292 



The origin of Brahmanism. 



[No. 12, new SERIES. 



Egypt. 

 The Scarabeus signifi- 

 cant of a God or liis 



Italy. 



India. 



power. 



The Tortoise Avatar. 



If Brahminism did not come from Egypt, where else could it 

 have come from ? Certainly not from China, Arabia, or the Semitic 

 nations on the Mediterranean, and most assuredly not from Iran? 

 and the adjacent countries in Central Asia north of the Hindoo 

 Kosh, the religion of whose people, from a period shortly after the 

 deluge to a time long after Brahminism was established in India, 

 was Zabaic and Milhraic. The discovery in Egypt of monuments 

 of Brahminism belonging to an epoch far anterior to the existence 

 of that religion in India, indicates plainly enough that it does no t 

 owe' its origin to the latter country. During my stay in Egypt, and 

 trip up the Nile, I was forcibly struck with the resemblance of 

 everything around me to what I had seen in India ; and my observa- 

 tions confirmed my opinion that there had been a very close con- 

 nection in remote times between the two people. Although the 

 inhabitants of Modern Egypt are Mahomedan, many of the cus- 

 toms prevailing before their era are yet preserved , this is especially 

 the case as regards the methods of agriculture and irrigation which 

 are completely Indian. The habits and usages of the ancient Egyp- 

 tians handed down in the paintings at Beni Hassan, and in the 

 tombs of the Kings at Thebes are those of the Hindoos; indeed, 

 Sir G. Wilkinson's descriptions of them might, with equal pro- 

 priety, be applied to those of the Hindoos. 



The annexed passage from Bishop Russell's history of Egypt is 

 so interesting, and lends so much support to my views, that I can- 

 not refrain from inserting it ; 



" As a farther proof of this hypothesis, we are informed that the 

 sepoys who joined the British army in Egypt under Lord Hut- 

 chinson, imagined that they found their own temples in the ruins of 

 Dendera, and were greatly exasperated at the natives for their neg- 



* Can these coincidences be accidental ? Can we agree withBunsen, 

 after an impartial consideration of the preceding facts, that " nothing 

 Asiatic is Egyptian ;" or join in his sneer about the " Siren of Indio- 



mania" ? 



