The Project Gutenberg eBook of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 2 of 3
Title: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 2 of 3
Author: James Tod
Editor: William Crooke
Release date: July 5, 2018 [eBook #57375]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Emmanuel Ackerman, KD Weeks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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The text is annotated with numerous footnotes, which were numbered sequentially on each page. On occasion, a footnote itself is annotated by a note, using an asterisk as the reference. This distinction is followed here. Those ‘notes on notes’ are given alphabetic sequence (A, B., etc.), and are positioned directly following the main note.
Since there are over 1500 notes in this volume, they have been gathered at each chapter’s end, and resequenced for each chapter. Links are provided to navigate from the reference to the note, and back.
The notes are a combination of those of the author, and of the editor of this edition. The latter are enclosed in square brackets.
Finally, the pagination of the original edition, published in the 1820’s, was preserved by Crooke for ease of reference by including those page numbers in the text, also enclosed in square brackets.
Crooke’s plan for the renovation of the Tod’s original text, including a discussion of the transliteration of Hindi words, is given in detail in the Preface. It should be noted that the use of the macron to guide pronunciation is very unevenly followed, and there was no intent here to regularize it.
There are a number of references to a map, sometimes referred to as appearing in Volume I. In this edition, the map appears at the end of Volume III.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Given the history of the text, it was thought best to leave all orthography as printed.
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COLONEL JAMES TOD.
(By permission of Lt.-Col. C. D. Blunt-Mackenzie, R.A.)
Frontispiece.
ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES
OF
RAJASTHAN
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| BOOK IV—continued | |
| ANNALS OF MEWAR | |
| CHAPTER 19 | |
| Influence of the hierarchy in Rajputana—Emulation of its princes in grants to the priesthood—Analogy between the customs of the Hindus, in this respect, and those of the ancient people—Superstition of the lower orders—Secret influence of the Brahmans on the higher classes—Their frauds—Ecclesiastical dues from the land, etc.—The Saivas of Rajasthan—The worship and shrine of Eklinga—The Jains—Their numbers and extensive power—The temple of Nathdwara, and worship of Kanhaiya—The privilege of Sanctuary—Predominance of the doctrines of Kanhaiya beneficial to Rajput society | 589 |
| CHAPTER 20 | |
| The origin of Kanhaiya or Krishna—Sources of a plurality of gods among the Hindus—Allegories respecting Krishna elucidated—Songs of Jayadeva celebrating the loves of Kanhaiya—The Rasmandal, a mystic dance—Govardhana—Krishna anciently worshipped in caves—His conquest of the ‘Black serpent’ allegorical of the contests between the Buddhists and Vaishnavas—Analogies between the legends of Krishna and Western mythology—Festivals of Krishna—Pilgrimage to Nathdwara—The seven gods of that temple—Its Pontiff | 621 |
| Appendix | 644 |
| viCHAPTER 21 | |
| Importance of mythological history—Aboriginal tribes of India—The Rajputs are conquerors—Solar year of the Hindus—Opened at the winter solstice—The Vasant, or spring festival—Birth of the Sun—Common origin assumed of the Rajputs and Getic tribe of Scandinavia—Surya, the sun-god of all nations, Thor, Syrus, Sol—Sun-worship—The Aheria, or spring-hunt, described—Boar-feast—Phalgun festival—The Rajput Saturnalia—Games on horseback—Rites to the Manes—Festival of Sitala as guardian of children—Rana’s birthday—Phuladola, the Rajput Floralia—Festival of Gauri—Compared with the Diana of Egypt—The Isis or Ertha of the Suevi—And the Phrygian Cybele—Anniversary of Rama—Fête of Kamdeva or Cupid—Little Ganggor—Inundation of the capital—Festival of Rambha or Venus—Rajput and Druidic rites—Their analogy—Serpent worship—Rakhi, or Festival of the bracelet | 650 |
| CHAPTER 22 | |
| Festivals continued—Adoration of the sword: its Scythic origin—The Dasahra, or military festival: its Scythic origin—Torans or triumphal arcs—Ganesa of the Rajputs and Janus of the Romans—Worship of arms: of the magic brand of Mewar, compared with the enchanted sword, Tyrfing, of the Edda—Birth of Kumara, the Rajput Mars, compared with the Roman divinity—Birth of Ganga: her analogy to Pallas—Adoration of the moon—Worship of Lakshmi, or Fortune; of Yama, or Pluto—Diwali, or festival of lamps, in Arabia, in China, in Egypt, and in India—Annakuta and Jaljatra—Festivals sacred to the Ceres and Neptune of the Hindus—Festival of the autumnal equinox—Reflections on the universal worship of the elements, Fire, Light, Water—Festival sacred to Mithras or Vishnu, as the sun—The Phallus: its etymology—Rajput doctrine of the Triad—Symbols Vishnu, as the sun-god: his messenger Garuda, the eagle: his charioteer Aruna, or the dawn—Sons of Aruna—Fable analogous to that of Icarus—Rites of Vishnu on the vernal equinox and summer solstice—Dolayatra, or festival of the ark, compared with the ark of Osiris, and Argonautic expedition of the Greeks—Etymology of Argonaut—Ethiopia the Lanka of the Hindus—Their sea-king, Sagara—Rama, or Ramesa, chief of the Cushite races of India—Ramesa of the Rajputs and Rameses of Egypt compared—Reflections | 679 |
| CHAPTER 23 | |
| viiThe nicer shades of character difficult to catch—Morals more obvious and less changeable than manners—Dissimilarity of manners in the various races of Rajasthan—Rajputs have deteriorated in manners as they declined in power—Regard and deference paid to women in Rajasthan—Seclusion of the Females no mark of their degradation—High spirit of the Rajput princesses—Their unbounded devotion to their husbands—Examples from the chronicles and bardic histories—Anecdotes in more recent times—Their magnanimity—Delicacy—Courage and presence of mind—Anecdote of Sadhu of Pugal and Karamdevi, daughter of the Mohil chief—The seclusion of the females increases their influence—Historical evidences of its extent | 707 |
| CHAPTER 24 | |
| Origin of female immolation—The sacrifice of Sati, the wife of Iswara—The motive to it considered—Infanticide—Its causes among the Rajputs, the Rajkumars, and the Jarejas—The rite of Johar—Female captives in war enslaved—Summary of the Rajput character—Their familiar habits—The use of opium—Hunting—The use of weapons—Jethis, or wrestlers—Armouries—Music—Feats of dexterity—Maharaja Sheodan Singh—Literary qualifications of the princes—Household economy—Furniture—Dress, etc. | 737 |
| PERSONAL NARRATIVE | |
| CHAPTER 25 | |
| Valley of Udaipur—Departure for Marwar—Encamp on the heights of Tus—Resume the march—Distant view of Udaipur—Deopur—Zalim Singh—Reach Pallana—Ram Singh Mehta—Manikchand—Ex-raja of Narsinghgarh—False policy pursued by the British Government in 1817-18—Departure from Pallana—Aspect and geological character of the country—Nathdwara ridge—Arrival at the city of Nathdwara—Visit from the Mukhya of the temple—Departure for the village of Usarwas—Benighted—Elephant in a bog—Usarwas—A Sannyasi—March to Samecha—The Shera Nala—Locusts—Coolness of the air—Samecha—March to Kelwara, the capital—Elephant’s pool—Murcha—Kherli—Maharaja Daulat Singh—Kumbhalmer—Its architecture, remains, and history—March to the ‘Region of Death,’ or Marwar—The difficult nature of the country—A party of native horsemen—Bivouac in the glen | 760 |
| CHAPTER 26 | |
| viiiThe Mers or Meras: their history and manners—The Barwatia of Gokulgarh—Forms of outlawry—Ajit Singh, the chief of Ghanerao—Plains of Marwar—Chief of Rupnagarh—Anecdote respecting Desuri—Contrast between the Sesodias of Mewar and the Rathors of Marwar—Traditional history of the Rajputs—Ghanerao—Kishandas, the Rana’s envoy—Local discrimination between Mewar and Marwar—Ancient feuds—The aonla and the bawal—Aspect of Marwar—Nadol—Superiority of the Chauhan race—Guga of Bhatinda—Lakha of Ajmer: his ancient fortress at Nadol—Jain relic there—The Hindu ancient arch or vault—Inscriptions—Antiquities at Nadol—Indara—Its villages—Pali, a commercial mart—Articles of commerce—The bards and genealogists the chief carriers—The ‘Hill of Virtue’—Khankhani—Affray between two caravans—Barbarous self-sacrifices of the Bhats—Jhalamand—March to Jodhpur—Reception en route by the Chiefs of Pokaran and Nimaj—Biography of these nobles—Sacrifice of Surthan of Nimaj—Encamp at the capital—Negotiation for the ceremonies of reception at the Court of Jodhpur | 789 |
| CHAPTER 27 | |
| Jodhpur: town and castle—Reception by the Raja—Person and character of Raja Man Singh—Visits to the Raja—Events in his history—Death of Raja Bhim—Deonath, the high-priest of Marwar—His assassination—The acts which succeeded it—Intrigues against the Raja—Dhonkal Singh, a pretender to the gaddi—Real or affected derangement of the Raja—Associates his son in the government—Recalled to the direction of affairs—His deep and artful policy—Visit to Mandor, the ancient capital—Cenotaphs of the Rathors—Cyclopean architecture of Mandor—Nail-headed characters—The walls—Remains of the palace—Toran, or triumphal arch—Than of Thana Pir—Glen of Panchkunda—Statues carved from the rock—Gardens at Mandor—An ascetic—Entertainment at the palace—The Raja visits the envoy—Departure from Jodhpur | 820 |
| CHAPTER 28 | |
| ixNandla—Bisalpur—Remains of the ancient city—Pachkalia, or Bichkalia—Inscription—Pipar—Inscription confirming the ancient chronicles of Mewar—Geological details—Legend of Lake Sampu—Lakha Phulani—Madreo—Bharunda—Badan Singh—His chivalrous fate—Altar to Partap—Indawar—Jat cultivators—Stratification of Indawar—Merta—Memory of Aurangzeb—Dhonkal Singh—Jaimall, the hero of the Rathors—Tributes to his bravery—Description of the city and plain of Merta—Cenotaphs—Raja Ajit—His assassination by his sons—The consequences of this deed the seeds of the Civil Wars of Marwar—Family of Ajit—Curious fact in the law of adoption amongst the Rathors—Ram Singh—His discourtesy towards his chiefs—Civil War—Defection of the Jarejas from Ram Singh—Battle between Ram Singh and Bakhta Singh—Defeat of the former, and the extirpation of the clan of the Mertias—The Mertia vassal of Mihtri—The field of battle described—Ram Singh invites the Mahrattas into his territory—Bakhta Singh becomes Raja of Marwar—His murder by the Prince of Jaipur—His son, Bijai Singh, succeeds—Jai Apa Sindhia and Ram Singh invade Marwar—They are opposed by Bijai Singh, who is defeated—He flies to Nagor, where he is invested—He cuts through the enemy’s camp—Solicits succour at Bikaner and Jaipur—Treachery of the Raja of Jaipur—Defeated by the chieftain of Rian—Assassination of Apa Sindhia | 850 |
| CHAPTER 29 | |
| Mahadaji Sindhia succeeds Jai Apa—Union of the Rathors and Kachhwahas, joined by Ismail Beg and Hamdani, against the Mahrattas—Battle of Tonga—Sindhia defeated—Ajmer retaken, and tributary engagement annulled—Mahadaji Sindhia recruits his army, with the aid of De Boigne—The Rajputs meet him on the frontier of Jaipur—Jealousies of the allies—The Kachhwahas alienated by a scurrilous stanza—Battle of Patan—Effects of the Jaipureans’ treachery, in the defeat of the Rathors—Stanza of the Kachhwaha bard—Suggestion of Bijai Singh: his chiefs reject it, and the prince prepares for war—Treason of the Rathor chief of Kishangarh—The Mahrattas invade Marwar—Resolution of the chiefs of Awa and Asop to conquer or perish—Rathors encamp on the plains of Merta—Golden opportunity lost of destroying the Mahratta army—Fatal compliance of the chiefs with the orders of the civil minister—Rout of the camp—Heroism of the Rathor clans: their destruction—Treachery of the Singwi faction—The chief minister takes poison—Reflections on the Rajput character, with reference to the protective alliance of the British Government—Resumption of journey—Jarau—Cross the field of battle—Siyakot, or Mirage, compared with the Sarrab of Scripture—Desert of Sogdiana—Hissar—At sea—Description of Jarau—Cenotaph of Harakarna Das—Alniawas—Rian—The Mountain Mers—Their descent upon Rian—Slay its chief—Govindgarh—Chase of a hyaena—Lake of Pushkar: geological details—Description of the lake—Its legend—Ajaipal, the founder of Ajmer—Bisaldeva, the Chauhan king of Ajmer—Places of devotion on the ‘Serpent-rock’—Ajmer—View of Daru-l-Khair—Geological details—City of Ajmer—Its rising prosperity | 875 |
| CHAPTER 30 | |
| xAjmer—Ancient Jain Temple—Its architecture analysed—Resemblances between it and the Gothic and Saracenic—Fortress of Ajmer—Its lakes—Source of the Luni River—Relics of the Chauhan kings—Quit Ajmer—Bhinai: its castle—Deolia—Dabla—Banera—Raja Bhim—Sketch of his family—His estate—Visit to the castle—Bhilwara—Visit of the merchants—Prosperity of the town—Mandal—Its lake—Arja, Pur—Mines of Dariba—Canton of the Purawats—Antiquity of Pur—The Babas, or infants of Mewar—Rasmi—Reception by the peasantry of Mewar—The Suhaila and Kalas—Trout of the Banas River—Merta—Visit to the source of the Berach—The Udai Sagar—Enter the valley—Appearance of the capital—Site of the ancient Ahar—Cenotaphs of the Rana’s ancestry—Traditions regarding Ahar—Destroyed by volcanic eruption—Remains of antiquity—Oilman’s Caravanserai—Oilman’s Bridge—Meeting with the Rana—Return to Udaipur | 896 |
| Appendix | 914 |
| BOOK V | |
| ANNALS OF MARWAR | |
| CHAPTER 1 | |
| The various etymons of Marwar—Authorities for its early history—Yati genealogical roll—The Rathor race, who inhabit it, descended from the Yavan kings of Parlipur—Second roll—Nain Pal—His date—Conquers Kanauj—Utility of Rajput genealogies—The Surya Prakas, or poetic chronicle of the bard Karnidhan—The Raj Rupak Akhyat, or chronicle of Ajit Singh’s minority and reign—The Bijai Vilas—The Khyat, a biographical treatise—Other sources—The Yavanas and Aswas, or Indo-Scythic tribes—The thirteen Rathor families, bearing the epithet Kamdhuj—Raja Jaichand, king of Kanauj—The extent and splendour of that State before the Muhammadan conquest of India—His immense array—Title of Mandalika—Divine honours paid to him—Rite of Swayamvara undertaken by Jaichand—Its failure and consequences—State of India at that period—The four great Hindu monarchies—Delhi—Kanauj—Mewar—Anhilwara—Shihabu-d-din, king of Ghor, invades India—Overcomes the Chauhan king of Delhi—Attacks Kanauj—Destruction of that monarchy after seven centuries’ duration—Death of Jaichand—Date of this event | 929 |
| CHAPTER 2 | |
| xiEmigration of Siahji and Setram, grandsons of Jaichand—Their arrival in the Western Desert—Sketch of the tribes inhabiting the desert to the Indus at that epoch—Siahji offers his services to the chief of Kulumad—They are accepted—He attacks Lakha Phulani, the famed freebooter of Phulra, who is defeated—Setram killed—Siahji marries the Solanki’s daughter—Proceeds by Anhilwara on his route to Dwarka—Again encounters Lakha Phulani, whom he slays in single combat—Massacres the Dabhis of Mewa, and the Gohils of Kherdhar—Siahji establishes himself in ‘the land of Kher’—The Brahman community of Pali invoke the aid of Siahji against the mountaineers—Offer him lands—Accepted—Birth of a son—Siahji massacres the Brahmans, and usurps their lands—Death of Siahji—Leaves three sons—The elder, Asvathama, succeeds—The second, Soning, obtains Idar—Ajmall, the third, conquers Okhamandala, originates the Vadhel tribe of that region—Asvathama leaves eight sons, heads of clans—Duhar succeeds—Attempts to recover Kanauj—Failure—Attempts Mandor—Slain—Leaves seven sons—Raepal succeeds—Revenges his father’s death—His thirteen sons—Their issue spread over Maru—Rao Kanhal succeeds—Rao Jalhan—Rao Chhada—Rao Thida—Carry on wars with the Bhattis and other tribes—Conquest of Bhinmal—Rao Salkha—Rao Biramdeo, killed in battle with the Johyas—Clans, their issue—Rao Chonda—Conquers Mandor from the Parihar—Assaults and obtains Nagor from the Imperialists—Captures Nadol, capital of Godwar—Marries the Princess of Mandor—Fourteen sons and one daughter, who married Lakha Rana of Mewar—Result of this marriage—Feud between Aranyakanwal, fourth son of Chonda, and the Bhatti chieftain of Pugal—Chonda slain at Nagor—Rao Ranmall succeeds—Resides at Chitor—Conquers Ajmer for the Rana—Equalizes the weights and measures of Marwar, which he divides into departments—Rao Ranmall slain—Leaves twenty-four sons, whose issue constitute the present frerage of Marwar—Table of clans | 940 |
| CHAPTER 3 | |
| xiiAccession of Rao Jodha—Transfers the seat of government from Mandor to the new capital Jodhpur—The cause—The Vanaprastha, or Druids of India—Their penances—The fourteen sons of Jodha—New settlements of Satalmer, Merta, Bikaner—Jodha dies—Anecdotes regarding him—His personal appearance—Rapid increase of the Rathor race—Names of tribes displaced thereby—Accession of Rao Suja—First conflict of the Rathors with the Imperialists—Rape of the Rathor virgins at Pipar—Gallantry of Suja—His death—Issue—Succeeded by his grandson Rao Ganga—His uncle Saga contests the throne—Obtains the aid of the Lodi Pathans—Civil War—Saga slain—Babur’s invasion of India—Rana Sanga generalissimo of the Rajputs—Rao Ganga sends his contingent under his grandson Raemall—Slain at Bayana—Death of Ganga—Accession of Rao Maldeo—Becomes the first amongst the princes of Rajputana—Reconquers Nagor and Ajmer from the Lodis, Jalor and Siwana from the Sandhals—Reduces the rebellious allodial vassals—Conquest from Jaisalmer—The Maldots—Takes Pokaran—Dismantles Satalmer—His numerous public works—Cantons belonging to Marwar enumerated—Maldeo resumes several of the great estates—Makes a scale of rank hereditary in the line of Jodha—Period favourable to Maldeo’s consolidation of his power—His inhospitality to the Emperor Humayun—Sher Shah invades Marwar—Maldeo meets him—Danger of the Imperial army—Saved by stratagem from destruction—Rathor army retreats—Devotion of the two chief clans—Their destruction—Akbar invades Marwar—Takes Merta and Nagor—Confers them on Rae Singh of Bikaner—Maldeo sends his second son to Akbar’s court—Refused to pay homage in person—The emperor gives the farman of Jodhpur to Rae Singh—Rao Maldeo besieged by Akbar—Defends Jodhpur—Sends his son Udai Singh to Akbar—His reception—Receives the title of Raja—Chandarsen maintains Rathor independence—Retires to Siwana—Besieged, and slain—His sons—Maldeo witnesses the subjection of his kingdom—His death—His twelve sons | 947 |
| CHAPTER 4 | |
| Altered conditions of the Princes of Marwar—Installation of Raja Udai Singh—Not acknowledged by the most powerful clans until the death of Chandarsen—Historical retrospect—The three chief epochs of Marwar history, from the conquest to its dependence on the empire—Order of succession changed, with change of capital, in Mewar, Amber, and Marwar—Branches to which the succession is confined—Dangers of mistaking these—Examples—Jodha regulates the fiefs—The eight great nobles of Marwar—These regulations maintained by Maldeo, who added to the secondary fiefs—Fiefs perpetuated in the elder branches—The brothers and sons of Jodha—Various descriptions of fiefs—Antiquity of the Rajput feudal system—Akbar maintains it—Paternity of the Rajput sovereigns not a fiction, as in Europe—The lowest Rajput claims kindred with the sovereign—The name Udai Singh fatal to Rajputana—Bestows his sister Jodh Bai on Akbar—Advantages to the Rathors of this marriage—Numerous progeny of Udai Singh—Establishes the fiefs of Govindgarh and Pisangan—Kishangarh and Ratlam—Remarkable death of Raja Udai Singh—Anecdotes—Issue of Udai Singh—Table of descent | 960 |
| CHAPTER 5 | |
