Letter XXXV[1]
My reflections and thoughts about the absence of a “personal” soul in Ananda were suddenly interrupted in the most unexpected way for us. We were going between two rows of buildings, with terraces protruding almost into the middle of the alley, when something suddenly fell heavily on the linen top of the van over our heads, began running, fussing, shrieking, and with a screech that covered even the various sounds made by our char-à-banc at once, we were attacked, or, perhaps, in their own way, greeted by a whole flock of large and small monkeys. They clung to the sides of the carriage, looked into the side holes and climbed one over the other or over our heads and shoulders. Their appearance was so sudden that I could hardly imagine what had happened. All of them at once pounced on the unfortunately uncovered food basket that was on the bench. In the blink of an eye, a bottle of cold coffee was broken, Mulji was bathed in black liquid, a box of tea was torn to shreds, and tea was scattered all over the van and the pavement; and we saw the colonel topped with a rice cake, and my dress was all stained with jam...
There were ten or fifteen of them, and at the very first minute of their appearance in the char-à-banc, such a pungent, specific smell spread all over that I almost suffocated. The monkeys did not touch anyone, obviously making only common reconnaissance about food; before our coachman could turn the corner and stop the horses the whole flock had already disappeared as quickly as it had appeared... Two Brahmins with shaved heads having jumped to the aid of the char-à-banc and seeing their “gods” retreating, calmly returned to their seats at the steps of the pagoda...
To get to the prepared for us residence, we had to go almost through the entire city. Muttra, illuminated by the bright morning sun, whose rays hid the age-old soot and dirt of ancient houses, seemed to us very picturesque. The city is fanned out on the western, steep bank of the Yamuna, and is spread out all over the high hills that run away into the distance in green waves. Sri Krishna,[2] the avatar of Vishnu, proved his artistic taste by first choosing Muttra as the place of his birth, and then making this area the arena of his amorous adventures with the gopis – cowherding girls, from the abundance of whom he probably turned dark blue. How true this hypothesis is – I can’t say – but in such a way was the explanation of the Babu at the sight of Mulji's awe in front of a huge idol of the shepherd god, painted in dark blue paint from head to toe, from cheeks to flute. Further, we will consider philologically and ethnographically the reason for his blue color.
We crossed the river over a bridge made of flat-bottomed boats, the construction of which for some reason is praised in comparison with others. The sacred river, the rival of the Ganges, according to the morning custom, was overflowing with Hindus of both sexes purifying from sins. Along the steep bank, rows of marble steps lead to the water, the platforms of which are adorned with miniature temples, each in honour of one of the cowherding girls.
The whole city is crossed by alleys, ascending and descending, like the alleys of Malta, with crooked stone steps that cannot be passed even on a mule, but elephants, also sacred, walk freely along them with their log-shaped, heavy legs, going to visit each other from one pagoda to another. It so happens that, meeting trunk to trunk and seeing the impossibility to pass, without turning one of them back, one uphill, and the other downhill, the elephants act in the following way. Having exchanged a few phrases with flapping ears and hugging trunks and making sure of mutual friendship, the smaller elephant stands by the wall, and the larger one lies down on the ground. Then the former one raises his leg and carefully, without haste, climbs over the comrade with ease and grace; but sometimes the elephant stumbles and falls, although the trunk of the lying one, raised in the form of a question mark for the entire time of the dangerous crossing, is always ready to help with all its might the smaller, weaker brother. The respect and services rendered by elephants to one another have become proverbial, serving as a living reproach to people.[3]
Muttra is a real menagerie. It has more animals than people, although the number of its population reaches three hundred thousand in the months of pilgrimage. All streets are literally filled with “sacred” bulls and elephants; the roofs of houses and temples are covered with “sacred” monkeys, and overhead darkening God's light, “sacred” peacocks and parrots are flying like big clouds. And all these live in freedom, do not belong to anyone, but on the contrary, are in command of both city goods and the people themselves. The ill-fated tradesmen and tradeswomen in the bazaars are compelled to bring provisions in hermetically sealed baskets, half opening them to buyers with the greatest precautions; otherwise the monkeys, who are always on their guard at the bazaar gates and are accustomed to collecting indemnity from each carriage – which explains their attack on us – will immediately break everything to pieces, and in addition, they will pull by the hair someone who defends his goods too vigorously. Only elephants behave with the greatest dignity and honour. They will never take anything themselves, but they will stand modestly at the shop with delicacies and wait patiently while they are treated. In Muttra, up to 30,000 monkeys, up to 5,000 bulls and, it seems, several hundred elephants were counted in 1880. The smell at the city was such that during the whole day of my visit in the holy city, I did not put away my handkerchief with cologne from my face. Holiness surrounded us on all sides. Holiness breathed on us from around every corner; hit us in the nose so that by evening we, “whites,” had swollen noses from sneezing. The holy sanyasi stood upside down at every intersection; holy bulls covered the unpaved streets with a soft carpet of their own creation, and holy macaques threw at us from the rooftops the fruits and vegetables they had stolen and digested by their insatiable stomachs... By evening I stopped reproaching the Babu for his atheism. I fully understood his hatred of “gods” and sympathized with him.
