RELIGIONS AND CIVILIZATION. 157 



them witb Egypt and Phoenicia. ^^ Finn Magnusen, who first com- 

 pared the Scandinavian and Persian systems of mythology, pointed out 

 the striking coincidences every where manifest between them ; and 

 later writers have rendered it still more apparent.^* Grimm leaves 

 little doubt in the mind of an unprejudiced reader that the Germanic 

 theology (which includes the Scandinavian) has certain affinities with 

 the Celtic, widely as the two peoples, Germans and Celts, may differ; 

 and that Lithuanian gods may be found among the Hindoos in a San- 

 skrit dress. ^^ The Slavonian peoples, with whom the Lithuanians are 

 often identified, occupy a peculiar position, in language approaching 

 the Latins, and in religion the Persians and Indians. Carl Ritter 

 cannot account for such undoubted traces of Indian mythology and 

 religious observance as appear among many European peoples, other- 

 wise than by the supposition that colonies of Indian priests settled 

 around the Black Sea, in Thrace, and even in countries farther west.^® 

 Not only into Europe, however, but also into Africa, these priests of 

 Brahma and Buddha must have penetrated, if Bitter's hypothesis be 

 the solution of the question — how did the similarity between the 

 religions of India and those of western peoples originate ? and the 

 following statement by Dr. Pritchard be correct. '' Some of the ear- 

 liest travellers in India were struck with many religious ceremonies 

 and theological fables prevalent in that country, which they observed 

 to bear a comparison with parallel portions of the Egyptian system. 

 Pere Catrou, a Jesuit missionary, was, I believe, the first who remarked 

 this connexion. La Croze followed him, and pointed the way for an 

 ample investigation of the subject, and for the exertion of much inge- 

 nuity in tracing a variety of coincidences. These are found to amount, 

 according to the general opinion of the learned in the present day, to 

 a satisfactory proof that the mythology of the East emanated from the 

 same source from which the fables of Egypt are derived." " It is not 

 at all surprising to find after this that Indian gods have a place in 

 Persian mythology, so that Burnouf could say, in speaking of the iden- 

 tity of Yima-Kshaeta, Thrgetana and Keresaspa with Yama, Trita and 

 Krisasva : " It is undoubtedly very strange to see one of the most 



13 Banier, La Mythologie et les Fables expliquees par I'liistoire, ii., 616. 

 1* Blackwell, in his edition of Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 471. 

 IB Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 137, &c., 765, &c. 



16 Ritter, Die Vorhalle Europaischer Volkergeschichten vor Herodotus. 



17 Researches into the Physical History of Man, p. 341. 



