ARGONAUTICA AND INDIA
The eighteenth-century insight that Sanskrit was related to Greek and Latin opened the field of Indo-European studies and sparked an interest in all things Indian (British colonization only encouraged such interests) under the presumption, false it would turn out, that Indian mythology was the wellspring of Greek and Roman beliefs. For example, in the hymn from the Rig-Veda given below, the ancient Indian epic makes reference to an elixir or immortality or rejuvenation (like Medea's potions), fleeces associated with gold coloring, bulls, and other elements found in different combinations in the Jason myth. Indra, referenced in the hymn, was famed for his slaying of the chaos dragon Vritra, much as Jason either slays or subdues the sleepless dragon guarding the Fleece. Later scholars would come to understand that Indian myths drew from the same body or Indo-European mythology as its Greek and Roman counterparts, accounting for the similarities some would glean between the stories of Jason and those told in the epics of ancient India without the need for direct transmission from the subcontinent to the Aegean. This did not stop some, however, from proposing all manner of connections between the Argonauts and the subcontinent, including claims that the Golden Fleece was simply the representation of Indian wealth. |
The Rig-Veda
Book IX, Hymn LXIX
1. Laid like an arrow on the bow the hymn hath been loosed like a young calf to the udder of its dam.
As one who cometh first with full stream she is milked the Soma is impelled to this man's holy rites.
2 The thought is deeply fixed; the savoury juice is shed; the tongue with joyous sound is stirring in the mouth;
And Pavamana, like the shout of combatants, the drop rising in sweet juice, is flowing through the fleece.
3 He flows about the sheep-skin, longing for a bride: he looses Aditi's Daughters for the worshipper.
The sacred drink hath come, gold-tinted, well-restrained: like a strong Bull he shines, whetting his manly might.
4 The Bull is bellowing; the Cows are coming nigh: the Goddesses approach the God's own resting-place.
Onward hath Soma passed through the sheep's fair bright fleece, and hath, as ’twere, endued a garment newly washed.
5 The golden-hued, Immortal, newly bathed, puts on a brightly shining vesture that is never harmed.
He made the ridge of heaven to be his radiant robe, by sprinkling of the bowls from moisture of the sky.
6 Even as the beams of Sūrya, urging men to speed, that cheer and send to sleep, together rush they forth,
These swift outpourings in long course of holy rites: no form save only Indra shows itself so pure.
7 As down the steep slope of a river to the vale, drawn from the Steer the swift strong draughts have found a way.
Well be it with the men and cattle in our home. May powers, O Soma, may the people stay with us.
8 Pour out upon us wealth in goods, in gold, in steeds, in cattle and in corn, and great heroic strength.
Ye, Soma, are my Fathers, lifted up on high as heads of heaven and makers of the strength of life.
9 These Pavamanas here, these drops of Soma, to Indra have sped forth like cars to booty.
Effused, they pass the cleansing fleece, while, gold-hued, they cast their covering off to pour the rain down.
10 O Indu, flow thou on for lofty Indra, flow blameless, very gracious, foe-destroyer.
Bring splendid treasures to the man who lauds thee. O Heaven and Earth, with all the Gods protect. us.
Source: Rig Veda, trans. Ralph T.H. Griffith (Benares: E. J. Lazarus & Co., 1896).
Indian Antiquities
Thomas Maurice
1796
Eratosthenes, in Strabo, informs us, that the merchandize of India passed by the Oxus through the Caspian, which the ancients, with inflexible obstinacy, persevered in supposing to have a communication with the Northern, and some even with the Indian, Ocean, into the Sea of Pontus. We also learn from Pliny, that it was but a journey of seven days from the frontiers of India, through the country of the Bactrians, to the river Icarus, which falls into the Oxus, down which stream the commodities of India were transported into the Caspian Sea. Thence, he adds, they were carried up the river Cyrus to a place within five days' journey over land to Phasis, the capital of Colchis, in Grecian fable renowned for its golden fleece, which, in all probability, was nothing more than the golden produce of India, which the Argonauts secured by opening the commerce of the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea.
Source: Thomas Maurice, Indian Antiquities (London: W. Richardson, 1796), 427.
