Credit: 1 (and 2) of 3 by: Shreepal Singh. Credit: 3 of 3 by: E. Pococke – London, 1855
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Google has done a great service for the advance of knowledge by bringing rare, ancient and almost lost books to the public domain. One such book is ‘INDIA IN GREECE’ by E. Pococke published in 1855 from London. It is a masterpiece of philological research and knowledge.
It was a lost book. Thanks to Google, we can now utilize this treasure-trove to enhance our knowledge of the ancient world. It establishes beyond any shadow of doubt that it were a large numbers of Indians who under some unknown circumstances had migrated in prehistorical times from India to Greece speaking Sanscrit language; that they culturally colonized ancient Greece; shaped the classical Greek, and Latin languages; and thereby influenced the ancient dialects of other European languages!
In comparison to this philological research, which is based on the concrete reality of ‘words of languages that we still use in our daily life’, the recent reconstruction of the migration of ancient people on the basis of their DNA’s mutations etc. is nothing more than a speculation! The genetic sequencing of peoples’ DNA backward in time and their mutation over time, will show the mixing of the concerned two peoples but NOT THEIR MIGRATION ROUTE!
This alleged discovery of the MIGRATION of Aryans into India by applying the scientific tool of the genetic mutation has become a convenient political weapon in the hands of ‘Breaking India’ forces. They are crying hoarse to turn a ‘speculation’ into an ‘established fact’ and trying to divide India into ‘Aryan India’ as against ‘Dravidian India’!
Their alleged discovery is debunked by the philology – standing on the surer foundation of living languages. People speak languages and languages also mutate, preserving traces of their parent language. Nobody can deny that Sanskrit is an ancient language; that it is still spoken with all its purity in India; and that Greek, Latin and all other European languages still have traces of their mother ‘Sanskrit’ language in them.
A language is a living thing, like humans. It also undergoes mutation over a period of time, just like people’s genes!
The question crying for answer is: How did Sanskrit come to influence Greek, Latin and other European languages?
This question is answered by the philological research of E. Pococke. We are reproducing here Pococke’s ‘Introduction to the second edition‘ of his book, with special thanks to Google, at No. 3 of 3 of this write-up.
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There is an observation of long standing time that says, “Fish are not aware of the water in which they live, until they are taken out of the water!” Often times, we do not pay attention to normal things, howsoever great the significance their presence might mean. It is so with the philological significance of the ‘quality’ of Sanskrit that is spoken in India as a commonplace thing. Everybody knows that ‘brother,’ a word of English language, is phonetically and in its meaning is similar to the Sanskrit word ‘bhratra” but nobody pays any attention to the fact that it is ‘brother’ that is similar to ‘bhratra’ and not ‘bhratra’ that is similar to ‘brother’! What is its significance in philology?
This fact debunks the artificial theory of the existence of the so called ‘proto Sanskrit’ language. If there was a ‘proto Sanskrit’ language, out of which have developed Sanskrit (as we know it) and also other languages of Indo- European family, then Indian Sanskrit cannot so develop as to become the precise language in its grammatical structure and sound in its phonetics and other languages of Indo-European family cannot remain so undeveloped in their grammar and phonetics, as they happen to be.
The much touted ‘proto Sanskrit’, if it was the mother of all the languages of Indo-European family, must have equally developed into all the languages of a common family.
The fact is that a language retains its maximum purity at the place of its origin and degrades as it radiates further away places from this place.
The quantum of purity of a language is maximum at its place of origin and decreases as it travels further away from there.
European languages have a few significant similarities to – but are not as pure as – Sanskrit, which is still spoken in India.
There was no ‘proto Sanskrit’ but an ancient Sanskrit. Its origin was ancient India. It spread with the migration of people speaking this language in ancient times from India to Iran, Greece, Rome, Scand and European countries.
The existence of finest form of Sanskrit in India – since antiquity – philologically proves that Sanskrit speaking Aryans – noble people – had spread out of India and not invaded India from somewhere outside. Of course, ancient India was much larger a place than today’s India and included almost all of Central Asia of today, faintly hinted at by Herodotus and classical Greek writers before and after Alexander.
