PREFACE.
The following pages may be viewed under two aspects: first, as an inquiry after the original settlement of the Asiatic Arians, and the early adventures of the Indo-Arians; secondly, as an investigation of their ancient legends, traditions, and inatitutiona in the light of corroborative evidences of Sacred, history i*nd of some of the fundamental principles of Christian Doctrine. The first view presents a historical aspect, the second theological; and they are the two main divisions of the essay now submitted to tho public.
The author will not be surprised if both divisions of bis work be cbai^ed with novelty in an invidious sense. Hia plea rests on the evidence adduced, and it is only just to add that in whatever he has said he speaks under correction. Candid criticism will be most welcome to him from whatever qiiarter it may come. He has no other object in an enterprize which has cost time and labour tban the investigatiott of Truth. Since this work was committed to the press, he baa heard of the discovery at Cashmere of a valuable manuscript of the Rig Veda by a diatinguiahod German Professor. The author looks forward with fresh interest to its publication. _
Most of the points, now submittedj had occupied the author's attention for years. They had been tentatively discussed in lectures, addresses, and articles in magazines and periodicals, and now, in the afternoon of life, he feels it a duty imposed by his very profession to present them in an embodied form. This is his only apology for appearing in print on this occasion.
'- It will be seen that in the first part of the work an atteinpt has been made to point out coincidences and relations between the Rig Veda and the Assyrian Inscriptions, the two great repositories of ancient Asiatic ideas and traditions, opened almost simultaneously by European industry and ingenuity within the last forty years. The author owes it to his readers to explain the grounds on which this novel attempt has been ventured on.
No term in the Rig Veda seems to have puzzled students, translators, and commentators more than the word "asura." The modern idea denoted by the term is that of an ogre and a demon. The idea is annually embodied in the person of the Mahishamra among the figures worshipped at the Durga Puja.
He appears there as the fiercest of the goddess's enemies, receiving Ms death wounds at her bands. In the Rig Veda, however, the gods themselves are, all of them, termed and accosted as aauraa, and one of them, introduced at the moment as the Creator of the Universe, is called the alUknomng and wise Asura: And yet the same Veda elsewhere gives an opposite picture of the character indicated by the term, corresponding to the modem ideal of a demon and an ogre, and the very same individuals are sometimes represented as aiuras, and again lauded as destroyers of asur(ts.
. The commentator Sayanicharia felt no difficulty in interpreting the term, where it occurred in the demoniacal sense. In truth, it required no elaborate interpretation there. In that sense the word would be familiar even to a child. But the commentator's ingenuity was severely taxed when he had to interpret '* asura" as a term applicable to the gods. He had to fabricate novel derivations and etymologies, too often revolting to common sense. In one case *' Agni" was found burdened with the title " Asura," (^^» a patronymic £rom Asura) and the commentator,, deriving it fi:om Asura, interpreted it as a destroyer of asuraa, the relation, he said, was in that place that of a destroyer and his victim! The grammatical logic, here propounded, might have justified the application of ihe saxname *' Bonapartist" to the hero of Waterloo, by whom Napoleon was ruined.
. Elsewhere, Ag&ii^} the commentator adopted a derivation of the term (as applicable to gods) which the cautious Professor Wilson himself called, " an unusual sense of the word," adding, however, "but it would scarcely be decorous to call Varuna an Amra"'^ An unusual derivation might be excused in the case of an extraordinary term, hapax legomenon. But " asura*' is is a term constantly to be found in the Rig Veda^ and oftener in a divine than a diabolical sense. Hero then was the di£&culty. Unless we allowed the interpretation of the Rig Veda to receive light from sources outside the limits of India, we must accept an unpleasant position between the two horns of a dilemma. We must either submit to imnatural derivations and unusual interpretations as a rule, or confound the Indo-Arian gods with the Indo-Arian demons.. For himself, the author fails to understand why scholars who had themselves broached or admitted the foreign origin of Indo-Arians, on the other side of the Indus, should be shy of allowing Indo-Arian documents or legends to be interpreted with trans-Indus
HgHt. Would it have been fair criticiam in England to restrict the interpretation of an old Anglo<Sazon document to ideals purely Druidicid and insular, to the jealous exclusion of all light from the continent of Europe? In the case of the word Asura, we find that Varuna, held for the moment as the &amer of the heavens and earth, is called " the all-knowing Asura." Is it fair criticism to fall back on " the unusual sense of the word" suggested by S&yana to the exclusion of the obvious inference that the title appears as a translation of the Iranian term " Ahura- Mazda," applied to the Supreme Being, with which Indo-Arians must have been familiar before they crossed the Indus? The interpretation of the Iranian title is, according to Parsee doctors, " the wise Lord."* This itself supplies a clue to the meaning of Asura as generally applied to the gods in the Rig Veda. And in the case of Agni, the patronymic " Asura" was obviously owing to his being so called ( Ahurine) in the Zend Avesta, as the son of Ahura Mazda. The Rig Veda itself seems to recognize this filiation by representing Agni as the son of Power.
But this is only a solution of a part of the problem. The same term is again used in an opposite sense.
