EARLY HINDU DIVINITIES COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER ARYANS.
Nothing is more usual than to attempt a reconstruction of Aryan ideas
in manners, customs, laws, and religious conceptions, by placing side
by side similar traits of individual Aryan nations, and stating or
insinuating that the result of the comparison shows that one is
handling primitive characteristics of the whole Aryan body. It is of
special importance, therefore, to see in how far the views and
practices of peoples not Aryan may be found to be identical with those
of Aryans. The division of the army into clans, as in the Iliad and
the Veda; the love of gambling, as shown by Greeks, Teutons, and
Hindus; the separation of captains and princes, as is illustrated by
Teuton and Hindu; the belief in a flood, common to Iranian, Greek, and
Hindu; in the place of departed spirits, with the journey over a river
(Iranian, Hindu, Scandinavian, Greek); in the after-felicity of
warriors who die on the field of battle (Scandinavian, Greek, and
Hindu); in the reverence paid to the wind-god (Hindu, Iranian, and
Teutonic, V[=a]ta-Wotan); these and many other traits at different
times, by various writers, have been united and compared to illustrate
primitive Aryan belief and religion.
The traits of the Five Nations of the Veda for this reason may be
compared very advantageously with the traits of the Five Nations of
the Iroquois Indians, the most united and intelligent of American
native tribes. Their institutions are not yet extinct, and they have
been described by missionaries of the 17th century and by some modern
writers, to whom can be imputed no hankering after Aryan primitive
ideas.[1] It is but a few years back since the last _avat[=a]r_ of the
Iroquois' incarnate god lived in Onondaga, N.Y.
First, as an illustration of the extraordinary development of memory
among rhapsodes, Vedic students, and other Aryans; among the Iroquois
"memory was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary
degree," says Parkman, who adds that they could repeat point by point
with precision any address made to them.[2] Murder was compromised for
by _Wehrgeld_, as among the Vedic, Iranic, and Teutonic peoples. The
Iroquois, like all Indians, was a great gambler, staking all his
property[3] (like the Teutons and Hindus). In religion "A mysterious
and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things ... Lakes, rivers,
and waterfalls [as conspicuously in India] are sometimes the
dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves
living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[4] The
greatest spirit among the Algonquins is the descendant of the moon,
and son of the west-wind (personified). After the deluge (thus the
Hindus, etc.) this great spirit (Manabozho, _mana_ is Manu?) restored
the world; some asserting that he created the world out of water. But
others say that the supreme spirit is the sun (Le Jeune, Relation,
1633). The Algonquins, besides a belief in a good spirit (_manitou_),
had also a belief in a malignant _manitou_, in whom the missionaries
recognized the devil (why not Ormuzd and Ahriman?). One tribe invokes
the 'Maker of Heaven,' the 'god of waters,' and also the 'seven
spirits of the wind' (so, too, seven is a holy number in the Veda,
etc.).
The Iroquois, like the Hindu (later), believe that the earth rests on
the back of a turtle or tortoise[5], and that this is ruled over by
the sun and moon, the first being a good spirit; the second,
malignant. The good spirit interposes between the malice of the moon
and mankind, and it is he who makes rivers; for when the earth was
parched, all the water being held back from earth under the armpit of
a monster frog, he pierced the armpit and let out the water (exactly
as Indra lets out the water held back by the demon). According to
some, this great spirit created mankind, but in the third generation a
deluge destroyed his posterity[6]. The good spirit among the Iroquois
is the one that gives good luck (perhaps Bhaga). These Indians believe
in the immortality of the soul. Skillful hunters, brave warriors, go,
after death, to the happy hunting-grounds (as in India and
Scandinavia); the cowardly and weak are doomed to live in dreary
regions of mist and darkness (compare Niflheim and the Iranian
eschatology?). To pass over other religious correspondences, the
sacrifice of animals, use of amulets, love-charms, magic, and sorcery,
which are all like those of Aryans (to compare, also, are the burying
or exposing of the dead and the Hurons' funeral games), let one take
this as a good illustration of the value of 'comparative Aryan
mythology':
According to the Aryan belief the soul of the dead passes over a
stream, across a bridge, past a dog or two, which guard the gate of
paradise. The Hindu, Iranian, Greek, and Scandinavian, all have the
dog, and much emphasis has been laid on the 'Aryan' character of this
creed. The native Iroquois Indians believed that "the spirits on their
journey (to heaven) were beset with difficulties and perils. There was
a swift river to be crossed on a log that shook beneath the feet,
while a ferocious dog opposed their passage[7]." Here is the Persians'
narrow bridge, and even Kerberos himself!
