the next figure would be 36,000 (3600 ×
10), next 216,000 (36,000 × 6). _The Indian figure 432,000,[49] is made
up of twice 216,000._
[49] 432,000 is also the figure to which Berosus extends the
Assyrian chronology. Thus the Indian fabrication commences at
the point where Berosus ends.
Professor Rawlinson ("Anc. Mon.," i. 192) gives in detail, and endorses
a remarkable _eclaircissement_ of M. Gutschmid on the mythical
traditions of Assyrian chronology.
_Babylonian Chronology._--Rawlinson says--
"Assuming that the division between the earlier and later Assyrian
dynasty synchronises with the celebrated era of Nabonassar (747
B.C.), which is probable, but not certain, and taking the year B.C.
538 as the admitted date of the conquest of the last Chaldæan king
by Cyrus, he obtains for the seventh or second Assyrian dynasty 122
years (747 to 625). Assuming, next, that B.C. 2234, from which the
Babylonians counted their stellar observations, must be a year of
note in Chaldæan history, and finding that it cannot well represent
the first year of the second or Median dynasty, since in that case
eleven kings of the third dynasty would have reigned no more than
thirty-four years, he concludes it must mark the expulsion of the
Medes and accession of the third dynasty (which he regards as a
native dynasty). From his previous calculations, it follows that
the fourth dynasty began B.C. 1976; between which and B.C. 2234
are 258 years, a period which may be fairly assigned to eleven
monarchs. This much is conjecture ... _the proof now suddenly
flashes on us_. If the numbers are taken in the way assigned, and
then added to the years of the first or purely mythical dynasty,
we get 36,000, equal to the next term, to the sar (saros, _vide
supra_), in the Babylonian system of cycles."
It will be more apparent in the following table from Rawlinson, _idem_--
|----------------------------------------------
| | Years. | B.C. |
|----------------------------|-----------------|
|Mythical 86 Chaldæans | 34,800 | |
| { 8 Medes | 224 | 2458 |
| {11 [Chaldæans] | (258) | 2234 |
| {49 Chaldæans | 458 | 1976 |
|Historical. { 9 Arab | 245 | 1518 |
| {45 [Assyrian] | 526 | 1273 |
| { 8 [Assyrian] | 122 | 747 |
| { 6 Chaldæans | 87 | 625 |
|----------------------------|----------|------|
| | 36,000 | |
|----------------------------|----------|------|
_Chinese Chronology._--The Chinese, also--though, be it observed,
the Chinese of modern date, according to Klaproth ("Mem. Relatifs. à
l'Asie," i. 405; Klaproth places the commencement of the uncertain
history of China 2637 B.C., the certain history 782 B.C.),[50] in
the first year of our era, but more systematically in the ninth
century--forged a mythological history, which carried the empire back
2,276,000 years (another calculation, 3,276,000). He adds, however,
that the Chinese themselves do not consider the Wai-ki, the authority
for these statements, to be historical.
[50] Bunsen ("Egypt," iii. 405) says, "Systematic Chinese
history and chronology hardly go back as far as the year
2000 B.C., _i.e._ to the reign of Yü (1991)." Yet
upon indirect philological conclusions, he would really
take their history back _beyond the_ Egyptian--iii. p. 379.
"An explanation must be given why it (the Chinese history)
commences at a later period (as above) than Egyptian
chronology; much _later_, indeed, than is generally supposed.
Search must be made in _other quarters than_ the regular
extant chronology for proofs of that _vast antiquity_, which
the numerous _records_ of language _compel_ us to assign to
the origines of the Chinese." This vast antiquity may be
measured by the fact that, _ex hypothesi_, it transcends the
Egyptian, and for the Egyptian in his theory of progress and
development, he requires _at least 20,000 years_ before the
Christian era.
Again, if we allow ourselves to be entangled in certain astronomical
disputations, the question may become complicated and confused; but the
astronomical discussion must depend, in the end, upon a point which
history must determine--_i.e._ whether the astronomical knowledge and
observations referred to had come down in primitive tradition, or had
been imported at a later date. Although it need not exclude a belief
in a tradition of primitive knowledge of astronomy, yet the doubt will
ever cause a fatal uncertainty in any calculations, since, if the
knowledge, or the knowledge of the particular observations and facts,
had at any time been imported, they might have calculated back their
eclipses, as has been proved to have been done in India.
