Book 2 — CHAPTER 6
Reading edition
Rajputs and Mongols.
—Having thus brought down the genealogical history of the ancient martial races of India, from the earliest period to Yudhishthira and Krishna, and thence to Vikramaditya and the present day, a few observations on the races invading India during that time, and now ranked amongst the thirty-six royal races of Rajasthan, affording scope for some curious analogies, may not be inopportune.
The tribes here alluded to are the Haihaya or Aswa, the Takshak, and the Jat or Getae; the similitude of whose theogony, names in their early genealogies, and many other points, with the Chinese, Tatar, Mogul, Hindu, and Scythic races, would appear to warrant the assertion of one common origin.
Though the periods of the passage of these tribes into India cannot be stated with exactitude, the regions whence they migrated may more easily be ascertained.
Mongol Origin.
—Let us compare the origin of the Tatars and Moguls, as given by their historian, Abulghazi, with the races we have been treating of from the Puranas.
Mogol was the name of the Tatarian patriarch. His son was Aghuz,[1] the founder of all the races of those northern regions, called Tatars and Mogol [57]. Aghuz had six sons.[2] First, Kun,[3] ‘the sun,’ the Surya of the Puranas; secondly, Ai,[4] ‘the moon,’ 69the Indu of the Puranas. In the latter, Ai, we have even the same name [Ayus] as in the Puranas for the Lunar ancestor. The Tatars all claim from Ai, ‘the moon,’ the Indus of the Puranas. Hence with them, as with the German tribes, the moon was always a male deity. The Tatar Ai had a son, Yulduz. His son was Hyu, from whom[5] came the first race of the kings of China. The Puranic Ayus had a son, Yadu (pronounced Jadon); from whose third son, Haya, the Hindu genealogist deduces no line, and from whom the Chinese may claim their Indu[5] origin. Il Khan (ninth from Ai) had two sons: first, Kian; and secondly, Nagas; whose descendants peopled all Tatary. From Kian, Jenghiz Khan claimed descent.[6] Nagas was probably the founder of the Takshak, or Snake race[7] of the Puranas and Tatar genealogists, the Tak-i-uk Moguls of De Guignes.
Such are the comparative genealogical origins of the three races. Let us compare their theogony, the fabulous birth assigned by each for the founder of the Indu race.
Mongol and Hindu Traditions.
—1. The Puranic. “Ila (
the earth
), daughter of the sun-born Ikshwaku, while wandering in the forests was encountered by Budha (
Mercury
), and from the rape of Ila sprung the Indu race.”
2. The Chinese account of the birth of Yu (Ayu), their first monarch. “A star[8] (Mercury or Fo) struck his mother while journeying. She conceived, and gave to the world Yu, the founder of the first dynasty which reigned in China. Yu divided China into nine provinces, and began to reign 2207[9] years before Christ” [58].
Thus the Ai of the Tatars, the Yu of the Chinese, and the Ayus 70of the Puranas, evidently indicate the great Indu (Lunar) progenitor of the three races. Budha (Mercury), the son of Indu (the moon), became the patriarchal and spiritual leader; as Fo, in China; Woden and Teutates,[10] of the tribes migrating to Europe. Hence it follows that the religion of Buddha must be coeval with the existence of these nations; that it was brought into India Proper by them, and guided them until the schism of Krishna and the Suryas, worshippers of Bal, in time depressed them, when the Buddha religion was modified into its present mild form, the Jain.[11]
Scythian Traditions.
—Let us contrast with these the origin of the Scythic nations, as related by Diodorus;
when it will be observed the same legends were known to him which have been handed down by the Puranas and Abulghazi.
"The Scythians had their first abodes on the Araxes.[13] Their origin was from a virgin born of the earth[14] of the shape of a woman from the waist upwards, and below a serpent (symbol of Budha or Mercury); that Jupiter had a son by her, named Scythes,[15] whose name the nation adopted. Scythes had two sons, Palas and Napas (qu. the Nagas, or Snake race, of the Tatar genealogy?), who were celebrated for their great actions, and who divided the countries; and the nations were called after them, the Palians (qu. Pali?)[16] and Napians. They led their forces as far as the Nile on Egypt, and subdued many nations. They enlarged the empire of the Scythians as far as the Eastern ocean, 71and to the Caspian and lake Moeotis. The nation had many kings, from whom the Sacans (Sakae), the Massagetae (Getae or Jats), the Ari-aspians (Aswas of Aria), and many other races. They overran Assyria and Media[17] [59], overturning the empire, and transplanting the inhabitants to the Araxes under the name of Sauro-Matians."[18]
As the Sakae, Getae, Aswa, and Takshak are names which have crept in amongst our thirty-six royal races, common with others also to early civilization in Europe, let us seek further ancient authority on the original abodes.
