DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0048
xliv INDIAN MYTH AND LEGEND
stones at a certain phase of the moon to perform a cere-
mony so that offspring may be obtained. The Upani-
shadic doctrine of metempsychosis is less likely to have
been so much coincidental as racial when we find that it
is restricted to those areas where definite racial influences
must have been at work. The Greeks believed in trans-
migration. So did also a section of the Egyptian people
as Herodotus has stated and as is proved by references
in folk-tales, temple chants and inscriptions.1 As we show
(Chapter VI), the Irish conception closely resembled the
Indian, and it also obtained among the Gauls. There is
no trace, however, that the Teutonic peoples were ac-
quainted with the fully developed doctrine of metem-
psychosis; the souls of the dead departed immediately
to Valhal, Hela, or the loathsome Nifelhel.
The doctrine of the world's ages is common to the
Indian, Greek, and Irish mythologies, but is not found
in Teutonic mythology either.2 There are indications
that it may have at one time obtained in Egypt, for there
was an Age of Ra, then a deluge, an Age of Osiris, an
Age of Set, &c; but the doctrine, like other conceptions
in Egypt, probably suffered from the process of priestly
transformation in the interests of sectarian propaganda.
In India the ages are called the yugas, and this term
has a totally different meaning in Vedic and Upanishadic
times. Evidently the Bharata invasion and the establish-
ment of the middle country power of their allies, the
Kuru-Panchalas, was not unconnected with the intro-
duction of the doctrines of metempsychosis and the
yugas, and the prominence subsequendy given to the
worship of female deities.
1 See Egyptian Myth and Legend.
'The "Golden Age" of the gods, and the regeneration of the world TDXer Rag-
narok, do not refer to the doctrine of the world's ages as found in other mythologies.
stones at a certain phase of the moon to perform a cere-
mony so that offspring may be obtained. The Upani-
shadic doctrine of metempsychosis is less likely to have
been so much coincidental as racial when we find that it
is restricted to those areas where definite racial influences
must have been at work. The Greeks believed in trans-
migration. So did also a section of the Egyptian people
as Herodotus has stated and as is proved by references
in folk-tales, temple chants and inscriptions.1 As we show
(Chapter VI), the Irish conception closely resembled the
Indian, and it also obtained among the Gauls. There is
no trace, however, that the Teutonic peoples were ac-
quainted with the fully developed doctrine of metem-
psychosis; the souls of the dead departed immediately
to Valhal, Hela, or the loathsome Nifelhel.
The doctrine of the world's ages is common to the
Indian, Greek, and Irish mythologies, but is not found
in Teutonic mythology either.2 There are indications
that it may have at one time obtained in Egypt, for there
was an Age of Ra, then a deluge, an Age of Osiris, an
Age of Set, &c; but the doctrine, like other conceptions
in Egypt, probably suffered from the process of priestly
transformation in the interests of sectarian propaganda.
In India the ages are called the yugas, and this term
has a totally different meaning in Vedic and Upanishadic
times. Evidently the Bharata invasion and the establish-
ment of the middle country power of their allies, the
Kuru-Panchalas, was not unconnected with the intro-
duction of the doctrines of metempsychosis and the
yugas, and the prominence subsequendy given to the
worship of female deities.
1 See Egyptian Myth and Legend.
'The "Golden Age" of the gods, and the regeneration of the world TDXer Rag-
narok, do not refer to the doctrine of the world's ages as found in other mythologies.