India in Greece : or, Truth in mythology : containing the sources of the Hellenic race, the colonisation of Egypt and Palestine, the wars of the Grand Lama, and the Bud'histic propaganda in Greece online

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INDIA IN GREECE.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

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http://www.archive.org/details/indiaingreeceortOOpoco



INDIA IN GREECE; .fc\H

OR,

TEUTH IN MYTHOLOGY:



CONTAINING

SOURCES OF THE HELLENIC EACE, THE COLONISATION OF EGYPT
AND PALESTINE, THE WAES OF THE GRAND LAMA, AND
THE BUD'HISTIC PROPAGANDA IN GREECE.



By E. POCOCKE, Esq.



ILLUSTRATED BT



MAPS OF THE PUNJAB, CASHMIE, AND NORTHERN GREECE.



LONDON:
PUBLISHED BT JOHN J. GEIEEIN AND CO.,

53, Baker Street, Portman Square;

AKD RICHARD GRIFFIN AND CO^ GLASGOW.

1852.




LONDON :
lADBURY AND EVANS, PKINTERS, WHITEFEIARS.



H. H. WILSON, M.A., P.R.S.,

ETC. ETC.,
BODEN PE0FES30E OP SANSCRIT IN THE UNIVEESITY OF OXFORD,



The pledge made by a stranger, at a casual interview,
characterised on your part by much urbanity, of distinctly
tracing to their true sources the " Pilgrim Fathers " of the
Hellenic Eace, is thus far redeemed. To you, Sir, as the
honoured Tri-cala of Oriental Literature, this Historical
Sketch of the fortunes of the Western Pandions of Athens,
the Hellenes or Chiefs of the Hela in Greece, the Cashmirians of
Beeotia, and of the Thessalian Himalayas, is humbly inscribed
by the Author,

E. POCOCKE.



PEEFACE.

Nothing but a thorougli conviction of the importance of
testing the stream of History at its very source^ would
have induced that process of investigation with whose
partial results the reader is here presented.

A gigantic mass of absurdities now lies exposed, for a
sifting examination. It remains for the patient sagacity
of European scholarship, working upon both Occidental
and Oriental materials, to re-build, I trust, upon no
unstable foundation, that Temple of History which
national vanity has destroyed, and whose ruins national
Buddhism has obscured.

A thorough persuasion that no nation, as a body of
men, would or could, gratuitously, through a series of
ages, invent a series of tales, in themselves fabulous, in
their results historicalj — determined me in the resolution
to enter upon a process which should test the doctrine of
invention, or non-invention, and thus gain some criterion
for an impartial and a final decision. That problem is
now solved. A plain, practical, and positive appeal to
the very language of the first Hellenic settlers, will give a
correct answer to the patient inquirer after truth. Those



vm PEEFACE.

primitive colonists have been traced with a precision that
nothing but the singular cohesion of the constituent parts
of that ancient form of society called " a tribe/^ could
have secured. This is a species of argument that will be
duly appreciated by the contemplative mind.

The evidence thus gained_, is evidence drawn from no
partial source — it is evidence drawn forth from nations
whose impress is of the highest antiquity.

Amid the ruins of empires_, or the transient memory of
the mightiest conquerors^ Time has very generally
respected both the form and the name of the grand
features of nature. Cities and Polities may have been
swept from the earth ; Dynasties of unrivalled splendour
may have passed away, leaving scanty memorials, — possibly
none — to record their renown ; but it is not so with the
history inefPaceably written on the venerable forms of
mountains, seas, and rivers. These compose a language
so vast and so enduring, that compared with them, the
Pyramids, must be considered as dwarfed toys of agglu-
tinated sand which must crumble to atoms before the
structure of this language shall be destroyed.

One of the most valuable points, in connection with the
results here wrought out, is this geographical basis. It has
interpreted correctly, and it will continue to interpret
correctly, those singular tales, in early Greek history,
which have generally passed current with the literary
world, under the name of "Myths." They are now
proved to be fables, just in proportion as we misunderstand
them j truths, in proportion as they were once understood.



PEEFACE. ix

Our ignorance it is which has made a myth of history;
and our ignorance is an Hellenic inheritance, much of it
the result of Hellenic vanity.

The Sanscrit scholar will find a few irregularities in
that process which I have developed. They are such as
belong to a form compounded of the old Pehlvi and the
Sanscrit ; the latter serving as the basis, and the former
the inflective power. A superficial glance over this branch
of my investigation, will convey some idea to the philo-
logist of two interesting facts. Eirst. — The primitive
dialects, whence sprang the Greek of Homer. Secondly.
The exact way in which the Greek consonantal and vocalic
combinations were pronounced by Herodotean and Thu-
cydidsean Greeks.

