The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations Part 23

and founded colonies on the banks of the Yellow river and its tributaries.

These colonists founded a Middle Kingdom in China, a federation of states with a chief supreme ruler, on the pattern of Babylonia. They introduced the art of writing and established a calendar with a year of 360 days and an intercalary month.

It is stated that the names of the five planets of the Chinese, besides the Sun and Moon, were called by the same names as in Babylon. (See Edkins _op. cit._, also The old Babylonian characters and their derivatives, Terrien de Lacouperie, Babylonian and Oriental Record, March, 1888.) Some authorities are inclined to consider Chinese astronomy as derived from the Chaldean; whilst others have inst.i.tuted comparisons between it and the Hindoo system. The results of the latter line of investigation are set forth by J. F. Davis in the following pa.s.sage of his work on the Chinese (London, 1836, vol. II., p. 304): "A comparison between the ancient system of the Chinese and of Hindoo astronomy is rendered somewhat perplexing by the fact that, while there are some points of resemblance there are others in which they essentially differ. Both of them have twenty-eight lunar mansions and a cycle of sixty years, but a careful observation detects some important distinctions: the Hindoo cycle is a cycle of Jupiter while that of the Chinese is a solar cycle, and the twenty-eight constellations of the Hindoos are nearly all of them equal divisions of the great circle, consisting of about 13 each, while the Chinese constellations are extremely unequal, varying from 30 to less than 1. The author's father, in conjunction with Sir William Jones and Messrs. Colebrook and Bentley, proved that the Hindoo astronomy did not go farther than the calculation of eclipses and some other changes with the rules and tables for performing the same. Besides their lunar zodiac of twenty-eight mansions, the Hindoos (unlike the Chinese) have the solar, including twelve signs perfectly identical with ours, and demonstrating, in that respect, a common origin."

As we know from Herodotus, the Egyptians had a week of seven days and it is remarkable that the Hindoos had anciently the same, the planetary names being given to the days in exactly the same order as among ourselves, except that Friday was the first. The Chinese reckon five planets to the exclusion of the sun and moon, but they give the name of one of their twenty-eight lunar mansions successively to each day of the year in a perpetual rotation, without regard to the moon's changes; so that the same four out of the twenty-eight invariably fall on our Sundays and const.i.tute, as it were, perpetual _Sunday letters_. A native Chinese first remarked this odd fact to the author, and on examination it proved perfectly correct.

To the above it may be well to add the following comparison between the Chinese, Tibetan and Indian systems: "The Tibetans received astronomical science from India and China ... the Chinese taught them the science of divination. Both systems are based upon a unit of sixty years, differing, however, in modes of denominating years. In these cycles of sixty years, when numbered according to the Indian principle, each year has a particular name; but in the Chinese method the names used in the Chinese duodecimal cycle are used five times, coupled with the five elements or their respective colors, each of the latter introduced in the series twice in immediate succession" (Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet, p. 27).

According to Humboldt, "the Tzihichen, or public calculators of Lha.s.sa take pride in the fact that years of the same name only return about every two centuries. They combine 15 signs: five masculine, five feminine and five neuter, with twelve signs of the zodiac" (Monuments des peuples de l'Amerique I, p. 386).

With regard to the ancient connection between China and India it is well to recall the well-known fact that Buddhism did not enter China from India until the first century of the Christian era and had a prolonged struggle for existence and influence in the country during several centuries.

The Buddhist missionaries introduced the mode of calculating cycles of years into China, according to Biot, who states that the primitive calendar of the Chinese, inst.i.tuted by Hw.a.n.g-te, the first king of the "Flowery land," was a day-count only.

Let us briefly enumerate some bare facts bearing upon the age and development of the state, religion and government of ancient China. In 2697 B.C. Hw.a.n.g-te (the Babylonian?) erected a temple to the honor of Shang-te, the deity a.s.sociated with the earliest traditions of the Chinese race. Upon the authority of a Chinaman of the present day it is stated that "the word Shang-te means supreme ruler; but, as it is not lawful to use this name lightly, Chinamen usually name the supreme ruler by his residence, which is Tien=heaven" (Edkins, _op. cit._ p. 71).

