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Art. X.—On the original extension of the Sanksrit language over certain portions of Asia and Europe; and on the ancient Aryans (), Indians, or Hindus of India Proper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2011

A. Curzon
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Extract

In tracing back the orign of nations beyond the period embraced by the special histories of Greece and Rome, we reach the interval in universal history, during which four great nations are known to have floursihed, and to have extended their relations, political, millitary, or commercial, over the various regions of the globe. These are the races of India, China, Phœnicia, and Egypt. The two latter have long ceased to exist as distinct nations; or rather have been absorbed in other nationalities; whilst the two former, beside constituting the most numerous portion of the human race, have continued their ethnical existence to the present time. That other races of men inhabited the countries which have since been occupied and peopled by these races anterior to them may be considered certain; but no data exist from which it can be inferred that any considerable monarchy, or empire, was ever founded in any of these countries, prior to the clear, national establishment of those races, respectively, in India, and Egypt. The three former are the nations of Asia, who, whether by the antiquity of the civilization attributed to them, or the permanent influence they have exerted in the history of mankind, must be regarded by modern writers as the earliest races that have established themselves as great nations, whose peculiar languages and institutions mark them as the most distinct divisions of the human species, from whose records all researches in general history and ethnology must commence. Of the Chinese and the Phoenicians I shall have as little to remark as of the Egyptians.

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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 16 , January 1856 , pp. 172 - 200
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1856

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page 172 note 1 In speaking of this race, it has been usual to employ the term Indo-Germauic; but this appears too restricted in signification. Although the classification of the various nations who belong to this family would admit of almost unlimited subdivision, the more important only can be here noticed. I should therefore prefer to divide this great family into the Indo-Persic, Indo-Scythie, Indo-Hellenic, Indo-Italic, Indo-Celtic, Indo-Gothic, Indo-Slavonic, and Indo-Polynesian nations. These, it will be observed, are only the principal groups of the family. It would transcend the limits of this sketch to offer any remarks on the ethnological systems of Blumenbach, Prichard, or other naturalists. If races of men be conveniently classed, however, according to their primitive settlements along certain mountain ranges, as the original seat of the Turkish nations is supposed to be the Altai range, and of the Finns the Ural chain of mountains, the Aryans would be more appropriately designated, perhaps, as the Himalayanrace than as constituting the Caucasian.

page 173 note 1 With respect to the language which was first introduced to the European world by Anquetil du Perron as “Zende,” and which has since continued under that designation, I cannot refrain from observing that the true import of this term appears to have been strangely misunderstood. What does the word “Zand” mean? I am not aware that either OUhausen, Lassen, or Bopp has given any explanation of the signification of this word. Brockhaus, a more recent authority, supposes it, adopting Burnouf's views, to be derived from “Zafltu,” used in the Yasna in the sense of “ville,” “bourg.” He observes, “Aus diesem Worte, in dem Sinne des Stadtisehen, Gebildeten, bildet sich die Bedeutung: gebildete Spraclie der Stadte, darin geschriebenes Buch. Hieraus der Name Zend zu erkl'aren.” (Vendidad Sade, 1850, p. 360.) Instead of elucidating the meaning, however, it is evident that the word has no connexion whatever with “zañtu,” the Zandic form of the Sans. (jantu), which is derived from another root (jan) “to be born or produced.” Zand, in (zaud-avasá), or (zand-abastá),—for it is written either way in Persian,— was never applied-by the Parsis to the ancient language of Persia, but to the books of Zoroaster, and is consequently improperly used to designate that dialect of Sanskrit. This word is certainly derived from one or other of the following Sanskrit bases:—(chhandas), as suggested by W. von Schlegel, in the sense of the Vedas, that is, scripture; (khanda), (kánda), or (skandha), meaning section, or chapter of a book, or book itself. It is sometimes written (zhand), which, if considered as the more ancient orthography, is easily traced to (chhanda), with the original sibilant dropped. It appears to have been formerly employed by the Paris, nearly in the same manner as the Páli (khánda), in (dhammakhánda), “book of religion,” for the Sanskrit (dharmakhanda), which is applied by the Buddhists of Burmah to their scriptures.

Erskine, Rask, and Lepsius were of opinion long since that the Zand writing was only a transcript of the Pehlavi (since verified by Olshausen—see Thomas, , in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xii. 255–6Google Scholar), and is therefore not older than the time of the Sassanides (compare Lepsius, Ueber die Anordnung und Verwandtschaft des Semitischen, Indischen, etc., p. 56).

