Preface.
The origin and migrations of myths have of late been the subject of so much sifting and study, the elaborate results of which are already before the world, that there is no need in this place to offer more than a few condensed remarks in allusion to the particular collections now, I believe, for the first time put into English. Translations of some chapters of the “Adventures of the Well-and-wise-walking Khan” have been made by Benj. Bergmann, Riga, 1804; by Golstunski, St. Petersburg, 1864; and by H. Osterley, in 1867. Of “Ardschi-Bordschi,” by Emil Schlaginweit; by Benfey, in “Ausland,” Nos. 34–36, and the whole of both by Professor Jülg, 1865–68; of these I have availed myself in preparing the following pages; I know of no other translation into any European language except one into Russ by Galsan Gombojew, published at S. Petersburg in 1865–68[1].
The first thirteen chapters of the “Well-and-wise-walking Khan” are a Kalmouk[1] collection, all the rest Mongolian; and though traceable to Indian sources, they yet have received an entire transformation in the course of their adoption by their new country. In giving them another new home, some further alterations, though of a different nature, have been necessary. However much one may regret them such transformations are inevitable. It seems a law of nature that history should to a certain extent write itself. We know the age of a tree by its knots and rings; and we trace the age of a building by its alterations and repairs—and that equally well whether these be made in a style later prevailing, utterly different from that of the original design, or in the most careful imitation of the same; for the age of the workman’s hand cannot choose but write itself on whatever he chisels.
It is just the same with these myths. They cannot remain as if stereotyped from the first; the hand that passes them on must mould them anew in the process. You might say, they have been already altered enough during their wanderings, give them to us now at least as the Mongolians left them. But it is not possible, most of them are too coarse to meet an eye trained by Christianity and modern cultivation. The habit of mind in which they are framed is in places as foreign as the idiom in which they are written; I have, however, made it an undeviating rule to let such alterations be as few and as slight as the case admitted, and that they should go no farther than was necessary to make them readable, or occasionally give them point.
As I have said these stories have an ‘Indian’ source, it becomes incumbent to spend a few lines on defining the use and reach of the word[2].
The words Ἴνδος and ἡ Ἰνδικὴ occur for the first time among writers of classical antiquity in the fragments that have come down to us of the writings of Hecatæus, B.C. 500. Herodotus also uses the same; from these they descended to us through the Romans. They both received it through Persian means and used it in the most comprehensive sense, though the Persian use of their equivalent at the time seems to have been more limited. It is probable, however, that later the Persian use became further extended; and through the Arabians, who also adopted it from them, it became the Muhammedan designation of the whole country. When they, in 713, conquered the country watered by the lower course of the Indus, namely, Sinde, they confirmed the use of this more extended application of the Persian word Hind, reserving Sind, the local form of the same word—apparently without perceiving it was the same—to this particular province.
The later Persian designation is Hindustan—the country of the Hindu—and this is generally adopted in India itself to denote the whole country, though many Europeans have restricted it to the Northern half, in contradistinction from the Dekhan, or country south of the Vindha-range[2], often excluding even Bengal.
The original native names are different. In the epic mythology occur, Gambudvîpa, the island of the gambu-tree (Eugenia Jambolana), for the central or known world of which India was part, and Sudarsana, “of beautiful appearance,” to denote both the tree and the “island” named from it. The Buddhist cosmography uses Gampudvîpa for India Proper. Within this the Brahmanical portion, lying to the south of the Himâlajas, is designated as Bhârata or Bhâratavarsha. In the great epic poem called the Mahâ Bhârata, the name is derived from Bhârata, son of Dusjanta, the first known ruler of the country, and several dynasties are called after him Bhâratides, though it is more probable his name rather accrued to him from that of the country, the word being derived from bhri, “to bring forth” or “nourish,” hence, “the fruitful,” “life-nourishing” land. Bhârata is also called (Rig-Ved. i. 96, 3) “the nourisher,” sustentator.
The native historical name is undoubtedly “Ârjâvata,” the district of the Ârja—“the venerable men”—or more literally, “worthy to be sought after,” keepers of the sacred laws, the people of honourable ancestry; calling themselves so in contradistinction to the Mlêk’ha, barbarous despisers of the sacred laws (Manu, i. 22; x. 45), also Ârja-bhûmi, land of the Ârja. The Manu defines rigidly the original boundaries of this sacred country; it lies between the Himâlaja and Vindhja mountains, and stretches from the eastern to the western seas. Though Ptolemy (Geog. vii. I) calls the people of the west coast, south of the Vindhja, Âriaka, this was a later extension of the original term.
What gives the word a great historical importance is the circumstance which must not be passed over here, that the original native name of the inhabitants of Iran was either the same or similarly derived. Airja in Zend stood both for “honourable” and for the name of the Iranian, people. Concerning the Medes we have the testimony of Herodotus that they originally called themselves Ἄριοι, and we owe him the information also that the original Persian name was Ἀρταιοὶ, a word which has the same root as Ârja, or at least can have no very different meaning. They do not seem ever to have actually called themselves Ârja, although the word existed in their ancient tongue with the sense of “noble,” “honourable.”