Thomas Maurice
1796
Eratosthenes, in Strabo, informs us, that the merchandize of India passed by the Oxus through the Caspian, which the ancients, with inflexible obstinacy, persevered in supposing to have a communication with the Northern, and some even with the Indian, Ocean, into the Sea of Pontus. We also learn from Pliny, that it was but a journey of seven days from the frontiers of India, through the country of the Bactrians, to the river Icarus, which falls into the Oxus, down which stream the commodities of India were transported into the Caspian Sea. Thence, he adds, they were carried up the river Cyrus to a place within five days' journey over land to Phasis, the capital of Colchis, in Grecian fable renowned for its golden fleece, which, in all probability, was nothing more than the golden produce of India, which the Argonauts secured by opening the commerce of the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea.
Source: Thomas Maurice, Indian Antiquities (London: W. Richardson, 1796), 427.
The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea
William Vincent
1800
The reality of the Argonautic expedition has been questioned; but if the primordial history of every nation but one is tinctured with the fabulous, and if from among the rest a choice is necessary to be made, it must be allowed that the traditions of Greece are less inconsistent than those of the more distant regions of the earth. Oriental learning is now employed in unravelling the mythology of India, India, and recommending it as containing the feeds of primeval history; but hitherto we have seen nothing that should induce us to relinquish the authorities we have been used to respect, or to make us prefer the fables of the Hindoos or Guebres to the fables of the Greeks. Whatever difficulties may occur in the return of the Argonauts, their passage to Colchis is consistent; it contains more real geography than has yet been discovered in any record of the Bramins or the Zendavesta, and is truth itself, both geographical and historical when compared with the portentous expedition of Ram to Ceylon; it is from considerations of this fort that we must still refer our first knowledge of India to Grecian sources, rather than to any other; for whatever the contents of the Indian records may finally be found to have preserved, the first mention of India that we have is from Greece, and to the historians of Greece we must still refer for the commencement of our inquiries; their knowledge of the country was indeed imperfect, even in their latest accounts, but still their very earliest shew that India had been heard of, or some country like India in the east; a glimmering towards day is discoverable in Homer, Herodotus, and Ctesias; obscure indeed, as all knowledge of this sort was, previous to Alexander, but yet sufficient to prove that India was always an object of curiosity and inquiry.
Source: William Vincent, The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, vol. 1 (London: Caddell and Davies, 1800), 8-9.
William Vincent
1800
The reality of the Argonautic expedition has been questioned; but if the primordial history of every nation but one is tinctured with the fabulous, and if from among the rest a choice is necessary to be made, it must be allowed that the traditions of Greece are less inconsistent than those of the more distant regions of the earth. Oriental learning is now employed in unravelling the mythology of India, India, and recommending it as containing the feeds of primeval history; but hitherto we have seen nothing that should induce us to relinquish the authorities we have been used to respect, or to make us prefer the fables of the Hindoos or Guebres to the fables of the Greeks. Whatever difficulties may occur in the return of the Argonauts, their passage to Colchis is consistent; it contains more real geography than has yet been discovered in any record of the Bramins or the Zendavesta, and is truth itself, both geographical and historical when compared with the portentous expedition of Ram to Ceylon; it is from considerations of this fort that we must still refer our first knowledge of India to Grecian sources, rather than to any other; for whatever the contents of the Indian records may finally be found to have preserved, the first mention of India that we have is from Greece, and to the historians of Greece we must still refer for the commencement of our inquiries; their knowledge of the country was indeed imperfect, even in their latest accounts, but still their very earliest shew that India had been heard of, or some country like India in the east; a glimmering towards day is discoverable in Homer, Herodotus, and Ctesias; obscure indeed, as all knowledge of this sort was, previous to Alexander, but yet sufficient to prove that India was always an object of curiosity and inquiry.
Source: William Vincent, The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, vol. 1 (London: Caddell and Davies, 1800), 8-9.