An extremely instructive light is thrown upon the Taouist conception of a supreme being or ruler, by the following episode related by Mr. Edkins in his "Religion in China" (p. 109). "I met [in 1872] on one occasion a schoolmaster from the neighborhood of Chapoo.... The inquiry was put to him, Who is the Lord of heaven and earth? He replied that he knew none but the pole-star, called in the Chinese language Teen-hw.a.n.g-ta-te, the great imperial ruler of heaven. It was stated to him that it was a matter very much to be regretted that he should hold such views as this of the Supreme Being."

In this connection and with special reference to the t.i.tle Tien=heaven, employed by the Chinese in addressing the supreme ruler, I must quote T.

de Lacouperie's opinion that the Akkadian name=Din-gira and symbol for G.o.d, the eight-pointed star, was the origin of Ti, a Chinese character with the same meaning and sound. Mr. C. J. Ball (The New Akkadian Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology) explains the Akkadian Din-gira as composed of di=to s.h.i.+ne and gira=heaven and that thus the Accadian name for G.o.d is "the s.h.i.+ning one of heaven," which explains why the ideogram is a star. According to Mr. K. Douglas (p. 171) "Mr. Ball has practically demonstrated that the Chinese and Akkadian are the same tongue and that everywhere in China we are reminded of that great centre of civilization in Babylonia."

An investigation of the Taouist religion reveals that it consists chiefly of star-wors.h.i.+p, stars being deemed "divine." "Among the liturgical works used by the priests of Taou, one of the commonest consists of prayers to Tow-moo, a female divinity supposed to reside in the Great Bear. A part of the same constellation is wors.h.i.+pped as a male spirit under the name of Kwei-sing" (Edkins).

A name closely resembling the latter in sound, Tseih-ching, and meaning the "Seven Regulators" is now applied to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In ancient times, however, according to native authorities, "this term was used to designate the seven bright stars of Ursa Major which subsequently, by an astrological device, were a.s.sociated with the seven planets; so, that, by metonymy, the latter became the established meaning."(86)

The a.s.sociation of the term "Regulators" with Septentriones is particularly interesting because the seven-day period has been employed in China from time immemorial, the seventh day being invariably marked by the ancient character mih, which means "quiet, secret or silent." In the modern Chinese almanacs and astrological works "the mih days are marked by the four constellations which correspond among the seven planets to the princ.i.p.al one among them, the Sun" (_cf._ Wylie, On the Knowledge of a weekly Sabbath in China, _op. cit._ p. 86). I am strongly tempted to refer the origin of the Chinese mih or quiet day, on which rest was generally observed, to that remote period of time when, to primitive observers, one of the stars in Ursa Major would have appeared more closely a.s.sociated with immovability and nearer the polar axis than its companions (see pp.

20 and 21).

If we pause here to review the preceding data we are particularly struck at the unanimity of evidence establis.h.i.+ng that even the most ancient form of civilization and religion was not indigenous to China, but was carried there by colonists from distant parts, presumably from Babylonia. The latter conclusion finds a strong support in the undeniable fact that during subsequent centuries a steady stream of emigration has carried colonists of different nationalities into the heart of China.

Buddhism entered China from India in the first century of the Christian era. Alexander Wylie tells us that "according to the testimony of one of the stone tablets in the synagogue at Kai-fung foo, the Israelites first entered China during the Han dynasty" and we are further told in the letters of the Jesuits that "they came during the reign of Ming-ti (A.D.

58-75) from Si-yih, _i. e._ the western regions. It appears by all that can be gathered from them that this western country is Persia and that they came by Khorasan and Samarcand. They have many Persian words in their language and they long preserved a great intercourse with that country"

(The Israelites in China, Wylie's Chinese Researches, Shanghai, 1897).

Some other interesting facts related by Wylie deserve mention here. In translating the name of Jehovah into Chinese, the Israelites in China, to the present day, say Teen, "just as the scholars of China do when they explain their term Shang-te." We thus observe a growing practice in western Asia, among the Hebrews, of designating Jehovah as the G.o.d of Heaven and sometimes as Heaven. In Chinese history distinct mention is made of a foreign sect distinguished as the "wors.h.i.+ppers of Heaven,"

spoken of as existing in China at the beginning of the sixth century.

Wylie has surmised that the Hebrews were thus designated and remarks "that this name, as the designation of a foreign sect, is the more remarkable inasmuch as the state ritual of China has designated the Supreme by the name of Heaven, from the earliest times down to the present day."