Anyway, putting holiness aside, Muttra is one of the most interesting and oldest cities in India. During the days of the very observant Megasthenes[4], the Greeks took with them to their homeland the memories of many sacred vaishnavas’ places. Thus, quoting Seleucus’s envoy, Arrian speaks of Muttra (Mathoras)[5] and Cleisobora, calling them the main cities of the sourasenoi. By Cleisobora Megasthenes probably meant Kailaspur, since both Muttra and this city were built by the descendants of Surasena, Krishna's grandfather. Further, the Greek writer speaks of Budyas (Βυδύας) and Crasdevas (Κρασδεύας) as the progenitors of this tribe of Surasena, the main one in the country at that time.[6] Megasthenes, who, according to his Greek custom, distorted names, probably speaks of Buddha and Croshtdeva, the Yadu tribe originators of the Induvansa that is, the “lunar” race. According to a family tree officially verified and attested by the government of the Raja of Udaipur, these two names actually stand at the head of the descendants of Buddha[7] and Ella (earth), one of whom was Krishna, and they are often mentioned in the Puranas. And already in the days of Krishna's prosperity (according to the Brahmins 5000 years BC, and according to the indications of the Orientalists 1200 years BC), Muttra was an ancient city.
But now only three dilapidated gates have survived from this once strongly fortified city, and the remains of a once grandiose fortress. The monkeys completed the destruction begun by the Afghans, and the Aurangzeb Mosque itself with its four tiled blue towers was distorted because of neglect. Now Muslims no longer have a place in Muttra. Even the American missionaries, who were not easily driven out of nests of idolatry, gave up before monkeys and bulls and fled away long ago. The dark azure Krishnas and their menagerie with the Brahmins serving in it remained the sovereign masters.
And there was a time when the birthplace of Krishna, the divine Don Juan of India, was famous for its luxury and wealth; it is that glory that attracted the first Afghan conquerors. During his expedition against Kannauj in 1017, Mahmud of Ghazni, hearing about the treasures of the city of “Krishna-Vasudeva,”[8] went there with his army and, finding the city defenseless, because the Brahmins were performing puja at that time, took possession of it and gave over to plunder. Hanuman army has apparently degenerated; its descendants all scattered: “For ten years after being desecrated by vile Moguls, the holy city did not see any allies loved by the gods in its bowels” (that is, monkeys), read the Muttra chronicles. Good allies! Apparently, they had nothing to eat in the sacred city, and that is why they fled.
Mahmud burned and smashed many idols and collected enormous treasures, a lot of gold, silver and precious stones. He would have destroyed numerous temples, but found that the work of destruction would have taken months; other chroniclers claim that he spared them for the sake of their indescribable beauty. One thing is true – and this we see from his letter to the governor of Ghazna – Mahmud was amazed at the appearance of the city and its riches. Here is an excerpt from this letter, translated by me from documents collected and printed by the East India Company:
“In the city of Muttra there are a thousand buildings, strong as the faith of the faithful, and most of them made of marble; besides, there are countless temples. It is incredible that this city would have achieved its present appearance and condition without many millions of denarii having been spent on it, or that another such city could be built in less than two centuries.”
Then the author of the letter says that among the finds in the temples of Muttra were “five idols of pure gold, each of whose eyes were of a solid ruby, worth 50,000 denarii. On one idol was found a sapphire weighing 400 mithqals[9] [1.8 kg, 3.97 lb]; “by alloying, the idol gave 98,300 mithqals [446 kg, 983 lb] of pure gold.” In addition to these idols, “there were found and taken away 100 silver idols loaded on the same number of camels.” Mahmud stayed in Muttra for “twenty days, during which the city suffered greatly from the fire,” apart from other losses from looting.
After that, Muttra was left alone for many centuries until its second looting by the Afghan army of Ahmed Shah Durrani[10] in 1757. Ahmed did not personally command the Afghan troops, transferring command over these robbers to his subahdar Jahan Khan, nicknamed Zanus by the Jesuits. Tiefenthaler writes that this army had 25,000 men in cavalry, adding: “Muttra is an extremely populous city with the richest inhabitants. In this, as in another city, Bindraban (famous for the avatars of Krishna), the Afghans committed many atrocities, showing their hatred of idols by burning houses with everyone living in them; they killed the inhabitants with sword and spear; took away virgins and youths into captivity; cut the sacred, in the eyes of a superstitious Hindu, cows and bulls in their temples and filled the altars and streets of the city with their blood”...
