anches de la
grande famille qui s'est etendue, bien de siecles avant notre ere,
depuis le Gange jusqu'a l'Euphrate.'

The great achievements of Burnouf in this field of research have been
so often ignored, and what by right belongs to him has been so
confidently ascribed to others, that a faithful representation of the
real state of the case, as here given, will not appear superfluous.
There is no intention, while giving his due to Burnouf, to detract
from the merits of other scholars. Some more minute coincidences,
particularly in the story of Feridun, have subsequently been added by
Roth, Benfey, and Weber. The first, particularly, has devoted two most
interesting articles to the identification of Yama-Yima-Jemshid and
Trita-Thraetaona-Feridun. Trita, who has generally been fixed upon as
the Vaidik original of Feridun, because Traitana, whose name
corresponds more accurately, occurs but once in the Rig-veda, is
represented in India as one of the many divine powers ruling the
firmament, destroying darkness, and sending rain, or, as the poets of
the Veda are fond of expressing it, rescuing the cows and slaying the
demons that had carried them off. These cows always move along the
sky, some dark, some bright-coloured. They low over their pasture;
they are gathered by the winds; and milked by the bright rays of the
sun, they drop from their heavy udders a fertilising milk upon the
parched and thirsty earth. But sometimes, the poet says, they are
carried off by robbers and kept in dark caves near the uttermost ends
of the sky. Then the earth is without rain; the pious worshipper
offers up his prayer to Indra, and Indra rises to conquer the cows for
him. He sends his dog to find the scent of the cattle, and after she
has heard their lowing, she returns, and the battle commences. Indra
hurls his thunderbolt; the Maruts ride at his side; the Rudras roar;
till at last the rock is cleft asunder, the demon destroyed, and the
cows brought back to their pasture. This is one of the oldest mythes
or sayings current among the Aryan nations. It appears again in the
mythology of Italy, in Greece, in Germany. In the Avesta, the battle
is fought between Thraetaona and Azhi dahaka, the destroying serpent.
Traitana takes the place of Indra in this battle in one song of the
Veda; more frequently it is Trita, but other gods also share in the
same honour. The demon, again, who fights against the gods is
likewise called Ahi, or the serpent, i