Part 134 (2/2)

It is brilliant (Surya), the friend (Mitra), generous (Aryaman), beneficent (Bhaga), that which nourishes (Pushna), the Creator (Tvashtar), the master of the sky (Divaspati), and so on.” (Rev. S.

Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 150.)

[467:2] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 267.

[468:1] Preface to ”Tales of Anct. Greece.”

[468:2] See Appendix B.

[469:1] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. pp. 51-53.

[473:1] Muller: Origin of Religions, pp. 264-268.

[473:2] John, i. 9.

[473:3] The Christian ceremonies of the Nativity are celebrated in Bethlehem and Rome, even at the present time, _very early in the morning_.

[474:1] Quoted by Volney, Ruins, p. 166, and _note_.

[474:2] See Ibid. and Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 236.

[474:3] See Chap. x.x.xIV.

[474:4] The _Dawn_ was _personified_ by the ancients--a _virgin mother_, who bore the _Sun_. (See Max Muller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 137. Fiske's Myths and Mythmakers, p. 156, and c.o.x: Tales of Ancient Greece, and Aryan Mytho.)

[474:5] In Sanscrit ”Ida” is the _Earth_, the wife of Dyaus (the Sky), and so we have before us the mythical phrase, ”the _Sun_ at its birth rests on the earth.” In other words, ”the Sun at birth is nursed in the lap of its mother.”

[474:6] ”The moment we understand the _nature_ of a myth, all impossibilities, contradictions and immoralities disappear. If a mythical personage be nothing more than a name of the _Sun_, his birth may be derived from ever so many different mothers. He may be the son of the _Sky_ or of the _Dawn_ or of the _Sea_ or of the _Night_.” (Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 108.)

[474:7] ”The sign of the _Celestial Virgin_ rises above the horizon at the moment in which we fix the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

(Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 314, and Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p.

147.)

”We have in the first decade the _Sign of the Virgin_, following the most ancient tradition of the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, Hermes and aesculapius, a young woman called in the Persian language, _Seclinidos de Darzama_; in the Arabic, _Aderenedesa_--that is to say, a chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, suckling an infant, which some nations call _Jesus_ (_i. e._, Saviour), but which we in Greek call _Christ_.”

(Abulmazer.)

”In the first decade of the Virgin, rises a maid, called in Arabic, 'Aderenedesa,' that is: 'pure immaculate virgin,' graceful in person, charming in countenance, modest in habit, with loosened hair, holding in her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon an embroidered throne, nursing a BOY, and rightly feeding him in the place called _Hebraea_. A boy, I say, names IESSUS by certain nations, which signifies Issa, whom they also call _Christ_ in Greek.” (Kircher, dipus aegypticus.)

[475:1] Max Muller: Origin of Religions, p. 261.

[475:2] Ibid. p. 230.

[475:3] ”With scarcely an exception, all the names by which the _Virgin G.o.ddess_ of the Akropolis was known point to this mythology of the _Dawn_.” (c.o.x: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 228.)

[475:4] We also read in the Vishnu Purana that: ”The Sun of Achyuta (G.o.d, the Imperishable) _rose in the dawn of Devaki_, to cause the lotus petal of the universe (_Crishna_) to expand. On the day of his birth the quarters of the horizon were irradiate with joy,” &c.

[475:5] c.o.x: Aryan Myths, vol. iii. pp. 105, and 130, vol. ii.

[475:6] Ibid. p. 133. See Legends in Chap. XVI.

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