1847.] 



Neilgherry Htlls^ 8fc. 



131 



than ever satisfied that the ancestors of the Thautawars were the 

 Celto-Scythian aborigines of the plains, to persist in it would involve 

 an unpardonable anachronisnij as it would be tantamount to asserting 

 that Buddhism prevailed in Central Asia before the Hindus invaded 

 India. I therefore adhere to the opinion I formed, relative to the 

 early Thautawars having engrafted upon their Scythic ceremonies 

 some of the rites of the Buddhists or Jains who were once on these 

 Hills ; and I no longer insist upon my statement that in the Buddha 

 or Godama of the invaders " the Thautawars would discover^^ the 

 Woden of the Scythians ; nevertheless I shall retain my comparisons 

 of the customs of the Thautawars with the Scythians of the middle 

 ages" of Asia, it being reasonable to suppose that they very little 

 differed from those of the earliest Scythians. 



That the idea of the Thautawars having borrowed certain ceremo- 

 nies from the cotemporary Buddhists may not seem extravagant, I 

 cite a passage from Masson, from which it will appear that the dis- 

 ciples of the Mithraic religion, a form of Scythicism, were not indis- 

 posed to blend Buddhism with their more ancient doctrines. 



" It may be observed that the later antiquities in Affghanistan and 

 the Pvmjaub, or in the countries along the course of the Indus, are 

 apparently mixed Mithraic and Buddhist ; nor is it improbable that 

 the two systems, if they were really generically distinct ones, should 

 have been blended in the limits to which both extended, and were 

 both met.'* 



The extent to which the Getae spread, viz. from the confines of 

 India to those of Europe ; the fact that in the earliest times they pro- 

 fessed Scythicism ; the resemblance between the Thautawars and the 

 ancient Goths in some respects ; and the certainty that the aborigines 

 of India were a Scythian race — Celto-Scythic : still render a compa- 

 rison between the Thautawar language and that of the Goths as well 

 as of the Celts, a desideratum, which I shall endeavour to accom- 

 plish. Meanwhile I collate some 



Thautawar Words with Words of Western Languages. 



Tiggal, (moon) Gallach, (Celtic.) 



{Venus from ben, and jus, 

 (Celtic for woman.) 

 Hurs, House. 

 Moh, (man) Mahen, (German.) 



