University of California Southern Regional Library Facility A DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES LITERATURE, BY CHARLES M'DOUALL. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND co.; SIMPK.IN, MARSHALL, AND co.; SEELEY AND CO.j WARD AND CO.; JACKSON AND WALFORD, ETC. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON. MDCCCXLIX. EDINBURGH : ANDREW JACK, PRINTER, NIDDRT STREET. Stadk Anti PJ IN explanation of the form of the following Discourse, it is requisite to state, that it was designed, in substance at least, to be read in the University of Edinburgh, at the opening of the session 1847-8, as introductory to a course of study in " Hebrew and other Oriental Lan- guages," of which the Author had been appointed Pro- fessor. He was precluded, however, from performing this or any other official function by an enforcement of the University Tests; which have been in abeyance here, for nearly a century, though now and then voluntarily complied with; but which were revived in this case, as they were on a well-known occasion in 1804, and as they may be at intervals hereafter. As it was gen- erally expected that they would soon be brought under the notice of the Legislature, he retained his commis- sion, with the concurrence of the Patrons, till the ap- proach of the present session of College. He then sent in his resignation; and, of course, the introductory Lecture now published was never delivered in the place for which it was intended. 1993265 DISCOURSE. GENTLEMEN, THE designation of the Class which we have met this day to open is one, which does not merely indicate what is understood to be its primary object, but, while suggesting the existence, in the minds of the parties responsible for that designation, of a sense of certain deficiencies in the apparatus of our Scottish seats of learning, presents likewise some ground for the expectation that, gradually and ere long, those de- ficiencies will be supplied. We are reminded that, during the two centuries which have elapsed since Julius Conrad Otto began to teach the language of his fathers within the College of King James, " Hebrew" with its cognate dialects have been looked upon as en- titled to paramount regard in the prelections here de- livered. But we are reminded also, that the progres- sive enlargement of knowlege, and the parallel expan- sion of sympathy with our fellow-men of every hue, lineage, and creed, has necessarily though slowly dif- fused a conviction, that some acquaintance with " other Oriental languages" ought to be equally accessible in an institution where youth are trained not exclusively G for the liberal professions at home, but likewise for the diversified paths that are open in the East to enterprise missionary, philanthropic, scientific, diplomatic, and commercial. In particular, the languages of Persia and India have been pressed upon public consideration, from a regard for the vast and ever-widening interests of our Indian empire : it is to these indeed, along with the members of the Syro-Arabic class, that the ordi- nary phraseology of our own country practically appro- priates the term " Oriental ;" which, however, being a purely relative and therefore an ambiguous one, has been of late restricted, by the leading philological writers on the Continent, to the tongues vernacular in remoter Asia, as, for instance, those of China and Japan. Now, it is quite true, that, through this very exten- sion of our aims, we have incurred some obloquy ; as if either too blind to discern, or too presumptuous to acknowlege, the inadequacy of our machinery as if either insensible of our responsibility for making good one sufficiently difficult achievement, or willing, by the multiplicity of our professed efforts, to disguise our consciousness of imperfection. In reply, it may be observed, that the numerous endowments allocated to Oriental learning in the French and German capitals are, in most cases, of recent origin, and that those in the English universities are both fewer in number and of still more modern date. But, what is more to the point, our short-comings are confessed with due frank- ness and humility, and a remedy for them is earnestly invoked. Meanwhile, such a concession involves no compromise of the opinion, that the study of the Syro- Arabian tongues aids, and is aided by, researches within the Indo-European domain. That opinion does not wholly rest upon the fact, that the peculiarities of any one language, like the characteristic features of any one country, are best illustrated by collation with others ; but it is deduced from analogies between the two families in question not to speak of those, ex- tending towards both, which the Old Egyptian, con- terminous to the Semitic stock on the one side, as was the Iranian on the other, may be fairly said to possess ; these analogies being confessedly remote, but still delicate and beautiful, and such as, if investigated with skill and circumspection, cannot ultimately fail to aid in harmonising the entire structure of linguistic science. While, at the present day, the utility of studying foreign languages generally, and the living languages of the East in particular, is fully acknowleged by all who advert to the cosmopolitan relations and the grave responsibilities of British subjects, as well as by those who can appretiate the rich magazines of noble literature to which these languages afford access, it seems to be expedient, if we propose to base our future re- searches, as has been the practice in this place hitherto, upon ancient tongues, say, those of Palestine and India, not to rest satisfied with a vague reference to the authority of our forefathers, but to suggest, with due brevity, such reasons as may justify and recommend our choice. 8 I. In the first place, then, even if the importance of modern speech and modern literature were, for a moment, to be recognized as preeminent, still it is as true in the Asiatic as in the European field, that the acquisition of the one and the appretiation of the other are most materially facilitated by a previous study of the elementary conditions from which both have been evolved. As the mastery of the Neo-Latin or Romance tongues is an arduous task to one who has not studied the language of the West-Roman Empire during its decline and fall, and the exhibition of their etymology and grammar fixed a slur upon the Academies of Florence, Paris, and Madrid, which adhered until Ray- nouard, Dietz, Ampere, and others, came to explore the fundamental laws of their formation ; as, again, our own Hand-tongue, with the Teutonic and the Scandi- navian, have only of late recognised each other's dis- torted features, and osculated in kindly sisterhood, since the convergency of their pedigrees has been traced by Ihre, Jamieson, Grimm, and their fellow- labourers ; so, in order to obtain a satisfactory con- ception of the modern Oriental dialects, one should be able to ascend to their primeval sources, and to accompany them downwards in their mazy windings. Then, just as many of the sublimest and most graceful creations of modern European literature are, to readers unfurnished