Strabo[19] says: "All the tribes east of the Caspian are called Scythic. The Dahae[20] next the sea, the Massagetae (great Gete) and Sakae more eastward; but every tribe has a particular name. All are nomadic: but of these nomads the best-known are the Asii,[21] the Pasiani, Tochari, Sacarauli, who took Bactria from the Greeks. The Sakae[22] (‘races’) have made in Asia irruptions similar to those of the Cimmerians; thus they have been seen to possess themselves of Bactria, and the best district of Armenia, called after them Sakasenae."[23]
Which of the tribes of Rajasthan are the offspring of the Aswa and Medes, of Indu race, returned under new appellations, we 72shall not now stop to inquire, limiting our hypothesis to the fact of invasions, and adducing some evidence of such being simultaneous with migrations of the same bands into Europe. Hence the inference of a common origin between the Rajput and early races of Europe; to support which, a similar mythology, martial manners and poetry, language, and even music and architectural ornaments, may be adduced.[24]
Of the first migrations of the Indu-Scythic Getae, Takshak, and Asii, into India, that of Sheshnag (Takshak), from Sheshnagdes (Tocharistan?) or Sheshnag, six centuries, by calculation, before Christ, is the first noticed by the Puranas.[25] About this period a grand irruption of the same races conquered Asia Minor, and [60] eventually Scandinavia; and not long after the Asii and Tochari overturned the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the Romans felt the power of the Asi,[26] the Chatti, and Cimbri, from the Baltic shore.
“If we can show the Germans to have been originally Scythae or Goths (Getes or Jits), a wide field of curiosity and inquiry is open to the origin of government, manners, etc.; all the antiquities of Europe will assume a new appearance, and, instead of being traced to the bands of Germany, as Montesquieu and the greatest writers have hitherto done, may be followed through long descriptions of the manners of the Scythians, etc., as given by Herodotus. Scandinavia was occupied by the Scythae five hundred years before Christ. These Scythians worshipped Mercury (Budha), Woden or Odin, and believed themselves his progeny. The Gothic mythology, by parallel, might be shown 73to be Grecian, whose gods were the progeny of Coelus and Terra (Budha and Ella).[27] Dryads, satyrs, fairies, and all the Greek and Roman superstition, may be found in the Scandinavian creed. The Goths consulted the heart of victims, had oracles, had sibyls, had a Venus in Freya, and Parcae in the Valkyrie.”[28]
The Scythian Descent of the Rajputs.
—Ere we proceed to trace these mythological resemblances, let us adduce further opinions in proof of the position assumed of a common origin of the tribes of early Europe and the Scythic Rajput.
The translator of Abulghazi, in his preface, observes: "Our contempt for the Tatars would lessen did we consider how nearly we stand related to them, and that our ancestors originally came from the north of Asia, and that our customs, laws, and way of living were formerly the same as theirs. In short, that we are no other than a colony of Tatars.
"It was from Tatary those people came, who, under the successive names of Cymbrians,[29] Kelts, and Gauls, possessed all the northern part of Europe. What were the Goths, Huns, Alans, Swedes, Vandals, Franks, but swarms of the same hive? The Swedish chronicles bring the Swedes[30] from Cashgar, and [61] the affinity between the Saxon language and Kipchak is great; and the Keltick language still subsisting in Britany and Wales is a demonstration that the inhabitants are descended from Tatar nations."
74From between the parallels of 30° and 50° of north latitude, and from 75° to 95° of east longitude, the highlands of Central Asia, alike removed from the fires of the equator and the cold of the arctic circle, migrated the races which passed into Europe and within the Indus. We must therefore voyage up the Indus, cross the Paropanisos, to the Oxus or Jihun, to Sakatai[31] or Sakadwipa, and from thence and the Dasht-i Kipchak conduct the Takshaks, the Getae, the Kamari, the Chatti, and the Huns, into the plains of Hindustan.
We have much to learn in these unexplored regions, the abode of ancient civilisation, and which, so late as Jenghiz Khan’s invasion, abounded with large cities. It is an error to suppose that the nations of Higher Asia were merely pastoral; and De Guignes, from original authorities, informs us that when the Su invaded the Yueh-chi or Jats, they found upwards of a hundred cities containing the merchandise of India, and with the currency bearing the effigies of the prince.
Such was the state of Central Asia long before the Christian era, though now depopulated and rendered desert by desolating wars, which have raged in these countries, and to which Europe can exhibit no parallel. Timur’s wars, in more modern times, against the Getic nation, will illustrate the paths of his ambitious predecessors in the career of destruction.
If we examine the political limits of the great Getic nation in the time of Cyrus, six centuries before Christ, we shall find them little circumscribed in power on the rise of Timur, though twenty centuries had elapsed [62].
Jāts and Getae.
—At this period (
A.D.
1330), under the last prince of Getic race, Tughlak Timur Khan, the kingdom of Chagatai
was bounded on the west by the Dasht-i Kipchak, and
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on the south by the Jihun, on which river the Getic Khan, like Tomyris, had his capital. Kokhand, Tashkent, Utrar,
Cyropolis, and the most northern of the Alexandrias, were within the bounds of Chagatai.
The Getae, Jut, or Jat, and Takshak races, which occupy places amongst the thirty-six royal races of India, are all from the region of Sakatai. Regarding their earliest migrations, we shall endeavour to make the Puranas contribute; but of their invasions in more modern times the histories of Mahmud of Ghazni, and Timur abundantly acquaint us.