It is also interesting to note that, as the Hindus identify with the
sun so many of their great gods, so the Iroquois "sacrifices to some
superior spirit, or to the sun, with which the superior spirits were
constantly confounded by the primitive Indian[8]."
Weber holds that because Greek and Hindu gave the name 'bear' to a
constellation, therefore this is the "primitive Indo-Germanic name of
the star[9]." But the Massachusetts Indians "gave their own name for
bear to the Ursa major" (Williams' 'Key,' cited Palfrey, I. p. 36; so
Lafitau, further west).
Again, three, seven, and even 'thrice-seven,' are holy not only in
India but in America.
In this new world are found, to go further, the analogues of Varuna in
the monotheistic god Viracocha of the Peruvians, to whom is addressed
this prayer: "Cause of all things! ever present, helper, creator, ever
near, ever fortunate one! Thou incorporeal one above the sun,
infinite, and beneficent[10]"; of the Vedic Snake of the Deep, in the
Mexican Cloud-serpent; of the Vedic Lightning-bird, who brings fire
from heaven, in the Indian Thunder-bird, who brings fire from
heaven[11]; of the preservation of one individual from a flood (in the
epic, Manu's 'Seven Seers') in the same American myth, even including
the holy mountain, which is still shown[12]; of the belief that the
sun is the home of departed spirits, in the same belief all over
America;[13] of the belief that stars are the souls of the dead, in
the same belief held by the Pampas;[14] and even of the late Brahmanic
custom of sacrificing the widow (suttee), in the practice of the
Natchez Indians, and in Guatemala, of burning the widow on the pyre of
the dead husband.[15] The storm wind (Odin) as highest god is found
among the Choctaws; while 'Master of Breath' is the Creeks' name for
this divinity. Huraka (hurricane, ouragon, ourage) is the chief god in
Hayti.[16] An exact parallel to the vague idea of hell at the close of
the Vedic period, with the gradual increase of the idea, alternating
with a theory of reincarnation, may be found in the fact that, in
general, there is no notion of punishment after death among the
Indians of the New World; but that, while the good are assisted and
cared for after death by the 'Master of Breath,' the Creeks believe
that the liar, the coward, and the niggard (Vedic sinners _par
excellence!_) are left to shift for themselves in darkness; whereas
the Aztecs believed in a hell surrounded by the water called 'Nine
Rivers,' guarded by a dog and a dragon; and the great Eastern American
tribes believe that after the soul has been for a while in heaven it
can, if it chooses, return to earth and be born again as a man,
utilizing its old bones (which are, therefore, carefully preserved by
the surviving members of the family) as a basis for a new body.[17]
To turn to another foreign religion, how tempting would it be to see
in Nutar the 'abstract power' of the Egyptian, an analogue of _brahma_
and the other 'power' abstractions of India; to recognize Brahm[=a] in
El; and in Nu, sky, and expanse of waters, to see Varuna; especially
when one compares the boat-journey of the Vedic seer with R[=a]'s boat
in Egypt. Or, again, in the twin children of R[=a] to see the Açvins;
and to associate the mundane egg of the Egyptians with that of the
Brahmans.[18] Certainly, had the Egyptians been one of the Aryan
families, all these conceptions had been referred long ago to the
category of 'primitive Aryan ideas.' But how primitive is a certain
religious idea will not be shown by simple comparison of Aryan
parallels. It will appear more often that it is not 'primitive,' but,
so to speak, per-primitive, aboriginal with no one race, but with the
race of man. When we come to describe the religions of the wild tribes
of India it will be seen that among them also are found traits common,
on the one hand, to the Hindu, and on the other to the wild tribes of
America. With this warning in mind one may inquire at last in how far
a conservative judgment can find among the Aryans themselves an
identity of original conception in the different forms of divinities
and religious rites. Foremost stand the universal chrematheism,
worship of inanimate objects regarded as usefully divine, and the cult
of the departed dead. This latter is almost universal, perhaps
pan-Aryan, and Weber is probably right in assuming that the primitive
Aryans believed in a future life. But Benfey's identification of
Tartaras with the Sanskrit Tal[=a]tala, the name of a special hell in
very late systems of cosmogony, is decidedly without the bearing he
would put upon it. The Sanskrit word may be taken directly from the
Greek, but of an Aryan source for both there is not the remotest
historical probability.