The apparent irregularities of orthography occurring in
connection with the same word, will be found to be more
imaginary than real. It will be well for the reader to
accustom himself to such variations of form, but not of
power, nor of signification. He will thus consider
Lakedaimon, Lacedsemon ; Cabul, Cabool, Kabul, Kabool ;
Tibet, Thibet; Cashmir, Cashmire, Casmir, Kashmire,
Cashmere ; Ladakh, Ladak, Ladac ; Attock, Attac, Atac,
Uttuck; Goclapes, Gooklopes, Guclopes, Cuclopes,
Cyclopes; Panjab, Punjab, Punjaub, Panchab; Phenicia,
Phoenicia, Phoenikia, Phainikia; as identical. And so
with geographical nomenclature generally. When, how-
ever, such varieties appear in this work, they will, with
few exceptions, be found to arise from the necessity of
running parallel with the irregular meanderings of the



X PREFACE.

Hellenic or Oriental streams. A notable example of the
singular variety of these forms, will be found under the
name Budha.

It is evident that two classes of literature must
now be studied in connection with ancient Greece.
Pirst, — The Mytliologij of Greece, showing what Greeks
thought and wrote in connection with their divinities,
and the immense mass of legend in juxtaposition with them.
Secondly, — The History, which at present lies buried
beneath this mythology ; which, as forming the very
earliest records of Hellas, must be studied like any other
portion of established history.

Henceforward, let us not, succumbing to an easy indo-
lence, deny on theoretical grounds the existence of those
truths which Geography has restored to History,

E. P.

London, Dec, 1851.



CONTENTS.



♦

Page
INTRODUCTION 1

CHAP, I. — THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCES OF AN INDIAN COLONISATION 9

n. — THE SOURCES OF HELLENIC HISTORY . . . .17

ni. — ^THE EMIGRANTS 25

IV. — SOURCES OF GREEK ERROR. 33

V. — ORIENTAL RESEARCH 41

VI. — THE HELLENES 48

Vn. — ATTICA 58

VIIL — THE NORTHERN TRIBES ....... 78

IX. — THE HIMALAYANS 96

X. — THE CENTAURS 109

XI. — ^DODONA AND THE HYPERBOREANS , . . . . 122

Xn. — THE CASHMIRIAN3 130

Xm. — THE HELIAD^ffi 160

XIV. — THE bud'ha SIVAS 182

XV. — THE PROMISED LAND . . . . . . .211



xii CONTENTS.

Page
CHAP. XVI. — TIME THE BASIS 01" EREOE AND TRUTH . . . 233

xvn. — hesiod's history of Greece 253

XVIIL — ^PHffiNICIAN BUD'hISM 277

XIX.— APOLLO — the BUD'hISM OF LADAC AND THE

LADACAIMEN 289

XX. — THE attac'thans 327

XXI.— THE bud'hist missionart 350

APPENDIX 365

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF AFGHANISTAN • • ... 399

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF GREECE, WITH INTERPRETATION

ANNEXED 401

INDEX 405



INDIA IN GREECE.



mTEODFCTION.



Were an Englisliman to sit down, purposing to write
the history of his native country previous to the Norman
conquest — to sketch the outlines of the Anglo-Saxon
constitution, laws, and customs; were he to speak con-
fidently of the old Saxon kings ; their attendants, military
and civil; to unfold the origin of their people, the
structure of their language, and their primitive settle-
ments ; it would not be too much to expect that he
should have some knowledge of the Saxon tongue.

And yet, what must be said of the confidence of the
antiquarians of Greece, who, though themselves Hellenes,
have, with a profound ignorance of the early language
of Pelasgian Hellas, turned twilight into darkness, by
absurd attempts to derive the words and customs of
remote antiquity from the Greek language — a language at
that period not in existence ? But this vain-glorious con-
fidence is not the only thing for which they are answerable.
They have thereby unwittingly originated a gigantic system
of absurdities and a tissue of tales, the opprobrium of his-
tory, and the torment of the inquiring mind. We feel
that all this mass of error has a foundation in positive
fact ; we feel that agency, the most vital, the most energetic,
the most constant, is at work ; mighty actors come and go
upon the scene, and mighty changes take place. And



^ INTEODUCTIOÂ¥.