Finally, after the death of Mujuf Khan the Maratha king Scindia in turn took possession of Muttra and then presented it to the French adventurer Perron for the services and under the condition of a future union. Only in 1803 the city was occupied by British troops without the slightest resistance on the part of the residents and the event was assigned in the same year by a treaty to the East India Company. Thus, the British became once again the “victors” as they like to call themselves in India.
However, with the exception of a few fortified cities, the whole country passed into the tenacious hands of England in the same way, under political cover. The most honorable fathers of the Company have never neglected to grab what lies handy. At first they became patrons and intercessors, fathers and benefactors of the oppressed kings of India; then they began to present to the latter all the benefits of an alliance with them; they ended with the fact that, in spite of all kinds of treaties and agreements, having one day ordered an ally ôtes-toi de la que je m'y mette,[11] they annexed his possession to other kingdoms, vanquished by them in the same belligerent manner, and took possession of it forever. Why waste precious strength, conquer suo Marte[12] when it is better get per casum obliquum[13]?
In his political Memoirs, the honest Colonel Tod conveys the wonderful answer he received in 1817 from the old (then already blind) Nestor[14] of India, Zalim Singh,[15] the Thakur of Kotah. “To all my assurances,” the resident writes, “that we are not looking for the expansion of our possessions in India, he answered me with an incredulous smile: “I am quite sure that you think so now,” he once told me with his usual courtesy, “but not far the time when all of India will see itself under the one sikha (ekka sikha – one emblem of power). You came to our country of Maharajas at a happy time for you: pfoot[16] was ripe and you just had to put it in your mouth piece by piece. Do not think that your power and courage make you the rulers of India. You owe this only to our separation and quarrels between the rulers”.
Strange as it may seem, but ending this quote, Tod adds his own and, apparently, completely sincere reflection: “These words are not devoid of their deep meaning, although I hope that his prophecy will never come true.”
It did, however, come true, word for word. English gentlemen swallowed all the pieces of the disintegrated pfoot one by one and even managed to return the pieces previously swallowed by France from the mouth of France ... John Bull has excellent digestion.
Let's move on from the English to the patron of the city of Muttra. Whether anything true is known about Krishna, one should ask the Orientalists. If you cataloged their different opinions, you would end up with the following exact data:
1. Krishna is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The period of his birth has not yet been established. It ranges between 1200 BC and 1200 AD.
2. Krishna is a historical person, for he is called the “black (kri) prince” of the Yadu tribe, and everything points to his Ethiopian origin.
3. Krishna is either a myth or a monkey; for he is portrayed as blue, and, as you know, there are no blue people, while there are blue-faced monkeys.
4. Krishna is the personification of all virtues: here are enthusiastic quotes from the Bhagavad Gita follow.
5. Krishna is the personification of immorality: the Puranas and the Vallabacharya sect are cited as examples.
This is enough to make sure that the sum of information about this hero-god is equal to zero. The Orientalists speculate because the Brahmins are silent; and the European public generally has little to do with one of the many gods of India. Not the later deification of Krishna is interesting, of course, but the fact that in him, as in many other deities of the Brahmins, everything points to one of those ancient, prehistoric heroes, more accurate information about whom could lead to very important ethnology discoveries and shed a bright light on prehistoric, and then historical races of both Europe and Asia. That the Scandinavian, Egyptian, Greek, Central Asian, Germanic and Slavic gods were almost all, at least the main ones, once lived heroes of antiquity and were born in prehistoric India and Asia in general, it has now become completely clear to me. But it should have become clear to the authorities who control the minds of the profane, not specialists, those who themselves, without studying or discovering anything, take the statements of the “authorities” for granted. However, in all matters that relate to previous and still extant religions based on symbolism, such as the faith of the Brahmins, our best Orientalists are as profane (pro fano)[17] as their worshipers. They stand “outside the temple,” like the rest of the audience, because the Brahmins have not yet allowed any of our learned Easterners inside the pagodas, into this real, behind-the-scenes world of their public performances. But for us, as the whole of India knows, many exceptions were made, and to the great malice of the Anglo-Indians we were allowed to go where none of them had ever entered.
So it was in Muttra. For Ananda Swami, sent by the Thakur, all the doors were opened, tightly closed for everyone except the sacred Vaishnavas, and we were allowed to enter such places where the foot of the firingi or mlechcha had not yet entered since the days of the Afghans. But even here, as in Jabalpur, only two of us were allowed in: Colonel O*** and me, and the Hindus abandoned the caste were made to wait at the door.
In Muttra we were finally convinced that the inhabitants of the Greek Olympus were born closer to the Himalayas than to the homeland of Homer; that Parnassus is to be sought in Bamiyan; that Apollo, Hercules, Bacchus and Orpheus are the avatars of Krishna, Baldeva, Vakhisha[18] and Arjuna, friend of Krishna and one of the Pandavas. It is not for nothing that such enthusiasts as Pocock, the author of India in Greece, proved, without even seeing what we saw in the crypts of the Muttra temples, that all Greece with its gods, like Egypt with its zoolatria, came entirely from India, not present-day India, of course, closed in its Himalayan borders, but out of the prehistoric one.