When, however, one comes to the Lord of the Dead he finds himself
already in a narrower circle. Yama is the Persian Yima, and the name
of Kerberos may have been once an adjective applied to the dog that
guarded the path to paradise; but other particular conceptions that
gather about each god point only to a period of Indo-Iranian unity.
Of the great nature-gods the sun is more than Aryan, but doubtless was
Aryan, for S[=u]rya is Helios, but Savitar is a development especially
Indian. Dy[=a]ús-pitar is Zeús-pater, Jupiter.[19] Trita, scarcely
Triton, is the Persian Thraetaona who conquers Vritra, as does Indra
in India. The last, on the other hand, is to be referred only
hesitatingly to the demon A[=n]dra of the Avesta. Varuna, despite
phonetic difficulties, probably is Ouranos; but Asura (Asen?) is a
title of many gods in India's first period, while the corresponding
Ahura is restricted to the good spirit, [Greek: kat hexochên]. The
seven [=A]dityas are reflected in the _Amesha Çpentas_ of Zoroastrian
Puritanism, but these are mere imitations, spiritualized and moralized
into abstractions. Bhaga is Slavic Bogu and Persian Bagha; Mitra is
Persian Mithra. The Açvins are all but in name the Greek gods
Dioskouroi, and correspond closely in detail (riding on horses,
healing and helping, originally twins of twilight). Tacitus gives a
parallel Teutonic pair (Germ. 43). Ushas, on the other hand, while
etymologically corresponding to Aurora, Eos, is a specially Indian
development, as Eos has no cult. V[=a]ta, Wind, is an aboriginal god,
and may perhaps be Wotan, Odin.[20] Parjanya, the rain-god, as Bühler
has shown, is one with Lithuanian Perkúna, and with the northern
Fiögyu. The 'fashioner,' Tvashtar (sun) is only Indo-Iranian;
Thw[=a]sha probably being the same word.
