Very different from the real similarities that can be discovered in nearly
all the religions of the world, and which, owing to their deeply human
character, in no way necessitate the admission that one religion borrowed
from the other, are those minute coincidences between the Jewish and the
Pagan religions which have so often been discussed by learned theologians,
and which were intended by them as proof positive, either that the Pagans
borrowed their religious ideas direct from the Old Testament, or that some
fragments of a primeval revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole
race of mankind, had been preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy.
Bochart, in his “Geographia Sacra,” considered the identity of Noah and
Saturn so firmly established as hardly to admit of the possibility of a
doubt. The three sons of Saturn—Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto—he represented
as having been originally the three sons of Noah: Jupiter being Ham;
Neptune, Japhet; and Shem, Pluto. Even in the third generation the two
families were proved to have been one, for Phut, the son of Ham, or of
Jupiter Hammon, could be no other than Apollo Pythius; Canaan no other
than Mercury; and Nimrod no other than Bacchus, whose original name was
supposed to have been Bar-chus, the son of Cush. G. J. Vossius, in his
learned work, “De Origine et Progressu Idolatriæ” (1688), identified
Saturn with Adam, Janus with Noah, Pluto with Ham, Neptune with Japhet,
Minerva with Naamah, Vulcan with Tubal Cain, Typhon with Og. Huet, the
friend of Bochart, and the colleague of Bossuet, went still farther; and
in his classical work, the “Demonstratio Evangelica,” he attempted to
prove that the whole theology of the heathen nations was borrowed from
Moses, whom he identified not only with ancient law-givers, like Zoroaster
and Orpheus, but with gods and demi-gods, such as Apollo, Vulcan, Faunus,
and Priapus.
All this happened not more than two hundred years ago; and even a hundred
years ago, nay, even after the discovery of Sanskrit and the rise of
Comparative Philology, the troublesome ghost of Huet was by no means laid
at once. On the contrary, as soon as the ancient language and religion of
India became known in Europe, they were received by many people in the
same spirit. Sanskrit, like all other languages, was to be derived from
Hebrew, the ancient religion of the Brahmans from the Old Testament.
There was at that time an enthusiasm among Oriental scholars, particularly
at Calcutta, and an interest for Oriental antiquities in the public at
large, of which we in these days of apathy for Eastern literature can
hardly form an adequate idea. Everybody wished to be first in the field,
and to bring to light some of the treasures which were supposed to be
hidden in the sacred literature of the Brahmans. Sir William Jones, the
founder of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, published in the first volume
of the “Asiatic Researches” his famous essay, “On the Gods of Greece,
Italy, and India;” and he took particular care to state that his essay,
though published only in 1788, had been written in 1784. In that essay he
endeavored to show that there existed an intimate connection, not only
between the mythology of India and that of Greece and Italy, but likewise
between the legendary stories of the Brahmans and the accounts of certain
historical events as recorded in the Old Testament. No doubt, the
temptation was great. No one could look down for a moment into the rich
mine of religious and mythological lore that was suddenly opened before
the eyes of scholars and theologians, without being struck by a host of
similarities, not only in the languages, but also in the ancient
traditions of the Hindus, the Greeks, and the Romans; and if at that time
the Greeks and Romans were still supposed to have borrowed their language
and their religion from Jewish quarters, the same conclusion could hardly
be avoided with regard to the language and the religion of the Brahmans of
India.
The first impulse to look in the ancient religion of India for
reminiscences of revealed truth seems to have come from missionaries
rather than from scholars. It arose from a motive, in itself most
excellent, of finding some common ground for those who wished to convert
and those who were to be converted. Only, instead of looking for that
common ground where it really was to be found—namely, in the broad
foundations on which all religions are built up: the belief in a divine
power, the acknowledgment of sin, the habit of prayer, the desire to offer
sacrifice, and the hope of a future life—the students of Pagan religion as
well as Christian missionaries were bent on discovering more striking and
more startling coincidences, in order to use them in confirmation of their
favorite theory that some rays of a primeval revelation, or some
reflection of the Jewish religion, had reached the uttermost ends of the
world. This was a dangerous proceeding—dangerous because superficial,
dangerous because undertaken with a foregone conclusion; and very soon the
same arguments that had been used on one side in order to prove that all
religious truth had been derived from the Old Testament were turned
against Christian scholars and Christian missionaries, in order to show
that it was not Brahmanism and Buddhism which had borrowed from the Old
and New Testament, but that the Old and the New Testament had borrowed
from the more ancient religions of the Brahmans and Buddhists.