Let us then, excluding the purely astronomical calculations, closely
scrutinise the evidence which tradition affords; for if we can discover
tradition of "appearances of rare occurrence, and which are difficult
to calculate, such as many of the planetary conjunctions," they "must,"
as Baron Bunsen observes ("Egypt," iii. p. 389), "either be pure
inventions, or contemporary notations of some extraordinary natural
phenomena." Baron Bunsen proceeds to say:--"One instance that may be
cited is the traditional observation of a conjunction of five planets
(among which the sun and moon are mentioned), on the first day of
Litshin, in the time of Tshuen-hiü, the _second successor of Hoang-ti_.
Suppose this should have been the great conjunction of the three upper
planets which recurs every 794 years and four months, and to which
Kepler first turned his attention in reference to the year of the
nativity of Christ. It took place in the following years.
The one which occurred in historical times was in November, seven years
B.C.; consequently the conjunctions prior to it occurred in--
Yrs. Mos. Dys.
794 4 12
7 10 12
---------------------
786 6 0
794 4 12
---------------------
1580 10 12
And the conjunction in 794 4 12
---------------------
The time of Tshuen-hiü in 2375 2 24
According to the official Chinese tables, as given by Ideler, he
reigned from 2513 B.C. to 2436 B.C.; but the dates vary to the extent
of more than 200 years, and the year 2375 comes within the limits of
these deviations."
Baron Bunsen, we may then assume, has very skilfully brought back
Chinese chronology to within _two generations of Hoang-ti (supra)_.
If we could further identify Hoang-ti with Noah, two patriarchal
generations would bring us close to the date of the Deluge as fixed
by the Septuagint, if we referred them, in the first instance, to the
death of Noah.
Before proceeding to this identification, I must point to another
chronological fact in Chinese tradition, which would give to this
identification an antecedent probability. It was stated (Bunsen,
"Egypt," iii. 383) that Hoang-ti established the _astronomical cycle of
60 years_ in the _sixty-first year_ of his _reign_.
At p. 387, Bunsen says: "The scientific problem thus offered for our
solution is the following--It is admitted that the Chinese, from the
_earliest times_, made use of a sexagesimal cycle for the division
of the year = 6 × 60 days (360 days), and they marked the years by a
cycle of 60 years, running concurrently with the cycle of days. This
cycle, therefore, must have been originally instituted at a time when
the first day of the daily cycle coincided with the first year of
the annual cycle, _i.e._ when they commenced on the same day. Ideler
thinks it impossible to ascertain this, owing to the irregularity of
the old calendar." We may ask, then, what year that could be named
would so exactly satisfy these conditions as the sixty-first year of
the reign of Noah after the Deluge?[51] Let us, moreover, consider how
traditional this cycle of sixty years has been (p. 386),--"Scaliger
made the remark that the twelve yearly zodiacal cycle, which is in
use among the Tartars (Mongols, Mandshus, Igurians), the inhabitants
of Thibet, the Japanese and Siamese dated from _the earliest times_.
Among the Tartaric populations, however, this is a cycle of sixty years
(12 × 5); of the Indians we have already spoken."
[51] Martini ("Historia Sinica," p. 14, edit. Monac.) asserts that
the Egyptians computed by the era of sixty years of _Hoangho_.
See De Vignolle's "Miscellanea Berolinensia," I. iv. 37, on
the cycle of months. Compare Ideler, App. ix., note from
Bunsen, iii. 385. Humboldt ("Vues des Cordillères", p. 149;
Prescott, Mex., i. 105) seems to say that, "among the Chinese,
Japanese, Moghols, Mantchous, and other families of the Tartar
race" (compare Mexican, do.), "their series was composed
of symbols of their five elements, and the twelve zodiacal
signs, making a cycle of sixty years duration." This is not
incompatible with, the allegation that it is "the era of sixty
years of Hoangho."
It will have already been seen that the cycle of sixty years entered
into the Chaldean system--viz. cycle of 60 years = a sossos, 600 years
= a saros, 3600 years = a neros.
"Now when we find (Bunsen, p. 387) that six hundred years _gives
an excess of exactly one lunar month, with far greater accuracy_
than the Julian year, such a cycle must have been indispensable
when that of sixty years was in use, and consequently must have
been employed by the Chinese, or, at all events, have been known to
those from whom they borrowed the latter. Josephus also calls six
hundred years the great year, which may have been observed by the
patriarch."
