Ushas

“ In any case, she is their most graceful creation, the charm of which is unsurpassed in the descriptive religious lyrics of any other literature. Here there are no priestly subtleties to obscure the brightness of her form, and few allusions to the sacrifice to mar the natural beauty of the imagery.
To enable the reader to estimate the merit of this poetry I will string together some utterances about the Dawn goddess, culled from various hymns, and expressed as nearly as possible in the words of their composers. Ushas is a radiant maiden, born in the sky, daughter of Dyaus. ”

“ His character for benevolence was in post-Vedic mythology developed in the doctrine of the Avatārs (“descents” to earth) or incarnations which he assumed for the good of humanity.
Ushas, goddess of dawn, is almost the only female deity to whom entire hymns are addressed, and the only one invoked with any frequency. She, however, is celebrated in some twenty hymns. The name, meaning the “Shining One,” is cognate to the Latin Aurora and the Greek Ēōs. When the goddess is addressed, the physical phenomenon of dawn is never absent from the poet’s mind. ”

“ According to 2 Chronicles, 26: 7, King Uzziah (779—740 B. C.) destroyed the Arabs that dwelt in Gûr Baʻal, and the people of Meʻûn. The Bible refers to the Arabs as dwelling south and southeast of the Dead Sea, and it is in these regions that our oasis of Maʻân is located. The records of the political and economic affairs of the time of Uzziah point in the same direction. Uzziah’s father, Amaziah, subjugated the people of Edom and Seʻîr (2 Chron., 25: 14) . Uzziah took advantage of this victory and established sway over the harbor of Elath, the present-day al-ʻAḳaba. ”

“ In 745, however, five years before King Uzziah died, a soldier ascended the throne of Assyria, under the title of Tiglath-pileser II., [11] who was determined to achieve the conquest of the whole world and its organization as his empire. Where his armies came, it was not simply to chastise or demand tribute, [97] but to annex countries, carry away their populations and exploit their resources. It was no longer kings who were threatened; peoples found themselves in danger of extinction. This terrible purpose of the Assyrian was pursued with vast means and the utmost ferocity. ”

“ Riches had led to luxury, and commerce had made the people more hospitable to foreign ideals, both social and religious.
It was in the reign of Uzziah's successor, Jotham, that a new and eloquent voice was lifted up on behalf of reform, calling the people back to the ideals of the fathers and of the prophets. This new force in Jerusalem was the young Isaiah, whose striking vision in the year King Uzziah died caused him to give up a profane life for the prophet's office; and upon none of the Hebrew prophets do the condition and character of woman seem to have made so deep an impress. ”

“ The buds were bursting, the birds were singing, and in the warm valley a band of farmers were plowing with lazy bulls, and singing, meanwhile, a grateful song in praise of their just King, their peaceful, prosperous country, and their full stomachs. As the Ussa came along in his disguise he began to jest with them, but they did not like him, and were rude in their jokes at his expense; when an old man, evidently the father, cautioned them to be careful. ”

“ We left the king, Oustas, after detecting a conspiracy, ready to fall upon some settlement of Shangalla. This he executed with great success, and surrounded a large part of the nation called Baasa, encamped under the trees suspecting no danger. He put the grown people to the sword, and took a prodigious number of children of both sexes captive. He was intending also to push his conquest farther among these savages, when he was called to Gondar by the death of his prime minister and confident, Ras Fasa Christos. ”

“ He therefore removed the stele which Mesilim had set up, and, invading the plain of Shirpurla, succeeded in conquering and holding a district named Gu-edin. But Ush’s successful raid was not of any permanent benefit to his city, for he was in his turn defeated by the forces of Shirpurla, and his successor upon the throne, a patesi named Enakalli, abandoned a policy of aggression, and concluded with Eannadu, patesi of Shirpurla, a solemn treaty concerning the boundary between their realms, the text of which has been preserved to us upon the famous Stele of Vultures in the Louvre. ”

