Modern Mythology

by Andrew Lang

APPENDIX B: Mr. Macdonell on Vedic Mythology

Too late for use here came Vedic Mythology, from Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, [{201}] by Mr. A. Macdonell, the representative of the historic house of Lochgarry. This even a non-scholar can perceive to be a most careful and learned work. As to philological ‘equations’ between names of Greek and Vedic gods, Mr. Macdonell writes: ‘Dyaus=Ζευς is the only one which can be said to be beyond the range of doubt.’ As to the connection of Prometheus with Sanskrit Pramantha, he says: ‘Προμηθευς has every appearance of being a purely Greek formation, while the Indian verb math, to twirl, is found compounded only with nis, never with pra, to express the art of producing fire by friction.’ (See above, p. 194.) If Mr. Macdonell is right here, the Greek myth of the fire-stealer cannot have arisen from ‘a disease of language.’ But scholars must be left to reconcile this last typical example of their ceaseless differences in the matter of etymology of names.