9th section begins thus: 'In early morning Haoma came to Zarathustra, who was consecrating his sacred fire, and repeating prayers. Zarathustra asked him, "What man art thou, whom I see to be the most excellent in the whole existing world on account of his immortal life?" Hereupon Haoma, the pure, the remover of sickness, answered me, "I am, O Zarathustra, the pure, the remover of sickness. Invoke me, holy man, pour me forth to drink, celebrate me with praise, as formerly the holy men used to do." Then Zarathustra said, "Reverence to Haoma."' 11 Haoma is here called 'remover of heat, or sickness,' and in the same way Soma is said in Rigveda, i. 91, 12, to be amīvahā, 'the destroyer of suffering.' This passage of the Yaśna clearly shows how, as I have before mentioned, the separate ideas of the god and of the juice are blended. Haoma desires that he himself shall he prepared for sacrifice.

“This passage is followed by a specification of the four original worshippers of Haoma. The first was Vivanhat, who prepared the celestial beverage hunūta, and in consequence obtained a blessing, and the fulfilment of his wish that a son should be born to him. This was King Yima, the most glorious of men, in whose realm men and animals never died, water and trees never dried up, food was superabundant, and cold, heat, disease, death, and devilish envy were unknown.

"What has before been said of Yima shows the importance of this passage. The worship of Haoma is placed anterior to Yima, i.e. to the commencement of Iranian civilization; and in fact is declared to be the cause of that happy period. The Rigveda also refers to this high antiquity of the Soma worship, when (i. 91, 1) it says of Soma: 'By thy guidance, O brilliant (Soma), our courageous fathers have obtained treasures among the gods.' Like Vivañhat, the next worshippers of Haoma, viz., Athwya and Samanām Sevishta, also obtained

11 Compare Spiegel's translation of the same passage, and its continuation, Avesta, ii. 68, ff. In note 4 he remarks: "Haoma, like various other deities of the Avesta, is regarded as at once a personal god, and as the thing on account of which this god was imagined. Haoma is at once a Yazata and a drink. The original identity of the Indian Soma with the Haoma of the Avesta has been excellently shown in F. Windischmann's dissertation. Among both nations the healing power of the Haoma is prominently noticed, but among the Parsīs it is particularly the white Haoma which imparts immortality. The Indian plant is the asclepias acida; the l'ersian is not determined. Both nations notice that the plant grew on mountains, and originally, at least, it must have been the same plant which both employed."

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offspring,-Thraĕtaonō and sons who destroyed the Ahrimanian monster. The heroic age of the conflict of light is thus referred back to Haoma, whilst in the Rigveda (i. 91, 8), Soma is invoked to 'deliver from destruction, to suffer none of his friends to perish;' and (in verse 15) to protect from incantations and from sin; and in the Samaveda (Stevenson, p. 259) he is said to drive away the Rakshasas.

"It is interesting to remark, that while Thraētaonō is said here to have been bestowed by Haoma, the Samaveda names a Rishi Trita as an offerer of Soma.

"The fourth worshipper of Haoma is Pourusaśpa, the father of Zarathustra: his reward was the birth of this illustrious son, the promulgator of the anti-demonic doctrine. Here also the ancient legend confirms the priority of the Haoma worship to the Zoroastrian reformation.

"When Zarathustra has thus learnt that he owes his own existence to Haoma, he celebrates his praises: and the epithets which he here applies to the god agree in a remarkable way with those of the Veda. Some of these parallel epithets are hvaresa, Zend, = svarshā, Sanskrit (R.V. i. 91, 21), 'giving heaven;' verethrajao, Zend,=vṛitrahā, Sanskrit (R.V. i. 91, 5), 'destroyer of enemies;' hukhratus, Zend, = sukratuḥ, Sanskrit (R.V. i. 91, 2), offering good sacrifices,' or 'wise,' or 'strong.' The blessings supplicated by Zarathustra from Haoma also agree in many points with those which the Vedic poet asks from Soma."

It is not necessary, however, to pursue the subject farther. I refer the reader, who wishes further details of this sort, to Dr. Windischmann's dissertation itself.

I copy the following remarks on the Soma worship from Mr. Whitney's "Main Results of the later Vedic Researches in Germany" (Journal of the Amer. Orient. Society, iii. 299, 300). The "hymns, one hundred and fourteen in number [of the 9th book of the Rigveda], are, without exception, addressed to the Soma, and being intended to be sung while that drink was expressed from the plant that afforded it, and was clarified, are called pāvamānyas, 'purificational.' . . . . The word soma means simply 'extract' (from the root su, to express, extract), and is the name of a beverage prepared from a certain herb, the asclepias acida, which grows abundantly upon the mountains of India and Persia. This plant, which by its name should be akin to our common milk-weed, furnishes, like the latter, an abundant milky

juice, which, when fermented, possesses intoxicating qualities. In this circumstance, it is believed, lies the explanation of the whole matter. The simple-minded Arian people, whose whole religion was a worship of the wonderful powers and phenomena of nature, had no sooner perceived that this liquid had power to elevate the spirits, and produce a temporary phrenzy, under the influence of which the individual was prompted to, and capable of, deeds beyond his natural powers, than they found in it something divine; it was, to their apprehension, a god, endowing those into whom it entered with god-like powers; the plant which afforded it became to them the king of plants; the process of preparing it was a holy sacrifice; the instruments used therefor were sacred. The high antiquity of this cultus is attested by the references to it found occurring in the Persian Avesta; it seems, however, to have received a new impulse on Indian territory, as the pāvamānya hymns of the Veda exhibit it in a truly remarkable state of development. Soma is there addressed as a god in the highest strains of adulation and veneration; all powers belong to him; all blessings are besought of him, as his to bestow. And not only do such hymns compose one whole book of the Rik, and occur scattered here and there through other portions of it, but the most numerous single passages and references everywhere appearing, show how closely it had intertwined itself with the whole ritual of the Vedic religion." [See the section on Soma in the fifth volume of this work.]

