Chapter 983

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From προ-μῆτις, “forethought.” “Professor Kuhn,” we are told in the above-named volumes, The Dramas of Æschylus, “considers the name of the Titan to be derived from the Sanskrit word Pramantha, the instrument used for kindling fire. The root mand or manth, implies rotatory motion, and the word manthâmi, used to denote the process of fire kindling, acquired the secondary sense of snatching away; hence we find another word of the same stock, pramatha, signifying theft.” This is very ingenious, but perhaps not altogether correct; besides, there is a very prosaic element in it. No doubt in physical nature, the higher forms may develop from the lower ones, but it is hardly so in the world of thought. And as we are told that the word manthâmi passed into the Greek language and became the word manthanô, to learn—that is to say, to appropriate knowledge, whence prometheia, fore-knowledge, forethought—we may find, in searching, a more poetical origin for the “fire-bringer” than that displayed in its Sanskrit origin. The Svastica, the sacred sign and the instrument for kindling sacred fire, may explain it better. “Prometheus, the fire-bringer, is the Pramantha personified,” continues the author, “and finds his prototype in the Âryan Mâtarishvan, a divine ... personage, closely associated with Agni, the fire-god of the Vedas.” Matih, in Sanskrit, is “understanding,” and a synonym of Mahat and Manas, and must be of some account in the origin of the name; Pramatih is the son of Fohat, and has his story also.