| xiiiAccession of Raja Sur—His military talents obtain him honours—Reduces Rao Surthan of Sirohi—Commands against the King of Gujarat—Battle of Dhanduka gained by the Raja—Wealth and honours acquired—Gifts to the bards—Commanded against Amra Balecha—Battle of the Rewa—Slays the Chauhan—Fresh honours—Raja Sur and his son Gaj Singh attend the court of Jahangir—The heir of Marwar invested with the sword by the Emperor’s own hands—Escalade of Jalor—Raja Gaj attends Prince Khurram against the Rana of Mewar—Death of Raja Sur—Maledictory pillar erected on the Nerbudda—The Rathor chiefs’ dissatisfaction at their long detention from their native land—Raja Sur embellishes Jodhpur—His issue—Accession of Raja Gaj—Invested with the Raj of Burhanpur—Made Viceroy of the Deccan—The compliment paid to his contingent—His various actions—Receives the title of Dalthaman, or ‘barrier of the host’—Causes of Rajput influence on the Imperial succession—The Sultans Parvez and Khurram, sons of Rajput Princesses—Intrigues of the Queens to secure the succession to their immediate offspring—Prince Khurram plots against his brother—Endeavours to gain Raja Gaj, but fails—The Prince causes the chief adviser of Raja Gaj to be assassinated—Raja Gaj quits the royal army—Prince Khurram assassinates his brother Parvez—Proceeds to depose his father Jahangir, who appeals to the fidelity of the Rajput Princes—They rally round the throne, and encounter the rebel army near Benares—The Emperor slights the Rathor Prince, which proves nearly fatal to his cause—The rebels defeated—Flight of Prince Khurram—Raja Gaj slain on the Gujarat frontier—His second son, Raja Jaswant, succeeds—Reasons for occasional departure from the rules of primogeniture amongst the Rajputs—Amra, the elder, excluded the succession—Sentence of banishment pronounced against him—Ceremony of Desvata, or ‘exile,’ described—Amra repairs to the Mogul court—Honours conferred upon him—His tragical death | 969 |
| CHAPTER 6 | |
| xivRaja Jaswant mounts the gaddi of Marwar—His mother a princess of Mewar—He is a patron of science—His first service in Gondwana—Prince Dara appointed regent of the empire by his father, Shah Jahan—Appoints Jaswant viceroy in Malwa—Rebellion of Aurangzeb, who aspires to the crown—Jaswant appointed generalissimo of the army sent to oppose him—Battle of Fatehabad, a drawn battle—Jaswant retreats—Heroism of Rao Ratna of Ratlam—Aurangzeb proceeds towards Agra—Battle of Jajau—Rajputs overpowered—Shah Jahan deposed—Aurangzeb, now emperor, pardons Jaswant, and summons him to the presence—Commands him to join the army formed against Shuja—Battle of Kajwa—Conduct of Jaswant—Betrays Aurangzeb and plunders his camp—Forms a junction with Dara—This prince’s inactivity—Aurangzeb invades Marwar—Detaches Jaswant from Dara—Appointed viceroy of Gujarat—Sent to serve in the Deccan—Enters into Sivaji’s designs—Plans the death of Shaista Khan, the king’s lieutenant—Obtains this office—Superseded by the prince of Amber—Reappointed to the army of the Deccan—Stimulates Prince Muazzam to rebellion—Superseded by Dalir Khan—Jaswant tries to cut him off—Removed from the Deccan to Gujarat—Outwitted by the king—Ordered against the rebellious Afghans of Kabul—Jaswant leaves his son, Prithi Singh, in charge of Jodhpur—Prithi Singh commanded to court by Aurangzeb, who gives him a poisoned robe—His death—Character—The tidings reach Jaswant at Kabul, and cause his death—Character of Jaswant—Anecdotes illustrative of Rathor character—Nahar Khan—His exploits with the tiger, and against Surthan of Sirohi | 979 |
| CHAPTER 7 | |
| The pregnant queen of Jaswant prevented from becoming Sati—Seven concubines and one Rani burn with him—The Chandravati Rani mounts the pyre at Mandor—General grief for the loss of Jaswant—Posthumous birth of Ajit—Jaswant’s family and contingent return from Kabul to Marwar—Intercepted by Aurangzeb, who demands the surrender of the infant Ajit—The chiefs destroy the females and defend themselves—Preservation of the infant prince—The Indhas take Mandor—Expelled—Aurangzeb invades Marwar, takes and plunders Jodhpur, and sacks all the large towns—Destroys the Hindu temples, and commands the conversion of the Rathor race—Impolicy of the measure—Establishes the Jizya, or tax on infidels—The Rathors and Sesodias unite against the king—Events of the war from the Chronicle—The Mertia clan oppose the entire royal army, but are cut to pieces—The combined Rajputs fight the Imperialists at Nadol—Bhim, the son of the Rana, slain—Prince Akbar disapproves the war against the Rajputs—Makes overtures—Coalition—The Rajputs declare Akbar emperor—Treachery and death of Tahawwur Khan—Akbar escapes, and claims protection from the Rajputs—Durga conducts Prince Akbar to the Deccan—Soning, brother of Durga, leads the Rathors—Conflict at Jodhpur—Affair at Sojat—The cholera morbus appears—Aurangzeb offers peace—The conditions accepted by Soning—Soning’s death—Aurangzeb annuls the treaty—Prince Azam left to carry on the war—Muslim garrisons throughout Marwar—The Rathors take post in the Aravalli hills—Numerous encounters—Affairs of Sojat—Charai—Jaitaran—Renpur—Pali—Immense sacrifice of lives—The Bhattis join the Rathors—The Mertia chief assassinated during a truce—Further encounters—Siwana assaulted—The Muslim garrison put to the sword—Nur Ali abducts the Asani damsels—Is pursued and killed—Muslim garrison of Sambhar destroyed—Jalor capitulates to the Rajputs | 990 |
| xvCHAPTER 8 | |
| The clans petition to see the young Raja—Durjan Sal of Kotah joins the Rathor cause—They proceed to Abu—Are introduced to Ajit, who is conveyed to Awa, and makes a tour to all the chieftainships—Consternation of Aurangzeb—He sets up a pretender to Jodhpur—The Rathors and Haras drive the Imperialists from Marwar—They carry the war abroad—Storm of Pur Mandal—The Hara prince slain—Durgadas returns from the Deccan—Defeats Safi Khan, governor of Ajmer, who is disgraced by the king—Safi Khan attempts to circumvent Ajit by negotiation—His failure and disgrace—Rebellion in Mewar—The Rathors support the Rana—Aurangzeb negotiates for the daughter of Prince Akbar left in Marwar—Ajit again driven for refuge into the hills—Affair at Bijapur—Success of the Rathors—Aurangzeb’s apprehension for his granddaughter—The Rana sends the coco-nut to Ajit, who proceeds to Udaipur, and marries the Rana’s niece—Negotiations for peace renewed—Terminate—The surrender of the princess—Jodhpur restored—Magnanimity of Durgadas—Ajit takes possession—Ajit again driven from his capital—Afflictions of the Hindu race—A son born to Ajit, named Abhai Singh—His horoscope—Battle of Dunara—The viceroy of Lahore passes through Marwar to Gujarat—Death of Aurangzeb—Diffuses joy—Ajit attacks Jodhpur—Capitulation—Dispersion and massacre of the king’s troops—Ajit resumes his dominions—Azam, with the title of Bahadur Shah, mounts the throne—Battle of Agra—The king prepares to invade Marwar—Arrives at Ajmer—Proceeds to Bhavi Bilara—Sends an embassy to Ajit, who repairs to the imperial camp—Reception—Treacherous conduct of the emperor—Jodhpur surprised—Ajit forced to accompany the emperor to the Deccan—Discontent of the Rajas—They abandon the king, and join Rana Amra at Udaipur—Triple alliance—Ajit appears before Jodhpur, which capitulates on honourable terms—Ajit undertakes to replace Raja Jai Singh on the gaddi of Amber—Battle of Sambhar, Ajit victorious—Amber abandoned to Jai Singh—Ajit attacks Bikaner—Redeems Nagor—The Rajas threatened by the king—Again unite—The king repairs to Ajmer—The Rajas join him—Receive farmans for their dominions—Ajit makes a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra—Reflections on the thirty years’ war waged by the Rathors against the empire for independence—Eulogium on Durgadas | 1007 |
| CHAPTER 9 | |
| xviAjit commanded to reduce Nahan and the rebels of the Siwalik mountains—The emperor dies—Civil wars—Ajit nominated viceroy of Gujarat—Ajit commanded to send his son to court—Daring attack on the chief of Nagor, who is slain—Retaliated—The king’s army invades Marwar—Jodhpur invested—Terms—Abhai Singh sent to court—Ajit proceeds to Delhi—Coalesces with the Sayyid ministry of the king—Gives a daughter in marriage to the emperor—Returns to Jodhpur—Repeal of the Jizya—Ajit proceeds to his viceroyalty of Gujarat—Settles the province—Worships at Dwarka—Returns to Jodhpur—The Sayyids summon him to court—The splendour of his train—Leagues with the Sayyids—The emperor visits Ajit—Portents—Husain Ali arrives from the Deccan—Consternation of the opponents of the Sayyids and Ajit—Ajit blockades the palace with his Rathors—The emperor put to death—Successors—Muhammad Shah—He marches against Amber—Its Raja claims sanctuary with Ajit—Obtains the grant of Ahmadabad—Returns to Jodhpur—Ajit unites his daughter to the prince of Amber—The Sayyids assassinated—Ajit warned of his danger—Seizes on Ajmer—Slays the governor—Destroys the mosques, and re-establishes the Hindu rites—Ajit declares his independence—Coins in his own name—Establishes weights and measures, and his own courts of justice—Fixes the gradations of rank amongst his chiefs—The Imperialists invade Marwar—Abhai Singh heads thirty thousand Rathors to oppose them—The king’s forces decline battle—The Rathors ravage the Imperial provinces—Abhai Singh obtains the surname of Dhonkal, or exterminator—Returns to Jodhpur—Battle of Sambhar—Ajit gives sanctuary to Churaman Jat, founder of Bharatpur—The emperor puts himself at the head of all his forces to avenge the defeat of Sambhar—Ajmer invested—Its defence—Ajit agrees to surrender Ajmer—Abhai Singh proceeds to the Imperial camp—His reception—His arrogant bearing—Murder of Ajit by his son—Infidelity of the bard—Blank leaf of the Raj Rupaka, indicative of this event—Extract from that chronicle—Funereal rites—Six queens and fifty-eight concubines determine to become Satis—Expostulations of the Nazir, bards, and purohits—They fail—Procession—Rite concluded—Reflections on Ajit’s life and history | 1020 |
| CHAPTER 10 | |
| xviiThe parricidal murder of Ajit, the cause of the destruction of Marwar—The parricide, Abhai Singh, invested as Raja by the emperor’s own hand—He returns from court to Jodhpur—His reception—He distributes gifts to the bards and priests—The bards of Rajputana—Karna, the poetic historian of Marwar—Studies requisite to form a Bardai—Abhai Singh reduces Nagor—Bestows it in appanage upon his brother Bakhta—Reduces the turbulent allodialists—Commanded to court—Makes a tour of his domain—Seized by the small-pox—Reaches the court—Rebellion of the viceroy of Gujarat, and of Prince Jangali in the Deccan—Picture of the Mogul court at this time—The bira of foreign service against the rebels described—Refused by the assembled nobles—Accepted by the Rathor prince—He visits Ajmer, which he garrisons—Meeting at Pushkar with the Raja of Amber—Plan the destruction of the empire—At Merta is joined by his brother Bakhta Singh—Reaches Jodhpur—The Kher, or feudal levies of Marwar, assemble—Consecration of the guns—The Minas carry off the cattle of the train—Rajput contingents enumerated—Abhai reduces the Mina strongholds in Sirohi—The Sirohi prince submits, and gives a daughter in marriage as a peace-offering—The Sirohi contingent joins Abhai Singh—Proceeds against Ahmadabad—Summons the viceroy to surrender—Rajput council of war—Bakhta claims to lead the van—The Rathor prince sprinkles his chiefs with saffron water—Sarbuland’s plan of defence—His guns manned by Europeans—His bodyguard of European musketeers—The storm—Victory gained by the Rajputs—Surrender of Sarbuland—He is sent prisoner to the emperor—Abhai Singh governs Gujarat—Rajput contingents enumerated—Conclusion of the chronicles, the Raj Rupaka and Surya Prakas—Abhai Singh returns to Jodhpur—The spoils conveyed from Gujarat | 1035 |
| CHAPTER 11 | |
| Mutual jealousies of the brothers—Abhai Singh dreads the military fame of Bakhta—His policy—Prompted by the bard Karna, who deserts Jodhpur for Nagor—Scheme laid by Bakhta to thwart his brother—Attack on Bikaner by Abhai Singh—Singular conduct of his chiefs, who afford supplies to the besieged—Bakhta’s scheme to embroil the Amber prince with his brother—His overture and advice to attack Jodhpur in the absence of his brother—Jai Singh of Amber—His reception of this advice, which is discussed and rejected in a full council of the nobles of Amber—The envoy of Bakhta obtains an audience of the prince of Amber—Attains his object—His insulting letter to Raja Abhai Singh—The latter’s laconic reply—Jai Singh calls out the Kher, or feudal army of Amber—Obtains foreign allies—One hundred thousand men muster under the walls of his capital—March to the Marwar frontier—Abhai Singh raises the siege of Bikaner—Bakhta’s strange conduct—Swears his vassals—Marches with his personal retainers only to combat the host of Amber—Battle of Gangwana—Desperate onset of Bakhta Singh—Destruction of his band—With sixty men charges the Amber prince, who avoids him—Eulogy of Bakhta by the Amber bards—Karna the bard prevents a third charge—Bakhta’s distress at the loss of his men—The Rana mediates a peace—Bakhta loses his tutelary divinity—Restored by the Amber prince—Death of Abhai Singh—Anecdotes illustrating his character | 1047 |
| xviiiCHAPTER 12 | |
| Ram Singh succeeds—His impetuosity of temper—His uncle, Bakhta Singh, absents himself from the rite of inauguration—Sends his nurse as proxy—Construed by Ram Singh as an insult—He resents it, and resumes the fief of Jalor—Confidant of Ram Singh—The latter insults the chief of the Champawats, who withdraws from the court—His interview with the chief bard—Joins Bakhta Singh—The chief bard gives his suffrage to Bakhta—Civil war—Battle of Merta—Ram Singh defeated—Bakhta Singh assumes the sovereignty—The Bagri chieftain girds him with the sword—Fidelity of the Purohit to the ex-prince, Ram Singh—He proceeds to the Deccan to obtain aid of the Mahrattas—Poetical correspondence between Raja Bakhta and the Purohit—Qualities, mental and personal, of Bakhta—The Mahrattas threaten Marwar—All the clans unite round Bakhta—He advances to give battle—Refused by the Mahrattas—He takes post at the pass of Ajmer—Poisoned by the queen of Amber—Bakhta’s character—Reflections on the Rajput character—Contrasted with that of the European nobles in the dark ages—Judgment of the bards on crimes—Improvised stanza on the princes of Jodhpur and Amber—Anathema of the Sati, wife of Ajit—Its fulfilment—Opinions of the Rajput on such inspirations | 1054 |
| CHAPTER 13 | |
| xixAccession of Bijai Singh—Receives at Merta the homage of his chiefs—Proceeds to the capital—The ex-prince Ram Singh forms a treaty with the Mahrattas and the Kachhwahas—Junction of the confederates—Bijai Singh assembles the clans on the plains of Merta—Summoned to surrender the gaddi—His reply—Battle—Bijai Singh defeated—Destruction of the Rathor Cuirassiers—Ruse de guerre—Bijai Singh left alone—His flight—Eulogies of the bard—Fortresses surrender to Ram Singh—Assassination of the Mahratta commander—Compensation for the murder—Ajmer surrendered—Tribute or Chauth established—Mahrattas abandon the cause of Ram Singh—Couplet commemorative of this event—Cenotaph to Jai Apa—Ram Singh dies—His character—Anarchy reigns in Marwar—The Rathor oligarchy—Laws of adoption in the case of Pokaran fief—Insolence of its chief to his prince, who entertains mercenaries—This innovation accelerates the decay of feudal principles—The Raja plans the diminution of the aristocracy—The nobles confederate—Gordhan Khichi—His advice to the prince—Humiliating treaty between the Raja and his vassals—Mercenaries disbanded—Death of the prince’s Guru or priest—His prophetic words—Kiryakarma or funeral rites, made the expedient to entrap the chiefs, who are condemned to death—Intrepid conduct of Devi Singh of Pokaran—His last words—Reflections on their defective system of government—Sacrifice of the law of primogeniture—Its consequences—Sabhal Singh arms to avenge his father’s death—Is slain—Power of the nobles checked—They are led against the robbers of the desert—Umarkot seized from Sind—Godwar taken from Mewar—Marwar and Jaipur unite against the Mahrattas, who are defeated at Tonga—De Boigne’s first appearance—Ajmer recovered by the Rathors—Battles of Patan and Merta—Ajmer surrenders—Suicide of the governor—Bijai Singh’s concubine adopts Man Singh—Her insolence alienates the nobles, who plan the deposal of the Raja—Murder of the concubine—Bijai Singh dies | 1060 |
| CHAPTER 14 | |
| xxRaja Bhim seizes upon the gaddi—Discomfiture of his competitor, Zalim Singh—Bhim destroys all the other claimants to succession, excepting Man Singh—Blockaded in Jalor—Sallies from the garrison for supplies—Prince Man heads one of them—Incurs the risk of capture—Is preserved by the Ahor chief; Raja Bhim offends his nobles—They abandon Marwar—The fief of Nimaj attacked—Jalor reduced to the point of surrender—Sudden and critical death of Raja Bhim—Its probable cause—The Vaidyas, or ‘cunning-men,’ who surround the prince—Accession of Raja Man—Rebellion of Sawai Singh of Pokaran—Conspiracy of Chopasni—Declaration of the pregnancy of a queen of Raja Bhim—Convention with Raja Man—Posthumous births—Their evil consequences in Rajwara—A child born—Sent off by stealth to Pokaran, and its birth kept a secret—Named Dhonkal—Raja Man evinces indiscreet partialities—Alienates the Champawats—Birth of the posthumous son of Raja Bhim promulgated—The chiefs call on Raja Man to fulfil the terms of the convention—The mother disclaims the child—The Pokaran chief sends the infant Dhonkal to the sanctuary of Abhai Singh of Khetri—Sawai opens his underplot—Embroils Raja Man with the courts of Amber and Mewar—He carries the pretender Dhonkal to Jaipur—Acknowledged and proclaimed as Raja of Marwar—The majority of the chiefs support the pretender—The Bikaner prince espouses his cause—Armies called in the field—Baseness of Holkar, who deserts Raja Man—The armies approach—Raja Man’s chiefs abandon him—He attempts suicide—Is persuaded to fly—He gains Jodhpur—Prepares for defence—Becomes suspicious of all his kin—Refuses them the honour of defending the castle—They join the allies, who invest Jodhpur—The city taken and plundered—Distress of the besiegers—Amir Khan’s conduct causes a division—His flight from Marwar—Pursued by the Jaipur commander—Battle—Jaipur force destroyed, and the city invested—Dismay of the Raja—Breaks up the siege of Jodhpur—Pays £200,000 for a safe passage to Jaipur—The spoils of Jodhpur intercepted by the Rathors, and wrested from the Kachhwahas—Amir Khan formally accepts service with Raja Man, and repairs to Jodhpur with the four Rathor chiefs | 1077 |
| CHAPTER 15 | |
| Amir Khan’s reception at Jodhpur—Engages to extirpate Sawai’s faction—Interchanges turbans with the Raja—The Khan repairs to Nagor—Interview with Sawai—Swears to support the Pretender—Massacre of the Rajput chiefs—Pretender flies—The Khan plunders Nagor—Receives £100,000 from Raja Man—Jaipur overrun—Bikaner attacked—Amir Khan obtains the ascendancy in Marwar—Garrisons Nagor with his Pathans—Partitions lands amongst his chiefs—Commands the salt lakes of Nawa and Sambhar—The minister Induraj and high priest Deonath assassinated—Raja Man’s reason affected—His seclusion—Abdication in favour of his son Chhattar Singh—He falls the victim of illicit pursuits—Madness of Raja Man increased—Its causes—Suspicions of the Raja having sacrificed Induraj—The oligarchy, headed by Salim Singh of Pokaran, son of Sawai, assumes the charge of the government—Epoch of British universal supremacy—Treaty with Marwar framed during the regency of Chhattar Singh—The oligarchy, on his death, offer the gaddi of Marwar to the house of Idar—Rejected—Reasons—Raja Man entreated to resume the reins of power—Evidence that his madness was feigned—The Raja dissatisfied with certain stipulations of the treaty—A British officer sent to Jodhpur—Akhai Chand chief of the civil administration—Salim Singh of Pokaran chief minister—Opposition led by Fateh Raj—British troops offered to be placed at the Raja’s disposal—Offer rejected—Reasons—British Agent returns to Ajmer—Permanent Agent appointed to the court of Raja Man—Arrives at Jodhpur—Condition of the capital—Interview’s with the Raja—Objects to be attained described—Agent leaves Jodhpur—General sequestrations of the fiefs—Raja Man apparently relapses into his old apathy—His deep dissimulation—Circumvents and seizes the faction—Their wealth sequestrated—Their ignominious death—Immense resources derived from sequestrations—Raja Man’s thirst for blood—Fails to entrap the chiefs—The Nimaj chief attacked—His gallant defence—Slain—The Pokaran chief escapes—Fateh Raj becomes minister—Raja Man’s speech to him—Nimaj attacked—Surrender—Raja Man’s infamous violation of his pledge—Noble conduct of the mercenary commander—Voluntary exile of the whole aristocracy of Marwar—Received by the neighbouring princes—Man’s gross ingratitude to Anar Singh—The exiled chiefs apply to the British Government, which refuses to mediate—Raja Man loses the opportunity of fixing the constitution of Marwar—Reflections | 1089 |