with Classical associations, if not unintelli- gible, at all events devoid of the charms which induce the scholar to hang over them in tranced delight ; in like manner, the most valued Asiatic books of recent date may be looked upon as sealed, their spirit is a mystery, their form an enigma, their contents tantaliz- ing, unless those ancient muniments have been con- sulted which enshrine the religion, the poetry, the his- tory, and the usages of days gone by. Further, even writings of comparative antiquity are found to be, in substance, shape, and phraseology, modelled after and consequently to depend for elucidation upon the re- cords to which each people looks back as its earliest productions, especially when they possess a lasting au- thority as sources of civil or of sacred law. The Qordn, issued by " the Illiterate Prophet" in the seventh century of our era, and then hailed by not the Qoraish- ites only, but the 'Arabs generally, as a boon from heaven, has continued ever since the exemplar, in respect of style as well as of doctrine, for all didactic works, among the Muslimun ; who chaunt in the masjid its obsolete original as preferable to any trans- lation ; and who, in representing it as a literary para- gon an enduring miracle, while they leave out of view the rich vocabulary, the full and regular sys- tem of inflexion, and the thoroughly harmonious structure, of the anterior poems which still survive, are doubtless quite conscientious, though they can- not appear to exercise an enlightened criticism. The Vedas, compiled, probably, fourteen centuries before our era from hymns previously existing, although their language has been long antiquated and their theology entirely set aside, yet imparted a decided and unmistakeable tone to early Sanskrit works, in which they are perpetually cited or referred to. The Penta- teuch, composed about 1500 years before Christ, alike 10 in its narrative and preceptive portions, and in the poetic effusions which it embodies, exerted an all-per- vading influence in moulding the subsequent literature of the Hebrews, and is everywhere therein presup- posed, in direct quotations, in allusions, whether tacit or formal, and in spontaneous reminiscences. With these phenomena might be compared, if further illustration were expedient, the effects which mere ver- sions of our own sacred books have produced, in fixing the character of numerous languages, and in tincturing their devotional and serious literature : witness those attributable to the " Peshito" among the Syrians, the German of Luther, and the English of King James. II. In the next place, if the study of languages is to be a mental discipline, so conducted that etymology may regulate the choice of words, or at least correct the usage insensibly acquired from the instructors and associates of youth, while syntax may represent the lo- gical sequence of thought, if the irresistible impulse of our nature, to deduce causes from every series of phenomena, from every assortment of facts to build up a theory, is to eventuate in a philology of stable fabric, not in such a flimsy tissue as has frequently deluded the most zealous inquirers; then, undoubtedly, the subject of experiment ought to be the massive and well-preserved remains of primeval speech, whose com- plex structure is the efflux and exponent of that ear- nest intellectual process which perfected the varied forms of primeval civilization. Spoken words are truly winged and evade scientific pursuit: fluctuating in hue, capricious in form, they refuse to afford a basis for universal analogy. And, indeed, of living forms of speech in general it may be predicated, that they, in some cases, have resulted from conquest and convul- sion which amalgamate the most incongruous elements, or that, as in other instances, they exhibit the symp- toms of internal decay, or finally, that, dropping one cumbrous trammel after another, and employing but a few simple implements from which they exact a versa- tile agency, they betoken the same spirit that has sup- erseded the manifold toil of former ages by means of that fierce power which pervades our factories, steam- ships, and rail-roads. On the contrary, the dead lan- guages, and such among those yet spoken as have best retained their integrity, rich in the symbolry of con- densed thought, musical in intonation, and majestically calm in march, provided, of course, with all the par- ticles and pronouns which are now supposed to denote with sufficient perspicuity the relations of space and time, but gorgeously arrayed also with prefixes and affixes, initial and final increments, by which case, gen- der, person, state, time, and mode are clearly signified, constrain us to look back reverentially to those days when "there were giants upon the earth" when high aspirations nerved the stalwarth arms, that, with the aid of unrecorded mechanism, created the marvels of Nineveh, Babylon, and Thebes excavated Karli and Ellora, arched the Etruscan cloacce, and upreared the Memphian pyramids. Now, it is a one-eyed policy, in scanning the history of human speech, to look at either its ancient or its modern phasis exclusively still more 12 fatal errors, indeed, have been admitted by those who follow it than are attributable to such as shut them- selves up within any one local sphere : but, if an alter- native must be selected, it were safer to fail in the ex- tent than in the depth of our investigations, more sat- isfactory to lean on the gnarled trunk than to oscillate on the topmost branches, more gratifying to decipher the hieroglyphs of the plinth than to surmount the clustering capital. The preceding observations will command general as- sent, at least in so far as they refer to the past and the present languages of the Western world. No one, who is a proficient in Greek and German, or in Latin and French, will readily consent, however highly he may value the living tongue for both its own capabilities and the literature which it boasts, to set it over against the dead one. Now, we need not seek very curiously among the Oriental languages, for parallels to the Latin and the French; since it is quite unnecessary to strain any point for the purpose of making a mere illustration appear to be apposite in every particular. But the fact, that a relation, closely analogous to that in which Greek stands towards German, subsists be- tween Sanskrit and Persian, lies close at hand, and may be here adduced with obvious propriety. For, not only are all the four cognate dialects of the Indo-European family; but, on the one hand, Sanskrit is known to be literally the Greek of the Orient, having obeyed the same laws in its development, and being preserved in monu- ments wonderfully similar to the Orphic, Homeric, and Hesiodic remains; while, on the other hand, Persic, 13 even more completely than German, and quite as much as modern English, has had its verbs and nouns denud- ed of the pronominal endings which, in their common original, expressed diversified relations. Accordingly, the same comparative estimate of the two Eastern lan- guages is formed by all competent judges, as of their European counterparts. " The