Viewing this language in the most unexceptionable form, according as it is presented in the restorations of Burnouf, in the Commentaire sur le Yaçna, and continued in a series of papers in the Journal Asiatique, and according also to a more recent emended edition of the Zand-Avasta, by ProfessorLassen, (Vendidadi capita quinque priora, Bonn, 1852)Google Scholar, its character as a dialect of Sanskrit, though strangely transformed in a Pehlavi dress, cannot stand in comparison with the Cuneiform Persic in point of antiquity. Spiegel, the latest investigator into the real structure and character of this language, finds the term “zand” so indefinite and vague as to call the language the “ Parsisprache” (see his Grammatik der Parsisprache nebst Sprachproben, Leipzig, 1851Google Scholar), although the language of the Parsis, properly so called, is the Gujrati in India, and modern Persian in Persia. With reference to the true etymological signification of (abastá), which is lost in Persian, Miiller, (Essai sur le Pehlavi, p. 297Google Scholar) and Spiegel (in the above Grammar, pp. 206, 207) consider, from the manner in which it is employed by the Parsis, that it corresponds to the European acceptation of “textus.” This is true in its modern and conventional sense; but this view gives no explanation of its probable derivation. The word, I conceive, is only a modified form of the Sanskrit (abhyaste), “learned by heart,” or “committed to memory as a sacred precept,” and seems to explain its connexion with (zhand), or (clihanda), the scriptures of Zaratusht.

page 176 note 1 Asia Polyglotta, p. 133.

page 176 note 2 Though the passage is rather a digression, as it relates to an interesting people nearly lost to history, it may not be irrelevant to quote. Of these nations, and the country they occupied, the geographer observes:—

καλοṽσι δ' τοṽ ποταμοṽ Bαιτιτικν' πο δε τν νοιγοũντων ουρδετανiαν' τουç δ‘ νοιχοṽνταç ουρδεταντοç τε κα ουρδολουç προσαγορευουσιν οἱ μν τουç δ' τροç' ὧν ν στι καᾆ ∐ολυςι οç, δυνοκους Øήσαçτοĩç ουρδετνιç πυç ἃρκτον τοὺς ∐ουρδσλους. μυμι δ' ν αὺδεç øαἰνεται διορισμç. Σοøώτατοι δ' ξετζοννται τ Iϐηρων οτοι, κα γραμματικ χρνται, κα ποιματα, κα νμουç μμτρουç ξακισχιλων τν ὣç øδι'—Geog., lib. III. p. 204; Amstel. 1707.

It [the territory] is called Bœtica from the river, and Turdetania from the inhabitants, and the inhabitants Turdetani and Turduli. Some consider them as identical and others as distinct nations. Of the latter opinion is Polybius, who says the Turduli are situated to the north of the Turdetani. At present, however, there appears to be no difference between them. They are reckoned the most intelligent of the Iberians, possess a literature, ancient written records, poems, and laws in verse, it is said, of six thousand years' date.”

With the scanty notices which exist of what appears to have been a lost civilization, it is difficult to judge in which category of races we ought to place these nations; whether we are to consider them as having relation to the Semitic family, and originally Phoenician colonists in Spain; or as belonging to an unrecognised branch of the Aryan stock, or to some other unknown race.

page 177 note 1 Comparative Grammar (Translation), from page 1 throughout; and in his work Ueber die Verwandtschaft der malayisch polynesischen Sprachen mit den indisch-europaiselien, in pp. 1, 13, 15, 16, 38, etc. He says of the European members of this family of languages, “dem Sanskrit schwesterlich die Hand reichen,” not contemplating the possibility of its being shown that the Sanskrit had ceased to be a spoken language several centuries before those dialects were formed, or the historical existence of the nations who spoke them. Without the recognition of the principle of the pre-existence and influence of the Sanskrit as an ancient tongue in determining the true meanings of words in various languages, it would have been impossible for Lassen, Westergaard, and Eawlinson to have successfully interpreted the Cuneiform-Persic inscriptions; or for Burnouf to have attempted to correct and restore the language of the Vandidfid Sfidah. It would have been equally as impossible for Bopp himself to have written his masterly work without, perhaps, unconsciously admitting that principle.

