[15]. “A la première lune de chaque année, tous ces officiers, grands et petits, tenoient une assemblée générale à la cour du Tanjou, et y faisoient un sacrifice solennel: à la cinquième lune, ils s’assembloient à Lumtching, où ils sacrifioient au ciel, à la terre, aux esprits, et aux ancêtres. Il se tenoit encore une grande assemblée à Tai-lin dans l’automne, parce qu’alors les chevaux étoient plus gras, et on y faisoit en même-tems le dénombrement des hommes et des troupeaux; mais tous les jours le Tanjou sortoit de son camp, le matin pour adorer le soleil, et le soir la lune. Sa tente étoit placée à gauche, comme le côté le plus honorable chez ces peuples, et regardoit le couchant” (Avant J.-C. 209; L’Histoire Générale des Huns, vol. i. p. 24).
[16]. [There is no Skt. word pola, ‘gate’; the Hindi pol, paul is Skt. pura dvāra, ‘city entrance.’]
[17]. [The words pol and pāl are not connected.]
[18]. Hence may be found a good etymology of janizary, the guardian of the serai, a title left by the lords of Eastern Rome for the Porte. [Turkish yeni-tsheri, ‘new soldiery.’]
[19]. In Sanskrit gana (pronounced as gun), the jinn of the Persians, transmuted to genii; here is another instance in point of the alternation of the initial, and softened by being transplanted from Indo-Scythia to Persia, as Ganes was Janus at Rome. [Gana and Jinn, Ganesa and Janus, have no connexion.
[20]. The Casius Mons of Ptolemy. [The derivation of the word Caucasus is unknown.]
[21]. Parvati, ‘the mountain goddess,’ was called Sati, or ‘the faithful,’ in her former birth. She became the mother of Jahnavi, the river (Ganga) goddess.
[22]. Karttikeya, the son of Siva and Parvati, the Jupiter and Juno of the Hindu theogony, has the leading of the armies of the gods, delegated by his father; and his mother has presented to him her peacock, which is the steed of this warlike divinity. He is called Karttikeya from being nursed by six females called Krittika, who inhabit six of the seven stars composing the constellation of the Wain, or Ursa Major. Thus the Hindu Mars, born of Jupiter and Juno, and nursed by Ursa Major, is, like all other theogonies, an astronomical allegory. There is another legend of the birth of Mars, which I shall give in the text.
[23]. This elephant-headed divinity has but one tusk.
[24]. The bard thus modestly designates himself.