This argument was carried out, for instance, in Holwell’s “Original
Principles of the Ancient Brahmans,” published in London as early as 1779,
in which the author maintains that “the Brahmanic religion is the first
and purest product of supernatural revelation,” and “that the Hindu
scriptures contain to a moral certainty the original doctrines and terms
of restoration delivered from God himself, by the mouth of his first
created Birmah, to mankind, at his first creation in the form of man.”
Sir William Jones(48) tells us that one or two missionaries in India had
been absurd enough, in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to
urge “that the Hindus were even now almost Christians, because their
Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity;” a
sentence in which, he adds, we can only doubt whether folly, ignorance, or
impiety predominates.
Sir William Jones himself was not likely to fall into that error. He
speaks against it most emphatically. “Either,” he says, “the first eleven
chapters of Genesis—all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern
style—are true, or the whole fabric of our national religion is false; a
conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn. But it is
not the truth of our national religion as such that I have at heart; it is
truth itself; and if any cool, unbiassed reasoner will clearly convince me
that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval
fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as a friend for having
weeded my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand amongst the
foremost in assisting to circulate the truth which he has ascertained.”
But though he speaks so strongly against the uncritical proceedings of
those who would derive anything that is found in the Old Testament from
Indian sources, Sir William Jones himself was really guilty of the same
want of critical caution in his own attempts to identify the gods and
heroes of Greece and Rome with the gods and heroes of India. He begins his
essay,(49) “On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India,” with the following
remarks:—
“We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts,
that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and
tenets from another, since gods of all shapes and dimensions may be framed
by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of
men, in countries never connected; but when features of resemblance, too
strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems of
polytheism, without fancy or prejudice to color them and improve the
likeness, we can scarce help believing that some connection has
immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.
It is my design in this essay to point out such a resemblance between the
popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor
can there be any room to doubt of a great similarity between their strange
religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phœnice, and Syria;
to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and
even islands of America; while the Gothic system which prevailed in the
northern regions of Europe was not merely similar to those of Greece and
Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images
apparently Asiatic. From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may
infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished
inhabitants of the primitive world at the time when they deviated, as they
did too early deviate, from the rational adoration of the only true God.”
Here, then, in an essay written nearly a hundred years ago by Sir W.
Jones, one of the most celebrated Oriental scholars in England, it might
seem as if we should find the first outlines of that science which is
looked upon as but of to-day or yesterday—the outlines of Comparative
Mythology. But in such an expectation we are disappointed. What we find is
merely a superficial comparison of the mythology of India and that of
other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value,
because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep
Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a
slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which have now been
established by the students of the science of language were not yet known,
and as with words, so with the names of deities, similarity of sound, the
most treacherous of all sirens, was the only guide in such researches.
It is not pleasant to have to find fault with a man possessed of such
genius, taste, and learning as Sir W. Jones, but no one who is acquainted
with the history of these researches will be surprised at my words. It is
the fate of all pioneers, not only to be left behind in the assault which
they had planned, but to find that many of their approaches were made in a
false direction, and had to be abandoned. But as the authority of their
names continues to sway the public at large, and is apt to mislead even
painstaking students and to entail upon them repeated disappointments, it
is necessary that those who know should speak out, even at the risk of
being considered harsh or presumptuous.
A few instances will suffice to show how utterly baseless the comparisons
are which Sir W. Jones instituted between the gods of India, Greece, and
Italy. He compares the Latin Janus with the Sanskrit deity Ganesa. It is
well known that Janus is connected with the same root that has yielded the
names of Jupiter, Zeus, and Dyaus, while Ganesa is a compound, meaning
lord of hosts, lord of the companies of gods.
