Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE TROJAN PARIS.
virtually translate the Vedic epithets. But in no case are
the common and essential features of the myth so much lost
si-lit of, or rather overlaid with colours borrowed from other
mythical conceptions, as in the case of Paris. That the
Helen of the Iliad is etymologically the Sarama of the Yedic
hymns, there is no question ; that the Pani who tempts, or
who prevails over Sarama is the Trojan Paris, is not less
clear. Both alike are deceivers and seducers, and both
bring down their own doom by their offence. But when we
have said that Paris, like the Panis and Yritra, steals away
the fairest of women and her treasures (in which we see
again the cows of Sarama) from the western land, that he
hides her away for ten long years in Ilion, 1
as the clouds are
shut up in the prison-house of the Panis, and that the fight
between Paris and Menelaos with his Achaian hosts ends in
a discomfiture precisely corresponding to the defeat and
death of Pani by the spear of Indra, we have in fact noted
every feature in the western legend which identifies Paris
with the dark powers. 2
1 This Ilion Dr. 0. Meyer, in his
Qucestiones Homericcs, has sought to
identify with the Sanskrit word vi/u,
which he translates by stronghold. On
this Professor Max Miiller (Riff Veda
Sanhita, i. 31) remarks 'that vi/u in the
Veda has not dwindled down as yet to a
mere name, and that therefore it may
have originally retained its purely ap-
pellative power in Greek as well as in
Sanskrit, and from meaning a stronghold
in general, have come to mean the stronghold
of Troy
2 Professor Miiller, having identified
the name Paris with that of the Panis,
although he adds that the etymology of
Pani is as doubtful as that of Paris,
thinks that I am mistaken in my 'endeavours
to show that Paris belongs to
the class of bright solar heroes,' and
says that ' if the germ of the Iliad is the
battle between the solar and nocturnal
powers, Paris surely belongs to the
latter, and he whose destiny it is to kill
Achilleus in the Western Gates
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