Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s2.85

v2.c27.s2.85

Parallels to Krishna in other Mythologies.—Diodorus informs us that Kan was one of the titles of the Egyptian Apollo as the sun; and this is the common contraction for Kanhaiya, whose colour is a dark cerulean blue (nila): and hence his name Nilanath, who, like the Apollo of the Nile, is depicted with the human form and eagle-head, with a lotus in his hand. S and H are permutable letters in the Bhakha, and Syam or Sham, the god of the Yamuna, may be the Ham or Hammon of Egypt. Hari accompanied Rama to Lanka, as did the Egyptian Apollo, Rameses-Sesostris, on his expedition to India: both were attended in their expedition by an army of Satyrs, or tribes bearing the names of different animals: and as we have the Aswas, the Takshaks, and the Sasas of the Yadu tribes, typified under the horse, the serpent, and the hare, so the races of Surya, of which Rama was the head, may have been designated Riksh and Hanuman, or bears and monkeys. The distance of the Nile from the Indian shore forms no objection; the sail spread for Ceylon could waft the vessel to the Red Sea, which the fleets of Tyre, of Solomon, and Hiram covered about this very time. That the Hindus navigated the ocean from the earliest ages, the traces of their religion in the isles of the Indian archipelago sufficiently attest; but on this subject we have already said enough.