Indic and Indian Religious Parallels

The word 'Indian' in my title is intended as an equivalent of the uncouth 'Amerindian,' a monstrosity which I find it impossible to pronounce with equanimity. It is not my intention to point out what is common to all or to much of the savage world, such as belief in ghosts, in another world, in the mana of the inanimate, in the Hindu forms of Squantum and Tantum as shared under different names with sundry peoples, but to indicate closer resemblances between the Indians of the East and of the West. Not often do we find religious groups so isolated. All the religions of antiquity were more or less fused. Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, the general foundation of European superstition, even the animal-gods of Africa and the Western origin of Japanese and also of Chinese culture-these are debatable topics bristling with queries. And now too we find even Irndia invaded and the Persian conquest anticipated by the Assyrian; nay, even the Seven Stars that used to shine so naturally above the Panjab are at present marked 'made in Babylon.' But thus far the genuineness of Indic invention has not yet been impugned to such an extent as to make it probable that our Redskins ever provided India with its religious beliefs, while only a few daring souls have ventured to urge that the primitive culture of America derives from the reckless merchants of Egypt or from the devoted missionaries of the Buddhist church. We have then an unusually fair field or two fair fields in which to study religious flora and fauna presumably of independent creation. That no sane historian believes in a common root or seed of the growths found therein, this fact makes what in itself would be merely an interesting collection of parallels a valuable exhibit, in that it demonstrates how near and yet how far may be religious phenomena alike in form yet diverse in origin. A parallel which elucidates a custom may well serve as a beginning. In Sanskrit literature we have numerous references to the vermilion line traced on a woman's head at the parting of the hair. In epic and drama it is always spoken of as a mere

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