scrit; but Yama is another name of the sun'; if, therefore, Yama is derived from Ham, both he and his father were worshipped under the same type. Hind, who probably was the first settler in the country to which he gave his name, is said by the author of the Mahabarit 2, to have been the son of Ham; but Hindoo,' according to Dow, signifies the moon. Thus, in three generations after the deluge, we discover appellations of the heavenly bodies bestowed upon the fathers of the human race. And yet history affirms, not only that Hind continued, in imitation of his father, to worship the true God, but that his descendants followed his example; till in the time of Marage, (B. c. 2129), a person came from Iran, and introduced the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, and their proper element, the symbol of fire. The date thus assigned to the introduction of the Magian and Sabian superstitions is very likely to be correct; but the names, which the Hindoos gave thereupon to their ancestors, show that they had previously been in the habit of paying them some sort of adoration, and not being willing to dismiss them altogether, they reconciled the two systems by the ingenious device of Avatars, by which they unsphered their radiant deities for a time, and brought them down from heaven to earth, incarnating them in the per

1 The sun in Bhadra had the title of Yama, says Mr. Wilford, Asiat. Res. iii. 409.

2 Translated into Persian from the Sanscrit, by Sheek Abul Fazil, in the reign of Akbar, and quoted by Dow.

3 Dow's Hist. of Hindostan, i. p. 16.

sons of those whom they had deified before. With respect to these two persons in particular, Yama and Hind, their original connection with the era of the deluge is strongly marked by several circumstances, which seem to lie at the bottom of their worship, whatever superstructure of fiction may have been raised upon it afterwards. "Yama," says Ward', "who judges the dead, is worshipped annually on the second day of the moon's increase, by making an image of clay, which is then thrown into the river: they offer water to him every day, and some worship no other gods. His dwelling is at Yumaluju, which is surrounded by water, and where rewards and punishments are awarded." But "the fourteenth day of the dark half of the month Aswini, is peculiarly sacred to Yama; bathing and libations are auspicious on that day, and on the following, torches and flaming brands are kindled, and consecrated to burn the bodies of kinsmen, who may be dead in battle, or in a foreign country, and to light them through the shades of death to the mansions of Yama." This is a remarkable illustration of the manner in which the genuine diluvial rites came at length to be superseded by those of fire worship. The dark half of the month typified the darkness of the ark; the 14th day of that dark half was the exact period of the moon's increase, when her form is the crescent, which, as I shall have occasion to

1 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 73.

2 This is like the worship of Doorga, of whom more hereafter. 3 Moor's Hindoo Pantheon, p. 305.

show, was a perpetual type of the ark; and in this case, no other reason can be assigned for the selection of that particular period, since even amidst the chaos of eastern mythology, Yama is never confounded with the moon. The burning of the dead commemorates the destruction by that catastrophe; and the lighting of torches, like the sacred fire, which the miracle-mongers of Jerusalem pretend to receive from heaven, is a symbol of the light which flashed upon them, when they emerged from the darkness of the ark into the open day. And this part of the ceremonial remained when the rest was disused and the cause forgotten. As the judge of departed souls, Yama, or Dhurmarajah, as he is called, the king of justice, resembles the Grecian Minos', of whom Virgil says, "ille silentûm conciliumque vocat, vitasque et crimina diseit." But Minos was undoubtedly Menu or Menus, i. e. Noah. One of Yama's titles is Kala, or Time, a sign of his identity with Noah; but as this point has not yet been discussed, a better proof may be drawn from another of his titles, Pitriputee, the Sovereign of the Patriarchs; where we observe again that invariable disposition of mythology to mount up to the original source, and consequently to blend the history of the first man of the postdiluvian world with that of his sons and immediate descendants.

1 Noah, or Nuh, as his name is spelled in Hebrew, is the same with Menu; which, in the nominative case, is Menus, who bears etymological, and historical, and mythological affinity with Minos, like him a great lawgiver, and the reputed son of Jove.-Moor's H. P. 306.

On this account when Homer had to reconcile the history of Minos with his fabulous descent from Jupiter', he had no difficulty in extricating himself from the embarrassment by merely inverting the order, and making Deucalion not his father but his son. That Menu or Minos2, in this his secondary character, was really one with Yama or Ham, the son of Noah, may be inferred from this; each of them is called the Offspring of the Sun (Vaivaswata), and Lord of the Obsequies (Sradhadeva). The place where rewards and punishments are said to be distributed is Yumaluyu, a mountain like Ararat at the close of the deluge, surrounded by water. Now the accent being laid on the second syllable, the sound is nearly the same as Himalaya similarly pronounced: but if it be the same mountain, the etymology is evidently different from that which is usually assigned to it; it means the abode of Yumu or Yama, for it is spelled in both ways. 3 That they are the same mountain is extremely probable, for Himalaya too has many diluvian sympOne of its peaks is called Kedarnath, i. e. the Mountain of the Ship; for in that very

toms.

1 Hom. II., N. 451.

2 Minos, as the judge of departed souls, corresponds with Yama, himself the same as Menu.-Moor, p. 306.

3 In a subsequent chapter I shall have occasion to show that there is another etymology with equal pretensions to probability, which would make the mountain the residence of the father, instead of the son. But this uncertainly rather tends to strengthen the argument than to weaken it; for a Paronomasia which would make the name applicable to both, would obtain for it a much more general acceptation.

4 And from these hills flow the Kedar Ganga and Sheo Ganga. — Asiatic Researches, v. 45.

ancient language, the Irish, Kuadar is a ship, and temples are dedicated on the hills to Kedara. Another peak is called Bhadrinath', i. e. the Mountain of the Moon, or perhaps of the Baris : there is a temple upon it, and it is a famous place of pilgrimage for the Hindoos. These two peaks are the extremities of a ridge called Nundidevi, i. e. the Divine Bull; for Nandi or Nundi was the bull of Siva, of whom more hereafter; and thus there must be a striking resemblance to Mount Ararat as it is represented by Kotzebue. Another of these mountains is the Meru of Hindoo fable, called Sumeru by the modern Pundits 2; from it the sacred Ganges flows, the representative of the ocean, and in that part the mountain has three peaks; a diluvian form exhibited in the trident of Siva as well as of the classic Neptune. On the Rham Ghur frontier there is a mountain more evidently derived from the Baris or Ark; it is called Parisnauth. Its summits are eight in number, the number of those who were preserved; and the highest is called Asmeed Sikur, or the Peak of Bliss. Parus Nauth Ishwara is the Patriarch of the Jeynes, of whose feet the impressions are shown on a hill called Chandra Gurus (the Mountain of the Moon), from whence he sprang up to heaven. Now Iswara is a name of Siva signifying

Bhadra in Sanscrit is beautiful; but it is a common appellation of the moon, in Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, as well as in Sanscrit. -Moor's H. P. p. 295.

2 Heber's Travels, ii. 152. 195. 209.