And at p. 407, in summing up the general chronological result, he
says:--
"_a._ ... The earliest Chinese chronology rests upon a conventional
basis peculiar to itself, that of limiting the lunar year by a
cycle of six hundred years, which is common to the whole of North
Asia and the Chaldeans; and probably (as it is also met with in
India) to the Bactrians also: this basis is _historical_." "_b._
The communication took place before the Chaldees invented the cycle
of six hundred years."
From our point of view, believing that the Chaldees never invented
the cycle but held to it traditionally, the above conclusion must
be construed to mean that the "communication," or diffusion of the
knowledge, must have taken place before the lapse of the first six
hundred years after the Deluge, which will be further confirmed by
conclusion _c._
"_c._ The Chinese observation is based upon the Babylonian gnomon,"
which appears to me tantamount to the admission that it took place, in
the plains of Mesopotamia, previous to the Dispersion.
In arriving, then, at the sixty-first year of the reign of Hoang-ti, we
are led up to such close proximity to the epoch of the Deluge, that
the presumption that Hoang-ti was Noah would be strong, even if no
other evidence was at hand to corroborate it.
It is with this supplementary evidence that I now propose to deal.
Although the tradition of the Chinese is remarkably accurate, up to a
certain point, yet in the period beyond that point, where the confusion
is manifest, there is no reason why we should not expect to find
the same reduplications and amalgamations of ante and post diluvian
traditions, which we have already found in the history of other nations.
Without attempting to unravel all complications, let us turn again to
Bunsen (iii. 382), and setting aside Pu-an-ku, the primeval man who
came out of the mundane egg and lived eighteen thousand years, and who
has resemblances with the Assyrian Ra and Ana, and the Egyptian Ra,
the son of Ptha (to whom thirty thousand are allotted, _vide infra_,
p. 97-100), and Sui-shin, "who discovered fire," and who is the
counterpart of Prometheus (_vide_ p. 180). Regarding
Pu-an-ku, the cosmical, and Sui-shin, as the mythical tradition of
Adam, we come to the historical tradition in the person of Fohi.
"I. Fohi the great, the brilliant (Tai-hao) cultivator of astronomy
and religion, as well as writing. He reigned one hundred and ten
years. Then came fifteen reigns. II. Shin-nong (divine husbandman);
institution of agriculture; the knowledge of simples applied as
the art of medicine." [Compare pp. 210-214, Saturn, Bacchus,
Æsculapius.] "III. Hoang-ti (great ruler) came to the throne in
consequence of an armed insurrection (new dynasty), and was obliged
to put down a revolt. _In his reign_ the magnetic needle was
discovered; _the smelting of copper for making weapons_;[52] vases
of high art, and money; improvement in the written character,
said to be borrowed from the lines on the tortoise-shell. It
consists of five hundred hieroglyphics, of which two hundred
can still be pointed out. He established fixed habitations
throughout his dominions, and the astronomical cycle of sixty
years _in the sixty-first year of his reign_ (_vide supra_, 61);
musical instruments. It was in his time also that the fabulous
bird Sin appeared. The empire was considerably extended to the
_southward_."--_Bunsen_, 382.
[52] This tradition would seem to confirm Bryant's ("Mythology,"
iii. 584) conjecture that Hoang-ti was Ham. But Hoang-ti as
Ham, may absorb and incorporate, as we have seen in other
instances, the history of his progenitors; and, moreover,
whether he is Noah or Ham, would scarcely affect the
chronological argument.
