104 General Observations on [Feb, 



be a prebias in the human mind to deify, as there certainly is a predis- 

 position in the minds of the mass to venerate, great benefactors to the 

 race, and therefore these separate feelings may operate independently in 

 any country, although the objects of them are more likely to be borrow- 

 ed by infant nations from those further advanced than themselves, than 

 to have been indigenous. 



I do not know why it would be necessary to go to such a distance for 

 the ancestry of the natives of India as the learned Bryant does, nor do 

 I know the positive grounds, if any, on which he founds his assertions 

 that the Hindus, alias blacks, came to India from Shinar, and that they 

 are believed to have been originally Scythians or Cuthites, the posterity 

 of Ham, from Chus, his son ; and that they settled on the Indus, and 

 subsequently migrated to Ethiopia above the Cataracts. I apprehend 

 however that by Hindus the brahmans alone are meant, and the inatten- 

 tion to the proper distinction betwixt the terms Hindu and brahman, is 

 apt to create misconceptions. Brahman could hardly have been the origi- 

 nal name of the tribe, but one imposed on them by the Indians when 

 they arrived, being worshippers of Brahma. 



But the better informed Wilford on such points tells us that there 

 were two tribes of this people, the Canyacubja or Canoje brahmans, and 

 those from Sacadwip, called Saca or Sacalas,* while the brahmans admit 

 generally that they settled in Canoje. If it could be proved that any 

 of the race first came from the west and settled in or near the delta of 

 the Indus, the above origin assigned to them would be rendered more 

 probable, or in other words, less improbable than that of their having 

 proceeded directly from Shinar. 



The Siamese divide the brahmans into two tribes also ; Bryant indeed 

 says that they occupied the country on the banks of the Indus, — the 

 Sinthus of the Periplus, — Guzerat or Juzerat, or Cutch, — Cambaia or the 

 Bay of Cham, and that they were Lords of the sea, or Palce Semunder 

 the sea of the Pali or Selandwe or Serindeb or Singhala Dwipa, or Seilan 

 or Ceylon. But it is known that brahmans descended from the Punjab 

 and settled at the mouth of the Indus, and I think it probable that from 

 thence they prosecuted voyages to the eastward in concert with Arab 

 navigators. 



After all however, it is certain that we have not far advanced in the 

 * J. A, S. B. Vol. IX. pp. 40—74. 