From the mountains of Jud[34] to the shores of Makran,[35] and along the Ganges, the Jat is widely spread; while the Takshak name is now confined to inscriptions or old writings.
Inquiries in their original haunts, and among tribes now under different names, might doubtless bring to light their original designation, now best known within the Indus; while the Takshak or Takiuk may probably be discovered in the Tajik, still in his ancient haunts, the Transoxiana and Chorasmia of classic authors; the Mawaru-n-nahr of the Persians; the Turan, Turkistan, or Tocharistan of native geography; the abode of the Tochari, Takshak, or Turushka invaders of India, described in the Puranas and existing inscriptions.
The Getae had long maintained their independence when Tomyris defended their liberty against Cyrus. Driven in successive wars across the Sutlej, we shall elsewhere show them preserving their ancient habits, as desultory cavaliers, under the Jat leader of Lahore, in pastoral communities in Bikaner, the Indian 76desert and elsewhere, though they have lost sight of their early history. The transition from pastoral to agricultural pursuits is but short, and the descendant of the nomadic Getae of Transoxiana is now the best husbandman on the plains of Hindustan[36] [63].
The invasion of these Indu-Scythic tribes, Getae, Takshaks, Asii, Chatti, Rajpali,[37] Huns, Kamari, introduced the worship of Budha, the founder of the Indu or Lunar race.
Herodotus says the Getae were theists,[38] and held the tenets of the soul’s immortality; so with the Buddhists.
Before, however, touching on points of religious resemblance between the Asii, Getae, or Jut of Scandinavia (who gave his name to the Cimbric Chersonese) and the Getae of Scythia and India, let us make a few remarks on the Asii or Aswa.
The Aswa.
—To the Indu race of Aswa (the descendants of Dvimidha and Bajaswa), spread over the countries on both sides the Indus, do we probably owe the distinctive appellation of Asia. Herodotus
says the Greeks denominated Asia from the wife of Prometheus; while others deduce it from a grandson of Manes, indicating the Aswa descendants of the patriarch Manu. Asa,
Sakambhari,
Mata,
is the divinity Hope, ‘mother-protectress of the Sakha,’ or races. Every Rajput adores Asapurna, ‘the fulfiller of desire’; or, as Sakambhari Devi (goddess protectress), she is invoked previous to any undertaking.
The Aswas were chiefly of the Indu race; yet a branch of the Suryas also bore this designation. It appears to indicate their celebrity as horsemen.[43] All of them worshipped the horse, which they sacrificed to the sun. This grand rite, the Asvamedha, on 77the festival of the winter solstice, would alone go far to exemplify their common Scythic origin with the Getic Saka, authorising the inference of Pinkerton, “that a grand Scythic nation extended from the Caspian to the Ganges.”
The Asvamedha.
—The Asvamedha was practised on the Ganges and Sarju by the Solar princes [64], twelve hundred years before Christ, as by the Getae in the time of Cyrus; “deeming it right,” says Herodotus [i. 216] “to offer the swiftest of created to the chief of uncreated beings”: and this worship and sacrifice of the horse has been handed down to the Rajput of the present day. A description of this grand ceremony shall close these analogies.
The Getic Asii carried this veneration for the steed, symbolic of their chief deity the sun, into Scandinavia: equally so of all the early German tribes, the Su, Suevi, Chatti, Sucimbri, Getae, in the forests of Germany, and on the banks of the Elbe and Weser. The milk-white steed was supposed to be the organ of the gods, from whose neighing they calculated future events; notions possessed also by the Aswa, sons of Budha (Woden), on the Yamuna and Ganges, when the rocks of Scandinavia and the shores of the Baltic were yet untrod by man. It was this omen which gave Darius Hystaspes[44] (hinsna, ‘to neigh,’ aspa, ‘a horse’) a crown. The bard Chand makes it the omen of death to his principal heroes. The steed of the Scandinavian god of battle was kept in the temple of Upsala, and always “found foaming and sweating after battle.” “Money,” says Tacitus, “was only acceptable to the German when bearing the effigies of the horse.”[45]
In the Edda we are informed that the Getae, or Jats, who entered Scandinavia, were termed Asi, and their first settlement As-gard.[46]
Pinkerton rejects the authority of the Edda and follows Torfaeus, who “from Icelandic chronicles and genealogies concludes Odin to have come into Scandinavia in the time of Darius Hystaspes, five hundred years before Christ.”
78This is the period of the last Buddha, or Mahavira, whose era is four hundred and seventy-seven years before Vikrama, or five hundred and thirty-three before Christ.
The successor of Odin in Scandinavia was Gotama; and Gautama was the successor of the last Buddha, Mahavira,[47] who as Gotama, or Gaudama, is still adored from the Straits of Malacca to the Caspian Sea.
“Other antiquaries,” says Pinkerton, “assert another Odin, who was put as the supreme deity one thousand years before Christ” [65].
Mallet admits two Odins, but Mr. Pinkerton wishes he had abided by that of Torfaeus, in 500 A.C.