speech of the Gods" is compared, by the Hindus themselves, to " a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, watered by perennial springs." Its antiquity is venerable, however its history may be yet inter- preted, and however the rival claims of the Pali and the Prakrit may wait to be adjusted: its copiousness and refinement, its psychological depth of signification, the elaborate euphony of its many-linked compounds, the regularity of its structure conspicuous amid limit- less complexity, the qualities that enable it, as has been said of its Western rival, to " give a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," have elicited from the greatest scholars and thinkers of the present age such plaudits as might, to a novice, ap- pear hyperbolical. The modern language of Iran, again, as employed by Firdausi, and even the later poet Khaqani, is characterised by a chaste simplicity: its gracefulness and harmony are quite proverbial, and have been even unduly eulogised by some enthusiastic students. Soon, however, after that country yielded to the creed and the sword of 'Omar, its vocabulary was inundated with Arabic words and idioms, which, con- sequently, abound in the polished classical writings of the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries, just as upon the 14 Anglo-Saxon stock, ever since the Norman conquest, those grafts of direct or remote Latin origin have been incessantly on the increase, which now form a moiety of our own language. It must be added, that a great proportion of genuine Farsi words are not readily traceable to Indo-European roots a difficulty that will be cleared up, only when the relations between this dialect, the Dari, the Pahlavi, the Achaemeni- dan, the Old Median, the Bactrian or Zand with the Pazand, and those of Turan and Hindustan shall have been investigated more thoroughly than has been hitherto the case. Passing now to the consideration of the languages termed " Syro- Arabian" or " Semitic," most of the words in which are, even at a cursory glance, perceived to be of a length intermediate between the curt primi- tives and the protracted derivatives of most Indo-Euro- pean tongues, we discover, that they are enstamped with novel and peculiar principles, both in the struc- ture of their roots and in their subsequent career. The members of the Indo-European family start from mo- nosyllabic elements, in so far coinciding with the wide- spreading class of which Chinese is a prominent type. In the latter, however, the roots continue naked and inflexible, accessory ideas are expressed by distinct vocables, relations are determined by arrangement alone, and compounds, if (with Abel-Remusat) we are to recognise any, are formed not by agglutination, but simply by juxtaposition. But, in the former, both the organization and the syntax depend mainly upon, first, the universal accretion of consignificant endings ; 15 and, secondly, that capability of welding several words into one, of which Lucian's atpvPOK^amvcK, 1 and the Aristophanic (which composes an entire senarian), not to attempt to pronounce the ogdoekontasy liable at the end of the Ecclesiazusae, are exaggerated instances in the West; while specimens like bhitnamastakapindaka, 1 quklamdlydnulepana? hasty- aswarathaghesha? swadharmdrthamniscliayajna pra- lambdjjivalachdrughona, 11 msrastahdrdngadachakravdla kundenduhdragokshlramrindlakumudaprabha qwagridh- rakankakdkdlabhdsagomdyuvdyasdh and other jaw- breaking portents containing sometimes 100 or 150 syl- lables, are neither uncommon nor often designed to pro- duce a ludicrous effect in Sanskrit writings. Now, the Se- mitic roots likewise appear to have been originally mo- nosyllabic; and many petrified reliques in that condition, alike verbs and nouns proper and appellative, which I The ancle-scorching fire. 5 One who is showy in bundling up long words. 3 An onyx-ring-wearing long-haired idler. 4 One who in her inn retails garlic and bread. 5 A market-woman that deals in seeds, pulse-porridge, and pot- herbs. 6 Pleasant old (songs) chanted by the Sidonian chorus*?^ ^V-^-I^ 7 One cloven as to skull and forehead. / 8 Having a white garland, and anointed with unguents. 9 The noise of elephants, horses, and cars. 10 One who knows clearly the objects of his duty. II Having a prominent, shining, and handsome nose. 12 Having taken off necklace, bracelet, and ring. 13 Having the hue of jasmine, the moon, a pearl-necklace, cow's milk, lotus-stalk, and water-lily. 14 Dogs, vultures, herons, ravens, kites, jackals, and crows. 16 are sometimes identical or closely allied with Indo-Eu- ropean primitives, still remain ; but, at a very early period, we know not how long before the Exodus, nor do we know whether through some unrecorded convulsion, or a natural self-developement, (for with no probability can a scientific process be suggested,) the majority had become triconsonantal, and are found to be either disyllabic, as in the Tordh, or trisyllabic, as in the Qordn. Moreover, there had come into use composite words, either as proper names (of which, in the Bible, Mahar-shalal-hash-baz is probably the most complex), or, when appellatives, usually if not exotic from monosyllabic elements ; one half of the consonants had been rendered subservient, as prefixes and suffixes, to the notation of time (or rather state), mode, causality, person, number, and gender ; nay, a case-system not only existed in full and vigorous vitality, among the an- cient Arabs, but has left unmistakable, though disjointed, fragments in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. Still it must be confessed, that the Semitic consonants, general- ly, are of sterner stuff than those of other languages, and seem disinclined to bend to mere grammatical necessi- ties ; that complex ideas are ordinarily expressed by means of circumlocution, while not even prepositions are compounded with the verbs whose indirect action they indicate; that the nice distinctions of time, state, mode, and other relations have particles appropriated to mark them, wherever the mere position of nouns and verbs appears insufficient; that the tendency of the later dialects has been to limit the usage of servile letters to specified departments; and that a change of internal 17 vocalisation is the ordinary expedient for modifying the fundamental idea which each consonantal frame-work conveys. Assuming this view of the texture of the Syro-Ara- bian language to be just, one is prepared to approach the oft-discussed question as to its antiquity, not cer- tainly with an expectation of arriving at any precise results, but at least fore-armed against that extravagant hypothesis of its enthusiastic admirers, that it faithful- ly represents the primeval speech, which previously to the dispersion of nations was universal, embodied the vintage-song of Noah, and breathed forth the first orisons of Paradise. Even if there were not valid rea- sons against restricting such an honour to any existing dialect, the very fact of a transition from a monosylla- bic to a disyllabic structure, in other words, the extrication of a new tongue from a state of embryo, decisively