Origin of Mythology, 201 



tm.6. Ris name from maha, great, and bad^ Bode, Budha. 

 As Budha was not the primitive deit}^ of India, and as no 

 such deity was worshipped by the Celts, we may perhaps 

 infer that the primitive inhabitants of India, and the Celts 

 of Europe^- separated prior to the origin of this character- 

 and his worship. It will follow, then, that the Teutonic 

 tribes and the later Hindoos, who worshipped Woden and 

 Budha, were later branches; of the great family, who mi- 

 grated from one central spot, a few centuries later than 

 the Celts and aboriginal Hindoos. The Celtic nations 

 used the word fcdh^ or bodh, in its primitive sense of 

 %sis€ GT.rvisdom, which sense it retains ; but the character, 

 who, for his distinction, was called the wise, might not 

 have arisen, until the Celtic tribes had migrated from 

 the east. It is not impossible, however, that the nations 

 in the east and west may have had different persons, who, 

 for their eminence, acquired this title, after they had sep- 

 arated from each other ; for among most nations have 

 similar characters arisen, like Zoroaster, Solon, and Ly- 

 curgus, who distinguished themselves by their superior 

 wisdom. 



77z(?r, the thunderer of the Teutonic tribes, Parkhurst 

 siipposes, derived his name from the Hebrew verb '^, to 

 go round, whence im, a turn or round ; and that the rad- 

 ical sense is the heuvens in circulation. If this is the root 

 of the word, the name was assigned to heaven on account 

 of its vaulted appearance. The word may equally well 

 be derived from the Celtic tor, force, elevation, grandeur, 

 the Hebrew ■"«. illustrious. Whatever may be the rad- 

 ical word or idea, it is certain that this is the root of the 

 Celtic taran, thunder, from which, by corruption, the 

 Greeks are supposed to have formed their y.ifa,vm. Thor 

 answers to the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, the 

 god of the air ; and he is probably the deity mentioned 

 by Cesar, under the name of " Jovem, im.perium codes- 

 tium tenere."* 



^or, another deity of the north, is evidently the north 

 wind, boreas, of which word Bor is the root. 



* Mallet's North. Antiq. ch. vi — Cesar. Comment, lib. vi. 14 



l^hor, to correspond in etymology with Jove, must be formed by pre- 

 fixing an article T or th to «r, utr, uir. 



