Pauthier well remarks, (238) “ the diversity of races conquering and vanquished at a very
early epoch;” viz: Brahmans, priests; Kchatriyas, soldiers; Vaisyas, tradesmen; and
Soudras, serviles: (239) but the Chinese Fa-hian shows how, even in the fourth century
after C . , these divisions were merely civil, and not yet religious ordinances. In short, it is
now certain that the “ caste-system^”(240) which (it is likewise thoroughly established) was
never known in Egypt, had not been invented in Hindostan until Brahmanical superstitions
obtained predominance long after the Christian era. So again with respect to most of those
prohibitions of animal sustenance, and other “ unclean things,” which some have supposed
that Moses learned from primeval gymnosophists. Forbidden, for practical hygienic
motives, among Pharaonic priests, Pythagorsean philosophers, and among Israelitish no less
than Mohammedan Arabians, pork wa§ equally proscribed by M a no u : (241) “ The regenerate
man who knowingly may have eaten mushroom, domestic hoy, garlic, wild-cock, onion, or
leek, shall be degraded.” Now, as Sykes inquires, if the laws of M a n o u had been in existence
prior to the Christian era, how came it that B u d d h a died of dysentery from eating
pork, and that hoy’s flesh should have been the aliment of early Brahmanical ascetics ?
When enthusiastic Indologists shall have explained away the above palaeographical and
historical objections, they will be at leisure to defend the alleged antiquity of the Sanscrit
books themselves. Here is a little thing calculated, as Lanci writes, to “ scaponire i gratta-
capi.” (242)
The “ Puranas” claim for R am a a date something like 867,102 years before their compilation.
Bentley fixed the poem Ramayana, by its intrinsic evidences, at a . d . 291: and
Wilson, together with the best Sanscrit critics, determines the age of the earliest “ Puranas”
between the eighth and ninth century after Christ. Such being the facts, Sykes educes
as follows.
Sir W. Jones (Preface to the Institutes of Menu), assumed “ that the Vedas must therefore
have been written three hundred years before the Institutes of Menu, and these Institutes
three hundred years before the Puranas.” Then, Sykes’s deadly sword gives p o in t-
as Wilson has proved, from internal evidence, that the “ Puranas were written of compiled
between the eighth and fourteenth centuries of the Christian era, it follows, according to
Sir W. Jones’s hypothesis, that the Institutes of Menu date from the fifth century (Aw/m B),
and the Vedas from the second century.” Monumental calligraphy supports this view; while
the Vishnu Purana (dated by Wilson at a . d .. 954) brings the polished Sa'nscrit language
down as late as the tenth century. Analogy also, in adjacent countries, points to the same
solution as to how Lamaism and Romanism present such striking identities. : It is said by
Father Georgi that “ Writing, laws and religion were introduced into Thibet about the
year 65 after Christ.”(243) Thus, we learn that Thibetan pretensions, which have more
aflinity with those of Hindostan than of China, lend no support to Hindoo antiquity.
The geographical names in Hindoo literature wofully invalidate the antiquity of some
books: because, if the mention of “ Yavanas” (Jonians, IUNim in Hebrew and in Assyrian
cuneiform, Toondn in Arabic, and YUNIN in old Egyptian), does not positively prove n
writer posterior to A l e x a n d e r , b . c. 330; that of “ Tchinas” (inasmuch as the Celestial
Empire was not called.Thsin, China, before the year 250 b .-C :), at once knocks down a
book to times after that era. (244) • So again, as Indo-Scythians did not penetrate into India
before b . c . 125, allusion to the Sakas must proceed from an author who lived subsequently.
Now, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata both speak of “ Yavanas, Tchinas, and
Sakas;” and ergo, the latter cannot well be older (aside from other reasons) than the
(238) Lois de Manou; IntrocL: p. 22.
(239) Id.; book i., sloka 31.
(2 4 0 ) Gl id d o n : Otia: p . 90.
(241) Book v. 19: — The reason why neither Judaism nor Isl&mism. ever made progress in China is owing to
its inhabitants’ fondness for little pigs. The same tastes render either religion utterly impossible at Cincinnati
(242) “ Remove the obstinacy of headrscratchers.”
