INTRODUCTION* IS 



Uritliin the tropics. Airyana Vaedjo, the ancient cradle of 

 the Zend, was situated to the north-west of the upper Indus, 

 and after the great religious schism, that is to say, after the 

 separation of the Iranians from the Brahminical institution, 

 the language that had previously been common to them and 

 to the Hindoos, assumed amongst the latter people (together 

 with the literature, habits, and condition of society) an indL 

 vidual form in the Magodha or Madhya Desa,* a district 

 that is bounded by the great chain of Himalaya and the 

 smaller range of the Vindhya. In less ancient times the 

 Sanscrit language and civilisation advanced towards the south- 

 east, penetrating further within the torrid zone, as my brother 

 Wilhelm von Humboldt has shown in his greai work on the 

 Kavi and other languages of analogous structure. f 



Notwithstanding the obstacles opposed in northern lati- 

 tudes to the discovery of the laws of nature, owing to the 

 excessive complication of phenomena, and the perpetual local 

 variations that, in these climates, affect the movements of the 

 atmosphere and the distribution of organic forms ; it is to the 

 inhabitants of a small section of the temperate zone, that the 

 rest of mankind owe the earliest revelation of an intimate and 

 rational acquaintance with the forces governing the physical 

 world. Moreover, it is from the same zone (which is appa- 

 rently more favourable to the progress of reason, the soften- 

 ing of manners, and the security of public liberty), that the 

 germs of civilisation have been carried to the regions of the 

 tropics, as much by the migratory movement of races as by 

 the establishment of colonies, differing widely in their insti- 

 tution from those of the Phenicians or Greeks. 



In speaking of the influence exercised by the succession of 

 phenomena on the greater or lesser facility of recognising the 

 causes producing them, I have touched upon that important 



* See, on the Madhjadeca, properly so called, Lassen's excellent 

 work, entitled Indische Alterthumskunde . bd. i., s. 92. The Chinese 

 give the name of Mo-kie-thi to the southern Bahar, situated to the south 

 of the Ganges, (see Foe-Koue-Ki, by Chy-Fa-ffiau, 1836, p. 256). 

 Djambu-dwipa is the name given to the whole of India; but the wordi 

 also indicate one of the four Budhist continents. 



f Ueber die Kawi Sprache auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einleituny 

 tlber die Verschiedenhf.it des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren 

 Kinfluss auf die yeistige Entirickehmy des Menschenyeschlecht's, von 

 Wilhelm v. Humholdt, 1836. bd. i., s/5 510. 