In one of the temples[19] we saw Krishna, in the company of other gods playing the flute on a mountain, which the Brahmin accompanying us called “Parnassa.” They explained to us that part of Paropamisus (Bamiyan) was so called in ancient times. In general, these mountains were called, and they are still called: Devaniki, since legend inhabits them with “earthly gods bhu-devi (bhu-mi – “earth”)[20], that is, deified heroes. In the Puranas it is said that the dwelling of the gods during their period of religious seclusion was always on the mountains, where they built themselves reed huts, which are called parnases to this day; Rama himself and Krishna lived on Mount Parnassus in such “parnases.”[21]
As Bacchus is the avatar of Vakhishta, so Apollo is the Greek incarnation of Krishna. Everything points to this. Krishna is called Muralidhara, that is, “holding the flute” or reed pipe; he is the god of music. The reed pipe was invented earlier than the lyre, which the primitive shepherd peoples did not know; and the Puranas explain that the bhansli (reed pipe, from the word bhans, reed) was Kanya's (one of Krishna's names)[22] favorite instrument because his flocks preferred the bhansli of their divine cowherd boy to sitar or veena (lyre).
Krishna appears in Muttra alone, apart from other cities dedicated to him (like Dwarika and Nathdwara), in seven different personalities, or aspects, on each of which orientalist should seriously think about. The coincidence and similarity of these additional “personalities,” as it were, other gods, with the gods of Western mythologies is amazing!
Let's take a closer look, for example, at Krishna Kanya. Here the god of Indian music is presented as looking for a place for religious rituals and meditation on the Asian “Parnassus.”[23] Now compare with him Apollo in the hymn to this god (Hymn, 22-24), where the poet describes him on the outskirts of the Greek Parnassus, also looking for a place for an altar. Hills, mountains, streams and rivers, all nature sings praises to both gods in almost identical terms; by the stream, near the grotto, Krishna-Kanya meets the serpent Naga-Putha and defeats it.[24] Apollo finds serpent Python and kills it in the same way. Similarity is not only in consonance of the serpents Putha and Python.
In the muses of Apollo we recognize many of the gopis, the cowherd girls, Krishna’s beloved. The main ones are aspects of the goddesses of sciences and arts; Saraswati – the goddess of wisdom, Lakshmi – the goddess of poetry, etc.
The image of “Krishna on Parnassus” was first transferred from the cave “Vihara of Govardhana” to Nathdwara, and then to Muttra. As in the cult of Apollo, the “mysteries” of Krishna had previously taken place in caves. Apollo of Pythia can be recognized in another image, in a large statue of Kanya-Krishna, killing the black serpent Kali-Naga, which, according to local and Puranic legends, poisoned the waters of the Yamuna until it was finally killed by this hero. Krishna-Kanya is represented as pulling the many-headed black hydra out of the river, and then crushing its head with his hill.
Diodorus writes that Kan was one of the titles of Apollo of Egypt in his quality as the sun god. Kan and Kanya are quite similar. Krishna-Kanya, due to his azure colour, is called Nila-natha (blue god). Then Nila-natha accompanies the souls who died to Surya-Svarga (the sun paradise) and in this aspect he has an eagle's head instead of a human one, and a lotus in his hand. At all times the eagle serves as a vahana for him. In Turin, there are hieroglyphs describing or rather representing the Egyptian Kan as follows: the head of an eagle on a blue body, in his hand a lotus and lotuses before him on the altar. As Nilanatha, Krishna is painted in blue because he is the symbol of space, Uranos. The same can be said about Kan. Both Kanya and Kan are the so-called “gods of mysteries”; in honour of them, “mysteries” were performed in ancient times in Egypt, Greece, India, where they are still being performed. Seeing Krishna-Nilanatha with his bird's head in the Muttra temple, I took him for Osiris with the head of an ibis, the husband and brother of Isis, whom he very much resembles. Finally, one of the names of Apollo of Delos is Ulios; and this one is also blue, also with an eagle's head. Who adopted from whom? Did the Egyptians adopt from the Hindus, or the Brahmins from the Greeks and Egyptians?
And all these gods are the so-called “solar”; all of them are heroes, warriors, shepherds with herds of cows and bulls, like Hermes, Mercury and others. And in every country where they were and still are honored, we find them surrounded by bulls and cows, which in mythology are always in a mysterious connection with the sun (Hari).
