Sanscrit Writing and Language. 137 



introduced into India before the sixth century. Now it deserves to be noticed 

 that the Brahmans, in applying these Pagan names to their astronomy, adopted 

 the Christian, not the Pagan, arrangement of them ; for in Brahma Gupta's 

 system, which is the oldest in which they appear, the grand cycle is made to 

 commence on a Sunday. If, then, it was from the Egyptians that they got those 

 names, it must have been after this people were converted to Christianity ; but 

 from that period till the commencement of the Saracen conquests in the seventh 

 century, not only was Alexandria, on account of its magnificent library, the prin- 

 cipal seat of Grecian learning, but also the language of the Greeks was very 

 generally spoken, and their literature studied in lower Egypt; as they had been 

 for a still greater length of time up to the same epoch throughout the by far 

 greater part of Western Asia. That the Hindoos did not learn the astrological 

 denominations under consideration from the ancient Germans, as has by some 

 been conjectured, is certain, not only from the comparative lateness of the period 

 when those denominations were introduced into India, but also from the circum- 

 stance of the Sanscrit words used for the purpose agreeing in signification with 

 the Greek and Roman, rather than with the German terms. For the Germans, 

 in adopting this mode of distinguishing the days of the week, substituted for the 

 names of the planets Mars, Mercui-y, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, those of their 

 tutelary deities Tuisco, Woden, Thor, Freya, and Sater (in which substitution, by 

 the way, they were followed by their English descendants) ; whereas in the Indian 

 designations the planetary terms are retained, those designations being Ruvi, 

 Soma, Mangala, Budha, Vrihaspati, Sucra, Sani, which are taken from the 

 same celestial objects, and in the same order, as in the Greek or Roman series of 

 denominations, as altered by the Christians. Still it has been urged, that the 

 above Sanscrit words, after the first two, denote severally, not only the planets, 

 but also the Gothic deities, in the order in which I have given them; as for 

 instance, that not only the Hindoos have called the planet Mercury after their 

 god Boodha ; but also that Boodha and Woden are one and the same personage. 

 This attempted identification, however, is wholly at variance with the characters 

 and the names of the imaginary deities in question ; for the former is represented 

 as essentially indolent, as doing nothing, understanding nothing, desiring nothing ; 

 but the latter, as actively mischievous, the demon of battles, and slaughtering 

 thousands at a blow. And besides, if they were the same god, they surely would 



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