“ Yet the delicacy of matter is but a faint type of the delicacy of mind. He who would pass within the veil to commune with the soul between the cherubim must assume holy garments. If the trouble seem to him too great, let him be content to tarry without. Uzzah put forth an incautious hand and touched the ark of God unbidden, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, and there he died by the ark of God. Now, as then, if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy ”

“ They style themselves Usul or The Pure, a term which implies either displacement or [212] intermixture in the parts around. Their language is a modified (many call it a bad) Persian. Philologically, however, it may be the older and more instructive dialect—though I have no particular reasons for thinking it so. Hindu features of physiognomy now appear. So do Semitic elements of polity and social constitution. We have tribes, clans, and families; with divisions and sub-divisions. We have a criminal law which puts us in mind of the Levites. We have classes which scorn to intermarry ”

“ But it is recognized that the founders of the historic city of Ashur, records of whose achievements have been recovered in the early building-inscriptions, bear names which are quite un-Semitic in character. There is a good deal to be said for regarding Ushpia, or Aushpia, the traditional founder of the great temple of the god Ashir, [42] and Kikia, the earliest builder of the city's wall, [43] as representing the first arrival of the Mitannian race, which in the fourteenth century played, under new leadership, so dominant a part in the politics of Western Asia. ”

“ For the “lowland” (Hebrew Shephēlah) see i. 15 (note) . The “plain” (margin table land; Hebrew Mishōr) is the name of the high pasture lands east of Jordan; apparently the part occupied by the Ammonites whom Uzziah had subdued is meant here. (For a different view see Smith, Jerusalem, II. 119, note.)
11‒15 (no parallel in Kings) .
Uzziah’s Army.
11Moreover Uzziah had an army of fighting men, that went out to war by bands, according to the number of their reckoning made by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains. ”

“ All this meant such security across broad Israel as had not been known since the glorious days of Solomon. Agriculture must everywhere have revived: Uzziah, the Chronicler tells us, loved husbandry. But we hear most of Trade and Building. With quarters in Damascus and a port on the Red Sea, with allies [Pg 33] in the Phœnician towns and tributaries in the Philistine, with command of all the main routes between Egypt and the North as between the Desert and the Levant, Israel, during those forty years of Jeroboam and Uzziah, must have become a busy and a wealthy commercial power. ”

“ And Yush'a spoke unto the day to stand still, and it stood still; and the day was great, for God heard the voice of the children of Israil, and sent forth the angels with them. And the five kings, the chiefs already mentioned, fled and found a cave in Maqadah. Then the king ordered to place great stones on the mouth of the cave, that he might keep them under guard, until they (the children of Israil) should return, when they have made an end of destroying the rest of the army. And he killed the multitude of the people, and not a single man of them did escape safe. ”

“ Next to these are the Usdens, who are the landholders and lawgivers of the community, and who alone display what little of civilization exists among them. They govern by no written law, but certain hereditary usages, which are varied as the caprice or will of the Usden determines; the great body of the people are vassals or slaves. ”

“ After the vainglorious Amaziah came Uzziah, a strong and vigorous king. He encouraged agriculture, he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and fortified the city in a stronger way. He dug cisterns to water the herds, and had many vineyards and orchards. He was successful in his wars and extended his territory to the west, conquering several Philistine towns. But the story goes on to say that he became so proud of his success and his strength that he attempted to usurp the work of the priests. While he was offering incense in the temple, which he had no right to do, he suddenly became a leper. ”

“ For a description of the Akhas a reference is invited to the authorities quoted on page 87. They are a swarthy stalwart tribe, dull but peaceable. They mix and intermarry with the Chinese to an extent remarkable among these eastern hill dwellers and have hitherto been best known to those who have not lived among them by their women's dress, which with its abbreviated skirt, leggings and bamboo head-dress, is very distinctive, Missionary work has extended of late years into the Akha country, but apparently, the Akhas are not as ready to embrace the Christian faith as the Lahus. ”

