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DECEMBER, 1894.)
BULLETIN OF THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
363
language, the key of the legend of Cyrus and Queen Tomyris, and quite recent recollections of the invasion of Semiramis. An Atreya has even preserved for us a tradition of the taking of Babylon by Zoroaster in the year 2458 B. C., at which this Atreya was present, and which is known only through him. We sometimes ask ourselves if the author is talking seriously, as when he asks the Russian Government to send a scientific expedition to the steppes of Turkestan, in order to study the phenomena of the mirage, and confirm his view that the Hindus have hence derived their ideas of the Pitsis, and of Mitra and Varuņa. In spite of the absolute want of sound general views M. Bronnhofer has a remarkable sagacity in dealing with points of detail, some of which are valuable.
The question of the connexion of the Vedic Hindus with the Iranian peoples has always attracted the attention of Prof. Weber, but without leading him into extravagances like those just mentioned. He has taken up the subject again in an essay 33 The essay is not confined to this question nor to the Rig Veda, as he endeavours to follow up the traces of the epic legend in the ritual literature (another series of questions which Prof. Weber was the first ta put), but the problem of the north-west is always present in some form or other. The whole essay is a model of erudition, and is full, thorough and exact, with several daring digressions, which open up long vistas into the past, but in which the use of hypothesis is never pushed beyond its proper limits. As regards the epic legends, the more they agree with what the · Veda has preserved or depart from it, the more we must, it seems, accustom ourselves to regardi
them, not as mere copies of these more ancient traditions but, with all the later systematisation, as a branch of parallel tradition, having in many cases a value of its own. As to these countries on the north-west frontier they seem to have been in the earliest times very much the same as we find them at various historical periods, in the middle ages for example, when the table-land of Iran was India Minor, and to a certain degree down to our own days. In every age the Pathậns have made inroads on India, either as invaders or by a process of slow and more or less peaceful infiltration, and in the early periods the Pathans were not Musalmans.
Other works deal with conceptions peculiar to the Rig Veda. M. Koulikovski has, ir this Review, made a study of a certain number of cpithets of Agni, and has built up, on a very slender basis, a whole pile of very liazardous conclusions as to the social and political organization of the Vedic tribes. M. Colinet has very carefully gathered together all the ideas bearing on the apper world.36 The almost unavoidable defect of an essay like this, is that, after reading it, we are hardly any further on than before. It was known that this upper world was the abode of the devas and the light, and it is easy to understand that it was also the abode of the pitsis and of Yama. But it is also the world of Soma, of the Apas, of Aditi, of the rita, of the asu, and of other beings, which should first of all be carefully determined, and M. Colinet doubtless does not flatter himself that he has always completely succeeded in this task. This would be to make clear the most obscure portion of the Veda. M. Ehni has made a study of Yama, and has endeavoured by comparison with corresponding figures in other mythologies to
23 Alb. Weber, Episcker im Vedischen Ritual in the Sitzungsberichte of the Academy of Berlin, 23rd July 1891. In later C Y, Ueber BALI Balika, ib. 17th November 1892, Prof. Weber hins examined ufrush special case of these point of contact between India and Persia. We know that Bali and Bablika are in classical Sanskrit namen of Bactria and the Bactrians, and it is generally admitted that in this for these naines cannot go back further than the first centuries of our ero. Professor Weber enumerates the works which are reckoned old, in which these forms are found, among others the Varitikas of Katyfyana, and the Mahabhishya, which would thus be subsequent to the Christian era. But he agrees that Valhika, which is found in the Atharvathita and in the Sitapathabrahmana is a name of Hindu origin, and has nothing to do with Bactria, and ho citos cases whero the two orthographies have been confused. For another special case, that of the Yavanas, the Greek, see Sylvain Levy, Quid de Graecis veterum Indorum monumenta tradiderint, Paris, 1890, and a third essuy of Prof. Wober, Die Griechen in Indien in the same Sitaingsberichte, 17 July 1890.
4 Tome XX. p. 151, Les trois feux sacrés de Rig Veda.
85 Ph. Colinet, La nature du monde supérierer dans le Rig Veda in the Muséon, 1890. I have not yet seen another essay of M. Colinet on Aditi, which was presented to the Oriental Congress in London, 1892, Transactions, Vol. I. pp. 306-410. A firat sketch appeared in the Muséon, 1893: Etude sur le mot Aditi. M. Colinet holds that in the Rig Veda, the word Aditi is always the proper name of a goddess.