yet we are called upon by Theorisers to renounce tlie
instincts of our nature ; to class the siege of Troy, the
Argonautic expedition, the history of Heracles, the his-
tory of Theseus — nay, the whole busy, crowded scene of
early Hellas, with the product of mythopceic propensities,
and secretions from the fancy. Alas ! for this dream !
I shall prove incontrovertibly, not only that such things
were distorted facts ^ but I shall demonstrate that the
Centaurs were not mythicaP — that the Athenian claim to
the symbol of the Grasshopper was not mythical — that the
Autochthons were not mythical — that the serpent Pytho
was not mythical — that Cadmus and the dragon^s teeth
were not mythical — that Zeus was not mythical — that
Apollo was not mythical— that the Pierian Muses were not
mythical — that Cecrops was neither legendary nor mythical;
but as historical as King Harold. And this I purpose to
effect, not by any rationalising process, but by the very
unpoetical evidences of latitude and longitude, which will
certainly not be deemed of a legendary nature.

1 would here repeat a remark made on another occasion^
on the historical basis of mythology. Perhaps within the
whole compass of mythology there is no system altogether
more plausible than the Grecian. Its coherence betrays art
in arrangement, but weakness in the main incidents. A
basis, however, it undoubtedly possessed, which was neither
of an inventive nor fictitious character. What that basis
was, is certainly not to be eliminated from either poet or
logographer, or historian, independent of extraneous aids.
Such aids are presented to the inquiring mind in those two
most durable records of a nation, — its language and its
monuments. These adjuncts, though of foreign origin, are,

^ I use this term here, as synonymous with "invention, having no
historical basis."

2 See my " Greek Mythology," in vol. i. of the " History of Greece," in
the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana," 1851.



INTRODUCTIOISr. 3

fortunately, available for the elucidation of Greek mythology.
There is nothing more calculated to blunt the keenness of
investigation than any theoretic maxim which lays down
some general position to meet general difficulties. Here,
acquiescence must be the rule, and research the exception.
Nothing can be more tempting to indolence. To assume
individual or national feeling as the exponent oi fact, and
fact too possibly foreign to that individual or nation, must
be a perilous mode of rescuing from error or re-establishing
truth. The theory of " The Myth," as laid down by some
distinguished Grerman writers, and adopted by certain
authors in this country, is, at best, only capable of sound
application where a people has had no connection with
another nation, either by commerce, war, religion, or other
inter-communication, — a category, in fact, which history
scarcely supposes. There is, says this theory, a tendency
in the human mind, when excited by any particular feeling,
to body forth that feeling in some imaginary fact, scene, or
circumstance, in the contemplation of which it may find
relief. And we are gravely told that whatever thought
arose in a man^s mind, whatever sensation varied his con-
sciousness, could be expressed by him only in one way,
namely, by dragging forth the concrete images, fictions, or
inventions that he felt arise contemporaneously with it.
But this is a complete Petitio Principii. The great
mythi of antiquity are not feelings bodied forth to relieve
the mind; still less are they concrete images, fictions,
and inventions. Whenever an important mythus has
existed, an important fact has been its basis. Great prin-
ciples do not arise from idealities ; a national myth cannot
be generated without a national cause, and a national
cause implies agency, not invention; but a theory based
upon the evidences oi feeling, is as mythological as a myth
itself.

In this investigation, the corruptions of language to be



4 - INTEODUCTION.

encountered (and they must be honestly encountered and
fairly vanquished) include positively nothing less than the
whole circle of early Greek history. When I use the
term " early/' I allude to all the genealogies, local histories,
and heroic agencies of what is called ''Mythical and
Legendary Greece '' — a phraseology, however, most un-
fortunate, and totally wide of the fact ; for to him who
reads these chronicles in their plain, original sense, no
nation will appear less connected with mythology than
the Pelasgic or Hellenic.

The wrecks of noble institutions— of a mighty people,
far advanced in civihsation, highly religious, skilful in the
arts, skilful in poHtical science — everywhere strike the gaze
and excite the pity of him who truly reads the old annals
of Greece; — annals, not such, indeed, as are left us by
Homer ; for in his time the glory had well nigh passed
away, and the Avatar of a new incarnation, which was
scarcely more godlike than the last, was again about to
descend upon Hellas. History, then, the most interesting
— the most eventful — the most indubitable, is hers. But
it is not the history of the gods of Homer — the gods of
Hesiod ; nor is it history drawn from the etymologies of
Plato, the etymologies of the logographers, or the anti-
quarians of Greece -, men who knew nothing of the ancient
language of their own country. It is not such a system
that can become a correct guide to the student of history.
He will, in all cases where it is possible, go to the fountain
head ; he will throw from him the corrupt text and the
corrupt commentaries of centuries — his inheritance of
ignorance; and, calling in the testimony of a dialect
coeval with the first Pelasgian and the first Hellenic
settlements, will appeal to truth, and the decisions of
judgment unclouded by prejudice.

