The origin and migrations of myths have of late been the subject
of so much sifting and study, the elaborate results of which are
already before the world, that there is no need in this place
to offer more than a few condensed remarks in allusion to the
particular collections now, I believe, for the first time put into
English. Translations of some chapters of the "Adventures of the
Well-and-wise-walking Khan" have been made by Benj. Bergmann, Riga,
1804; by Golstunski, St. Petersburg, 1864; and by H. Osterley,
in 1867. Of "Ardschi-Bordschi," by Emil Schlaginweit; by Benfey,
in "Ausland," Nos. 34-36, and the whole of both by Professor Jülg,
1865-68; of these I have availed myself in preparing the following
pages; I know of no other translation into any European language
except one into Russ by Galsan Gombojew, published at S. Petersburg
in 1865-68 [1].
The first thirteen chapters of the "Well-and-wise-walking Khan" are a
Kalmouk (1) collection, all the rest Mongolian; and though traceable to
Indian sources, they yet have received an entire transformation in the
course of their adoption by their new country. In giving them another
new home, some further alterations, though of a different nature, have
been necessary. However much one may regret them such transformations
are inevitable. It seems a law of nature that history should to a
certain extent write itself. We know the age of a tree by its knots
and rings; and we trace the age of a building by its alterations and
repairs--and that equally well whether these be made in a style later
prevailing, utterly different from that of the original design, or in
the most careful imitation of the same; for the age of the workman's
hand cannot choose but write itself on whatever he chisels.
It is just the same with these myths. They cannot remain as if
stereotyped from the first; the hand that passes them on must mould
them anew in the process. You might say, they have been already
altered enough during their wanderings, give them to us now at least
as the Mongolians left them. But it is not possible, most of them
are too coarse to meet an eye trained by Christianity and modern
cultivation. The habit of mind in which they are framed is in places
as foreign as the idiom in which they are written; I have, however,
made it an undeviating rule to let such alterations be as few and as
slight as the case admitted, and that they should go no farther than
was necessary to make them readable, or occasionally give them point.
As I have said these stories have an 'Indian' source, it becomes
incumbent to spend a few lines on defining the use and reach of the
word [2].
The words >'Indoc and Indik`h occur for the first time among writers
of classical antiquity in the fragments that have come down to us
of the writings of Hecatæus, B.C. 500. Herodotus also uses the same;
from these they descended to us through the Romans. They both received
it through Persian means and used it in the most comprehensive sense,
though the Persian use of their equivalent at the time seems to have
been more limited. It is probable, however, that later the Persian
use became further extended; and through the Arabians, who also
adopted it from them, it became the Muhammedan designation of the
whole country. When they, in 713, conquered the country watered by
the lower course of the Indus, namely, Sinde, they confirmed the use
of this more extended application of the Persian word Hind, reserving
Sind, the local form of the same word--apparently without perceiving
it was the same--to this particular province.
The later Persian designation is Hindustan--the country of the
Hindu--and this is generally adopted in India itself to denote the
whole country, though many Europeans have restricted it to the Northern
half, in contradistinction from the Dekhan, or country south of the
Vindha-range (2), often excluding even Bengal.
The original native names are different. In the epic mythology occur,
Gambudvîpa, the island of the gambu-tree (Eugenia Jambolana), for
the central or known world of which India was part, and Sudarsana,
"of beautiful appearance," to denote both the tree and the "island"
named from it. The Buddhist cosmography uses Gampudvîpa for India
Proper. Within this the Brahmanical portion, lying to the south of
the Himâlajas, is designated as Bhârata or Bhâratavarsha. In the
great epic poem called the Mahâ Bhârata, the name is derived from
Bhârata, son of Dusjanta, the first known ruler of the country, and
several dynasties are called after him Bhâratides, though it is more
probable his name rather accrued to him from that of the country,
the word being derived from bhri, "to bring forth" or "nourish,"
hence, "the fruitful," "life-nourishing" land. Bhârata is also called
(Rig-Ved. i. 96, 3) "the nourisher," sustentator.
