[9] 



infested with religious fanatics Jainas, as they were called, some of 

 whom went naked, while others robed themselves in white linen. These 

 ascetic monks looked forward to Nirvana as their final goal, practised 

 the most severe austerities, received confession, administered priestly 

 absolution, and kept regular feast and fast days ; but they discoun- 

 tenanced the growing custom of worshipping relics which was finding 

 favour with other Boodhist sects. Thus gradually the primitive Aryan 

 conception of a ruling power developed into a huge system of dogma- 

 tism, monachism, and ritual in the countries south and east of the Indus, 

 as far even as the confines of the country of the great Mongol race, 

 whose religion is as yet but little known to us, although it bears strong 

 marks of having been originally derived from the same source as that 

 from which came the Vedic system. 



Having glanced somewhat cursorily at the religious development of 

 the Eastern Aryan peoples, we will now turn to the Western Aryans, 

 and observe the manner in which the old Vedic myth was perpetuated 

 in Western Europe, leaving the Central Aryans, or that branch which 

 remained in and around Persia and Western Afghanistan, for subsequent 

 consideration ; for, in this central district, the Mongol Akkadians and 

 the Semites intermingled so frequently with the Aryans that a very 

 intricate mythological system gradually came into operation in some 

 districts, bearing resemblance to the Vedic, the Semitic, and the Mon- 

 golian mythologies. 



The Western branch of the great Aryan family, after penetrating 

 into Southern Europe, became the progenitors of the ancient Pelasgi, 

 the earliest known inhabitants of Greece, and through them transmitted 

 the original Aryan myth to their successors, the Hellenes. Homer, in 

 his " Iliad " and " Odyssey," written at latest B.C. 900, well describes 

 the religion of the Acheans, who inhabited Hellas for centuries prior 

 to B.C. 1000, and long before the supremacy of the Dorians; and, in 

 this description, as well as in that of Hesiod's "Theogony," written 

 immediately afterwards, there is exhibited a remarkable similarity to the 

 old Vedic system, the very name of the supreme deity being clearly 

 derived from an Aryan source, and that root being the identical expres- 

 sion used to designate the Vedic Dawn God. From Dyaus Pitar, the 

 Day Father or Dawn God of the Aryans, the Greeks derived their 

 Zeus Pater, from whence we get Dios, Theos, the Latin Deus Pater^ 

 Dies Pater and Jupiter, and the French Dieu. Zeus was supreme 

 god, high above all others, having unlimited power, and living up 

 in the vault of heaven, surrounded by the inferior and subordinate 

 deities, who together formed his Olympian court. Instead of being 

 nature powers, these gods were endowed with freedom of action, 

 subject to pain and pleasure, and depended for their sustenance upon 