Of lesser mights, Angiras, name of fire, may be Persian _angaros_,
'fire-messenger' (compare [Greek: haggelos]), perhaps originally one
with Sk. _ang[=a]ra_, 'coal.'[21] Hebe has been identified with
_yavy[=a]_, young woman, but this word is enough to show that Hebe has
naught to do with the Indian pantheon. The Gandharva, moon, is
certainly one with the Persian Gandarewa, but can hardly be identical
with the Centaur. Saram[=a] seems to have, together with S[=a]rameya,
a Grecian parallel development in Helena (a goddess in Sparta),
Selene, Hermes; and Sarany[=u] may be the same with Erinnys, but these
are not Aryan figures in the form of their respective developments,
though they appear to be so in origin. It is scarcely possible that
Earth is an Aryan deity with a cult, though different Aryan (and
un-Aryan) nations regarded her as divine. The Maruts are especially
Indian and have no primitive identity as gods with Mars, though the
names may be radically connected. The fire-priests, Bhrigus, are
supposed to be one with the [Greek: phlegixu]. The fact that the fate
of each in later myth is to visit hell would presuppose, however, an
Aryan notion of a torture-hell, of which the Rig Veda has no
conception. The Aryan identity of the two myths is thereby made
uncertain, if not implausible. The special development in India of the
fire-priest that brings down fire from heaven, when compared with the
personification of the 'twirler' (Promantheus) in Greece, shows that
no detailed myth was current in primitive times.[22] The name of the
fire-priest, _brahman_ = fla(g)men(?), is an indication of the
primitive fire-cult in antithesis to the _soma_-cult, which latter
belongs to the narrower circle of the Hindus and Persians. Here,
however, in the identity of names for sacrifice (_yajna, yaçna_) and
of _barhis_, the sacrificial straw, of _soma = haoma_, together with
many other liturgical similarities, as in the case of the metres, one
must recognize a fully developed _soma_-cult prior to the separation
of the Hindus and Iranians.
Of demigods of evil type the _Y[=a]tus_ are both Hindu and Iranian,
but the priest-names of the one religion are evil names in the other,
as the _devas_, gods, of one are the _daevas_, demons, of the
other.[23] There are no other identifications that seem at
all certain in the strict province of religion, although in myth the
form of Manus, who is the Hindu Noah, has been associated with
Teutonic Mannus, and Greek Minos, noted in Thucydides for his
sea-faring. He is to Yama (later regarded as his brother) as is Noah
to Adam.
We do not lay stress on lack of equation in proper names, but, as
Schrader shows (p. 596 ff.), very few comparisons on this line have a
solid phonetic foundation. Minos, Manu; Ouranos, Varuna; Wotan,
V[=a]ta, are dubious; and some equate flamen with blôtan, sacrifice.
Other wider or narrower comparisons, such as Neptunus from _náp[=a]t
ap[=a]m,_ seem to us too daring to be believed. Apollo (_sapary_),
Aphrodite (Apsaras), Artamis (non-existent _[r.]tam[=a]l_), P[=a]n
(_pavana_), have been cleverly compared, but the identity of forms has
scarcely been proved. Nor is it important for the comparative
mythologist that Okeanus is 'lying around' (_[=a]çáy[=a]na_). More
than that is necessary to connect Ocean mythologically with the demon
that surrounds (swallows) the waters of the sky. The Vedic parallel is
rather Ras[=a], the far-off great 'stream.' It is rarely that one
finds Aryan equivalents in the land of fairies and fays. Yet are the
Hindu clever artizan Ribhus[24] our 'elves,' who, even to this day,
are distinct from fairies in their dexterity and cleverness, as every
wise child knows.
But animism, as simple spiritism, fetishism, perhaps ancestor-worship,
and polytheism, with the polydaemonism that may be called
chrematheism, exists from the beginning of the religious history,
undisturbed by the proximity of theism, pantheism, or atheism; exactly
as to-day in the Occident, beside theism and atheism, exist spiritism
and fetishism (with their inherent magic), and even ancestor-worship,
as implied by the reputed after-effect of parental curses.
When the circle is narrowed to that of the Indo-Iranian connection the
similarity in religion between the Veda and Avesta becomes much more
striking than in any other group, as has been shown. It is here that
the greatest discrepancy in opinion obtains among modern scholars.