(243) Alphabetnm Tibetanum; apud B e B rotonne : Filiations; i. p. 445.
(244) The fleets of H oang-t i first visited the ports of Bengal about the year 280 b . g. (Chine, p. 2 ).
second century after Christ, nor the former earlier than the fifth; in no case can either
antedate B. c. 250. But, wildly shriek our l^ahmanists — the grottos of Ellora, Elephanta,
jidjunta, &c.? * Alas, g entlemens Sykes says, not one antedates the ninth century after
Christ! Even-Prichard, following Prinsep, does not consider these caves earlier than
“ a century or two prior' to the Christian era, when Buddhism flourished in the height of
its glory frpm Kashmir to Ceylon.” (245)
We delude ourselves, probably, with the belief that our opponents in biblical studies will
concede that, in our hands, the knife of criticism is double-edged; and that we apply it
equally to the notions of Hindoo as well as of Judaean commentators. In the last century
it was the fashion to exalt Sanscrit literature at the expense of Jewish; greatly to the discomfort
of orthodoxy. The latter may now console itself with the assurance, that its Hin-
dostanic'apprehensions were puerile — for, beneath the most ruthless scalpel, a “ Book of
the Law of M o s e s ” stands erect with vitality, in the sixth century b. o. ; that is, 200 years
before the oldest Pali document of India was inscribed by C h a n t jr a g u p t a .
' With the judicious reflections of another Sanscrit authority we take leave of Hindostan;
merely-mentioning that our own analysis of Xth Genesis has entirely confirmed the
doctrine broached by the learned Col. Vans Kennedy. (246)
“ Although I do not derive all the nations of the earth from Shem, Ham, and Tapket, I
still think that Babylonia [we read, A b ja n a ] was the original seat of the Sanscrit language
and of Sanscrit literature. . . . But this error [i. e. the contrary hypothesis] necessarily
proceeds from the assumption, that the first eleven chapters of Genesis give an authentic
account of the creation and of the earlier ages of the world; which renders it necessary
to insult common sense, and to disregard the plainest principles of evidence and reasoning,
in order to prove that all the races of mankind and all systems of polytheism were derived
from one and the same origin.”
Those who haye leaned upon Faber’s broken reed would do well to peruse our author’s
Appendix ^ “ Remarks on the-Papers of Lieut. Col. Wilford contained in the Asiatic Researches/’
To others it may be satisfactory to know, that the earliest Greek mention of
India (Sind) occurs in ,®schylus,'B. c. 525-456: while, about the same times (if Ezra compiled
the “ Book of Genesis,” as patristic authority sustained;, tradition— which, in
our version (Gen. iv. 16), sends Cain into “ the land of Nod, 'on the east of Eden ” probably
consecrated some legendary rumor that the forlorn outcast had escaped to the Hindus—"
hiSHO, towards the East of Eden,” itself located in Mesopotamia; which Indian
people are still called HINooD, by.the Arabs.(247) India became known to Jews and
Greeks after the former had been captive in Babylonia, and after the Persian invasions
had given new ideas’ upon Asiatic geography to the latter.
Intending to publish other justifications of the correct- jtIQ ggg
ness of our Tableau [supra, pp. 680, 631] on some future
occasion, we suspend further discussion of the “ Semitic
streams,” and merely submit specimens of that character
upon which we have bestowed the name of “ Assyro-Phoenician.”
If, as Dr. Layard states, some of these relics were «
positively found in the “ chamber of records” opened by him at Kouyun- Fig. 361.
jik, (248) and if, as he declares, they are really of the time of Sennacherib,
B. C.-703 to 690, the reader beholds the very earliest known samples of
purely-alphabetic writing hitherto discovered. They will become the more
precious to his eyes, inasmuch as (in the contingency that Dr. Layard is
certain that Fig. 360 belongs to Sennacherib’s reign) here is the closest approximation
to that (unknown) character in which the oldest Hebrew books
of the Bible were originally written: which fact we shall demonstrate elsewhere. For
(245) Researches; 1844; iv. ppl 120,121.
(246) Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology; 1831: p p . 368, 369; a ls o
PP. 4 06-422.
(247) Mtmx: Palestine; p . 429.
(248) Babylon; 2d Exped., 1843; p p . 346, 691, 601, 606.