The native historical name is undoubtedly "Ârjâvata," the district of
the Ârja--"the venerable men"--or more literally, "worthy to be sought
after," keepers of the sacred laws, the people of honourable ancestry;
calling themselves so in contradistinction to the Mlêk'ha, barbarous
despisers of the sacred laws (Manu, i. 22; x. 45), also Ârja-bhûmi,
land of the Ârja. The Manu defines rigidly the original boundaries
of this sacred country; it lies between the Himâlaja and Vindhja
mountains, and stretches from the eastern to the western seas. Though
Ptolemy (Geog. vii. I) calls the people of the west coast, south of
the Vindhja, Âriaka, this was a later extension of the original term.
What gives the word a great historical importance is the circumstance
which must not be passed over here, that the original native name of
the inhabitants of Iran was either the same or similarly derived. Airja
in Zend stood both for "honourable" and for the name of the Iranian,
people. Concerning the Medes we have the testimony of Herodotus
that they originally called themselves >'Arioi, and we owe him the
information also that the original Persian name was >Artaio`i, a word
which has the same root as Ârja, or at least can have no very different
meaning. They do not seem ever to have actually called themselves Ârja,
although the word existed in their ancient tongue with the sense of
"noble," "honourable."
The earliest Indian Sagas speak of the Arja as already established in
Central India, and give no help to the discovery of when or how they
settled there. Like most other peoples of the old world, they believed
themselves aborigines, and they placed the Creation and the origin of
species in the very land where they found themselves living, nor do
their myths bear a trace of allusion to any earlier dwelling-place or
country outside their Bhâratavarsha (4). It is true, that the sanctity
they ascribe to the north country, and the mysterious allusions to the
sacred mountain-country of Meerû, the dwelling of the gods in the far,
far north, over the Himâlajas, is calculated to mislead for a moment
with the suggestion that they point to a possible immigration from
that north, but a closer observation shows that that very sacred regard
more probably arose from the very fact of its being an unknown country;
while the effect of the majestic and inaccessible heights, with their
glorious colouring and their peculiar natural productions, was enough
to suggest them the seat of a superior and divine race of beings.
The fact that Sanskrit, the ancient tongue of the Aryan Indians,
is so closely allied to the languages of so many western nations,
establishes with certainty the identity of origin of these people, and
lays on us the burden of deciding whether the Aryan Indians migrated to
India as the allied peoples migrated to their countries from a common
aboriginal home, or whether that aboriginal home was India, and all the
allied peoples migrated from it, the Indians alone remaining at home.
Reason points to the adoption of the former of these two solutions. In
the first place, it is altogether unlikely that in the case of a great
migration all should have migrated rigidly in one direction. It is
only natural to expect they should have poured themselves out every
way, and to look for the original home in a locality which should have
formed a central base of operations. The very feuds which would in many
cases lead to such outpourings would necessitate the striking out in
ever new directions. Then, there is nothing in the manners, ideas,
speech--in the names of articles of primary importance to support
life, in which at least we might expect to find such a trace--of the
other peoples to connect them in any way with India. Had they ever
been at home there, some remnants of local influence would have been
retained; but we find none. Besides this, we have, on the other hand,
very satisfactory evidence of at least the later journeyings of the
Indian family. Their warlike and conquering entrance into the Dekhan
and crossing of the Vindhja range is matter of positive history. Some
help for ascertaining their earlier route may be found in the necessity
established by the laws and limits of possibility. Encumbered with
flocks and herds, and unassisted by appliances of transport, we cannot
believe them to have traversed the steep peaks of the Himâlajas. The
road through eastern Caboolistan and the valley of the Pangkora, or
that leading from the Gilgit by way of Attok, or over the table-land
of Deotsu through Cashmere, are all known to us as most difficult
of access, and do not appear at any period to have been willingly
adopted. But the western passes of Hindukutsch, skirting round the
steep Himâlajas--the way trod by the armies of Alexander and other
warlike hosts, no less than by the more peaceful trains of merchants,
with whom it was doubtless traditional--affords a highly probable
line of march for the first great immigration.
