________________
198
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(OCTOBER, 1928
" the fact of secretary birds in Africa hunting serpente" was the origin of the myth.
The Professor winds up with the honest remark: "Those who deal with myths are all in the same plight, i.e., to the historians they are no botter than the knights of the poet, who, following the Holy Grail were stuck in the quagmire. For they say, from the arid wastes of mythology (myths and legends and all the kindred brood) can only crop up Mirages of History.""
Personally, I have all along been an opponent of the Distributionist Theory as usually put forward, because of the difficulty of bringing it to proof, and of the danger consequently of the many theses argued out to prove it. It may, however, be after all a correct theory within limits which have yet to be ascertained. At any rate the pamphlet of Profes. sor Kalipada Mitra exhibits an honest, leamed and lovel-headed attempt to prove his point.
R.C. TEMPLE
witnessoa fairly, and opines that in times anterior to the Vedas, the Dravidians and the Chaldeans were " neighbours to each other."
The Professor next goes into the question of urn burial in India and notes the connection of India with ancient Babylonia or Mesopotamia, in order to show the contact between the two civilisations. This bringe him to consider & vexed question: "How the Dravidians came to be in India?" On this knotty point he has searched the authorities, and appears to hold that the Dravidians are autochthons in India with a wide commerce in Mesopotamia, but also that the resemblances pointed out by previous writers between "The Chaldæans and the Indian Vedas" were due to the existence of the two races es neighbours in Mesopotamia." This situation does not seem, however, to be quite clear.
Here the Professor makes a digression into the relative positions of the Dravidians and the Babylonians to show that it was the Dravidian serpent cult that permeated the Chaldæan civilisation. and thence spread through Babylonian conquest to Crete and Egypt, and through Crete possibly eventually to Britain and Scandinavia, vid the Danube and Jutland. But here he has an unintentional dig at Elliott Smith, for he says that it was "cer. tainly not the Phænicians" that carried "Egyptian beads of blue glazed faience to Britain between 1800 and 1400 B.C.," and in italics he says: "The sea traders of the Mediterranean woro at that time the Cretans." So "the serpent cult might thus have reached Crete and radiated therefrom to Egypt, the Danubian Valley, Scandinavia and Britain."
The Professor now turns to the further transmis. sion of the myth from India to China, Japan and Polynesia and perhaps to Central America, which he says is more onsily explained than the spread over Europe. Here he says: "I hold that the Bird and Serpent Myth-their mutual enmity and all that was taken by the Arabs from India along the trade route." He then examines this proposition and passes on to China, Japan, Polynesia and Central Asis. Finally, he suggests Contral Asia as the home of the Myth. Here again is a difficulty if the Dravidians are to be held as introducing it to the Chaldæans and to be at the same time autochthone in India.
Various theories on the subject put forward by several authors are then examined, and finally be writes: "I claim that the bird and serpent myth common to so many countries is a cultural drift disseminated from India in historic and pre-historic timee, by land or sea, directly or indirectly, along the track of conquerors in their career or the routes of merchante and traders, by the path of adven. turous colonizers, prospectors and settlers." Lastly the Professor, refers to Sir James Frazer's idea of homogeneity of beliefs involving "homogeneity of race," and the old hiatus separating Noolithic folks from the Paleolithic," and also tha suggestion that
HISTORY OF MEDLEVAL INDIA, by ISEWARI PRASAD,
with Foreword by Pror. L. F. RUSHBROOKWILLIAMS. 1925. Indian Press, Allahabad.
The only little fault I have to find with this portly volume is firstly its size, 641 pp. under one cover, which makes it too heavy to hold in the hand, and secondly many Hindu names of Sanskrit form are cut short of the final a of syllables, which gives then an unfamiliar form : e.g., Jaijakbhukti, Raj Raj Chola. Also such & form as "Tailap" I does not in any case seem right. Having made this littlo grumble, I have to say that it is a very fine work of original research, dealing with a period of special difficulty in Indian history between the death of Harsha in 647 to the arrival of Babur in 1526. After Harsha came the Rajputs for 500 years, dividing India into emall evanescent States. Then came Muhammad Ghori in 1193, bringing in Muhammadan rule, and then the "Slave Kings" till 1296, when Alau'ddin Khilji raised an Empire for a time, followed by Muhammad Tughlak who did the same, to be followed in turn by local Muhammadan dynasties, including the Lodis of Delhi. At last came the Mughal Babur in 1526 to found an Empire with something like a central administration. A thousand years of confusion, which it requires a bardy historian to tackle, and Mr. Ishwari Prasad has done so with courage and great learning. He asks for suggestions, and here is one I have to make. Is it not time to drop the unfortunate expression “Slave Kings of Delhi". In their method of life, temper and actions they were anything but "slaves." If I understand the term aright, they were real mamluks, successful military adventurers, who in all Oriental countries arose out of the peculiar social system there prevalent. The well-known Mame. lukee of Egypt soom to have been of a precisely similar nature, so why not Mamluks of Delhi !
This is not a book that can be examined thoroughly in a review. There are too many points raised
