1851.

Dyaus. Zeus. Jupiter. Zio.

41

admit of two such consonants as dy at the beginning of a word. It has sometimes dropped the first, sometimes the second letter. Dropping the y, we get the Greek form Aɛús, which, according to ancient authorities, was used instead of Zɛús. The initial d is likewise preserved in the accusative Aía. Dropping the first letter, the Sanskrit y is regularly changed into the Greek (like Sansk. yuj=Cevyvvui, Sansk. yava Céa)-so that Zeus may, indeed, be considered as the Greek pronunciation of the Sanskrit yaus. In Latin there is no nominative, like Jos, which would be the Latin form, corresponding to Sanskrit Dyaus, but the old word reappears in the oblique cases, where we have Jovem, &c. Other words, like Dispater and Diespiter, show that, like the Greek and Sanskrit, the Latin also knew both forms of the ancient root. The corresponding words in Old German are Zio and Tius, one of our old heathen gods, now long forgotten, but whose name still lives in the name of Tuesday.

It has generally been supposed, that the Sanskrit language and religion did not know Dyaus as a god, but that dyaus in Sanskrit, as a feminine, was used only for heaven and sky. Yet, if we examine the Sanskrit in its oldest form, as we find it in the Veda, traces can still be discerned, proving the former existence of a god Dyaus. It is true, that in the Commentaries, dyaus is always explained by the resplendent sky. But it may be observed in the hymns of the Veda, that the word dyaus, which is a feminine, is sometimes used as a masculine, and in these cases it always means the god Dyaus. Thus we read in the Rig-Veda:

When the pious man offers his morning libation to the great 'Father Dyaus, he trembles all over, as he becomes aware that ⚫ the archer sent forth from his mighty bow the bright dart that 'reaches him, and, brilliant himself, gave his own splendour ' unto his daughter, the Dawn.' Moreover, Aurora is frequently called duhitâ Divah, which is usually translated by the 'daughter of the sky.' But, according to the principles of mythology, she cannot be the daughter of the sky. She is produced by the Sun from Night, and, therefore, she is the daughter of Night. and of the Sun, that is to say, of the god Dyaus.

Although, then, to the Indian mind, the name of the god Dyaus was lost already at an early period, because his name had become the usual word for sky, as in Latin 'sub dio,' and because poets and priests soon introduced other names for this deity, as Agni, Indra, Mitra, and the like, yet we see, that he was once known under his old Arian name in India, and we thus arrive at a result which flashes, like a sudden ray of light, through the dark world of the first mythological ideas among the Arian nations. We see that, before their separation took

place, they had a name for a god, expressive of the brilliancy of the sun, the sky and daylight, that they called him 'Dyaus,' and the Great Father.' We see that Zeus was not an invention of Homer, that Jupiter was not borrowed from Greece but that long before the Arians immigrated into Greece and Italy, they had worshipped the same god under the same name -that the Brahmans who migrated towards the South invoked him along the rivers of the Penjáb, and that the Teutonic nations proceeding towards the North, celebrated the same god on the mountains of Scandinavia.

Dyaus, as the name of this old Arian god, means light, but not light, in its abstract sense, not as a feminine or a neuter, but as a masculine, as the shining sun, the bringer of light and life. It was a happy thought of the sons of nature, who first raised their eyes up to heaven, to perceive there, high above them, the brilliant manifestation of a divine power: and it was a happy grasp of language, to express the awful feeling of the existence of a divine power by a word which meant light. It was the light of the sun, by which men were awakened every morning from the sleep of night, and with the setting of the sun, their own life faded away into an unconscious slumber. That brilliant globe, whence they received light and warmth, the silent majesty of whose daily course the clear atmosphere of the Himalayan regions permitted them to witness, must have excited the feeling of devotion in every human heart; and, although the poetical genius of men may have perceived afterwards the active presence of a divine power, in other forms of nature, from no other source could it have beamed with greater splendour. If then, as we cannot doubt, the consciousness of God was latent in the hearts of all men, like a veiled remembrance of a former world, it was the power of the Sun that pierced and lifted the veil, and thus brought the idea of God in its brightness before the eyes of the heathens. How natural, that the name of the Revealer should have been given to that which he revealed, and that the sun, by which the glory of God became first manifest in this world to the senses of men, should have been taken as a manifestation of God himself! Nothing in this world could have been nearer, no image worthier to represent and express God, than the sun; and it shows the existence of a transcendental power in the mind of those early worshippers, that they looked for their God, not in the world around them, which they could touch and grasp, (fetichism,) but up to that world, which one sense only, and that the highest, presented to the mind's eye.

What we have here said, however, would only prove that, the Arian nations possessed some of their mythological gods in

1851.

Deva. Oɛós. Deus.

43

common, but it would not enable us to affirm that they had also felt the want of an expression for the simpler and purer idea of God in those early times when they were still connected by the bonds of a common language, and of a common faith. In order to prove this, we must take into account another class of common Arian words, formed from the same root div, by means of a derivative, which gives to these words a more general and abstract meaning. These words are deva in Sanskrit, Jeós in Greek, deus in Latin, diewas in Lithuanian. Deva, which means originally bright, brilliant, divine, expresses a quality equally ascribable to all the different forms and names of God that had arisen out of the individualising spirit of language; and it adapted itself, therefore, most easily and naturally to express the general and essential idea of God, godly, divine. This is already the case in the Veda, although the transparency of the vedic language permits, in most cases, the original meaning of the word deva that of brilliancy to shine through. Whether, for instance, the old poets meant to say the divine Aurora,' or the 'brilliant dawn,' by calling Ushas (aurora) as well as her rays, devi, must remain doubtful in many passages. In Greek and Latin, however, Jeós and deus, are neither attribute nor name of God, but they have really become the word for God, expressing at once the abstract idea of the philosopher, the poetical image of the old bards, and the breathing creation of the sculptor.