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E. Pococke says:
An illustrious geographer has well observed that the names which geography, and particularly physical geography, has consecrated, may be considered the most important documents of primitive history, or of history anterior to chronology. Men, long before they thought of computing years, or arranging events according to their date, designated by local denominations, taken from the dialects in which they were surrounded – the mountains that bounded their horizon, the rivers in which their thirst quenched, the villages that gave them birth, and the family tribe to which they belonged. Had that graphical nomenclature been preserved pure and entire, a map of the world might have been obtained, more valuable by far than all the Universal Histories (Malte Brun, Geog. Univ.). It is impossible for the reflecting mind to concede the derivation of the Hellenic from the Sanscrit type of the Arian tounge, a subject now established beyond controversy, without, at the same time, granting the probable existence within the boundaries of the tribal and typical evidences of this fact. Such evidences are particularly strong in the case of mountainous regions. Those fortresses of nature formed so many points of jealous isolation. Here weaker tribes might hold their own against superior numbers. A congeries of rugged defiles, mountain passes, and craggy heights, became securely tenanted by bands almost as numerous and as diversified as the natural strongholds that received them. Hence, like the Caucasus, not a few of these highland strengths remain to this day the imperishable textbooks of the ethnologist and philologer. Here human speech, faithful as the most impartial historian, tells of the settlement of Fins, of Medes, of Celts, of Tartars, and Alans, demonstrating in the most precise and simple manner the infiltration of these races and its just amount.
But the higher we ascend the stream of time, the earlier do we discern the evidences of this fact. Nowhere is this more evident than in the most ancient ethnic titles of Greece.
It would undoubtedly be somewhat unreasonable to expect that a Greek logographer, however zealous for the antiquity of his country, should be able to interpret Sanscrit, Sclavonic, and Celtic terms, whilst acquainted only with his native language.
Let us for a moment examine the process of Greek geographical affiliation, and we shall find that a geographical son is generally the offspring of a Coelicolite, thus forming the boundary of Greek history, hence, –
Macedon is the son of Zeus,
Lacedaemon is the son of Zeus,
Targitaus is the son of Zeus,
Dardanus is the son of Zeus,
Scythes is the son of Zeus,
Corinthus is the son of Zeus,
Thrax is the son of Ares,
Boeotus is the son of Poseidon.
No sagacity is requisite to perceive that a terminology of this description is a virtual confession of inability to communicate the historical facts standing in connection with it; at the same time, this may be taken as a valid evidence that, however fictitious such tales may be, the names themselves are not fabulous, but belong to an era antecedent to the Ario-Hellenic settlement in Greece, and to a nation other than the purely Hellenic.
The Tamar, and the Thames, and Britain itself, are names undeniably English; but they are names which no Englishman – quoad Englishman – can interpret; they belong to an ancient race, and he is thus the inheritor of a title, not of an estate that he can enjoy. Just so was it with the Greek: before him came the Arian and the Celto-Arian, and then the pure Ario-Hellenic stock.
It will now be apparent that the ethnography of Greece lies within no narrow sphere. To the same purpose is the following:- “Let Greece, under the leadesrship of of Agamemnon, be as truly Hellenic as Kent and Essex were Anglo-Saxon in the reign of Alfred, what does it prove in the way of the occupants being aboriginal? As little as the English character of the countries in question at the time referred to. Four centuries, or even less, of migration, may easily have given us all the phenomena that occur; for the area is smaller than the kingdom of Wessex or Northumberland, and the country but little more impracticable. Hence, if we sufficiently recognize the smallness of the Hellenic area, no difficulties against the doctrine of an original non-Hellenic population will arise on the score of its magnitude. It was as easily convertible from non-Hellenic to Hellenic as Cumberland and Northumberland have been from British to English (Dr. Latham’s Ethnology of Europe, p. 129).”
We are then to view the Hellenic as that dialect of the great arian tounge, which formed the universal solvent by which, while tribal titles remained unchanged, all these various clans were marvelously blended into a people speaking one general language; yet each, as Boeotians, Athenians, Laconians, and Ionians, retaining those peculiarities of dialect which were once still more distinct.
