The Interdependence of Literature | Page 7

has twenty-five thousand
verses, and the hero, Rama, in his wanderings and misfortunes, is not
unlike Ulysses. The Mahabharata records the doings of gods, giants,
and heroes, who are all fighting against each other. It contains two
hundred thousand verses, embodied in eighteen Cantos, and is thought
to be not the work of one man; but different songs sung from the
earliest ages by the people, and gradually blended into one poem. In it
we find the ancient traditions which nearly all people possess, of a
more free, active and primitive state of nature, whose world of
greatness and heroism has been suppressed in later ages. Among the
Hindustans there exists a religion resembling in part that of Greece,
with traces of the Egyptian; and yet containing in itself many ideas,
both moral and philosophical, which in spite of dissimilarity in detail,
is evidently akin to our doctrines of the Christian religion. In fact, the
resemblance between the Hindu and Christian religion is so remarkable
that some scholars think the Hindu was taken from the Christian. It is
more probable that it was of greater antiquity, and that the similarity
between them springs from the seed of all truth and all Nature
implanted in man by God. Indian and Christian both teach regeneration.
In the Indian creed, as soon as the soul is touched with the love of
divine things it is supposed to drop its life of sin and become "new
born."
In a higher region all these truths in the lower world which have to do
with divine things, are mysteriously akin to each other. It needs only
the first spark of light from above to make them instinct with life.
The Recluses or Gymnosophists of India are not unlike the first
Recluses of Egypt, and the first hermits of the desert in the Christian
era.
The doctrines of India first obtained a foothold in Europe through the
dogma of Metempsychosis. It was introduced into the Hellenes by
Pythagoras; but never became popular among the Greeks. This

Metempsychosis (or the transmigration of souls) was believed by the
Indians from the earliest period, and their whole history is built upon it.
A very ancient connection can be traced between India and Egypt,
manifested by Castes, which are found equally in both countries, and
by similiar Mythologies. When Alexander the Great invaded Northern
India from Persia, the Greeks found an Indian Mythology far more like
their own than the Persian or Hebrew. They thought they had met with
the same gods they had been accustomed to worship, though clothed in
a different form and color. They showed their faith in this discovery by
the names of the Indian Hercules and the Indian Bacchus, later so
common among them.
The worship of Vishnoo and Krishnoo in Hindostan differs very little
from the religion of Buddha and Fo which was established in China and
Thibet during the first century of Christianity. The former retained
caste, while the latter, following the teaching of Buddha, have
repudiated any class distinctions.
Decimal cyphers originated in Hindostan.
PERSIAN.
In everything appertaining to their religious belief the Persians bear a
close resemblance to the Hebrew, but the poetical part of their
mythology is more similiar to the Northern theology, while their
manners bear a strong resemblance to the Germans. The spiritual
worship of nature, light, fire, and of other pure elements, is embodied
in both the Zend Avesta (Persian) and the Edda (Scandinavian). The
two nations have the same opinion concerning spirits which rule and
fill nature, and this has given rise to poetical fancies about giants,
dwarfs and other beings, found equally in Persian and Northern Sagas.
The work of Lokman, existing now only in Arabic, has caused some
people to think that it is of Arabian origin; but it is really Persian, and
of the tenth century B.C. His Apologues are considered the foundation
on which Greek fable was reared. The Code of Zoroaster, in which the
two great principles of the world are represented by Ormuzd (goodness
and light), and Ahriman (darkness and sin) are as old as the creation.
Ormuzd is worshiped in the sun, the stars, and in fire. Zoroaster
explained the history of man as being one long contest between these
two powers until a time to come when Ormuzd would be victorious
over Ahriman. Ormuzd, as the ruler of the universe, seeks to draw men

to the light, to dispel the darkness of ignorance, and to extend the
triumph of virtue over the material and spiritual world. It may be said
of the Persians, as Tertullian said of the Roman Pagans, "that in their
highest moods and beliefs they were naturally Christian." Among a
Persian sect called the Sufis' there is a belief that nothing exists
absolutely but God; that the human