precludes the claim that has been set up for the language of the Pentateuch, as well as for the ruder Aramaean, and for the Arabic of Mekkah, so rich in diversified spoils. Yet, on the other hand, the exis- tence of the Mosaic books, in their present condition, about 3400 years ago, and the still stronger fact, that in the first of them are not translated, but transcribed two or three very old rhythmical pieces, genealogi- cal tables of various tribes and ages, and a genuinely patriarchal deed of sale, all in an archaic style, but still composed of disyllabic vocables, carry back what Isaiah terms " the utterance of Kena'an" originally scarce distinguishable from that of Edom, Moab, &c. to an exceedingly remote epoch. It should be added, 18 that even then, although redolent of the truthful fresh- ness of nature's infancy, that language had attained full regularity and vigour ; that, while accustomed to re- flect every impulse of feeling, every suggestion of fancy, it was adequate to embody clear reasoning and sus- tained narrative ; that, in fine, it was already discri- minated into a poetical portion and a prosaic one. Nor, during nearly 1000 years, which elapsed between that period and the Captivity, although many terms and forms of speech appear either to have come into use or to have dropt out, is there perceptible, to mo- dern scholars at least, any material improvement or declension in its phraseology : a circumstance that may be ascribed, not simply to the rigidness of its own character, but, perhaps still more decidedly, to the sta- tionary habits, the isolated position, and the peculiar mental culture of the Israelitish people. So indeed the poetic idiom of Hijaz, which the confluence of rival but homogeneous dialects had enriched, was, for similar reasons, preserved undecaying and luxuriant among the Desert-hordes, until they swarmed forth to propagate the tenets of Islam ; while, to this day, the style of the Qordn affords a standard to which the literary compositions of all orthodox Muhammadans more or less clearly approximate. Here it seems expedient to advert to some doubts, that are understood to be current, respecting both the copiousness and the precision of Syro- Arabian speech, especially in its older forms. These are qualities that may properly enough be comprehended within the same discussion; since the language, which has the 19 amplest materials, can best afford to be fastidious in the employment of them; and since the fact is, that, whenever any tongue, such as the Hebraic or Keltic or Egyptian, is criticised as being fickle and indefinite, its poverty is at the same time alleged, in order to sub- stantiate and explain the charge. Be it premised, then, that, in estimating this family as a whole, we ought to take into account all its dialects; and that any one of these which is singled out for examination, perhaps under disadvantageous circumstances, is entitled to urge its truthful plea of having contributed to swell the resources of its sisters. Now, the chief Semitic monuments still extant are the books of the Old Testament, mostly in Hebraic or the dialect of Southern Kena'an, extending from about 1500 to 400 B.C.; the Aramaic works, whether Jewish or Samaritan, Christian or Sabian, compiled in great part between the 2d century before and the 12th after the Advent; the Scriptures and other ecclesiastical documents, in Giz or Old Ethiopic, dated from the 4th till probably the 7th century of the Christian dispensa- tion; the great mass of Arabic literature, chiefly Muhammadan, accumulated between the 6th and 12th centuries of our era. Of the Pagan Kena'anites or Phenicians, whether in their own country or in their African and Spanish colonies, there are few trustworthy relics: for, little need be founded at present on their coins and inscriptions, or yet on those of their conge- ners that have been preserved at Karpentras, Palmyra, Himyar, or Sinai. There are, thus, long periods, dur- ing which, out of all the co-existing dialects, but one is 20 represented by extant documents; and farther, out of a vast literature which that one dialect may have boasted, only a few wrecks have floated down the stream. Hence, in dealing with such isolated passages, interpreters necessarily have recourse to others belong- ing to a different age or locality; as when they educe reciprocal illustrations from the book of Job* and the seven poems Styled Mu'allagdt, from the proverbs of Solomon* and those of Maidani. Lexicographers too avail themselves of all dialectical contributions within their reach in collecting, classifying, and explaining the component parts of an entire language; and so must critics act, while examining lexical compilations with a view to deciding upon the character of a language in respect to copiousness and precision. It must be, however, a glaring violation of this rule to cry up the opulence and definiteness of the Semitic speech in one of its compartments say, the Arabic, which has these qualities attested by the innumerable books that are written in it, upon all subjects, even the most scientific and abstruse, as well as the innumerable tongues which syllable it every day; and to vituperate its poverty and rudeness in another compartment say, the South-Kena'anitish or Hebraic, which has been disused as an oral vehicle of thought for more than 2000 years, and of whose Though Oriental vocables are represented in these pages according to the uniform orthography now generally received, the vulgate forms of such Scriptural names as have become " household words" have been retained, because under the guise of lyobh, Skelonwh, Yitshaq, Ya'aqobh, Yesha'yahu, &c., &c., the antient worthies would not be readily identified. 21 national literature only that portion survives which is enclosed within the sacred Canon. If such works as those entitled " The Wars of Jehovah," the Book of Jashar," " the Oracles of Nathan,"" of Gad,"" of 'Iddo," likewise Solomon's botanical and zoological Encyclopaedia, and also the ample Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah whereof we have only ex- tracts in the divinely sanctioned volume, besides many other complements of a Levitical library, which must once have afforded delight and instruction, though their very names have long since perished if such treasures of history and song could be now consulted, there would be revealed so many unknown words, ra- dicals as well as derivatives, and so many novel appli- cations of words still known, as would demonstrate the identity of the whole Syro- Arabian race, whose prolific genius everywhere effloresced in a luxuriance of lan- guage at once energetic and in perfect unison with the laws of thought. Indeed, the conceptions and, of course, the terms of those simple-minded tribes have constantly evinced a tendency to outnumber the sensi- ble objects by which a nomad community is surround- ed, while the variety of their tropical or metaphysical applications is truly astonishing. Thus the Badawi is said to have accumulated 80 names for honey, 200 for a serpent, 500 for a lion, above 1000 for a sword; this calculation, no doubt, has been oftener