| xxiCHAPTER 16 | |
| Extent and population of Marwar—Classification of inhabitants—Jats—Rajputs, sacerdotal, commercial, and servile tribes—Soil—Agricultural products—Natural productions—Salt lakes—Marble and limestone quarries—Tin, lead, and iron mines—Alum—Manufactures—Commercial marts—Transit trade—Pali, the emporium of Western India—Mercantile classes—Khadataras and Oswals—Kitars, or caravans—Imports and exports enumerated—Charans, the guardians of the caravans—Commercial decline—Causes—Opium monopoly—Fairs of Mundwa and Balotra—Administration of justice—Punishments—Raja Bijai Singh’s clemency to prisoners, who are maintained by private charity—Gaol deliveries on eclipses, births, and accession of princes—Sagun, or ordeals: fire, water, burning oil—Panchayats—Fiscal revenues and regulations—Batai, or corn-rent—Shahnahs and Kanwaris—Taxes—Anga, or capitation tax—Ghaswali, or pasturage—Kewari, or door tax; how originated—Sair, or imposts; their amount—Dhanis, or collectors—Revenues from the salt-lakes—Tandas, or caravans engaged in this trade—Aggregate revenues—Military resources—Mercenaries—Feudal quotas—Schedule of feoffs—Qualification of a cavalier | 1104 |
| BOOK VI | |
| ANNALS OF BIKANER | |
| CHAPTER 1 | |
| xxiiOrigin of the State of Bikaner—Bika, the founder—Condition of the aboriginal Jats or Getes—The number and extensive diffusion of this Scythic race, still a majority of the peasantry in Western Rajputana, and perhaps in Northern India—Their pursuits pastoral, their government patriarchal, their religion of a mixed kind—List of the Jat cantons of Bikaner at the irruption of Bika—Causes of the success of Bika—Voluntary surrender of the supremacy of the Jat elders to Bika—Conditions—Characteristic of the Getic people throughout India—Proofs—Invasion of the Johyas by Bika and his Jat subjects—Account of the Johyas—Conquered by Bika—He wrests Bagor from the Bhattis, and founds Bikaner, the capital, A.D. 1489—His uncle Kandhal makes conquests to the north—Death of Bika—His son Nunkaran succeeds—Makes conquests from the Bhattis—His son Jeth succeeds—Enlarges the power of Bikaner—Rae Singh succeeds—The Jats of Bikaner lose their liberties—The State rises to importance—Rae Singh’s connexion with Akbar—His honours and power—The Johyas revolt and are exterminated—Traditions of Alexander the Great amongst the ruins of the Johyas—Examined—The Punia Jats vanquished by Ram Singh the Raja’s brother—Their subjection imperfect—Rae Singh’s daughter weds Prince Salim, afterwards Jahangir—Rae Singh succeeded by his son Karan—The three eldest sons of Karan fall in the imperial service—Anup Singh, the youngest, succeeds—Quells a rebellion in Kabul—His death uncertain—Sarup Singh succeeds—He is killed—Shujawan Singh, Zorawar Singh, Gaj Singh, and Raj Singh succeed—The latter poisoned by his brother by another mother, who usurps the throne, though opposed by the chiefs—He murders the rightful heir, his nephew—Civil war—Muster-roll of the chiefs—The usurper attacks Jodhpur—Present state of Bikaner—Account of Bidavati | 1123 |
| CHAPTER 2 | |
| Actual condition and capabilities of Bikaner—Causes of its deterioration—Extent—Population—Jats—Sarasvati Brahmans—Charans—Malis and Nais—Chuhras and Thoris—Rajputs—Face of the country—Grain and vegetable productions—Implements of husbandry—Water—Salt lakes—Local physiography—Mineral productions—Unctuous clay—Animal productions—Commerce and manufactures—Fairs—Government and revenues—The fisc—Dhuan, or hearth-tax—Anga, or capitation-tax—Sair, or imposts—Paseti, or plough-tax—Malba, or ancient land-tax—Extraordinary and irregular resources—Feudal levies—Household troops | 1145 |
| CHAPTER 3 | |
| Bhatner, its origin and denomination—Historical celebrity of the Jats of Bhatner—Emigration of Bersi—Succeeded by Bhairon—Embraces Islamism—Rao Dalich—Husain Khan, Husain Mahmud, Imam Mahmud, and Bahadur Khan—Zabita Khan, the present ruler—Condition of the country—Changes in its physical aspect—Ruins of ancient buildings—Promising scene for archaeological inquiries—Zoological and botanical curiosities—List of the ancient towns—Relics of the arrow-head character found in the desert | 1163 |
| xxiiiBOOK VII | |
| ANNALS OF JAISALMER | |
| CHAPTER 1 | |
| Jaisalmer—The derivation of its name—The Rajputs of Jaisalmer called Bhattis, are of the Yadu race—Descended from Bharat, king of Bharatavarsha, or Indo-Scythia—Restricted bounds of India of modern invention—The ancient Hindus a naval people—First seats of the Yadus in India, Prayaga, Mathura, and Dwarka—Their international wars—Hari, king of Mathura and Dwarka, leader of the Yadus—Dispersion of his family—His great-grandsons Nabha and Khira—Nabha driven from Dwarka, becomes prince of Marusthali, conjectured to be the Maru, or Merv, of Iran—Jareja and Judbhan, the sons of Khira—The former founds the Sindsamma dynasty, and Judbhan becomes prince of Bahra in the Panjab—Prithibahu succeeds to Nabha in Maru—His son Bahu—His posterity—Raja Gaj founds Gajni—Attacked by the kings of Syria and Khorasan, who are repulsed—Raja Gaj attacks Kashmir—His marriage—Second invasion from Khorasan—The Syrian king conjectured to be Antiochus—Oracle predicts the loss of Gajni—Gaj slain—Gajni taken—Prince Salbahan arrives in the Panjab—Founds the city of Salbahana, S. 72—Conquers the Panjab—Marries the daughter of Jaipal Tuar of Delhi—Reconquers Gajni—Is succeeded by Baland—His numerous offspring—Their conquests—Conjecture regarding the Jadon tribe of Yusufzai, that the Afghans are Yadus, not Yahudis, or Jews—Baland resides at Salbahana—Assigns Gajni to his grandson Chakito, who becomes a convert to Islam and king of Khorasan—The Chakito Mongols descended from him—Baland dies—His son Bhatti succeeds—Changes the patronymic of Yadu, or Jadon, to Bhatti—Succeeded by Mangal Rao—His brother Masur Rao and sons cross the Gara and take possession of the Lakhi jungle—Degradation of the sons of Mangal Rao—They lose their rank as Rajputs—Their offspring styled Aboharias and Jats—Tribe of Tak—The capital of Taxiles discovered—Mangal Rao arrives in the Indian desert—Its tribes—His son, Majam Rao, marries a princess of Umarkot—His son Kehar—Alliance with the Deora of Jalor—The foundation of Tanot laid—Kehar succeeds—Tanot attacked by the Baraha tribe—Tanot completed, S. 787—Peace with the Barahas—Reflections | 1169 |
| CHAPTER 2 | |
| xxivRao Kehar, contemporary of the Caliph Al Walid—His offspring become heads of tribes—Kehar, the first who extended his conquests to the plains—He is slain—Tano succeeds—He assails the Barahas and Langahas—Tanot invested by the prince of Multan, who is defeated—Rao Tano espouses the daughter of the Buta chief—His progeny—Tano finds a concealed treasure—Erects the castle of Bijnot—Tano dies—Succeeded by Bijai Rae—He assails the Baraha tribe, who conspire with the Langahas to attack the Bhatti prince—Treacherous massacre of Bijai Rae and his kindred—Deoraj saved by a Brahman—Tanot taken—Inhabitants put to the sword—Deoraj joins his mother in Butaban—Erects Derawar, which is assailed by the Buta chief, who is circumvented and put to death by Deoraj—The Bhatti prince is visited by a Jogi, whose disciple he becomes—Title changed from Rao to Rawal—Deoraj massacres the Langahas, who acknowledge his supremacy—Account of the Langaha tribe—Deoraj conquers Lodorva, capital of the Lodra Rajputs—Avenges an insult of the prince of Dhar—Singular trait of patriotic devotion—Assaults Dhar—Returns to Lodorva—Excavates lakes in Khadal—Assassinated—Succeeded by Rawal Mund, who revenges his father’s death—His son Bachera espouses the daughter of Balabhsen, of Patan Anhilwara—Contemporaries of Mahmud of Ghazni—Captures a caravan of horses—The Pahu Bhattis conquer Pugal from the Johyas—Dusaj, son of Bachera, attacks the Khichis—Proceeds with his three brothers to the land of Kher, where they espouse the Guhilot chief’s daughters—Important synchronisms—Bachera dies—Dusaj succeeds—Attacked by the Sodha prince Hamir, in whose reign the Ghaggar ceased to flow through the desert—Traditional couplet—Sons of Dusaj—The youngest, Lanja Bijairae, marries the daughter of Siddhraj Solanki, king of Anhilwara—The other sons of Dusaj, Jaisal, and Bijairae—Bhojdeo, son of Lanja Bijairae, becomes lord of Lodorva on the death of Dusaj—Jaisal conspires against his nephew Bhojdeo—Solicits aid from the Sultan of Ghor, whom he joins at Aror—Swears allegiance to the Sultan—Obtains his aid to dispossess Bhojdeo—Lodorva attacked and plundered—Bhojdeo slain—Jaisal becomes Rawal of the Bhattis—Abandons Lodorva as too exposed—Discovers a site for a new capital—Prophetic inscription on the Brahmsarkund, or fountain—Founds Jaisalmer—Jaisal dies, and is succeeded by Salbahan II. | 1190 |
| CHAPTER 3 | |
| xxvPreliminary observations—The early history of the Bhattis not devoid of interest—Traces of their ancient manners and religion—The chronicle resumed—Jaisal survives the change of capital twelve years—The heir of Kailan banished—Salbahan, his younger brother, succeeds—Expedition against the Kathi—Their supposed origin—Application from the Yadu prince of Badarinath for a prince to fill the vacant gaddi—During Salbahan’s absence his son Bijal usurps the gaddi—Salbahan retires to Khadal, and falls in battle against the Baloch—Bijal commits suicide—Kailan recalled and placed on the gaddi—His issue form clans—Khizr Khan Baloch again invades Khadal—Kailan attacks him, and avenges his father’s death—Death of Kailan—Succeeded by Chachak Deo—He expels the Chana Rajputs—Defeats the Sodhas of Umarkot—The Rathors lately arrived in the desert become troublesome—Important synchronisms—Death of Chachak—He is succeeded by his grandson Karan, to the prejudice of the elder, Jethsi, who leaves Jaisalmer—Redresses the wrongs of a Baraha Rajput—Karan dies—Succeeded by Lakhansen—His imbecile character—Replaced by his son Punpal, who is dethroned and banished—His grandson, Raningdeo, establishes himself at Marot and Pugal—On the deposal of Punpal, Jethsi is recalled and placed on the gaddi—He affords a refuge to the Parihar prince of Mandor, when attacked by Alau-d-din—The sons of Jethsi carry off the imperial tribute of Tatta and Multan—The king determines to invade Jaisalmer—Jethsi and his sons prepare for the storm—Jaisalmer invested—First assault repulsed—The Bhattis keep an army in the field—Rawal Jethsi dies—The siege continues—Singular friendship between his son Ratan and one of the besieging generals—Mulraj succeeds—General assault—Again defeated—Garrison reduced to great extremity—Council of war—Determination to perform the sakha—Generous conduct of the Muhammadan friend of Ratan to his sons—Final assault—Rawal Mulraj and Ratan and their chief kin fall in battle—Jaisalmer taken, dismantled, and abandoned | 1206 |
| CHAPTER 4 | |
| xxviThe Rathors of Mewa settle amidst the ruins of Jaisalmer—Driven out by the Bhatti chieftain Dudu, who is elected Rawal—He carries off the stud of Firoz Shah—Second storm and sakha of Jaisalmer—Dudu slain—Moghul invasion of India—The Bhatti princes obtain their liberty—Rawal Gharsi re-establishes Jaisalmer—Kehar, son of Deoraj—Disclosure of his destiny by a prodigy—Is adopted by the wife of Rawal Gharsi, who is assassinated by the tribe of Jaisar—Kehar proclaimed—Bimaladevi becomes sati—The succession entailed on the sons of Hamir—Matrimonial overture to Jetha from Mewar—Engagement broken off—The brothers slain—Penitential act of Rao Raning—Offspring of Kehar—Soma the elder departs with his basai and settles at Girab—Sons of Rao Raning become Muslims to avenge their father’s death—Consequent forfeiture of their inheritance—They mix with the Aboharia Bhattis—Kailan, the third son of Kehar, settles in the forfeited lands—Drives the Dahyas from Khadal—Kailan erects the fortress of Kara on the Bias or Gara—Assailed by the Johyas and Langahas under Amir Khan Korai, who is defeated—Subdues the Chahils and Mohils—Extends his authority to the Panjnad—Rao Kailan marries into the Samma family—Account of the Samma race—He seizes on the Samma dominions—Makes the river Indus his boundary—Kailan dies—Succeeded by Chachak—Makes Marot his headquarters—League headed by the chief of Multan against Chachak, who invades that territory, and returns with a rich booty to Marot—A second victory—Leaves a garrison in the Panjab—Defeats Maipal, chief of the Dhundis—Asini-, or Aswini-Kot—Its supposed position—Anecdote—Feud with Satalmer—Its consequences—Alliance with Haibat Khan—Rao Chachak invades Pilibanga—The Khokhars or Ghakkars described—The Langahas drive his garrison from Dhuniapur—Rao Chachak falls sick—Challenges the prince of Multan—Reaches Dhuniapur—Rites preparatory to the combat—Worship of the sword—Chachak is slain with all his bands—Kumbha, hitherto insane, avenges his father’s feud—Birsal re-establishes Dhuniapur—Repairs to Kahror—Assailed by the Langahas and Baloch—Defeats them—Chronicle of Jaisalmer resumed—Rawal Bersi meets Rao Birsal on his return from his expedition in the Panjab—Conquest of Multan by Babur—Probable conversion of the Bhattis of the Panjab—Rawal Bersi, Jeth, Nunkaran, Bhim, Manohardas, and Sabal Singh, six generations | 1215 |
| CHAPTER 5 | |
| xxviiJaisalmer becomes a fief of the empire—Changes in the succession—Sabal Singh serves with the Bhatti contingent—His services obtain him the gaddi of Jaisalmer—Boundaries of Jaisalmer at the period of Babur’s invasion—Sabal succeeded by his son, Amra Singh, who leads the tika-daur into the Baloch territory—Crowned on the field of victory—Demands a relief from his subjects to portion his daughter—Puts a chief to death who refuses—Revolt of the Chana Rajputs—The Bhatti chiefs retaliate the inroads of the Rathors of Bikaner—Origin of frontier-feuds—Bhattis gain a victory—The princes of Jaisalmer and Bikaner are involved in the feuds of their vassals—Raja Anup Singh calls on all his chiefs to revenge the disgrace—Invasion of Jaisalmer—The invaders defeated—The Rawal recovers Pugal—Makes Barmer tributary—Amra dies—Succeeded by Jaswant—The chronicle closes—Decline of Jaisalmer—Pugal—Barmer—Phalodi wrested from her by the Rathors—Importance of these transactions to the British Government—Khadal to the Gara seized by the Daudputras—Akhai Singh succeeds—His uncle, Tej Singh, usurps the government—The usurper assassinated during the ceremony of Las—Akhai Singh recovers the gaddi—Reigns forty years—Bahawal Khan seizes on Khadal—Rawal Mulraj—Sarup Singh Mehta made minister—His hatred of the Bhatti nobles—Conspiracy against him by the heir-apparent, Rae Singh—Deposal and confinement of the Rawal—The prince proclaimed—Refuses to occupy the gaddi—Mulraj emancipated by a Rajputni—Resumption of the gaddi—The prince Rae Singh receives the black khilat of banishment—Retires to Jodhpur—Outlawry of the Bhatti nobles—Their lands sequestrated and castles destroyed—After twelve years restored to their lands—Rae Singh decapitates a merchant—Returns to Jaisalmer—Sent to the fortress of Dewa—Salim Singh becomes minister—His character—Falls into the hands of his enemies, but is saved by the magnanimity of Zorawar Singh—Plans his destruction, through his own brother’s wife—Zorawar is poisoned—The Mehta then assassinates her and her husband—Fires the castle of Dewa—Rae Singh burnt to death—Murder of his sons—The minister proclaims Gaj Singh—Younger sons of Mulraj fly to Bikaner—The longest reigns in the Rajput annals are during ministerial usurpation—Retrospective view of the Bhatti history—Reflections | 1225 |
| CHAPTER 6 | |
| Rawal Mulraj enters into treaty with the English—The Raja dies—His grandson, Gaj Singh, proclaimed—He becomes a mere puppet in the minister’s hands—Third article of the treaty—Inequality of the alliance—Its importance to Jaisalmer—Consequences to be apprehended by the British Government—Dangers attending the enlarging the circle of our political connexions—Importance of Jaisalmer in the event of Russian invasion—British occupation of the valley of the Indus considered—Salim Singh’s administration resumed—His rapacity and tyranny increase—Wishes his office to be hereditary—Report of the British Agent to his Government—Paliwals self-exiled—Bankers’ families kept as hostages—Revenues arising from confiscation—Wealth of the minister—Border feud detailed to exemplify the interference of the paramount power—The Maldots of Baru—Their history—Nearly exterminated by the Rathors of Bikaner—Stimulated by the minister Salim Singh—Cause of this treachery—He calls for British interference—Granted—Result—Rawal Gaj Singh arrives at Udaipur—Marries the Rana’s daughter—Influence of this lady | 1235 |
| CHAPTER 7 | |
| Geographical position of Jaisalmer—Its superficial area—List of its chief towns—Population—Jaisalmer chiefly desert—Magra, a rocky ridge, traced from Cutch—Sars, or salt-marshes—Kanod Sar—Soil—Productions—Husbandry—Manufactures—Commerce—Kitars, or caravans—Articles of trade—Revenues—Land and transit taxes—Dani, or Collector—Amount of land-tax exacted from the cultivator—Dhuan, or hearth-tax—Thali, or tax on food—Dand, or forced contribution—Citizens refuse to pay—Enormous wealth accumulated by the minister by extortion—Establishments—Expenditure—Tribes—Bhattis—Their moral estimation—Personal appearance and dress—Their predilection for opium and tobacco—Paliwals, their history—Numbers, wealth, employment—Curious rite or worship—Pali coins—Pokharna Brahmans—Title—Numbers—Singular typical worship—Race of Jat—Castle of Jaisalmer | 1244 |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Portrait of Colonel James Tod | Frontispiece |
| TO FACE PAGE | |
| Kanhaiya and Rādha | 630 |
| Columns of Temples at Chandrāvati | 670 |
| Portraits of a Rājputni, a Rājput, a Gūsāīn, etc. | 708 |
| Valley of Udaipur | 760 |
| Citadel of the Hill Fortress of Kūmbhalmer | 776 |
| Jain Temple in the Fortress of Kūmbhalmer | 780 |
| Ruins in Kūmbhalmer | 782 |
| Koli and Bhīl; Chāran or Bard | 788 |
| Jāt Peasant of Mārwār. Rājput Foot Soldier of Mārwār | 812 |
| Town and Fort of Jodhpur | 820 |
| Rock Sculptures at Mandor; Chāmunda, Kankāli | 842 |
| Rock Sculptures at Mandor; Mallināth, Nāthji | 844 |
| Rock Sculptures at Mandor; Rāmdeo Rāthor, Pābuji, etc. | 846 |
| Rock Sculptures at Mandor; Gūga the Chauhān, Harbuji Sānkhla | 848 |
| Rock Sculptures at Mandor; Mehaji Mangalia | 850 |
| Paiks of Mārwār | 860 |
| Durga Dās; Mahārāja Sher Singh of Rian | 866 |
| The Sacred Lake of Pushkar in Mārwār | 892 |
| Ancient Jain Temple at Ajmer | 896 |
| Fortress and Town of Ajmer | 900 |
| Castle of Bhinai | 904 |
| Source of the Berach River, and Hunting Seat of the Rāna | 910 |
| Bridge of Nūrābād | 914 |
| The late Mahārāja Sir Sumer Singh, of Jodhpur (b. 1901; d. 1918), and his brother, the present Mahārāja Ummed Singh (b. 1903) | 928 |
| Horoscope of Rāja Abhai Singh | Page 1019 |
BOOK IV—Continued
RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, FESTIVALS,
AND CUSTOMS OF MEWĀR
CHAPTER 19
Influence of the Priesthood.