Anacalypisis
Godfrey Higgins
1836
The Hindoos have a stone called Shalgramu, which they worship. Mr. Ward saw one which had fallen clown and broken, by which it appeared to be a shell petrefaction. The shell in the inside of this stone is that which is called the Argonauta Argo, or the Nautilus, which sets its pretty sail before the wind. Every Hindoo God almost has one of them in his hand. How this shell-fish came to have the name of Argo-Argonauta in the West, I know not; but I have no doubt it has a connexion in some way with the Indian superstition, and that it relates to the Argha. In the cabinet of the Baptist Missionaries at Bristol, is an Indian one in copper. I think in the ship Argo, or Nautilus, with its mast supplied by Minerva or divine wisdom, I can perceive a beautiful mythos. It is really a ship, not of human, but of divine, invention and manufacture. From a careful consideration of the Argonautic story, I can entertain little doubt that it is a mistaken and misrepresented Indian mythos. […] [I]t must have had its origin very many degrees to the South of Greece; and this must have been, I think, where, as I shall presently shew, the Bay of Argo, and the Golden or Holy Chersonesus, that is, South India and Siam, are to be found. It is probable that the solution of this enigma will be found in the Vedas or Puranas. [...]
In the Colchicus Sinus [of India] is a town now called Cochin, and near it the Sinus Arga-ricus. Here we have the Cholchos, to which the Argonauts went, as is proved, by what Ptolemy calls the Sinus Argo-ricus, in its neighbourhood. The meaning of Chiol or Choi is the same as Colida, Cali-di. The Manda or Munda of the coast, or of the island, or of the river, we know means cycle. Thus we have two Cholchoses and two Argonauts. But as few people will now believe the story of the Ethiopian colony with their curly hair going from Egypt to the shore of the Euxine, they will be obliged to believe the reverse—that the whole story came from India to the West, and was not understood by the Greeks. At the top of the coast of Malabar is the gulf of Cutch, which is the Cuttaia, called by Ptolemy the Sinus Canthi. And near to this gulf is a promontory of Tammuz.
Source: Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis; or, an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Religions (London: Longman, 1836), 345, 596.
Godfrey Higgins
1836
The Hindoos have a stone called Shalgramu, which they worship. Mr. Ward saw one which had fallen clown and broken, by which it appeared to be a shell petrefaction. The shell in the inside of this stone is that which is called the Argonauta Argo, or the Nautilus, which sets its pretty sail before the wind. Every Hindoo God almost has one of them in his hand. How this shell-fish came to have the name of Argo-Argonauta in the West, I know not; but I have no doubt it has a connexion in some way with the Indian superstition, and that it relates to the Argha. In the cabinet of the Baptist Missionaries at Bristol, is an Indian one in copper. I think in the ship Argo, or Nautilus, with its mast supplied by Minerva or divine wisdom, I can perceive a beautiful mythos. It is really a ship, not of human, but of divine, invention and manufacture. From a careful consideration of the Argonautic story, I can entertain little doubt that it is a mistaken and misrepresented Indian mythos. […] [I]t must have had its origin very many degrees to the South of Greece; and this must have been, I think, where, as I shall presently shew, the Bay of Argo, and the Golden or Holy Chersonesus, that is, South India and Siam, are to be found. It is probable that the solution of this enigma will be found in the Vedas or Puranas. [...]
In the Colchicus Sinus [of India] is a town now called Cochin, and near it the Sinus Arga-ricus. Here we have the Cholchos, to which the Argonauts went, as is proved, by what Ptolemy calls the Sinus Argo-ricus, in its neighbourhood. The meaning of Chiol or Choi is the same as Colida, Cali-di. The Manda or Munda of the coast, or of the island, or of the river, we know means cycle. Thus we have two Cholchoses and two Argonauts. But as few people will now believe the story of the Ethiopian colony with their curly hair going from Egypt to the shore of the Euxine, they will be obliged to believe the reverse—that the whole story came from India to the West, and was not understood by the Greeks. At the top of the coast of Malabar is the gulf of Cutch, which is the Cuttaia, called by Ptolemy the Sinus Canthi. And near to this gulf is a promontory of Tammuz.
Source: Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis; or, an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Religions (London: Longman, 1836), 345, 596.