repeated than verified, and moreover it brings together dialecti- cal peculiarities of various districts and ages; but, at all events, he has clustered about various pastoral phe- nomena a plurality of what seem to us synonymes, 22 while to him they convey distinct conceptions, and add to his poetic style not only harmony, but variety and force. Thus likewise the Hebrew, having his associa- tions uninterruptedly fixed upon the theocracy and its symbols, has found within his limited nomenclature expressions for spiritual, moral, and ritual ideas, to render which without a periphrasis, and yet with ac- curacy, even the exhaustless affluence of the Greek language proves scarcely adequate. In regard to the charge of ambiguity, preferred against either the Semitic stock or any of its ancient branches, if the not very numerous ground-forms be referred to, the fact is, that they present no greater obscurity than most, and rather less than some, of their counterparts in other families, and only such as is re- movable by the ordinary process of hermeneutics. If, again, the grammatical structure be glanced at, then let the criterion be the style of some standard writer; and it will be found, that the use of inflexions is regu- lated, and the sense and regimen of particles defined, with a precaution so nice that no dubiety can involve the relation between the ideas. Lastly, if the censure include the process of derivation, it cannot but recoil upon the critics, who, neglecting alike the masoretic punctuation and dialectical analogy, bereave themselves of the guidance of those unmistakable rules by which every possible formative in the language has its signi- fication distinctly guarded and proclaimed. It has been already hinted, that the fundamental idea of every consonantal ground-form is qualified, either internally by mutations of the vowels, or externally by consigni- 23 ficant syllables that are prefixed or affixed, or by both methods in combination. Now, every change, every addition, has its own invariable force, and affects all roots in precisely the same manner; so that to under- stand the operation of the system in one case is to un- derstand it universally. And hence results that sin- gular conciseness and perspicuity with which both word-building and inflexion are treated in Semitic grammar; which has, indeed, been happily compared to a system of algebra, as it displays all the variations of which each dialect is susceptible, in a tabular synopsis, as applied to three or four roots, varying their types with a view to euphony, and with that view alona III. But a third reason, which, even if it were solitary, would warrant a precedency in our regard for the dead languages of the East over their modern substitutes, is that the literature of ancient Asia possesses a value incomparably greater than can be attached to works of recent date. These are, indeed, sufficiently voluminous, (as the Collections of Garcin de Tassy and Von Hammer sufficiently witness,) and, in some departments, as ethics, biography, civil and natural history, well merit consultation, while in others, as apologue and fable, they shrink from comparison with none; but still in very rare instances do they exhibit that originality, sublimity, and beauty which " posterity will not willingly let die." But, in regard to ancient lore, if our present design were, to investigate its claims thoroughly, surveying all its 24 aspects and measuring its full proportions, however we might eschew alike vapid declamation and minuteness of detail, there are ready to start up materials for, not a single lecture, but an entire course: so that, in the few paragraphs within which our suggestions must be condensed, we can glance but cursorily at some of those rich domains to which the student of the antique Oriental languages possesses, if not an exclusive, at least the readiest, access. It might, for instance, be interesting to show, how such researches elucidate the history of numerous useful inventions and discoveries, along with old customs and even familiar pastimes, that have been naturalised in Europe; and likewise to pass under review various arts, such as writing, ciphering, even printing, and sciences, as logic, rhetoric, grammar, jurisprudence, medicine, chymistry, botany, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, astronomy, and physics in general. Suffice it, however, to observe, that in the East, as the seed-plot of the human species, have sprung up the germs of religion, both true and false, of civilization, of poe- try and fiction, and of that latest birth, philosophy, which form the themes respectively for devotional feeling, memory, imagination, and reason. We must restrict ourselves, at this time, to a brief discussion under the first and second of these heads, while the third and fourth are reserved for a future occasion. 1. It is in the regions of Hither Asia that the spiritual cravings of mankind, whose consciousness suggests so many questions, relative to the very highest themes, which it is inadequate to solve, have been satisfied, " at sundry times, in diverse manners," and 25 in such degrees as were fitting, with solemn revela- tions of their Creator's will. Of the earliest, usually called the Patriarchal, there survive, as was to be anticipated, many reminiscences, which enlightened scholarship recognizes in the rites, documents, and traditions of almost all primitive races. But its least ambiguous records, and the only authentic monuments of the subsequent or Mosaic dispensation, are, beyond question, the Hebraic and Chaldee Scriptures. Chris- tianity again, which, in a manner perfectly compati- ble with its destination as the universal faith, appeals to the Jewish prophecies and symbols, as being their fulfilment and antitype, was originally delivered in the Palestinian form of the Aramaic speech; and the books, in which it is recorded, were penned by and primarily addressed to Israelites: whence, although they wear a Grecian costume, they are instinct with an Oriental spirit, they are coloured with Oriental idiom, and they refer throughout to Oriental scenery, manners, and habits of thought. It follows, then, that, in order to be ready to vindicate, on critical grounds, the genuineness and authenticity of our sacred books, as well as for securing an accurate text and a just interpretation of them, even though the invaluable Aramaic versions of both the Old and the New Testament, the Rabbini- cal commentaries which are frequently instructive, and all collateral aids of criticism and exegesis, were re- moved out of consideration, a sound knowlege of the Syro-Arabian dialects must be considered indispensa- ble. And, while the attainment of such knowlege is obligatory on those primarily who look forward to the 26 Christian ministry, and who would, as responsible de- positaries and interpreters of Bible-doctrine, approve themselves " workmen that need not be ashamed," it must likewise commend itself to such others as, con- scious that the catholic faith recognises no esoteric and exoteric distinctions, claiming the inalienable right of private judgment, and possessing the leisure and