—In all ages the ascendancy of the hierarchy is observable; it is a tribute paid to religion through her organs. Could the lavish endowments and extensive immunities of the various religious establishments in Rajasthan be assumed as criteria of the morality of the inhabitants, we should be authorized to assign them a high station in the scale of excellence. But they more frequently prove the reverse of their position; especially the territorial endowments, often the fruits of a death-bed repentance,[1] which, prompted by superstition or fear, compounds for past crimes by posthumous profusion, although vanity not rarely lends her powerful aid. There is scarcely a State in Rajputana in which one-fifth of the soil is not assigned for the support of the temples, their ministers, the secular Brahmans, bards, and [508] genealogists. But the evil was not always so extensive; the abuse is of modern growth.Weighing of Princes against Gold.
—An anecdote related of the Rajas of Marwar and Amber, always rivals in war, love, and folly, 590will illustrate the motives of these dismemberments. During the annual pilgrimage to the sacred lake of Pushkar, it is the custom for these lords of the earth to weigh their persons against all that is rare, in gold, gems, and precious cloths; which are afterwards distributed to the priests.[2] The Amber chief had the advantage of a full treasury and a fertile soil, to which his rival could oppose a more extended sway over a braver race; but his country was proverbially poor, and at Pushkar, the weight of the purse ranks above the deeds of the sword. As these princes were suspended in the scale, the Amber Raja, who was balanced against the more costly material, indirectly taunted his brother-in-law on the poverty of his offerings, who would gladly, like the Roman, have made up the deficiency with his sword. But the Marwar prince had a minister of tact, at whose suggestion he challenged his rival (of Amber) to equal him in the magnitude of his gift to the Brahmans. On the gage being accepted, the Rathor exclaimed, “Perpetual charity (sasan)[3] of all the lands held by the Brahmans in Marwar!” His unreflecting rival had commenced the redemption of his pledge, when his minister stopped the half-uttered vow, which would have impoverished the family for ever; for there were ten Brahmans in Amber who followed secular employments, cultivating or holding lands in usufruct, to one in Marwar. Had these lords of the earth been left to their misguided vanity, the fisc of each state would have been seriously curtailed.Grants to Brāhmans and Devotees.
—The Brahmans, Sannyasis, and Gosains are not behind those professional flatterers, the Bards; and many a princely name would have been forgotten but for the record of the gift of land. In Mewar, the lands in sasan, or religious grants, amount in value to one-fifth of the 591revenue of the State, and the greater proportion of these has arisen out of the prodigal mismanagement of the last century. The dilapidated state of the country, on the general pacification in A.D. 1818, afforded a noble opportunity to redeem in part these alienations, without the penalty of denunciation attached to the resumer of sacred charities. But death, famine, and exile, which had left but few of the grantees in a capacity to return and reoccupy the lands, in vain coalesced to restore the fisc of Mewar. The Rana dreaded a “sixty thousand [509] years’ residence in hell,” and some of the finest land of his country is doomed to remain unproductive. In this predicament is the township of Menal,[4] with 50,000 bighas (16,000 acres), which with the exception of a nook where some few have established themselves, claiming to be descendants of the original holders, are condemned to sterility, owing to the agricultural proprietors and the rent-receiving Brahmans being dead; and apathy united to superstition admits their claims without inquiry.The antiquary, who has dipped into the records of the dark period in European church history, can have ocular illustration in Rajasthan of traditions which may in Europe appear questionable. The vision of the Bishop of Orleans,[5] who saw Charles Martel in the depths of hell, undergoing the tortures of the damned, for having stripped the churches of their possessions, “thereby rendering himself guilty of the sins of all those who had endowed them,” would receive implicit credence from every Hindu, whose ecclesiastical economy might both yield and derive illustration from a comparison, not only with that of Europe, but with the more ancient Egyptian and Jewish systems, whose endowments, as explained by Moses and Ezekiel, bear a strong analogy to his 592own. The disposition of landed property in Egypt, as amongst the ancient Hindus, was immemorially vested in the cultivator; and it was only through Joseph’s ministry in the famine that “the land became Pharaoh’s, as the Egyptians sold every man his field.”[6] And the coincidence is manifest even in the tax imposed on them as occupants of their inheritance, being one-fifth of the crops to the king, while the maximum rate among the Hindus is a sixth.[7] The Hindus also, in visitations such as that which occasioned the dispossession of the ryots of Egypt, can mortgage or sell their patrimony (bapota). Joseph did not attempt to infringe the privileges of the sacred order when the whole of Egypt became crown-land, “except the lands of the priests, which became not Pharaoh’s”; and these priests, according to Diodorus, held for themselves and the sacrifices no less than one-third of the lands of Egypt. But we learn from [510] Herodotus, that Sesostris, who ruled after Joseph’s ministry, restored the lands to the people, reserving the customary tax or tribute.[8]
The prelates of the middle ages of Europe were often completely feudal nobles, swearing fealty and paying homage as did the lay lords.[9] In Rajasthan, the sacerdotal caste not bound to the altar may hold lands and perform the duties of vassalage:[10] but of late years, when land has been assigned to religious establishments, no reservation has been made of fiscal rights, territorial or commercial. This is, however, an innovation; since, formerly, princes never granted, along with territorial assignments, the prerogative of dispensing justice, of levying transit duties, or exemption from personal service of the feudal tenant who held on the land thus assigned. Well may Rajput heirs exclaim with the grandson of Clovis, “our exchequer is impoverished, and our riches are transferred to the clergy.”[11] But Chilperic had the courage to recall the grants of his predecessors, which, however, the pious Gontram re-established. Many Gontrams could be found, though but few Chilperics, in Rajasthan: we have, indeed, 593one in Jograj,[12] the Rana’s ancestor, almost a contemporary of the Merovingian king, who not only resumed all the lands of the Brahmans, but put many of them to death, and expelled the rest his dominions.[13]
It may be doubted whether vanity and shame are not sufficient in themselves to prevent a resumption of the lands of the Mangtas or mendicants, as they style all those ‘who extend the palm,’ without the dreaded penalty, which operates very slightly on the sub-vassal or cultivator, who, having no superfluity, defies their anathemas when they attempt to wrest from him, by virtue of the crown-grant, any of his long-established rights. By these, the threat of impure transmigration is despised; and the Brahman may spill his blood on the threshold of his dwelling or in the field in dispute, which will be relinquished by the owner but with his life. The Pat Rani, or chief queen, on the death of Prince Amra, the heir-apparent, in 1818, bestowed a grant of fifteen bighas of land, in one of the central districts, on a Brahman who had assisted in the funeral rites of her son. With grant in hand [511], he hastened to the Jat proprietor, and desired him to make over to him the patch of land. The latter coolly replied that he would give him all the prince had a right to, namely the tax. The Brahman threatened to spill his own blood if he did not obey the command, and gave himself a gash in a limb; but the Jat was inflexible, and declared that he would not surrender his patrimony (bapota) even if he slew himself.[14] In short, the
594ryot of Mewar would reply, even to his sovereign, if he demanded his field, in the very words of Naboth to Ahab, king of Israel, when he demanded the vineyard contiguous to the palace: “The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.”
Tithes, Temples.
—But the tithes, and other small and legally established rights of the hierarchy, are still religiously maintained. The village temple and the village priest are always objects of veneration to the industrious husbandman, on whom superstition acts more powerfully than on the bold marauding Rajput, who does not hesitate to demand salvamenta (rakhwali) from the lands of Kanhaiya or Eklinga. But the poor ryot of the nineteenth century of Vikrama has the same fears as the peasants of Charlemagne, who were made to believe that the ears of corn found empty had been devoured by infernal spirits, reported to have said they owed their feast to the non-payment of tithes.[15]Political Influence of Brāhmans.
—The political influence of the Brahmans is frequently exemplified in cases alike prejudicial to the interests of society and the personal welfare of the sovereign. The latter is often surrounded by lay-Brahmans as confidential servants, in the capacities of butler, keeper of the wardrobe, or seneschal,[16] besides the Guru or domestic chaplain, who to the duty of ghostly comforter sometimes joins that of [512] astrologer 595and physician, in which case God help the prince![17] These Gurus and Purohits, having the education of the children, acquire immense influence, and are not backward in improving “the greatness thrust upon them.” They are all continually importuning their prince for grants of land for themselves and the shrines they are attached to; and every chief, as well as every influential domestic, takes advantage of ephemeral favour to increase the endowments of his tutelary divinity. The Peshwas of Satara are the most striking out of numerous examples.In the dark ages of Europe the monks are said to have prostituted their knowledge of writing to the forging of charters in their own favour: a practice not easily detected in the days of ignorance.[18] The Brahmans, in like manner, do not scruple to employ this method of augmenting the wealth of their shrines; and superstition and indolence combine to support the deception 596There is not a doubt that the grand charter of Nathdwara was a forgery, in which the prince’s butler was bribed to aid; and report alleges that the Rana secretly favoured an artifice which regard to opinion prevented him from overtly promulgating. Although the copper-plate had been buried under ground, and came out disguised with a coating of verdigris, there were marks which proved the date of its execution to be false. I have seen charters which, it has been gravely asserted, were granted by Rama upwards of three thousand years ago! Such is the origin assigned to one found in a well at the ancient Brahmpuri, in the valley of the capital. If there be sceptics as to its validity, they are silent ones; and this copper-plate of the brazen age [513] is worth gold to the proprietor.[19] A census[20] of the three central districts of Mewar discovered that more than twenty thousand acres of these fertile lands, irrigated by the Berach and Banas rivers, were distributed in isolated portions, of which the mendicant castes had the chief share, and which proved fertile sources of dispute to the husbandman and the officers of the revenue. From the mass of title-deeds of every description by which these lands were held, one deserves to be selected, on account of its being pretended to have been written and bestowed on the incumbent’s ancestor by the deity upwards of three centuries ago, and which has been maintained as a bona-fide grant of Krishna[21] ever since. By such credulity and apathy are the Rajput States influenced: yet let the reader check any rising feeling of contempt for Hindu legislation, and cast a retrospective glance at the page of European church history, where he will observe in the time of the most potent of our monarchs that the clergy possessed one-half of the soil:[22] and the chronicles of France will show him Charlemagne on his death-bed, bequeathing two-thirds of his domains to the church, deeming the remaining third sufficient for the ambition of four sons. The same dread of futurity, and the hope to expiate the sins of a life, at its 597close, by gifts to the organs of religion, is the motive for these unwise alienations, whether in Europe or in Asia. Some of these establishments, and particularly that at Nathdwara, made a proper use of their revenues in keeping up the Sada-Brat, or perpetual charity, though it is chiefly distributed to religious pilgrims: but among the many complaints made of the misapplication of the funds, the diminution of this hospitable right is one; while, at other shrines, the avarice of the priests is observable in the coarseness of the food dressed for sacrifice and offering.
Tithes levied by Brāhmans.
—Besides the crown-grants to the greater establishments, the Brahmans received petty tithes from the agriculturist, and a small duty from the trader, as mapa or metage, throughout every township, corresponding with the scale of the village-chapel. An inscription found by the author at the town of Palod,[23] and dated nearly seven centuries back, affords a good specimen of the claims of the village [514] priesthood. The following are among the items. The serana, or a ser, in every maund, being the fortieth part of the grain of the unalu, or summer-harvest; the karpa, or a bundle from every sheaf of the autumnal crops, whether makai (Indian corn), bajra or juar (maize) [millet], or the other grains peculiar to that season.[24]They also derive a tithe from the oil-mill and sugar-mill, and receive a kansa or platter of food on all rejoicings, as births, marriages, etc., with charai, or the right of pasturage on the village common; and where they have become possessed of landed property they have halma, or unpaid labour in man and beasts, and implements, for its culture: an exaction well known in Europe as one of the detested corvées of the feudal system of France,[25] the abolition of which was the sole boon the English husbandman obtained by the charter of Runymede. Both the chieftain and the priest exact halma in Rajasthan; but in that country it is mitigated, and abuse is prevented, by a sentiment unknown to the feudal despot of the middle ages of Europe, and 598which, though difficult to define, acts imperceptibly, having its source in accordance of belief, patriarchal manners, and clannish attachments.
Privileges of Saivas and Jains.
—I shall now briefly consider the privileges of the Saivas and Jains—the orthodox and heterodox sects of Mewar; and then proceed to those of Vishnu, whose worship is the most prevalent in these countries, and which I am inclined to regard as of more recent origin.Worship of Siva.
—Mahadeva, or Iswara, is the tutelary divinity of the Rajputs in Mewar; and from the early annals of the dynasty appears to have been, with his consort Isani, the sole object of Guhilot adoration. Iswara is adored under the epithet of Eklinga,[26] and is either worshipped in his monolithic symbol, or as Iswara Chaumukhi, the quadriform divinity, represented by a bust with four faces. The sacred bull, Nandi, has his altar attached to all the shrines of Iswara, as was that of Mneves or Apis to those of the Egyptian Osiris. Nandi has occasionally his separate shrines, and there is one in the valley of Udaipur which has the reputation of being oracular as regards the seasons. The bull was the steed of Iswara, and [515] carried him in battle; he is often represented upon it, with his consort Isani, at full speed. I will not stop to inquire whether the Grecian fable of the rape of Europa[27] by the tauriform Jupiter may not be derived, with much more of their mythology, from the Hindu pantheon; whether that pantheon was originally erected on the Indus, or 599the Ganges, or the more central scene of early civilization, the banks of the Oxus. The bull was offered to Mithras by the Persian, and opposed as it now appears to Hindu faith, he formerly bled on the altars of the Sun-god, on which not only the Baldan,[28] ‘offering of the bull,’ was made, but human sacrifices.[29] We do not learn that the Egyptian priesthood presented the kindred of Apis to Osiris, but as they were not prohibited from eating beef, they may have done so.The Temple of Eklinga.
—The shrine of Eklinga is situated in a defile about six [twelve] miles north of Udaipur. The hills towering around it on all sides are of the primitive formation, and their scarped summits are clustered with honeycombs.[30] There are abundant small springs of water, which keep verdant numerous shrubs, the flowers of which are acceptable to the deity; especially the kaner or oleander, which grows in great 600luxuriance on the Aravalli. Groves of bamboo and mango were formerly common, according to tradition; but although it is deemed sacrilege to thin the groves of Bal,[31] the bamboo has been nearly destroyed: there are, however, still many trees sacred to the deity scattered around. It would be difficult to convey a just [516] idea of a temple so complicated in its details. It is of the form commonly styled pagoda, and, like all the ancient temples of Siva, its sikhara, or pinnacle, is pyramidal. The various orders of Hindu sacred architecture are distinguished by the form of the sikhara, which is the portion springing from and surmounting the perpendicular walls of the body of the temple. The sikhara of those of Siva is invariably pyramidal, and its sides vary with the base, whether square or oblong. The apex is crowned with an ornamental figure, as a sphinx, an urn, a ball, or a lion, which is called the kalas. When the sikhara is but the frustum of a pyramid, it is often surmounted by a row of lions, as at Bijolia. The fane of Eklinga is of white marble and of ample dimensions. Under an open-vaulted temple supported by columns, and fronting the four-faced divinity, is the brazen bull Nandi, of the natural size; it is cast, and of excellent proportions. The figure is perfect, except where the shot or hammer of an infidel invader has penetrated its hollow flank in search of treasure. Within the quadrangle are miniature shrines, containing some of the minor divinities.[32] The high-priest of Eklinga, like all his order, is doomed to celibacy, and 601the office is continued by adopted disciples. Of such spiritual descents they calculate sixty-four since the Sage Harita, whose benediction obtained for the Guhilot Rajput the sovereignty of Chitor, when driven from Saurashtra by the Parthians.The priests of Eklinga are termed Gosain or Goswami, which signifies ‘control over the senses’! The distinguishing mark of the faith of Siva is the crescent on the forehead:[33] the hair is braided and forms a tiara round the head, and with its folds a chaplet of the lotus-seed is often entwined. They smear the body with ashes, and use garments dyed of an orange hue. They bury their dead in a sitting [517] posture, and erect tumuli over them, which are generally conical in form.[34] It is not uncommon for priestesses to officiate in the temple of Siva. There is a numerous class of Gosains who have adopted celibacy, and who yet follow secular employments both in commerce and arms. The mercantile Gosains[35] are amongst the richest individuals in India, and there are several at Udaipur who enjoy high favour, and who were found very useful when the Mahrattas demanded a war-contribution, as their privileged character did not prevent their being offered and taken as hostages for its payment. The Gosains who profess arms, partake of the character of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. They live in monasteries scattered over the country, possess lands, and beg, or serve for pay when called upon. As defensive soldiers, they are good. Siva, their patron, is the god of war, and like him they make great use of intoxicating herbs, and even of spirituous liquors. In Mewar they can always muster many hundreds of the Kanphara[36] Jogi, or ‘split-ear ascetics,’ so called from the habit of piercing the ear and placing therein a ring of the conch-shell, which is their battle-trumpet. 602Both Brahmans and Rajputs, and even Gujars, can belong to this order, a particular account of whose internal discipline and economy could not fail to be interesting. The poet Chand gives an animated description of the body-guard of the King of Kanauj, which was composed of these monastic warriors.
Priestly Functions of the Mewār Rānas.
—The Ranas of Mewar, as the diwans, or vicegerents of Siva, when they visit the temple supersede the high priest in his duties, and perform the ceremonies, which the reigning prince does with peculiar correctness and grace.[37]Privileges of Jains.
—The shrine of Eklinga is endowed with twenty-four large villages from the fisc, besides parcels of land from the chieftains; but the privileges of the tutelary divinity have been waning since Kanhaiya fixed his residence amongst them; and as the priests of Apollo complained that the god was driven from the sacred mount [518] Govardhana, in Vraj, by the influence of those of Jupiter[38] with Shah Jahan, the latter may now lament that the day of retribution has arrived, when propitiation to the Preserver is deemed more important than to the Destroyer. This may arise from the personal character of the high priests, who, from their vicinity to the court, can scarcely avoid mingling in its intrigues, and thence lose in character: even the Ranis do not hesitate to take mortgages on the estates of Bholanath.[39] We shall not further enlarge on the immunities to Eklinga, or the forms in which they are conveyed, as these will be fully discussed in the account of the shrine of Krishna; but proceed to notice the privileges of the heterodox Jains—the Vidyavan[40] or Magi of Rajasthan. The numbers and power of 603these sectarians are little known to Europeans, who take it for granted that they are few and dispersed. To prove the extent of their religious and political power, it will suffice to remark that the pontiff of the Khadatara-gachchha,[41] one of the many branches of this faith, has 11,000 clerical disciples scattered over India; that a single community, the Osi or Oswal,[42] numbers 100,000 families; and that more than half [519] of the mercantile wealth of India passes through the hands of the Jain laity. Rajasthan and Saurashtra are the cradles of the Buddhist or Jain faith, and three out of their five sacred mounts, namely, Abu, Palitana,[43] and Girnar, are in these countries. The officers 604of the State and revenue are chiefly of the Jain laity, as are the majority of the bankers, from Lahore to the ocean. The chief magistrate and assessors of justice, in Udaipur and most of the towns of Rajasthan, are of this sect; and as their voluntary duties are confined to civil cases, they are as competent in these as they are the reverse in criminal cases, from their tenets forbidding the shedding of blood. To this leading feature in their religion they owe their political debasement: for Kumarpal, the last king of Anhilwara of the Jain faith, would not march his armies in the rains, from the unavoidable sacrifice of animal life that must have ensued. The strict Jain does not even maintain a lamp during that season, lest it should attract moths to their destruction.Absence of Intolerance.