History has not left us to doubt as to the wonderfully Hellenizing effect of the Greek language wherever it gained a footing. (“The facility,” writes Niebuhr, “with which the Pelasgian tribes were moulded into Greeks was a characteristic of their race, and a main cause of their dissolution and extinction. It is natural to look upon this as resulting from the original affinity between the two races, which, nevertheless, were essentially different; and so I believe it did. We may observe, however, that the Greek language and national character often exercised a magical power over foreign races that came in contact with them, even where there can have been no such affinity. The inhabitants of Asia Minor began to be Hellenized from the time of the Macedonian conquest, though very few genuine Greeks settled amongst them.” – Nieb. Vol. I. p. 56).
Nor, on the other hand, has Thucydides failed to notice that era of the early small communities of Greece, when not only provinces, but cities also, had a distinct name expressive of the resident tribe.
“Hekataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides,” writes Grote, “all believed that there had been an ante-Hellenic period, when different languages, mutually unintelligible, were spoken between Mount Olympus and Cape Malea.” Many of these ancient races long continued ….. (a Greek word), as we are informed by Strabo. (vii. 327). Again, speaking of the modern highland population to the north-west of Greece, Malte Brun has acutely observed, that “to ascertain the Celticisms and Germanisms in the Albanian is by no means an unprofitable task; these cannot be attributed to accidental causes, for these words form a part of a numerous class in different languages. It is difficult to account for these facts from the migrations of different people; but they may be easily explained, if we admit that the ancient population of the Haemus was made up of Celtic, Sclavonic, and German tribes, as well as Pelasgian, Hellenic, and Asiatic. (Malte Brun, Univ. Geog. Vol. iv. P. 197)”
Isolation in special localities, protracted through a long series of ages, and acting upon the language of fragmentary sections of one and the same great family, has proved the powerful matrix out of which younger dialects were moulded; yet all are stamped with the truthful impress of the parent original. Hence, tribal and topical titles follow the regular system of lingual mutation from an older to a younger dialect.
The great connecting links of the Indo-Germanic family, with which Europe is now filled, have been ably portrayed by an excellent authority; and they bear so immediately upon the principles involved in the ethnic titles of antiquity, that they may be appropriately introduced in this place.
“Although,” observes the author, “we cannot trace the first colonization of Greece, which is beyond the period of historical records, the analysis of the Greek language and its comparison with the Sanscrit, of which we have seen that the Zend and the Parsi are derivatives, have afforded a proof of near affinity between the Pelasgic and Asiatic nations already described, which, to all those who have entered on the subject, has appeared fully conclusive.
It seems that colonies of one original people established themselves in remote times on the Ganges, in Persia, and on the shores of the AEgaean. In the former station, their speech was gradually moulded into the Sanscrit, and they became subject to the power and superstition of the Brahmins; in the second, they became the disciples of the Magian Hierarchy, and their dilects were the Zend, the Parsi, and the Pehlvi; in Greece, their mythology and language acquired a more graceful character; but the proofs of a common origin are still equally clear and indelible. (Dr. Prichard’s Nat. Hist. of Man, vol. ii. P. 31).
The following brief extract from the methodical work of the illustrious Bopp (Comparative Gram. of the Zend, Lithuanian, Greek, Latin, &c.) will form a powerful parallel to the Zendo-Arian nomenclature of early Greece, and will, at the same time, demonstrate the fact, that where great lingual principles harmoniously pervade human speech, they must be equally applicable to the tribal and topical titles of the speakers, wherever they may have resided.
Such records form a self-interpreting lexicon of ethnology, as cpious as it is faithful. The following is a brief table of numerals:-
NUMERALS.
Sanscrit. Zend. Greek (Doric.) Latin. Gothic.