He who would master the Protean struggles of language,
as it roams from east to west^ assuming every variety of



INTRODUCTION-. 5

complexion and every form — though beneath that everlast-
ing change there is an everlasting stedfastness — will bring
to the effort, not only a keen vision, but will possess a power
of discerning, beneath disguises ever- varying, the strongest
likeness; beneath dissimilar nationality, a unity of
parentage. To command success, he will exercise a
jealous vigilance over his discoveries ; he will bring to the
test of experience his choicest theories ; but if he have not
this test of verification, he will still look upon them as
theories, but not facts.

I shall not here enlarge upon philology in connection
with the Pelasgian settlements, polity, and religion. He
who may desire ample evidences of the affiliation, . the
structure, and the relative rank of the great families of
language, and of the precision with which they may be
classified, will find an excellent manual in the masterly
work of Professor Bopp.

On Indo-Classical affinities, we have had many ad-
mirable works, written by men of the highest talent. Sir
W. Jones leading the way. But it is this very idea of
their being affinities, and affinities only, that has effectually
barred the path to decisive results. A vowel, a stray con-
sonant, a consonant too much, a vowel too little — the
merest non-coidentity of forms : these were once sufficient
to draw down the wrath of the philological guardians of the
treasure-house of time, with a warning to the rash scruti-
niser of its contents, that nothing is to be found within.

Yet there is much gold there.

I beg to impress upon the mind of the reader, that
I do not deal in affinities ; that I do not deal in
etymologies: with the latter, particularly, I have no
manner of concern. I am not writing a book of
antiquarian amusement. That which I am writing is
History — history, as marvellously as it is correctly
preserved. As I am now about to speak of the first

b2



6 INTEODUCTIOIT.

settlers in the land of Hellas^ it would be well for tlie
reader to discard totally, if possible — if not, as mucli as
possible — all preconceived notions of the immigrants into
this remarkable land ; and I trust I shall not incur the
charge of presumption, if I counsel him, in the usual
forensic strain, " to dismiss from his mind all previous
reports, and to be guided solely by the evidence that will
be brought before him."" And, lest I should be imagined
to be indulging in easy self-confidence, it will be proper
to remark that the evidence is already taken ; that it is in a
foreign language ; and that I merely perform the office of
an interpreter, — with what degree of fidelity it will not be
difficult for the reader to decide.

It was not enough for us to have inherited a mass of
disfigured documents, — but, alas ! our work was to be
made more difficult, by the superscription of new tales over
the old parchment ! Fortunately for us, no erasures have
been made. Our only method now is to restore the text
of the old history. But how are we to begin ? Our way
seems effectually barred by the dictum of those theorists
who virtually define ^^ ancient history'^ as '^ invention.^^
I deeply regret this spirit of theorising ; it has been gaining
ground of late years in Germany; and, but recently, its most
able exponent in this country has carried this principle
into the regions of hypercriticism.^ " The real question at
issue,^' says an able writer in the Edinburgh Eeview,
" is not so much whether there ever was a basis of his-
torical truth for the poetical legend; whether any such
events as the siege of Thebes, or the expedition against
Troy, actually occurred ; as whether we are now able to
extricate this kernel of truth from the mass of fable with
which it is overgrown, and to exhibit the naked skeleton
of historical fact, stripped of all its coverings of poetical

1 See " The History of Greece," by G. Grote, Esq., London, 1849.



INTRODUCTION. 7

embellishment/^ When we find the same nation who were
the colonists of Greece^ composing not only history but
mathematical treatises in a poetic form, this poetical form
will produce, in our minds, no solid objection against the
statements contained therein. When we discover that a
nation holds a belief in tutelary divinities, active in the
defence of their prime heroes or most pious worshippers, —
the statement of such interference, founded on such a
belief, will not in the slightest degree invalidate any matter
of fact recorded in such a document — or rather, any records
consistent with common sense. If the Centaurs, the
Muses, Poseidon, Erectheus, the Autocthons, the Tettiges
or Grasshopper symbols of the Athenians, be proved
geographically, by latitude and longitude, to repose upon
an historical basis — perfectly rational, perfectly harmo-
nious with the first colonisation of Greece — I believe it
will be readily granted, that, after this, such subjects as
the siege of Thebes and the siege of Troy will present no
difficulties.

