Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 143

PROMETHEUS AND BRAHMA
Why
should not
103
Brahma and Prometheus
be one and
The Hindu divinity is known also
of Brema and Prume in some of their
tongues.
All these names bear resemblance to Prome-
theos, or the god Prome of the Greeks.
Brahma, like
Prometheus, is looked upon as the creator of man, who is
supposed to have issued from the various parts of Brahma's
body. Brahma was also their great lawgiver, being the
same person
under the names
the
?
author of the Vedas, which he wrote with his own hand.
He had more than once to appeal to Vishnu for help, just
as Prometheus relied on Hercules to deliver him from his
enemies.
This pretension on the part of the Hindu Prometheus
to be regarded as the maker of man, and therefore a god,
has been handed down in some part to his eldest sons,
the Brahmins, who humbly call themselves the Gods
Brahma, or the Gods of the Earth. At certain times the
people prostrate themselves before them in adoration, and
offer
up
sacrifices to
them.
Again, several authors, both sacred and profane, have
tried to prove that the Prometheus who wished to pass as
the creator of man was no other than Magog himself.
It
is hardly likely that so near the time of the Deluge the real
Creator should have been so completely forgotten that
a son of Noah was able to pass himself off as a god
but
it is quite possible that his descendants deified him, when
the spirit of idolatry began to reign on earth. It was
Magog who settled in Tartary with all those who elected
to follow him, having decided to separate from Japheth's
other children. From thence he or his descendants spread
over India and other countries, which had rightly fallen
to Shem's lot. This verified Noah's prophecy that Japheth's
dominion would be far-reaching, and that his posterity
would dwell in the tents of Shem (Gen. ix. 27). But admit-
ting that Tartary or the neighbourhood of the Caucasus
was the birthplace of the Brahmins, it is not easy to decide
the precise date of their arrival in India. It appears
certain, however, that they were already established there
in a flourishing condition more than nine centuries before
the Christian era, as that was about the time of Lycurgus's
visit to them
and it is not likely that one of the wisest
;
;