Prat’hma Frat’hema Prota Prima Fruma
Dwitiya Bitya Deutera Altera Ant’hara
Tritiya Thritya Trita Tertia Thridyo
Chaturtha Tuirya Tetarta Quarta Fidvordo
Panchama Pugdha Pempta Quinta Fimfto
Shasta Catva Hekta Sexta Saishto
Saptama Haptat’ha Hebdoma Septima Sibundo
Ashtama Astema Ogdoa Octava Ahtudo
Navama Nauma Ennota Nova Niundo
Dasama Dasema Dekata Decima Taihundo
To these numerals we subjoin a brief conspectus of the
ANALOGY OF VERBS.
Singular
Sanscrit. Zend. Greek. Latin.
Dad-a-mi Dadha-mi Dido-mi Do
Dada-si Dadha-si Dido-s Da-s
Dada-te Dadha-te Dido-ti Da-t
Plural.
Dad-mas Dade-mahi Dido-mes Da-mus
Dat-t’ha Das-ta? Dido-te Da-tis
Dad-te Dade-nt Dido-nt Da-nt
GENERAL VIEW OF THE PERSONS OF THE VERB.
First Person.
Tishtami Histami Histemi Sto
Dadami Dadhami Didomi Do
Asmi Ahmi Emmi Sum
Bharami Barami Phero Fero
Vahami Vazami Ekho Veho
Second Person.
Asi Ahi Essi Es
Tishtasi Hisht’hahi Histes Stas
Dadasi Dadhahi Didos Das
Bharasi Barahi Phereis Fers
Tisht’hes Histois Histaies Stes
Dadhyas Daidhyao Didoies Des
Bhares Bharois Pherois Feras
Second Person Plural.
Sanscrit. Zend. Greek. Latin.
Tisht’hat’ha Hist’hat’ha Histate Statis
Bharat’ha Barat’ha Pherete Fertis
Tisht’het’ha Histaeta Histaiete Stetis
Dadyata Daidhyata Didoiete Detis
Bhareta Baraeta Pheroite Feratis
Third Person.
Asti Ashti Esti Est
Tishtati Histati Histate Stat
Dadati Dadhaite Didote Dat
Barati Baraite Phere(t)i Fert
Bharet Baroit Pheroi Ferat
Dadyat Daidhyat Dedoie Det
Plural.
Santi Hente (S)enti Sunt
Tishtanti Histenti Histanti Stant
Dadati Dadenti Didonti Dant
Bharanti Barenti Pheronti Ferunt
Vahanti Vazenti Ekhonti Vehunt
VIEW OF THE ZEND AND GREEK VERB “TO STAND,” (PRESENT.)
Singular
Zend Greek
Histami Histami
Histahi Histas
Histaiti Histate
Plural.
Histamahi Histamen
Histat’ha Histate
Histenti Histanti
CONSPECTUS OF THE VERB “TERPO” IN THE IMPERFECT
Singular.
Atarp-a-m Eterp-o-n
Atarp-a-s Eterp-e-s
Atarp-a-t Eterp-e
Dual.
Atarp-a-tam Eterp-e0ton
Atarp-a-tam Eterp-e-ton
Atarp-a-tam Eterp-e-ton
Plural.
Atarp-a-ma Eterp-o-men
Atarp-a-ta Eterp-e-te
Atarp-a-n Eterp-o-n
VIEW OF “DIDOMI” IN THE FUTURE TENSE.
Singular
Zend Greek
Da-syami Do-so
Da-syasi Do-seis
Da-syati Do-sei
Dual.
Da-syat’has Do-seton
Da-syatas Do-seton
Plural.
Da-syamas Do-somen
Da-syat’ha Do-sete
Da-syanti Do-sonti
SUPINES AND INFINITIVES.
Sanscrit Latin
St’ha-tum, to stand Statum
Da-tum, to give Datum
Jna-tum, to know No-tum
Pa-tum, to drink Potum
E’-tum, to go Itum
Stra-tum, to strew Stratum
Ank-tum, to anoint Unctum
Svani-tum, to sound Son-i-tum
Sarp-tum, to go Serptum
Vami-tum, to vomit Vomitum
Pesh-tum, bruise Pistum
Jani-tum, to beget Gen-i-tum
It is impossible to contemplate such a marvelous accord of language – such a mirror-like reflex, as is here shown in the case of Sanscrit and the Hellenic – without granting an historical value to the personal agency of the parent tounge in early Greek.