page 178 note 1 In reference to the age of the súktas of the Vedas, after the opinions which have been expressed by Sir William Jones who, in speaking of the Yajur-veda, gives 1580 B.C. (Inst. of Menu, pref., p. 12) as its probable date; and Colebrooke (with whom Poley coincides, Fünf Upan, pref., p. 2), who supposes, from astronomical data, 1400 B.C. as the epoch of their collection iutd the form of Sanhitás, thus implying some time antecedent to this date as the period of their general currency in India (Miscellaneous Essays, I. pp. 109, 200, 332), it might seem supererogatory to offer any further observation on the question. With every respect for the opinions of those distinguished men, to whom, with Wilkins and Professor Wilson, the present generation of Orientalists must ever be indebted for opening the path to a new and vast field of philological and historical research, I beg to observe that as the efforts of Lepsius, Bunsen, and other investigators in collecting data from the monuments of Egypt, are tending to establish a more correct system of chronology than now prevails, I consider the above conjectures (for they are only given as such by their authors) far from even approximating to the true epoch of the composition of the siiktas of the Vedas. My impression is grounded on the following considerations.

The dates of the reigns of several kings in the dynasties of Manetho, and other important events in the history of Egypt, have now been fixed on a satisfactory basis. Thus the epoch of the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty is 1600 B.C. s the invasion of the Hykeos, 2200 B.c.; the reign of Amenemha III., of the twelfth dynasty, the builder of the original labyrinth, 2300 B.c.; reformation of the Egyptian calendar, 2782 B.C.; introduction of the solar calendar, 3282 B.C.; epoch of Chepren-Snefru, Cheops-Chufu, and Menkera, of the fourth dynasty, builders of the pyramids of Gîzah, between 3430 and 3400 B.C.; and the first year of Menes is “historically established” as occurring in 3893 B.C. (Lepsius, Chronologie der Ægypter, I. p. 499.) Papyrus was employed by the Egyptians before the year 3400 B.C, as ascertained from monuments of the fourth and fifth dynasties; and hieroglyphical writing was already in use in the time of Menes. (Bunsen, in Ægyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, I. pp. 33—36.) Osymandyas —that is, Ramasses-Miamun—in the fourteenth century B.C. had an extensive library in his temple at Thebes, which had been collected from the more ancient libraries of his predecessors. (Bunsen, id., p. 39.)

With the existence of these facts, without citing others of a similar nature, drawn from the history of Egypt, I cannot suppose that the Aryans were, at co-eval periods of their history, even viewing them as ethnically unconnected with the Egyptians, in a less advanced state of civilization; or that society could have existed in India without a moral or religious code, which must have been based on the Vedas, long ages anterior to the dates assigned by our Orientalists for the period of their composition.

M. Langlois, the French translator of the Rig-veda, supposes tliat a portion of them, the Búktas, are co-eval at least with the great pyramids of Egypt. He observes, “composé à une époque immémorlale, c'est le monument littéraire le plus ancien qui ait été conservé, et il nous représente, dans l'histoire de l'esprit humain, une phase inconnue, et d'autant plus intéressapte à étudier qu'elle peut nous révéler le point de départ des principales idées qui ont dominé toute l'antiquité classique. Merveilleuse étude à poursuivre, que celle qui se fait sur un livre, contemporain, dans quelques-unes au moins de ses parties, de ces grands monuments d'Egypte dont la pierre est encore silencieusement étoigmatique!” (Introduction to the Translation of the Rig-veda, p. 1.) I agree with him and Professor Wilson in the opinion that the hymns of the Rig-veda were composed at successive periods (Id., p. 12), and considerably anterior to the epoch of the first two Rámas. Whether the four sacred books of the Egyptians are the Vedas themselves, or a modified form of the same, is not as yet ascertained from the monuments of Egypt; but any distinct notice or allusion to them in the monuments would not only confirm the greater antiquity of those works than is admitted, but would enable us then to approximate in some degree to the epoch, or epochs, if not of their composition, at least to that of their first general prevalence and reception in India as the foundation of the religious system of the Aryans.