—The period of sectarian intolerance is now past; and as far as my observation goes, the ministers of Vishnu, Siva, and Buddha view each other without malignity; which feeling never appears to have influenced the laity of either sect, who are indiscriminately respectful to the ministers of all religions, whatever be their tenets. It is sufficient that their office is one of sanctity, and that they are ministers of the Divinity, who, they say, excludes the homage of none, in whatever tongue or whatever manner he is sought; and with this spirit of entire toleration, the devout missionary, or Mulla, would in no country meet more security or hospitable courtesy than among the Rajputs. They must, however, adopt the toleration they would find practised towards themselves, and not exclude, as some of them do, the races of Surya and Chandra from divine mercy, who, with less arrogance, and more reliance on the compassionate nature of the Creator, say, he has established a variety of paths by which the good may attain beatitude.Mewar has, from the most remote period, afforded a refuge to 605the followers of the Jain faith, which was the religion of Valabhi, the first capital of the Rana’s ancestors, and many monuments attest the support this family has granted to its [520] professors in all the vicissitudes of their fortunes. One of the best preserved monumental remains in India is a column most elaborately sculptured, full seventy feet in height, dedicated to Parsvanath, in Chitor.[44] The noblest remains of sacred architecture, not in Mewar only, but throughout Western India, are Buddhist or Jain:[45] and the many ancient cities where this religion was fostered, have inscriptions which evince their prosperity in these countries, with whose history their own is interwoven. In fine, the necrological records of the Jains bear witness to their having occupied a distinguished place in Rajput society; and the privileges they still enjoy, prove that they are not overlooked. It is not my intention to say more on the past or present history of these sectarians, than may be necessary to show the footing on which their establishments are placed; to which end little is required beyond copies of a few simple warrants and ordinances in their favour.[46] Hereafter I may endeavour to add something to the knowledge already possessed of these deists of Rajasthan, whose singular communities contain mines of knowledge hitherto inaccessible to Europeans. The libraries of Jaisalmer in the desert, of Anhilwara, the cradle of their faith, of Cambay, and other places of minor importance, consist of thousands of volumes. These are under the control, not of the priests alone, but of communities of the most wealthy and respectable amongst the laity, and are preserved in the crypts of their temples, which precaution ensured their preservation, as well as that of the statues of their deified teachers, when the temples themselves were destroyed by the Muhammadan invaders, who paid more deference to the images of Buddha than those of Siva or Vishnu. The preservation of the former may be owing to the natural formation of their statues; for while many of Adinath, of Nemi, and of Parsva have escaped the hammer, there is scarcely an 606Apollo or a Venus, of any antiquity, entire, from Lahore to Rameswaram. The two arms of these theists sufficed for their protection; while the statues of the polytheists have met with no mercy.
Grant of Rāna Rāj Singh.
—No. V.[47] is the translation of a grant by the celebrated Rana Raj Singh, the gallant and successful opponent of Aurangzeb in many a battle. It is at once of a general and special nature, containing a confirmation of the old privileges of the sect, and a mark of favour to a priest of some distinction, called Mana. It is well known [521] that the first law of the Jains, like that of the ancient Athenian lawgiver Triptolemus, is, “Thou shalt not kill,” a precept applicable to every sentient thing. The first clause of this edict, in conformity thereto, prohibits all innovation upon this cherished principle; while the second declares that even the life which is forfeited to the laws is immortal (amara) if the victim but passes near their abodes. The third article defines the extent of saran, or sanctuary, the dearest privilege of the races of these regions. The fourth article sanctions the tithes, both on agricultural and commercial produce; and makes no distinction between the Jain priests and those of Siva and Vishnu in this source of income, which will be more fully detailed in the account of Nathdwara. The fifth article is the particular gift to the priest; and the whole closes with the usual anathema against such as may infringe the ordinance.The Jain Retreat.
—The edicts Nos. VI. and VII.,[48] engraved on pillars of stone in the towns of Rasmi and Bakrol, further illustrate the scrupulous observances of the Rana’s house towards the Jains; where, in compliance with their peculiar doctrine, the oil-mill and the potter’s wheel suspend their revolutions for the four months in the year when insects most abound.[49] Many others of a similar character could be furnished, but these remarks may be concluded with an instance of the influence of the Jains on Rajput society, which passed immediately under the Author’s 607eye. In the midst of a sacrifice to the god of war, when the victims were rapidly falling by the scimitar, a request preferred by one of them for the life of a goat or a buffalo on the point of immolation, met instant compliance, and the animal, become amara or immortal, with a garland thrown round his neck, was led off in triumph from the blood-stained spot.Nāthdwāra.
—This is the most celebrated of the fanes of the Hindu Apollo. Its etymology is ‘the portal (dwara) of the god’ (nath), of the same import as his more ancient shrine of Dwarka[50] at the ‘world’s end.’ Nathdwara is twenty-two [thirty] miles N.N.E. of Udaipur, on the right bank of the Banas. Although the principal resort of the followers of Vishnu, it has nothing very remarkable in its structure or situation. It owes its celebrity entirely to the image of Krishna, said to [522] be the same that has been worshipped at Mathura ever since his deification, between eleven and twelve hundred years before Christ.[51] As containing the representative of the mildest of the gods of Hind, Nathdwara is one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage, though it must want that attraction to the classical Hindu which the caves of Gaya, the shores of the distant Dwarka, or the pastoral Vraj,[52] the place of the nativity of Krishna, present to his imagination; for though the groves of Vindra,[53] in which 608Kanhaiya disported with the Gopis, no longer resound to the echoes of his flute; though the waters of the Yamuna[54] are daily polluted with the blood of the sacred kine, still it is the holy land of the pilgrim, the sacred Jordan of his fancy, on whose banks he may sit and weep, as did the banished Israelite of old, the glories of Mathura, his Jerusalem!It was in the reign of Aurangzeb that the pastoral divinity was exiled from Vraj, that classic soil which, during a period of two thousand eight hundred years, had been the sanctuary of his worshippers. He had been compelled to occasional flights during the visitations of Mahmud and the first dynasties of Afghan invaders; though the more tolerant of the Mogul kings not only reinstated him, but were suspected of dividing their faith between Kanhaiya and the prophet. Akbar was an enthusiast in the mystic poetry of Jayadeva, which paints in glowing colours the loves of Kanhaiya and Radha, in which lovely personification the refined Hindu abjures all sensual interpretation, asserting its character of pure spiritual love.[55]
The Mughals and Krishna Worship.
—Jahangir, by birth half a Rajput, was equally indulgent to the worship of Kanhaiya: but Shah Jahan, also the son of a Rajput princess, inclined to the [523] doctrines of Siva, in which he was initiated by Siddhrup the Sannyasi. Sectarian animosity is more virulent than faiths totally dissimilar. Here we see Hindu depressing Hindu: the followers of Siva oppressing those of Kanhaiya; the priests of Jupiter driving the pastoral Apollo from the Parnassus of Vraj. At the intercession, however, of a princess of Udaipur, he was replaced on his altar, where he remained till Aurangzeb became emperor of the Moguls. In such detestation did the Hindus hold 609this intolerant king, that in like manner as they supposed the beneficent Akbar to be the devout Mukund in a former birth, so they make the tyrant’s body enclose the soul of Kalyavana the foe of Krishna, ere his apotheosis, from whom he fled to Dwarka, and thence acquired the name of Ranchhor.[56]The Image of Krishna removed to Mewār. Founding of Nāthdwāra.
—When Aurangzeb proscribed Kanhaiya, and rendered his shrines impure throughout Vraj, Rana Raj Singh “offered the heads of one hundred thousand Rajputs for his service,” and the god was conducted by the route of Kotah and Rampura to Mewar. An omen decided the spot of his future residence. As he journeyed to gain the capital of the Sesodias the chariot-wheel sunk deep into the earth and defied extrication; upon which the Saguni (augur) interpreted the pleasure of the god, that he desired to dwell there. This circumstance occurred at an inconsiderable village called Siarh, in the fief of Delwara, one of the sixteen nobles of Mewar. Rejoiced at this decided manifestation of favour, the chief hastened to make a perpetual gift of the village and its lands, which was speedily confirmed by the patent of the Rana.[57] Nathji (the god) was removed from his car, and in due time a temple was erected for his reception, when the hamlet of Siarh became the town of Nathdwara, which now contains many thousand inhabitants of all denominations, who, reposing under the especial protection of the god, are exempt from every mortal tribunal. The site is not uninteresting, nor devoid of the means of defence. To the east it is shut in by a cluster of hills, and to the westward flows the Banas, which nearly bathes the extreme points of the hills. Within these bounds is the sanctuary (saran) of Kanhaiya, where the criminal is free from pursuit; nor dare the rod of justice appear on the mount, or the foot of the pursuer pass the stream; neither within it can blood be spilt, for the pastoral Kanhaiya delights not in offerings of 610this kind [524].[58] The territory contains within its precincts abundant space for the town, the temple, and the establishments of the priests, as well as for the numerous resident worshippers, and the constant influx of votaries from the most distant regions,who find abundant shelter from the noontide blaze in the groves of tamarind, pipal, and semal,[59] where they listen to the mystic hymns of Jayadeva. Here those whom ambition has cloyed, superstition unsettled, satiety disgusted, commerce ruined, or crime disquieted, may be found as ascetic attendants on the mildest of the gods of India. Determined upon renouncing the world, they first renounce the ties that bind them to it, whether family, friends, or fortune, and placing their wealth at the disposal of the deity, stipulate only for a portion of the food dressed for him, and to be permitted to prostrate themselves before him till their allotted time is expired. Here no blood-stained sacrifice scares the timid devotee; no austerities terrify, or tedious ceremonies fatigue him; he is taught to cherish the hope that he has only to ask for mercy in order to obtain it; and to believe that the compassionate deity who guarded the lapwing’s nest[60] in the 611midst of myriads of combatants, who gave beatitude to the courtesan[61] who as the wall crushed her pronounced the name of ‘Rama,’ will not withhold it from him who has quitted the world and its allurements that he may live only in his presence, be fed by the food prepared for himself, and yield up his last sigh invoking the name of Hari. There [525] have been two hundred individuals at a time, many of whom, stipulating merely for food, raiment, and funeral rites, have abandoned all to pass their days in devotion at the shrine: men of every condition, Rajput merchant, and mechanic; and where sincerity of devotion is the sole expiation, and gifts outweigh penance, they must feel the road smooth to the haven of hope.
Benefactions to Nāthdwāra.
—The dead stock of Krishna’s shrine is augmented chiefly by those who hold life “unstable as the dew-drop on the lotus”; and who are happy to barter “the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind” for the intercessional prayers of the high priest, and his passport to Haripur, the heaven of Hari. From the banks of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the coasts of the Peninsula to the shores of the Red Sea, the gifts of gratitude or of fear are lavishly poured in; and though the unsettled aspect of the last half-century curtailed the transmission of the more bulky but least valuable benefactions, it less affected the bills of exchange from the successful sons of commerce, or the legacies of the dead. The safe arrival of a galleon from Sofala or Arabia produced as much to the shrine as to the insurance office, for Kanhaiya is the Saint Nicholas of the Hindu navigator, as was Apollo to the Grecian and Celtic sailors, who purchased the charmed arrows of the god to calm the troubled 612sea.[62] A storm accordingly yields in proportion to its violence, or to the nerve of the owner of the vessel. The appearance of a long-denied heir might deprive him of half his patrimony, and force him to lament his parent’s distrust in natural causes; while the accidental mistake of touching forbidden food on particular fasts requires expiation, not by flagellation or seclusion, but by the penance of the purse.There is no donation too great or too trifling for the acceptance of Krishna, from the baronial estate to a patch of meadowland; from the gemmed coronet to adorn his image, to the widow’s mite; nor, as before observed, is there a principality [526] in India which does not diminish its fisc to add to his revenues. What effect the milder rites of the shepherd-god have produced on the adorers of Siva we know not, but assuredly Eklinga, the tutelary divinity of Mewar, has to complain of being defrauded of half his dues since Kanhaiya transferred his abode from the Yamuna to the Banas; for the revenues assigned to Kanhaiya, who under the epithet of ‘Yellow mantle’[63] has a distinguished niche in the domestic chapel of the Rana, far exceed those of the Avenger. The grants or patents of Hindupati,[64] defining the 613privileges and immunities of the shrine, are curious documents.[65]
Rights of Sanctuary.
—The extension of the sanctuary beyond the vicinage of the shrine became a subject of much animadversion; and in delegating judicial authority over the whole of the villages in the grant to the priests, the Rana committed the temporal welfare of his subjects to a class of men not apt to be lenient in the collection of their dues, which not unfrequently led to bloodshed. In alienating the other royalties, especially the transit duties, he was censured even by the zealots. Yet, however important such concessions, they were of subordinate value to the rights of sanctuary, which were extended to the whole of the towns in the grant, thereby multiplying the places of refuge for crime, already too numerous.Violation of Sanctuary.
—In all ages and countries the rights of sanctuary have been admitted, and however they may be abused, their institution sprung from humane motives. To check the impulse of revenge and to shelter the weak from oppression are noble objects, and the surest test of a nation’s independence is the extent to which they are carried. From the remotest times saran has been the most valued privilege of the Rajputs, the lowest of whom deems his house a refuge against the most powerful. But we merely propose to discuss the sanctuary of holy places, and more immediately that of the shrine of Kanhaiya. When Moses, after the Exodus, made a division of the lands of Canaan amongst the Israelites, and appointed “six cities to be the refuge of him who had slain unwittingly, from the avenger of blood,”[66] the intention was not to afford facilities for eluding justice, but to check the hasty impulse of revenge; for the slayer was only to be protected “until he stood before the congregation for judgment, or until the death of the high-priest” [527], which event appears to have been considered as the termination of revenge.[67] The infraction of political sanctuary (saran torna) 614often gives rise to the most inveterate feuds; and its abuse by the priests is highly prejudicial to society. Moses appointed but six cities of refuge to the whole Levite tribe; but the Rana has assigned more to one shrine than the entire possessions of that branch of the Israelites who had but forty-two cities, while Kanhaiya has forty-six.[68] The motive of sanctuary in Rajasthan may have been originally the same as that of the divine legislator; but the privilege has been abused, and the most notorious criminals deem the temple their best safeguard. Yet some princes have been found hardy enough to violate, though indirectly, the sacred saran. Zalim Singh of Kotah, a zealot in all the observances of religion, had the boldness to draw the line when selfish priestcraft interfered with his police; and though he would not demand the culprit, or sacrilegiously drag him from the altar, he has forced him thence by prohibiting the admission of food, and threatening to build up the door of the temple. It was thus the Greeks evaded the laws, and compelled the criminal’s surrender by kindling fires around the sanctuary.[69] The towns of Kanhaiya did not often abuse their privilege; but the Author once had to interpose, where a priest of Eklinga gave asylum to a felon who had committed murder within the bounds of his domain of Pahona. As this town, of eight thousand rupees annual revenue belonging to the fisc, had been gained by a forged charter, the Author was glad to seize on the occasion to recommend its resumption, though he thereby incurred the penalty for seizing church land, namely “sixty thousand years in hell.” The unusual occurrence created a sensation, but it was so indisputably just that not a voice was raised in opposition.Endowments of Nāthdwāra.
—Let us revert to the endowments of Nathdwara. Herodotus[70] furnishes a powerful instance of 615the estimation in which sacred offerings were held by the nations of antiquity. He observes that these were transmitted from the remotest nations of Scythia to Delos in Greece; a range far less extensive than the offerings to the [528] Dewal of Apollo in Mewar. The spices of the isles of the Indian archipelago; the balmy spoils of Araby the blest; the nard or frankincense of Tartary; the raisins and pistachios of Persia; every variety of saccharine preparation, from the shakkarkhand (sugar-candy) of the celestial empire, with which the god sweetens his evening repast, to the more common sort which enters into the peras of Mathura, the food of his infancy;[71] the shawls of Kashmir, the silks of Bengal, the scarfs of Benares, the brocades of Gujarat,all contribute to enrich the shrine of Nathdwara. But it is with the votaries of the maritime provinces of India that he has most reason to be satisfied; in the commercial cities of Surat, Cambay, Muskat-mandavi, etc., etc., where the Mukhyas, or comptrollers deputed by the high priest, reside, to collect the benefactions, and transmit them as occasion requires. A deputy resides on the part of the high priest at Multan, who invests the distant worshippers with the initiative cordon and necklace. Even from Samarkand the pilgrims repair with their offerings; and a sum, seldom less than ten thousand rupees, is annually transmitted by the votaries from the Arabian ports of Muscat, Mocha, and Jiddah; which contribution is probably augmented not only by the votaries who dwell at the mouths of the Volga[72] [529], 616but by the Samoyede[73] of Siberia. There is not a petty retailer professing the Vishnu creed who does not carry a tithe of his 617trade to the stores: and thus caravans of thirty and forty cars, double-yoked, pass twice or thrice annually by the upper road to Nathdwara. These pious bounties are not allowed to moulder in the bhandars: the apparel is distributed with a liberal hand as the gift of the deity to those who evince their devotion; and the edibles enter daily into the various food prepared at the shrine.
Food offered to Deities.
—It has been remarked by the celebrated Goguet[74] that the custom of offering food to the object of divine homage had its origin in a principle of gratitude, the repast being deemed hallowed by presenting the first portion to him who gave it, since the devotee was unable to conceive aught more acceptable than that whereby life is sustained. From the earliest period such offerings have been tendered; and in the burnt-offering (hom) of Abel, of the firstling of the flock, and the first portion of the repast presented by the Rajput to Annadeva[75] ‘the nourisher,’ the motive is the same. But the parsad (such is the denomination of the food sacred to Kanhaiya) is deemed unlucky, if not unholy; a prejudice arising from the heterogeneous sources whence it is supplied—often from bequests of the dead. The Mukhyas [530] of the temple accordingly carry the sacred food to wheresoever the votaries dwell, which proves an irresistible stimulus to backward zeal, and produces an ample return. At 618the same time are transmitted, as from the god, dresses of honour corresponding in material and value with the rank of the receiver: a diadem, or fillet of satin and gold, embroidered; a dagla, or quilted coat of gold or silver brocade for the cold weather; a scarf of blue and gold; or if to one who prizes the gift less for its intrinsic worth than as a mark of special favour, a fragment of the garland worn on some festival by the god; or a simple necklace, by which he is inaugurated amongst the elect.[76]Lands dedicated to the Shrine.
—It has been mentioned that the lands of Mewar appropriated to the shrine are equal in value to a baronial appanage, and, as before observed, there is not a principality in India which does not assign a portion of its domain or revenue to this object. The Hara princes of Kotah and Bundi are almost exclusive worshippers of Kanhaiya, and the regent Zalim Singh is devoted to the maintenance of the dignity of the establishment. Everything at Kotah appertains to Kanhaiya. The prince has but the usufruct of the palace, for which £12,000 are annually transmitted to the shrine. The grand lake east of the town, with all its finny tenants, is under his especial protection;[77] and the extensive suburb adjoining, with its rents, lands, and transit duties, all belong to the god. Zalim Singh moreover transmits to the high priest the most valuable shawls, broadcloths, and horses; and throughout the long period of predatory warfare he maintained two Nishans,[78] of a hundred firelocks each, for the protection of the temple. His favourite son also, a child of love, is called Gordhandas, the ‘slave of Gordhan,’ one of the many titles of Kanhaiya. The prince of Marwar went mad from the murder of the high priest of Jalandhara, the epithet 619given to Kanhaiya in that State; and the Raja of Sheopur,[79] the last of the Gaurs, lost his sovereignty by abandoning the worship of Har for that of Hari. The ‘slave’ of Radha[80] (such was the name of this prince) almost lived in the temple, and used to dance before the statue. Had he upheld the rights of him who wields [531] the trident, the tutelary deity of his capital, Sivapur, instead of the unwarlike divinity whose unpropitious title of Ranchhor should never be borne by the martial Rajput, his fall would have been more dignified, though it could not have been retarded when the overwhelming torrent of the Mahrattas under Sindhia swept Rajwara.[81]Grants to the High Priest.
