1849.] Brahmans and Buddhists. 107 



Where we have no unbroken clue to guide us, the truth cannot be 

 indisputably established, and it seems meanwhile more consistent with 

 the plan on which learned investigations in our days are carried on to 

 consider the Sanscrit, or its parent language and character, to have had 

 their origin in Persia, or in any other region where the Zend had pre- 

 vailed. 



"The primeval religion of Iran was a pure deism.* That which 

 succeeded it was Sabian." 



In the first we find that in addition to the inculcation of the belief in 

 one supreme God, maker and continual governor of the world — in a 

 pious fear, love and adoration of him, and a due reverence for parents 

 and aged persons, and a fraternal affection for the whole human species, 

 it is enjoined to have a compassionate tenderness even for the brute 



CREATION. 



This last injunction is a prominent one in the Buddhist creed, but 

 has no place in brahmanism or sacrificing Hinduism. 



If the brahmans did emigrate from Persia, then it appears to me, as 

 I have already stated, that it must have been after — but not long after— 

 Sabianism had become the popular worship — because the brahmans 

 were originally, as settlers in India, if we are to judge from their earliest 

 books, Theists, and Sabists combined — for if they did not publicly wor- 

 ship the Host of Heaven they venerated the sun and moon, and perhaps 

 other celestial bodies. But at what period the Sabians took precedence 

 of Theists in Persia does not clearly appear, or we might perhaps fix 

 the period when the brahmans arrived in India. The brahmans and 

 Persians both worshipped, as many of the former now Ho, fire. But I 

 apprehend that the Hushangites, who fled to India as above quoted, pro- 

 bably formed a distinct sect there from the brahmans, and retained 

 longest the Unitarian doctrines. Sir W. Jones deemed the doctrines 

 of the Zend to be quite distinct from those of the Vedas. 



" Thus it has been proved by clear evidence and plain reasoning that 

 a powerful monarchy was established in Iran long before the Assyrian 

 or Pishdadi government. That it was in truth a Hindu monarchy, 

 though any may choose to call it Cusian, Casdean or Scythian — that 

 it subsisted many centuries, and that its history has been engrafted on 

 that of the Hindus, who founded the monarchies of Ayodhya and Indra- 

 * As. Res.Vol. V. p. 58. 



p 2 