AREA, whence the modern name of Iran, takes its name, as is well known, from the ARII, an ancient Median people. It is a name derived from the Sanscrit vocal “Arya”, “venerable,” hence descriptive of the “Noble Race,” – a term which has even penetrated the Celtic tounge under the form of “Aire” and “Aireach,” expressive of an ancient privileged nobility, as well as of the class possessed of wealth. Nor is the vocable less distinct in the German Ehre, Ehren.
This name included the whole of the Persian race, as well as those who spoke dialects of the Median. Among the towns of antiquity, closely connected with the fortunes of the old Pelasgic populations of Greece and Italy, is that of Tanagra.
An interpretation of this and similar local titles will give us a clear view of the ethnology of this mighty people, and will, at the same time, demonstrate their identity with the great Arian family. “Tanagra,” writes Leake, “was advantageously situated in the centre of a fertile champaign, consisting of plains and undulating ground, included between Mount Parnes and the Euboeic frith, and extending in the other direction from the Thebaea and Oropia. Standing at the eastern extremity of the ridge of Mount Soro, and not far from the root of Mount Parnes, which stretches to Dalium or Oropus, it was placed exactly in the point of communication between the plains at the foot of Parnes, and those towards Aulis and the sea.” (Leake’s Morea, ii. 455)
This appellation is, in itself, one of the most interesting accords of the early identity of the Eastern and Western Arians, of the Pelasgians, and their Indian congeners.
Ta-Nagara signifies literally “THE CITY,” and it is in every respect identical with the numerous districts and towns in India bearing the name of Nagari and Nagore. Of such a nature are Nagari in Bengal, Nagara in Carnatic, and the well-known Chander-Nagore, or “city of Chandra.”
The student of classical history will now perceive that he has ascended to a period so ancient in Greece, that the name of a Greek city has become lost to the Greek language, just as that of “Stow” or “Wick” in Saxon England had become obsolete in the English.
We learn from Strabo and Stephanus Byzantius, that, in distant ages, Tanagara bore the name of Poimandria or Poinandar. This is another designation of extreme interest to the student of primitive Hellenic history, and is in itself one of the most decisive evidences of the parent stem of the Hellenes. “Poimandria” is compounded of …. (some Greek word) and ….(another Greek word), the latter an enclosed space, a fold, or pen for cattle. “Poimandria,” therefore, signifies the “sheepfold.” But the Greek ….. (Greek word) itself is derived from the Sanscrit “Mandir,” a house, dwelling; from the root “mad,” to dwell, to inhabit, to surround, encompass; and hence are derived both “mandir” and ….. (Greek word); just as the Latin “vallum,” a rampart, is from the Sanscrit “val,” to enclose, surround – the true source of the French “ville.” But the interest of the inquisitive mind is yet more deeply excited on learning that “Ta-nagara” bore a name still more ancient than the title of “Poi-mander,” – it was that of “Graia.” It will now be seen that this latter is purely Arian.
“Griha” is a Sanscrit vocable, signifying a house or habitation in general; and “Grihya” is expressive of a village adjoining a city. Hence the form “Graihya,” or “Graia,” as simply descriptive of a village or small town, and thus not very dissimilar from that of “Ta-nagara.”
Nor is the intimate Celto-Arian position of the earliest colonies of Greece and of the coast of Asia Minor less distinct, and they are rendered obvious by such topical titles as Scheria or Phoeakia, Corax, Cragus, and Cassius. “Sceir” is a Celtic term, signifying a sharp sea-rock or cliff; and Scir-it is the well known rugged mountain region of Peloponnesus, whose cognate English vocable is a ”Scaur,” another form of which is the Greek “Scyr-os.” The Pheacians appear to us as a people half fabulous, half historical. Their wealth, luxury, and maritime enterprise – their marvelous possession, if not manufacture, of the most elegant works of art – naturally excite our wonder.
“Fixed thrones the walls through all their length adorned.
