Colonel Tod's Observations on a Gold Ring found at Montrose. 5G7 



the Teutonic races, as with the Egyptians and Hindus.* The Celtic 

 Parisii adored the goddess under the form of a boat,t as did the Suevi 

 and other tribes of the north, all tending to support the hypothesis that 

 this worship is a memento of that grand catastrophe which befel the human 

 race, and the subsequent preservation of the species. The finest piece of 

 allegorical Hindu sculpture which I ever discovered had reference to this 

 catastrophe. It represented Naraijana, or the Spirit floating on the chaotic 

 waters, with Lacshmi, Isani, or Isis, at his feet, reposing on a marine couch 

 placed on the back of the sea-serpent, or hydra, whose many heads formed 

 a canopy over the deity. The couch was supported by the monsters of the 

 deep, amongst them Nereides blowing the Sankha, or conch-shell, and 

 Varaha (the boar) rescuing triumphantly on his tusk these symbols of rege- 

 neration from the alluvion of universal destruction.^ 



The Getic race which peopled the shores of the Baltic, was a colony of 

 the Thussa-Geta', driven from their seats between the Caspian and Euxine 

 by Darius Hystaspes,§ six centuries before Christ. Their location is the 

 Parva Scythia of Strabo, only to be looked upon as a place of halt from 

 the original nursery, Sakatai, or Sdcd-dwipa, the Greater Scythia ; and 

 Herodotus informs us that the Thussa-Getce, or Western Getse, was a 

 branch of the Massa-Geta; or Great Getic nation of Central Asia (who 

 overcame and slew Cyrus), whose kingdom was only destroyed by 

 the Chagitai (qu. Sakatai?) Timoor, in the thirteenth century, when 

 the name of Gete was lost on their conversion from idolatry to Is- 

 lamism. The seats of the Thussa-Geta; and other Scythic races on the 



* See Annals of Rajast'han, vol. i. p. 570, for comparison of the Isis of the Nile and Kaj- 

 pootana. 



f An inscription of Lacshmi Varma, of the Puar tribe, and Agnicula race, king of D'har, dated 

 S. 1200 (A.D. 114'1), which I obtained from Ujein, enumerates amongst the objects in the 

 ritual " presented to the sun '' an " Arghya" which our inestimable and revered directo.-, Mr. 

 Colebrooke, thus renders : " an Arghya is an oblation, or libation in a conch or vessel of a 

 particular form, approaching to that of a boat." Qu. Ark ? 



' Argha' is one terra in Sanscrit forthe sun. — See Annals of Rajasfhan, vol. i.p. GOl, for 

 ' Argha-nath.' 



% It was at Barolli, near the falls of the Chumbul, a spot rich in allegoric sculpture and 

 architecture of past days, but embosomed in forest and mountain, and long deserted. This was 

 the richest of all my discoveries, and I have much to say of it in the second volunii- of the 

 Annals of Rajpootana. 



§ " Suivant Schoning," Rcmarques sur la Mythologie du Nord par Jiens Wolff. 



4 D^ 