Among the modern Parsis, degenerate worshipers of Zoroaster, the cow and its products are still considered sacred; so is the bull. The Parsi in Bombay, at sunrise, stretches out his hands to the “fiery-eyed” Ormuzd and drinks a teaspoon of nirang[25] without frowning. This is his ambrosia, cow nectar. The cow and the bull were idolized in Chaldea, as in Scandinavia, in Egypt, as now in India. We see the cow horns on the head of Isis and a bull killed by Ahriman. Hermes and Apollo graze “the flocks of the luminary,” and Krishna – the flocks of Vishnu (the same sun). The daughter of Brahma turns into a cow in order to avoid her father's sinful passion for her, and, despite the metamorphosis, Brahma still impregnates her. The bull Apis was considered more sacred than Pharaoh, and his life was more precious to the people than the whole kingdom. Until now, the Anglo-Indians, with all their despotism, have not yet dared not only to kill, but also to hit the “sacred” bull that wandered into their garden. The cow was among all ancient peoples a symbol of the earth, of nature, which its creator, an unknowable spirit, fertilizes and informs. “The cow is as the Brahmin,” one shastri told us in Muttra in response to our inquiries. The cow is a vahana of purusha (spirit).
“Ramayana is a fairy tale! Mahabharata is a collection of absurd superstitions, wild fiction,” we have heard more than once. We will see. Rama, the first incarnation of Vishnu, goes to Lanka and is accompanied by Hari, the very same Krishna, only in his first form. Ramses-Sesostris, the personification of the very same sun (Osiris, Vishnu, Apollo and tutti quanti), makes an expedition to India. In the army of Rama, his allies are monkeys, bears, eagles and the entire animal kingdom. In the army of Ramses there are cynocephalies[26], satyrs and other mythical creatures. Now let us remember the following: to this day, numerous Rajput tribes bear the names of various animals and beasts. For example, the hinduvamshas[27] have tribes of ashvas (horses), takshakas (snakes), shashas (hares) and so on; and among the suryavansas, headed by Rama, there is now a tribe of mushi (mice), and it is known from genealogies that there was a tribe of monkeys (vanaras) and garudas (eagles). And having remembered and learned all these details, so interesting for an archaeologist and ethnologist, how not to regret that the Orientalists, instead of penetrating behind the veil of historical events, do not even take the trouble to pull it back at least a little, in order to be sure whether more important things are hidden in Ramayana and Mahabharata than just fairy tales about armies of animals and wizards. One must first solve the puzzle of gods, goddesses and names that are incomprehensible to us, and then judge. If you study the “mythology” of the Brahmins impartially, then, probably, you can find a guiding thread that will lead you directly to the discovery of the beginning of those many races that are now disappearing for archaeologists and historians in an impenetrable fog of confused facts and names distorted by the Greeks.
This is, of course, not the place to prove our views. Many such statements have been made before us; but everything turned out to be in vain, crashing against the rock of prejudice, and none of the orientalists gave these views a second’s thought. But Plato also said that the religion of Greece was entirely taken from Egypt and that its gods, like the Egyptian ones, all came from the East. Well, not only gods: we find in India the names of tribes, the names of mountains, lakes and localities, and in addition the legends about them, which clearly show us the following: either the Greeks and the Romans, and before them the Egyptians themselves, transferred their pantheon of gods from India, and these peoples themselves, with the autochthons, Pelasgians and Etruscans that preceded them, are from Asia; or the Brahmins “from the shores of the Oxus” first saw the light on the banks of the Nile, the Aegean Sea or the Tiber. It is impossible that such constant coincidences, such similarities in names, legends, and all living customs, were a matter of one accident. There is no god, river or mountain in ancient Greece and Rome, which would not have found a pendant[28] in ancient and modern India. We recognize almost every name, as always, more or less distorted by the Greeks; for example, “Sandracottus” of Megasthenes suddenly turns out to be the king of Chandragupta, Ashoka's grandfather. Take the Pelasgians for example. At one time they were so much interested in but, finally, when it was impossible to find out their origin, they were abandoned as something insoluble. But have you ever tried to find out if they, like the autochthons of Greece, have any relation to the peoples of ancient India? As far as I remember, Pocock, the author of the book India in Greece, was once laughed at. But that was thirty-five years ago, when very little was known about the Puranas. If the problem of the Pelasgians and the prehistoric Greeks could be raised again, then Pocock's assurances that “the primitive history of Greece and Rome is the ancient history of India” would come true. But as long as all statements of the brahmanical literature are considered fairy tales, the initial history of the first newcomers from Central Asia who settled in Europe will remain covered with impenetrable darkness. The strangest thing is to see how little attention is paid to the legends of the Brahmins, who are still awaiting their Champollion. And perhaps the Mahabharata is worth the effort made for the famous “Rosette Stone,” and perhaps the day will come when everything called fables and myths in Greek turns out to be facts and history in Sanskrit.
