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Art. I.—On the Position of Women in the East, in Olden Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

I Have lately been occupied with the examination of the legends stamped on a series of leaden coins recently discovered at Kolhapúr. These legends are found to illustrate, in a curious manner, the local custom of the children being designated after and identified by the name of the mother, and reproduce the dominant idea of recording the Metronymic to the subordination or exclusion of the Patronymic of the race or family.

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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1879

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References

page 2 note 1 Cory inserts a query “Patriarchism?”

page 2 note 2 I must premise that in this Essay, in all cases embodying matters that concern an Indian reading public, simple translations in English have been preferred to the original Greek and Latin texts; where critically necessary, the latter will be exceptionally admitted into the context or reproduced at large in the footnotes; and, further, I may add that many notes and references, which would be freely understood and taken for granted by classical scholars, are intentionally quoted in full terms, where available, in simple English versions.

page 2 note 3 “An enormous area, which lies mainly to the east of a line drawn from Lapland to Siam, is peopled, for the most part, by men who are short and squat, with the skin of a yellow-brown colour; the eyes and hair black, and the latter straight, coarse and scanty on the body and face, but long on the scalp. They are strongly brachycephalic, the skull being usually devoid of prominent brow-ridges, while the nose is flat and small, and the eyes are oblique.“—Journ. Ethnolog. Soc. 18691870.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 The Xanthrochroic type (No. 6) is defined as, “a third and extremely welldefined type of mankind is exhibited by the greater part of the population of Central Europe. These are the Xanthrochroi, or ‘fair whites.’ …On the south, and west this type comes into contact and mixes with the ‘Melanochroi,’ or ‘dark whites,’ while on the north and east it becomes mingled with the people of the Mongoloid type.”—p. 408.

page 3 note 2 La ville de Suse, située sur le fleuye Eulæus …fût déjà, vers la fin du 3me millenium avant J. c., la capitale d'un royaume puissant et le siége d'une dynastie touranienne qni, en 2283 avant J. C., conquit Babylone et régna sur la Chaldée pendant 224 ans. Le pays dont élle etait la ville principale, était nommé Elam par les Sémites, Uvaza ou Khuz par les Aryens, et Nime par le peuple de Sumer; il s'appelait Kuṣṣi “Les Kosséens.”—Oppert, J., First Congress of Orientalists, p. 179.Google Scholar

See also Etudes Cunéiformes. Lenormant, M. F.. Journal Asiatique, 1877, pp. 42, 235et seq.Google Scholar

From this it will be clear that to speak of an Assyrian or even a Chaldæan Empire is altogether erroneous. Assyrian and Babylonian civilization was Turanian, and had its source in the highlands of Elam—Kharris-Kurra— “the mountain of the East,” whence the Accadai or “highlanders” had descended, and to which their ritual always looked back.—Sayce, A. H., Zeitsch. Egyp. 1870, p. 151Google Scholar. See also MrSayce's, articles, Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii. p. 465.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 “The decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions has brought out one very prominent fact with regard to Babylonian Semitic culture—namely, the great extent to which the Semitic rulers of the land were indebted to their predecessors, the non-Semitic Akkadians, for their mythology, arts and sciences. One of the most marked characteristics of that complex group of nations denominated Turanian, and, in fact, the one common factor, is the belief in magic in its various forms. The belief in good and evil luck attached to certain days or certain localities is found in almost every branch. The Chinese superstition of fung shui—i.e. ‘wind and water’—influences a great deal of the daily life of the native of the Celestial Empire. Similar beliefs are current among all the branches of the vast Tartar race. Among the Turks it has been to some extent influenced by the creed of Islam. In Babylonia, under the non-Semitic Akkadian rule, the dominant creed was the fetish worship, with all its ritual of magic and witchcraft; and when the Semites conquered the country, the old learning of the land became the property of the priests and astrologers, and the Akkadian language the Latin of the empire. This being the Case, it is not astonishing that we find the greater portion of this tablet written in the Akkadian, not only in ideographic groups, but in full phonetic form in many cases.”—Mr. St. C. Boscawen, The Academy, Nov. 17, 1877. See also Lenormant, M. F., The Academy, July 20, 1878, p. 65, and Mr. Boscawen's further reply.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 Wilkinson, G., vol. ii. p. 26.Google ScholarBirch, , Egypt from the Monuments, p. 27.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 Birch, , pp. 83–5.Google ScholarWilkinson, (vol. ii. p. 52)Google Scholar notices that “her dress is that of a king.”

page 6 note 2 Diod. Sic. i. 2:Google Scholar “It is a custom among them, that they honour a queen, and allow her more power and authority than a king, and in their contracts of marriage authority is given to the wife over her husband.”—Booth's translation.