Some are inclined to refer all that smacks of Persia to a remote
period of Indo-Iranian unity, and, in consequence, to connect all
tokens of contact with the west with far-away regions out of India. It
is scarcely possible that such can be the case. But, on the other
hand, it is unhistorical to connect, as do some scholars, the worship
of _soma_ and Varuna with a remote period of unity, and then with a
jump to admit a close connection between Veda and Avesta in the Vedic
period. The Vedic Aryans appear to have lived, so to speak, hand in
glove with the Iranians for a period long enough for the latter to
share in that advance of Varuna-worship from polytheism to
quasi-monotheism which is seen in the Rig Veda. This worship of Varuna
as a superior god, with his former equals ranged under him in a group,
chiefly obtains in that family (be it of priest or tribe, or be the
two essentially one from a religious point of view) which has least to
do with pure _soma_-worship, the inherited Indo-Iranian cult; and the
Persian Ahura, with the six spiritualized equivalents of the old Vedic
[=A]dityas, can have come into existence only as a direct
transformation of the latter cult, which in turn is later than the
cult that developed in one direction as chief of gods a Zeus; in
another, a Bhaga; in a third, an Odin. On the other hand, in the
gradual change in India of Iranic gods to devils, _asuras_, there is
an exact counterpart to the Iranian change of meaning from _deva_ to
_daeva_. But if this be the connection, it is impossible to assume a
long break between India and the west, and then such a sudden tie as
is indicated by the allusions in the Rig Veda to the Persians and
other western lands. The most reasonable view, therefore, appears to
be that the Vedic and Iranian Aryans were for a long time in contact,
that the contact began to cease as the two peoples separated to east
and west, but that after the two peoples separated communication was
sporadically kept up between them by individuals in the way of trade
or otherwise. This explains the still surviving relationship as it is
found in later hymns and in thank-offerings apparently involving
Iranian personages.
They that believe in a monotheistic Varuna-cult preceding the Vedic
polytheism must then ignore the following facts: The Slavic equivalent
of Bhaga and the Teutonic equivalent of V[=a]ta are to these
respective peoples their highest gods. They had no Varuna. Moreover,
there is not the slightest proof that Ouranos in Greece[25] was ever a
god worshipped as a great god before Zeus, nor is there any
probability that to the Hindu Dyaus Pitar was ever a great god, in the
sense that he ever had a special cult as supreme deity. He is
physically great, and physically he is father, as is Earth mother, but
he is religiously great only in the Hellenic-Italic circle, where
exists no Uranos-cult[26]. Rather is it apparent that the Greek raised
Zeus, as did the Slav Bhaga, to his first head of the pantheon. Now
when one sees that in the Vedic period Varuna is the type of
[=A]dityas, to which belong Bhaga and Mitra as distinctly less
important personages, it is plain that this can mean only that Varuna
has gradually been exalted to his position at the expense of the other
gods. Nor is there perfect uniformity between Persian and Hindu
conceptions. Asura in the Veda is not applied to Varuna alone. But in
the Avesta, Ahura is the one great spirit, and his six spirits are
plainly a protestant copy and modification of Varuna and his six
underlings. This, then, can mean--which stands in concordance with the
other parallels between the two religions--only that Zarathustra
borrows the Ahura idea from the Vedic Aryans at a time when Varuna was
become superior to the other gods, and when the Vedic cult is
established in its second phase[27]. To this fact points also the
evidence that shows how near together geographically were once the
Hindus and Persians. Whether one puts the place of separation at the
Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference. The
Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun. They
spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.
Of von Bradke's attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said
nothing, because the attempt has failed signally. He imagines that the
epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that
from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while
the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura;
whereas it is quite certain that Varuna (Asura) grew up, out, and over
the other Asuras, his former equals.
And yet it is almost a pity to spend time to demonstrate that
Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally. We gladly admit that,
even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that
belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature. And, for a worship
so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed
conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans
mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside
the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside
a man. The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in
grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but
hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic
seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.
In regard to eschatology, as in regard to myths, it has been shown
that the utmost caution in identification is called for. It may be
surmised that such or such a belief or legend is in origin one with a
like faith or tale of other peoples. But the question whether it be
one in historical origin or in universal mythopoetic fancy, and this
latter be the only common origin, must remain in almost every case
unanswered[28]. This is by far not so entertaining, nor so picturesque
a solution as is the explanation of a common historical basis for any
two legends, with its inspiring 'open sesame' to the door of the
locked past. But which is truer? Which accords more with the facts as
they are collected from a wider field? As man in the process of
development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for
himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths
that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when
names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly
similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a
probable community of origin.