facilities requisite for independent research, are not content " to give a reason for the hope that is in them" merely at second-hand. Again it appears to have been before the dispersion from Shin'ar that mankind fell from the love and the possession of revealed truth, and were successively be- trayed into every form of religious delusion as poly the- ism, pantheism, atheism, with their baneful consequences. So early did they begin to adore the ascending Sun, " the Moon walking in her brightness," and the multitudin- ous Stars to acknowlege the diffusion of the Deity through heaven, ocean, earth, and all the elements to revere each divine emanation that moves in the animal and breathes in the plant to abase themselves in presence of the formless fetish which they had arbitra- rily selected to consecrate the symbol or the image of their own fashioning to invoke with vows and offerings the soul of the departed hero to weave the reminiscences of patriarchal history, as well as the promises of future grace, into the tissue of a wild mythology. Then too and there the attributes of the Creator and the created were gradually interfused, when both were conceived as but the corresponding parts of boundless and eternal Nature; when, in the 27 language of different systems, they were represented, in relation to each other, as the soul and the body, the source and the efflux, the river and the lake, the pencil of light and the mirror, the lusty bride- groom and his coy spouse, the unresting agent and the passive recipient of all imaginable forms, the vivifying ardor of Heaven and the blossoming produc- tiveness of Earth. Thus, the two Principles were looked upon as mutually dependent and as interchanging their attributes. The visible and tangible was deemed to be an extension of the unseen and impalpable the fleet- ing forms of external existence to be emanations of the sempiternal glory: the spiritual essence was identified with the ethereal nutriment of the starry host, while the material appeared to embody the life which glows in the flower-bed that sublunary galaxy: and both were symbolised by the flame, which, descending from the thunder-cloud, or spiring upward in gaseous exha- lations from the soil of Baku, is cherished upon the altar, unsullied by the Magian's breath. Further it was still Asiatic speculation which, after it was once fascinated by the dark side of Providence by that broad shadow of physical and moral deformity which bisects the chart of the universe, sublimed the imper- sonation of Evil into a power that might rival the Good Lord; and presently around either antagonist were arrayed angel-bands, either swathed in gloom or enrobed in light, who were believed to be engaged in an unintermitting struggle for ascendancy as well in the bosom of man as throughout the infinitude of space. The belief in a Duad, however, through the 9)5 necessity for finding an umpire or a mediator, gradually merged into Tritheism; and this again proved to be of so expansive a genius, as, in some quarters, to compre- hend innumerable genies and aeons of conflicting in- terests, and, in some others, to coalesce with Sabiism in forming a new front for the effete varieties of wor- ship which Christianity was advancing to assail. In truth, a sketch of Asiatic superstition such as there is no room for here would necessarily include the homage paid to the planets and all elements, heroes and brutes, idols and symbols; would trace the rise, progress, and decline, of that sweeping reform which was effected by taking up the old Arabian syntheme, Id ilah ilia ANahu, " there is no god but God," and annexing to it the formidable watchword, Muhammad rasulo 'Pldlii, "Muhammad is God's Prophet;" would re- view the Mithraic system, which the Gnostics employed as an instrument that might baffle their Christian anta- gonists; and would survey at least the outlines of the Brahmanical and Buddhist faiths, which at this day hold in slavery unnumbered millions throughout Cen- tral and Eastern Asia. Let this remark suffice for our purpose that, to obtain a glimpse into the aberrations of the human mind which these systems reveal, and which are far more mysterious than any discovered by the Proteus-like phantoms of Hellenic fiction, the aus- tere legends of the Ausonian tribes, the spirit-stirring sagas of Scandinavia and Germany, the aery imagin- ings of Slavonic and Keltic superstition, a prolonged study must be devoted to those monuments, in the lan- guages of Persia and India, Tibet and Ceylon, which 29 modern enterprise has been successful, above any pre- ceding period, in exhuming and deciphering. Other- wise, each new inquirer, like so many of his predeces- sors, hastily generalizing from scanty premises, and adopting unauthenticated documents, inaccurate ver- sions, and groundless etymologies, will, according as his choice may fall on what is termed the " symbolic theory" or on its opposite, either strive to reduce all mythical phenomena to principles which may have been opera- tive in but a narrow cycle, or else be tempted to treat every myth as indigenous in its own locality, and as incapable of imparting or receiving illustration else- where. 2. Respecting the direct obligations to Oriental stu- dies, which have been already incurred or are still ex- pected by history, our time will allow only a condensed discussion and one that must dispense with any pream- ble. The historical books of the Hebrews possess an an- tiquity, which, independently of their supernatural character, renders their claim upon our attention un- ique and irresistible. The Mosaic narrative is prefaced by a cosmogony, as also a sketch of general history during upwards of 2000 years, which were partitioned by the deluge and terminated with the dispersion at Ba- bel, and in respect to which there exist no other mo- numents that can be cited as either confirming or in- validating its testimony; then, after tacitly overleaping about 400 years, it details, during at least five centu- ries more, the fortunes of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, first in a free nomad state, next as 30 residents in Egypt, finally during the long probation for their resettlement in Kena'an; and it closes, at a period not hitherto fixed by chronologists, on the eve of the great Legislator's decease. The subsequent his- tory of the chosen people, under Joshua', the Judges, and the Kings, down to the restitution of Jerusalem under Nehemiah and 'Ezra, in the 5th century B.C., is contained in the following books; after which it is taken up in the Apocrypha and by foreign writers, most of whom, however, have treated it in an illiberal spirit and a slovenly style. Further, as diversified relations subsisted all along between the Israelites and the sur- rounding powers, such as the military monarchies of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, and the Phenician, Idum- ean, Moabitish, and other communities, both the Chroniclers and the Prophets have been thus led to furnish notices of the highest interest and value re- specting the policy, customs, and rites of those nations as well as of their own. Such information, however, even