The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.31

c9.31

We should be willing to believe that the Gallic groups, like their Indian prototypes, must practically answer to the same eternal desires of humanity for offspring and for money — although our modern civilization seems to detach itself from the one to the advantage of the other. As far as the god is concerned, whether it be a question of the Gallic Mercury, who, we are told by Caesar, controlled the gains of commercial transactions, or of that *Dis Pater*, who seems to be the native double of Plutus, as well as of Pluto, the purse which he holds in his hand is in all languages an expressive emblem : and as for the goddess, by whatever name she may be called, Rosmerta, Maïa, Tutela, Nantosvelta, or simply Bona Dea, her horn of abundance signifies fecundity. According to all appearance, whilst her husband was more particularly destined to fulfil the aspirations of the men, her task was to satisfy those of the women ; and thus in Gaul, as in India, both sexes must have found satisfaction in the worship of this divine pair. Besides, it is sufficient or four purpose that their tutelary character should be incontestable. What chiefly interests us is the analogy between the procedures followed by the artists of such distant countries, in order to picture before our eyes ideas on the whole analogous.