Colonel Tod's Observations on a Gold Ring found at Montrose. 561 



astronomic allusion thus blended with mythology is evident, i. e. the entrance 

 of the sun into the sign Taurus, the equinoctial festival of remote antiquity, 

 and regarded as a j ubilee by the Indo-Scythic nations hemming the shores 

 of the Mediterranean to the Indian ocean.* 



This relic, therefore, must have belonged to some pious devotee, who, 

 desirous never to lose sight of the object of his adoration, wore it as a talis- 

 man on the thumb. The uncommon appendage on the shoulders which 

 induced the noble possessor to imagine the bulls to be the winged mvems sup- 

 porting the arms of Mar, is the hump which characterizes the kine within 

 the Indus. I possess medals of Indo-Scythic princes with both Greek and 

 Parthic legends, having the same humped bull on the obverse side, which 

 not only demonstrates the extent of the Indo-Scythic empire.t but affords 

 evidence of a combination of the Mithraic worship of the Transoxianic 

 nations with that of the Tauriform representative of the Hindu solar divi- 

 nity. 



While, however, I suggest these reasons for the Hindu origin of the ring, 

 I would by no means preclude others from entertaining the idea that it may 

 be Celtic, Phoenician, or Getic. The objections which occur at a first 

 glance of the relic maybe diminished by recalling the uniformity of worship 

 which distinguished the races who, from some central region of early civili- 

 zation, perhaps Sacadwipa, Sacatai, or Scythia (of which Balk might have 

 been the metropolis), whence India and Egypt, Syria and Greece, were 

 enUghtened, still preserved, wherever they migrated, the remembrance of 

 an ancient festival ; on which, whether of Surya on the Ganges ; of Thor 

 (or Sor) in Scandinavia ; of Beli, or Belenus, amongst the Celts ; or of 

 Mithras amongst the Persians, the bull was the victim to the solar divinity. 



Some may suppose this relic to have been carried west in some early 

 migration ; for none will dispute the ability of the children of Tubal Cain 

 to fabricate such ornaments when Europe was in barbarism. Even the 

 beaded edges and other characteristics of the Hindu Cellini might be attri- 

 buted to the unalterable laws which govern the oriental crafts even in the 

 model of a ring. 



The symbols of the creative power, which are wreathed around the por- 



• See description of the festival of Gouri, or Isis, on the vernal equinox in Rajpootana 



Annals of Rajast'lian, vol. i. p. 573. 



t See Trans. R. A. S., vol. i. p. 313. Also " Observations on that paper of the author, on 

 Bactrian and Parthic .Medals, by the celebrated M. de Sclilegcl, Journal Asiatiqtie. 



