Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s1.29

v1.c17.s1.29

Sir Walter strongly supports the Hindu hypothesis regarding the locality of the nursery for rearing mankind, and that “India was the first planted and peopled countrie after the flood” (p. 99). His first argument is, that it was a place where the vine and olive were indigenous, as amongst the Sakai Scythai (and as they still are, together with oats, between Kabul and Bamian); and that Ararat could not be in Armenia, because the Gordian mountains on which the ark rested were in longitude 75°, and the Valley of Shinar 79° to 80°, which would be reversing the tide of migration. “As they journeyed *from the East*, they found a plain, in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there” (Genesis, chap. xi. ver. 2). He adds, “Ararat, named by Moses, is not any one hill, but a general term for the great Caucasian range; therefore we must blow up this mountain Ararat, or dig it down and carry it out of Armenia, or find it elsewhere in a warmer country, and east from Shinar.” He therefore places it in Indo-Scythia, in 140° of longitude and 35° to 37° of latitude, “where the mountains do build themselves exceeding high”: and concludes, “It was in the plentiful warm East where Noah rested, where he planted the vine, where he tilled the ground and lived thereon. Placuit vero Noacho agriculturæ studium in qua tractanda ipse omnium peritissimus esse dicitur; ob eamque rem, sua ipsius lingua, *Ish-Adamath*: * hoc est, *Telluris Vir*, appellatur, celebratusque est. The study of husbandry pleased Noah (says the excellent learned man, Arius Montanus) in the order and knowledge of which it is said that Noah excelled all men, and therefore was he called in his own language, *a man exercised in the earth*.” The title, character, and abode exactly suit the description the Hindus themselves do not make India within the Indus the cradle of their race, but west, amidst the hills of Caucasus,¹ whence the sons of Vaivaswata, or the ‘sun-born,’ migrated eastward to the Indus and Ganges, and founded their first establishment in Kosala, the capital, Ayodhya, or Oudh.