Let's face the facts; the truth hurts and the facts should be brought to justice, if not to the public, then at least to some specialists in philology and archeology. Before the “great war,” for example, the whole country that is now called Bengal belonged to the induvansas, that is, the children of the moon, Buddhists, before Gautama Buddha and long before the era of the reformer; in a word, Jainam-Gaya (now Buddha-Gaya) was the capital of Pelasi, the ancient name of the province of Behara. Earlier it was called Palivarta and Palithan, that is, the country where the inhabitants spoke the Pali language, now the prayer language of Buddhists. Pali, as the Brahmins know, preceded Sanskrit, as evidenced by the names of both languages. Pali stands in the same relation to Sanskrit as Slavic to modern Russian. Pali means primitive, rough, and Sanskrit is something already polished, finished, perfected.
What does the history know of the Pelasgians? Historians know nothing about their language, beliefs and beginnings, or so little is known that they have stopped even talking about them. All the information gathered is limited to a few poems by Asius, a poet who lived 700 years BC, and a few words from Aeschylus. The first tells that King Pelasgos, the ancestor of the Pelasgians, grew out of the black earth and calls him, probably, as a result of this, a “godlike” one.
Ἀνηίθεον δὲ Πελασγὸν ἐν ὑψικόμοισιν ὄρεσιν |
| Asius (ap. Paus. 48, VIII, 14). |
And Aeschylus makes Pelasgos the son of Palekhton (Παλαίχθων). Is it not more natural, in view of the above, to assume, as many have already suggested (including Sir W. Jones), that this mythical Pelasgos was born in Gaia, the capital of Pelasi, or Behara, and did not grow out of gaia (“land” in Greek language)? Is it not Pocock, who was ridiculed for suggesting that king Pelasgos was indeed the son of Palekhton, the “old homeland” of the Greeks, that is, Palithan, the country where the Pali language was spoken in ancient Bengal, rather than the Orientalist authorities, of which one, a philologist, assures that the Pelasgians is a name that has its root in pelagos (sea [πέλαγος]), because the Pelasgians sailed to Greece by sea; and another, an etymologist, derives their name from πελαργοί (storks); and others – Wachsmut and Müller derive the name from the words πέλω and άγρος? Indeed, in this case, you can also see pelagosas in the English, because they must always come and go by sea and that their land is surrounded by “pelagos,” as well as “storks,” the migratory bird, due to their habits; and there was not an agricultural nation who plowed their fields, and would not have the right to be named pelagras!
To this we may be told that the first hypothesis est un peu trop tiré par les cheveux[29]. I do not argue. But king Pelasgos was born somewhere and from someone, wasn’t he? In any case, the assumption that Pelasgos, the son of Palekhton, was born in Pelasi, the province of Palithan, is much more prudent than that he crawled out like a worm after rain from the “black earth.” And is it not strange that, for all their ignorance of the origins of the peoples of Greece and Italy, European academicians have always ridiculed the attempts of some orientalists[30] to show that the cradles of all these mysterious, prehistoric peoples, primitive and obviously civilized inhabitants of Europe, such as the Etruscans and Pelasgians, should be sought in India among its many tribes. And meanwhile, having studied only one genealogy of the Rajput tribal chiefs, their rajas and thakurs, and the ancient geographical names of the country, according to the Puranas, it is very easy to make sure that there is almost no people in Greece, no geographical name that would not coincide with the most inexplicable (rejecting our hypothesis) manner with the names of tribes and localities in India. So why not test our theory, which is at the same time the hypothesis of some of the most famous orientalists in the world of science? Moreover, in ancient Greece alone there are many Greek names that do not have any meaning in this language, which never happens with the native names of either people or localities. Pocock finds in some of the geographical tracts of Greece a whole catalog of irrelevant and apparently meaningless names, if you look for their roots in Greek dialects; and as soon as they are compared with the names found in the Puranas in the Sanskrit language and with the genealogies of Rajasthan, the meaning immediately becomes clear. To such names that are inexplicable by etymology, we can mention Stymphalos, Dodona, Chaonia, Krossa, Ithaca, Lokra, Corinth, Ossa, Arcadia, Achaia, Boeotia, Elis, Larissa, Tharsal, and so on. In the tribes of Suryavansas and Induvansas, Kauravas and Pandavas, who, according to the Mahabharata, left after the “andgreat war” in “Kukarmu-desh,” the land of vice (that is, to the West), we can trace almost all the names of ancient Greek tribes that fought in the fields of Troy. Valmiki and Vyasa are Hesiod and Homer of ancient India. Its bhatts (bards) were born before the Scandinavian bards, the Provencal troubadours, before the minnesingers of ancient Germany; and these bhatts, to whom, like to their European descendants, the people attributed the gift of foresight, left us in their songs[31] both ancient and more modern names of fellow tribesmen who left India, as they became their enemies, and then populated Europe, Asia Minor, even part of Africa. The thirty-six Rajput tribes, the rajkula, have the key to the origin of Greek tribes.
