All nature quakes where'er its blows alight.
So dost thou, Zeus, ordain thy law, which all
The heavenly lights pervades, both great and small:
So great a king art thou, of sovereign might.

Apart from thee no work, great potentate,
Is done on earth, in yonder heavenly sphere,
Or deep in ocean's caverns, far or near,
But what the bad in folly perpetrate.

Thou knowest how to make the crooked straight,
From chaos dire can'st order fair create;
To thee are dear the things which mortals hate.

For so hast thou things good and ill combined,
That all together one grand system make,
To rule reduced by thy controlling mind:
But evil men this wondrous order break,

And neither see nor hear thy law divine,

Which, well and wisely kept, had made them blest; But seeking fancied good, they never rest,

Of envied fame, or sordid gain, in quest;

Or else to ease and joy their lives resign :

Yet disappointed, all at last obtain

The dark reverse of what they hoped to gain.

But all-bestowing Father, wrapt in clouds

From whose dark depths the dazzling lightnings glance,

Sweep far away that mournful ignorance

Whose gloom the souls of mortals now enshrouds ;

3

And grant them knowledge, yea, vouchsafe that they
May share that wisdom wherein thou confid'st,
Whilst thou aright the course of nature guid'st;
That honoured so by thee, we men may pay

Thee back with honour, singing aye with awe
Thy deeds, as men beseems :-—from age to age
No nobler task can men or gods engage

Than this, with joy to hymn the universal law.

The following is a prose translation of the preceding hymn :

"O most glorious of the immortals, many-named, ever almighty, Zeus, author of nature, ruling all things with law,-hail! for it is permitted to all mortal (men) to address thee. For we are a race (springing) from thee, having alone of all mortal things that live and creep on the ground, obtained a resemblance of the sound. * Wherefore I shall hymn thee, and ever celebrate thy might. This entire universe, revolving round the earth, obeys thee wheresoever thou mayest lead, and is willingly governed by thee. Such a minister thou holdest in thine unconquered hands, the two-edged (or forked), fiery, ever-living thunderbolt. For from its blow the whole of nature shudders; whereby thou directest the common order which pervades all things, blending with the greater and the lesser lights . . . thou who art such a supreme king universally. Without thee, O God, no work is done on earth, nor at the divine ethereal pole, or in the sea, save only those things which the wicked perpetrate through their own senselessness. But thou understandest, too, how to make uneven things even, and to order the things that are disordered; and things which are not dear are dear to thee. For so hast thou fitted all good things into one with the bad, that there arises one reason [or rule] for

* This is a literal rendering of the corrupt reading in the MSS., which it has been attempted to improve by various conjectures. Meineke has proposed an alteration which may be thus translated: "For we spring from thee, having alone, &c., . . . obtained the resemblance of (thy) reason." This I have followed in the metrical version.

all things that ever exist;-which [rule] all wicked mortals shun and negfect; hapless men, who, always longing after the possession of good things, neither see nor hear this universal law of God, by wisely obeying which, they would lead an excellent life. But abandoning what is noble, they rush in pursuit of different objects; some carrying on a bitter struggle for fame, some turning to the unfair pursuit of gain, and others seeking after ease and bodily gratifications, they are carried away in different directions, but prepare for themselves things altogether the opposite of these (for which they are striving). But, O all-bestowing Zeus, wrapped in dark clouds, darter of vivid lightnings, rescue men from mournful ignorance, dispelling it from their souls, O Father; and impart to them wisdom; in which trusting, thou governest all things aright; [do this] that so, being honoured of thee, we may repay thee with honour, celebrating continually thine acts, as befits a mortal; for there is no higher privilege either for men or for gods than ever rightly to sing the universal law."

J. MUIR.

INTRODUCTION.

THE religious and moral maxims which are metrically rendered in this pamphlet form part of a larger collection from Indian authors writing in Sanskrit, which I am preparing with a view to their translation into prose, and to their eventual publication. It will be noticed that not a few of them bear a striking resemblance to some of the most admired texts of the New Testament. With the view of obviating the suspicion which some may entertain that in the metrical versions I have embellished the sentiments of the Indian writers, or imparted to them a closer resemblance to their Biblical counterparts than the tenor of the originals will justify, I have given in an Appendix a faithful prose version of all the passages, to which, in some cases, the contexts have been added.

I have added any parallels to the Indian sentiments which I have been able to discover in the Greek and Latin classics.

It is the opinion of several writers that many, at least, of the Indian ideas and maxims which are most akin to those of Christianity have been, or may have been, borrowed from the latter. I may refer especially to Dr Lorinser, who in the Appendix to his German translation of the "Bhagavad Gītā ”* (a philosophical and theosophical episode of the great Indian epic poem the Mahābhārata) presents us with a collection of passages from the work in question, which he regards as borrowed from, or influenced by, the New Testament, and alongside of which he places the texts which he regards as having exercised this influence. The "Indian Antiquary," a monthly journal published at Bombay, contains in the Number for

* Die Bhagavad Gītā uebersetzt under erläutert von Dr F. Lorinser. Breslau, 1869.

October 1873, pp. 283-296, a translation of this Appendix. I quote from this translation, p. 286, the following sentences of Dr Lorinser :--"If now we can find in the Bhagavad Gītā passages, and these not single and obscure, but numerous and clear, which present a surprising similarity to passages in the New Testament, we shall be justified in concluding that these coincidences are no play of chance, but that taken all together they afford conclusive proof that the composer was acquainted with the writings of the New Testament, used them as he thought fit, and has woven into his own work numerous passages, if not word for word, yet preserving the meaning, and shaping it according to his Indian mode of thought, a fact which till now no one has noticed. To put this assertion beyond doubt, I shall place side by side the most important of these passages in the Bhagavad Gītā, and the corresponding texts of the New Testament. I distinguish three different kinds of passages to which parallels can be adduced from the New Testament: First, such as with more or less of verbal difference, agree in sense, so that a thought which is clearly Christian appears in an Indian form of expression. These are far the most numerous, and indicate the way in which the original was used in general; Secondly, passages in which a peculiar and characteristic expression of the New Testament is borrowed word for word, though the meaning is sometimes quite changed; Thirdly, passages in which thought and expression agree, though the former receives from the context a meaning suited to Indian conception."

This subject is one which deserves the notice of Orientalists as well as of scientific theologians, and students of the science of religions. The question raised by Dr Lorinser is not one which has long or much engaged my attention; and I should not wish to pronounce a hasty judgment upon it. Possibly it may not be susceptible of a very definite or positive solution. In forming an opinion on the question, we must consider, first, whether the ideas, sentiments, or figures of speech supposed to be borrowed by the Indians from the west are not such as might naturally arise in the human, or at least in the oriental, mind;