if it were sufficient within certain geographical limits, is obviously neither intended nor suited to form the nucleus of general his- tory. For that, recourse must be had, first, to the vo- luminous historic literature of Greece, which may be held to begin with Herodotus, about 450 B.C., (since of his Ionian predecessors we have, unfortunately, mere fragments,) and to cease only with the very last of the Byzantine authors; and, next, to the subordinate contri- butions of Latin writers, commencing we may say with Sallustius, and terminating with the compilers of the Augustan History. It is to be remarked also, that not 31 only the Greek authors themselves, after they had been once awakened, by the stirring realities of the Persian invasion, from their infantile musings over the mythic themes of antique poetry, and had recognised the pro- priety of registering contemporary events in unshack- led prose, exerted their characteristic energy in such researches often in such voyages and travels as ap- peared indispensable for that object, and still more for constructing theories of general history, politics, strat- egy, and ethics; but no sooner had the language of Alexander and his successors been naturalised in their Asiatic and African provinces, than it was enrich- ed with various translations, adaptations, or abridg- ments of native chronicles, executed, for the most part, by native literateurs. Of these, however, that which claims the greatest antiquity, viz. the Tyrian History, professedly compiled by Sanchoniatho about 1200 B.C., is of at least doubtful authenticity; while those of Manetho and Berosus, and even those of the Ty- rians, Dius and Menander, to adduce no others, are of late origin, and embody very questionable materials; and hence they could scarcely command intelligent ac- quiescence anterior to a collation with the vernacular vouchers, which, though we may congratulate ourselves on possessing not a few, either remained inaccessible or baffled all attempts at decipherment until a recent period. Besides it must be allowed, that, however copious the information furnished by Greek and Latin authors as to their own antiquities and those of the countries that were early incorporated in the Roman empire, their accounts of the very nations which have 32 now risen to the highest importance, those of West- ern Europe and Eastern Asia, are conjectural, meagre, and inconsistent, while their philosophical deductions are proportionally narrowed. Hence it becomes exceedingly desirable, that what- ever archives are acknowleged by independent nations be examined and compared; and this persuasion has prompted some of the noblest efforts of modern scho- larship. Our Orientalists, in particular, have not felt satisfied with exploring the vast fields of Talmudic, Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Armenian lore the most recent acquisitions in which are the Jdml al-Tawdnkh of Rashid a'd-Dln, and a version of Eusebius' long-de- siderated Chronicon; but they have, to a great extent, ransacked the formidable libraries of India and China; and what a flood of light has been, in consequence, shed upon general history, is apparent from the grateful ac- knowledgments which Gibbon, Heeren, Schlb'sser, and other writers of that stamp, every where make to such pioneers as Hottinger, Reiske, Anquetil Duperron, and Des Guignes. No doubt, enthusiasm, while achieving such arduous tasks, has exaggerated their value, and left room for delusive inferences. Thus the early Sinologists pro- mulgated theories, respecting the Tatar migrations, which their successors have seen reason to abandon, or, at least, to modify; some students of Persian poe- try and romance have seriously maintained, that the current legends respecting the Pishdadian and Kaianian dy nasties of Iran are more trust-worthy than the ac- counts transmitted by Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xeno- 33 phon; the puerile, insipid, and infamous fictions of Purdnas concocted but as yesterday have been quoted, in all their sickening details, as illustrating or correct- ing the oldest traditions of the West; and interpolat- ed passages or forged treatises have passed with some for genuine as when Sir Wm. Jones, while depretiat- ing the Zand-Avasta, based a historical hypothesis up- on the Ddbistdn and the Dasdtlr. Still, an inconve- nience of this nature in due time works its own cure; an error, which superficial study has suggested, more thorough study cannot fail to correct; and, if but the mantle of the early Orientalists have been dropt to their successors, by-ways and pit-fals, just because they have been detected, will prove no longer perilous. Books of a spurious origin, or bearing a falsified date, have but slender chance of sustaining the ordeal which modern criticism prescribes; and, as the very periods have been ascertained at which myths having certain sectarian objects and tendencies were introduced, as also those at which certain astronomical cycles were framed, at first, perhaps, simply as aids of calcula- tion, although they were ere long perverted, through means of their proleptical use in history, to magnify the antiquity of nations among which they were said to have been in immemorial use, of course, the occur- rence of such myths or such cycles in any work, in- stead of continuing to abet imposture, is now relied upon as a criterion for exposing it. In fact, it has come to be understood, that Asia, like Europe, has had what may be termed its dark and middle ages; and that these are bridged over by various D 34 literary monuments, as well as works of art, to which a fictitious antiquity has been ascribed, merely because they are partly constructed out of older materials, and transmit echos and reminiscences of an earlier state of society. What is more remarkable the appearance qf such works in various Asiatic countries is nearly contemporaneous with that of the prose-annals or metrical chronicles, which the leading nations of mo- dern Europe, Slavonic, Teutonic, or Keltic, after their reception of the Roman alphabet from Christian missionaries, produced as their first-fruits, and which are in no case prior to the 8th or 9th century. Just as the Saracens, while engaged in their wild career of conquest, though they had acquired to some extent the elements and means of writing, yet found no leisure for recording even their own achievements, and after- wards, when they had borrowed from the vanquished West the rudiments of literature and science, still studiously kept aloof from history, and regarded their own pagan state, of which they had preserved in writing no chronological archives, and to which they judiciously applied St Paul's designation, " the times of ignorance," as sufficiently commemorated by the tribe- songs, that preserved their pedigrees, and such roman- ces as that of 'Antar, rehearsed by wandering tale- tellers; so their Eastern proselytes, who adopted the Arabic alphabet and much of its vocabulary, were for some time far from feeling assured of the compatibility of tbe Muslim faith with attention to their ancestral legends. Hence, "the Hero-book