[13]. Sahyadri Khanda of the Skanda Purana.
[14]. In the Bhavishya Purana this prince, Sahasra-Arjuna, is termed a Chakravartin, or paramount sovereign. It is said that he conquered Karkotaka of the Takshak, Turushka, or Snake race, and brought with him the population of Mahishmati, and founded Hemanagara in the north of India, on his expulsion from his dominions on the Nerbudda. Traditionary legends yet remain of this prince on the Nerbudda, where he is styled Sahasrabahu, or ‘with a thousand arms,’ figurative of his numerous progeny. The Takshak, or Snake race, here alluded to, will hereafter engage our attention. The names of animals in early times, planets, and things inanimate, all furnished symbolic appellations for the various races. In Scripture we have the fly, the bee, the ram to describe the princes of Egypt, Assyria, and Macedonia; here we have the snake, horse, monkey, etc. The Snake or Takshak race was one of the most extensive and earliest of Higher Asia, and celebrated in all its extent, and to which I shall have to recur hereafter. [By the Takshak race, so often referred to, the author seems to mean a body of Scythian snake-worshippers. There are instances of a serpent barrow, and of the use of the snake as a form of ornament among the Scythians; but beyond this the evidence of worship of the serpent is scanty (E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 328 f., 66 note, 294, 318, 323, etc.). It was really the Takka, a Panjāb tribe (Beal, Si-yu-ki, i. 165 ff.; Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, 148 ff.; Stein, Rājatarangini, i. 204 f.).]
In the Ramayana it is stated that the sacrificial horse was stolen by “a serpent (Takshak) assuming the form of Ananta.”
[15]. “Asita, the father of Sagara, expelled by hostile kings of the Haihayas, the Talajanghas, and the Sasa-vindus, fled to the Himavat mountains, where he died, leaving his wives pregnant, and from one of these Sagara was born” (Ramayana, i. 41). It was to preserve the Solar race from the destruction which threatened it from the prolific Lunar race, that the Brahman Parasurama armed: evidently proving that the Brahmanical faith was held by the Solar race; while the religion of Budha, the great progenitor of the Lunar, still governed his descendants. This strengthened the opposition of the sages of the Solar line to Vishvamitra’s (of Budha’s or the Lunar line) obtaining Brahmanhood. That Krishna, of Lunar stock, prior to founding a new sect, worshipped Budha, is susceptible of proof.
[16]. Angdes, Ongdes, or Undes adjoins Tibet. The inhabitants call themselves Hungias, and appear to be the Hong-niu of the Chinese authors, the Huns (Hūns) of Europe and India, which prove this Tartar race to be Lunar, and of Budha. [Anga, the modern Bhāgalpur, is confounded with Hundes or Tibet.]
[17]. Egyptian, under Misraim, 2188 B.C.; Assyrian, 2059; Chinese, 2207. [The first Egyptian dynasty is now dated 5500 B.C.; Chinese, 2852 B.C.; Babylonian, 2300 B.C. Any attempt to establish an Indian chronology from the materials used by the Author does not promise to be successful.]