It is a singular fact that the periods of both the Scandinavian Odins should assimilate with the twenty-second Buddha [Jain Tirthakara], Neminath, and twenty-fourth and last, Mahavira; the first the contemporary of Krishna, about 1000 or 1100 years, the last 533, before Christ. The Asii, Getae, etc., of Europe worshipped Mercury as founder of their line, as did the Eastern Asi, Takshaks, and Getae. The Chinese and Tatar historians also say Buddha, or Fo, appeared 1027 years before Christ. “The Yuchi, established in Bactria and along the Jihun, eventually bore the name of Jeta or Yetan,[48] that is to say, Getae. Their empire subsisted a long time in this part of Asia, and extended even into India. These are the people whom the Greeks knew under the name of Indo-Scythes. Their manners are the same as those of the Turks.[49] Revolutions occurred in the very heart of the East, whose consequences were felt afar.”[50]
The period allowed by all these authorities for the migration of these Scythic hordes into Europe is also that for their entry into India.
The sixth century is that calculated for the Takshak from Sheshnagdesa; and it is on this event and reign that the Puranas declare, that from this period “no prince of pure blood would be 79found, but that the Sudra, the Turushka, and the Yavan, would prevail.”
All these Indu-Scythic invaders held the religion of Buddha: and hence the conformity of manners and mythology between the Scandinavian or German tribes and the Rajputs increased by comparing their martial poetry.
Similarity of religious manners affords stronger proofs of original identity than language. Language is eternally changing—so are manners; but an exploded custom or rite traced to its source, and maintained in opposition to climate, is a testimony not to be rejected.
Personal Habits, Dress.
—When Tacitus informs us that the first act of a German on rising was ablution, it will be conceded this habit was not acquired in [66] the cold climate of Germany, but must have been of eastern
origin; as were “the loose flowing robe; the long and braided hair, tied in a knot at the top of the head”; with many other customs, personal habits, and superstitions of the Scythic Cimbri, Juts, Chatti, Suevi, analogous to the Getic nations of the same name, as described by Herodotus, Justin, and Strabo, and which yet obtain amongst the Rajput Sakhae of the present day.
Let us contrast what history affords of resemblance in religion or manners. First, as to religion.
Theogony.
—Tuisto (Mercury) and Ertha (the earth) were the chief divinities of the early German tribes. Tuisto
was born of the Earth (Ila) and Manus (Manu). He is often confounded with Odin, or Woden, the Budha of the eastern tribes, though they are the Mars and Mercury of these nations.
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Religious Rites.
—The Suiones or Suevi, the most powerful Getic nation of Scandinavia, were divided into many tribes, one of whom, the Su (Yueh-chi or Jat), made human sacrifices in their consecrated groves
to Ertha (Ila), whom all worshipped, and whose chariot was drawn by a cow.
The Suevi worshipped Isis (Isa, Gauri, the Isis and Ceres of Rajasthan), in whose rites the figure of a ship is introduced; “symbolic,” observes Tacitus, “of its foreign origin.”
The festival of Isa, or Gauri, wife of Iswara, at Udaipur, is performed on the lake, and appears to be exactly that of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, as described by Herodotus. On this occasion Iswara (Osiris), who is secondary to his wife, has a stalk of the onion in blossom in his hand; a root detested by the Hindus generally, though adored by the Egyptians.
Customs of War.
—They sung hymns in praise of Hercules, as well as Tuisto or Odin, whose banners and images they carried to the field; and fought in clans, using the feram or javelin, both in close and distant combat. In all maintaining [67] the resemblance to the Harikula, descendants of Budha, and the Aswa, offspring of Bajaswa, who peopled those regions west of the Indus, and whose redundant population spread both east and west.
The Suevi, or Suiones, erected the celebrated temple of Upsala, in which they placed the statues of Thor, Woden, and Freya, the triple divinity of the Scandinavian Asii, the Trimurti of the Solar and Lunar races. The first (Thor, the thunderer, or god of war) is Hara, or Mahadeva, the destroyer; the second (Woden) is Budha,[56] the preserver; and the third (Freya) is Uma, the creative power.
The grand festival to Freya was in spring, when all nature revived; then boars were offered to her by the Scandinavians, and even boars of paste were made and swallowed by the peasantry.
As Vasanti, or spring personified, the consort of Hara is worshipped by the Rajput, who opens the season with a grand 81hunt,[57] led by the prince and his vassal chiefs, when they chase, slay, and eat the boar. Personal danger is disregarded on this day, as want of success is ominous that the Great Mother will refuse all petitions throughout the year.
Pinkerton, quoting Ptolemy (who was fifty years after Tacitus), says there were six nations in Yeutland or Jutland, the country of the Juts, of whom were the Sablingii (Suevi,[58] or Suiones), the Chatti and Hermandri, who extended to the estuary of the Elbe and Weser. There they erected the pillar Irmansul to “the god of war,” regarding which Sammes[59] observes: “some will have it to be Mars his pillar, others Hermes Saul, or the pillar of Hermes or Mercury”; and he naturally asks, “how did the Saxons come to be acquainted with the Greek name of Mercury?”