If we take Fohi as Adam, the fifteen reigns which follow will bear
analogy with "the fifteen generations of the Cynic cycle" (_vide_
Palmer i. p. 8, 23-37; also _vide infra_), and will correspond to
the thirteen generations, viz. the ten antediluvian, and the three
survivors (excluding Noah) of the Deluge in the Egyptian chronology
(_vide infra_). Shin-nong, "the divine husbandman,"
will be Noah, and Hoang-ti, Shem or Ham, or else the two will be
reduplicate traditions of Noah. Compare the attributions of Hoang-ti
with those of Hoa in the Assyrian tradition, p. 239. Certain statements
regarding him--_e.g._ that he suppressed an insurrection, accord
more nearly with epithets applied to Nin, the fish-god, whom I have
considered a duplicate of Hoa (p. 201), _e.g._ "the destroyer of
enemies,"--"the reducer of the disobedient,"--"the exterminator of
rebels." Compare with the Phoenician tradition, p. 211, of Saturn
causing the destruction of his son Sadid by the Deluge. The appearance
of the fabulous bird Sin, seems a reminiscence of the birds sent out of
the ark, which is so frequent in tradition. Compare the mystery bird
(the dove) in the Mandan ceremonies,--the worship of the pigeon in
Cashmere,[53] &c. Other coincidences might be pointed if space allowed.
[53] On the worship of the pigeon in Cashmere, _vide_ "Travels in
Kashmir," by G. G. Vigne, Esq., F.G.S., ii. p. 11, 13. 1844.
But analogous to the double tradition of the Deluge in Assyria in the
persons of Hoa and Nin; and, again, by a distinct channel of tradition
in Xisuthrus (_vide_ pp. 208, 209), as in China, there seems to have
been a similar reduplication in China in their kings Hoang-ti and Yao
or Yu.[54]
[54] The reduplication may have occurred in this way. Hoang-ti
being Noah, Yao or Yu may have been his descendant under whom
they settled in China at the termination of their migration.
This is confirmed by Bunsen's view, iii. 405 (iv. and v.)
In which case it would not be at all unnatural to suppose
that the traditions appertaining to the remote progenitor,
would in time settle down upon the head of the actual
founder. Chevalier de Paravey (_vide_ Gainet, i. 93), "a
trouvé un hieroglyphe chinois qui nomme la femme de Hoang-ti
'Adamon' terre jaune, et si non signifie celle qui entraîne
les autres dans son propre mal." This would merely be the
confusion between Noah and Adam which we have seen to occur
in almost every instance. Is not the Japanese god Amida =
Adima, or perhaps to Adamon--_i.e._, confused in relationship
to Hoang-ti or Noah? what confirms the impression is, that
Adima's son is Canon. Query, Chanaan.
Now under this Yao or Yu, according to Chinese tradition (preserved,
moreover, in the inscription of Yu), there happened the Deluge, or a
Deluge. But as there is a confusion between Hoang-ti and Yao, so there
is between Yao and Yu. Bunsen, however, admits these latter to be
identical.
But although Bunsen asserts the authenticity of the inscription (as
also does Klaproth), he utterly scouts the idea that it is a tradition
of the Deluge, and maintains that it is itself evidence of a local
inundation. Let us see.
"All the confusion or ignorance," says Bunsen (398), "of the
missionaries [in this matter], arises from their believing that this
event referred to the Flood of Noah, which never reached this country."
And (p. 406), he says the inundation in the reign of Yao had just as
much to do with Noah's flood as the dams he created, and the canals he
dug, had to do with the ark. This is said with reference to the "short
Chinese account of it published by Klaproth," viz.--
"In the sixty-first year of the reign of the Emperor Yao, serious
mischief was caused by inundations. The emperor took counsel
with the great men of the empire, who advised him to employ Kuen
to drain off the water. Kuen was engaged upon it for nine years
without success, and was condemned to be imprisoned for life. His
son Yu was appointed in his stead. At the end of nineteen years
he succeeded in stopping the inundation, and made a report to the
emperor upon the subject."
Let us turn, however, from this later gloss to the inscription itself,
translated by Bunsen, p. 399--
"The Emperor said, 'Oh thou Governor of the four mountains of the
Empire!
The swelling flood is producing mischief;
It spreads itself far and wide;
It surrounds the hills, it overflows the dams;
Rushing impetuously along it rises up to Heaven:
The common people complain and sigh.'"
--_Vide supra_, p. 396.
"The venerable Emperor exclaimed with a sigh, 'Ho assistant
Counsellor! the islands great and small up to the _mountain's top_;
The door of _the birds_ and of beasts, all is overflowed together--
Is swamped: be it thy care to open the way, to let off the water.'"
He then says:--
"My task is completed; my _sacrifice_ I have offered in the second
month, trouble is at an end, the dark destiny is changed; the
_streams_ of the south flow down to the sea; garments are prepared;
food is provided; _all the nations_ have rest; the people enjoy
themselves with gambols and dancing."--(Compare Commemorative
Festivals, _infra_, p. 249).