Saturnus is supposed to have been the same as Noah, and is then identified
by Sir W. Jones with the Indian Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the
flood. Ceres is compared with the goddess Sri, Jupiter or Diespiter with
Indra or Divaspati; and though etymology is called a weak basis for
historical inquiries, the three syllables Jov in Jovis, Zeu in Zeus, and
Siv in Siva are placed side by side, as possibly containing the same root,
only differently pronounced. Now the s of Siva is a palatal s, and no
scholar who has once looked into a book on Comparative Philology need be
told that such an s could never correspond to a Greek Zeta or a Latin J.
In K_ri_sh_n_a, the lovely shepherd-god, Sir W. Jones recognizes the
features of Apollo Nomius, who fed the herds of Admetus, and slew the
dragon Python; and he leaves it to etymologists to determine whether
Gopâla—_i. e._, the cow-herd—may not be the same word as Apollo. We are
also assured, on the authority of Colonel Vallancey, that K_ri_sh_n_a in
Irish means the sun, and that the goddess Kâlî, to whom human sacrifices
were offered, as enjoined in the Vedas (?) was the same as Hekate. In
conclusion, Sir W. Jones remarks, “I strongly incline to believe that
Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Gangâ and Yamunâ,
and that they visited the Sarmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited
them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge.”
The interest that had been excited by Sir William Jones’s researches did
not subside, though he himself did not return to the subject, but devoted
his great powers to more useful labors. Scholars, both in India and in
Europe, wanted to know more of the ancient religion of India. If Jupiter,
Apollo, and Janus had once been found in the ancient pantheon of the
Brahmans; if the account of Noah and the deluge could be traced back to
the story of Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the flood, more discoveries
might be expected in this newly-opened mine, and people rushed to it with
all the eagerness of gold-diggers. The idea that everything in India was
of extreme antiquity had at that time taken a firm hold on the minds of
all students of Sanskrit; and, as there was no one to check their
enthusiasm, everything that came to light in Sanskrit literature was
readily accepted as more ancient than Homer, or even than the Old
Testament.
It was under these influences that Lieutenant Wilford, a contemporary of
Sir William Jones at Calcutta, took up the thread which Sir William Jones
had dropped, and determined at all hazards to solve the question which at
that time had excited a worldwide interest. Convinced that the Brahmans
possessed in their ancient literature the originals, not only of Greek and
Roman mythology, but likewise of the Old Testament history, he tried every
possible means to overcome their reserve and reticence. He related to
them, as well as he could, the principal stories of classical mythology,
and the leading events in the history of the Old Testament; he assured
them that they would find the same things in their ancient books, if they
would but look for them; he held out the hopes of ample rewards for any
extracts from their sacred literature containing the histories of Adam and
Eve, of Deukalion and Prometheus; and at last he succeeded. The coyness of
the Pandits yielded; the incessant demand created a supply; and for
several years essay after essay appeared in the “Asiatic Researches,” with
extracts from Sanskrit MSS., containing not only the names of Deukalion,
Prometheus, and other heroes and deities of Greece, but likewise the names
of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and Sarah, and all the rest.
Great was the surprise, still greater the joy, not only in Calcutta, but
in London, at Paris, and all the universities of Germany. The Sanskrit
MSS. from which Lieutenant Wilford quoted, and on which his theories were
based, had been submitted to Sir W. Jones and other scholars; and though
many persons were surprised, and for a time even incredulous, yet the fact
could not be denied that all was found in these Sanskrit MSS. as stated by
Lieutenant Wilford. Sir W. Jones, then President of the Asiatic Society,
printed the following declaration at the end of the third volume of the
“Asiatic Researches”:—
“Since I am persuaded that the learned essay on Egypt and the Nile has
afforded you equal delight with that which I have myself received from it,
I cannot refrain from endeavoring to increase your satisfaction by
confessing openly that I have at length abandoned the greatest part of the
natural distrust, and incredulity which had taken possession of my mind
before I had examined the sources from which our excellent associate,
Lieutenant Wilford, has drawn so great a variety of new and interesting
opinions. Having lately read again and again, both alone and with a
Pandit, the numerous original passages in the Purânas, and other Sanskrit
books, which the writer of the dissertation adduces in support of his
assertions, I am happy in bearing testimony to his perfect good faith and
general accuracy, both in his extracts and in the translation of them.”