of Iran" was not composed till the beginning of the llth century, under 35 Muhammad the Ghaznevide's stinted patronage, and amid the clamours of bigoted opponents; and how much more recent are the records of the Turks, Malays* and other Muhammadan races, need not be stated. The compilation of the eighteen Purdnas, which embody all the traditions, alike civil and religious, that modern Hinduism has found it expedient to preserve, has been demonstrated, by geographical and philological argu- ments, as well as by the tests already described, to have commenced not previously to the 8th century of our era, and to have continued till the 16th. But, if these are excluded, and if an exception be made in favour of the Raja Tdranjml, of date A.D. 1148 which, however, is vitiated in its chronology, and, besides, relates to no province of India proper, but to Kashmir, there exists in Sanskrit prose no historical repertory: a blank satisfactorily accounted for by the Jainas and Baud- dhas, when they charge the Pauranic Brahmans with the wholesale destruction of all books relating facts, anterior to the Muhammadan conquests, that might have evinced the novelty of their own sectarian perversions. While, however, unflinching research has destroyed all such monstrous pretensions as used to be set up for the Hindu writings, the Vedas are still owned to be nearly as old as the Pentateuch, Mantis Law-Code, to be coeval with the Ilias, and each of those great poems, the Ramayana and the Mahdbhdrata, to be of hoar antiquity. Lately too the cause of truth has been promoted by the publication, in Pali and English, of the historical records of the Singhalese Buddhists, 36 far more trustworthy than those of the Brahmans, which began to be compiled A.D. 302, and incorporate annals that had been transmitted, from the 5th or 6th century B.C., with great fidelity; and these records, again, have been elucidated by means of others, recent- ly translated from Tamil, Chinese, and Tibetan. More- over, within the last twenty years, inscriptions on rocks and cave-temples, on pillars, and on metallic plates, found throughout India, have been copied, and com- pared with the legends and devices of numerous coins that have come to light within the Valleys of the Indus and the Oxus; the alphabets, in which these are sculptured, have been discovered, and their languages have been reduced to laws more or less definite; and, in consequence, where once yawned a hopeless void in history, whole dynasties of kings, Bactrian, Parthian, Sassanian, Indian, Scy- thian, and of mixed race, have been replaced, each in the niche appropriate for him in respect of lineage, or locality, or extent of sway; and, though there is as yet no room for expecting that Hindu chronology can be pushed back even near to the Olympic era, still the epochs of some marked events likewise have been at least approximated. But results, perhaps more bril- liant than these, and certainly more interesting to our associations, have rewarded the intense study, which, after mastering the Pahlavi inscriptions, has been trans- ferred to those far older ones in the cuneiform charac- ter, that remain dispersed over the Persian, Armenian, and Assyrian provinces. For, if it be gratifying to read edicts, establishing hospitals and abolishing ani- 37 mal-sacrifices, engraved upon the rocks of Dhauli and Girnar, or the pillars of Allahabad and Dihll, 320 years B.C. (i. e. about seventy years later than the oldest Phe- nician inscriptions edited by Gesenius), by order of a Buddhist Emperor, As5ka, of whom, though he vaunts some correspondence with Antiochus II. and Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, nothing was previously known; how much more impressive is it to peruse, alike on scarped precipices and on architectural re- mains, at Bahistan, or Nakhsh-i-Rustam, or Hama- dan, or Istakhar, the very tales, to which Herodotus has familiarized us, respecting the prowess of Darius and the glory of Xerxes, recorded by those monarchs them- selves, and coupled with thanksgivings to Auramazda; or the modest epitaph of Qurus Klisliayatliiya Ha- Mamanishiya, "Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian," at Mfirghab, which, though posterior to the most ancient Greek inscriptions, yet claims the goodly antiquity of 530 years before the Christian era ! Honour to the names of Prinsep and Jacquet, Grotefend and Lassen, Rawlinson and Westergaard scholars of kindred spirit to Young, and Champollion, and Rossellini, and Lepsius ! Their successes may possibly warrant even what would have been formerly considered as extrava- gant anticipations, those which Botta and Layard with their coadjutors have suggested, of resuscitating the letters and the languages of Babylon and Nineveh, and of deciphering, within their huge brick-piles and subterranean colonnades, memorials of civilization scarcely less interesting than the cartouches and por- traits of those " Sons of the Sun," " Kings of Upper 38 and Lower Egypt," Ramses and Osirtesen, the Bro- ther-" Lords of the Pyramids," Shuphu, Khnephre, and Menkareh the Holy, and that most venerable ances- tor of all the Theban Phar'ohs, Men-ei, who " walked with Amun" more than forty centuries ago. The poetical and philosophical departments of Eas- tern literature, and the relations in which they stand towards European fiction and speculation, cannot at present be travelled over, and therefore, as already intimated, had better not be approached. But perhaps it is already warrantable to express a hope, that even the galleries which we have opened exhibit objects of sufficient interest to attract not unwilling votaries to the shrine of the Oriental Muses ; and that in many a curiosity has been awakened, a thirst for enterprise provoked, a resolution confirmed, which may enable them to prosecute the preliminary studies with intelli- gence and sympathy. The toil indispensable to suc- cess, in this as in every honourable career, will be at once circumscribed and compensated, and the sense of duty, which may have been originally the sole incen- tive, will be merged in healthful enjoyment, if but energy, disciplined though restless, press on to a de- termined goal. May such be the result realised in our experience! While we look around, at the prodigies of art and science of which every age and clime has been prolific the fabrics tha genius and study have ela- borated under influences the most dissimilar, and backward, through the traditions of far-receding anti- quity, and forward, amid the guesses at the future which sagacity has hazarded, and the foreshadowings 39 which revelation has vouchsafed, and ever upward, with reverential gratitude, to the Fountain of all good- ness, truth, and beauty; surely no trammels will check our progress, no prejudices will foreclose our convic- tion, we shall respire an atmosphere unruffled by the heats of ephemeral controversy, we shall be in- fluenced in our researches by such associations solely as may dignify their aims and consecrate their results. ANDREW JACK, PRIMER. A 000138853 7 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 7 1997 2 MS FROM MIT RECEIVED .$41997