—A distinction is made between the grants to the temple and those for the personal use of the pontiff, who at least affects never to apply any portion of the former to his own use, and he can scarcely have occasion to do so; but when from the stores of Apollo could be purchased the spices of the isles, the fruits of Persia, and the brocades of Gujarat, we may indulge our scepticism in questioning this forbearance: but the abuse has been rectified, and traffic banished from the temple. The personal grant (Appendix, No. XI.) to the high priest ought alone to have sufficed for his household expenditure, being twenty thousand rupees per annum, equal to £10,000 in Europe. But the ten thousand towns of Mewar, from each of which he levied a crown, now exist only in the old rent-roll, and the heralds of Apollo would in vain attempt to collect their tribute from two thousand villages.The Appendix, No. XII., being a grant of privileges to a minor shrine of Kanhaiya, in his character of Muralidhar or ‘flute-player,’ contains much information on the minutiae of benefactions, and will afford a good idea of the nature of these revenues.
Effects of Krishna-worship on the Rājputs.
—The predominance 620of the mild doctrines of Kanhaiya over the dark rites of Siva, is doubtless beneficial to Rajput society. Were the prevention of female immolation the sole good resulting from their prevalence, that alone would conciliate our partiality; a real worshipper of Vishnu should forbid his wife following him to the pyre, as did recently the Bundi prince. In fact, their tenderness to animal life is carried to nearly as great an excess as with the Jains, who shed no blood. Celibacy is not imposed upon the priests of Kanhaiya, as upon those of Siva: on the contrary, they are enjoined to marry, and the priestly office is hereditary by descent. Their wives do not burn, but are committed, like themselves, to the earth. They inculcate tenderness towards all beings; though whether this feeling influences the mass, must depend on the soil which receives the seed, for the outward ceremonies of religion cost far less effort than the practice or essentials. I have often [532] smiled at the incessant aspirations of the Macchiavelli of Rajasthan, Zalim Singh, who, while he ejaculated the name of the god as he told his beads, was inwardly absorbed by mundane affairs; and when one word would have prevented a civil war, and saved his reputation from the stain of disloyalty to his prince, he was, to use his own words, “at fourscore years and upwards, laying the foundation for another century of life.” And thus it is with the prince of Marwar, who esteems the life of a man or a goat of equal value when prompted by revenge to take it. Hope may silence the reproaches of conscience, and gifts and ceremonies may be deemed atonement for a deviation from the first principle of their religion—a benevolence which should comprehend every animated thing. But fortunately the princely worshippers of Kanhaiya are few in number: it is to the sons of commerce we must look for the effects of these doctrines; and it is my pride and duty to declare that I have known men of both sects, Vaishnava and Jain, whose integrity was spotless, and whose philanthropy was unbounded.1. Manu commands, “Should the king be near his end through some incurable disease, he must bestow on the priests all his riches accumulated from legal fines: and having duly committed his kingdom to his son, let him seek death in battle, or, if there be no war, by abstaining from food” (Laws, ix. 323). The annals of all the Rajput States afford instances of obedience to this text of their divine legislator. [The injunction to seek death by starvation is an addition by the commentator, and is not included in the original text.]
2. [The practice of a devotee weighing himself against gold was common in ancient Hindu times, was known as tulāpurushadāna, and is still performed by the Mahārāja of Travancore (Thurston, Tribes and Castes of S. India, vii. 202 ff.; BG, i. Part ii. 415; Forbes, Rāsmāla, 84). Akbar used to have himself weighed against precious substances twice a year, on his solar and lunar birthdays, the articles being given to Brāhmans, and Jahāngīr followed the same custom (Āīn, i. 266 ff.; Elliot-Dowson v. 307, 453; Memoirs of Jahāngīr, trans. Rogers-Beveridge, 78, 81, 111, 183).]
3. [Sāsan, a grant by charter of rent-free lands, made in favour of Brāhmans and devotees. For the formula used in such grants see Barnett, Antiquities of India, 129.]
4. [Menāl, Mahānāl, ‘the great chasm,’ in the Begun Estate, E. Mewār.]
5. “Saint Eucher, évêque d’Orléans, eut une vision qui étonna les princes. Il faut que je rapporte à ce sujet la lettre que les évêques, assemblés à Reims, écrivent à Louis-le-Germanique, qui étoit entré dans les terres de Charles le Chauve, parce qu’elle est très-propre à nous faire voir quel étoit, dans ces temps-là, l’état des choses, et la situation des esprits. Ils disent que ‘Saint Eucher ayant été ravi dans le ciel, il vit Charles Martel tourmenté dans l’enfer inférieur par l’ordre des saints qui doivent assister avec Jésus-Christ au jugement dernier; qu’il avoit été condamné à cette peine avant le temps pour avoir dépouillé les églises de leurs biens, et s’être par là rendu coupable des péchés de tous ceux qui les avoient dotées’” (Montesquieu, L’Esprit des Lois, livre xxxi. chap. xi. p. 460).
6. Genesis xlvii. 20-26.
7. Manu, Laws, vii. 130.
8. Origin of Laws and Government, vol. i. p. 54, and vol. ii. p. 13. [Herodotus ii. 109.]
9. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 212.
10. “A Brahman unable to subsist by his duties just mentioned (sacerdotal), may live by the duty of a soldier” (Manu x. 81).
11. Montesquieu.
12. [One of the legendary Rānas, twenty-fifth on the list, to whom no date can be assigned.]
13. “Le clergé recevoit tant, qu’il faut que, dans les trois races, on lui ait donné plusieurs fois tous les biens du royaume. Mais si les rois, la noblesse, et le peuple, trouvèrent le moyen de leur donner tous leurs biens, ils ne trouvèrent pas moins celui de les leur ôter” (Montesquieu, L’Esprit des Lois, livre xxxi. chap. x.).
14. These worshippers of God and Mammon, when threats fail, have recourse to maiming, and even destroying, themselves, to gain their object. In 1820, one of the confidential servants of the Rana demanded payment of the petty tax called gugri, of one rupee on each house, from some Brahmans who dwelt in the village, and which had always been received from them. They refused payment, and on being pressed, four of them stabbed themselves mortally. Their bodies were placed upon biers, and funeral rites withheld till punishment should be inflicted on the priest-killer. But for once superstition was disregarded, and the rights of the Brahmans in this community were resumed. See Appendix to this Part, No. I [p. 644].
15. “Mais le bas peuple n’est guère capable d’abandonner ses intérêts par des exemples. Le synode de Francfort lui présenta un motif plus pressant pour payer les dîmes. On y fit un capitulaire dans lequel il est dit que, dans la dernière famine, on avoit trouvé les épis de blé vides, qu’ils avoient été dévorés par les démons, et qu’on avoit entendu leurs voix qui reprochoient de n’avoir pas payé la dîme: et, en conséquence, il fut ordonné à tous ceux qui tenoient les biens ecclésiastiques de payer la dîme, et, en conséquence encore, on l’ordonna à tous” (L’Esprit des Lois, livre xxxi. chap. xii.).
16. These lay Brahmans are not wanting in energy or courage; the sword is as familiar to them as the mala (chaplet). The grandfather of Ramnath, the present worthy seneschal of the Rana, was governor of the turbulent district of Jahazpur, which has never been so well ruled since. He left a curious piece of advice to his successors, inculcating vigorous measures. “With two thousand men you may eat khichri; with one thousand dalbhat; with five hundred juti (the shoe)” Khichri is a savoury mess of pulse, rice, butter, and spices; dalbhat is simple rice and pulse; the shoe is indelible disgrace.
17. Manu, in his rules on government, commands the king to impart his momentous counsel and entrust all transactions to a learned and distinguished Brahman (Laws, vii. 58). There is no being more aristocratic in his ideas than the secular Brahman or priest, who deems the bare name a passport to respect. The Kulin Brahman of Bengal piques himself upon this title of nobility granted by the last Hindu king of Kanauj (whence they migrated to Bengal), and in virtue of which his alliance in matrimony is courted. But although Manu has imposed obligations towards the Brahman little short of adoration, these are limited to the “learned in the Vedas”: he classes the unlearned Brahman with “an elephant made of wood, or an antelope of leather”; nullities, save in name. And he adds further, that “as liberality to a fool is useless, so is a Brahman useless if he read not the holy texts”: comparing the person who gives to such an one, to a husbandman “who, sowing seed in a barren soil, reaps no gain”; so the Brahman “obtains no reward in heaven.” These sentiments are repeated in numerous texts, holding out the most powerful inducements to the sacerdotal class to cultivate their minds, since their power consists solely in their wisdom. For such, there are no privileges too extensive, no homage too great. “A king, even though dying with want, must not receive any tax from a Brahman learned in the Vedas.” His person is sacred. “Never shall the king slay a Brahman, though convicted of all possible crimes,” is a premium at least to unbounded insolence, and unfits them for members of society, more especially for soldiers; banishment, with person and property untouched, is the declared punishment for even the most heinous crimes. “A Brahman may seize without hesitation, if he be distressed for a subsistence, the goods of his Sudra slave.” But the following text is the climax: “What prince could gain wealth by oppressing these [Brahmans], who, if angry, could frame other worlds, and regents of worlds, and could give birth to new gods and mortals?” (Manu, Laws, ii. iii. vii. viii. ix.).
18. Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 204.
19. These forgeries of charters cannot be considered as invalidating the arguments drawn from them, as we may rest assured nothing is introduced foreign to custom, in the items of the deeds.
20. Suggested by the Author, and executed under his superintendence, who waded through all these documents, and translated upwards of a hundred of the most curious.
22. Hallam.
24. Each bundle consists of a specified number of ears, which are roasted and eaten in the unripe state with a little salt. [A ser or seer = 2·057 lbs. avoirdupois.]
25. Dict. de l’Ancien Régime, p. 131, art. “Corvée.”
26. That is, with one (ek) lingam or phallus—the symbol of worship being a single cylindrical or conical stone. There are others, termed Sahaslinga and Kotiswara, with a thousand or a million of phallic representatives, all minutely carved on the monolithic emblem, having then much resemblance to the symbol of Bacchus, whose orgies, both in Egypt and Greece, are the counterpart of those of the Hindu Baghis, thus called from being clad in a tiger’s or leopard’s hide: Bacchus had the panther’s for his covering. There is a very ancient temple to Kotiswara at the embouchure of the eastern arm of the Indus; and here are many to Sahaslinga in the peninsula of Saurashtra. [Bacchus has no connexion with a Hindu tiger-god.]
27. It might have appeared fanciful, some time ago, to have given a Sanskrit derivation to a Greek proper name: but Europa might be derived from Surupa, ‘of the beautiful face’—the initial syllable su and eu having the same signification in both languages, namely, good—Rupa is ‘countenance.’ [Europa is probably Assyrian ereb, irib, ‘land of the rising sun’ (EB, ix. 907). Another explanation is that it is a cult title, meaning ‘goddess of the flourishing willow-withies’ (A. B. Cook, Zeus, 531).]
28. In this sacrifice four altars are erected, for offering the flesh to the four gods, Lakshmi-Narayana, Umamaheswar, Brahma, and Ananta. The nine planets, and Prithu, or the earth, with her ten guardian-deities, are worshipped. Five Vilwa, five Khadira, five Palasha, and five Udumbara posts are to be erected, and a bull tied to each post. Clarified butter is burnt on the altar, and pieces of the flesh of the slaughtered animals placed thereon. This sacrifice was very common (Ward, On the Religion of the Hindus, vol. ii. p. 263). [Balidāna, ‘an offering to the gods.’]
29. First a covered altar is to be prepared; sixteen posts are then to be erected of various woods; a golden image of a man, and an iron one of a goat, with golden images of Vishnu and Lakshmi, a silver one of Siva, with a golden bull, and a silver one of Garuda ‘the eagle,’ are placed upon the altar. Animals, as goats, sheep, etc., are tied to the posts, and to one of them, of the wood of the mimosa, is to be tied the human victim. Fire is to be kindled by means of a burning glass. The sacrificing priest, hota, strews the grass called dub or immortal, round the sacred fire. Then follows the burnt sacrifice to the ten guardian deities of the earth—to the nine planets, and to the Hindu Triad, to each of whom clarified butter is poured on the sacred fire one thousand times. Another burnt-sacrifice, to the sixty-four inferior gods, follows, which is succeeded by the sacrifice and offering of all the other animals tied to the posts. The human sacrifice concludes, the sacrificing priest offering pieces of the flesh of the victim to each god as he circumambulates the altar (ibid, 260).
30. This is to be taken in its literal sense; the economy of the bee being displayed in the formation of extensive colonies which inhabit large masses of black comb adhering to the summits of the rocks. According to the legends of these tracts, they were called in as auxiliaries on Muhammadan invasions, and are said to have thrown the enemy more than once into confusion. [Stories of idols protected from desecration by swarms of hornets are common (BG, viii. 401; Sleeman, Rambles, 54).]
32. In June 1806 I was present at a meeting between the Rana and Sindhia at the shrine of Eklinga. The rapacious Mahratta had just forced the passes to the Rana’s capital, which was the commencement of a series of aggressions involving one of the most tragical events in the history of Mewar—the immolation of the Princess Krishna and the subsequent ruin of the country. I was then an attaché of the British embassy to the Mahratta prince, who carried the ambassador to the meeting to increase his consequence. In March 1818 I again visited the shrine, on my way to Udaipur, but under very different circumstances—to announce the deliverance of the family from oppression, and to labour for its prosperity. While standing without the sanctuary, looking at the quadriform divinity, and musing on the changes of the intervening twelve years, my meditations were broken by an old Rajput chieftain, who, saluting me, invited me to enter and adore Baba Adam, ‘Father Adam,’ as he termed the phallic emblem. I excused myself on account of my boots, which I said I could not remove, and that with them I would not cross the threshold: a reply which pleased them, and preceded me to the Rana’s court.
33. Siva is represented with three eyes: hence his title of Trinetra and Trilochan, the Triophthalmic Jupiter of the Greeks. From the fire of the central eye of Siva is to proceed Pralaya, or the final destruction of the universe: this eye placed vertically, resembling the flame of a taper, is a distinguishing mark on the foreheads of his votaries.
34. I have seen a cemetery of these, each of very small dimensions, which may be described as so many concentric rings of earth, diminishing to the apex, crowned with a cylindrical stone pillar. One of the disciples of Siva was performing rites to the manes, strewing leaves of an evergreen [probably bel, Aegle marmelos] and sprinkling water over the graves.
35. For a description of these, vide Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 217.
36. [The more usual form is Kanphata, with the same meaning.]
37. The copy of the Siva Purana which I presented to the Royal Asiatic Society was obtained for me by the Rana from the temple of Eklinga.
38. Jiva-pitri, the ‘Father of Life,’ would be a very proper epithet for Mahadeva, the creative ‘power,’ whose Olympus is Kailas. [Jīva-pitri means ‘a child whose father is alive.’ Jupiter=Skt. Dyaus-pitā.]
39. Bholanath, or the ‘Simple God,’ is one of the epithets of Siva, whose want of reflection is so great that he would give away his own divinity if asked.
40. Vidyavan, the ‘Man of Secrets or Knowledge,’ is the term used by way of reproach to the Jains, having the import of magician. Their opponents believe them to be possessed of supernatural skill; and it is recorded of the celebrated Amara, author of the Kosa or dictionary called after him, that he raculously’ “made the full moon appear on Amavas”—the ides of the month, when the planet is invisible.
41. Khadatara signifies ‘true’ [?], an epithet of distinction which was bestowed by that great supporter of the Buddhists or Jains, Siddharaj, king of Anhilwara Patan, on one of the branches (gachchha), in a grand religious disputation (badha) at that capital in the eleventh century. The celebrated Hemacharya was head of the Khadatara-gachchha; and his spiritual descendant honoured Udaipur with his presence in his visit to his dioceses in the desert in 1821. My own Yati tutor was a disciple of Hemacharya, and his pattravali, or pedigree, registered his descent by spiritual successions from him. [For the Jain gachchhas see Bühler, The Indian Sect of the Jainas, 77 ff. As usual, the author confounds Jains with Buddhists.] This pontiff was a man of extensive learning and of estimable character. He was versed in all the ancient inscriptions, to which no key now exists, and deciphered one for me which had been long unintelligible. His travelling library was of considerable extent, though chiefly composed of works relating to the ceremonies of his religion: it was in the charge of two of his disciples remarkable for talent, and who, like himself, were perfectly acquainted with all these ancient characters. The pontiff kindly permitted my Yati to bring for my inspection some of the letters of invitation written by his flocks in the desert. These were rolls, some of them several feet in length, containing pictured delineations of their wishes. One from Bikaner represented that city, in one division of which was the school or college of the Jains, where the Yatis were all portrayed at their various studies. In another part, a procession of them was quitting the southern gate of the city, the head of which was in the act of delivering a scroll to a messenger, while the pontiff was seen with his cortège advancing in the distance. To show the respect in which these high priests of the Jains are held, the princes of Rajputana invariably advance outside the walls of their capital to receive and conduct them to it—a mark of respect paid only to princes. On the occasion of the high priest of the Khadataras passing through Udaipur, as above alluded to, the Rana received him with every distinction.
42. So called from the town of Osi or Osian, in Marwar [about 30 miles N. of Jodhpur city].
43. Palitana, or ‘the abode of the Pali’ [?], is the name of the town at the foot of the sacred mount Satrunjaya (signifying ‘victorious over the foe’), on which the Jain temples are sacred to Buddhiswara, or the ‘Lord of the Buddhists’ [?]. I have little doubt that the name of Palitana is derived from the pastoral (pali) Scythic invaders bringing the Buddhist faith in their train—a faith which appears to me not indigenous to India [?]. Palestine, which, with the whole of Syria and Egypt, was ruled by the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, who for a season expelled the old Coptic race, may have had a similar import to the Palitana founded by the Indo-Scythic Pali. The Author visited all these sacred mounts. [The Author describes Pālitāna in WI, 274 ff.; see also BG, viii. 603 f. All this confusion between Buddhists and Jains and the suggested derivation, in which the Author unfortunately relied on Wilford (Asiatic Researches, iii. 72 ff., viii. 321), are out of date.]
44. [The Kīrtti-Stambha, erected by a merchant named Jīja in the twelfth century A.D., and dedicated to Ādināth, the first Jain Tīrthakara (Fergusson, Hist. Indian Architecture, ii. 57 ff.; Erskine ii. A. 104).]
45. [Buddhism and Jainism are again confused. For Buddhist remains in Rājputāna see IGI, xxi. 103.]
49. [This is the Pachusan, the four months of Jain retreat, the Vassa or Vassavāsa of the Buddhists. It was held in the rainy season, during which travelling was forbidden, in order to avoid injury to the insect life which abounds at this time (BG, ix. Part i. 113 f.; Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, 80 f.).]
50. Dwarka is at the point called Jagat Khunt, of the Saurashtra peninsula. Ka is the mark of the genitive case [?]: Dwarkanath would be the ‘gate of the god’ [‘Lord of Dvārakā’].
51. Fifty-seven descents are given, both in their sacred and profane genealogies, from Krishna to the princes supposed to have been contemporary with Vikramaditya. The Yadu Bhatti or Shama Bhatti (the Ahsham Bhatti of Abu-l Fazl) [Āīn, ii. 339], draw their pedigree from Krishna or Yadunath, as do the Jarejas of Cutch.
52. With Mathura as a centre and a radius of eighty miles, describe a circle: all within it is Vraj, which was the seat of whatever was refined in Hinduism, and whose language, the Vraj-bhasha, was the purest dialect of India. Vraj is tantamount to the land of the Suraseni, derived from Sursen, the ancestor of Krishna, whose capital, Surpuri, is about fifty miles south of Mathura on the Yamuna (Jumna). The remains of this city (Surpuri) the Author had the pleasure of discovering. The province of the Surseni, or Suraseni, is defined by Manu [Laws, ii. 19, vii. 193, who calls them Surasenakas], and particularly mentioned by the historians of Alexander.
53. Vindravana, or the ‘forests of Vindra,’ in which were placed many temples sacred to Kanhaiya, is on the Yamuna, a few miles above Mathura. A pilgrimage to this temple is indispensable to the true votary of Krishna.
54. This river is called the Kal Yamuna, or black Yamuna, and Kalidah or the ‘black pool,’ from Kanhaiya having destroyed the hydra Kaliya which infested it. Jayadeva calls the Yamuna ‘the blue daughter of the sun.’
