05

Chapter V

  1. Firdausi, Shahna (Warner trans.), vol. 4, pp. 136ff.

  2. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1954), vol. 1, pp. 129ff.

  3. E. Seler, Einige Kapitel aus dem Geschichtswerk des Fray B. de Sahagun (1927), p. 290.

  4. Mbh. 1.2 (Roy trans., vol. 1, p. 18). See H. Jacobi’s Mahabharata (1903), p. 2.

  5. Vishnu Purana 5.38 (trans. H. H. Wilson [1840; 3d ed. 1961], p. 484).

  6. Vishnu Purana 4.24 (Wilson trans., p. 390). Cf. 5.38, pp. 48If.: “and on the same day that Krishna departed from the earth the powerful dark-bodied Kali age descended. The ocean rose, and submerged the whole of Dvaraka,” i.e., the town which Krishna himself had built, as told in Vishnu Purana 5.23, p. 449.

  7. SeeVishnu Purana 5.12 (Wilson trans., p. 422), where Indra tells Krishna, “A portion of me has been born as Arjuna.”

  8. Mbh. 18.5 (Swargarohanika Parva) (Roy trans., vol. 12, pp. 287-90). See also Jacobi, p. 191.

  9. Arrived at the last stage of deterioration, we find Dharma, the Dog, in a fairy tale from Albania: The youngest daughter of a king — her two sisters resemble Regan and Goneril — offers to go to war in her father’s place, asking for three suits only, and for the paternal blessing. “Then the king procured three male suits, and gave her his blessing, and this blessing changed into a little dog and went with the princess.” J. G. von Hahn: Griechische und Albanische Märchen [1918], vol. 2, p. 146.).

  10. B. Keith, Indian Mythology (1917), p. 126. For the deeds of Krishna, see pp. 14ff.

  11. Vishnu Purana 5.6 (Wilson trans., p. 406f.).

  12. Vishnu Purana 5.6 (Wilson trans., pp. 406f.).

  13. That “uncle” — really “the great Asura Kalanemi who was killed by the powerful Vishnu . . . revived in Kansa, the son of Ugrasena” (Vishnu Purana 5.1 [Wilson trans., p. 396]).

  14. Al-Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations (trans. C. E. Sachau [1879], p. 201).

  15. p.112.

  16. Firdausi, Shahnama (Warner trans.), vol. 2, pp. 8f.

  17. The time structure is a very complicated one, and we cannot manage with a subdivision of two “periods” at all, the less so, as the reigns of the Shahs overlap with the rather miraculous lifetimes of the “heroes” or Paladins (Rustam, Zal, etc.). The same goes for the “primordial” emperors of China and their “vassals.” But God protect us from meddling with lists of alleged “kings” from whichever area, but particularly from the Iranian tables!

  18. Firdausi, vol. 1, pp. 49f.

  19. Firdausi, vol. 1, p. 59f.