AXD HIS COTEMPORARIES. 575 



non, &c, or as founded on some justifying reality ? The Greek and 

 Persian monsters are composed of fanciful and wild combinations of 

 different portions of known animals into impossible forms, and, as 

 Cuvier firry remarks, they are merely the progeny of uncurbed imagi- 

 nation ; but in the Indian cosmogonic forms we may trace an image of 

 congruity through the cloud of exaggeration with which they are in- 

 vested. We have the Elephant then, as at present, the largest of land 

 animals, a fit supporter of the infant world ; in the serpent Asokee, 

 used at the churning of the ocean, we may trace a representative of the 

 gigantic Indian Python ; and in the bird-god Garuda, with all his 

 attributes, we may detect the gigantic Crane of India {Ciconia gigantea) 

 as supplying the origin. In like manner, the Colossochelys would 



Fig. 8. 



THE ELEPHANT VICTORIOUS OVER THE TORTOISE, SUPPORTING THE WORLD, 

 AND UNFOLDING THE MYSTERIES OF THE FAUNA SIVALENSIS. FROM A 

 SKETCH IN PENCIL IN ONE OF DR. FALCONER'S NOTE-BOOKS BY THE 

 LATE PROF. EDWARD FORBES. 



supply a consistent representative of the Tortoise that sustained the 

 Elephant and the world together. But if we are to suppose that the 

 mythological notion of the Tortoise was derived, as a symbol of strength, 

 from some one of those small species which are now known to' exist in 

 India, this congruity of ideas, this harmony of representation, would be at 

 once violated ; it would be as legitimate to talk of a Pat or a Mouse 

 contending with an Elephant as of any known Indian Tortoise to do 

 the same in the case of* the fable of Garuda. The fancy Avould scout 

 the image as incongruous, and the weight even of mythology would not 

 be strong enough to enforce it on the faith of the most superstitious 

 epoch of the human race. 



' But the indications of mythological tradition are in every case vague 

 and uncertain, and in the present instance we would not lay undue 

 weight on the tendencies of such as concern the Tortoise. We have 