Sir W. Jones then proceeds himself to give a translation of some of these
passages. “The following translation,” he writes, “of an extract from the
Padma-purâna is minutely exact”:—
“1. To _Satyavarman_, the sovereign of the whole earth, were born three
sons; the eldest, _Sherma_; then _Charma_; and thirdly, _Jyapeti_.
“2. They were all men of good morals, excellent in virtue and virtuous
deeds, skilled in the use of weapons to strike with, or to be thrown,
brave men, eager for victory in battle.
“3. But _Satyavarman_, being continually delighted with devout meditation,
and seeing his sons fit for dominion, laid upon them the burden of
government,
“4. Whilst he remained honoring and satisfying the gods, and priests, and
kine. One day, by the act of destiny, the king, having drunk mead,
“5. Became senseless, and lay asleep naked; then was he seen by _Charma_,
and by him were his two brothers called.
“6. To whom he said: What now has befallen? In what state is this our
sire? By those two was he hidden with clothes, and called to his senses
again and again.
“7. Having recovered his intellect, and perfectly knowing what had passed,
he cursed _Charma_, saying, Thou shalt be the servant of servants:
“8. And since thou wast a laugher in their presence, from laughter shalt
thou acquire a name. Then he gave to _Sherma_ the wide domain on the south
of the snowy mountains.
“9. And to _Jyapeti_ he gave all on the north of the snowy mountains; but
he, by the power of religious contemplation, obtained supreme bliss.”
After this testimony from Sir W. Jones—wrung from him, as it would seem,
against his own wish and will—Lieutenant Wilford’s essays became more
numerous and more startling every year.
At last, however, the coincidences became too great. The MSS. were again
carefully examined; and then it was found that a clever forgery had been
committed, that leaves had been inserted in ancient MSS., and that on
these leaves the Pandits, urged by Lieutenant Wilford to disclose their
ancient mysteries and traditions, had rendered in correct Sanskrit verse
all that they had heard about Adam and Abraham from their inquisitive
master. Lieutenant (then Colonel) Wilford did not hesitate for one moment
to confess publicly that he had been imposed upon; but in the meantime the
mischief had been done, his essays had been read all over Europe, they
retained their place in the volumes of the “Asiatic Researches,” and to
the present day some of his statements and theories continue to be quoted
authoritatively by writers on ancient religion.
Such accidents, and, one might almost say, such misfortunes, will happen,
and it would be extremely unfair were we to use unnecessarily harsh
language with regard to those to whom they have happened. It is perfectly
true that at present, after the progress that has been made in an accurate
and critical study of Sanskrit, it would be unpardonable if any Sanskrit
scholar accepted such passages as those translated by Sir W. Jones as
genuine. Yet it is by no means certain that a further study of Sanskrit
will not lead to similar disenchantments, and deprive many a book in
Sanskrit literature which now is considered as very ancient of its claims
to any high antiquity. Certain portions of the Veda even, which, as far as
our knowledge goes at present, we are perfectly justified in referring to
the tenth or twelfth century before our era, may some day or other dwindle
down from their high estate, and those who have believed in their extreme
antiquity will then be held up to blame or ridicule, like Sir W. Jones or
Colonel Wilford. This cannot be avoided, for science is progressive, and
does not acknowledge, even in the most distinguished scholars, any claims
to infallibility. One lesson only may we learn from the disappointment
that befell Colonel Wilford, and that is to be on our guard against
anything which in ordinary language would be called “too good to be true.”
Comparative Philology has taught us again and again that when we find a
word exactly the same in Greek and Sanskrit, we may be certain that it
cannot be the same word; and the same applies to Comparative Mythology.
