Seven zones, seven directions in space, seven sages.
“The conception of the confederated kingdom formed of six dependent and
allied states surrounding the seventh ruling state in the centre.”... “It
is this conception which is worked out in the six kingdoms surrounding the
central kingdom of Jambudvipa, into which they divided India. This form of
kingdom still survives in those which form the tributary states of Chota
Nagpore, for in all of these the central province is ruled by the king and
those surrounding it by his subordinate chiefs ...”(136) (Hewitt, Ruling
Races of Prehistoric Times, p. 256).
Four lakes, four rivers, four cosmical divisions, four guardians, p. 320.
“In the Gond ‘Song of Lingal,’ it is related how, Lingal, having been
slain by the confederacy [of six kingdoms surrounding seventh], came to
life again, and with four new-born Gonds, founded a new race of Gonds;
taught them to build houses and to grow millets.... He divided the people
into _four tribes_.... With these he united the four tribes descended from
the Gonds he had brought down in his first avatar.... These formed the
eight united races of the tortoise-earth.... Lingal placed among them
priests ... who married the new-comers to the daughters of the previous
immigrants.... This ... marks the first stage of the union of the Kushikas
and the Maghadas, the latter being the race who worshipped the mother-Maga
as the sacred alligator (Hewitt).
“According to the Mahābhārata the two races of Kushikas and Maghadas were
united under one king.... This land was called by Hindu geographers
Saka-dvipa, said in the Mataya Purana to be the land of the mountain
whence Indra gets the rain;” that is of the mountain called
Khar-sah-kurra, Ushidhan and Savkanta. “This mountain stood as the meeting
point of the two confederacies of the patriarchal tribes and the
matriarchal races.... Each confederacy is formed by six kingdoms
surrounding a seventh or ruling kingdom in the centre.... This, in the
Iranian federation, is Khavaniras or Huaniratha and in India, Jambu-dvipa,
the land of the Jambu tree.”
Hewitt publishes an interesting drawing (reproduced as fig. 73, _c_),
formed “by the union of the four triangles representing the Southeastern
and Northwestern races, who all looked on the mother mountain of the East,
whence Indra gets the rain, as their national birthplace, where they
became united as the Kushite race, the confederation of civilized man. It
represents the Greek cross and the double dorje or thunderbolt of Vishnu
and Indra and also a map of the Indian races, as distributed at the time
of the union. It also forms, with spaces left open for the parent rivers,
... an octahedron or eight-sided figure ... and the angles of the tribal
angles form the swastika ... the sign of the rain-god ..., the great Sar
of the Phœnicians....” Referring the reader to Hewitt’s interesting
discussion of this figure with which he associates the origin of the
swastika, I point out a fact he barely notices, namely that the figure
coincides with the description of Mt. Meru, associated with four lakes,
four rivers, four mythical animals and four guardians (p. 320). It is in
connection with the cosmical Middle Mountain that the foundation of an
earthly kingdom on the same plan becomes significant and the distribution
of races figured by Mr. Hewitt assumes utmost importance. The
representation of the four races by “tribal triangles,” is of special
interest when collated with the Egyptian sign for city or state and the
pyramid, the building of which I have several times alluded to as an event
facilitating, symbolizing and commemorating the foundation of a
quadruplicate state (pp. 220 and 221).