Lassen remarks in reference to the affinities of the Iranians and Indians (Ind. Ant. 1st ed., i. 516; 2nd ed., i. 617): "It should first be recollected that the Zendavesta shows us the [Iranian] doctrine not in its original, but in a reformed shape; a distinction is made between the pious men who lived before the proclamation of the law by Zoroaster, and the nearest relations:' and we may conclude that the points wherein the Brahmanical Indians and the followers of Zoroaster coincide, belong to the old, and those in which they differ, to the new, system. Of the beings who are the objects of veneration in the Avesta, it is the seven highest, i.e. Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas, who are peculiarly Iranian; their names are unknown to the Brahmans; the Vedas recognize no class of seven divinities of the highest rank who are of the same character. On the other hand, there is no trace of Brahma among the Iranians. The fundamental principle of the Zend doctrine, the

dualistic separation of the good and evil principles, is, in like manner, foreign to Brahmanism. But there are, nevertheless, other deities, who are equally venerated in the Zendavesta and the Veda, viz., fire, the sun, the moon, the earth, and water; a fact which indicates that both religions have a common foundation."

Lassen also treats of the legend of Yima, and of other points of connexion between the Indian and Iranian religions, 1st ed. i. pp. 517526, and at greater length in the 2nd ed. pp. 619-634; and then observes: "These common reminiscences of the Eastern Iranians, and the Arian Indians, cannot be explained from any communications such as neighbouring nations might make to one another. On the contrary, we perceive sometimes a varying, sometimes a contradictory, conception of important traditions and appellations, which is only intelligible if we presuppose an earlier agreement, which had, in part, become lost and modified in the course of time, after the separation of the two nations; and in part had become converted into a contradiction by a division in their opinions. Even this contradiction indicates a closer connexion between the two nations at an earlier period."

See also Professor R. Roth's articles in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, for 1848 (pp. 216, ff.), 1850 (pp. 417, ff.), and 1852 (pp. 67, ff.), on the legends of Feridun and Jemshid, and on the "highest gods of the Arian nations ;" and also his paper on Nabanazdista, at p. 243 of the last-named volume; as well as Spiegel's paper in Indische Studien, iii. 448. In the vol. of the Journal of the Germ. Or. Society for 1848, p. 216, Roth proposes to show by an example, "how the Veda and the Avesta flow from one fountain, like two streams, the one of which, the Vedic, has continued fuller, purer, truer to its original character; while the other has become in many ways polluted, has changed its original course, and consequently cannot always be followed back with equal certainty to its sources." See also Professor Müller's "Last Results of the Persian Researches," reprinted in "Chips," i. 81, ff.

NOTE G.-Page 306.

and

Professor Cowell, editor of the fifth edition of the History of India (1866), has some remarks on this conclusion of Mr. Elphinstone in an additional Appendix, no. viii., pp. 284, ff. He there gives a summary

of the circumstances which lead to the belief that the Indians were immigrants from without, as the most probable inference from the premises. He alludes first to "the fact of a connexion between the original Sanskrit-speaking tribes and the other nations of Western Asia and Europe, as proved by the common origin of their respective languages," as admitted by Mr. Elphinstone, and then proceeds: "It is perhaps going too far to assert that this connexion is thus proved to be one of race; at any rate, this is a question which belongs to physical science rather than to history. It is enough for the historian if it is granted that in some remote prehistoric time the ancestors of these various tribes were living in close political relation to each other; and the similarity which we find in their languages must undoubtedly prove this, even although the problem of race should remain as unsettled a question as before." Compare Mr. Geldart's remarks in note D, above, pp. 467, 468.

Professor Cowell allows that "this similarity and linguistic sympathy proves only the fact of a connexion; but they 'prove nothing regarding the place where it subsisted, nor about the time,' [Elphinstone]; but" (he adds) "perhaps the following considerations may throw some light on this further question," and then goes on to say that "a central home once occupied by the ancestors of these now widely scattered nations seems primâ facie more probable than to suppose that they emigrated from the furthest extremity of the line as India." He then states the considerations which confirm this view.

NOTE H.-Page 315.

"The question regarding the time and place of the separation is of yet greater importance than that concerning its cause. For our present inquiry, it is of less consequence to determine the place, than the time, of that separation. As regards the region where the Indians and Iranians dwelt together, several suppositions may be made. The Iranians may have immigrated into the Panjab along with the Indians, and have turned thence in a westerly direction. But, on the other hand, the Indians might have separated themselves from the Iranians, and travelled towards the east. Thirdly, it might be conjectured that the two races had parted from each other before they migrated towards India and Iran. Be this as it may, though we are unable to assign