I should have thought that all these phrases pointed much more to a
universal Deluge than to a local inundation. But Bunsen says (398)--
"The fact is fully proved both by the inscription and the work
of Yu itself. The inscription was on the _top_ of the mountain,
Yu-lu-fun, in the district of Shen-shu-lu. Owing to its having
become illegible in early times, it was removed to _the top_
of an adjoining mountain." ... "The former _locality_ tallies
exactly with the very interesting description of the empire in
the time of Yu, which we find at the opening of the second book
of the Shuking." And Bunsen concludes, "It may be presumed after
this verification, that in future nobody will seriously doubt the
strictly epic description of the Shuking in the Canon of Yu," as
above.
So far from being impressed by the discovery of the monument on the
top of the local mountain, as evidence of the local deluge, I can
see in it only a memorial of the universal Deluge localised; and I
cannot help considering it in connection with the worship of the tops
of mountains, of which we shall find traces elsewhere (p. 244-46).
Surely Baron Bunsen proves too much, and describes to us a deluge which
must have been on the scale of the universal Deluge for all countries
below the level of the mountain Yu-lu-fun. But, let it be said, that
this description, so accordant with the description of the flood, was
merely Chinese exaggeration. I here wish to point out two curious
coincidences. What if we shall find works similar of those to Yao or
Yu, ascribed to the original founders in Egypt and Cashmere? As in the
first instance, I shall have to quote from Baron Bunsen himself, I am
surprised that the coincidence should have escaped his observation.
"This is the account given of Menes [the first king of Egypt] by
Herodotus--Menes, the first king of Egypt, as the priests informed
me, protected Memphis by a dam against the river which ran towards
the sandy chain of the Libyan Mountains. About 100 stadia above
Memphis, he made an embankment against the bend of the river,
which is on the south side. The effect of this was to dry up its
ancient bed, as well as to force the stream between the two chains
of mountains. This bend of the Nile, which is confined within the
embankment walls, was very carefully attended to by the Persians,
and repaired every year. For, if the river were to burst through
its banks and overflow at this point, all Memphis would be in
danger of being swamped. Menes, _the oldest of their kings_, having
thus drained the tract of land by means of the dyke, built upon
it the city now called Memphis, which lies in the mountain valley
of Egypt. To the west and north he dug a lake round it, which
communicates with the river--on the east it is bounded by the
Nile--and afterwards erected in it a temple to Vulcan, a splendid
edifice, deserving of especial notice" (ii. 48).
Bunsen fully endorses this account--"Herodotus, therefore, has
recorded the following fact, that before the time of Menes the Nile
overflowed the tract of country which he fixed upon as the site of his
new metropolis" (p. 49 and p. 51). "There is no foundation whatever
for Andriossy's hypothesis that the story originated in the fact of
the Nile having once run westward from the Pyramid mountains to Bahr
Bela Ma (stream without water) and the Natron and Mareotic Lakes.
Herodotus mentions an historical fact, and describes the work of an
historical king. Andriossy's hypothesis, if well founded, would belong
to geology." A sagacious and well-founded remark on the part of Baron
Bunsen, but, as I submit, equally applicable to the work of Yao or Yu.
Merely noting that, if the above work was really carried out by Menes,
and it would have been, from the point of view of Genesis, so carried
out at a period contemporary with that of Yao or Yu--and, moreover,
conceding to it in any case (I mean the work of Menes) a certain
historical basis--let us dispassionately compare both with the passage
from Klaproth, which I shall now extract. It is taken from the Sanscrit
History of Cashmere.[55]
[55] Klaproth says:--"The only Sanscrit history deserving the name
of the chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, Radja Paringin'i,
translated by W. H. Wilson."--_Klaproth, Mem. Relatif à
L'Asie_.
Klaproth says:--
"The _Hindoo_ history of Kashmir assures us that the beautiful
valley which forms this kingdom was originally a vast lake, called
Satisaras. This account is also agreeable to the _local traditions_
of this country. It was Kasy'apa, _a holy person_ who, according
to the Hindoo historians, caused the waters which covered this
valley to escape. He was the son of _Marichi_, the son of Brahma.
