1892-'J3.] THK BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS OF INDIA. 263' 



James Prinsep was mistaken, and that his mendicant monks, etc., are 

 the result of an utterly foundationless system of interpretation. 



There was a time when the Turanian was regarded as a savage, having 

 no part in the civilization of the world, which was supposed to have been 

 accomplished altogether by peoples of Semitic and Aryan origin. True,, 

 the Egyptians and Phoenicians have always been credited with much ot 

 the world's early progress, but the language of the former was sub- 

 Semitic, and that of the latter purely Semitic, v/hatever their original 

 nationality may have been. No ancient Turanian writing was known. 

 Nevertheless, there were such unmistakable evidences of early culture, 

 distinct from that of Semites and x'lryans, that anthropologists adopted 

 various hypotheses to account for it, the chief of which was that known 

 as the Cushite. These hypotheses led to nothing. But, after the 

 cuneiform character had been mastered, it was found that at least one of 

 the languages written in it, namely the Akkadian of ancient Babylonia, 

 was not Semitic but Turanian, its affinities being with the Ugrian lan- 

 guages of Europe, still existing on the shores of the Baltic, along the 

 Urals, and in Hungary. The Akkadian was a very ancient civilization, 

 from which the Assyrians and later Babylonians borrowed largely. Of 

 late years, the Hittites have come into prominence by their widely 

 scattered monuments, and through the records of their numbers and 

 their prowess contained in the Egyptian and Assyrian records. 

 They also were a Turanian people. There was still another ancient 

 people, closely allied politically, but neither ethnically nor philologically, 

 with the Akkadians and the Hittites. These were the Sumerians, of 

 whom we yet know very little, but who will yet appear, by indubitable 

 testimony, as the eastern ancestors of the Celts. With them, however,, 

 we have at present nothing to do. Since Dr. E!dkins, of Pekin, first 

 drew attention to the subject, attempts have been made to connect the 

 Akkadians of old with the Chinese of to-day by more than one writer ; 

 but none, save myself, has sought to trace in other lands, with the excep- 

 tion of Dr. Sayce, in Asia Minor, the powerful and widely spread Hittite 

 nation.' 



It may pertinently be asked why I select the Hittites rather than any 

 other people of Turanian origin, in seeking the rise of ancient Turanian 

 culture. The answer is, because there is no evidence of such culture 

 having been developed by any other branch of that division of the 

 human family, unless it were by the Akkadians, and these I firmly 

 believe to have been under Hittite rule. Comparatively (ew families of 

 the human race have achieved a historical position, the greater number 

 constituting the Ground race, which possesses no independent history. 