Sacrificial pillars are termed Sula in Sanskrit; which, conjoined with Hara,[60] the Indian god of war, would be Harsula. The Rajput warrior invokes Hara with his trident (trisula) to help him in battle, while his battle-shout is ‘mar! mar!’ The Cimbri, one of the most celebrated of the six tribes of Yeutland, derive their name from their fame as warriors [68].[61]
Kumara[62] is the Rajput god of war. He is represented with seven heads in the Hindu mythology: the Saxon god of war has six.[63] The six-headed Mars of the Cimbri Chersonese, to whom was raised the Irmansul on the Weser, was worshipped by the Sakasenae, the Chatti, the Siebi or Suevi, the Jotae or Getae, and the Cimbri, evincing in name, as in religious rites, a common origin with the martial warriors of Hindustan.
Rajput Religion.
—The religion of the martial Rajput, and the rites of Hara, the god of battle, are little analogous to those of
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the meek Hindus, the followers of the pastoral divinity, the worshippers of kine, and feeders on fruits, herbs, and water. The Rajput delights in blood: his offerings to the god of battle are sanguinary, blood and wine. The cup (kharpara) of libation is the human skull. He loves them because they are emblematic of the deity he worships; and he is taught to believe that Hara loves them, who in war is represented with the skull to drink the foeman’s blood, and in peace is the patron of wine and women. With Parbati on his knee, his eyes rolling from the juice of the phul (ardent spirits) and opium, such is this Bacchanalian divinity of war. Is this Hinduism, acquired on the burning plains of India? Is it not rather a perfect picture of the manners of the Scandinavian heroes?
The Rajput slays buffaloes, hunts and eats the boar and deer, and shoots ducks and wild fowl (kukkut); he worships his horse, his sword, and the sun, and attends more to the martial song of the bard than to the litany of the Brahman. In the martial mythology and warlike poetry of the Scandinavians a wide field exists for assimilation, and a comparison of the poetical remains of the Asi of the east and west would alone suffice to suggest a common origin.
Bards.
—In the sacred Bardai of the Rajput we have the bard of our Saxon ancestry; those reciters of warlike poetry, of whom Tacitus says, “with their barbarous strains, they influence their minds in the day of battle with a chorus of military virtue.”
A comparison, in so extensive a field, would include the whole of their manners and religious opinions, and must be reserved for a distinct work.[64] The Valkyrie [69], or fatal sisters of the Suevi or Siebi, would be the twin sisters of the Apsaras, who summon the Rajput warrior from the field of battle, and bear him to “the mansion of the sun,” equally the object of attainment with the children of Odin in Scandinavia, and of Budha and Surya in the 83plains of Scythia and on the Ganges, like the Elysium[65] of the Heliadae of Greece.
In the day of battle we should see in each the same excitements to glory and contempt of death, and the dramatis personae of the field, both celestial and terrestrial, move and act alike. We should see Thor, the thunderer, leading the Siebi, and Hara (Siva) the Indian Jove, his own worshippers (Sivseva); in which Freya, or Bhavani, and even the preserver (Krishna) himself, not unfrequently mingle.
War Chariots.
—The war chariot is peculiar to the Indu-Scythic nations, from Dasaratha,
and the heroes of the Mahabharata, to the conquest of Hindustan by the Muhammadans, when it was laid aside. On the plains of Kurukshetra, Krishna became charioteer to his friend Arjun; and the Getic hordes of the Jaxartes, when they aided Xerxes in Greece, and Darius on the plains of Arbela,
had their chief strength in the war chariot.
The war chariot continued to be used later in the south-west of India than elsewhere, and the Kathi,[68] Khuman, Kumari of 84Saurashtra have to recent times retained their Scythic habits, as their monumental stones testify, expressing their being slain from their cars [70].
Position of Women.
—In no point does resemblance more attach between the ancient German and Scandinavian tribes, and the martial Rajput or ancient Getae, than in their delicacy towards females.
“The Germans,” says Tacitus [Germania, viii.], “deemed the advice of a woman in periods of exigence oracular.” So does the Rajput, as the bard Chand often exemplifies; and hence they append to her name the epithet Devi (or contracted De), ‘god-like.’ “To a German mind,” says Tacitus, “the idea of a woman led into captivity is insupportable”; and to prevent this the Rajput raises the poignard against the heart which beats only for him, though never to survive the dire necessity. It is then they perform the sacrifice ‘johar,’ when every sakha (branch) is cut off: and hence the Rajput glories in the title of Sakha-band, from having performed the sakha; an awful rite, and with every appearance of being the sacaea of the Scythic Getae, as described by Strabo.[69]
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Gaming.
—In passion for play at games of chance, its extent and dire consequences, the Rajput, from the earliest times, has evinced a predilection, and will stand comparison with the Scythian and his German offspring. The German staked his personal liberty, became a slave, and was sold as the property of the winner. To this vice the Pandavas owed the loss of their sovereignty and personal liberty, involving at last the destruction of all the Indu [71] races; nor has the passion abated. Religion even consecrates the vice; and once a year, on ‘the Festival of Lamps’ (
Diwali
), all propitiate the goddess of wealth and fortune (Lakshmi) by offering at her shrine.
Destitute of mental pursuits, the martial Rajput is often slothful or attached to sensual pleasures, and when roused, reckless on what he may wreak a fit of energy. Yet when order and discipline prevail in a wealthy chieftainship, there is much of that patriarchal mode of life, with its amusements, alike suited to the Rajput, the Getae of the Jihun, or Scandinavian.