But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as
devils were due to Iranian influence--which can neither be proved nor
disproved--the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main
features is of a purely native character.
As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded
the worship of _soma_ of nature-gods that are in part already more
than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral
law and a belief in a life hereafter. There is also a vaguer nascent
belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed
for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most
wonder-working of the wonder-working gods, who made heaven and
earth'(as above). The corresponding Power is Cerus in Cerus-Creator
(Kronos?), although when a name is given, the Maker, Dh[=a]tar, is
employed; while Tvashtar, the artificer, is more an epithet of the sun
than of the unknown creator. The personification of Dh[=a]tar as
creator of the sun, etc., belongs to later Vedic times, and foreruns
the Father-god of the last Vedic period. Not till the classical age
(below) is found a formal identification of the Vedic nature-gods with
the departed Fathers (Manes). Indra, for example, is invoked in the
Rig Veda to 'be a friend, be a father, be more fatherly than the
fathers';[29] but this implies no patristic side in Indra, who is
called in the same hymn (vs. 4) the son of Dyaus (his father); and
Dyaus Pitar no more implies, as say some sciolists, that Dyaus was
regarded as a human ancestor than does 'Mother Earth' imply a belief
that Earth is the ghost of a dead woman.
In the Veda there is a nature-religion and an ancestor-religion. These
approach, but do not unite; they are felt as sundered beliefs.
Sun-myths, though by some denied _in toto_, appear plainly in the
Vedic hymns. Dead heroes may be gods, but gods, too, are natural
phenomena, and, again, they are abstractions. He that denies any one
of these sources of godhead is ignorant of India.
Müller, in his _Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, has divided Vedic
literature into four periods, that of _chandas_, songs; _mantras_,
texts; _br[=a]hmanas;_ and _s[=u]tras_. The _mantras_ are in
distinction from _chandas_, the later hymns to the earlier gods.[30]
The latter distinction can, however, be established only on subjective
grounds, and, though generally unimpeachable, is sometimes liable to
reversion. Thus, Müller looks upon RV. VIII. 30 as 'simple and
primitive,' while others see in this hymn a late _mantra_. Between the
Rig Veda and the Br[=a]hmanas, which are in prose, lies a period
filled out in part by the present form of the Atharva Veda, which, as
has been shown, is a Veda of the low cult that is almost ignored by
the Rig Veda, while it contains at the same time much that is later
than the Rig Veda, and consists of old and new together in a manner
entirely conformable to the state of every other Hindu work of early
times. After this epoch there is found in the liturgical period, into
which extend the later portions of the Rig Veda (noticeably parts of
the first, fourth, eighth, and tenth books), a religion which, in
spiritual tone, in metaphysical speculation, and even in the
interpretation of some of the natural divinities, differs not more
from the bulk of the Rig Veda than does the social status of the time
from that of the earlier text. Religion has become, in so far as the
gods are concerned, a ritual. But, except in the building up of a
Father-god, theology is at bottom not much altered, and the
eschatological conceptions remain about as they were, despite a
preliminary sign of the doctrine of metempsychosis. In the Atharva
Veda, for the first time, hell is known by its later name (xii. 4.
36), and perhaps its tortures; but the idea of future punishment
appears plainly first in the Brahmanic period. Both the doctrine of
re-birth and that of hell appear in the earliest S[=u]tras, and
consequently the assumption that these dogmas come from Buddhism does
not appear to be well founded; for it is to be presumed whatever
religious belief is established in legal literature will have preceded
that literature by a considerable period, certainly by a greater
length of time than that which divides the first Brahmanic law from
Buddhism.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare the accounts of Lafitau; of the native
Iroquois, baptized as Morgan; and the works of Schoolcraft
and Parkman.]
[Footnote 2: _Jesuits in North America_, Introduction, p.
lxi.]
