Page:Hindu astronomy, Brennand (1896).djvu/27

 learned men of recent times, regarding the origin and homes of the Aryan races. Among the theories propounded, he mentions the opinion of Rhode, who endeavoured to discover the geographical starting point of the Zend people, in whom he comprehends Bactrians, Medes, and Persians. He observes traces of the gradual expansion of the Zend people, considering their starting point to be Airyana Vaejanh, followed by Sugdha, the Greek (Suguda, Modern Samarkand). He further notes that "Eeriene Veedjo is to be looked for nowhere else, than on the mountains of Asia, whence, as far as history goes back, peoples have perpetually migrated."

Dr. O. Shrader instances, as a proof of the close connection between the Indians and the Iranians, that they alike call themselves Arya, Ariya, and that, beyond doubt, India was populated by Sanscrit people from the North-west.

"There are clear indications," he further says, "in the history of the Iranian peoples, that the most ancient period of Iranian occupation was over before the conquest of the Medio-Persian territory, lying to the East of the great desert. From the nature of the case, it is just this Eastern portion of Iran, the ancient provinces of Sogdiana, Bactria, and the region of the Paropamisus, to which we must look in the first instance for the home of the Indo-Iranians."

Again, it appears to have been the opinion of Professor Max Muller, that "No other language (than the Hindu) has carried off so large a share of the common Aryan heirloom, whether roots, grammar, words, myths, or legends; and it is natural to suppose that, though the eldest brother, the Hindu was the last to leave the Central Aryan home."

Further, as Warren Hastings has remarked, when he was Governor-General of India, there are immemorial traditions prevalent among the Hindus that they originally came from a region situated in 40 degrees of North latitude.

The course taken by the great migration into India is supposed to be that which followed the ancient trade-route, and path of the