Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s2.33

v2.c27.s2.33

the schismatics were depicted under their respective emblems, the eagle and serpent, of which latter were the Kauravas and Takshaks,¹ the political adversaries of the Pandus, the relatives of Krishna. The [537] allegory of Krishna’s eagle pursuing the serpent Budha, and recovering the books of science and religion with which he fled, is an historical fact disguised : namely, that of Krishna incorporating the doctrines of Budha with his own after the expulsion of the sect from India. Dare we further attempt to lift the veil from this mystery, and trace from the seat of redemption of lost science its original source ?² The Gulf of Cutch, the point where the serpent attempted to escape, has been from time immemorial to the present day the entrepôt for the commerce of Sofala, the Red Sea, Egypt, and Arabia. There Budha Trivikrama, or Mercury, has been and is yet invoked by the Indian mariners, especially the pirates of Dwarka. Did Budha or Mercury come from, or escape to the Nile? Is he the Hermes of Egypt to whom the ‘four books of science,’ like the four Vedas¹ of the Hindus, were sacred? The statues of Nemi,² the representative of Budha, exactly resemble in feature the bust of young Memnon.³