Indian Antiquary Vol 14

SR No.: 032506
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 311

OCTOBER, 1885.]
ANIMALS AND PLANTS OF INDIA.
275
character, I felt sure that equally substantial The Euemeristic treatment of myths, acfoundations could be found by subjecting them cording to which all that is possible may be to the same sort of analytical comparisons with accepted as historical, while the remainder is known facts. From time to time, as leisure to be rejected as fiction, is all very well, has been found for the purpose, I have carried provided that the person who conducts the on this investigation, and have occasionally analysis has become competent to do so by the published some of the results.
nature and extent of his experience. Inquiries like these belong, if I may use the Elsewhere I have recorded numerous reexpression, to a border-land where the student ported cases of children having been found of books and the student of nature may meet living in wolves's dens in India, and these, to and afford one another mutual assistance. say the least, cannot be fairly disposed of in
I possess no special philological qualifica- the off-hand manner which the follower of the tions for this kind of work, and have only a Euemeristic doctrine would apply to the story slight acquaintance with a few of the languages of Romulus and Remus, and many others of India; but, on the other hand, I think I like it. may lay claim to the possession of some special The well-known Arabian story, related by knowledge of the animals and plants of | the author of Sindibád, Marco Polo, and India, the ideas about them which are current Nicolo Conti, of the method of obtaining among the natives, and the uses they put diamonds by hurling pieces of meat into a them to. During my travels in the wildest valley, had its origin, as I believe, in an regions of India I have ever taken an Indian custom of sacrificing cattle on the interest in the customs and beliefs of the so- occasion of opening up new mines, and leaving called aboriginal tribes, and have had many portions of the meat as an offering to the opportunities for tracing out stories believed guardian deities, these naturally being speedily by them, and also sometimes by Europeans, carried off by birds of prey. This custom is to the sources from whence they had origi. not yet extinct. nated. This kind of experience enables me The so-called myth of the gold digging ants now to take up the tale of explanation where was not cleared up till, by chance, information it has often been left by linguists and histo. was received as to the customs and habits of rians, and carry it forward to a perhaps more the Tibetan gold miners of the present day. satisfactory conclusion.
Then Sir H. Rawlinson, and, independently, A want of personal acquaintance with India, Dr. Schiern, of Copenhagen, were enabled to or when that was possessed, 8 want of such come forward and state beyond a question of information as can only be acquired by a doubt that the myrmékes of Hôrodotos and field naturalist, using the title in its widest Megasthens were Tibetan miners, and, it may sense, has caused many commentators, both be added, their dogs. The same dogs are now among the early Greeks and Romans and the for the first time identified, as will be seen Continental and English literati of the present further on, with the griffins. The full acconnt day, when at a loss to explain the so-called of this discovery by the above-named authors myths, to turn upon their authors and accuse would find its proper place in a paper on them roundly of mendacity. Thus Strabo states races of men, so that I pass from it now, save succinctly that, “Generally speaking, the men that I mention a contribution which I have who have hitherto written on the affairs of made to it, namely, that the horn of the goldIndia were a set of liars." Again, Lassen has digging ant, which we are told by Pliny was spoken of Ktësias, when referring to a parti. preserved in the temple of Hercules at Erycular statement of his, in much the same way, thre, and which for centuries has been the although I shall be able to demonstrate that the subject of much speculation, was probably condemnation was in that particular case merely one of the gold-miners' pickaxos. I wholly undeserved.
have been informed by an eye-witness, Mr. R. * The Academy, April 21, 1883, and April 19, 1881. From the Reports of the Pandita omployed in Reprinted in Indian Antiquary, Vol. XII. p. 234ff. Trans-Himalayan Exploration by the Indian Govern
Tungle Life in India, and Journal of the Anthropolo. ment. gical Institute, 1880.