[Footnote 3: "Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate
gamblers, staking their all,--ornaments, clothing, canoes,
pipes, weapons, and wives," _loc. cit._ p. xxxvi. Compare
Palfrey, of Massachusetts Indians. The same is true of all
savages.]
[Footnote 4: _Ib._ p. lxvii.]
[Footnote 5: Compare _Çat. Br_. VI. 1. 1, 12; VII. 5. 1, 2
_sq_., for the Hindu tortoise in its first form. The
totem-form of the tortoise is well known in America.
(Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 85.)]
[Footnote 6: Charlevoix ap. Parkman.]
[Footnote 7: Parkman, _loc. cit_. p. LXXII; Brinton, _Myths
of the New World_, p. 248. A good instance of bad comparison
in eschatology will be found in Geiger, _Ostir. Cult_. pp.
274-275.]
[Footnote 8: Parkman, _loc. cit_. p. LXXXVI.]
[Footnote 9: _Sits. Berl. Akad_. 1891, p. 15.]
[Footnote 10: Brinton, _American Hero Myths_, p. 174. The
first worship was Sun-worship, then Viracocha-worship arose,
which kept Sun-worship while it predicated a 'power beyond.]
[Footnote 11: Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, pp. 85,
203.]
[Footnote 12: _Ib_. pp. 86, 202.]
[Footnote 13: Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 243. The
American Indians "uniformly regard the sun as heaven, the
soul goes to the sun."]
[Footnote 14: _Ib._ p. 245.]
[Footnote 15: _Ib._ p. 239-40.]
[Footnote 16: _Ib._ p. 50, 51.]
[Footnote 17: _Ib._ pp. 242, 248, 255; Schoolcraft, III.
229.]
[Footnote 18: Renouf, _Religion of Ancient Egypt_; pp. 103,
113 ff.]
[Footnote 19: Teutonic Tuisco is doubtful, as the identity
with Dyaus has lately been contested on phonetic grounds.]
[Footnote 20: V[=a]ta, ventus, does not agree very well with
Wotan.]
[Footnote 21: _[=A]it. Br._ III, 34. [Greek: haggaron pur]
is really tautological, but beacon fires gave way to
couriers and [Greek: haggaros] lost the sense of fire, as
did [Greek: haggelos].]
[Footnote 22: But the general belief that fire (Agni, Ignis,
Slavic ogni) was first brought to earth from heaven by a
half-divine personality is (at least) Aryan, as Kuhn has
shown.]
[Footnote 23: Compare the _kavis_ and _ugijs_ (poets and
priests) of the Veda with the evil spirits of the same names
in the Avesta, like _daeva_ = _deva_. Compare, besides, the
Indo-Iranian feasts, _medha_, that accompany this
Bacchanalian liquor-worship.]
[Footnote 24: Ludwig interprets the three Ribhus as the
three seasons personified. Etymologically connected is
Orpheus, perhaps.]
[Footnote 25: [Greek: o de chalkeos asphales aien edos menei
ouranos], Pind. N. vi. 5; compare Preller[4], p.40.]
[Footnote 26: Wahrscheinlich sind Uranos und Kronos erst aus
dem Culte des Zeus abstrahirt worden. Preller[4], p. 43.]
[Footnote 27: When Aryan deities are decadent, Trita, Mitra,
etc.]
[Footnote 28: Spiegel holds that the whole idea of future
punishment is derived from Persia (_Eranische
Altherthumskunde_, I. p. 458), but his point of view is
naturally prejudiced. The allusion to the supposed
Babylonian coin, _man[=a]_, in RV. VIII. 78. 2, would
indicate that the relation with Babylon is one of trade, as
with Aegypt. The account of the flood may be drawn thence,
so may the story of Deucalion, but both Hindu and Hellenic
versions may be as native as is that of the American
redskins.]
[Footnote 29: IV. 17. 17.]
[Footnote 30: _loc. cit._ pp. 70, 480.]
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