It is a curious reflection that it may possibly have been due to a gross misconception of the Hebrew religion on the part of the Chinese and a supposed ident.i.ty of wors.h.i.+p that caused the Israelites to be treated with such tolerance and hospitality in China that their colony situated in the heart of the country still exists to the present day. It is, in fact, related of the Dowager Empress Ling, in the first half of the sixth century, that she "abolished the various corrupt systems of religious wors.h.i.+p, excepting that of the foreign tien-spirit." A strange insight into the Chinese view of the Christian religion is likewise afforded by the following native doc.u.ments cited by Wylie: "Now Jesus, the Lord of Heaven, is wors.h.i.+pped by the Europeans. They say that this is the ancient religion of Ta-tsin (Syria)."

The following remarkable pa.s.sages occur on the famous Nestorian tablet, dated A.D. 781, which eulogizes the propagation of the "Ill.u.s.trious [Christian] Religion" in China. This tablet was discovered by the Jesuit fathers in 1625 and, after its authenticity had been violently a.s.sailed, Wylie's painstaking researches have now vindicated its genuineness.(87) The following extracts are from the preface engraved upon it and composed by King-tsing, a priest of the Syrian Church: "... Our eternal, true lord G.o.d.... He appointed the cross as the means of determining the four cardinal points, he moved the original spirit and produced the two principles of nature; the sombre void was changed and heaven and earth were opened out; the sun and moon revolved and day and night commenced; having perfected all inferior objects, he then made the first man ... the ill.u.s.trious and honorable Messiah, veiling his true dignity, appeared in the world as a man ... a bright star announced the felicitous event [of his birth] ... he fixed the extent of the eight boundaries.... As a seal [his disciples] hold the cross, whose influence is reflected in every direction uniting all without distinction. As they strike the wood the fame of their benevolence is diffused abroad; wors.h.i.+pping towards the east they hasten on the way to life and glory ... they do not keep slaves, but put n.o.ble and mean all on an equality; they do not ama.s.s wealth but cast all their property into the common stock."

Referring the matter to oriental scholars for further discussion I merely note here the astonis.h.i.+ng fact that in China, in the seventh century of our era, the supreme G.o.d of the Hebrews and Christians was spoken of as the G.o.d of Heaven, or Heaven, that He is credited with having created the two principles of nature besides heaven and earth and inst.i.tuted the cross as "a means of determining the cardinal points."

It is likewise strange to find the "Heen or Toen foreigners" credited in a sixteenth-century native cyclopaedia, with having introduced into China a system of astronomy denominated the "Four Heavens," and obviously based on a quadruplicate division of the Heaven similar to the division of the empire inst.i.tuted by Yaou (Wylie, Israelites in China, _op. cit._ p. 19).

The current Chinese name for Christians has been "Cross-wors.h.i.+ppers," and it is odd to note that the ancient Chinese seem to have regarded the symbolism of the Christian cross as closely identical with that of their swastika, and to have concluded that the foreign "Heaven" religion rested on the same basis as theirs.

Referring the reader to Wylie's valuable researches and Edkins' Religion in China for information concerning the establishment of colonies of Manicheans, Mohammedans and of successive Christian missions, etc., in China, I shall but quote the following pa.s.sage from Marco Polo's travels (pp. 167 and 168) because it shows how the doctrine of the quadruplicate division of all things, celestial and terrestrial, led to a broad tolerance of opinion in the famous Tartar prince, Kubla Khan, who, in 1260, at Kanbalu=Peking, honored the Christian festivals. "And he observed the same at the festivals of the Saracens, Jews and idolaters. Upon being asked his motive for this conduct, he said: 'There are four great Prophets who are reverenced and wors.h.i.+pped by the different cla.s.ses of mankind. The Christians regard Jesus Christ as their divinity; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews, Moses; and the idolaters Sagomombarkan (Buddha) the most eminent amongst their idols. I do honor and show respect to all of the four, and invoke to my aid whichever of them is in truth supreme in heaven.' " This att.i.tude of mind and that of the Chinese towards the Christian Cross can only be fully understood and appreciated when it is realized that their "imperial ruler of Heaven" was the pole-star and that the Ursa Major described each year the sign of a cross in the heaven which ever impressed upon them quadruplicate division and differentiation and the union of four in one. It is doubtlessly owing to the same reason that the Chinaman of today finds it possible to believe in, at once, the three great national religions which exist in China. Edkins has explained that, whereas "Confucianism speaks to the moral nature, Taouism is materialistic and Buddhism is metaphysical; thus, they are supplemental to each other and are able to co-exist without being mutually destructive" (_op. cit._ p.

