696 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DfTRING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



1500 B, o., and copies, evidently iiiade of them in the West. Similar 

 cylinders occur in the tombs of Cyprus and Syria, helping us to tix 

 heir dates, and showing- once uiore the intercourse between East and 

 West, and the ancient migration of E;istern thought toward Europe. 



Kor should we, when looking for clmnnels of communication between 

 the ancient kingdoms of Asia, forget the Jews, who Avere more or les.> 

 at home in every ])art of the world. We must remember that they 

 came originally from Vr of the Chaldees, then migrated to Canaan, and 

 afterwards sojourned in Egypt, before they settled in Palestine. Afte 

 that we know how they were led into ca})tivity and lived in close prox- 

 imity and daily intercourse with Medians, Persians, Babylonians, and 

 Assyrians. They spoke of Cyrus, a believer in Ormazd, as the anointed 

 and the shepherd of Jehovah, because he allowed tliem to return from 

 Babylon to Jeiusalem. Darius, likewise a follower of Zoroaster, Avas 

 looked on by them as their patron, becaused he favored the re-building 

 ot the Temple at Jerusalem. When we consider these intimate rela- 

 tions between the Jews and their neighbors and conquerors, we can 

 easily imagine what useful intermediaries they must always have been 

 in the intellectual exchange of the ancient world. 



There are two countries only which really ren)ained absolutely iso- 

 lated in the ])ast, China and India. It is true that attempts have oeL^a 

 made to show that the Chinese intiuenccd the inhabitants of India in 

 very ancient times by imparting to them their earliest astronomy. But 

 Biot's arguments have hardly convinced anybody. And as to Chinese 

 porcelain being found in ancient Egyptian tombs, this too has long 

 been surrendered for lack of trustworthy evidence. 



Nor have the attemi>ts been more successful which were intended to 

 show that the ancient astronomy of India was borrowed from Baby- 

 lon. It is well known that the Babylonians excelled in astronomy, and 

 that in latter times they became the teachers of the Greeks, and indi- 

 rectly of the Indians. But the 27 Vedic Nakshatras or lunar stations 

 are iDerfectly intelligible as produced on Indian soil, and require ]io 

 foreign intiuenc^ for their explanation. If the Indians had in Vedic 

 times been the pu])ils of the Babylonians, other traces of tliat inter- 

 course could hardly be absent. It was indeed thought for a time that 

 one Avord at least of Babylonian origin had been discovered in the hymns 

 of the Rig-Veda, the Babylonian iikdkI, a ceitain weight of gold. This 

 AA^ord has certainly travelled far and wide. We tind it in the tablets of 

 Tel-el-Amarna, in Hebrew, in Arabic, in (ireek. and in Latin.* inhid, a 

 mine. But the verse in the Big- Veda in Avhich tliis )iunu( was sui)posed 

 to occur, re(juires a different inter])retation nor Avouldone Avord be suhi 

 cient to indicate ai real intellectual intercourse between Babylonians 

 and Vedic Indians, On the same ground Ave can hardly use the Avord 

 sindhu in the Babylonian inscriptions as proving a commercial inter- 



Possibly in Egyptian, Zeilschrifl. dtr ]>. MonjevJ. flrticlls.; \o]. xlA'I, ]>. 111. 