Contributions to the Science of Mythology
F. Max Müller
1897
We must of course distinguish, as the Greeks did, between Iasion, the son of Zeus and Electra (or Hemera) and brother of Dardanos, who on the thrice-ploughed field begat with Demeter Plouton or Ploutos, and was killed by the thunderbolt of Zeus, and Iason, the son of Aison and Polymede, the grandson of Kretheus of Jolkos, and the famous conqueror of the golden fleece and of Medeia, the daughter of Aietes. But the names and their varieties are difficult to keep apart, except that ,lason, the Argonaut, has short i and long a, while (if I am not mistaken), Iasion, Iasos, Iasios, Iaseus have long i and short a, because the name corresponds to Sk. Vivasvan, the [Hindu god of the] sun, which transliterated into Greek would become Wiwaswan, i. e. Iason or Iasion. The tradition was that Jason had been instructed by Cheiron, and had received from him the name of Jason, i. e. the healer, instead of his former name of Diomedes. Here therefore the long a of iasthai would be right, though it does not follow that lason was originally meant for healer. But the beloved of Demeter who is called not only Jasion, but Jasos and Jasios, had originally a short a, and its i was lengthened in order to make the name possible in hexameters. This Jasion then, originally Jason, would be meant for Vivasvan the sun, and who could with Demeter beget the wealth of the fields, if not the sun?
Read more of this piece here.
Source: F. Max Müller, Contributions to the Science of Mythology, vol. 2 (Longman, Green, & Co., 1897).
F. Max Müller
1897
We must of course distinguish, as the Greeks did, between Iasion, the son of Zeus and Electra (or Hemera) and brother of Dardanos, who on the thrice-ploughed field begat with Demeter Plouton or Ploutos, and was killed by the thunderbolt of Zeus, and Iason, the son of Aison and Polymede, the grandson of Kretheus of Jolkos, and the famous conqueror of the golden fleece and of Medeia, the daughter of Aietes. But the names and their varieties are difficult to keep apart, except that ,lason, the Argonaut, has short i and long a, while (if I am not mistaken), Iasion, Iasos, Iasios, Iaseus have long i and short a, because the name corresponds to Sk. Vivasvan, the [Hindu god of the] sun, which transliterated into Greek would become Wiwaswan, i. e. Iason or Iasion. The tradition was that Jason had been instructed by Cheiron, and had received from him the name of Jason, i. e. the healer, instead of his former name of Diomedes. Here therefore the long a of iasthai would be right, though it does not follow that lason was originally meant for healer. But the beloved of Demeter who is called not only Jasion, but Jasos and Jasios, had originally a short a, and its i was lengthened in order to make the name possible in hexameters. This Jasion then, originally Jason, would be meant for Vivasvan the sun, and who could with Demeter beget the wealth of the fields, if not the sun?
Read more of this piece here.
Source: F. Max Müller, Contributions to the Science of Mythology, vol. 2 (Longman, Green, & Co., 1897).
Indian Mythology
Viggo Fausbøll
1902
It can be proved that some of the old Indian tales have simply wandered through literature from east to west, to Persians, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Greeks, Turks and into European Folk-literature of the middle ages. Others have probably been transmitted and spread from land to land all over the world by word of mouth. But in all cases the greater part of the Folk-Tales, both on the whole and in many separate characteristics, point back to India as the land of their birth, and it is Theodor Benfey's great merit that he has proved this, in his thorough researches, in the introduction to his translation of Pañcatantra. And when the old Greek authors, Herodot, Ktesias, Strabo and Aelian speak of gold digging ants, of grifins, o[f] pigmies, of one-legged men, of others with dog's heads and the like, it is evident that these tales are only a reflection of the imaginative mind of India.
Some of the principal elements in the fables are gold, silver and precious stones. Who has not heard of Jason with the golden fleece, of Fafnir, who guards the gold on Gnita Heath, of the Asa's who throw golden dice on the plain of Ida, of Sif's golden hair, of the boar Goldbristle, of Groldmane, the golden ring Draupnir etc.: and who has not read Asbjørnsen's and Moe's fairy tales Kari Traestak; East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The Maiden on the Glass Mountain, The three Sisters, who are taken into the mountain and similar goblin stories from all countries, in which precious metals play an important part.