60). Somewhat apart from these three state religions and embodying the most ancient ideas and traditions of the race, exists the elaborate and solemn "Imperial wors.h.i.+p," the study of which Edkins designates as "specially interesting because it takes us back to the early history of the Chinese people and introduces us to many striking points of comparison with the patriarchal religion of the Old Testament and with the wors.h.i.+p of the kings of Nineveh, Babylon and Egypt." The same authority states that "the account given by Herodotus of the religion of the ancient Persians shows that it consisted in much the same usages as those now found in Chinese Imperial wors.h.i.+p" (_op. cit._ pp. 6, 22, 18 and 30). In the preceding pages it has been shown that the fundamental principles of the primitive religions of China and America were identical, but that their subsequent stages of development or evolution were strikingly divergent.

The following study of certain details connected with the "Imperial wors.h.i.+p" brings out a marked differentiation in the Chinese and Mexican cult of heaven and earth.

The altar of Heaven at Peking consists of three circular marble terraces, the uppermost of which is paved with eighty-one stones arranged in circles. It is on a round stone in the centre of these circles that the Emperor kneels and is considered to occupy the centre of the earth. In the wors.h.i.+p of Heaven, offerings are made to the heavenly bodies, the Sun, Moon, the Pole-star, Great Bear, five planets and twenty-eight constellations. The wors.h.i.+p at the altar of Earth consists of offerings to the mountains, rivers and seas.

This arrangement is strikingly unlike that of the ancient Mexicans, who a.s.sociated the sun only with the Above, the male principle and the blue heaven, and wors.h.i.+pped the nocturnal heaven, the moon and stars, with the earth, darkness and the female principle.

It is interesting to note the marked effect, produced by the two different modes of cla.s.sification, upon the subsequent development of the state religions of China and Mexico. In the latter country where the contrast of light and darkness and of the duality of nature seems to have been most powerfully felt, the gradual inst.i.tution, on a footing of equality of a diurnal masculine and nocturnal feminine cult or of a separate sun and moon wors.h.i.+p, led to the formation of two equally powerful castes of priest-astronomers who devised their respective calendars and cults and ultimately stood in open rivalry and antagonism towards each other, as children of heaven and light: sun wors.h.i.+ppers; and children of earth and darkness: moon wors.h.i.+ppers. In China, as the cult of earth was subordinate from the first and all heavenly bodies were included in the wors.h.i.+p of Heaven, there was no opportunity for any rivalry to develop in the superior caste of astronomers who jointly ruled, inst.i.tuted their calendar and altered it under influences emanating from India.

Heaven and Earth were jointly wors.h.i.+pped at the same altar until A.D.

1531, when it was decreed that there should be separate altars and that the wors.h.i.+p of Earth should be separately conducted (Edkins). At the same time, while the Emperor acts as the high-priest of Heaven, we find a.s.sociated with him, from remote antiquity, the Empress, the representative of the Earth-mother.

The fact that the roll of Chinese emperors records heavenly and earthly, light and sombre, emperors, and that empresses have repeatedly occupied the throne, seems to indicate that, in remote antiquity, a male and a female line of rulers, personifying the dual principles of nature, alternately a.s.sumed prominence in power. This natural outgrowth of the cult of heaven and earth, which has its parallel in Mexico, seems to afford an explanation of the usurpation and retention of power exercised by the present Empress of China, who is probably ruling in her own right, as the representative of the earth or dark principle. As such she is the exact equivalent to the ancient Mexican Cihua-coatl, or "Woman-serpent;"

and modern China supplies us with an episode in the development of the fundamental set of ideas it holds in common with ancient America, closely resembling the historical dissension which led in ancient Mexico to a separation of the two cults and the establishment of two separate governments, under their respective male and female rulers.

Although the difference in primitive Chinese and Mexican definitions of heaven and earth wors.h.i.+p is evidently accountable for this fact, it is nevertheless interesting to note that it was in A.D. 1531 only that the Chinese cult of heaven and earth separated and the process of disintegration began to be set into activity. From an evolutionary point of view, the imperial religion of China stands to-day at a far less advanced stage of development than the prehistoric Mexican state religion.

