Indian Myth and LegendMackenzie, Donald A. (Donald Alexander)
History
Indian Myth and Legend
Mackenzie, Donald A. (Donald Alexander)
Hindu mythology; Legends -- India
In India the ages are called the yugas, and this term has a totally
different meaning in Vedic and Upanishadic times. Evidently the Bharata
invasion and the establishment of the middle country power of their
allies, the Kuru-Panchalas, was not unconnected with the introduction
of the doctrines of metempsychosis and the yugas, and the prominence
subsequently given to the worship of female deities.
If this theory can be established, we are confronted by an extremely
interesting problem. It would appear that the mythology of the Vedic
period bears a close resemblance to Teutonic, while that of the
post-Vedic period connects more intimately with Greek, Celtic, and
Egyptian. Assuming that the Vedic people were influenced by what we
recognize as Teutonic modes of thought, do we find here proof that
the Aryans came from Europe? In Chapter II it is shown that the Norse
Heimdal displays points of resemblance to Agni. The former, however,
has been developed almost beyond recognition as a fire god, and it is
evident that we find him in northern Europe in his latest and most
picturesque form. On the other hand, there is no dubiety about the
origin of the Vedic Agni.
The evidence afforded by archæology is highly suggestive in this
connection. Scandinavia received its culture from the south at a
comparatively late period in the Bronze Age, and it certainly exercised
no intellectual influence in Europe in earlier times. Bronze is, of
course, of less ethnic significance than beliefs, but it is difficult
to believe, at the same time, that an isolated and poorly armed
people could have imposed its intellectual culture over a wide area
without having received anything in return. It is more probable that
the northern Germanic peoples were subjected to the same influences
which are traceable in their mythology and in the Vedic hymns, from
a common source, and there may be more than mere mythology in the
persistent tradition that the ancestors of the Teutons immigrated from
Asia led by Odin. We need not assume that the movement was so much a
racial as a cultural one, which emanated from a particular area where
religious conceptions were influenced by particular habits of life
and “immemorial modes of thought”. Among the settled and agricultural
peoples of the Brown race, the development of religious ideas followed
different lines, and were similarly controlled by early ideas which
sprang from different habits and experiences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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