Note 20 — CHAPTER 2
Reading edition
They surmise that this is the individual blade which is yet annually worshipped by the sovereign and chiefs on its appropriate day, one of the nine sacred to the god of war; a rite completely Scythic. I had this relation from the chief genealogists of the family, who gravely repeated the incantation: “By the preceptor, Gorakhnath and the great god, Eklinga; by Takshka the serpent, and the sage Harita; by Bhavani (Pallas) strike!”