the tiger-born Mallis to form the confederacy of the eighteen tribes of the Vajjians, sons of the tiger (vyāghra), who ruled the country to the North-east of the Gangetic valley. Their chief clan was that of the warrior Gñatikas 1, or sons of the mother gña, the Greek yuvn, called the fire-mother in Rg. iv. 9, 4. She is the "cven" or queen mother of the Goidelic Celts who always burnt their dead, and who were thus the Pitāro Agnishvättäh of this new confederacy. They were the dwarf Celtic race of miners, who, in Europe, became the Celts of Auvergne and Central France. In India they were the dwarf Asuras and Lohars, among whom the average male height is only about 163 centimetres, or 5 ft. 4 in., and their Cephalic index 75 2. It was they who introduced into India the Ooraon land tenures, giving an area of royal land in each village to the king, which, as I have shown in Chapter V. p. 287 ff, were very similar to those of the Goidelic Celts in Wales, both being founded on the earlier tenures of the Picts, the painted Pitaro Barishadah, to whom parched barley was offered.

This race of the fathers who burnt their dead was allied with the sons of the mother-fire-goddess, called in the Rigveda Matar-i-shvan, the mother of the dog (shvan), who came to India, according to the title of the Second Mandala of the Rigveda, as the Median collected race, the Saunaka, or sons of the dog-mother, and of Bhrigu the fire-father. These were the yellow Finns, who, as the race of Hari the mother-goddess Shar, furnished twenty-two of the twentyfour Jain Tirthakaras 3. These were the men of the new or young (kana) race represented by the Kanva priests, the reputed authors of the eighth Mandala of the Rigveda. Their representative parent Kanva was the nominal father of Sakuntala, mother of Bharata, born on the Malli river Malini 4.

2

'Jacobi, Jaina Sūtrūs, Kalpa Sutra, 110; S.B.E., vol. xxii. p. 256.

Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Anthropometric Data, vol. i. pp. viii., xxxiv.

3 Jacobi, Jaina Sūtrās, Kalpa Sutra, 2; S. B. E., vol. xxii. p. 218.

4 Mahabharata Adi (Sambhava) Parva, lxxi. p. 218.

These Kanvas were priests of the Yadu-Turvasu and of the mountain-god Arbuda, whose shrine is the sacred Jain mountain Arbuda or Abu in Sirohi in Rajputana. This is the god called in the Rigveda the son of the Ahi Ūrna-vābha, the weaver of wool, the goddess-mother of the Ram-sun who was slain by Indra, and who is named six times in the second and eighth Mandalas out of the seven times he is mentioned in the Rigveda. On his sacred mountain near the copper mines of Sirohi and the tin and copper mines of Udaipur are two of the finest existing Jain temples. One of Adi-nath or Rishabha, the first Tirthakara, and one of Nemi-nath or Arishta-nēmi, the twenty-second Tirthakara and ruler of this year 2. They are the upper and nether mill-stones of Jain theology, and it is under this symbol that the snake Jarat-karna and his counterpart Arbuda are worshipped in the Vedic ritual. They are the two pressing or grinding-stones which extract the sap of the sacrificial Soma, and in the ritual of the Soma sacrifice they are invoked in four Vedic verses: two to Savitar, the sun-bird Su, which is the root of Savitar, and two to Indra 3. After these are recited fourteen stanzas of the hymn Rg. x. 94, ascribed to the Rishi-Arbuda. In this hymn (stanzas 6, 7, 8) the pressing-stones are invoked as drawn by ten horses furnished with bridles and harnessed to ten poles, the ten sacrificial stakes indicating the ten lunar months of the cycle-year. Before the last stanza of this hymn, Rg. x. 76, ascribed to Jarat-karna, and x. 175, ascribed to Arbuda, are recited, and they are both addressed to the grāvānah or pressing-stones, pierced with the holes through which the bar uniting them is inserted 4. In the titles of these hymns Jarat-karna is called the Airavata or elephant-bull, and Arbuda Urddhvagräva, the pressing-stone lifted up to

Hunter, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Abu, vol. i. pp. 8, 9. 3 Rg. i. 24, 3, V. SI, I, viii. 81, I, viii. I, I.

4 Ibid., x. 94, II.

heaven, and both are said to belong to the serpent (Sarpa) race of Nagas1, Arbuda being the son or counterpart of Kadru the mother-tree (dru) of the Nagas, the goddess Ka or Who? This ceremony forms part of the ritual of the mid-day pressing sacred to the meridian-sun, to which Indra is summmoned as the chief god.

These father and mother-stones, the revolving heavendrill which presses out on the nether mother-stone the lifegiving sap of the Soma plants placed between them, are the pair called in the Mahābhārata Jarat-kāru, they who make old (Jara). The male belongs to the sect of the Yāyā-vara, the wandering mendicants, who were the early Jains, whose god was Yayati, the full-moon-god (Ya), father of the Yadu-Turvasu. The female was the sister of Vasuki, the snake-god ruling the summer solstice. The male Jaratkāru, as the dying sun-god who has fulfilled his yearly task of begetting his successor, leaves his mate when Ashtaka is begotten as the god of the eight (ashta), the sun-god of the true Soma of Chapter VII 2. He is the god of the eight-rayed star of day worshipped by the Akkadians as Din-gir and Esh-shu, words meaning both god and an ear of corn 3. They are, in short, the fire-drill and socket which gave birth to the sun-god born from the altar flame kindled by the wood of the mother-tree.