We are reminded here of the fact already alluded to, of the common
origin of the earliest name of both Indians and Persians, leading us to
suppose they long inhabited one country in common. For this supposition
we find further support in other similarities: e. g. between the older
Sanskrit of the Vêda and the oldest poems of the Iranian tongue; also
between the teaching, mythology, the sagas, and the spoken language
of the two peoples. On the other hand, we find also the most diverse
uses given to similar expressions, pointing to a period of absolute
separation between them, and at a remote date: e.g. the Indian word
for the Supreme Being is dêva; in Zend, daêva, as also dêv in modern
Persian, stands for the Evil Principle. Again, in Zend dagju means a
province (and its use implies orderly division of government and the
tranquil exercise of authority); but in the Brahmanical code dasju
is used for a turbulent horde, who set law and authority at defiance.
Such transpositions seem the result of some fierce variance, leading
to division and hatred between peoples long united.
Proceeding now to trace the original wandering farther on, we find
some help from Iranian traditions. The Zendavesta distinctly tells
of a so-called Aîrjanem Vaêgo as a sacred country, the seat of
creation, and place it in the farthest east of the highest Iranian
table-land, the district of the source of the Oxus and Jaxartes; by
the death-bringing Ahriman it was stricken with cold and barrenness
(3), and only saw the sun thenceforth for two months of the year. The
particularity with which it is described would point to the fact
that the locality treated of was a distant one, with which the race
had a traditional acquaintance; while at the same time it cannot be
adopted too precisely in every detail, because details may be altered
by a poetical imagination--merits may be exaggerated by regret for
absence, and defects magnified by vexation, or invented in proof of
the effects of a predicated curse.
If we may conclude that we have rightly traced up the Indians and
Persians to a common home between the easternmost Iranian highlands
and the Caspian Sea, it follows from the linguistic analogies of
the so-called Indo-European peoples that this same home was also
theirs at a time when they were not yet broken up into distinct
families. This common local origin gives at once the reason for the
analogies in the grammatical structure of their languages, and no
less of their mythical traditions, which are far too widely spread,
and have entered too radically into the universal teaching of both,
to be supposed for a moment to have been borrowed by either from the
other within the historical period, or at all since their separation.
It remains only to say a few words on the scope and object of the
work, and the profit that may be derived from its perusal. I know
there are many who think that mere amusement is profit enough to
expect from a tale, and that to look for the extraction of any more
serious result is tedious. But I will give my young readers--or at
least a large proportion of them--credit for possessing sufficient
love of improvement to prefer that class of amusement which furthers
their desire for information and edification.
The collections of myths with which I have heretofore presented them
have all had either a Christian origin, or at least have passed through
a Christian mould, and have thus almost unconsciously subserved the
purpose of illustrating some phase of Christian teaching, which is
specially distinguished by keeping in view, not spasmodically and
arbitrarily, as in the best of other systems, but uniformly, in
its sublimest reach and in its humblest detail, the belief that an
eternal purpose and consequence pervades the whole length and breadth
of human existence.
Whether the story of "Juanita the Bald" was originally drawn by a
Christian desirous of inculcating the sacred principles of the new
covenant, or adapted to the purpose by such an one from the myth
of OEdipus and Antigone; whether that of "St. Peter's Three Loaves"
was really a traditional incident of our Lord's wanderings on earth
too insignificant to find place in the pages of Holy Writ, or adapted
from the myth of Baucis and Philemon; or whether all were adaptations
according to the special convictions of various narrators of great
primeval traditions, mattered very little, as each had an intrinsic
purpose and an interest of its own quite distinct from that accruing
to it through ascertaining its place in the history of the world's
beliefs. In telling them, it needed not to point a moral, for the
moral--i.e. some more or less remote application of the sacred and
civilizing teaching of the Gospel--was of the very essence of each.
