Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s4.t2.95

v2.c27.s4.t2.95

Wide Extension of Hindu Mythology.—That a system of Hinduism pervaded the whole Babylonian and Assyrian empires, Scripture furnishes abundant proofs, in the mention of the various types of the sun-god Balnath, whose pillar adorned “ every mount ” and “ every grove ”; and to whose other representative, the brazen calf (nandi), the 15th of each month (amavas) ² was especially sacred. It was not confined to these celebrated regions of the East, but was disseminated throughout the earth; because from the Aral to the Baltic, colonies were planted from that central region,³ the cradle of the Suryas and the Indus, whose branches (sakha),⁴ the Yavan, the Aswa, and the Meda, were the progenitors of the Ionians, the Assyrians, and the Medes; ⁵ while in later times, from the same teeming region, the Galati and Getae,⁶ the Kelts and Goths, carried modifications of the system to the shores of Armorica and the Baltic, the cliffs of Caledonia, and the remote isles of the German Ocean. The monumental circles sacred to the sun-god Belenus at once existing in that central region,⁷ in India,⁸ and throughout Europe, is conclusive. The apotheosis of the patriarch Noah, whom the Hindu styles Manu-Vaivaswata, ‘the man, son of the sun,’ may have originated the Dolayatra of the Hindus, the ark of Osiris [606], the ship of Isis amongst the Suevi, in memory of “the forty days” noticed in the traditions of every nation of the earth.