very seldom No doubt there are essential words which one nation adopts from another, such as pronouns, numerals, prepositions and conjunctions. But these again are generally short words, and very liable to corruption. Now, the chances of accidental coincidences, particularly with short words, are much greater than commonly supposed, and it will be useful to bear this in mind where we have to deal with scanty lists. The rainbow, in Georgian, is Iris. This may or may not have been taken from Greek. But the fingers, in Georgian, are called thithi, in Lapponian tiute, in Syrianian tyute, in Italian diti (i. e. digiti). Here we have a coincidence, the result of mere chance. Compare, besides, Georgian, qirili, clamour, and Latin, querela. suli, soul, and German, seele. wizi, to know, and German, wissen. It would be difficult to say, unless we regarded the Georgian as a member of the Arian family, which of these words are taken from Persian, Russian or Greek, and which are the result of accidental coincidence. But let us take languages between which no intercourse can be imagined, such as Mandshu and the classical languages, and the following list will give an idea how far phonetic coincidences may be produced by chance*:— Here we have confined ourselves to a collation of the classical languages; but if we allowed our eyes to wander over the whole surface of spoken languages, if we looked into American, African, Malay, Indo-Chinese and Siberian dictionaries, I believe that there is hardly a word in any language, to which, making the usual allowance for change of form and meaning, some other word might not be found almost identical. I take some instances from Klaproth's Asia Polyglotta: It is true that coincidences of this kind are not likely to deceive us long, because they could never run through tolerably full lists of words taken from languages distant in place and relationship. But where we have to unravel a cluster of languages, confusedly mixed, as, for instance, the Albanian, Wallachian and Bulgarian, on the confines of the Greek, Latin and Slavonic areas; or the Asamese, Chepang and Ragmahal on the confines of Sanskrit, Tibetan and Tamulian, it will be necessary to disregard at first all coincidences of words, and look entirely to their grammar. In India, after the light that has been thrown on its ethnology by the combined labours of men such as Hodgson, N. Brown, Bronson, Robinson, Stevenson, Elliot, and others, we can clearly distinguish now between at least two classes of Nishâdas, the one receding before the stream of Arian civilization across the Vindhya into the Dekhan, the other pouring, at a time not easily determined, through the valleys of the Himâlaya into the north-eastern countries of India. The former class may be called Tamulic, in the narrower sense of the word; the latter Bhotiya, or Sub-Himalayan. FOURTH SECTION. The Bhotiya Class. To begin with the latter, which was recognised by Mr. Hodgson as a distinct class of dialects as early as 1828, there can be no doubt now that it is closely connected with the language of Tibet. Numerals, pronouns, and the terminations, or rather postpositions, which occur in these languages, are frequently identically the same as in Tibetan. As far as the evidence of language goes, no doubt can remain on this point. Nor is it difficult to account for it, whether ethnologically, historically, or geographically. 1. Ethnological Evidence. Ethnologically, the Tibetan character is to be read on the face of all these tribes. "Their physiognomy exhibits generally and normally the Scythic or Mongolian type (Blumenbach) of human kind; but the type is much softened and modified, and even frequently passes into a near approach to the full Caucasian dignity and beauty of head and face; though among the Cis or TransHimalayans there is never seen any greater advance toward the Teutonic blond complexion than such as consists in occasional ruddy moustaches and grey eyes among the men, and a good deal of occasional bloom upon the checks of the children and women. A pure white skin is unknown, and the tint is not much less decided than in the high caste Hindus; but all are of this pale brown or Isabelline blue in Tibet and the Sub-Himalayas, whilst the many in the plains of India are much darker." (Dec. 1847. ) 2. Historical Evidence. Historically we can never expect much documentary evidence on the past history of nations who had no literature, no alphabet, no monuBut an inference may be drawn, as Mr. Hodgson believes, that these Sub-Himalayan tribes were separated from their Tibetan brethren at least before the introduction of Buddhism from India into Tibet. Indian letters, Indian literature, customs and ideas were carried into Tibet by Buddhist missionaries in the seventh century, and no traces of it are visible in the texture of the Sub-Himalayan dialects. Their own traditions, as Mr. Hodgson affirms, indicate a transit of the Himalaya from thirty-five to forty generations back (1000 to 1300 years); but their original separation may have taken place long before. Some of these tribes have preserved the same names which they have in the Mahâbhârata. The position there assigned to the Kirâtas and Kîkakas is the same which the Kirantis and Kîkakas now hold, and they are no doubt the same people with whom the heroes of the Mahabharata, Arguna and Bhîma, are represented as fighting. This point has been admirably treated by Professor Lassen in his ethnological articles in the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, and again in his Indian Antiquities. It has been proved that the name Kirâta was known to the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean, and to Ptolemy; and, what is important, this name was known to them cast of the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. The Sabaræ of Ptolemy also are as far east as the Ganges, and they have been identified by Lassen with the modern Saur, the ancient Savaras, i. e. Mlekhas, names expressive of a pale rather than black colour. The physical description of these tribes, as given by the Greeks, agrees with the low Tibetan type, particularly if the Skiratæ of Megasthenes might be identified with the Kiratæ. They had flat noses, or, as Megasthenes likes to say, no noses at all. Certain it is that these low Turanian nomad races are mentioned on the frontiers of India so soon as any of the Arian nations come within historical sight. In some cases, however, these Sub-Himalayan tribes have preserved a recollection of their former Trans-Himalayan homes a fact which would seem to point to later immigrations than those which opened the first channel to the Trans-Himalayan population of Northern India. The Limbus for instance, are called Chong by the Lepchas, and the province of Chung in Tibet, south of Lhassa, is said by the Limbus to have been their original country. The Murmis speak of themselves as having at some remote period crossed the Snows, and they maintain that they preserved their language and religion (?) unchanged since their arrival. A Dewan of the Sikkim Raja, who conversed with Mr. A. Campbell, told him that he crossed the original country of the Murmis on his way from Sikkim to Lhassa. (L. A. S. B. 1842, p. 4.) 3. Geographical Evidence. Geographically we must look upon the Himalaya not as an unbroken chain or unsurmountable barrier to separate the high plains of Asia from the basins of the Indus and Ganges, but rather as mountain gates, opening to the bold adventurer a hundred different passes into the gardens of India. Here also we owe much to Hodg son's genius. His map of the natural divisions of the Himalaya is in truth a grammaire raisonnée of this irregular mountain-utterance. In order to give an idea of its organism in as short a space as possible, we might venture to compare the large mass of mountains between India and Tibet, in the North-East, to a hand with its five fingers expanded towards India. Every interval between two of these fingers marks the basin of one of the four of the principal rivers of Northern India, and each river draws its feeders east and west from the two ridges by which it is included. The four knuckles would represent the five highest peaks, which are the articulations of five mountain ridges projecting to the plains of India. If we look upon these ridges as the five fingers of a left hand, the knuckles, beginning with that of the little finger, would correspond to the following peaks: 1. Chumalari 23929, 27° 52′, 89° 18′ (Kimalhari). Between these five peaks, and included by their rib-like continuations, we obtain the following four river-basins:— Between 5 and 4, the basin of the Sarayû (Karnali). Between 4 and 3, the basin of the Gandakî. Between 3 and 2, the basin of the Kausikî. Between 2 and 1, the basin of the Tistâ. |