peoples to assist
the student towards the elucidation and partial restoration of certain
literary fragments from the cuneiform tablets. Of special interest in
this connection are the resemblances between some of the Indian and
Babylonian myths. The writer has drawn upon that "great storehouse" of
ancient legends, the voluminous Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, and it
is shown that there are undoubted links between the Garuda eagle myths
and those of the Sumerian Zu bird and the Etana eagle, while similar
stories remain attached to the memories of "Sargon of Akkad" and the
Indian hero Karna, and of Semiramis (who was Queen Sammu-ramat of
Assyria) and Shakuntala. The Indian god Varuna and the Sumerian Ea are
also found to have much in common, and it seems undoubted that the
Manu fish and flood myth is a direct Babylonian inheritance, like the
Yuga (Ages of the Universe) doctrine and the system of calculation
associated with it. It is of interest to note, too, that a portion of
the Gilgamesh epic survives in the _Ramayana_ story of the monkey god
Hanuman's search for the lost princess Sita; other relics of similar
character suggest that both the Gilgamesh and Hanuman narratives are
derived in part from a very ancient myth. Gilgamesh also figures in
Indian mythology as Yama, the first man, who explored the way to the
Paradise called "The Land of Ancestors", and over which he
subsequently presided as a god. Other Babylonian myths link with those
found in Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, Iceland, and the British Isles
and Ireland. The Sargon myth, for instance, resembles closely the myth
of Scyld (Sceaf), the patriarch, in the _Beowulf_ epic, and both
appear to be variations of the Tammuz-Adonis story. Tammuz also
resembles in one of his phases the Celtic hero Diarmid, who was slain
by the "green boar" of the Earth Mother, as was Adonis by the boar
form of Ares, the Greek war god.

In approaching the study of these linking myths it would be as rash to
conclude that all resemblances are due to homogeneity of race as to
assume that folklore and mythology are devoid of ethnological
elements. Due consideration must be given to the widespread influence
exercised by cultural contact. We must recognize also that the human
mind has ever shown a tendency to arrive quite independently at
similar conclusions, when confronted by similar problems, in various
parts of the world.

But while many remarkable resemblances may be detected between t