page 179 note 1 “The fundamental parts of the Puránas,” says Troyer, “ are as ancient as the Vedas themselves.” (Prelim. Dis. to his translation of the Dabistán, p. 60). Vans Kennedy had made the same observation before. Bumouf says of the Bhágavata Purána, the most recent, it is supposed, of the class (and the observation applies to the whole of them), “II appartient pour le fond comme pour la forme, à un ensemble d'ouvrages dont on ne possède encore que des fragments, dont on ignore l'origine et l'histoire, et dont la langue n'est comprise que d'un petit nombre d'erudita.” (Bhág. Pur., Pref., p. 1.) Again, with respect to their age: “ Us sont également antérieurs, pour Ja plus grande partie, à la révolution opérée par le Bouddhisme dans l'Inde six siecles au moins avant notre ère.” (Id., p. cix.) Independently of being expressly mentioned in Manu, chap. III. si. 232, and XII. 109 (date according to Sir Wm. Jones, 880—1280 B.C, Inst. of Menu, Pref. p. 11); in the code of Yájnawalkya, the Mitákshará, line 5; in the Rámáyana, Ayodhyákanda, chap. XV. si. 19, p. 351, Schlegel's ed.; in the Mahábhárata, Adiparwa I., si. 17, 23, 2298), etc., the ages of which, according to Lassen and Alexander von HumLoldt, considerably precede that of the appearance of Buddha, the latest date assigned to whom is in the sixth century B.C., the Puránas are twice cited as the fifth Veda in the Chhandogya upanishad of the Sáma-veda; in the Vrihad-áranyaka upanishad of the Yajur-veda, pp. 3P, 55, 56, Poley'ged. 1844s in the Mundáka upanishad of the Atharva-veda, p. 117; and, I have no doubt, in other ancient works as yet little known.

From these authorities, corroborated by that of Colebrooke, who says “that the names of itihása and purána are anterior to Vyása” (Miscel. Essays, I. p. 11), and of Professor Wilson, who is of opinion that “a very great portion of the contents of many, some portion of the contents of all, is genuine and old” (Vishnu Pur. Trans., Pref. p. vi), there can be little doubt that the primitive portions of the Puránas are next in point of antiquity to the súktas of the Vedas, and generally more ancient than the Bralunanas, upanisliads, and sútras, and the two great heroic poems. (Compare Windischmaim, in his Sancara, sive de theologumenis Vedanticorum, pp. 55—57; and Vans Kennedy, Researches into the nature and affinity of ancient and Hindu Mythology, pp. 189, 364, 365.)

page 180 note 1 In the old Prátisákhya grammars of the Vedas, thirty-six ancient grammarians are mentioned by name, most of whom are alluded to by Pánini and Yáska, and are noticed in the Vrihad-áranyaka and Aitareya Upanishads. (See Rudolph Both, Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda, pp. 65, 66.) Vopadeva, in his list of roots, the (kavi-kalpa-druma), quotes Kandra, Kásakritsna, Apisali, Sákatáyana, as grammarians who flourished anterior to Pánini. (Westergaard, , Radices Sanscritse, p. 5.)Google Scholar

page 182 note 1 This view is confirmed by Schott, in the Abhandhmgen der königlichenb Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, for 1849, p. 363, who has remarked that in the languages of the Turkish and Finnish tribes of Central Asia many terms which were supposed to be of pure Tatar origin are traceable to Sanskrit. He instances the Sanskrit (eye) and (eat) as constituting the roots of numerous words in the languages of those tribes, the same as in the Indo-European family of languages. Since the period of the first extension of the Aryan tongue in a westerly direction from India, a considerable number of various languages have been disseminated by the Chino-Tatar nations over central and northern Asia and northern and eastern Europe, in the languages of the Hans and their descendants; -of the Finns, pure and mixed, Slavonic and Germanic; of the Tungusians, comprising the Mftnehu and its mixed Chinese dialects; of the, Mongols, and its varieties, of which the Kalmak is the principal; of the Turki tribes, comprehending the Wighur, Chaghatai, or Jaghatai, Kipchak, Usmánli and other dialects.

page 186 note 1 This observation does not apply to the changes which hare been effected in Various languages of Asia from the spread ot Islám in some regions, and of Buddhism in others, which has taken place at subsequent epochs, from which numerous Arabic words have been introduced into all the Muhammado-Aryan and Turkish languages, and Sanskrit words into the Tibetan, the Chino-Tatar dialects, and Chinese itself.

page 189 note 1 It would be quite as legitimate to maintain that the Arabs were immigrants and foreigners in Arabia, the Chinese in China, or the Hellenic nations in Greece, as to maintain that the Aryans were immigrants or foreigners in Aryá-vartta.

page 191 note 1 Wilson, , Translation of the Rig-veda, In trod., p. 48Google Scholar.