Omens, Auguries.
—Divination by lots, auguries, and omens by flights of birds, as practised by the Getic nations described by Herodotus, and amongst the Germans by Tacitus, will be found amongst the Rajputs, from whose works
on this subject might have been supplied the whole of the Augurs and Aruspices, German or Roman.
Love of Strong Drink.
—Love of liquor, and indulgence in it to excess, were deep-rooted in the Scandinavian Asi and German tribes, and in which they showed their Getic origin; nor is the
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Rajput behind his brethren either of Scythia or Europe. It is the free use of this and similar indulgences, prohibited by ordinances which govern the ordinary Hindu, that first induced me to believe that these warlike races were little indebted to India.
The Rajput welcomes his guest with the munawwar piyala, or ‘cup of request,’ in which they drown ancient enmities. The heroes of Odin never relished a cup of mead more than the Rajput his madhu;[71] and the bards of Scandinavia and Rajwara are alike eloquent in the praise of the bowl, on which the Bardai exhausts every metaphor, and calls it ambrosial, immortal.[72] “The bard, as he sipped the ambrosia, in which sparkled the ruby seed of the pomegranate, rehearsed the glory of the race of the fearless.[73] May the king live for ever, alike bounteous in gifts to the bard and the foe!” Even in the heaven of Indra, the Hindu warrior’s paradise, akin to Valhalla [72], the Rajput has his cup, which is served by the Apsaras, the twin sister of the celestial Hebe of Scania. “I shall quaff full goblets amongst the gods,” says the dying Getic warrior;[74] “I die laughing”: sentiments which would be appreciated by a Rajput.
A Rajput inebriated is a rare sight: but a more destructive and recent vice has usurped much of the honours of the ‘invitation cup,’ which has been degraded from the pure ‘flower’[75] to an infusion of the poppy, destructive of every quality. Of this pernicious habit we may use the words which the historian of German manners applies to the tribes of the Weser and Elbe, in respect to their love of strong drink: “Indulge it, and you need not employ the terror of your arms; their own vices will subdue them.”
87The cup of the Scandinavian worshippers of Thor, the god of battle, was a human skull, that of the foe, in which they showed their thirst of blood; also borrowed from the chief of the Hindu Triad, Hara, the god of battle, who leads his heroes in the ‘red field of slaughter’ with the khopra[76] in his hand, with which he gorges on the blood of the slain.
Hara is the patron of all who love war and strong drink, and is especially the object of the Rajput warrior’s devotion: accordingly blood and wine form the chief oblations to the great god of the Indus. The Gosains,[77] the peculiar priests of Hara, or Bal, the sun, all indulge in intoxicating drugs, herbs, and drinks. Seated on their lion, leopard, or deer skins, their bodies covered with ashes, their hair matted and braided, with iron tongs to feed the penitential fires, their savage appearance makes them fit organs for the commands of the blood and slaughter. Contrary, likewise, to general practice, the minister of Hara, the god of war, at his death is committed to the earth, and a circular tumulus is raised over him; and with some classes of Gosains, small tumuli, whose form is the frustrum of a cone, with lateral steps, the apex crowned with a cylindrical stone [73].[78]
Funeral Ceremonies.
—In the last rites for the dead, comparison will yield proofs of original similarity. The funeral ceremonies of Scandinavia have distinguished the national eras, and the ‘age of fire’ and ‘the age of hills,’
[79]
designated the periods when the warrior was committed to mother earth or consumed on the pyre.
Odin (Budha) introduced the latter custom, and the raising of tumuli over the ashes when the body was burned; as also the practice of the wife burning with her deceased lord. These 88manners were carried from Sakadwipa, or Saka Scythia, “where the Geta,” says Herodotus [v. 5], “was consumed on the pyre or burned alive with her lord.” With the Getae, the Siebi or Suevi of Scandinavia, if the deceased had more than one wife, the elder claimed the privilege of burning.[80] Thus, “Nanna was consumed in the same fire with the body of her husband, Balder, one of Odin’s companions.” But the Scandinavians were anxious to forget this mark of their Asiatic origin, and were not always willing to burn, or to make “so cruel and absurd a sacrifice to the manes of their husbands, the idea of which had been picked up by their Scythian ancestors, when they inhabited the warmer climates of Asia, where they had their first abodes.”[81]
“The Scythic Geta,” says Herodotus [iv. 71], “had his horse sacrificed on his funeral pyre; and the Scandinavian Geta had his horse and arms buried with him, as they could not approach Odin on foot.”[82] The Rajput warrior is carried to his final abode armed at all points as when alive, his shield on his back and brand in hand; while his steed, though not sacrificed, is often presented to the deity, and becomes a perquisite of the priest.
Sati.
—The burning of the dead warrior, and female immolation, or
Sati
, are well-known rites, though the magnificent cenotaphs raised on the spot of sacrifice are little known or visited by Europeans; than which there are no better memorials of the rise and decline of the States of the Rajput heptarchy. It is the son who raises the mausoleum to the memory of his father; which last token of respect, or laudable vanity, is only limited by the means of the treasury. It is commemorative [74] of the splendour of his reign that the dome of his father should eclipse that of his predecessor. In every principality of Rajwara, the remark is applicable to chieftains as well as princes.
