Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/38

28 thousand at the temple of the Cappadocian Comana and three thousand at Morimene, while the early Musalmân in- vaders found five hundred at the great temple of Somnâth. A variant of this institution leads us to the fable of the Amazons and the Land of Women of Celtic legend.

I have left to the end of this Paper what is perhaps the most interesting part of the Krishna myths, the explanation of his name. The word means, "the black, the dark, or the dark blue one," and in the popular representations of him he is usually depicted as of a dark blue hue. The popular Hindu explanation, that he was originally born black, does not help us to an explanation. The difficulty of explaining his name was felt at a very early time, as is shown by the attempt to derive it from krishi, "ploughing," or from krishi, "what existeth," and na, "eternal peace." He may be, as we have seen, an agricultural god, but his name cannot be derived from his functions. Equally inconclusive is the view of one school of comparative mythologists, which identifies him with the setting sun.

His title opens up a very curious chapter in religious symbolism, that of the black or otherwise coloured gods.

To begin with Egypt, we have black gods in Isis and Osiris, the latter in his form as god of the dead, while he is green when a corn-god. Ammon is a blue god, which is the colour of the modern Buddhist ghosts, while Krishna is one of the nine black Vasu-devas of the Jainas, and by the early Buddhists he was regarded as the chief of the black