page 191 note 2 The expression “the land of the barbarians is altogether different,” which occurs at the end of the next slolca, would scarcely have occurred to any one speaking of a region which had beeu acquired by his countrymen by invasion and subjugation; when, had such an event really happened, or had any tradition of euoh an event existed, it is more probable that the circumstance would have been mentioned with some degree of national pride, or been alluded to in some manner or other. No such tradition is to be found throughout the whole extent of Sanskrit literature, ancient or modern.

page 192 note 1 (Aryá-vartta) employed as tlie name of India, not in its strictly etymological sense, differs very little in signification from the modern Persian (Hindústá), except being more limited in its application, first used by the Muhammadans when speaking of the same country, and which we still retain.

page 194 note 1 Bopp, , Comp. Gram. Trans, s. 36, p. 33Google Scholar; and Burnouf, , Commentaire sur le Yaçna, p. 190Google Scholar.

page 194 note 2 Burnouf, id., notes, pp. xci. xcii.

page 195 note 1 Compare Procopius, De Bello Gothormn, libb. II. and III.; and Alex, von Humboldt, Aaie Centrals, I. p. 400, and II. p. 252. A passage occurs in Ahmad bin Arabsháh's history of Tímúr, in which the Gette are mentioned as occupying, so late as the fifteenth century, a territory contiguous to Mongol and Chinese Tatary, which that conqueror had reduced to subjection. The following is the passage:—

“When he [Tímúr] arrived at Samarkand, he sent his grandson, Muhammad Sultan, the son of Jahángír, with the Amír Seifuddín, to the furtherest limit of his empire to which his authority reached, which was beyond the Jaxartes eastward, extending to the seas bordering on the territories of the Mongols, the Jatá [or Gatá, as the Arabs pronounce it], and Chinese Tatary about a month's journey from the country of Transoxania (Máwará an nahr).”

There seems scarcely room to doubt that the here mentioned (who are noticed in two or three other places by Arabsháh, but very briefly) we the descendants of a branch of the Getee, of whom there were several tribes, whom conquests or political events had impelled to the east, whilst other tribes, from similar causes, had proceeded in an opposite direction. They are alluded to in some Chinese historical works, and are described as being of fair complexion, with blue eyes and light hair. The Getee are not named in the Behistun Inscription among the nations who were subjected to the rule of Darius.

page 196 note 1 Grimm, Jacob, Ueber Jornandes, 1846, s. 21Google Scholar.

page 197 note 1 Sanskrit terms, on the contrary, have penetrated into the Semitic languages, as has been shown by Lassen, Gesenius, and others, in the names of a variety of objects which evince the existence, at the period to which they relate, of a remarkable commercial intercourse between the countries inhabited by the Phœnicio-Arabian nations and India. Beside the Arabic kazdír (Greek κασσίτερς, Latin Cassiterides, applied to the Scilly Isles and to a part of Cornwall, from tin being found there), Sanskrit kastíra, “tin;” Arabic sukkar (Greek σάκχαρ and σάκχαρον, Latin saccharum), Sanskrit sarkarά, in the modified sense of “sugar;” Arabiì sandal (Greek σάνταλον, Latin santalum), Sanskrit chandana, “sandal-wood;” Arabic uruzz (Greek ỏρυξα, Latin oryza), though more changed in form, yet easily recognised, Sanskrit uríhi, “rice;” Arabic ais, in the sense of “ existence,” Sanskrit as, “to be;” and numerous other words which cannot be here noticed at length; if the Hebrew tukkiim (1 Kings, x. 22) be correctly translated by “peacocks,” it is derived from the Sanskrit sikhin. If it mean a parrot, however, as Quatremère interprets the word, it corresponds equally as closely to the Sanskrit suka, with the change of the sibilant for the dental, as in θάλαττα for θάασσα, and with the Hebrew plural termination kophim is, with little variation, the Sanskrit kapi, “ape,” also with the plural ending nard is the Sanskrit nalada, “spikenard,” with the common permutation of the liquids, as is shown also in νάρδος In the latter part of the expression sen habim, literally “tooth of elephants,” is recognised the Sanskrit ibha, “elephant;” which, in combination with another element (the Arabic according to Gesenius and Benary), has probably produced the Greek έλέφας,

These etymologies become verified when we consider that the country from which these animals and objects were exported, and introduced into Palestine by Phœnician or Arab merchants, was no other than India, in which they all abound. The country itself is thus identified, both by its natural products and their Sanskrit names.

