1849.} Brahmans and Buddhists. 105 



investigation of the ancestry either of brahmans or the more original 

 tribes or people of India, since the day when the revered founder of our 

 Society electrified the world of letters by his speculations, and his keen 

 and logical discourses on Asia, in its widest sense. A rapid glance at 

 some of these profound essays or discourses will perhaps shew that 

 until we can produce adverse facts, we shall have to rest, whether con- 

 tended or not, with what he has laid before us regarding the ancient 

 civil, political, religious and literary history of the brahmans and Indians. 

 He sets out by informing us that " the first Indian monarchs can hardly 

 be supposed to have reigned less than three thousand years ago. — Of 

 course there is no proof of this position. 



" The Dabistan describes a religion called Hushang, which was long 

 anterior to that of Zeratusht, and several of the most eminent of the 

 Persians, dissenting in many points from the Gabrs, and persecuted by 

 the ruling powers of their country, retired to India, where they compiled 

 a number of books now extremely scarce ; (then) further, that a Dynasty 

 termed Mahabadian (q Maha) had been established for ages in Iran, 

 before the accession of Kayumers.* Hence," adds Sir W. Jones, " the 

 Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world." It seems to 

 me that if these emigrants were brahmans or men who afterwards assumed 

 that name, we ought to find the earliest brahmanical worship to correspond 

 with the religion of Hushang, which supplanted the ancient religion of 

 Iran or Deism. The Vedas sufficiently attest that the first brahmans 

 were sun and fire worshippers, yet perhaps retaining faint perceptions of 

 the ancient Deism of Persia, which had itself been debased by poly_ 

 theism, and thus affording a nucleus around which they could weave 

 their own tangled and plural system of gods and energies, male and 

 female. 



" Every just and benevolent man, whether he perform or omit these 

 (ceremonies) is justly styled a brahman."f Thus the Vedas gave no 

 religious superiority to brahmans. 



But the sun was that " great effulgent power which is Brahma himself, 

 and he is called the light of the radiant sun. It is the greatest of lights, 

 and is the principle of life in all beings. J The sun, says Yajunyawalcya, 

 is Brahme, and this is a certain truth revealed in the Vedas." '§ 



* Sir W. Jones' 6th Disc, on the Persians. A. R. VI. p. 48, et seq. 

 f As. Res. Vol. V. £ Ditto ditto, p. 349. § Ditto ditto, p, 353. 



P 



