Ushana or Shukra, the son of Bhrigu, was the rain-god of the Asuras, the sons of Diti, the second mother, and conquerors of the Danavas. He said, " It is I who pour rain for the good of creatures 1," and his names, Shukra and Ushana, the god Ush, show him not only to be the Wet-god, Sak or Shak, but also the rain-bird of the Finn ancestors of the Kushika Kabirpuntis. Ush is the Hindu form of the Finn-creating bird-god Uk-ko, "the great (uk) begetter," who dwells in the Pole Star Tahti, in the navel of heaven 2. He is the chief god in the Finnish triad of Vaïnämoïnen, Ilmarinen and Ukko, and the epithet Kavi given to him in the Rigveda and Mahābhārata, is the Zend and Sanskrit ▾ form of the north-god Kabir, and the Dravidian Kapi, the ape, applied to the Kushite kings, who are all called Kavi Kush. It is as the storm-bird, the slayer of the year, that he appears in Rg. v. 34, 2, where he is said to have given to Indra the weapon called, in Rg. i. 121, 12, the thunderbolt, with which he slew the deer-sun (mriga) year-god Orion, and this marks him as a year-god of the cycle-year following Orion's year of three seasons. He is also said to have made Agni, the fire-god, the Hotri, or pourer of libations of sacrifice 3, that is to say, he instituted the ritual" of burnt-offerings which were first offered on the national altars in this epoch. His daughter, Devayani, mother of the Yadu-Turvasu, is the goddess ruling the six Devayānī months beginning with the winter solstice, and hence her two sons then begotten were the gods of the cycle-year beginning at the autumnal equinox. The names Yayati and Yadu mark them as the sons of Ya, the full-moon-god of the Cypriotes and Hittites, that is of the Minyans or measurers of Asia Minor 4, who became the sons of Manu

Mahābhārata Adi (Sambhava) Parva, lxvi. p. 191, Ixxviii. pp. 241, 243, lxxxiii. p. 253.

2

Kirby, Hero of Esthonia, Introduction, p. xxvii.; Schæfer Castren, Finnish Mythology, pp. 32, 33.

3 Rg. viii. 23, 17.

4 Conder, The Hittites and their Language, App. iv. p. 218, Symbol 24.

in India.

These names show them to be parent-gods of the joined races called Kathi in India, Khatti or Khita in Assyria and Egypt, and Hittites by the Jews, whose national symbol is that of the two brothers joining hands 1.

They are represented on the Egyptian monuments as a beardless race, a characteristic which distinguishes them from the hairy sons of the bull. They also wear the peaked tiara, the Chiroo cap, and shoes turned up at the toes. This last sign, combined with the fact that they habitually wore leather shoes, connects them with the very ancient immigrant race of India, the beardless Chamars, who work in leather. and tan hides, one of the earliest occupations followed by the pastoral races. They use for this process myrobolans, the name of the fruit of the Arjuna tree (Terminalia Belerica), which is one of the most important modern exports from India to Europe, and was doubtless also exported thence by the ancient trading Turvasu. The important part assigned to this tree, its products, and the tanners who used them in ancient traditional history, is proved by the historical story of Nala and Damayanti, on which the plot of the Mahabharata is founded. Nala, the god of the channel (nala), the ordinary course of nature, was wedded to Damayanti, meaning "she who is being tamed," the earth subdued under the civilising influences of agriculture and industry. They lived happily together during the spring months of their marriage, but with the hot weather, Pushkara the gambler, the scorching west winds, came and stripped the earth of its verdure and fruits, and drove Nala and Damayanti into the forests, where they wandered during the rainy season. Nala escaped to the North-east to Ayodhya, where he became charioteer to the king Ritu-parna, the recorder. of the seasons (ritu), the god of the North-east Monsoon. He drove Ritu-parna back to the South-west with the Northeast Monsoon in a chariot drawn by horses of the Sindhu or moon (Sin) breed, those measuring time in this lunar

' Conder, The Hittites and their Language, App. iv. p. 233, Symbol 161.