Let's consider two or three examples given by us to think about possible “coincidences.” Let's start with the Gokul tribe from the land of Gokul-desh[32], who lived by the Yamuna since time immemorial. They are spoken of in the Puranas as the bravest warriors, skillful in archery and the tribe, which in the intervals between the wars were shepherds. The Gokul region was the theater of Krishna's love victories in his youth over the gopis (shepherd nymphs) and the abode of Nanda, his teacher. To this day, gokul-desh is famous for the construction of the houses in the form of round and extremely strong towers, like those of the Pelasgians. Some Orientalists are convinced that the Greek cyclopes (κύκλωπες), the kuklopes, are Hindus of gokulu-desh. The ancients, like the modern, etymologists wondered, but did not make much guess about them, although some got close to the truth. Whatever didn’t they make of these Cyclopes?! At first they were considered “builders,” age-old architects; then “archers,” and then “miners.” Theories of the Cyclopes, one more surprising than the other, could be heard from Homer to the German philologists Kruse and Bauer, and from Strabo to Major Jacob. The lamp, which they, like miners, attached to their foreheads, allegedly served as “the basis for the fable about the one-eyed Polyphemus.” One writer guesses one thing, another – a different one. Kruse assures that the Cyclopes got their name from the round shape (κύκλος) of the Pelasgian dwellings, hive-like and with a round eye-like (ώψ) hole. This is more prudent than the hypothesis of another orientalist, who derives the name “one-eyed” from the Greek representation of the Olympian god, as if covering one eye, aiming at someone or something with a “thunderbolt.” But Kruse's hypothesis is not suitable either. But if anyone wants to get one more additional confirmation of Pocock's hypothesis that the mythical Cyclopуs are still healthy gokulas by the Yamuna, then he should only stay in Muttra or Dvarika, and visit their annual shepherd's festival in honour of Krishna and his cowherding girls. If someone succeeds and he will be present, like us, at this solemn festival or on Krishna's birthday, then he will see a performance in which, apart from the actors, everything – costumes, furnishings, the smallest details to the barbaric native music – are the same as the Heri-kulas, Agni-kulas and Gokul-kulas of Rajasthan saw the religious mystery at the beginning of the “Dark Age” (Kali Yuga) 5000 years ago, according to local chronologists.
I will try to describe this allegorical and peculiar representation in the next letter.
Raddha-Bai
Footnotes
- ↑ Russian Herald, March 1886, vol. 182, pp. 335-354.
- ↑ Sri – literally “grace” – one of the names of Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu. But now this name has become an adjective, an epithet, a synonym for holiness. So they say: Sri Muttra, Sri Krishna, etc., that is, the blessed or St. Muttra, blessed Krishna, etc.
- ↑ It is remarkable that elephants, touchy and with great ambition, never fight among themselves, living in cities; although in the wild, they often kill each other. It is also remarkable that, showing all the signs of mutual respect, they never make friends with each other, but constantly choose dogs, donkeys, and other small animals as the object of friendship and ardent love. One such elephant, having fallen in love with a donkey, took him under his protection. The elephant was free, belonging to a “pagoda,” and the donkey had to work. Once an English soldier, having him to work, sat astride him and began pounding on his sides with heavy boots. The elephant stood at the gates of his friend's stable and, seeing that his pet was being offended, he grabbed the English soldier with his trunk and beat him so that when freeing himself he wanted to shoot the elephant in a rage on the spot. He was persuaded not to do this, because the other elephants standing there, sooner or later, would certainly have killed him: espris de corps [the sense of community] is amazing among elephants. The soldier obeyed. Being interested in the story, he forgave the elephant and threw him a piece of sugar cane, offering him it as a sign of reconciliation. The elephant stood over it a little thinking and finally took the tidbit and put it with his trunk into the mouth of the offended donkey, then he went away, “like an insulted man and not looking at me,” the soldier said, telling us of this event himself.
- ↑ Megasthenes (350-290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and explorer. He was an ambassador for Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator and to the court of the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (modern Patna) He is considered to be the first person from the West to leave written records about India in the work "Indica". – Ed.
- ↑ It is written Math’hura; I follow the phonetic rule.
- ↑ See Comparison of the Hindu and Theban Hercules, Illustrated by an Ancient Hindu Intaglio by James Tod, 1831, p. 144. – Tr.
- ↑ The adjective Budha (wise) should not be confused with Buddha Gautama, a famous reformer and founder of Buddhism, who acquired this title in old age. There were many Budhas in India before the time of Prince Gautama.
- ↑ Vasudeva is the father of Krishna. – Ed.
- ↑ Until now, the weight measure of pearls is used: in Turkey 4.804, in Egypt 4.633, in Persia 4.536 grams.
