Note 73 — CHAPTER 19

Other travellers besides Pallas have described Hinduism as existing in the remote parts of the Russian empire, and if nominal resemblances may be admitted, we would instance the strong analogy between the Samoyedes and Tchoudes of Siberia and Finland and the Syama Yadus and Joudes of India [?]. The languages of the two former races are said to have a strong affinity, and are classed as Hindu-Germanic by M. Klaproth, on whose learned work, Asia Polyglotta, M. Rémusat has given the world an interesting critique, in his Mélanges Asiatiques (tome i. p. 267), in which he traces these tribes to Central Asia; thus approaching the land of the Getae or Yuti. Now the Yutis and Yadus have much in their early history to warrant the assertion of more than nominal analogy. The annals of the Yadus of Jaisalmer state that long anterior to Vikrama they held dominion from Ghazni to Samarkand: that they established themselves in those regions after the Mahabharata, or great war; and were again impelled, on the rise of Islamism, within the Indus. As Yadus of the race of Sham or Syam (a title of Krishna), they would be Sama-Yadus; in like manner as the Bhatti tribe are called Shama-bhatti, the Ahsham Bhatti of Abu-l Fazl. The race of Joude was existing near the Indus in the Emperor Babur’s time, who describes them as occupying the mountainous range in the first Duab, the very spot mentioned in the annals of the Yadus as their place of halt, on quitting India twelve centuries before Christ, and thence called Jadu or Yadu-ka-dang, the ‘hills of Jadu or Yadu.’ The peopling of all these regions, from the Indus to remote Tartary, is attributed to the race of Ayu or Indu, both signifying the moon, of which are the Haihayas, Aswas (Asi), Yadus, etc., who spread a common language over all Western Asia. Amongst the few words of Hindu-Germanic origin which M. Rémusat gives to prove affinity between the Finnish and Samoyede languages is “Miel, Mod, dans le dialecte Caucasien, et Méd, en Slave,” and which, as well as mead, the drink of the Scandinavian warrior, is from the Sanskrit Madhu, a bee [honey]. Hence intoxicating beverage is termed Madhva, which supplies another epithet for Krishna, Madhu or Madhava. [These speculations possess no value.]