The Mahometan writers call him Kachef or Kacheb, and many of them
pretend that he was a god, or a genius, and servant of Soliman,
_under whose orders he effected_ the drying up of Kashmir. To
execute _this task_ he made, near Baramanleh, _a passage across
the mountains_, through which the water passed.... The territory,
recovered in this way by Kasy'apa, _was also peopled_ by this holy
man, with the assistance of the superior gods, whom he brought for
this purpose from heaven, _at the commencement_ of the seventh
manwantara, or that in which we are now." Klaproth adds:--"We must
therefore suppose that Kashmir has been subjected to the same
periodical revolutions as the other parts of the world, if we would
reconcile this date with the ordinary chronology."[56]
[56] Compare the following account of existing customs in
Cashmir with the above extract from Klaproth and ch. xi.,
with commemorative festivals of the Deluge. Mr G. G. Vigne
("Travels in Kashmir," ii. 93) says:--"What has been
poetically termed the feast of roses, has of late years been
rather the feast of signaras or _water_-nuts. It is held, I
believe, about the 1st May, when plum-trees and roses are in
full bloom, and is called the Shakergal, from the Persian
shakergan, to blow a blossom [the Mandan ceremony took place
when the willow flowered.--Catlin, p. 6]. The richer classes
come in _boats_ to the foot of the Tukt, ascend it, and
have a feast upon _the summit_, eating more particularly of
signaras (_water_-nuts). The feast of the No-warh (new place)
takes place at the vernal equinox [compare Noah, Taurus], at
_which period_ the _valley is said to have been drained_. It
is held chiefly at the _But_ or idol stone on Hari par_but_."
Query--Can this be "the ark or big canoe" in the Mandan
celebration? Considering the prominence of boats in all these
mysteries, and considering the resemblance of but to boat, and
the like analogies in so many languages (Sanskrit, pota = boat)
(_vide_ Vicomte d'Anselme, _infra_, p. 196), may we be
permitted the conjecture until corrected. Compare also p. 268,
Ogilby's "Japan," Cook. &c., p. 271.
It must, I think, be conceded that we have now before us three very
similar accounts of works undertaken with reference to the reclamation
of inundated land. All are undertaken by the first founders of their
respective kingdoms--kingdoms widely separated and inhabited by
people of diverse race--and all, more or less, contemporaneously.
The Egyptians and Kashmerian have points in common as to their mode
of reclamation, whilst the Chinese and Kashmerian have still more in
common with the narrative in Genesis.[57]
[57] I have since found this identical tradition (_vide_ p. 325)
among the Mozca Indians. "Boshicha," it is said, "taught
them _to build and to sow_, formed them _into communities_,
GAVE AN OUTLET TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKE, &c." This
seems demonstratively to prove, either that the Mozca Indians
(South America) came from China, India, or Egypt--which I have
contended for at p. 266--or else, which makes the argument
I have in hand stronger, they have transmitted an identical
tradition by a different channel.
Four solutions occur to me as possible. Either they were obscure or
perverted traditions of the Deluge, or their works were traditions of
similar works effected by Noah after the Deluge; or these works were
actually carried out upon the precedent and model of similar works
effected by Noah; or they were fortuitous coincidences.
Upon either of the three former conclusions, it will be shown that
traditions of the Deluge, direct or indirect, exist both in Egypt and
China, where it has been so confidently asserted that no tradition
is to be found; and in the latter case, what is more especially to
my purpose, a tradition which brings Yao into relation with Noah and
Hoang-ti.
In conclusion, I must remark that when it is urged that there is no
tradition, or but slight tradition, of the flood in Egypt, we have a
right to reply that there is no country where we should have so little
reason to expect it. If there is any country where we should think
it likely that the reminiscences of the Deluge would be effaced, it
would be in a country periodically subject to inundations, where the
people are annually made familiar with its incidents, and where its
recurrence is not to them a cause of alarm, but a matter of expectation
and joy.[58]
[58] "The Chinese _who migrated before the Deluge (sic)_ have no
reminiscences, any more than the Egyptians, of the great
catastrophe which we know by the name of the Flood of Noah"
(Bunsen's "Egypt," iii. 397). Palmer ("Egypt. Chron.," i. p.
38) says, with reference to a certain date--"This is only for
such as know the true date of the flood, the end of the old
world--an epoch by no means to be named, nor even directly
alluded to, by any Egyptian."