“ Before returning to Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal’s generals inflicted chastisement on Akko and Ushu, the two chief Tyrian cities which had revolted, and this vigorous action confirmed the fidelity of the Assyrian vassals in Palestine. Uate’s life was spared, but his lip and cheek were pierced by the hand of the king himself, and he was led by a cord passed through the wounds, as if he had been a wild beast intended for domestication ”

“ Of the Usbayhan I saw but few individuals: they informed me that their tribe numbered forty villages, and about 1000 shields; that they had no chief of their own race, but owned the rule of the Girhi and Berteri Gerads. Their principal clans are the Rer Yusuf, Rer Said, Rer Abokr, and Yusuf Liyo. In the Eastern Horn of Africa, and at Ogadayn, the Marayhan is a powerful tribe, here it is un-consequential, and affiliated to the Girhi. The Abaskul also lies scattered over the Harar hills, and owns the Gerad Adan as its chief. ”

“ The Utes, or Digger Indians, have always been considered to be the lowest in civilization of all the American tribes. It has been thought that they may be the descendants of outcasts, but this opinion does not seem to be based upon sufficient evidence. There are good reasons for believing that they are allied in race and language with the Shoshones, and they are apparently treated by them on terms of friendship and equality. ”

“ This we left on the left hand, as well as the tasam, and ascended a valley where the little village of Ushy with its stone huts and barley fields is situated. The 150 inhabitants are at home only at seedtime and harvest; the rest of the year they are away, tending their sheep. Thence we proceeded the following day to the pass Ushy-la. The way is marked by a succession of mani heaps and chhortens, and the pass by rods so thin as to be invisible at a distance, and the streamers they carry look like a flock of tied birds. ”

“ In the eighth century they crossed the Oxus, drove hordes of Huns back into the depths of Asia, captured the rich cities of Bokhara and Samarkand, and made Mohammedans of all the people all the way to the Indus. So Uzbeks and Turkomans and Kirghiz and Afghans and the others obtained a religion which suited their temperament, and there was comparative peace and trade throughout all Turkestan and Persia for many a long year. ”

“ The Kurmi, the Kachhi, the Lodh, the Muráo, the Gújar, are all cultivators. But the complication generally arises from the action upon each other of the two caste factors, the ethnic or national and the trade-union. In Oudh several different kingdoms, which had existed separately for many hundred years during Buddhist times, were crushed together by the pres- sure of Moslem empire. In this the Hindu polity was more or less elabo- rate or wanting ; civilization, the division of labour and trades-unions, were in full force in one and absent in others. ”

“ To this Umsintwanga, through an interpreter, replied that he was sent by the king and his indunas to sue for peace, and in [318] proof of their overtures being sincere he desired to present the immemorial symbol of peace and friendship, the ivory tusk. He said further, that he was deputed to ask the stoppage of the 1st Division, the proceedings of which had much grieved and astonished the king, and he, therefore, was desired to ask that it should advance no further towards the king's kraal, while he, the ambassador, might be allowed to go through our division to Natal. ”

“ Timour brought back thousands of Russian slaves after his conquests, and Russia lay under the yoke of the Tartars. The Empire of Asia lasted only a little while in the hands of the dynasty of Tamerlane, and the Uzbek and the Kirghiz Cossacks appeared, waging a holy war for Islam. At the present moment there are one million Uzbeks in the province of Bokhara, three hundred and fifty thousand in Khiva, and five hundred thousand spread over the rest of Russian Turkestan, and a sprinkling in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks formed three kingdoms, Bokhara, Khiva, and Kokand. ”

“ It was not likely such a palmy state of things, for the Assa-hemerah people, would be allowed to flourish long, without exciting some envy and jealousy, especially among the inhabitants of Tajourah and Owssa, who had not forgotten the great advantages that accrued to them when an uninterrupted road allowed them to carry on a direct trade with the populous countries to the west of the Hawash. ”