In India we read of serpents (naga, sarpa) in ant-hills full of gold (Pañcatantra III,5, 10), of golden hamsa's (Pañcat. III,6; Jataka Nr. 136), of the Naga who makes a present of jewels to the king who saved its life (Jataka Nr. 386), of the princess who will only marry one who has seen the golden city (KathaSarit-Sagara V,24). of the golden lotuses (Katha-S.-S. V,25), of Civa's garden of golden trees with branches of jewels and flowers with clusters of pearls (K.-S.-S. IX.52) and so forth.
How does it happen that precious metals and minerals play so important a part in India's tales (and therefore also in those originating from there). The simple reason is because India has always been richly endowed with the same.
Source: Viggo Fausbøll, Indian Mythology According to the Mahābhārata: In Outline (London: Luzac & Co., 1902), 190-192.
Viggo Fausbøll
1902
It can be proved that some of the old Indian tales have simply wandered through literature from east to west, to Persians, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Greeks, Turks and into European Folk-literature of the middle ages. Others have probably been transmitted and spread from land to land all over the world by word of mouth. But in all cases the greater part of the Folk-Tales, both on the whole and in many separate characteristics, point back to India as the land of their birth, and it is Theodor Benfey's great merit that he has proved this, in his thorough researches, in the introduction to his translation of Pañcatantra. And when the old Greek authors, Herodot, Ktesias, Strabo and Aelian speak of gold digging ants, of grifins, o[f] pigmies, of one-legged men, of others with dog's heads and the like, it is evident that these tales are only a reflection of the imaginative mind of India.
Some of the principal elements in the fables are gold, silver and precious stones. Who has not heard of Jason with the golden fleece, of Fafnir, who guards the gold on Gnita Heath, of the Asa's who throw golden dice on the plain of Ida, of Sif's golden hair, of the boar Goldbristle, of Groldmane, the golden ring Draupnir etc.: and who has not read Asbjørnsen's and Moe's fairy tales Kari Traestak; East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The Maiden on the Glass Mountain, The three Sisters, who are taken into the mountain and similar goblin stories from all countries, in which precious metals play an important part.
In India we read of serpents (naga, sarpa) in ant-hills full of gold (Pañcatantra III,5, 10), of golden hamsa's (Pañcat. III,6; Jataka Nr. 136), of the Naga who makes a present of jewels to the king who saved its life (Jataka Nr. 386), of the princess who will only marry one who has seen the golden city (KathaSarit-Sagara V,24). of the golden lotuses (Katha-S.-S. V,25), of Civa's garden of golden trees with branches of jewels and flowers with clusters of pearls (K.-S.-S. IX.52) and so forth.
How does it happen that precious metals and minerals play so important a part in India's tales (and therefore also in those originating from there). The simple reason is because India has always been richly endowed with the same.
Source: Viggo Fausbøll, Indian Mythology According to the Mahābhārata: In Outline (London: Luzac & Co., 1902), 190-192.
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan
James Tod
1920
The expedition of Argonauts in search of the golden fleece is a version of the arkite worship of Osiris, the Dolayatra of the Hindus: and Sanskrit etymology, applied to the vessel of the Argonauts, will give the sun (argha) god's (naifta) entrance into the sign of the Ram. The Tauric and Hydra foes, with which Jason had to contend before he obtained the fleece of Aries, are the symbols of the sun-god, both of the Ganges and the Nile; and this fable, which has occupied almost every pen of antiquity, is clearly astronomical, as the names alone of the Arghanath, sons of Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Sol, Arcus or Argus, Jupiter, Bacchus, etc., sufficiently testify, whose voyage is entirely celestial.
Source: James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, vol. 2(London: Oxford University Press, 1920), 700-701.
James Tod
1920
The expedition of Argonauts in search of the golden fleece is a version of the arkite worship of Osiris, the Dolayatra of the Hindus: and Sanskrit etymology, applied to the vessel of the Argonauts, will give the sun (argha) god's (naifta) entrance into the sign of the Ram. The Tauric and Hydra foes, with which Jason had to contend before he obtained the fleece of Aries, are the symbols of the sun-god, both of the Ganges and the Nile; and this fable, which has occupied almost every pen of antiquity, is clearly astronomical, as the names alone of the Arghanath, sons of Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Sol, Arcus or Argus, Jupiter, Bacchus, etc., sufficiently testify, whose voyage is entirely celestial.
Source: James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, vol. 2(London: Oxford University Press, 1920), 700-701.