The same god or the same hero cannot have exactly the same name in
Sanskrit and Greek, for the simple reason that Sanskrit and Greek have
deviated from each other, have both followed their own way, have both
suffered their own phonetic corruptions; and hence, if they do possess the
same word, they can only possess it either in its Greek or its Sanskrit
disguise. And if that caution applies to Sanskrit and Greek, members of
the same family of language, how much more strongly must it apply to
Sanskrit and Hebrew! If the first man were called in Sanskrit Âdima, and
in Hebrew Adam, and if the two were really the same word, then Hebrew and
Sanskrit could not be members of two different families of speech, or we
should be driven to admit that Adam was borrowed by the Jews from the
Hindus for it is in Sanskrit only that âdima means the first, whereas in
Hebrew it has no such meaning.
The same remark applies to a curious coincidence pointed out many years
ago by Mr. Ellis in his “Polynesian Researches” (London, 1829, vol. ii. p.
38). We there read:—
“A very generally received Tahitian tradition is that the first human pair
were made by Taaroa, the principal deity formerly acknowledged by the
nation. On more than one occasion I have listened to the details of the
people respecting his work of creation. They say that, after Taaroa had
formed the world, he created man out of araea, red earth, which was also
the food of man until bread first was made. In connection with this some
relate that Taaroa one day called for the man by name. When he came, he
caused him to fall asleep, and, while he slept, he took out one of his
_ivi_, or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave to the man as his
wife, and they became the progenitors of mankind. This,” Mr. Ellis
continues, “always appeared to me a mere recital of the Mosaic account of
creation, which they had heard from some European, and I never placed any
reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me it was a tradition
among them before any foreigners arrived. Some have also stated that the
woman’s name was _Ivi_, which would be by them pronounced as if written
_Eve_. _Ivi_ is an aboriginal word, and not only signifies a bone, but
also a widow, and a victim slain in war. Notwithstanding the assertion of
the natives, I am disposed to think that _Ivi_, or _Eve_, is the only
aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of the
human race. Should more careful and minute inquiry confirm the truth of
this declaration, and prove that their account was in existence among them
prior to their intercourse with Europeans, it will be the most remarkable
and valuable oral tradition of the origin of the human race yet known.”
In this case, I believe the probability is that the story of the creation
of the first woman from the bone of a man(50) existed among the Tahitians
before their intercourse with Christians, but I need hardly add that the
similarity between the Polynesian name for bone, _ivi_, even when it was
used as the name of the first woman, and the English corruption of the
Hebrew הוה, Chāvah, Eve, could be the result of accident only. Whatever
Chāvah meant in Hebrew, whether life or living or anything else, it never
meant bone, while the Tahitian _ivi_, the Maori _wheva_,(51) meant bone,
and bone only.
These principles and these cautions were hardly thought of in the days of
Sir William Jones and Colonel Wilford, but they ought to be thought of at
present. Thus, before Bopp had laid down his code of phonetic laws, and
before Burnouf had written his works on Buddhism, one cannot be very much
surprised that Buddha should have been identified with Minos and Lamech;
nay, that even the Babylonian deity Belus, and the Teutonic deity Wodan or
Odin, should have been supposed to be connected with the founder of
Buddhism in India. As Burnouf said in his “Introduction a l’Histoire du
Buddhisme,” p. 70: “On avait même fait du Buddha une planète; et je ne
sais pas si quelques savants ne se plaisent pas encore aujourd’hui à
retrouver ce sage paisible sous les traits du belliqueux Odin.” But we did
not expect that we should have to read again, in a book published in 1869,
such statements as these:(52)—
“There is certainly a much greater similarity between the Buddhism of the
Topes and the Scandinavian mythology than between it and the Buddhism of
the books; but still the gulf between the two is immense; and if any
traces of the doctrines of the gentle ascetic (Buddha) ever existed in the
bosom of Odin or his followers, while dwelling near the roots of the
Caucasus, all that can be said is, that they suffered fearful shipwreck
among the rocks of the savage superstitions of the North, and sank, never
again to appear on the surface of Scandinavian mythology. If the two
religions come anywhere in contact, it is at their base, for underlying
both there existed a strange substratum of Tree and Serpent Worship; on
this the two structures seem to have been raised, though they afterwards
diverged into forms so strangely dissimilar” (p. 34).