The following recent writers on the subject may also be consulted:—Sharpe, S., “History of Egypt,” 1852, vol. i. p. 18, vol. ii. p. 1.Google ScholarAdam, W., “Cansanguinity in Marriage,” Fortnightly Review, 1865,Google Scholar November 1st and 15th. Huth, A. H., “Marriage of Near Kin,” London, 1875, pp. 913.Google Scholar See also an admirable series of papers on the Coins of the Ptolemies, by MrPoole, R. S., in the Numismatic Chronicle, vol. iv. u.s. 1864, and vol. v. 1865.Google Scholar

page 6 note 3 “Le roi Ptolémée, fils de Ptolémée et d'Arsinoé, dieux frères, et la reine Bérénice, sa sœur et sa femme, (ont élevé) ce temple à Osiris.“—Letronne, , Insc. de l'Egypte, p. 2.Google Scholar

Recherches sur le Calendrier Macédonien en Egypte, etc., par Robiou, p. 17, Mémoires, p. D. S. a l'Académie, tom. ix. 1878: L'an xxiv… “Le roi de la haute et basse Egypte, fils de dieux Epiphanes, Cheéri de Ptah, fils du soleil, Ptolémée (Ptolis) vivant à toujours, Chéri de Ptah, avec sa sœur, épouse Ammonienne princesse dame de deux régions Cléopâtre (Kleoptra).” See p. 37, for corresponding Hieroglyphs.

page 6 note 4 ii. 35.

page 6 note 5 “Translation of an Egyptian Contract of Marriage,” by Eugène Revillout. This interesting contract of marriage is written in the demotic character upon a small sheet of papyrus, No. 2432, Cat. Egyptien, Musée du Louvre. It is dated in the month of , year 33 of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the contracting parties are Patma, son of Pchelkhons, and the lady, Ta-outem, the daughter of Rehu. The terms of the deed are extremely singular as to the amount of dowry required on both sides, together with the clauses providing for repudiation. After the actual dowry is recited, the rights of the children which may hereafter come from the marriage, as well as the payment of the mother's pin-money, are secured by the following clause: “Thy pocket money for one year is besides thy toilet money which I give thee each year, and it is thy right to exact the payment of thy toilet money, and thy pocket money, which are to be placed to my account, which I give thee. Thy eldest son, my eldest son, shall be the heir of all my property, present and future. I will establish thee as wife.”—Society of Biblical Archæology, Academy, April 13th, 1878.

page 7 note 1 See also DrBirch, , “Egypt from the Monuments,” p. 130,Google Scholar under the reign of Menephtah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

page 9 note 1 The only remaining important architectural group in Asia Minor is that of Lycia.…Interesting though they certainly are, they are extremely disheartening to any one looking for earlier remains in this land, inasmuch as all of them, and more especially the older ones, indicate distinctly a wooden origin, more strongly perhaps than any architectural remains in the Western world. The oldest of them cannot well be carried farther back than the Persian conquest of Cyrus and Harpagus. In other words, it seems perfectly evident that up to that period the Lycians used only wood in their buildings, and that it was only at that time, and probably from the Greeks and Egyptians, that they, like the Persians themselves, first learnt to substitute for their frail and perishable structures others of a more durable material.—Fergusson, , Hist. Arch. vol. i. p. 224.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 —Dio Cass. xlvii. sect. 34. Appian de Bell. Civ. iv. 80.Google Scholar —Plutarch in Brutus, sec. xxxi. Langhorne's translation runs as follows:

“But the Lycians were seized with an incredible despair, a kind of frenzy, which can no otherwise be described than by calling it a passionate desire of death. Women and children, freemen and slaves, people of all ages and conditions, strove to repulse the soldiers as they came to their assistance from the walls. With their own hands they collected wood and reeds, and all manner of combustibles, to spread the fire over the city, and encouraged its progress by every means in their power… …Regardless of his (Brutus') entreaties, they sought by every means in their power to put an end to their lives. Men, women, and even children, with hideous cries, leaped into the flames. Some threw themselves headlong from the walls, and others fell upon the swords of their parents, opening their breasts, and begging to be slain.”

Monumental evidence of the fighting power of the Lycian women seems to be afforded by the sculpture on the Tomb in the British Museum, where one of the three combatants, fighting in rank, foot to foot, is clearly intended to represent a female.

page 11 note 1 Col. Tod naturally supplies numerous instances of Jauhar, or “immolation of females,” from the annals of the Rájpúts.—vol. i. p. 265. 13,000 females were sacrificed at Cheetore, on its capture by Buhádar Sháh of Guzerát.—p. 311. At. vol. ii. p. 251 he explains the Sohag; the Sohagun is one who becomes Satí previous to her lord's death.

Elliot's Historians. Jauhar (the Hindú practice), vol. iv. pp. 277, 534; vol. v. pp. 173, 328, 665; vol. vi. p. 121; vol. vii. p. 50.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 Herodotus′ account of the ethnography of the Carians is as follows: “This then is the account the Cretans give of the Carians; the Carians themselves, however, do not admit its correctness; but consider themselves to be aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, and always to have gone under the same name as they now do. And in testimony of this, they show an ancient temple of Jupiter Carius at Mylasa, which the Mysians and Lydians share, as kinsmen of the Carians, …but none who are of a different nation, though of the same language with the Carians, are allowed to share it (172). The Caunians, in my opinion, are aboriginals, though they say they are from Crete … (173). The Lycians were originally sprung from Crete, for in ancient time Crete was entirely in the possession of Barbarians.”—Herodotus i. sec. 171, etc.

page 12 note 2 “I mentioned in my former journal a fine arched gateway, which was still remaining;…. I have sketched the outer side, showing on the keystone the sacrificial axe, [the Sagara]. This emblem I have seen on four different keystones, built into various walls in the town, showing that it must have been very commonly used in the architecture of the city.…I have obtained coins of the ancient city, with the same emblem upon them.”—Fellows' Discoveries in Lycia (roy. 8vo. 1851), p. 75.

page 12 note 3 Schliemann, , pp. 218, 353354.Google Scholar

page 12 note 4 Part ii. p. 11. See also Homer, Od. v. 220.

page 12 note 5 Texier, , Asie Mineure, vol. i. p. 220, pl. 76.Google Scholar

page 12 note 6 Leake, , Numismata Hellen., p. 64:Google ScholarMaussollus. Ob. Head of Apollo. Rev. Jupiter Labrandenus in his right hand the of bipennis, or double axe. Idrieus same type . Pixodarus same type . See also Müller, L., Numismatique d'Alexandre le Grand (1855), p. 254et seq.Google Scholar

page 13 note 1 “Of the other captains I make no mention, as I deem it unnecessary, except of Artemisia, whom I most admire, as having, though a woman, joined this expedition (of Xerxes) against Greece; who, her husband being dead, herself holding the sovereignty while her son was under age, joined the expedition from a feeling of courage and manly spirit, though there was no necessity for her doing so. Her name was Artemisia, daughter of Lygdamis, and by birth she was of Halicarnassus on her father's side, and on her mother's a Cretan.”—Herodotus vii. 99. See also viii. 67–9 and 87.

page 13 note 2 Herod. viii. 88.Google Scholar

page 13 note 3 93. “And besides, a reward of 10,000 drachmas was offered to whoever should take her alive, for they (the Athenians) considered it a great indignity that a woman should make war against Athens.”—Also 101–3, 107.

94. ”The Athenians say that Adimantus, the Corinthian admiral, being dismayed and excessively frightened, hoisted sail and fled.”

page 13 note 4 “Hecatomnus, who was then king of the Carians, had three sons, Maussollus, Hidrieus, and Pixodarus, and two daughters. Maussollus, the eldest son, married Artemisia, the eldest daughter; Hidrieus, the second son, married Ada, the other sister. Maussollus came to the throne, and dying without children, left the kingdom to his wife…. Hidrieus succeeded her; he died a natural death, and was succeeded hy his wife Ada. …But Ada, the daughter of Hecatomnus, whom Pixodarus ejected, entreated Alexander, and endeavoured to prevail upon him to reinstate her in her kingdom. …She promised (in return) her assistance in reducing to obedience the parts of the country which had revolted; for the persons who were in possession of them were her relations and subjects. She also delivered up Alinda, where she herself resided. Alexander granted her request and proclaimed her queen.”—Strabo xiv. ii. 17.

Arrian (i. 25) says “it had been an ancient custom among Asiatics ever since the time of Semiramis, that the widow should reign after her husband's decease.” —Rooke's translation.

“Ada, whom he (Alexander) called his mother, and had made Queen of Caria.” —Langhorne. Plutarch, in Vit. Alex.

page 14 note 1 “In an inscription found at Erythra in Ionia, by M. Lebas, the people of that city decree that Maussollus shall be their proxenor, granting him the right of citizenship, and other privileges attached to the proxenia. They further declare him to be their benefactor, and in gratitude for the services he has rendered, decree that his statue, in bronze, shall be placed in their Agora, and a statue of Artemisia, in marble, in the temple of Athene; also that a crown of gold of the value of 50 darics shall be presented to Maussollus, and one of the value of 30 darics to Artemisia. In this inscription he is honoured with the title of king ().”—Newton, vol. i. p. 45.

In reference to the questions of self-government, adverted to above, I continue my quotations from Mr. Newton's work: “Three interesting decrees of the city of Mylasa, which have been discovered on that site, throw some light on the internal administration of Mausolus. From these documents, of which the respective dates are the 39th year of the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, B.C. 367; the 45th year of the same reign, B.C. 361; and the 5th year of the reign of Artaxerxes Ochus, B.C. 355, we learn that, up to the latest of these dates, Mausolus ruled in Caria with the title of Satrap.”—Newton, , Halicarnassus, , vol. ii. p. 42.Google Scholar

In No. I. we find details of “the capital condemnation of Araïssis is by virtue of a warrant from the king, the confiscation of the conspirator's property being decreed by the city of Mylasa, by vote of the ecclesia, ratified by the tribes, in accordance with the laws of the state.”—p. 43.

page 15 note 1 Itaque post mortem Mausoli, Artemisia uxore ejus regnante, Rhodii indignantes, mulierem imperare civitatibus Cariæ totius, armata classe profecti sunt, ut id regnum occuparent…

Tunc Artemisia Rhodo capta, principibus occisis, trophæum in urbe Rhodo suæ victoriæ constituit, æneasque duas sfcatuas fecit, unam Rhodiorum civitatis, alteram suæ imaginis; et ita figuravit Rhodiorum civitati stigmata imponentem. —Vitruvius ii. viii. (vol. i. p. 185).

Pausanias seems to have confounded the second Artemisia with the earlier heroine of Salamis: “There is a statue too, in the same place (in the Persian porch at Sparta), of Artemisia, the daughter of Lygdamis, Queen of Halicarnassus. They report that she voluntarily assisted Xerxes against the Greeks, and behaved very valiantly at Salamis.”—Pausanias, book iii. Laconics, cap. xi. Translation, Taylor, J. T., London, 1824.Google Scholar

page 15 note 2 Vaux, , “Greek Cities of Asia Minor” (1877), p. 70.Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 Herodotus iv. 110. 117: “We also performed a valiant exploit against the Amazons, who once made an irruption into Attica from the river Thermodon; and in the Trojan war were inferior to none.”—ix. 27.

page 16 note 2 He mentions casually in book xi. cap. v. sec. 1, that the so-called Amazons are supposed to employ the javelin, bow, and “safaris,” and in xi. viii. 6 he assigns the national “sagaris of brass” to the Massagetæ. See also xii. iii. 9. 21. 22. 24.

page 17 note 1 Lycia, Fellows', 1841, Plate, p. 116Google Scholar, and Frontispiece. A cast of this bas-relief is in the British Museum, sadly disfigured by a thick coating of brown-red paint. See also Spratt and Lycia, Forbes', 1847, vol. i. p. 40.Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 Pausanias, , x. 2526.Google ScholarGrote, vol. i. p. 297.Google Scholar

page 17 note 3 Boeckh, No. 4225, vol. iii. p. 133.

page 17 note 4 Kôn, a king, a ruler; in honorific usage a shepherd, or man of the shepherd caste; kôn-mei, royal authority. Another form of the same word is , a king, a god. Kôyil in ordinary Tamil means a temple; in the Old Tamil of the Syrian inscriptions it means a palace; literally, kô-il, the king's house. It is hard to determine whether or kôn is to be regarded as the primitive form of this word. Compare the Turkish and Mongolian khán: also khagán, a ruler; Ostiak khon.—Caldwell, , Dravidian Grammar, edit. 1875, p. 504.Google Scholar

page 17 note 5 “Leader of the army”? Leake notices that “Separzza was the Lycian name of the sons of Harpagus.”

page 17 note 6 Ameraldas. Umman-aldas ? See anté, p. 5.

page 17 note 7 Myonnesos?

page 17 note 8 is, however, given as a name in vol. ii. No. 2691, of the Carian lists, in Boeckh's comprehensive work.

page 17 note 9 Boeckh, , vol. ii. p. 449, No. 2655.Google ScholarNewton, , Halicarnassus, and in the Nineteenth Century, 1878, p. 1042.Google Scholar

page 17 note 10 P. 5, antè.

page 18 note 1 Dennis's Etruria, vol. i. p. 242.Google ScholarBullettino dell' Instituto, 1833, plate of inscriptions, page 72.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 “In the funereal inscriptions copied from the monuments in these cities, all the pedigrees of the deceased, with one exception, are derived from the mothers; the exception is on the tomb of the Greek copied at Limyra, and he was evidently a foreigner, from having his monument inscribed in both languages.”—Fellows'Asia Minor and Lycia (1852), p. 413.Google Scholar

page 18 note 3 Appian, lxvi., Pliny, xxxiii. 4, Plutarch in Romulus.

page 19 note 1 Dennis, , vol. ii. p. 189,Google Scholar incidentally remarks: “Of marriages, no representation, which has not a mythical reference, has yet been found on the sepulchral urns of Etruria, though most of the earlier writers on these antiquities mistook the farewell-scenes, presently to be described, where persons of opposite sexes stand hand in hand, for scenes of nuptial festivity.”

page 19 note 2 In another place Mr. Taylor adds, ”It must be remembered that the records of the Etruscan tombs extend over several centuries.…The bilingual inscriptions belong to the time when the Etruscan language was giving place to Latin, and they therefore exhibit the system of nomenclature in its most elaborate form, and partake to some extent of the peculiarities introduced from the Roman system.“—p. 254. One of the best bilingual inscriptions in Latin and Etruscan occurs on a sarcophagus found at Perugia. Mr. 1. Taylor arranges the counterpart legends as follows:

Latin. P. VOLUMNIUS A.F. VIOLENS, CAFATIA NATUS.

Etruscan. PUP. VELIMNA AU. CAHATIAL.

Among other remarks Mr. Taylor notices that “Cahatial, the last word of the Etruscan record, is equivalent to Cafatia natus, the last words of the Latin inscription. In another bilingual inscription the Etruscan word Cainal is in like manner translated by Cainnia natus. Hence we learn positively the meaning of the suffix al, which occurs many hundred times in Etruscan inscriptions. It was the regular Etruscan metronymic; it is usually appended to the mother's name, and means ‘child’ or ‘born of.’”

page 20 note 1 Ancient Indian Weights, Numismata Orientalia, No. I. p. 18.

page 20 note 2 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. p. 19, vol. ii. p. 325Google Scholar; and SirRawlinson, H., J.R.A.S. Vol. I. N.S. p. 193.Google Scholar

page 20 note 3 Athenæum, 23rd Nov. 1878, p. 664.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 Herodotus, vii. 11Google Scholar, makes Cyrus and Cambyses sons of Achæmenes. Darius thinks it essential to marry a daughter of Cyrus, vii. 11. Ctesias Fragmenta Muller, C., p. 43Google Scholar:

So also the Scythian Scylas, of whom Herodotus tells us, “Ariapithes met his death by treachery at the hands of Spargapithes, King of Agathyrsi, and Scylas succeeded to the kingdom, and his father's wife, whose name was Opæa; this Opæa was a native, by whom Ariapithes had a son, Oricus.”—iv. 78. “Their (the Persians') mode of burial is to smear the bodies over with wax, and then to inter them. The Magi are not buried, but the birds are allowed to devour them. These persons, according to the usage of the country, espouse even their mothers.”—Strabo, , xv. iii. 20.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 The leading position of the daughters and female relations of the Kings may be traced in the numerous instances of their names appearing so ostentatiously in the lists of the army of Xerxes. They may be outlined, for the moment, as follows:

″Otanes, father of Amestris, wife of Xerxes.

″Hystaspes, son of Darius and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, commanded the Bactrians and Sacæ.

″The Arabians and Ethiopians who dwell above Egypt were commanded by Arsames, son of Darius and Artystone, daughter of Cyrus, whom Darius loved more than all his wives, and whose image he had made of beaten gold.

″Gobryas, son of Darius and Artystone, (commanded) the Mariandyans, …etc.

″Artochmes, who had married a daughter of Darius, commanded,… etc.

“Ariomardus, son of Darius and Parmys, daughter of Smerdis, son of Cyrus,…etc.”—Herodotus, vii. 61, et seq.

page 25 note 1 See also the view, from a Semitic standpoint, in Josephus, Ant. book xi. cap. vi. sec. 1, 2.

page 26 note 1 “Turkan-Khatoune fut conduite par Tchinguiz-Khan en Tartarie, et mourut, en 1233, dans la ville de Caracouroum.”—p. 260.

See also De Guignes, book xiv. p. 275, and XV. p. 52; Price, , Muhammadan History, vol. ii. pp. 393,Google Scholar etc.; Thomas, , ‘Patháns,’ p. 104.Google Scholar

page 26 note 2 “Several ladies of the name of Bulughán (‘Zibellina’) have a place in Mongol-Persian history. The one here indicated, a lady of great beauty and ability, was known as the Great Khatun Bulughan, and was (according to strange Mongol custom) successively the wife of Abaka and of his son Arghun, Mongol sovereign of Persia.”—Yule, , Marco Polo, vol. i. p. 32.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 “General Cunningham (Arch. Rep. vol. i. p. 46)Google Scholar and others are in the habit of calling this an Egyptian form. This it certainly is not, as no Egyptian doorway had sloping jambs. Nor can it properly be called Pelasgic. The Pelasgi did use that form, but derived it from stone constructions. The Indians only obtained it from wood.”—Fergusson, , foot-note, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 28 note 1 “When Cyrus had conquered this nation, he was anxious to reduce the Massagetæ to subjection ….There are some who say that this nation is Scythian.”—Herodotus, i. sec. 201.

“It is said that sexual intercourse among these people takes place openly as with cattle.”—sec. 203.

“A woman whose husband was dead was queen of the Massagetæ; her name was Tomyris.”—sec. 205.

“The Massagetæ resemble the Scythians in their dress and mode of living…—sec. 215. Their manners are as follows: Each man marries a wife, but they use women promiscuously … When a Massagetan desires to have the company of a woman, he hangs up his quiver in front of her chariot (waggon), and has intercourse with her without shame.”—sec. 216. See also “Nasamones” book iv. sec. 172.

page 30 note 1 It will be remembered that for a like, but less marked, outrage, Candaules of Lydia lost his life.—Herodotus, i. 813.Google Scholar In another chapter of the Mahábhárata, Mádrí, during the life of her husband Pandu, is stated to have become the mother of Sahadeva by the two Aswins.—Wheeler, , Mahabh. vol. i. p. 71.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 These extracts are taken from Mr. Halhed's original translation inserted in Wheeler's Mahábhárata.

page 33 note 1 See also Judges, v. 2830.Google ScholarDeuteronomy, xxi. 1013.Google ScholarTod, vol. i. p. 639.Google ScholarPurána, Vishnu, vol. v. pp. 69, 130.Google Scholar

The Persian feeling on this subject is defined by Herodotus as: “Now, to carry off women by violence the Persians think is the act of wicked men, but to trouble oneself about avenging them when so carried off is the act of foolish ones; and to pay no regard to them when carried off, of wise men: for it is clear, that if they had not been willing, they could not have been carried off.”—Herod. (Cary), i. 4.

page 35 note 1 “Bachofen and McLennan, the two most recent authors who hare studied this subject, both agree that the primitive condition of man, socially, was one of pure Hetairism, when marriage did not exist; or, as we may perhaps for convenience call it, communal marriage, where every man and woman in a small community were regarded as equally married to one another. Bachofen considers that after awhile the women, shocked and scandalized by such a state of things, revolted against it, and established a system of marriage with female supremacy, the husband being subject to the wife, property and descent being considered to go in the female line, and women enjoying the principal share of political power. The first period he calls that of ‘Hetairism,’ the second of ‘Mutterrecht,’ or mother-right.”—Lubbock, , Origin of Civilization, p. 67.Google Scholar

page 35 note 2 MrTurnour, , “Pali Annals,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. vii. p. 999. Mahávanso, p. xxxi.Google Scholar

page 35 note 3 [Qualities requisite for Sakya's bride] “who is as well versed as any courtesan in the rites and ceremonies described in the Sastras—who goeth last to sleep and rises earliest from her couch,” etc.—Extracts from Tibetan works, translated by de Körös, Csoma, Journ Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. iii. p. 58Google Scholar, and Asiatic Researches, vol. xx. pp. 84, 300.Google Scholar

page 35 note 4 Puráṇa, Vishṇu, Wilson's translation, vol. v. pp. 9, 63.Google Scholar

page 35 note 5 Strabo, xv. sec. 48.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 See Preface, p. xliv, and the “Toy Cart,” Wilson, , “Theatre of the Hindus” (1835), p. 16et seq.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 “Zanara at that time was Queen of the Sacæ, a woman of warlike spirit, far exceeding any of her sex among the Sacæ for courage and activity in martial affairs. For this nation is remarkable for brave-spirited women that use to go out to wars as fellow-soldiers with the men.”—Diod. Sic. ii. c. iii. (Booth).Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 A striking example of such direct cause and effect is furnished by the “Gukkurs, who inhabited the country along the banks of the Niláb up to the foot of the mountains of Sewálik.… They were a race of wild barbarians, without either religion or morality. It was a custom among them, as soon as a female child was born, to carry her to the door of the house, and there proclaim aloud, holding the child in one hand and a knife in the other, that any person who wanted a wife might now take her, otherwise she was immediately put to death. By this means they had more men than women, which occasioned the custom of several husbands to one wife. When this wife was visited by one of her husbands, she left a mark at the door.”—Ferishtah, (Briggs's Translation), vol. i. p. 183.Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 “The Muhammadans of Dacca show some prudence in the matter of marriage. Foreseeing that la future may in the course of time feel sorry for herself, or fall in love with somebody else, and knowing that the woman in that case will get rid of him, either by divorce or murder, the man carefully contracts such a marriage as will make the second course unnecessary. He might register his marriage in accordance with the Act; but then the woman would have no power of divorce, and would probably resort to poison… The women know and understand this as well as the men; at least so the villagers naïvely told one of the local officers.“—The Pioneer Mail, Allahabad, 10 6, 1877, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 ′When a female is born, no anxious inquiries await the mother, no greetings welcome the new-comer, who appears an intruder on the scene, which often closes in the hour of its birth….

′Often is he (the Rájpút) heard to exclaim, ‘Accursed the day when a woman child was born to me!’

′The same motive which studded Europe with convents, in which youth and beauty were immured until liberated by death, first prompted the Rájpút to infanticide; and, however revolting the policy, it is perhaps kindness compared to incarceration….

“(He) raises the poniard to the breast of his wife rather than witness her captivity, and he gives the opiate to the infant, whom, if he cannot portion and marry to her equal, he dare not see degraded.”—Tod, Rajasthán, vol. i. p. 635.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 “Here we find a practice equally strange, that of Polyandry, universally prevailing; and see one female associating her fate and fortune with all the brothers of a family, without restriction of age or of numbers. The choice of a wife is the privilege of the elder brother; and, singular as it may seem, I have been assured that a Tibetan wife is as jealous of her connubial rites (sic), though thus joined to a numerous party of husbands, as the despot of an Indian Zenána is of the favours of his imprisoned fair.”—Turner, , Tibet (1800), p. 348.Google Scholar In this case nuns seem to have coëxisted in Buddhist convents with the conflicting institution of Polyandria. Possibly, the latter, under its economical aspect, was indebted and grateful to Buddhism for the relief of its surplus females; as European convents, as Tod has remarked, in giving a sanctified refuge to the unmarriageable balance of the community, gave a certain amount of relief to the disproportions of sexes in the middle ages.

page 38 note 3 “The most remarkable social institution of the Botis is the system of polyandry, which is strictly confined to brothers. Each family of brothers has only one wife in common… This system prevails of course only among the poorer classes, for the rich, as in all Eastern countries, generally have two or three wives according to their circumstances. Polyandria is the principal check to the increase of the population, and however revolting it may be to our feelings, it was a most politic measure for a poor country which does not produce sufficient food for its inhabitants.“—Cunningham, Colonel A., Ladák (1854), p. 306.Google Scholar See also CaptainCunningham, J. D., “The History of the Sikhs.“Google Scholar

“Polyandry, plurality of husbands, (in Ladák) is, except among the few richer people, quite general; it is much more nearly universal than is polygamy in India, and for this reason, that polygamy is a custom itself expensive, practically reserved for the well-to-do, while polyandry is an economical arrangement, one established on the poverty of a barren country, and extending throughout the people as far as indigence itself does.“—Drew, F., Northern Barrier of India, 1877, p. 263.Google Scholar

The women (of the mountain tribes) “in all seem to enjoy great indulgence, and are allowed, as in Europe, to form a choice for themselves after they have arrived at mature years.