This circ.u.mstance might be pa.s.sed over without comment did it not strikingly coincide with the undeniable fact that the essentially inorganic and monosyllabic Chinese language stands far lower in the scale of linguistic development than the incorporative and polysynthetic American languages, the most perfected types of which are the Maya and the beautiful and refined Nahuatl which abounds in delicate metaphors and formulas of exquisite politeness, indicative of the high degree of culture and antiquity of the native race.

If the preceding comparative study of the Chinese and ancient Mexican civilizations be briefly summarized, the result is as follows: Both civilizations alike rest on a foundation of pole-star wors.h.i.+p and the set of ideas which naturally proceed from this _i. e._, central impartial power extending in constant rotation to the four quarters, figured by the swastika, and the recognition of the all-pervading duality of nature.

These primitive concepts and their inevitable outgrowths, which might naturally occur to human beings of the same grade of intellect in similar conditions and circ.u.mstances and be most powerfully impressed upon the mind of man in circ.u.mpolar lat.i.tudes beside a few resemblances in names, which I shall proceed to point out, are nearly all that the Chinese and ancient Mexicans may be safely said to have had in common. At a date obviously anterior to 2356 B.C., when they were formulated, the Chinese had made definitions of heaven and earth and of the five elements which radically differ from those of the ancient Mexicans and Mayas.

The Chinese numerical system or calendar, though equally based on rotation, and known to have been modified by contact with India, is essentially different from the American. When carefully compared it must be acknowledged that the Mexican is by far the more complex and highly developed, and the same may be said of the social organization, which was controlled by the calendar. A comparison between the Chinese and American languages in general proves, moreover, that they differ not only in sound, but in form and in grade of development, the Chinese being the lower in the scale. To the above divergences we must add the fact that each people evolved distinct national customs and costumes, foods and drinks, industries, arts and forms of architecture, so markedly characteristic as to be clearly distinguishable.

In conclusion a few words about the swastika in China (ouan). Its Chinese name is wan, which signifies "ten thousand," or "all," also "many," a great number. At the time of the Empress Wu (A.D. 684-704) the swastika in a circle signified "the sun;" half a swastika in the circle "the moon,"

and the plain circle "the star." Deferring comment I emphasize here the fact that the word wan resembles kwan=equal earth or land, and that it signifies an ent.i.ty composed of ten thousand parts. A proof that the wan was also a.s.sociated with the idea of time is given by the modern use of the Chinese swastika to signify "long life," "many years," _i. e._, a complete life, a complete cycle of years.

A prolonged study of the most ancient civilization of America, which centred in Mexico and Central America and thence spread northward and southward, has so deeply convinced me of its great antiquity, isolation and prolonged period of independent evolution that, when Asiatic origin and influence are discussed, I am tempted to take the national food-plant of America, the maize, and, placing it beside the rice-plant of China, invite comparisons to be made between them.

j.a.pAN.

It is a curious fact that, although it is recognized that the junks which have been repeatedly driven by storms upon the Pacific coast have generally been j.a.panese, no searching comparison between the culture of ancient America and that of j.a.pan has as yet been published; although it is believed by many that it may have been to the occupants of the wrecked junks that the American race owed its civilization. The curious idea seems to prevail among some writers, that purely Chinese influence was conveyed by j.a.panese fishermen and sailors to the dwellers on American soil. It does not seem to be sufficiently recognized that the differences between j.a.panese and Chinese civilizations are as great as that between their different languages and writings, and that direct influence derived from j.a.pan, for many centuries back would have left traces so characteristic as to be easily distinguished from the effects of direct influence from China.

In the third century of the Christian era the j.a.panese empire was founded on a plan derived from Corea and soon became known to the Chinese and dwellers on the main land as Dschi-Poennkwo, or Zipanco, the "land of the east, or of the rising sun." The j.a.panese themselves, however, regarded their empire as the "great centre of the world," _i. e._ a "Middle Kingdom." The mythical birthplace of the j.a.panese race and the cradle of its civilization is said to have been the island of the Congealed Drop, which was formerly at the North Pole, but subsequently removed to its present position. How this happened is not told.(88)

The most superficial examination shows that the fundamental scheme of the j.a.panese empire was the same as that of China and other Asiatic countries.