With the Tales given in the following pages, however, it is quite
different. They come direct from the far East, and in most of them
nothing further has been aimed at than the amusement of the weary
hours of disoccupation, whether forced or voluntary, of a people
indisposed by climate, natural temperament, or want of cultivation
from finding recreation in the healthy exercise of mental effort.
To me it seems that before we can take pleasure in giving our time to
the perusal of such stories, we must invest them with, or discover
in them some sort of purpose. Nor is this so far to seek, perhaps,
as might appear at first sight.
Some, it must be observed, belong to the class which deals with the
deeds of heroes--fabling forth the grand all-time lesson of the
vigorous struggle of good with evil; the nobility of unflinching
self-sacrifice and of devotion to an exalted cause, setting the
model for the lowly sister of charity as much as for the victorious
leader of armies, and each all the while typical of Him who gave
Himself to be the servant of all, and the ransom of all. A German
writer rises so inspired from their study that he bursts forth into
this pæan:--"Eine Fülle der Göttergeschichte thut sich hier auf, und
nirgends lässt sich der eigenthümliche Naturcharacter in Fortbildung
des Mythus vollständiger erkennen, als an diesen Alterthümern. Götter
und vergötterte Menschen ragen hier, wie an den Wänden der Tempel
von Thebe hoch über das gewöhnliche Menschengestalt. Alles hat einen
riesenhaften Aufschwung zur himmlischen Welt [3]." Subsidiarily to
these conceptions of them, stories of this class have the further
merit of being one chief means of conveying the scanty data we possess
concerning the early history of the people of whose literature they
form part (5).
Others again may be placed in a useful light by endeavouring to trace
in them the journeyings they have made in their transmigration. Benfey,
a modern German writer who has employed much time and study "in tracing
the Mährchen in their ever-varying forms," while pointing out as many
others have also done (6), that the great bulk of our household tales
have come to us from the East, and have been spread over Europe in
various ways, points out that this was done for the South in great
measure through the agency of the Turks; but for the North it was by
the Mongolians during their two centuries of ascendancy in Eastern
Europe; the Slaves received them from them, and communicated them to
the German peoples (7).
If therefore you find some tales in one collection bearing a close
resemblance with those you have read in another, you should make it
a matter of interest to observe what is individual in the character
of each, and to trace the points both of diversity and analogy in
the mode of expression in which they are clothed, and which will be
found just as marked as the difference in costume of the respective
peoples who have told them each after their own fashion.
All of them have at least the merit of being, in the main, pictures
of life, however overwrought with the fantastic or supernatural
element, not ideal embodiments of the perfect motives by which people
ought to be actuated, but genre pictures of the modes in which they
commonly do act. As such they cannot fail to contain the means of
edification, though we are left to look for and discover and apply it
for ourselves. To take one instance. The Christian hagiographer could
never have written of a hero he was celebrating, as we find it said of
Vikramâditja, that as part of his preparation for the battle of life
"while learning wisdom with the wise, and the use of arms from men of
valour," "of the robber bands he acquired the art of stealing, and of
fraudulent dealers, to lie." If he had been illustrating the actual
biography of a Christian hero, it is a detail which could not have
entered, and if drawing an ideal picture, it would have been entirely
at variance with the system he was illustrating. Circumstances like
this which fail to serve as subject for imitation, must be turned to
account in exercising the powers of judgment, as well in distinguishing
what to avoid from what to admire, as in taking note of these very
variances between Christian and the best non-christian morality.
* * * The author feels bound to apologize for any inaccuracies
which may have crept into these pages owing to being abroad while
preparing them for the press.