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* These pages were all but struck off before we had seen a most interesting pamphlet by Sir George Staunton : An Inquiry into the 'proper mode of rendering the word "God," in translating the 'Sacred Scriptures into the Chinese language.' Although it refers to a country with which, as far as we know, the Arian tribes have had no connexion in language or history, it offers the most striking parallel with regard to the progress of language, and its influence on the human mind among the Chinese and the Indo-European nations. There has been a long controversy between the different sects of Christian Missionaries as to the best way of rendering the word 'God' into Chinese. The first preachers of the Gospel who visited China accepted without scruple the Chinese words Tien and Shangtee, which they found already in popular use. The word Tien, however, though, according to the imperial dictionary of Kanghee, it means the Great One, He that dwells on high and regulates all 'below,' is also used in a physical and material sense, as heaven, and in that sense it constantly occurs in the most familiar language. It is even used in the sense of day.' Kin tien, literally 'new heaven,' means only 'to-day,' and ming tien, literally bright heaven,' means " to-morrow." We must here add, that exactly the same takes place in Sanskrit. From the same root Div, from which, as we have seen, Zeus, Dispater, and Deus were derived, we also have dies, in

6

We see, thus, that the word deva, by which, in the course of time, language seems to have recovered the idea of God, was derived from the same root div, from which those other words had arisen, by which language had failed at first to express the same idea (Dyaus, Zɛús, &c.). We see, also, that this second step must have been made before the Indo-European separation. Sanskrit, diva, 'day;' we have in Sanskrit dyaus, and in Latin sub dio, in the sense of heaven.' Nay, in the same way as the Chinese says Kin tien, 'to-day,' the Hindu uses a-dya, literally, 'this heaven or this day,' in the sense of to-day,' hodie. Now, on the strength of this supposed equivocal meaning of the word Tien, the Pope, in 1715, issued an Apostolic precept, by which the Missionaries were prohibited from using the word Tien in the sense of God, though they were allowed to use it for 'heaven.' The decision of the Pope was, of course, final, and it was implicitly obeyed by the Roman Catholic missionaries of every order. The phrase Tien-chu, or Lord of Heaven, has accordingly been universally and invariably adopted by all Chinese Roman Catholic Christians from that time to this day. Whether in passages like that in the parable of the Prodigal Son, ‘I ' have sinned against Heaven,' the Pope would have allowed the use of Tien does not appear. But he has equally excommunicated the other Chinese word for God, Shang-tee, which is the same as Tien -heaven, that is, the God of Heaven. The Abbé Grosier, in his History of China,' gives a striking account of the character and attributes of Shang-tee, the Divinity or Supreme Being from the King, or canonical books of the Chinese.

In spite of this, Tien and Shang-tee were stigmatised by the Roman Catholics as heathen idols, not better than the Zeus, or Jupiter, of the Greeks and Latins. As a natural consequence, the Christians are popularly considered by the Chinese as the introducers of a new and strange God, a sort of idol of their own, which they call Tien-Chu; and this notion has been sedulously inculcated, until very lately, in successive edicts by the Government. We hope that the views so admirably advocated by Sir G. Staunton may prevail with the Missionary Societies in Europe and America, and that the old word Shang-tee may be re-adopted by Christians of whatever denomination in China. Upon a deliberate consideration of all the bearings of the questions, Sir George observes, 'It still may be right to reject the term Tien-Chu, but I cannot agree with those who 'think that this should be done upon the specific ground of it being advantageous or desirable that Protestant and Roman Catholic 'Christians in China should be distinguished from each other by 'their employment of different words for the Deity. This distinction may be unavoidable, but it must always be a matter of regret, from ' its tendency to suggest to the Chinese that Protestants and Roman 'Catholics do not worship the same God, which is not only untrue in itself, but is a mischievous exaggeration of the difference between 'the two forms of faith, which can have no other effect in China but ' that of discrediting our common Christianity.'

1851.

Comparative Philology.

45

And now, that generations after generations have passed away, with their languages, adoring and worshipping the name of God, preaching and dying in the name of God, thinking — and meditating over the name of God, - there the old word stands still, as the most ancient monument of the human raceære perennius-breathing to us the pure air of the dawn of humanity, carrying with it all the thoughts and sighs, the doubts and tears of our by-gone brethren, and still rising up to heaven with the same sound from the basilicas of Rome and the temples of Benares, as if embracing by its simple spell millions and millions of hearts, in their longing desire to give utterance to the unutterable, to express the inexpressible.

It may be seen from this single instance that Comparative Grammar addresses itself not only to the Grammarian, but to the Philosopher and the Historian also. It has opened a new and a safe path through a forest hitherto impervious, and it is now for other sciences to follow, and to gather with a careful hand the fruits which are brought within their reach.