With mantles overspread of subtlest warp,
Transparent, work of many female hands,
On these the princes of Phaeacis sat,
Holding perpetual feasts; while golden youths
On all the sumptuous altars stood; their hands
With burning torches charged, which, night by night,
Shed radiance over all the festive throng.” (Cowper’s Odyss. Vi. 85-102.)
Of this ethnic the “Phikins,” Mons of southern Greece, is thoroughly exegetical: it simply implies the “PEAK,” in the same manner as we apply the term to the “PEAK” of Derbyshire; hence its name is precisely in accordance with fact. Leake observes, that Phikium “is a single bare and ragged PEAK,” thus unconsciously giving the exact value of the Greek form. The Celtic form is Feighe, (quasi …… 
and Phaeak is absolutely the aspirate variant of the English Peak, with which the Celtic “Peac,” any sharp-pointed thing, is identical: its application to the well known “Pic du Midi” is familiar to the reader.
“The Thraco-Pelasgi, the Heracleidae, and Achaei,” writes an esteemed ethnologist, (Col. Hamilton Smith’s Nat. Hist. of Man) “seem to have been Celto-Scythae, that is likewise of Illyrian or Gaeto-Finnic affinity belonging to the giant races; who, as far as the two first mentioned, came round from the Kuban and Don, along the shores of the Euxine, and then sought conquests towards the south, as all the more northern nations were impelled to undertake.”
Notwithstanding the immense swarms of the Celtic family that had passed onwards in their migratory course from the East, though Italy and Gallia into the British isles, a very considerable portion of these tribes, with a stronger Medic element than at present exists in the members of that race, remained in Thrace, Macedonia, Illyria and on the coasts of Asia Minor, and in a more Hellenized form in Epirus and Thessaly.
The more ancient topology of Greece demonstrates this Celto-Arian innervation in its earliest colonies. Thus we know that the primitive name of the isle of Salamis was Scheria, identical with that of the well known island off the Epeirotic coast. In addition to the thoroughly Celtic name of Cragus, (Carac, a rock, cliff; Caraig, a crag.) as the representative of the Craig, we place that of Sigaeum. (Sigh, a “hill,” a promontory.) When, further we read of the Alban fathers, we must not lose sight of the historical fact contained in the very name given by the colonists of Alba (Alb, a height, a mountain.) Longa.
Nor does the appellation of the classic Tyber fail to link the onward movement of this mighty emigration. The Celtic “Tobar,” ”Tibhir,” and “Tibra,” a fountain or spring: Tibbreadh, “flowing,” give certainty to these historical and ethnological deductions. “Tobar Seagss,” or the “Majestic River,” was an ancient name of the Boyne.
The true root, however, is found in the Sanscrit original under the forms of Tep and Tepri, to be wet, to sprinkle, to pour out, to flow. But further; the great poet of Rome has unconsciously preserved the fact of this Celto-Arian origin, in his allusion to the “Grinaeus” Apollo. As a Latin word, the attributive of the god possesses no signification; as a Celto-Arian term, it is highly descriptive. The god of day is, in Celtic, “Grian;” its Sanscrit original is “Ghrini,” the sun, from “Ghran,” to shine.
Here, then, we have a highly expressive term lost to the classic languages of Greece and Rome, and preserved in the Celtic and Sanscrit.
Nor do the most important oreological titles of Italy fail to corroborate these facts. Such names as Alpes, Pen-innus, A-penn-inus, Cim-inus, together with the established fact of the very early separation of the Celtic stock from the great Arian family, powerfully demonstrate the nature of perhaps the earliest population that reached the Italian peninsula. (Such is the Celtic emigrant track seen in the term “Alpes.” Celt. Alp, a hill; the Peninus, from Pen, a hill, and in, a country. “A,” the old Celtic article, corresponding to the Greek ‘..” or Doric ‘..’. so again, Ceim-inus Mons, or the ‘hill country,” from Ceim, a top, summit, and in, a country. Conf. French “Cime.”)