Its centre was the island Hon-s.h.i.+u, Hondo or Nippon, on which was situated the ancient Fu or capital, named Yedo; the modern Tokio in the vicinity of Fusiyama, the sacred mountain and reputed centre of the world. The entire land or Han was originally divided into five provinces collectively named the Go-kinai (the word go like the Maya ho, signifying five), the territorial divisions and presumably consisting of four quarters and the capital. Light is thrown upon the extent of this quinary organization by the fact that, in ancient j.a.pan, time was divided into five-day periods, by official days of rest, which fell on the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th days of each month. The computation of time by cycles, which will be treated further in a separate monograph, also prevailed in j.a.pan, as might be expected, since this method was a main feature of the definite scheme on which the entire empire was founded.

In accord with this plan the population was divided into four cla.s.ses, consisting of the Haimin=the people; the warriors or Samurai, the Kazoku, literally the flower of families, the n.o.bility. All members of the imperial family formed a fourth caste and above all stood the Emperor, the central ruler, the divine descendant of the sun-G.o.ddess Amaterasu.

Evidences that an extension and fresh territorial division of the empire took place at one time seem preserved in the ancient j.a.panese name for j.a.pan: Oya-s.h.i.+ma=the eight islands. It is likewise related that the j.a.panese creators, Izanajo and Izanami, built, in the centre of the world, an octagonal palace around a central pillar, the octagonal form having reference to the eight holy corners or points, the "Hak-kaku," or the cardinal points and half cardinal points. It is impossible to overlook the fact that by a similar method, but by means of four larger and four smaller rays, the field of the Mexican calendar star is divided into eight equal portions. It is a well-known fact that, in 1854, j.a.pan was practically governed by two rulers: the Mikado or Tenno, of divine or "heavenly" descent, who led so secluded an existence that he was becoming a shadowy and invisible ruler, and the Shogun, the civil governor, who had become the terrestrial ruler _par excellence_, and whose power was in the ascendant. This state of affairs affords a most interesting object lesson, teaching how ancient empires gradually become divided and disintegrated under dual government and under the influence of rival cults. The ancient state religion or "Imperial wors.h.i.+p" of j.a.pan, the s.h.i.+nto, was becoming as obsolete as the worldly power of its high-priest the Mikado, next to the growing ascendancy of Buddhism, supported by the Shogunate. The original meaning of the s.h.i.+nto sacred symbols appears to be lost. The mirror, placed on the altar, usually const.i.tuted the only visible sacred emblem.

Another was the sword. It is claimed that the swastika came into j.a.pan with Buddhism, but this is a point which demands a serious investigation of competent specialists. The above data, which are absurdly inadequate to the interest and importance of j.a.pan, the seat of the most intellectual and progressive culture of Asia, are sufficient to show that in j.a.pan, where the swastika is found, the quadruplicate state organization and fundamental plan were also carried out. My full purpose will only be fulfilled when the present deficient notes shall have stimulated the enquiry and research of students and j.a.panese scholars and led to the publication of all traces extant of the most ancient scheme of organization, government and calendar, as compared with those of ancient America.

As it is maintained that the Chinese and other eastern Asiatic people did not originate, but received their civilization from Babylonia, or another ancient centre, situated in western Asia, it obviously becomes an imperative necessity to carry the present investigation across the Asiatic continent into the heart of the Euphratean valley.

INDIA.

Being one of the ancient centres of civilization from which the Chinese are said to have derived theirs, India, the country where the swastika abounds, first arrests our attention. In support of the a.s.sertion I have already advanced, that the primitive symbol is always found accompanied by a set of ideas almost as ancient as itself, I have pleasure in transcribing the following detached but instructive and suggestive extracts from my note-book.

The fair Arya or Aryans, after about 2,000 B.C., penetrated India from the northwest. Arya means "those who command" or "the venerable." The name Hindu or Sindu was given to the Indian Aryans. Our knowledge of Hindu art begins in the third century B.C. and none of the present popular forms of Hindu religion are presumed to be earlier than the ninth century A.D. "It is well known that the Brahman system and faith were not developed by the Hindus till they had conquered the Ganges, Western and Southern India and there is no trace of this tradition or even of Brahma as a deity in the Vedas."...

"The supreme G.o.d of antiquity was Indra ... next to and above whom was the mysterious G.o.d Varuna, the creator, who gave eternal laws which G.o.d and men were obliged to follow. He showed the stars their paths and gave each creature his qualities.... He is the sun by day and the stars at night".... From these statements the duality of the creator and his power over both light and darkness alike, stand out clearly.