Speaking of these primitive histories, Mr. Grote has
observed : " I describe the earlier times by themselves, as
conceived by the faith and feeling of the first Greeks, and
known only through their legends ; without presuming to
measure how much or how little of historical matter these
legends may contain. If the reader blame me for not
assisting to determine this, — if he ask me, why I do not
withdraw the curtain and disclose the picture^ I reply, in
the words of the painter Zeuxis, when the same question
was addressed to him, on exhibiting his masterpiece of
imitative art : ' The curtain is the picture.^ What we
now read as poetry, and legend, was once accredited
history, and the only genuine history which the first Greeks
could conceive or relish of their past time. The curtain
conceals nothing behind, and cannot by any ingenuity be



8 INTEODUCTIOl^.

withdrawn. I undertake to show it only as it stands ; not
to efiPace it — still less to repaint it/^ ^

To say that '^'^the curtain is the picture," is, for-
tunately for history, a mythical saying ; and to affirm
that "the curtain contains nothing behind, and cannot
by any ingenuity be withdrawn," rests on that feeling
which, thirty years since, would have classed the railway
locomotive, and its glowing eye of night, with the eye of
the Cyclops. The case may be stated as follows : — The
Picture is Indian — the Curtain is Grecian ; and that
Curtain is now withdrawn.

1 " Hist. Greece," vol. i. Pref. p. siii.



THE EVIDENCES OF IJSTDIAN COLONISATION.

" Miinera prseterea, Iliads erepta ruinis
Ferre jubet, pallam signis auroque rigentem,
Et circumtextum croceo velamen acantlio :
Oruatus argivne Helenae ; quos ilia Mycenis,
Pergama cum peteret, inconcessosque Hymenseos,
Extulerat : matris Ledse mirabile donum.
Praeterea sceptrum, Ilione quod gesserat olim
Maxima natarum Piiami, colloque monile
Baccatum, et duplicem gemmis auroque coronam.

^N. I. 651—659.

Among the strongest peculiarities of the so-called heroic
period of Greece^ appear the perfection of the Arts and the
abundance of gold ; the profusion of golden vessels ; their
varied yet elegant workmanship; the beauty of em-
broidered shawls ; the tasteful, the ample produce of the
loom ; the numerous ornaments of ivory ; the staining and
working of that material ; the gift of necklaces as a valuable
present — sometimes, too, from the Gods; the brazen
tripods and the cauldrons ; the social refinement and
comfort; the magnificent palaces of Alcinous and Menelaus ;
and, finally, in the great contest of Troy, the constant use
' of the war-chariot both by Greeks and Asiatics. " But
the most magnificent example of the art of metallurgy,^-'
observes Mr. Ottley,^ '^ was the famous shield of Achilles.
In the centre were the waves of ocean, rolling round the
extremities ; then followed, in a beautiful series, scenes of

1 " Social Condition of the Greeks/' By the Eev. J. B. Ottley, M.A., late
Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. See Hist, of Greece, p. 368. " Encyclo-
paedia Metropolitana," vol. xv., 1851.



10 THE EYIDENCES OF

pastoral life, tillage, the harvest, and the vintage ; there,
too, was the siege, the ambuscade, and the battle ; judicial
inquiry, and political deliberation ; the musical festivities
of a marriage, and the evolutions of a national dance. The
grouping of these scenes, respectively, — their number,
variety, and contrast, attest the skill of the artist, or of the
poet, or of both. How the difference of colour was pro-
duced is uncertain; it might have been by paint, since
ivory was stained to adorn the bits of horses ; or, perhaps,
by the effect of fire, for the art of fusing metals was known.
Indeed, casting, gilding, and carving, both in wood and
metal, were practised at a much earlier time by those who
are described in Exodus, as ' devising cunning works^ to
work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of
stones to set them, and in carving timber, to work in all
manner of workmanship. That temple, which the piety of
Solomon dedicated, and which his opulence enriched, owed
the beauty and the delicacy of the sculptured decorations
to the skill of a Tyrian artificer. The descriptions of it,
recorded in the national archives of Judea, may vindicate
Homer from unduly exaggerating either the abundance of
the precious metals, or the progress of the ornamental arts.
Nor was the warrior altogether unindebted to the labours
of the needle and the loom ; wild animals were embroidered
on his belt — the trophies of his dexterity in the chase, and
the decoration of his person in the fight. More ample
robes were either received as the pledge of courteous hos-
pitality, or won as the prize of valour. Such occupations