page 198 note 1 The efforts which have been made to fix definite phonetic values to some of, the hieroglyphical symbols, and to ascertain the nature of the alphabetical letters which those symbols probably represented, have been principally confined to monuments of the New Empire, which exist more numerously than those of the Old Monarchy, when the Egyptian language had. undergone a most important change. This modified language may have been the parent of the modern Coptic, although the latter is itself disguised in the vesture of ike Greek alphabet, and contains words of apparent Tatarian and Finnish origin. (See Schott, in the Abhandlungea der Königlichen Akaderaie der Wissenachaften zu Berlin, for 1849,, pp. 320, 321.) The radical words of this Coptic are supposed by some authorities to constitute the remains of the ancient Egyptian language, and have been, employed as the basis of an investigation into the phonetic nature of the hieroglyphical symbols.

The invasion of the Hyksos, however, and duration of their sway in Lower Egypt, which intervened between the flourishing periods of the old and the later Egyptian monarchies, produced a result winch has since only been repeated in a, variety of instances in the histories of other nations. The Semitic element in the language of the Egyptians, I think, was received after the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos, and: mrasthase- incorporated itself with, what I an) disposed to consider was the ancient Aryan basis of the Egyptian tongue of the Old Empire, and produced the Neo-Egyptian of the monuments of the New Empire, in a mode similar, as I have already observed, to the formation of numerous modern languages, such as the Persian, after the Arab conquest, or the Hindustani, posterior to the Muhanunedan subjugation of India.

Notwithstanding all that has been written and said on the origin of Egyptian and Indian civilization, from the time of Sir William Jones to our own days, I venture to entertain tie opuaien that the researches of the interpreters of the hieroglyphics will soon establish what I have long considered as next to certain, that the Menes of the Egyptians, and Manu (anciently Man us) of the Hindus refer tp an historical personage—an Aryan chief—who, first invaded and conquered. Egypt from India; and I think this event is. the earliest well-defined instance of the migrations of the Aryans westward which I have above noticed. That Egyptian civilization was not originally indigenous in Egypt can be deduced from several circumstances. The Egyptians were always an isolated people in Africa; their contiguous neighbours of the west and south being all of a race—the Negro, the true aboriginal race of that eontinent—entirely different from themselves. Egypt, on the invasion of Menes, appears to have been inhabited by the Negro race. The valley of the Nile was too restricted in extent to be the nursery of tne various and powerful Aryan nations who hare played so important a part in universal history. The Egyptians have but one Menes, who, they admit, was the founder of their empire. It is now ascertained from the monuments that this Menes was, with respect to Egypt itself, a foreign invader and conqueror. The Hindus have bad, at least, seven personages of this name, whose memorials, as preserved in Sanskrit writers, are sufficiently satisfactory to relate to real actors whose history has accumulated round itself during the course of ages such a mass of fiction—the mythological creations- of later periods—as to render it difficult (but not more so than in the records of other nations) to keep the historical basis of probability and truth steadily in view, and separate it from the imaginary portion; which, as in other instances, envelops too many otherwise natural and authentic historical facts.

The same of ftaittas, or Ramasaes, borne by several kings of Egypt, is certainly the Sanskrit —a genuine Hindu appellation; but these kings must not be confounded with the three celebrated Ramas of the Hindus, any more than our own Henries with the Henries of France; nor must Menes be identified with the supposed author of the Institutes, but is a distinct personage, though bearing the same name, and of the same race as the Hindns themselves. My own opinion is, that the Egyptians were originally non-Vaidik Aryans and schismatics. Their schism from the established religious system of the latter took place long prior to the secession of Buddha from the same.

The Hyksos, after their expulsion from Egypt by Ramasses the Great, may have seized on Syria and Mesopotamia, and founded what has been considered as the Assyrian monarchy, if it be certain that this monarchy was not a dependency of the Persian, or rather Aryan, empire, which had been previously established and ruled by Aryan princes in Persia. Sir William Jones considered it identical with the Pfshdadi dynasty of Persia. The founder of the Assyrian line of kings, in the genealogical list discovered by Rawlinson, appears, according to him, to have flourished about the fifteenth or sixteenth century before the Christian era. This period very nearly coincides with the epoch of the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt, and I think it possible that the foundation of that monarchy, supposing it to be of Semitic origin, or a change of dynasty in Assyria, may have been effected as a consequence of that event. For more positive information, however, we must wait for further results from the interpretation of both the hieroglyphics and the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions.