Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
servances is followed strictly on every occasion. The symbolical lifting up and breaking of a chatt over the ashes, with which, in my experience, the Dry Funeral was concluded, seems to have been witnessed by Col. Marshall at the Green.
In my account of the Dry Funeral I remarked that, from the number of children present, the Toda race did not appear to be diminishing, to which the Editor has appended an opinion of Mr. Metz that the Todas were fast declining in numbers, and likely soon to die out. The authority of Mr. Metz on all matters pertaining to the tribes of the Nilgiris is unquestionable, but I venture to think that when he made that statement Toda statistics were not so well ascertained as subsequently. From Captain Ouchterlony's Memoir of a Survey of the Nilgiris it appears that in 1847 they numbered 337 souls; and Col. Marshall, in his latest and most carefully compiled statístical work on the Todas, pnblished in the present year, reckons them at 704, and gives reasons for anticipating an increase. Mr. Metz, who accompanied and aided Col. Marshall in his researches, would now probably revise his statement; and indeed, so far from being a perishing race, the Todas seem to offer a striking and almost unique instance of a peculiarly primitive tribe, tenaciously adhering to very peculiar and primitive customs, living beside and amidst an extending and enterprising European community, without decreasing, but actually augmenting in numbers. VIII-Etruscan and Indian.
Few recent books have excited a keener controversy in the antiquarian and philological world than the Rev. Isaac Taylor's Etruscan Researches. Such weighty authorities as Prof. Max Müller and Captain Burton have condemned its speculations with marked asperity, but the battle is by no means decided yet. The origin and affinities of that mysterious Etruscan race, whose cities were immemorially ancient when Rome was built, and which, in language, appearance, customs, and religion, differed as much from the surrounding Italian nationalities as a boulder drifted from unknown regions does from the formation on which it lies, were subjects of dispute and wonder in the ancient
One of the most recent theories is that of Alex. Lord Lindsay, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who, in his Etruscan Inscriptions Analysed (J. Murray, 1872), attempts to prove that these inscriptions are written in an old form of German. The attempt is an utter
[OCTOBER, 1874.
world. Its literature has perished, and the few words remaining on tombs, vases, and objects of domestic use discovered in the tombs, could be ascribed to no known language. Many have been the attempts to explain and affiliate them, but all have been exploded. Mr. Taylor now claims to have resolved this ancient puzzle, affirming that on the hypothesis of the people of old Etruria-the Rasenna as they called themselves-being of Ugric or Turanian origin, wanderers in ages immeasurably beyond the ken of history from Northern or Central Asia, and offshoots from the Tartar or Mongol family of man, the mystery of their origin, and the meaning and connections of the few remaining words of their tongue, can be satisfactorily explained. With this view he has minutely analysed and compared every Etruscan word that has come down to us-with what result, in view of the dissent of so many "learned and approved good masters," it would be presumptuous indeed to hazard an opinion; though, without laying too much stress on the philological argument, I know there are men of such eminence and learning who regard the general hypothesis favourably, as to embolden me to follow humbly with them.
My present object is to notice two or three of the very scanty remnants of Etruscan speech that seem to have Indian affinities. There are four words written over figures in the sepulchral paintings, of which, alone amongst Etruscan words, Mr. Taylor considers the meaning certain, the figure incontrovertibly showing the signification of the name written above it. These four words Mr. Taylor declares to be pure Etruscan, foreign to all Aryan languages, and certainly Ugric or Turanian. One of them is nathum written over a Fury-like figure, menacing a soul at its entrance into the other world.t Mr. Taylor connects this with Natagai, a great god-whom Marco Polo describes as worshipped by the Mongols, and also with Natha, a lord or ruler; one cannot but also connect this with Náth, bearing the same meaning, so often entering into the title of Indian deities, as Jagannath, especially of deities of non-Vedic and non-Brahmanical origin, as in the names of all the 24 semi-gods of the Jaina faith.
failure. See also Ellis's Armenian Origin of the Etruscans.-ED.
The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (p. 260) regards this name as compounded of nôt, necessity,' and tom, 'judgment' or 'doom.'-ED.