“In all these hill tribes the women …seem to have enjoyed great privileges; but the plurality of husbands had not been introduced with the religion of Thibet.“—Hamilton's Nipál, p. 25.Google Scholar

“The elder brother marries a woman, and she becomes the wife of the whole family.“ …“The identification of the child is left to the determination of the mother.”—Manning, Tibet, 1876, p. 123.Google Scholar See also p. 336, and Trail, G. W., As. Res. vol. xvi. p. 163Google Scholar, vol. xvii. p. 23, etc. Moorcroft, , Travels, vol. i. p. 321Google Scholar, and J.A.S. Bengal, 1844, p. 202.Google Scholar Compare similar tests in Sparta, , Herod. vi. 68.Google Scholar

page 39 note 1 “Polyandry is a recognized institution amongst them, but it prevails far more extensively in the northern and central portions of Bhutan than in the southern. Its origin is clearly traceable to Tibet, and Pemberton adds, that ‘political ambition is the main cause of so revolting a practice, as all aspirants for office are compelled to renounce the happiness of domestic life.’ Mr. Eden says, that even the restriction implied in the term polyandry, which once existed in Northern Bhutan, is not adhered to in the present day, as intercourse between the sexes is practically promiscuous.“—Dalton, , Ethnology of Bengal, 1872, p. 98.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 In my own experience in the Himalayas, where instances of Polyandria were still to be found, the female infanticide was of course not admitted, but the proportionate deficiency in the number of women was attributed to slavery and the ready sale of fair female children to professional courtesans and for the harems, etc., of the wealthy nobles in the plains of India.

page 39 note 3 Strabo, xi. c. ix. 1.Google Scholar “The remarkable custom of polyandria, which has been noticed as one of the characters of the Seriform Tibetans, reappears among the Tamuls of Malabar.”—Latham, , The Varieties of Man (1850), p. 463Google Scholar, quoting Pritchafd, vol. iv. p. 161.Google Scholar

“Among the Todás of the Neilgherry Hills, however, when a man marries a girl, she becomes the wife of all his brothers as they successively reach manhood; and they also become the husbands of all her sisters as they become old enough to marry.“—Lubbock, Primitive Condition of Man, 1870, quoting Shortt, Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. vol. vii. p. 240.Google Scholar See also Transactions Ethnological Society, 1869, Elliot, W.; Dubois, India, pp. 217, 402.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 DrCaldwell, remarks: “His statement that the Panæ alone amongst Indian nations were ruled by women, though not correct (so far as is now known), if supposed to relate to the Páṅḍyas of Madura, may be regarded as sufficiently applicable to the peculiar social usages of the Malabar coast, where almost every inheritance still runs in the female line, and where, in Pliny's own times at least, if not also in those of Megasthenes, the Páṅḍyas of Madura had colonies.”—p. 17.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 See also Arrian, , Hist. Ind. viii. 8Google Scholar: “His daughter, named Pandæa, and caused the whole province wherein she was born, and over which she afterwards ruled, to receive its name from her.”—Megasthenes (Schwanbeck, Bonn, 1846), pp. 38, 55. Strabo, , xv. i. 4.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 See also Prinsep's Essays, Useful Tables, p. 241;Google ScholarAsiatic Researches, vol. ix, p. 101;Google Scholar and Saṇhitá, Brihat, J.R.A.S. Vol. V. N.S. p. 82, etc.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Wilson, , vol. iv. p. 199.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 Inscription No. 3 also runs: Sidham Raño Vásiṫhi-putasa Sámi SariPulumá Isa.

page 44 note 2 Prof. Bhandarkar looks upon this inscription as comprising two charters, one of the king, “and the second by Vásisṫhí his queen.”

page 44 note 3 The translator in his notes says she was called (in the Pali original ), not because she commanded any army, but because she was the wife of the Senápati. As regards the word Vasú, in another passage the translator remarks, “ Vasuyá, Vasu or Vasú may be the name of the lady or a term of honour used in her case, as or in the case of those spoken of in Inscription No. 24. Probably the Vású of dramatical language is the same as this.”

page 45 note 1 GeneralCunningham, , Bhilsa Topes, p. 264.Google Scholar

page 46 note 1 Journ. Bombay Branch R.A.S., vol. v. p. 23.Google Scholar No. 14 of plate xliv. of Dr. Bird's series. Recopied by MrWest, , and published in vol. vi. p. 1.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 Journ. Bombay Branch R.A.S., vol. v. p. 27, plate xlii. Bird.Google Scholar

page 46 note 3 The original word on the coins is for Kula.