epoch, to be again re-united with Damayanti. On the way Ritu-parna taught Nala the science of calculation and foresight, of determining the times of the seasons and the means of using their influences in the orderly developments of the valuable products yielded by the earth-mother of growing life. This lesson was imparted by instructing him how to reckon the leaves and fruits on the Arjuna (Terminalia belerica) tree, the fruits of the industry of the trading community, who used this tree as one of the most valuable aids to their commerce. This tree is the representative in this graphic historical story of the Arjuna (the fair) god of the North parent of Kutsa, the charioteer of Indra, whose history as High-Priest of the Varshagiras or praisers of rain, and the ruling Purus, I have told in Chapter IV., p. 182. Also of the Arjuna of the Mahābhārata, the son of Indra, the god of the rainy season in the Pandava year, who restored to power the Pandavas; beggared and driven into exile, like Nala, by the gambler Shakuni, the storm-bird, who here takes the place of Pushkara in Nala's story 2. In this story we read a history told in ancient cryptogramic language, of the great advance made in the important knowledge of the rules of time measurement by the trading races and the workers in leather, who devised the intricate rules for measuring the cycle-year and for providing for an accurate determination of the immutable laws governing the order by succession of the days, months and seasons of the year measured by the solstices and equinoxes. And if we could recover the ancient sources of history, the national birth-stories of these primitive races, we would find that the origin of the story of Arjuna, as told in the Mahābhārata, and of Kutsa in the Rigveda, was told in the birth-tale of the Arjuna from the Myrobolan tanning-tree, as that of the birth of the Buddha sun-god is told in those of the birth of the sun from the cypress and Sal-tree sun-mother.

Rg. iv. 26, 1, vii. 19, 2.

For the full details and interpretation of the story of Nala and Damayanti, see Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. i., Essay ii., pp. 64-72.

Further proof of the great early influence of the Chamars, and of the important place they occupied among the rulers of India, is furnished by the history of their religious creed. They call themselves the descendants of Rai Das, that is of the sun-god Rai or Raghu, and their Northern descent is marked in Chuttisgurh, where I know them best, by their fair skins and the beauty of their women. Their connection with the religious ceremonies of child-birth, which distinguished the ritual of the cycle-year, is shown by the custom which has made the Chamar women the most sought-for midwives in India, whose presence at a birth brings luck to the family. They also in their tribal ritual show that their original year was the cycle-year of the nine-days week, by celebrating their Dasaharā or autumn festival on the 9th of Assin (Ashva-yujau, September-October), that is nine days after the autumnal equinox, or a day before it is ended by other castes, who begin it on the Ist of Assin (SeptemberOctober), the day when the Jewish year begins, and continue the feast to the 10th of the month 1. At this New Year's feast they sacrifice pigs, goats, and drink spirits. It is also in this month that they celebrate their new year's feast to their dead, who are buried and not burnt.

That these people, who are cultivators as well as workers in leather, belong to the group of invading barley-growers and traders headed by the Kaurs and Kurmis is shown by their marriage ceremonies, in which the wrists of the wedded pair are bound with mango leaves, the marriage-tree of the Kurmis and Kaurs; and they also, like the Kaurs, worship the seven sisters, the seven stars of the Great Bear. That they are the sons of the red-cow-star Rohini Aldebaran, and of the growers of cotton, is indicated by the custom of washing the feet of the bride and bridegroom with cotton steeped in red-lac dye. This is done by the barber who

officiates as marriage-priest 2.

In Chuttisgurh, the home of ancient faiths and customs,

'Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, chap. xvi. p. 431.

2

Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Chamars, vol. i. pp. 176–181.

the Chamars occupy a very peculiar position arising out of their religious tenets. They are the leaders of the Sat Nam sect of worshippers of the one god, the True (sat) Name (nam), a sect which is the rival of that of the Kabirpuntis. But the Sat-Nam belief is united with phallic practices from which the religion of the Kabirpuntis is free 1, and in Eastern Bengal the greater number of the Chamars are followers of Sri Narayan, the woman-man-god, one of the forms of Vishnu.

Their name for the Supreme and only god Sat Nam, the True Name, shows them to belong to the Semite confederacy of the sons of Shem, the Name, who adored the Name of God as that of the phallic potter, the pole-turning father, and not the God of the Creating Word, and they represent the earliest phallic form of fire-worship, not the later cult of the sexless fire-god represented by the unsexed male and female priests, the Galli of South-western Asia.

C. The worship of sexless and bisexual gods.

It is this latter form of worship which appears to be the special product of this cycle epoch. As it is the year of the sun-ass, the year chariot of the god ruling it is drawn by asses, and they draw the car of the Ashvins, the twin riders on horses, or rather asses (ashva), that with three wheels, the three years of the cycle. They are called the Nasatya, that is the Na-a-satya, those who are not (na) untruthful (asatya), that is, who are reliable trustworthy recorders of time 2. They are called in the Brahmanas the first Adhvaryu, or ceremonial priests of the gods 3, and it is to them that the cup of the tenth month, that concluding the four divisions of the cycle-ycar, is offered at the Soma sacrifice 4. Also the cycle - year began in India with the

Hewitt, Report on the Land Revenue Settlement of the Chuttisgurh District, s. 110-113, 130–136, pp. 33, 34, 47, 48.

2

Rg. i. 34, 9; i. 116, 2; viii. 74, 7.

3 Eggeling, Sat. Brāh., i. 1, 2, 17; S. B.E., vol. xii. p. 16.

4 Ibid., iv. 1, 5, 16; S.B.E., vol. xxvi. p. 276.