And this reflection suggested the question of the origin of the Iranian word " ahura" for hrd. " Assur" is often fonnd in the Holy Scriptures in the ethnical sense of Assyrian. ' Here the author was led to consult the Cuneiforin inscriptions for confirmation of that -idea. The Inscriptions fiiUy explained the difficulty. "A&- Bur" or " Asur" was there found both as an ethnic term, expressive of the Assyrian nation and country, and also asatermof dignity and sanctity applicable to princes and gods. On the one hand it was used as a term of distinction for kings, generals,and towns/ and on the other it was the title of the " great deities." It was in the first ethnic sense that the Rig Veda execrated it aa the title of a hated nation after the Arian settlement in India, but in the second sense of dignity and sancr tity both Iranians and Indo-Arians had of old alike
* Many kings and chief ofiQcers had the term "Assor" prefixed 01 affixed to their names as a symbol of dignity. In the list of kings given at the end of Mr. Qeoige Smith's Atgyrian diteoperitt (p. 445) there are numbers of nameewith that prefix or affix, such as AsBnr-Zakiresir, Niuip-tugul-assuri, Assiir-nadin-ahi, AssuT-nirari, Assur-bel-nisinu, &c. TiglathpUeaer II. says of an officer, " Sfy general Assur- dain-ani." Also; " A palace, a seat of my royalty within it I placed, Kar-Assur its name I called." Again, " In Ulluba, a city I built; Assur-basa its name I called. Smith's Aayrian discaveria,-p^. 267, 271, 272. The last mentioned name is a curious lioguistic proof of relations between Assyrians and Indo-Arians. It is a pure SauEcrit term.— Assur-basa (WT^ IT?) the residence of Amrat.
attached it to their respective deitiesj though the Indians afterwards gradually dropped its use in the sacred sense, and applied it exclusively to the abhorrent idea of ungodly ogres and demons. The Itig Veda as their earliest record continues a witness of both senses, but the later Yedas and all subsequent tastras give exclusively the odious sense of evil spirits, hostile to gods and Brahmins, and inimical to their long-cherished institution of Sacrificial ceremonies.
The light thus thrown on the solution of a long debated question stimulated the author to make fur-, ther inquiry into the Cuneiform records of Assyria. If the " Asuras" were Assyrians, then some further Hght might naturally be expected &om the same Source on events with which Asuras' were connected. The suggestion received curious confirmation from " Sanda," long known in Indian tradition as the ^vru of Asuras. The Rig Veda recogniaes the same name in a sense which might be applicable to a guru as well as a god. Now Sauda is found to have been an Assyrian god, or the man-bull. And Sanda in Sanscrit also means a bull.* - The Cuneiform Inscriptions, again, disclosed another name Anu, aa amoDg the gods of As83rria. Ann is also found as a Vedic character, whom a Pouranic Legend describes as the parent of Mlecchas or aliens. We also find the A'navas, sons or followers of Anu, engaged in action with other characters that are referable to Assyrian regions. These facts raised a presumption that the Anu of the Veda was identical with the Anu of the Inscriptions. This remark is applicable to another individual named " Turvasu," a brother of Anu. Indian records styled him the father of " Yavanas," who were also aliens from Brahminical society. The Inscriptions supply us with a king Tubusu' and a town Tarvazu.*
The story of the Asura Vritra slaiu by India is a further link which connects Assyrian with Indian legends. In the Rig Veda that arch enemy of the Arians is identified with the Serpent Ahi and styled a D^sa (destroyer). Vritra seems therefore identical with " the snake Dahaka" of the Zend Ayesta. And it was in Bawri (Babylon) that " the snake Dahaka," alias Vritra, appears before Ardvi-sura (a sacred character of the Zend Aresta) and asks as a boon that he might destroy the whole of Ariana. Vritra was therefore an Assyrian combatant, by overthrowing whom Indra entitled himself to the thanks of the Iranians (who worshipped him as Verethraghna) as well as of the IndD'AriaQs.
The author must here acknowledge and correct a mistake incautiously committed in the Introductory Essay prefixed to his edition of a small portion of the Big Veda published a few months ago. Adverting to " Kuataspi" of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, as possibly the same character as the Yistaspa of the Zend Avesta and Ishtaswa of the Rig Veda, he took Kustaspi to be a contemporary of Tiglath-pileser I. This was a mistake. The name of Kustaspi occurs in the Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser II. The synchronism attempted to be made out between the senior Tiglathpileser and the Rig Yeda does of course lose its ground as far as it was based on the error now corrected. But the synchronism itself does not absolutely fail. Its second ground founded on the story of " Sambara the son Kulitara" remains firm.
Nor is the theory of Zoroasterian teaching, having proceeded from Assyria, nullified by the failure of the ground about Kustaspi of the Cuneiform Inscriptions. It is expressly said in the Zend Avesta that Ardisura received in Bawri or Babylon the supplications of both friends and foes, complying with the former but rejecting the latter. And the very name Akura Mazda was derived from " Asur", the Assyrian term for god or lord.
With reference to the theological jMirt of the book, the author is content to leave it to apeak for itself. He has hitherto abstained from a hortatory tone, A clergyman may be excused for one word of advice on taking leare of his readers. The Vedas persistently proclaim a mysterious fiict — the Lord of the creation offered himself a sacrifice for the Benefit of gods ^ or those who were once mortal, such as ■we are, but had since been promoted to celestial regions. The same Lord, " the giver of self," also initiated the rites of Sacrifice, which is a "reflection" of Himself. Can the intelligent Hindu, so acute, so quick in all other respects, fall to see how the most ancient and revered of bis national records thus acknowledge and bear testimony to the fundamental principles of the Faith of which the Sovereign of the empire is herself by her royal title " the Defender?" Is it too much to say that where the persuasions of our primitive ancestors thus concur with the rudiments of that Faith, piety to God, and loyalty to the Crown, allegiance to Truth, and Reverence for our Fathers, all combine to stimulate inquiry into the mystery suggested by the self-sacrifice of Prajapati, "whoro shadow, whose death is immortality itself?" Ballygunge, 15th December, 1875.