Adelung notices a feature in which the locality fixed upon as the birthplace of man by the Indian traditions corresponds with the Paradise of Scripture. From Mount Meru spring four Rivers, the Ganges, the Buramputur, the Indus, and another stream that flows into Tibet. “Now Michaelis,” he observes, “translates Genesis, ii. 10, ‘Four rivers flowed out of Eden, and they separated continually more and more widely from each other!’ ”
Cashmire is considered by the Hindoos in the light of a Holy Land, the cradle of their race, their civilization, and their religion!
The Scriptural narrative, in describing the Creation of our species, does not define the first abode of man any further than by fixing it in “the East,” (Genesis, ii. 8,) an expression corroborative, as Adelung observes, of the Indian traditions, for in the time of Moses this expression was applicable to the regions of the Indus. On the other hand, the common interpretation of Genesis, viii. 4, which assumes that Ararat in Armenia was the centre of diffusion of population after the Flood, is irreconcilable with those accounts, this locality being not to the East but to the North of all the Syro-Phœnician or Scriptural regions. But according to Bohlen,[10] the impression that Ararat in this verse means the mountain of that name in Armenia, which is inaccessible, crowned with perpetual snow,[11] and anciently had a different name, is erroneous. Ararat, he observes, does not mean a mountain but a country in this verse and elsewhere in Scripture. Thus the sons of [pg xxiv] Sennacherib escaped into the land of Ararat, (II. Kings, xix. 37,) and the Prophet Jeremiah calls upon the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz to rise up together with the Medes against Babylon, (Jerem. li, 27-8) Ararat in these passages, it may be suggested, may naturally be interpreted to apply generally to the kingdoms and regions of the unexplored[12] table-land of Central Asia, which commences on the Persian borders, immediately to the East of Assyria. Moreover the supposition that the Ararat of Scripture was in Armenia may be regarded as irreconcilable with another important passage, Gen., xi. 2, which distinctly implies that the emigrants who reached the plain of Shinar, and who, it may be inferred, were the first colonists of South Western Asia, had journeyed thither from some region far to the “East” of all the Semetic countries, of which Shinar or Mesopotamia forms the Eastern border!
It is remarkable that the expressions of this passage—“And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the East, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there”—harmonise in the most perfect manner not only with the Indian remains, but also with the passages first referred to from the Scriptural narrative itself with respect to the first abode of the human race, for it will be seen by the map that 1, Cashmire lies in a direct line to “the East” of Shinar or Mesopotamia! 2, The whole intervening territory is occupied by the Central-Asiatic table-land of Persia or Iran, which, as previously noticed, forms one continual descent from its highest elevation on the borders of Cashmire to its termination near the plain of Shinar! Ar-ar-at may reasonably be inferred to be nothing else than a term commonly applied in the East to “a country of lofty mountains,” (see p. [83],) an expression highly appropriate to the Persian table-land [pg xxv] both at its centre, and at its junction with the Semetic regions, near the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates! (See Ritter.)
4. Physiognomy.
As before observed, in these regions are found in juxtaposition nations which exhibit the very opposite Physiological characteristics of the Mongol and Western Asiatic races. The people of Tibet display the former, those of Cashmire the latter.
5. Philology.
Here the Monosyllabic and Polysyllabic languages branch off from a common centre. The former begin in Tibet, the latter in Cashmire.
The Monosyllabic languages which prevail in Tibet, China, Ava, Pegu, Siam, Tonquin, and Cochin China, countries which contain a population of 180 millions, betray all the rudeness of human speech in its infancy. They have no compound words and no grammar. “The same sound,” says Adelung, “which means Joy, means also Joyful and To rejoice through all persons, numbers, and tenses!”