55. [The popular worship of Krishna and Rādha is decidedly erotic.] It affords an example of the Hindu doctrine of the Metempsychosis, as well as of the regard which Akbar’s toleration had obtained him, to mention, that they held his body to be animated by the soul of a celebrated Hindu gymnosophist: in support of which they say he (Akbar) went to his accustomed spot of penance (tapasya) at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges, and excavated the implements, namely, the tongs, gourd, and deer-skin, of his anchorite existence. [For the tale of Akbar and the Brāhman Mukunda see Asiatic Researches, ix. 158.]
56. Ran, the ‘field of battle,’ chhor, from chhorna, ‘to abandon.’ Hence Ranchhor, one of the titles under which Krishna is worshipped at Dwarka, is most unpropitious to the martial Rajput. Kalyavana, the foe from whom he fled, and who is figured as a serpent, is doubtless the Tak, the ancient foe of the Yadus, who slew Janamejaya, emperor of the Pandus. [Kālyavana has been identified with Gonanda I. of Kashmīr, but was more probably one of the Bactrian chiefs of the Panjāb (Growse, Mathura, 3rd ed. 56).]
58. [The right of sanctuary was maintained until quite recent times (Erskine ii. A. 120).]
59. The cotton tree, Bombax malabaracum, which grows to an immense height.
60. Whoever has unhooded the falcon at a lapwing, or even scared one from her nest, need not be told of its peculiarly distressing scream, as if appealing to sympathy. The allusion here is to the lapwing scared from her nest, as the rival armies of the Kurus and Pandus joined in battle, when the compassionate Krishna, taking from an elephant’s neck a war-bell (viraghanta), covered the nest, in order to protect it. When the majority of the feudal nobles of Marwar became self-exiled, to avoid the almost demoniac fury of their sovereign, since his alliance with the British Government, Anar Singh, the chief of Ahor, a fine specimen of the Rathor Rajput, brave, intelligent, and amiable, was one day lamenting, that while all India was enjoying tranquillity under the shield of Britain, they alone were suffering from the caprice of a tyrant; concluding a powerful appeal to my personal interposition with the foregoing allegory, and observing on the beauty of the office of mediator: “You are all-powerful,” added he, “and we may be of little account in the grand scale of affairs; but Krishna condescended to protect even the lapwing’s egg in the midst of battle.” This brave man knew my anxiety to make their peace with their sovereign, and being acquainted with the allegory, I replied with some fervour, in the same strain, “Would to God, Thakur Sahib, I had the viraghanta to protect you.” The effect was instantaneous, and the eye of this manly chieftain, who had often fearlessly encountered the foe in battle, filled with tears as, holding out his hand, he said, “At least you listen to our griefs, and speak the language of friendship. Say but the word, and you may command the services of twenty thousand Rathors.” There is, indeed, no human being more susceptible of excitement, and, under it, of being led to any desperate purpose, whether for good or for evil, than the Rajput.
61. Chand, the bard, gives this instance of the compassionate nature of Krishna, taken, as well as the former, from the Mahabharata. [On Krishna worship see J. Kennedy, JRAS, October 1907, p. 960 ff.]
62. Near the town of Avranches, on the coast of Normandy, is a rock called Mont St. Michel, in ancient times sacred to the Galli or Celtic Apollo, or Belenus; a name which the author from whom we quote observes, “certainly came from the East, and proves that the littoral provinces of Gaul were visited by the Phoenicians.”—“A college of Druidical priestesses was established there, who sold to seafaring men certain arrows endowed with the peculiar virtue of allaying storms, if shot into the waves by a young mariner. Upon the vessel arriving safe, the young archer was sent by the crew to offer thanks and rewards to the priestesses. His presents were accepted in the most graceful manner; and at his departure the fair priestesses, who had received his embraces, presented to him a number of shells, which afterwards he never failed to use in adorning his person” (Tour through France).
When the early Christian warrior consecrated this mount to his protector St. Michel, its name was changed from Mons Jovis (being dedicated to Jupiter) to Tumba, supposed from tumulus, a mound; but as the Saxons and Celts placed pillars on all these mounts, dedicated to the Sun-god Belenus, Bal, or Apollo, it is not unlikely that Tumba is from the Sanskrit thambha, or sthambha, ‘a pillar’ [?].
63. [Pītāmbara.]
64. Hindupati, vulgo Hindupat, ‘chief of the Hindu race,’ is a title justly appertaining to the Ranas of Mewar. It has, however, been assumed by chieftains scarcely superior to some of his vassals, though with some degree of pretension by Sivaji, who, had he been spared, might have worked the redemption of his nation, and of the Rana’s house, from which he sprung.
66. Numbers, chap. xxxv. 11, 12.
67. Numbers, chap. xxxv. 25, and Joshua, chap. xx. 6. There was an ancient law of Athens analogous to the Mosaic, by which he who committed ‘chance-medley’ should fly the country for a year, during which his relatives made satisfaction to the relatives of the deceased. The Greeks had asyla for every description of criminals, which could not be violated without infamy. Gibbon [ed. W. Smith, iv. 377 f.] gives a memorable instance of disregard to the sanctuary of St. Julian in Auvergne, by the soldiers of the Frank king Theodoric, who divided the spoils of the altar, and made the priests captives: an impiety not only unsanctioned by the son of Clovis, but punished by the death of the offenders, the restoration of the plunder, and the extension of the right of sanctuary five miles around the sepulchre of the holy martyr.
68. [The chief sanctuaries in Rājputāna are: Nāgor; Barli, a few miles distant; Chaupāsni; Udaimandir and Mahmandir, close to Jodhpur. The system is a serious obstacle to the detection of crime (General Hervey, Some Records of Crime, i. 122 f., ii. 327 ff.).]
69. [Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed. i. 235.]
70. [iv. 33; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. 101 ff.]
71. [Perā, a sweetmeat made of cream, sugar and spices, for which Mathura is famous.]
72. Pallas gives an admirable and evidently faithful account of the worship of Krishna and other Hindu divinities in the city of Astrakhan, where a Hindu mercantile colony is established. They are termed Multani, from the place whence they migrated—Multan, near the Indus. This class of merchants of the Hindu faith is disseminated over all the countries, from the Indus to the Caspian: and it would have been interesting had the professor given us any account of their period of settlement on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. In costume and feature, as represented in the plate given by that author, they have nothing to denote their origin; though their divinities might be seated on any altar on the Ganges. The Multanis of Indeskoi Dvor, or ‘Indian court,’ at Astrakhan, have erected a pantheon, in which Krishna, the god of all Vaishnava merchants, is seated in front of Jagannath, Rama, and his brothers, who stand in the background; while Siva and his consort Ashtabhuja ‘the eight-armed,’ form an intermediate line, in which is also placed a statue which Pallas denominates Murali; but Pallas mistook the flute (murali) of the divine Krishna for a rod. The principal figure we shall describe in his own words. “In the middle was placed a small idol with a very high bonnet, called Gupaledshi. At its right there was a large black stone, and on the left two smaller ones of the same colour, brought from the Ganges, and regarded by the Hindus as sacred. These fossils were of the species called Sankara, and appeared to be an impression of a bivalve muscle.” Minute as is the description, our judgment is further aided by the plate. Gupaledshi is evidently Gopalji, the pastoral deity of Vraj (from gao, a cow, and pala, a herdsman). The head-dress worn by him and all the others is precisely that still worn by Krishna, in the sacred dance at Mathura: and so minute is the delineation that even the pera or sugar-ball is represented, although the professor appears to have been ignorant of its use, as he does not name it. He has likewise omitted to notice the representation of the sacred mount of Govardhana, which separates him from the Hindu Jove and the turreted Cybele (Durga), his consort. The black stones are the Salagramas, worshipped by all Vaishnavas. In the names of ‘Nhandigana and Gori,’ though the first is called a lion saddled, and the other a male divinity, we easily recognise Nandi, the bull-attendant (Gana) of Siva and his consort Gauri. Were all travellers to describe what they see with the same accuracy as Pallas, they would confer important obligations on society, and might defy criticism. It is with heartfelt satisfaction I have to record, from the authority of a gentleman who has dwelt amongst the Hindkis of Astrakhan, that distance from their ancient abodes has not deteriorated their character for uprightness. Mr. Mitchell, from whose knowledge of Oriental languages the Royal Asiatic Society will some day derive benefit, says that the reputation of these Hindu colonists, of whom there are about five hundred families, stands very high, and that they bear a preference over all the merchants of other nations settled in this great commercial city.
73. Other travellers besides Pallas have described Hinduism as existing in the remote parts of the Russian empire, and if nominal resemblances may be admitted, we would instance the strong analogy between the Samoyedes and Tchoudes of Siberia and Finland and the Syama Yadus and Joudes of India [?]. The languages of the two former races are said to have a strong affinity, and are classed as Hindu-Germanic by M. Klaproth, on whose learned work, Asia Polyglotta, M. Rémusat has given the world an interesting critique, in his Mélanges Asiatiques (tome i. p. 267), in which he traces these tribes to Central Asia; thus approaching the land of the Getae or Yuti. Now the Yutis and Yadus have much in their early history to warrant the assertion of more than nominal analogy. The annals of the Yadus of Jaisalmer state that long anterior to Vikrama they held dominion from Ghazni to Samarkand: that they established themselves in those regions after the Mahabharata, or great war; and were again impelled, on the rise of Islamism, within the Indus. As Yadus of the race of Sham or Syam (a title of Krishna), they would be Sama-Yadus; in like manner as the Bhatti tribe are called Shama-bhatti, the Ahsham Bhatti of Abu-l Fazl. The race of Joude was existing near the Indus in the Emperor Babur’s time, who describes them as occupying the mountainous range in the first Duab, the very spot mentioned in the annals of the Yadus as their place of halt, on quitting India twelve centuries before Christ, and thence called Jadu or Yadu-ka-dang, the ‘hills of Jadu or Yadu.’ The peopling of all these regions, from the Indus to remote Tartary, is attributed to the race of Ayu or Indu, both signifying the moon, of which are the Haihayas, Aswas (Asi), Yadus, etc., who spread a common language over all Western Asia. Amongst the few words of Hindu-Germanic origin which M. Rémusat gives to prove affinity between the Finnish and Samoyede languages is “Miel, Mod, dans le dialecte Caucasien, et Méd, en Slave,” and which, as well as mead, the drink of the Scandinavian warrior, is from the Sanskrit Madhu, a bee [honey]. Hence intoxicating beverage is termed Madhva, which supplies another epithet for Krishna, Madhu or Madhava. [These speculations possess no value.]
74. Origin of Laws and Government.
75. Literally ‘the giver of food.’
76. Kanhaiya ka kantha bāndhna, ‘to bind on [the neck] the chaplet of Kanhaiya,’ is the initiatory step.
77. I had one day thrown my net into this lake, which abounded with a variety of fish, when my pastime was interrupted by a message from the regent, Zalim Singh: “Tell Captain Tod that Kotah and all around it are at his disposal; but these fish belong to Kanhaiya.” I, of course, immediately desisted, and the fish were returned to the safeguard of the deity. [The killing of fish at certain lakes and streams is forbidden on account of their harmlessness (ahimsā), and thus naturally associated with the cult of a gentle deity like Krishna, and because they are believed to contain the spirits of the dead (Stein, Rājatarangini, i. 185; Crooke, Things Indian, 221 ff.).]
78. A Nishan, or standard, is synonymous with a company.
79. Sheopur or Sivapur, the city of Sheo or Siva, the god of war, whose battle-shout is Har; and hence one of Vishnu’s epithets, as Hari is that of Krishna or Kanhaiya.
80. Radha was the name of the chief of the Gopis or nymphs of Vraj, and the beloved of Kanhaiya.
81. In October 1807 I rambled through all these countries, then scarcely known by name to us. At that time Sheopur was independent, and its prince treated me with the greatest hospitality. In 1809 I witnessed its fall, when following with the embassy in the train of the Mahratta leader. [It is now included in the Gwalior State (IGI, xxii. 271 f.).]
CHAPTER 20
Krishna.
—Hari, Krishna, familiarly Kanhaiya,[1] was of the celebrated tribe of Yadu, the founder of the fifty-six tribes[2] who obtained the universal sovereignty of India, and descended from Yayati, the third son[3] of Swayambhuva Manu,[4] or ‘The Man, Lord of the earth,’ whose daughter Ila[5] (Terra) was espoused by Budha (Mercury), son of Chandra[6] (the Moon), whence the Yadus are styled Chandravansi, or ‘children of the moon.’ Budha was therefore worshipped as the great [533] ancestor (Pitrideva) of the lunar race; and previous to the apotheosis of Krishna, was adored by all the Yadu race. The principal shrine of Budha was at Dwarka, where he still receives adoration as Budha Trivikrama.[7] Kanhaiya lived towards the conclusion of the brazen age, calculated to have been about 1100 to 1200 years before Christ.[8] He was born to the inheritance of Vraj, 622the country of the Suraseni, comprehending the territory round Mathura for a space of eighty miles, of which he was unjustly deprived in his infancy by his relative Kansa. From its vicinity to Delhi we may infer either that there was no lord paramount amongst the Yadus of this period, or that Krishna’s family held as vassals of Hastinapur, then, with Indraprastha or Delhi, the chief seat of Yadu power. There were two princes named Surasen amongst the immediate predecessors of Krishna: one, his grandfather, the other eight generations anterior. Which of these was the founder of Suryapur on the Yamuna, the capital of the Yadus,[9] we know not, but we may assume that the first gave his name to the region around Mathura, described by Arrian as the country of the Suraseni. Alexander was in India probably about eight centuries after the deification of Krishna, and it is satisfactory to find that the inquiries he instituted into the genealogy of the dynasty then ruling on the [534] Yamuna correspond very closely with those of the Yadus of this distant period; and combined with what Arrian says of the origin of the Pandus, it appears indisputable that the descendants of this powerful branch of the Yadus ruled on the Yamuna when the Macedonian erected the 623altars of Greece on the Indus. That the personage whose epithets of Krishna-Syam designate his colour as ‘the Black Prince,’ was in fact a distinguished chief of the Yadus, there is not a shadow of doubt; nor that, after his death, they placed him among the gods as an incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun; and from this period we may induce the Hindu notion of their Trinity. Arrian[10] enumerates the names of Boudyas (Βουδύας) and Kradeuas (Κραδεύας) amongst the early ancestors of the tribe then in power, which would alone convince us that Alexander had access to the genealogies of the Puranas; for we can have little hesitation in affirming these to be Budha and Kroshti, ancestors of Krishna; and that “Mathora and Cleisobora, the chief cities of the Suraseni,” are the Mathura and Suryapur occupied by the descendants of Sursen.[11] Had Arrian afforded as many hints for discussing the analogy between the Hindu and Grecian Apollos as he has for the Hercules of Thebes and India, we might have come to a conclusion that the three chief divinities[12] of Egypt, Greece, and India had their altars first erected on the Indus, Ganges, and Jumna.Sun and Moon Worship.
—The earliest objects of adoration in these regions were the sun and moon, whose names designated the two grand races, Surya and Chandra of Indu. Budha, son of Indu, married Ila, a grandchild of Surya, from which union sprung the Indu race. They deified their ancestor Budha, who continued to be the chief object of adoration until Krishna: hence the worship of Balnath[13] and Budha[14] were coeval. That the Nomadic tribes of Arabia, as well as those of Tartary and India, adored the same objects, we learn from the earliest writers; and Job, the probable contemporary of Hasti, the founder of the first capital of the Yadus on the Ganges, boasts in the midst of his griefs that he had always remained uncorrupted by the Sabaeism which surrounded him. “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my mouth had kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the 624judge, for I should have denied the [535] God that is above.”[15] That there were many Hindus who, professing a pure monotheism like Job, never kissed the hand either to Surya or his herald Budha, we may easily credit from the sublimity of the notions of the ‘One God,’ expressed both by the ancients and moderns, by poets and by princes, of both races;[16] but more especially by the sons of Budha, who for ages bowed not before graven images, and deemed it impious to raise a temple toHence the Jains, the chief sect of the Buddhists,[17] so called from adoring the spirit (Jina), were untinctured with idolatry until the apotheosis of Krishna,[18] whose mysteries superseded the simpler worship of Budha. Neminath (the deified Nemi) was the pontiff of Budha, and not only the contemporary of Krishna, but a Yadu, and his near relation; and both had epithets denoting their complexion; for Arishta, the surname of Nemi, has the same import as Syam and Krishna, ‘the black,’ though the latter is of a less Ethiopic hue than Nemi.[19] It was anterior to this schism amongst the sons of Budha that the creative power was degraded under sensual forms, when the pillar rose to Bal or Surya in Syria and on the Ganges: and the serpent, “subtlest beast of all the field,” worshipped as the emblem of wisdom (Budha), was conjoined with the symbol of the creative power, as at the shrine of Eklinga, where the brazen serpent is wreathed round the lingam.[20] Budha’s descendants, the Indus, preserved 625the Ophite sign of their race, when Krishna’s followers adopted the eagle as his symbol. These, with the adorers of Surya, form the three idolatrous classes of India, not confined to its modern [536] restricted definition, but that of antiquity, when Industhan or Indu-Scythia extended from the Ganges to the Caspian. In support of the position that the existing polytheism was unknown on the rise of Vaishnavism, we may state, that in none of the ancient genealogies do the names of such deities appear as proper names in society, a practice now common; and it is even recorded that the rites of magic, the worship of the host of heaven, and of idols, were introduced from Kashmir, between the periods of Krishna and Vikrama. The powers of nature were personified, and each quality, mental and physical, had its emblem, which the Brahmans taught the ignorant to adopt as realities, till the pantheon become so crowded that life would be too short to acquire even the nomenclature of their ‘thirty-three millions of gods.’[21] No object was too high or too base, from the glorious Orb to the Rampi, or paring-knife of the shoemaker. In illustration of the increase of polytheism, I shall describe the seven forms under which Krishna is worshipped, whose statues are established in the various capitals of Rajasthan, and are occasionally brought together at the festival of Annakuta at Nathdwara.
The international wars of the Suryas and the Yadu races, as described in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, are lost between allegory and literal interpretation. The Suryas, or Saivas, were depressed; and the Indus, who counted ‘fifty-six’ grand tribes, under the appellations of Takshak, ‘serpent,’ Aswa, ‘horse,’ Sasa, ‘hare,’ etc., etc., had paramount sway. Krishna’s schism produced a new type, that of the eagle, and the wars of 626the schismatics were depicted under their respective emblems, the eagle and serpent, of which latter were the Kauravas and Takshaks,[22] the political adversaries of the Pandus, the relatives of Krishna. The [537] allegory of Krishna’s eagle pursuing the serpent Budha, and recovering the books of science and religion with which he fled, is an historical fact disguised: namely, that of Krishna incorporating the doctrines of Budha with his own after the expulsion of the sect from India. Dare we further attempt to lift the veil from this mystery, and trace from the seat of redemption of lost science its original source?[23] The Gulf of Cutch, the point where the serpent attempted to escape, has been from time immemorial to the present day the entrepôt for the commerce of Sofala, the Red Sea, Egypt, and Arabia. There 627Budha Trivikrama, or Mercury, has been and is yet invoked by the Indian mariners, especially the pirates of Dwarka. Did Budha or Mercury come from, or escape to the Nile? Is he the Hermes of Egypt to whom the ‘four books of science,’ like the four Vedas[24] of the Hindus, were sacred? The statues of Nemi,[25] the representative of Budha, exactly resemble in feature the bust of young Memnon.[26]
I have already observed that Krishna, before his own deification, worshipped his great ancestor Budha; and his temple at Dwarka rose over the ancient shrine of the latter, which yet stands. In an inscription from the cave of Gaya their characters are conjoined: “Hari who is Budha.” According to Western mythology, Apollo and Mercury exchanged symbols, the caduceus for the lyre; so likewise in India their characters intermingle: and even the Saiva propitiates Hari as the mediator and disposer of the ‘divine spark’ (jyoti) to its reunion with the ‘parent-flame’:—thus, like Mercury, he may be said to be the conveyer of the souls of the dead. Accordingly in funeral lamentation his name only is invoked, and Hari-bol! Hari-bol! is emphatically pronounced by those conveying the corpse to its final abode. The vahan (qu. the Saxon van?) or celestial car of Krishna, in which the souls (ansa) of the just are conveyed to Suryamandal, the ‘mansion of the sun,’ is painted like himself, blue (indicative of space, or as Ouranos), with the eagle’s head; and here he partakes of the Mercury of the [538] Greeks, and of Oulios, the preserver or saviour, one of the titles of Apollo at Delos.[27]
The Forms of Krishna.