page 46 note 4 The Indian term got covers many meanings: “family,” “race,” a “branch or subdivision of a caste ”—and, at times, among the Bráhmans the leading designation is derived from “supposed progenitor, or primitive spiritual head, as Sándilya, Kásyapa, Bháradwaja,” etc.—Wilson, Glossary, in voce.

page 47 note 1 “They never marry, but make use of women promiscuously, and breed up the children so begotten (as common to them all) with equal care and affection. The children, while they are tender infants, are often changed by the nurses, that they cannot be known by their mothers; and therefore, by that means, there being no ambition among them, they live in great concord and amity, without any sedition or tumults.”—Diod. Sic. ii. c. iv.

page 48 note 1 Numismata Orientalia, part vi., “Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon,” p. 25. She calls herself That is, Rája in full masculine power, not Rání in the feminine.Google Scholar

page 48 note 2 Prinsep's Essays, vol. i. p. 422;Google ScholarMrVaux, , Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xvi. p. 124.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 “The centre of the accompanying map of the world nearly corresponds with that of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, which is bounded on three sides by the great land-masses of the Old and New Worlds. Disjointed fragments of land separate the Indian from the Pacific division of the great ocean, and stretch like so many stepping-stones between the Malay peninsula and Australia, the latter semicontinental mass of land lying almost half-way between Africa and South America. The indigenous population of Australia presents one of the best marked of all types, or principal forms of mankind; and I shall describe the characters of this modification first, under the head of The Australioid Type.”—p. 404.

page 51 note 1 Sir W. Elliot, in giving his personal experience of the use of the weapon, says: “It is formed on the grain of the wood, like the Australian boomerang, the curve varying with the length of the stem; it is whirled horizontally, with the end foremost, like the Australian practice, and is used by two tribes in the Deccan, viz. the Kolis of Guzerat, and the Marawárs of Madura, but more especially in its simplest form by the former, who are of the Dravidian or black race of the Deccan.”

page 53 note 1 “Mongoloids.—An enormous area, which lies mainly to the east of a line drawn from Lapland to Siam, is peopled, for the most part, hy men who are short and squat, with their skin of a yellow-brown colour”

“The strongly-coloured area (8A), finally, is intended to indicate roughly the distribution of the Mongols proper.”

The latest all-round exemplification of the consistency of Prof. Huxley's Scythic, Turanian, or Mongolian theory, is to be traced in the tomb of a recentlydeceased North-American Indian Chief, where the slaughtered “Pony” is made the climax of the last home of the chief in his blanket-lined tumulus.—Frank Leslie's Illustrated Journal.

page 53 note 2 It has been fully ascertained … that no man could marry in his own clan; and that every child belongs to the mother's clan.”—Archæologia Americana, vol. ii. p. 109.Google Scholar

page 54 note 1 “Coins of Ándhrabhṛitya Kings of Southern India.” Read 8 Sept., 1877. The article is illustrated by plates of 29 coins, etc.

page 54 note 2 The same typical form of bow and arrow occurs repeatedly on the earlier specimens of the ancient punched or hall-marked coins. See my Indian Weights, Numismata Orientalia, part i. plate, fig. 12, etc.

page 54 note 3 J.R.A.S. o.s. Vol. XII. (1854), p. 1.Google Scholar

page 57 note 1 See Journal Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. Vol. III. (1868), p. 264.Google Scholar It may be as well to add that the occurrence of such a letter on the local coinage need not necessarily reduce the age of the pieces so inscribed to the modern limits assigned to extant Pehlvi inscriptions. The letters of these alphabets are found on very early specimens of the Parthian coinage.

page 54 note 2 See Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. vii. plate lxi.;Google Scholar Numismata Orientalia, “Ancient Indian “Weights,” part i. plate, figs. 5, 6. Dr. Schliemann, in his work on Mycæne, enlarges upon the identity of the Greek Trigliph with the Indian Swastika cross. But there is also a singular approach to this circular Indian design in many of the patterns found on his buttons or whorls, the only appreciable difference consisting of the centre dot, which fills-in the space between the four circles in the latter. See Nos. 428, 404, 406, 411, etc. A great variety of the forms of the Ujjain pattern may be seen in vol. vii. plate lxi. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,Google Scholar and a series of many cognate devices are figured in General Cunningham's, “Bhilsa Topes” (1854), plates xxxi. xxxii.Google Scholar (in one case showing the Swastika within each of the four circles), as well as occasionally in MrFergusson's, “Tree and Serpent Worship.” The Swastika device, apart from its use as a running pattern, was not, however, limited either to Eastern or Western acceptations, as may he seen in the examples in Fabretti's work on Etruscan Antiquities, 1st Supplement, plate iii. Nos. 29, 30; 3rd Supplement, plate xxix. fig. 38; and on vases in the British Museum.Google Scholar

page 59 note 1 See General Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, 1871, p. 541.Google Scholar