H.

The story of the two thieves who robbed the treasurehouse of heaven.

The name Arbuda given to the tree-mother-god means also the god of the Semitic Arba or four, the Hittite name. which, as we have seen, appears in that of the Naga Gond kingdom, called Vidarba, or the double (vid) four (arba),

1 Ludwig, Rigveda, vol. ii., Hymns 785, 786, 787, pp. 412-415; Eggeling, Sat. Brāh., iv. 3, 3, 1; S.B.E., vol. xxvi. pp. 331, note 1. 332.

2 Mahābhārata Adi (Astika) Parva, xlv.—xlvii. pp. 132—139.

3 Ball, 'Akkadian Affinities of Chinese.' Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, § China, Central Asia, and the Far East, p. 685; Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. i. Preface, p. xxviii,

the eight Gond tribes. The Hebrew history of this epoch of the deification of the four ruling gods, the four seasons of this year of eleven months, is to be found in the history of Caleb, the dog (kalb), the star Sirius. He was brother of Ram, the sun-god and grandson of Perez, the cleft, the male form of the Phoenician goddess Tirhatha, with the same meaning, who was, as we have seen, the fish-mother-goddess of the Phoenicians, mother of Shemiramot. He and his brother Ram were both descended from Tamar, the datepalm-tree. In the historical genealogies of the Chronicles various lines of descent are assigned to him. As the greatgrandson of Tamar his father is Hezron, brother of Hamal, the star B Arietis, from which the sun was born in the cycle-year. Hezron died in Caleb-Ephratah, the city of ashes (ephra) of Caleb, which marks him as god of the city of the sun-god, in the year ruled by Sirius. In another genealogy he is the brother of Shuhah, Judah's first wife, the bird (Shu) goddess, who preceded Tamar, and the ancestor of Ir-Nahash, the city (ir) of the Nagas, and the son of Jephunneh, the beautiful youth 1. In short, he is the star Sirius, which was first the dog-star guarding the sun's path along the Milky Way, then the young man, fifteen years old, who became afterwards the Zend Tishtrya (Sirius), the white horse of the sun, the Zend form of Indra, as the white buffalo, who made the black cloud, the horse's head, give up the rains of the rainy season at the summer solstice 2. He is in his second Avatar as a star-god ruling this year Tishtrya, the bull with golden horns, who intervened between Tishtrya, the bright youth, fifteen years old, Caleb's father, Jephunneh, and Tishtrya, the white sun-horse.

It was he who killed the old trinity of Southern Palestine, the gods Shesh-ai, Ahiman, and Tol-mai. These words, as all Hebrew scholars admit, are not Hebrew. They seem to me to be god-names imported into Hebrew theology

I

1 Chron. ii. 10—16, 18, 19, 24, iv. 11, 12, 15; Gen. xxxviii. 2.

2 Darmesteter, Zendavesta Tir Yasht, vi. 10-24; S. B. E., vol. xxiii. pp. 96-102.

by the Turvasu, who brought the gods and national customs of India to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean coasts. Thus Shesh-ai is the wet-god Shesh or Sek Nag, the spring-god of the Takka triad. Ahiman, the Egyptian Ahi, a name of Osiris and the Sanskrit form of Echis, the holding snake, the European Vritra, the encloser, and the equivalent of the Takka Vāsuk, or Basuk Nāg, the snake-god Vāsuki, while Talmai is the mother Tal, the female form of the Akkadian Tal-tal, the very wise one of the name of Ia 1. He is the counter-part of the Takka Takshaka, or Taksh Nag, the biting-snake of winter. It was to these three seasons that Caleb, as the god of this year, added the fourth season of this year, and commemorated the institution of this new measure of time by calling Hebron the capital of the tribe of Judah, the parent-altar-fire of Caleb, KiriathArba, the city of the four 2. This was the year ruled by four Akkadian stars of the seven Lu-māsi 3: (1) Kakṣhisha, the horn (shi) star (sha), the door (kak) Sirius, the star of summer. (2) En-te-na-mas-luv Hydra, the divine (en) foundation (te) of the prince (na) of the black (luv) antelope (mas), the star of the rainy autumn. (3) Ta-khu or Id-khu, the creating (id) mother-bird (khu), the winter-star. (4) Papilsak, the sceptre (pa), the wet or great (sak) fire (pil), the star of spring 4. In the theology of this year Māsu, the Hebrew Moses, the leader of Caleb and the Israelites, was the star Regulus 5. This was the year of the ape with the lion's tail depicted on the banner of Arjuna when he defeated the Kauravyas, rulers of this year with Uttara, the North-god of the summer solstice, as his charioteer. This year was led by the dog of the Pandavas, the last surviving com

1

Sayce, Assyrian Grammar, Syllabary No. 16.

2 Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. i., Essay iii., p. 189, note 2. 3 R. Brown, jun., F.S.A., ‘Euphratean Stellar Researches,' ii., Tablets W, A, I, iii., lvii., No. 6, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, May, 1893, p. 328.

• Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. i., Essay iv., pp. 370–372. 5 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures for 1887, Lect. i. p. 49.