- ↑ Ahmad Shāh Durrānī (1773-1723) was the founder of the Durrani Empire, which is the beginning of modern Afghanistan. – Ed.
- ↑ “Go away, and I'll take your place” (French proverb). – Tr.
- ↑ Or “suo Marte pugnare” (Lat.) – “fight on your own”. – Tr.
- ↑ Indirect reason (Lat.). – Tr.
- ↑ Nestor the Chronicler (1056-1114) was a monk and a chronicler, who is the reputed author of Primary Chronicle (the earliest East Slavic letopis). – Ed.
- ↑ Zalim Singh [1739-1824] is the sovereign prince of Kotah, a hero known throughout India. Even the English retreated in the face of this Rajput and his invincible courage. He died in 1827.
- ↑ Pfoot is a kind of sweet pumpkin or melon, which, when fully ripe, bursts, scattering into pieces. A synonym for the word pfoot in the Hindi language is “division, discord, disagreement”; Zalim Singh, who spoke like all Hindus in parables, therefore compared the states and small possessions of India with this fruit.
- ↑ Literally, in front of (outside) the sanctuary (Lat.). – Tr.
- ↑ Vakhisha is the god of the word; dressed in the skin of a leopard or a tiger, on which he is represented sitting with his legs tucked in like a yogi. Vakhishta is one of the types of Shiva, as well as Vishnu; this part is performed by many of the principle gods, who were all at first brahmacharyas, “celibate ascetics.” The head of this god and his neck are covered with garlands of vella, plants like grapes, from which a very intoxicating drink is made and the dry leaves of which the hatha yogis constantly chew. That the Greek Bacchus was born as the Indian Shiva-Vakhishta is proved by the following. The first appearance of Vakhishta (dressed like Bacchus and crowned with grapes) was on Mount Su-meru (su – saint; meru – mountain) near Bamiyan of Paropamis. There “he taught humanity about agriculture and the arts of civilization.” Alexander's historians call this mountain Su-Meros with the usual ending for them, and insisted in their time that it was the home of their Bacchus. Here, according to the legend of the Brahmins and according to Arrian, the Macedonian had a bacchanalia with his generals; crowned with the vella, they got very drunk. This mountain, like many others, is covered in wild vineyards. Bacchus, according to Greek mythology, was born from the Jupiter’s thigh. Meros is Greek for thigh. Is it not obvious that the Greeks either confused this word with “meru,” mountain in Sanskrit (pronounced by the Greeks “meros”), or have forgotten their origin, since centuries and millennia passed between the autochthons of Attica and the Macedonian? Or the Mount Tomaros is probably also from Paropamis. As the letter “d” turns with the Greeks into “z,” Deus and Zeus, so the letter “s” with them often turned into “t”. Sumeru first turned into Sumeros, and then Tomaros in Greece.
- ↑ Until now, in my recollections, I have always diligently indicated the area and called the temples by name. I regret that in this case I cannot name the temples in Muttra, because, allowing us to give out the facts, we gave the word of honour, a solemn promise, not to give out names.
- ↑ See about Parnassos (and other) in Asiatic Researches, vol. VI, p. 497.
- ↑ In the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the word “Parnassus” is very common. But whether the mountains got their name from the reed parnasa, or vice versa, I cannot say.
- ↑ “Krishna-Kanya” is the god of music and the inventor of the chromatic scale. In Greece, this scale is attributed to Timothy, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, but he could easily have brought it from India. The hymns to Apollo in Greece should be compared to the hymns of Jideva, composed by him 3000 years ago in honour of Krishna. There is a whole collection of them in Muttra.
- ↑ The Greek kithara, probably taken from the six-stringed sitara of the Hindus, produced in turn the Anglo-Saxon and German cither, and then the Spanish guitar. “Sitara” is a double word: from sha “six” and tar “string or wire.”
- ↑ On statues, bas-reliefs and in the hymn of Jideva.
- ↑ Nirang is the most effective, according to the Zoroastrians, a means of ritual purification, prepared from the urine of white bulls, which were watered with clean water and fed with fresh grass for seven days, saying special prayers over them (Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians : their religious beliefs and practices, chapter 11). – Ed.
- ↑ Cynocephalus are the same species of monkeys as Hanuman. They are cousins, if not brothers.
- ↑ Also called chandravamsha, Lunar dynasty. – Ed.
- ↑ Here: correspondence. – Ed.
- ↑ Is too far-fetched (Fr.). – Tr.
- ↑ Often of the most famous, such as Colebrooke, Sir William Jones, Wilson, Todd and others less famous.
- ↑ There are also 69 books by bhart Chanda, nicknamed Trikulai, "the one of three tribes", and we have seen them. There are 100,000 stanzas dedicated to the descriptions of the exploits of three Rajput tribes. He flourished in the XII century.
- ↑ Go – a cow; kula – a tribe; desh – land; pronounced go-kla.