249 
IY. The Aryan Nations. 
42. These nations having had their ethnological centre in 
the East, around the banks of the river Indus, I begin with — 
(1.) Hindustan. 
43. Nothing is clearer, in the study of this portion of Aryan 
ethnology, than that the farther we recede, chronologically, the 
purer and more monotheistic becomes its religious faith. How 
striking, for example, is the following extract from one of the 
most ancient of its sacred books, the Geeta, written at least 
b.c. 2000, when put in contrast with the later forms of Brah- 
minism. It is an invocation to the Supreme Deity : — “ Thou, 
0 mighty Being, greater than Brahma, art the prime Creator, 
eternal God of Gods, Thou art the Incorruptible, distinct 
from all things transient. Thou art before all gods. By 
Thee, 0 infinite Form, the universe was spread abroad.” Is 
it not a presumable inference that notions such as these were 
carried away eastward by some of the first descendants of the 
Noachic family, and cherished in all their freshness for a few 
centuries by the earliest settlers ? At all events, does not 
an ancient monotheistic creed such as this witness to the mono- 
theism of the Pentateuch, with which it was certainly coeval ? 
44. If this be true, we should expect to find from the same 
source some form of mythological or traditional representation 
of the destruction of mankind by a deluge. Nor are we dis- 
appointed. For in what is called the Bhagvat Geeta we read 
of the incarnation of Yishnu, in which the god is described as 
saying — “ As often as there is a decline of virtue, and an in- 
surrection of vice in the world, I make myself evident. And 
thus I appear from age to age for the preservation of the just, 
the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of vir- 
tue.” These books describe several such incarnations. One 
of them, the Matsya Avatar , translated by the late Sir William 
Jones in his Asiatic Researches, is so singularly confirmatory 
of the Deluge of Noah, that it almost seems impossible, with 
anything like candour, to refuse belief in their identity. It 
begins by stating that there was once a general destruction 
occasioned by the sleep of Brahma, by which his creatures 
were drowned in a vast ocean.” It arose from the circum- 
stance of Hayagriva, a strong demon, stealing the sacred 
Yedas ; on the discovery of which Yishnu assumed the shape 
of a fish. It then goes on to say that, “ A holy king, Satyau- 
rata, then reigned. As this pious king was making a libation, 
Yishnu, under the form of this fish, appeared to him, gradually 
assuming a larger bulk. When Satyaurata beheld this he 
addressed the deity in a sublime prayer, who, out of pure 
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