Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 98

92
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1924
dru's brood, Vrtra, the dragon slain by Indra, Vayu, one of the oldest Purdgas and in its original te oto. Rais married "anako" maidens andrescension pre-Buddhistic, deals with linga worship, "unakes" took to themselves humans a wivos. in which the lingam, the yoni and the bull Nandi
The Nagas wore powerful aboriginal race in were the outward and viel ble objects of adoration. Northern India, and were driven back by the Aryan In Patanjali's time linga worship took place in conquest into the hills. Their descendante ere temples to Siva. When man's mind once con. alivo 46 the present day. It is unlikely that man ceives of the Deity, or supernatural Power mposcommenced to worship snakes, because they were sessing anthropomorphic form, or as indwelling struck with wonder at them as the creation of the in material objects, it is but a stop for his hands Daity, mour author asserts. They were probably to give to his thoughts material shapes me aids to propitiatod at first out of fear. Later, on, when his devotion or a charms to ward off evil or to harmlens snakes were seen to exist, they were wor induoe benefits. Tree worship and animal worship shipped protectors of the homestead and cattle
prevailed among the non-Aryans, with whom the pen. This non-Aryan oult was adopted into Brah. Aryan invaders came into conflict and with whom manism and fable did the rest in associating the they eventually similated. When all the above Aryan gods and their avatdras with snakes. We is borne in mind it soms probable that image have bore, in all probability, another instance worship was not unknown to Brahmaniam before of a compromise between a higher religion and ani. Buddha. It may be conceded that the public mal worship, and possibly totomism. For the Naga worship of images became more general after the people may have oalled themselves after the snake,
decay of Buddhism and the establishment of numewhich they worshipped, much as the Red Indians rous publio Hindu temples. But decadent Buddhism Are called “Bears", etc. The author's statement can hardly be charged with suggesting imago wor that the Dravidians in the South like the "Aryans" ship to the Brahmans, who were already imbued in the North worshipped snakon takes no account with the idea and had practised it in private worof the fact that there were "Dravidiane" in the ship, while the non-Aryan had practiced it in public. North, from whom tho Aryan invaders or their
W. DODERET. mixed Aryo-Dravidian progony adopted many
THE ARAB CONQUESTS IN CENTRAL ASLA. by A. A. non-Aryan beliefs and usages. In conclusion, and before taking leave of our
R. GIBB, School of Oriental Studies, London. author, one or two points of general interest may
Royal Asiatic Society (Forlong Bequest), 1923. be notiood. The author states that no religion other
The effect of the War on literary studies is very than the Hindu has recognised time is eternal. He
plain still. Quite lately in reviewing & work on the claims that by representing Brahma's life by immense
Glass Palace Chronicle of Burma, I noticed that the numbers, the Rois meant to indicate temnity.
extensive notes of the author had to be laid aside That may well bo. But so did the Greeks when they
because the Society which published the text was postulated Chronos, old Father Time, as reigning be
financially unable to publish the notes also. So all fore the Olympians, and the Christian religion main.
the reader could get was the bare Chronicle unanno. tains that God is from everlasting to overlasting.
tated. In this case exactly the same thing has Again, in his account of the Doloteava, or festival
happened. In order to get his text printed, the
author has had to cut out the extensive references when the idols of the gods are deoked out and Haced on swing-cote, the author Aggerts that idol
he had collected, so as to keep down the cost of worship was introduced into Brahmanism from
publication and to meet the financen of another 80the practices of the Buddhists, who made images
ciety. Such a state of affairs in a matter for great of Buddha and set them up in their Viharas. This
regret. In this case, too, much besides the rolestatemont is of doubtful authority. It is true
rences has also had to be omitted, so that we have that in process of time idol worship was introduced
not even a map of a little known region. into Buddhism in its decline, say a century or so
The regret is all the greater, because the subject after Christ; much as Roman Catholicism sanc
matter of the book deals with a period of which all tions the veneration of images of Christ and the
the certain information possible is urgently required, Virgin Mary. But that pre-Buddhistic Hinduism
since it covers the early Arab conquesta in Central had no idols is questionable. The second mandala
Asia-their doings in fact in the centuries immediateof the Rg Veda describes a painted image of Rudra
ly following the introduction of Islam. As it stands and images of the Måruts are referred to elsewhere
therefore, the book is merely the dry bones of his In that Veda. In the old language there is a word
tory, but its importance to the student is clear from (aandris) which properly denotes an image of the
the contents list-the early raids, the con questa of gods (Muir, O.S.T.V., 453). Sun temples existed Qutayba, the Turkish counterstroke and the reconin the time of the Mahdbhdrala and the Ramdvana. quest of Transoziana. I sympathine with the author The Puranao deal with the question of how the in the difficulties he has found in necuring a publiSuri's image should be made. The miligrama of sher for all the good and useful work he has done. Vigou is mentioned in the Mahabharata. The
R. C. TEMPLE,