IDENTITY OF RACES.

LIBRARY

THE

UN VERSIY

CALING

responded to those which served as the vehicle of thought to the tribes who migrated eastward into India.

The successive generations who have since that period respectively populated Europe, and this part of Asia, have, in the lapse of time, the diversities of climate, of physical circumstances, and of political rule, become gradually more and more remote from each other; and the families of this modern period stand out in such striking diversity from each other as to make them feel that they are mutual aliens, whilst their respective languages seem to shut them out from all communication with each other. Yet is it indisputable that the common ancestors of these two great families were once bound together by the ties of a common language, and interchanged their thoughts by similar elements of speech.

The Sanscrit language has impressed its character in a considerable degree upon the several languages of Northern India, and infused into them a considerable portion of its vocables. Hence the modern European student of those languages cannot fail to observe that the tongues of modern Europe, and the vernaculars of India, still bear in them corresponding elements, and, by an argument that cannot be confuted, prove an affinity between himself and the Hindu. Whether the European uses words of domestic use, significative of household objects, or those of a more abstract character, denoting the intellectual operations of the mind, he will be struck with the identity of the re

16

WESTERN AND EASTERN MYTHOLOGIES.

spective roots, and sometimes of the forms of speech. Although he is a stranger, in a strange land, the very words he learns from the lips of the people, from their similitude to those which were as music to him in the land of his fathers, constitute a link that binds him to the stranger, and impress him with the conviction that he and they are alike members of the same great family of nations.*

In comparing the Western and Eastern mythologies, we connot but arrive at the same conclusion of identity of origin. The polluted streams of Greek, German, and Hindu mythology have evidently one common The legends originated in some common

source.

* In illustration of the similitude of the Indian language to those with which we are conversant in Europe, I adduce the following promiscuous specimens.

facts. The myths had some common basis. The several deities had some common original. The several rites and ceremonies had some common prescription. The several types of mythological existence. had some prototype. The giants and demons, the gods and goddesses, with their several attributes, their modes and spheres of action, that throng the Pantheon of the West, meet with their counterparts in that of the East. The Indra of the one is the Pluvius of the other. The Yáma of the Hindus occupies the same seat as the Pluto of the Romans.*

The fictions of the dead languages we study in our school-books meet with their counterparts in the myths of the Hindus. The only essential difference is, that the former have ceased to be the objects of faith of intelligent beings, the latter still continue.

It is interesting to inquire in what respects is India a civilized country? We must premise, that in the outward forms and developments of civilization, there is, and must ever be, a diversity between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres.

*Not only do the Hindus, after the manner of Europeans, divide the month into weeks, but the days of the week are according to the genius of an identical mythology appropriated by them to the same, or nearly the same divinities as those who presided over the days of the ancient Romans.

18

STATE OF CIVILIZATION.

Forms of vegetable life in the Tropics differ greatly in character from those of the Temperate Zone; yet may they in their several classes have the characteristics of cultivation. The social and civil life of man in India cannot but stand out in striking contrast from the manners and institutes which are congenial to the northern or temperate climates of Europe; yet may they be as essentially civilized.

Nothing is more absurd, and perhaps nothing is less unfrequent, than to test the civilization of a country by our own conventional institutes, and pronounce it civilized or barbarous as its state happens to accord with the rules and forms which have obtained among ourselves. If we seek for an outward civilization, as distinguished from that which originates in the refinements of thought and feeling,—a physical civilization as distinguished from that which is moral and spiritual,—we shall find it in a very considerable degree. If to derive sustenance from the regular cultivation of the soil, the tending of flocks and herds in fixed localities,-if to possess the several arts and manufactures which are essential to the order and comfort of communities, if to enjoy the administration of law, written or unwritten, and the protection of appointed authorities, be civilization, (and such particulars are surely the essentials of a physical civilization,) then is India a civilized country.

If we take you to the cities of India, you will find the elements of civilized life. There are shops with their several wares; warehouses with their stores; offices

A HINDU VILLAGE.

19

with their merchants and brokers; counting-houses with their bankers; schools with their masters. There are mechanics in their several workshops: there are goldsmiths, jewellers, dealers in precious stones: there are manufacturers of muslins; makers of gold lace and embroidery; weavers of silk, &c. A magistracy and police have the administration of affairs. All the several organizations requisite to the preservation of social order are to be found throughout India.

As an illustration of Hindu society, whose more enduring forms are witnessed in villages or small towns, let me explain to you the details of the village economy of India. Those which I shall present are from my own field of labour, in the province of Gujurat, but will be found to harmonize with those of many other parts of India. The village is girded by a grove of trees, chiefly the mango, banyan, tamarind, and gum-arabic. These trees have been planted by the villagers they afford shelter for their flocks during the heat of the day, and supply the villagers with fruit, and timber for their houses and agricultural implements.

The water for domestic use is supplied to each village by at least one large well. Skirting the village is a reservoir of water, sometimes more than a mile in circumference: the water is retained by an enclosure of solid masonry.

One public building is devoted to the gratuitous use of the traveller, and is supported from the revenues of the village.