------- * Another proof of the fact that the Pandavas were, though Aryans, not Brahmans, and belonged to an Indian tribe that preceded the Brahmans, and were later on Brahmanized, and then out-casted and called Mlechhas, Yavanas (i.e., foreign to the Brahmans), is afforded in the following: Pandu has two wives; and "it is not Kunti, his lawful wife, but Madri, his most beloved wife," who is burnt with the old King when dead, as well remarked by Prof Max Muller, who seems astonished at it without comprehending the true reason. As stated by Herodotus (v. 5), it was a custom amongst the Thracians to allow the most beloved of a man's wives to be sacrificed upon his tomb; and Herodotus (iv. 17) asserts a similar fact of the Scythians, and Pausanias (iv. 2) of the Greeks. ("Hist. Sans. Lit." p. 48). The Pandavas and the Kauravas are called esoterically cousins in the Epic poem because they were two distinct yet Aryan tribes, and represent two peoples, not simply two families. -------- In the Mahabharata, Arjuna is taught the occult philosophy by Krishna (personification of the universal Divine Principle); and the less mythological view of Orpheus presents him to us as "a divine bard or priest in the service of Zagreus .... founder of the Mysteries .... the inventor of everything, in fact, that was supposed to have contributed to the civilization and initiation into a more humane worship of the deity." Are not these striking parallels; and is it not significant that, in the cases of both Arjuna and Orpheus, the sublimer aspects of religion should have been imparted along with the occult methods of attaining it by masters of the mysteries? Real Devanagari--non-phonetic characters--meant formerly the outward symbols, so to say, the signs used in the intercommunication between gods and initiated mortals. Hence their great sacredness and the silence maintained throughout the Vedic and the Brahmanical periods about any object concerned with, or referring to, reading and writing. It was the language of the gods. If our Western critics can only understand what the Ancient Hindu writers meant by Rhutaliai, so often mentioned in their mystical writings, they will be in a position to ascertain the source from which the Hindus first derived their knowledge of writing.