Each sacred spot, termed ‘the place of great sacrifice’ (Mahasati), is the haunted ground of legendary lore. Amongst the altars on which have burned the beauteous and the brave, the harpy[83] takes up her abode, and stalks forth to devour the hearts 89of her victims. The Rajput never enters these places of silence but to perform stated rites, or anniversary offerings of flowers and water to the manes (pitri-deva[84]) of his ancestors.
Odin[85] guarded his warriors’ final abode from rapine by means of “wandering fires which played around the tombs”; and the tenth chapter of the Salic law is on punishments against “carrying off the boards or carpets of the tombs.” Fire and water are interdicted to such sacrilegious spoliators.
The shihaba,[86] or wandering meteoric fires, on fields of battle and in the places of ‘great sacrifice,’ produce a pleasing yet melancholy effect; and are the source of superstitious dread and reverence to the Hindu, having their origin in the same natural cause as the ‘wandering fires of Odin’; the phosphorescent salts produced from animal decomposition.
The Scandinavian reared the tumulus over the ashes of the dead; so did the Geta of the Jaxartes, and the officiating priests of Hara, the Hindu god of battle.
The noble picture drawn by Gibbon of the sepulture of the Getic Alaric is paralleled by that of the great Jenghiz Khan. When the lofty mound was raised, extensive forests were planted, to exclude for ever the footsteps of man from his remains.
The tumulus, the cairn, or the pillar, still rises over the Rajput who falls in [75] battle; and throughout Rajwara these sacrificial monuments are found, where are seen carved in relief the warrior on his steed, armed at all points; his faithful wife (Sati) 90beside him, denoting a sacrifice, and the sun and moon on either side, emblematic of never-dying fame.
Cairns, Pillars.
—In Saurashtra, amidst the Kathi, Khuman, Bala, and others of Scythic descent, the Paliya, or Jujhar (sacrificial pillars), are conspicuous under the walls of every town, in lines, irregular groups, and circles. On each is displayed in rude relief the warrior, with the manner of his death, lance in hand, generally on horseback, though sometimes in his car; and on the coast ‘the pirates of Budha’
are depicted boarding from the shrouds. Amidst the Khuman of Tatary the Jesuits found stone circles, similar to those met with wherever the Celtic rites prevailed; and it would require no great ingenuity to prove an analogy, if not a common origin, between Druidic circles and the Indo-Scythic monumental remains. The trilithon, or seat, in the centre of the judicial circle, is formed by a number sacred to Hara, Bal, or the sun, whose priest expounds the law.
Worship of Arms. The Sword.
—The devotion of the Rajput is still paid to his arms, as to his horse. He swears ‘by the steel,’ and prostrates himself before his defensive buckler, his lance, his sword, or his dagger.
The worship of the sword (asi) may divide with that of the horse (aswa) the honour of giving a name to the continent of Asia. It prevailed amongst the Scythic Getae, and is described exactly by Herodotus [iv. 62]. To Dacia and Thrace it was carried by Getic colonies from the Jaxartes, and fostered by these lovers of liberty when their hordes overran Europe.
The worship of the sword in the Acropolis of Athens by the Getic Attila, with all the accompaniments of pomp and place, forms an admirable episode in the history of the decline and fall of Rome; and had Gibbon witnessed the worship of the double-edged sword (khanda) by the prince of Mewar and all his chivalry, he might even have embellished his animated account of the adoration of the scymitar, the symbol of Mars.
Initiation to Arms.
—Initiation to military fame was the same with the [76] German as with the Rajput, when the youthful candidate was presented with the lance, or buckled with the sword; a ceremony which will be noticed when their feudal
91
manners are described; many other traits of character will then be depicted. It would be easy to swell the list of analogous customs, which even to the objects of dislike in food
would furnish comparison between the ancient Celt and Rajput; but they shall close with the detail of the most ancient of rites.
Asvamedha, the Horse Sacrifice.
—There are some things, animate and inanimate, which have been common objects of adoration amongst the nations of the earth, the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven; the sword; reptiles, as the serpent; animals, as the noblest, the horse. This last was not worshipped as an abstract object of devotion, but as a type of that glorious orb which has had reverence from every child of nature. The plains of Tatary, the sands of Libya, the rocks of Persia, the valley of the Ganges, and the wilds of Orinoco, have each yielded votaries alike ardent in devotion to his effulgence:
Of this great world both eye and soul.
His symbolic worship and offerings varied with clime and habit; and while the altars of Bal in Asia, of Belenus among the Celts of Gaul and Britain, smoked with human sacrifices, the bull[89] bled to Mithras in Babylon, and the steed was the victim to Surya on the Jaxartes and Ganges.
