570 PRIMITIVE HISTORY OP THE lONIANS. 



render important service in binding together names tliat may have 

 seemed in certain cases to be arbitrarily connected. Onam, as I have 

 already stated, is represented by the Sanskrit Indra, the son of 

 Brachma or BrUiaspati, the hnsband of Tara, in whom we recognize 

 Jerachmeel and Atarah. Indra is a form like An-ra, the name of the 

 solar god and king of Heliopolis, and Andreas, the early ruler of 

 Grecian Orchomenos, the inserted d being a necessary expedient for 

 the sake of euphony at first, although afterwards, as itself appearing 

 in Jonathan, an original element of an important and closely allied 

 word, with which the first was often necessarily confounded. Indra 

 is the great deity of the Vedas,-^''® which is most reasonable, since they 

 take their name from his son Jadag, Tages, Tydain, Tuatha, the bard 

 of the world's second infancy. More truly a solar god than himself 

 is Soma, the great son of Indra, the deity of the juice and of the 

 verses.-'" He is Shammai, who takes the role of his son Icarius, 

 Kvasir, Mithras. He is sometimes called the son of Atri the son of 

 Brahma, instead of the son of Indra, but Indu-Soma and similar 

 terms seem to show that in Atri Indra merely assumes the name of 

 his mother Atarah. Another generation is given us in Indian 

 . mythology, arid Savitri or Surya, the son of Soma, who is pre- 

 eminently the god of the Sun, brings us down to Abishur. The 

 Suryas are his Syrian descendants and their subjects. But Savitar 

 himself is the golden-handed divinity whom Grimm identifies 

 beyond all chance of doubt with the Germanic Tyr,"® and whom Mr. 

 Cox connects with the Irish Nuadh of the silver hand. Professor 

 Max Mtiller sees nothing here but the solar myths rising out of 

 Indian and German consciousness independently into an accidental 

 coincidence. With a modern German proverb, " Morgenstunde hat 

 Gold im Munde," he would explain the myth of Savitar, and that of 

 Tyr, with the trite saying that victory, which Tyr represents, can 

 only be found on one side.^'^ Professor Mtiller's ingenuity is to be 

 admired, but his incredulity is worthy of a difierent fate. 



I do not know whether Sammata, the first king of the race of the 

 Sun, according to Buddhist traditions, with his successor, Upa-chai-a, 

 represent Shammai and Abishur or not, but I think it is very 



175 Mtiller, Science of Language, Series ii. Lecture x. 



177 Vide. Muir's Sanscrit Texts. The union of the sacred beverage and of the gift of divine 

 song in Soma agrees in all resijects with the connections established. 



178 Deutsche Mythologie, vide supra. 



170 Science of Language, Series ii. Lecture viii. 



