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Re: REQUEST : Partholan, Indian & Celtic?

Lowell McFarland <mcfarlan@nai.net> wrote in article
<ghenDzABpH.L59@netcom.com>...

> I would like to know more about Partholan of the Mahabharata.
> I was unable to find anything on the Internet.
> Are there standard reference works about Partholan in the US 
> (and in English).
> Are the Indian and Celtic Partholan related or the same?
> Any other comments.

Judging by the title, the book by Dhanraj Singh is not likely to be of much
historical worth.  Arjuna one of the major characters of the Mahabharata is
called Partha but beyond the vague resemblence in their names there is no
reason to connect him to the celtic Partholan.  

There is however some connection between Indian and Celtic mythology.  Note
much of the "scientific facts" concerning this are little more than
scientific guesses but here is what they've managed to come up with. At one
point (estimated to be somewhere around the third millenium BC) there were
a group of nomadic people who lived somewhere in central Asia.  (opinion
ranges anywhere from just south of the Arctic circle to India itself.  The
consensus seems to be somewhere in the Caucausus Mountains area.)  

These people spread out from their homeland and quickly managed to conquer
most of Europe and Asia.  At one time the theory was they conquered and
destroyed the indigenous cultures but while there was probably fighting
here and there, it now seems their superior technology (inventions such as
the chariot and iron implements) were more responsible for their success.

These people called themselves Arya or noble (which is the meaning of Arya
in Sanskrt to this day.)  Echos of their name survives in Iran and Erin. 
Note there is no evidence to suggest there was such a thing as an "Aryan
race" as the Nazis suggested.  Aryan is used mostly to describe a
socio-linguistic group nowadays.  Alongside Gaelic, Sanskrt (ancestor of
the modern North Indian languages), and Persian, Greek, Latin, Gothic, the
Scandinavian languages and Lithuanian are important languages of the Aryan
group.  This gives you an idea of how far they spread.

One interesting feature of the various Aryan cultures is the concept of two
factions of divine beings.  One of these groups is "good" and the other
"evil" but otherwise there is not much difference between them.  For
instance the Greeks have Olympians (good) and titans (evil) but Prometheus
was a good Titan.  Similiarly Hindus have Devas (good) and Asuras (evil)
but Bali was a good Asura.  I'm sure you can find a parallel in Irish
mythology.  Another thing of interest is that the identity of the "good"
group is switched in various cultures.  I believe the Celtic gods are
called the Tuatha De Deanan or children of Danu.  But in Sanskrt Danava
(which also means child of Danu) referes to a demon.  The other Sanskrt
word for demon is Asura but in Zoarastrianism Ahura which is cognate is a
title of the highest Gods.  (See also the Norse Aesir.)  Similiarly the
Sanskrt word for Gods, Deva is cognate with the Greek and Latin deos and
deus from which we get English words like deity.

There were similiarities in religious rituals too.  To quote just one
Halloween is a Christian version of the Celtic Samhain which occurs roughly
the same time as the Hindu Shraddha.  The chief ceremony of Shraddha
involves feeding the worshippers dead ancestors -- the ancient prototype of
the modern American Halloween custom of trick or treating!

So while it would be a stretch to say India has a version of Celtic legend
(or as Dhanraj Singh would put it Ireland has a version of a Hindu legend
:-) there are some similarities between the two cultures over and above
what can be attributed to mere coincidence. 

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