The father of history says that the great Getae of Central Asia deemed it right to offer the swiftest of created to the swiftest of non-created beings. It is fair to infer that the sun’s festival with the Getae and Aswa nations of the Jaxartes, as with those of Scandinavia, was the winter solstice, the Sankrant of the Rajput 92and Hindu in general. Hi, Haya, Hywor, Aswa denote the steed in Sanskrit and its dialects. In Gothic, hyrsa; Teutonic, hors; Saxon, horse. The grand festival of the German tribes of the Baltic was the Hiul, or Hiel (already commented on), the Asvamedha[90] of the children of Surya, on the Ganges.
The Asvamedha Ceremonies.
—The ceremonies of the Asvamedha are too expensive, and attended with too great risk, to be attempted by modern princes. Of its fatal results we have many historical records, from the first dawn of Indian history to the last of its princes, Prithwiraja. The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the poems of Chand all illustrate this imposing rite and its effects.
The Ramayana affords a magnificent picture of the Asvamedha. Dasaratha, monarch of Ayodhya, father of Rama, is represented as commanding the rite: “Let the sacrifice be prepared, and the horse[92] liberated from the north bank of the Sarju!”[93] A year being ended, and the horse having returned from his wanderings,[94] The sacrificial ground was prepared on the spot of liberation.
93Invitations were sent to all surrounding monarchs to repair to Ayodhya: King Kaikeya,[95] the king of Kasi,[96] Lomapada of Angadesa,[97] Kosala of Magadhadesa,[98] with the kings of Sindhu,[99] Sauvira,[100] and Saurashtra [78].[101]
d
When the sacrificial pillars are erected, the rites commence. This portion of the ceremony, termed Yupochchraya, is thus minutely detailed: "There were twenty-one yupas, or pillars,[102] of octagonal shape, each twenty-one feet in height and four feet in diameter, the capitals bearing the figure of a man, an elephant, or a bull. They were of the various sorts of wood appropriated to holy rites, overlaid with plates of gold and ornamented cloth, and adorned with festoons of flowers. While the yupas were erecting, the Adhvaryu, receiving his instructions from the Hotri, or sacrificing priest, recited aloud the incantations.
94"The sacrificial pits were in triple rows, eighteen in number, and arranged in the form of the eagle. Here were placed the victims for immolation; birds, aquatic animals, and the horse.
"Thrice was the steed of King Dasaratha led round the sacred fire by Kosala, and as the priests pronounced the incantations he was immolated[103] amidst shouts of joy.
"The king and queen, placed by the high priest near the horse, sat up all night watching the birds; and the officiating priest, having taken out the hearts, dressed them agreeably to the holy books. The sovereign of men smelled the smoke of the offered hearts, acknowledging his transgressions in the order in which they were committed.
"The sixteen sacrificing priests then placed (as commanded in the ordinances) on the fire the parts of the horse. The oblation of all the animals was made on wood, except that of the horse, which was on cane.
“The rite concluded with gifts of land to the sacrificing priests and augurs; but the holy men preferring gold, ten millions of jambunada[104] were bestowed on them” [79].
Such is the circumstantial account of the Asvamedha, the most imposing and the earliest heathen rite on record. It were superfluous to point out the analogy between it and similar rites of various nations, from the chosen people to the Auspex of Rome and the confessional rite of the Catholic church.
The Sankrant,[105] or Sivaratri (night of Siva), is the winter solstice. On it the horse bled to the sun, or Balnath.
95The Scandinavians termed the longest night the ‘mother night,’[106] on which they held that the world was born. Hence the Beltane, the fires of Bal or Belenus; the Hiul of northern nations, the sacrificial fires on the Asvamedha, or worship of the sun, by the Suryas on the Ganges, and the Syrians (Σύροι) and Sauromatae on the shores of the Mediterranean.
The altars of the Phoenician Heliopolis, Balbee[107] or Tadmor,[108] were sacred to the same divinity as on the banks of Sarju, or Balpur, in Saurashtra, where "the horses of the sun ascended from his fountain (Surya-kund)," to carry its princes to conquest.
From Syria came the instructors of the Celtic Druids, who made human sacrifices, and set up the pillar of Belenus on the hills of Cambria and Caledonia.
When “Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill and under every tree,” the object was Bal, and the pillar (the lingam) was his symbol. It was on his altar they burned incense, and “sacrificed unto the calf on the fifteenth[109] day of the month” (the sacred Amavas of the Hindus). The calf of Israel is the bull (nandi) of Balkesar or Iswara; the Apis of the Egyptian Osiris [80].
Sacred Trees.
—The ash was sacred to the sun-god in the west. The asvattha (or pipal)
is the ‘chief of trees,’ say the books
96
sacred to Bal in the East: and death, or loss of limb, is incurred by the sacrilegious mutilator of his consecrated groves,
where a pillar is raised bearing the inhibitory edict.
We shall here conclude the analogy between the Indo-Scythic Rajput races and those of early Europe. Much more might be adduced; the old Runic characters of Scandinavia, the Celtic, and the Osci or Etruscan, might, by comparison with those found in the cave temples and rocks in Rajasthan and Saurashtra, yield yet more important evidence of original similarity; and the very 97name of German (from wer, bellum)[112] might be found to be derived from the feud (vair) and foe-man (vairi) of the Rajput.
If these coincidences are merely accidental, then has too much been already said; if not, authorities are here recorded, and hypotheses founded, for the assistance of others [81].