Pictet has acutely remarked, on a subject in which history is involved in philology, as follows:-
“A subject of research still more attractive is the state of civilization which the present stock of all the European race had attained. I do not hesitate to affirm that the Celtic languages will present numerous and important elements for the solution of this problem. A very interesting example, which may furnish an approximation indicative of the geographical position of the cradle of the human race, is found in the Irish tolg, a bed, tyle, couch, identical with the Greek …, mattress, cushion.
“All these words have a direct affinity with the Sanscrit tulikha, mattress, bed. Now this substantive is a derivative of the Persian “tula,” one of the Sanscrit names of cotton. These mattresses, then, were made of cotton, in the country (indeterminate let it be) which was the cradle of the race. The result is, that this country must have been situated within, or at least very near the limits of the growth of cotton; for a material of which mattresses were made must have been abundant and of very trifling cost. Now the cultivation of cotton does not go beyond Persia; this would seem, then, to indicate that the cradle of the family was more southerly than is generally supposed.” (Pictet, Jour. Asiatique, 1836).
To this term we would add that of the significant Celtic vocable Bed, signifying “a book;” the origin of which is distinctly seen in the Sanscrit “Ved,” or locally, “Bed.” What a spectacle does this present of the juxtaposition of the Celts with the Arians of the East. The Tans-Scindic regions, in truth, were no strangers to the Celtic family of mankind, to their altars and their tombs, their priests and their warriors. The following is from a competent eye-witness:-
“Near a village lying about three miles eastward of Kotagherry, at the extremity of a field, beyond the village, and overlooking a ravine, rises an artificial terrace, twenty-one paces in length by ten in breadth, supported by slabs and masses of stone.
“Along the western side of this platform, I found a row of those remarkable relics of antiquity, belonging essentially to the Druidical region, called Cromlechs.
“There are twelve still standing, – ten on the side of the terrace, and two in the centre of it. The ruins of several others are apparent. Most of the entire ones consist of three upright slabs planted firmly in the earth, and supporting a fourth, which is passed horizontally on the top of them. Four of the Cromlechs are larger than the rest, being about four feet square and five high, the length of the upper slab measuring seven feet. Inquiring of the people what they knew respecting these remarkable structures, I was told, with much gravity, that they had been constructed by a race of men, not a foot high, who existed before mankind were destroyed by a flood which overwhelmed the earth. An account remarkable as manifesting the universal belief in fairies; and important as exhibiting a tradition of the deluge among the lower orders of the Hindoo peasantry, who cannot have access to the Brahminical accounts of the cataclysm.
“It is very remarkable that not only are the Cromlechs of the Neilgherries facsimiles of those in Europe, but that the same legend is attached to both.
“The one perhaps best known is called Kits Cotty House, near Aylesford in Kent, and consists of three flat stones containing a fourth. A drawing of this Cromlech in my possession is an exact representation of the one of the most conspicuous at Alcheny on the Neilgherries.” (Capt. H. Congreve, Madras Journal, 1847.)
The singular and very interesting connection once subsisting between the pure Arian and the Celto-Arian races has been thus stated by the learned Pictet, in a profound and critical treatise which has stamped his authority with the highest authority:-
“I here terminate,” he thus writes, “this parallel of the Celtic idioms with the Sanscrit, I do not believe that after this marked series of analogies, a series which embraces the entire organization of their tongues, that their radical affinity can be contested.
“The Celtic languages belong, then, to the Indo-European family, of which they form the extreme western link.
“The Celtic race established in Europe from the most ancient times must have been the first to arrive there, and, in all probability, it separated from the common stock before the rest.
“The decisive analogies which these languages still present to the Sanscrit carry us back to the most ancient period to which we can attain by comparative philology, and thus become one of the most important bases to investigate what degree of development the mother language of the whole family has attained.” (Letters M. Humboldt. Jour. Asiatique, 1836, p. 455).
Hence it is not a little singular, that although the most brilliant philological discoveries of our day have distinctly proved the affiliated descent of the Hellenic, Sclavonian, Celtic, German and Gothic dialects from the Sanscrit type of speech; – the speakers of these dialects have been overlooked as the ancient brethren of the Greeks, who themselves, as before noticed, spoke a branch of this mighty and wide-spread language.
London, August, 1855,