68 Buddhism and Odinism. [No. 1. 



until the epoch of Odin's emigration is thoroughly ascertained. It 

 appears to ine that the name Asgard is identical with Asagarta of the 

 Bisoutoiin (Bagistana) inscription, which in the enumeration of the 

 provinces which belonged to the monarchy of Darius is named im- 

 mediately above Parthia. M. Lassen thinks that we should search for 

 Asagarta to the West of Parthia. If, on the contrary it be situated to 

 the East of that country, the situation will accord better with the 

 countries which we have found as those of Azes. Asgard is perhaps 

 an oriental name slightly altered to confirm to the rules of the Nor- 

 wegian language. The words gard, guer, Jcart, Jcert are met with in 

 most Arian languages, with the same signification which gdrd has in 

 the Norwegian, for instance in Persian Darabguerd means the town 

 of Darius." 



Allusion has already been made to the similitude of the words 

 Buddha and Odin. M. Holmboe says that " the arguments both 

 for and against the identity of the two words are too weak to lead 

 to a conviction." He adds, however, that " it is to be presumed 

 that the most illustrious of the missionaries who proceeded to the 

 North must have borne the name of Buddha or at least some 

 epithet derived from the Sanskrit root budh "Intelligence," "know- 

 ledge," for example bodlian* or bodhant, participle present of the 

 verb; and from that the Scandinavians may have formed their Odin 

 and the Germans their Wodan. The transition of the letter b to v still 

 occurs in the Sanskrit itself, and in the Hindustani and Bengali which 

 are derived from it, the difference is entirely lost. The omission of 

 the first letter in the name of Odin is conformable to the rules of the 

 ancient language of Norway, in which v is often elided before the labial 

 vowels o and u. The German appellation Wodan accords more with the 

 nominative masculine of the present participle bodhan, and this ac- 

 cordance becomes the more striking when it is considered that in a 

 glossary on the work of Jonas de Bobbio, this word is written Vuo- 

 tant'tf thus answering for the oblique cases of the participle present 



* The form Bodhin enters at least in the name of the sacred tree, which is 

 sometimes called Bodhin, Wahanoa. Ritter, die Stupcts p. 161, Forbes p. 213. 



f Gimm Beutsch. Myihologie 2te Ausg, p. 120, 



Several conjectures have been proposed about the derivation of the name Oclen 

 or Wodan : for example from the Gothic Wods or Norwegian Odr, " enraged," or, 