—The Tatar nations, who are all of Indu race, like the Rajputs and German tribes, adored the moon as a male divinity, and to his son, Budha, they assign the same character of mediator. The serpent is alike the symbol of the Budha of the Hindus, the Hermes of the Egyptians, and the Mercury of Greece: and the allegory of the dragon’s teeth, the origin of letters, brought by Cadmus from Egypt, is a version of the Hindu fable of Kanhaiya (Apollo) wresting the Vedas (secrets) from Budha or wisdom (Hermes), under his sign, the serpent or dragon. We might still further elucidate the resemblance, and by an analysis of the titles and attributes of the Hindu Apollo, prove that from the Yamuna may have been supplied the various incarnations of this divinity, which peopled the pantheons of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. As Nomios, who attended the herds of Admetus, we have Nonita,[28] the infantine appellation of Kanhaiya, when he pastured the kine of Kesava in the woods of Vindra, whence the ceremony of the sons of princes assuming the crook, and on particular days tending the flocks.[29] As Muralidhara, or the ‘flute-holder,’ Kanhaiya is the god of music; and in giving him the shepherd’s reed instead of the vina or lyre, we may conjecture that the simple bamboo (bans) which formed the first flute (bansli) was in use before the chahtara,[30] the Grecian cithara,[31] the first invented lyre of Apollo. Thus from the six-wired 629instrument of the Hindus we have the Greek cithara, the English cithern, and the Spanish guitar of modern [539] days. The Greeks, following the Egyptians, had but six notes, with their lettered symbols; and it was reserved for the Italians to add a seventh. Guido Aretine, a monk in the thirteenth century, has the credit of this. I, however, believe the Hindus numbered theirs from the heavenly bodies—the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,—hence they had the regular octave, with its semi-tones: and as, in the pruriency of their fancy, they converted the ascending and descending notes into grahas, or planetary bodies, so they may have added them to the harmonious numbers, and produced the nauragini, their nine modes of music.[32] Could we affirm that the hymns composed and set to music by Jayadeva, nearly three thousand years ago,[33] and still chanted in honour of the Apollo of Vraj, had been handed down with the sentiments of these mystic compositions (and Sir W. Jones sanctions the idea), we should say, from their simplicity, that the musicians of that age had only the diatonic scale; but we have every reason to believe, from the very elaborate character of their written music, which is painful and discordant to the ear from its minuteness of subdivision, that they had also the chromatic scale, said to have been invented by Timotheus in the time of Alexander, who might have carried it from the banks of the Indus.The Rāsmandal Dance.
—In the mystic dance, the Rasmandal, yet imitated on the annual festival sacred to the sun-god Hari, he is represented with a radiant crown in a dancing attitude, playing on the flute to the nymphs encircling him, each holding a musical instrument.These nymphs are also called the nauragini, from raga, a mode of song over which each presides, and naurasa, or ‘nine passions,’ excited by the powers [540] of harmony. May we not in this trace the origin of Apollo and the sacred nine? In the manner described above, the rasmandal is typical of the zodiacal phenomena; and in each sign a musical nymph is sculptured in alto-relievo, in the vaulted temples dedicated to the god,[34] or in secular edifices by way of ornament, as in the triumphal column of Chitor. On the festival of the Janam,[35] or ‘birth-day,’ there is a scenic representation of Kanhaiya and the Gopis: when are rehearsed in the mellifluous accents of the Ionic land of Vraj, the songs of Jayadeva, as addressed by Kanhaiya to Radha and her companions. A specimen of these, as translated by that elegant scholar, Sir W. Jones, may not be considered inappropriate here.
The Songs of Jayadeva.
—I have had occasion to remark elsewhere,[36] that the Rajput bards, like the heroic Scalds of the north, lose no opportunity of lauding themselves; of which Jayadeva, the bard of the Yadus, has set an eminent example in the opening of ‘the songs of Govinda.’“If thy soul be delighted with the remembrance of Hari, or sensible to the raptures of love, listen to the voice of Jayadeva, whose notes are both sweet and brilliant.”
KANHAIYA AND RĀDHA.
To face page 630.
631The poet opens the first interview of Krishna and Radha with an animated description of a night in the rainy season, in which Hari is represented as a wanderer, and Radha, daughter of the shepherd Nanda, is sent to offer him shelter in their cot.[37] Nanda thus speaks to Radha: “The firmament is obscured by clouds; the woodlands are black with Tamala trees; that youth who roves in the forest will be fearful in the gloom of night; go, my daughter, bring the wanderer to my rustic mansion. Such was the command of Nanda the herdsman, and hence arose the love of Radha and Madhava.”[38]
The poet proceeds to apostrophize Hari, which the Hindu bard terms rupaka, or ‘personal description’:
“Oh thou who reclinest on the bosom of Kamala, whose ears flame with gems, and whose locks are embellished with sylvan flowers; thou, from whom the [541] day-star derived his effulgence, who slewest the venom-breathing Kaliya, who beamedst like a sun on the tribe of Yadu, that flourished like a lotus; thou, who sittest on the plumage of Garuda, who sippest nectar from the radiant lips of Padma, as the fluttering chakora drinks the moonbeams; be victorious, O Hari.”
Jayadeva then introduces Hari in the society of the pastoral nymphs of Vraj, whom he groups with admirable skill, expressing the passion by which each is animated towards the youthful prince with great warmth and elegance of diction. But Radha, indignant that he should divide with them the affection she deemed exclusively her own, flies his presence. Hari, repentant and alarmed, now searches the forest for his beloved, giving vent at each step to impassioned grief. “Woe is me! she feels a sense of injured honour, and has departed in wrath. How will she conduct herself? How will she express her pain in so long a separation? What is wealth to me? What are numerous attendants? What the pleasures of the world? How can I invite thee to return? Grant me but a sight of thee, oh! lovely Radha, for my passion torments me. O God of love! mistake me not for Siva. Wound me not again. I love already but too passionately; yet have I lost my beloved. Brace not thy bow, thou conqueror of the world! My heart is already pierced by arrows from Radha’s eyes, black and keen as those of the antelope.”
632Radha relents and sends a damsel in quest of Hari, whom she finds in a solitary arbour on the banks of the Yamuna. She describes her mistress as animated by the same despair which controls him:
“Her face is like a water-lily veiled in the dew of tears, and her eyes are as moons eclipsed. She draws thy picture and worships it, and at the close of every sentence exclaims, ‘O Madhava, at thy feet am I fallen!’ Then she figures thee standing before her: she sighs, she smiles, she mourns, she weeps. Her abode, the forest—herself through thy absence is become a timid roe, and love is the tiger who springs on her, like Yama, the genius of death. So emaciated is her beautiful body, that even the light garland which waves o’er her bosom is a load. The palm of her hand supports her aching temple, motionless as the crescent rising at eve. Thus, O divine healer, by the nectar of thy love [542] must Radha be restored to health; and if thou refusest, thy heart must be harder than the thunder-stone.”[39]
The damsel returns to Radha and reports the condition of Hari, mourning her absence: “Even the hum of the bee distracts him. Misery sits fixed in his heart, and every returning night adds anguish to anguish.” She then recommends Radha to seek him. “Delay not, O loveliest of women; follow the lord of thy heart. Having bound his locks with forest flowers, he hastens to yon arbour, where a soft gale breathes over the banks of Yamuna, and there pronouncing thy name, he modulates his divine reed. Leave behind thee, O friend, the ring which tinkles on thy delicate ankle when thou sportest in the dance. Cast over thee thy azure mantle and run to the shady bower.”
But Radha, too weak to move, is thus reported to Hari by the same fair mediator: “She looks eagerly on all sides in hope of thy approach: she advances a few steps and falls languid to the ground. She weaves bracelets of fresh leaves, and looking at herself in sport, exclaims, behold the vanquisher of Madhu! Then she repeats the name of Hari, and catching at a dark blue cloud,[40] strives to embrace it, saying, ‘It is my beloved who approaches.’”
633Midnight arrives, but neither Hari nor the damsel returns, when she gives herself up to the frenzy of despair, exclaiming: “The perfidy of my friend rends my heart. Bring disease and death, O gale of Malaya! receive me in thy azure wave, O sister of Yama,[41] that the ardour of my heart may be allayed.”
The repentant Hari at length returns, and in speech well calculated to win forgiveness, thus pleads his pardon:
“Oh! grant me a draught of honey from the lotus of thy mouth: or if thou art inexorable, grant me death from the arrows of thine eyes; make thy arms my chains: thou art my ornament; thou art the pearl in the ocean of my mortal birth! Thine eyes, which nature formed like blue water-lilies, are become through thy resentment like petals of the crimson lotus! Thy silence affects me; oh! speak with the voice of music, and let thy sweet accents allay my ardour” [543].
“Radha with timid joy, darting her eyes on Govinda while she musically sounded the rings of her ankles and the bells of her zone,[42] entered the mystic bower of her beloved. His heart was agitated by her sight, as the waves of the deep are affected by the lunar orb.[43] From his graceful waist flowed a pale yellow robe,[44] which resembled the golden dust of the water-lily scattered over its blue petals.[45] His locks interwoven with blossoms, were like a cloud variegated by the moonbeam. Tears of transport gushed in a stream from the full eyes of Radha, and their watery glances beamed on her best beloved. Even shame, which had before taken its abode in their dark pupils, was itself ashamed,[46] and departed when the fawn-eyed Radha gazed on the bright face of Krishna.”
634The poet proceeds to describe Apollo’s bower on the sable Yamuna, as ‘Love’s recess’; and sanctifies it as
In the morning the blue god aids in Radha’s simple toilet. He stains her eye with antimony “which would make the blackest bee envious,” places “a circle of musk on her forehead,” and intertwines “a chaplet of flowers and peacock’s feathers in her dark tresses,” replacing “the zone of golden bells.” The bard concludes as he commenced, with an eulogium on the inspirations of his muse, which it is evident were set to music. “Whatever is delightful in the modes of music, whatever is graceful in the fine strains of poetry, whatever is exquisite in the sweet art of love, let the happy and wise learn from the songs of Jayadeva.”
The Rāsmandal Dance.
—This mystic dance, the rasmandal, appears analogous to the Pyrrhic dance, or the fire-dance of the Egyptians. The movements of those who personate the deity and his fair companions are full [544] of grace, and the dialogue is replete with harmony.[48] The Chaubes[49] of Mathura and Vindravana have considerable reputation as vocalists; and the effect of the modulated and deep tones of the adult blending with the clear treble of the juvenile performers, while the time is marked by the cymbal or the soothing monotony of the tabor, accompanied occasionally by the murali or flute, is very pleasing.Govardhana.
—We have a Parnassus in Govardhana, from which sacred hill the god derives one of his principal epithets, Gordhan or Gordhannath, ‘God of the mount of wealth.’[50] Here he first gave proofs of miraculous power, and a cave in this hill was the first shrine, on his apotheosis, whence his miracles and oracles were made known to the Yadus. From this cave (gupha) is derived another of his titles—Guphnath, ‘Lord of the cave,’ distinct from his epithet Gopinath, ‘Lord of the Gopis,’[51] or pastoral nymphs. On the annual festival held at Govardhana, the sacred mount is purified with copious oblations of milk, for which all the cows of the district are in requisition.Cave Worship of Krishna.
—The worship of Krishna in ancient days, like that of Apollo amongst the Greeks, was chiefly celebrated in caves, of which there were many scattered over India. The most remarkable were those of Govardhana in Vraj; Gaya in Bihar; Gopnath on the shores of Saurashtra; and Jalandhara[52] on the Indus. In these dark and mysterious retreats superstition had her full influence over the votaries who sought the commands and deprecated the wrath of the deity: but, as the Mukhya told the author, “the age of oracles and miracles is past”; and the new wheel, which was miraculously furnished each revolving year to supply the place of that which first indicated his desire to abide at Nathdwara, is no longer forthcoming. The old one, which was the signal of his wish, is, however, preserved as a relic, and greatly reverenced. The statue now worshipped at Nathdwara, as the representative of ‘the god of the mount’ [545], is said to be the identical image raised in the cave of Govardhana, and brought thence by the high priest Balba.[53]Krishna a Dragon-Slayer.
—As the destroyer of Kaliyanag, ‘the black serpent,’ which infested the waters of the Yamuna, Kanhaiya has the character of the Pythic Apollo. He is represented dragging the monster from the ‘black stream,’ and bruising him with his foot. He had, however, many battles with his hydra-foe ere he vanquished him, and he was once driven by Kalayavana from Vraj to Dwarka, whence his title of Ranchhor. Here we have the old allegory of the schismatic wars of the Buddhists and Vaishnavas.Parallels to Krishna in other Mythologies.
—Diodorus informs us that Kan was one of the titles of the Egyptian Apollo as the sun; and this is the common contraction for Kanhaiya, whose colour is a dark cerulean blue (nila): and hence his name Nilanath, who, like the Apollo of the Nile, is depicted with the human form and eagle-head, with a lotus in his hand. S and H are permutable letters in the Bhakha, and Syam or Sham, the god of the Yamuna, may be the Ham or Hammon of Egypt. Hari accompanied Rama to Lanka, as did the Egyptian Apollo, Rameses-Sesostris, on his expedition to India: both were attended in their expedition by an army of Satyrs, or tribes bearing the names of different animals: and as we have the Aswas, the Takshaks, and the Sasas of the Yadu tribes, typified under the horse, the serpent, and the hare, so the races of Surya, of which Rama was the head, may have been designated Riksh and Hanuman, or bears and monkeys. The distance of the Nile from the Indian shore forms no objection; the sail spread for Ceylon could waft the vessel to the Red Sea, which the fleets of Tyre, of Solomon, and Hiram covered about this very time. That the Hindus navigated the ocean from the earliest ages, the traces of their religion in the isles of the Indian archipelago sufficiently attest; but on this subject we have already said enough.The coincidence between the most common epithets of the Apollos of Greece and India, as applied to the sun, are peculiarly striking. Hari, as Bhannath, ‘the lord of beams,’ is Phoebus, and his heaven is Haripur (Heliopolis), or ‘city of Hari.’[54] Helios (Ἥλιος) was a title of Apollo, whence the Greeks had their 637Elysium, the Haripur or Bhanthan (the abode of the sun), the highest of the [546] heavens or abodes of bliss of the martial Rajput. Hence the eagle (the emblem of Hari as the sun)[55] was adopted by the western warrior as the symbol of victory.
The Di Majores of the Rajput are the same in number and title as amongst the Greeks and Romans, being the deities who figuratively preside over the planetary system. Their grades of bliss are therefore in unison with the eccentricity of orbit of the planet named. On this account Chandra or Indu, the moon, being a mere satellite of Ila, the earth, though probably originating the name of the Indu race, is inferior in the scale of blissful abodes to that of his son Budha or Mercury, whose heliacal appearance gave him importance even with the sons of Vaivasvata, the sun. From the poetic seers of the martial races we learn that there are two distinct places of reward; the one essentially spiritual, the other of a material nature. The bard inculcates that the warrior who falls in battle in the fulfilment of his duty, “who abandons life through the wave of steel,” will know no “second birth,” but that the unconfined spark (jyotis) will reunite to the parent orb. The doctrine of transmigration through a variety of hideous forms may be considered as a series of purgatories.
The Greeks and Celts worshipped Apollo under the title of Carneios,[56] which “selon le scholiaste de Théocrite” is derived from Carnos, “qui ne prophétisoit que des malheurs aux Héraclides lors de leur incursion dans le Péloponnèse. Un d’eux appelé Hippotés, le tua d’un coup de flèche.” Now one of the titles of the Hindu Apollo is Karna, ‘the radiant’; from karna, ‘a ray’: and when he led the remains of the Harikulas in company 638with Baldeva (the god of strength), and Yudhishthira, after the great international war, into the Peloponnesus of Saurashtra, they were attacked by the aboriginal Bhils, one of whom slew the divine Karna with an arrow. The Bhils claim to be of Hayavansa, or the race of Haya, whose chief seat was at Maheswar on the Nerbudda: the assassin of Karna would consequently be Hayaputra, or descendant of Haya[57] [547].
The most celebrated of the monuments commonly termed Druidic, scattered throughout Europe, is at Carnac in Brittany, on which coast the Celtic Apollo had his shrines, and was propitiated under the title of Karneios, and this monument may be considered at once sacred to the manes of the warriors and the sun-god Karneios. Thus the Roman Saturnalia, the carnivale, has a better etymology in the festival to Karneios, as the sun, than in the ‘adieu to flesh’ during the fast. The character of this festival is entirely oriental, and accompanied with the licentiousness which belonged to the celebration of the powers of nature. Even now, although Christianity has banished the grosser forms, it partakes more of a Pagan than a Christian ceremony.
The Annakūta Festival.
—Of the festivals of Krishna the Annakuta is the most remarkable;[58] when the seven statues were brought from the different capitals of Rajasthan, and mountains (kuta) of food (anna) piled up for their repast, at a given signal are levelled by the myriads of votaries assembled from all parts. About eighty years ago, on a memorable assemblage at the Annakuta, before warfare had devastated Rajasthan, and circumscribed the means of the faithful disciples of Hari, amongst the multitude of Vaishnavas of every region were almost all the Rajput princes; Rana Arsi of Mewar, Raja Bijai Singh of Marwar, Raja Gaj Singh of Bikaner, and Bahadur Singh of Kishangarh. Rana Arsi presented to the god a tora, or massive golden anklet-chain set with emeralds: Bijai Singh a diamond necklace worth 639twenty-five thousand rupees: the other princes according to their means. They were followed by an old woman of Surat, with infirm step and shaking head, who deposited four coppers in the hand of the high-priest, which were received with a gracious smile, not vouchsafed to the lords of the earth. “The Rand is in luck,” whispered the chief of Kishangarh to the Rana. Soon afterwards the statue of Hari was brought forth, when the same old woman placed at its feet a bill of exchange for seventy thousand rupees. The mighty were humbled, and the smile of the Gosain was explained. Such gifts, and to a yet greater amount, are, or were, by no means uncommon from the sons of commerce, who are only known to belong to the flock from the distinguishing necklace of the sect.[59]Interruption of Worship.
—The predatory system which reduced these countries to a state of the most degraded anarchy, greatly diminished the number of pilgrimages to Nathdwara [548]; and the gods of Vraj had sufficient prescience to know that they could guard neither their priests nor followers from the Pathan and Mahratta, to whom the crown of the god, or the nathna (nose-jewel) of Radha, would be alike acceptable: nor would they have scrupled to retain both the deities and priests as hostages for such imposition as they might deem within their means. Accordingly, of late years, there had been no congress of the gods of Vraj, who remained fixtures on their altars till the halcyon days of A.D. 1818 permitted their liberation.[60]Seven Forms of Krishna.
—The seven statues of Kanhaiya were brought together by the high-priest Balba, who established 640the festival of the Annakuta. They remained in the same sanctuary until the time of Girdhari, the grandson of Balba, who having seven sons, gave to each a rupa or statue, and whose descendants continue in the office of priest. The names and present abodes of the gods are as follows:Nathji, the god, or Gordhannath, god of the mount Nathdwara.
| 1. Nonita | Nathdwara. |
| 2. Mathuranath | Kotah. |
| 3. Dwarkanath | Kankroli.[61] |
| 4. Gokulnath, or Gokulchandrama | Jaipur. |
| 5. Yadunath | Surat. |
| 6. Vitthalnath[62] | Kotah. |
| 7. Madan Mohana | Jaipur. |
Nathji is not enumerated amongst the forms; he stands supreme.
Nonita, or Nonanda, the juvenile Kanhaiya, has his altar separate, though close to Nathji. He is also styled Balamukund, ‘the blessed child,’[63] and is depicted as an infant with pera[64] or comfit-ball in his hand. This image, which was one of the penates of a former age, and which, since the destruction of the shrines of [549] Krishna by the Islamites, had lain in the Yamuna, attached itself to the sacerdotal zone (Janeo) of the high-priest Balba, while he was performing his ablutions, who, carrying it home, placed it in a niche of the temple and worshipped it: and Nonanda yet receives the peculiar homage of the high-priest and his family as their household divinity. Of the second image, Mathuranath, there is no particular mention: it was at one time at Khamnor in Mewar, but is now at Kotah.
Balkrishna, the third son, had Dwarkanath, which statue, now at Kankroli in Mewar, is asserted to be the identical image that 641received the adoration of Raja Amaraka, a prince of the solar race who lived in the Satya Yuga, or silver age. The ‘god of the mount’ revealed himself in a dream to his high-priest, and told him of the domicile of this his representative at Kanauj. Thither Balba repaired, and having obtained it from the Brahman, appointed Damodardas Khatri to officiate at his altar.
The fourth statue, that of Gokulnath, or Gokul Chandrama (i.e. the moon of Gokul), had an equally mysterious origin, having been discovered in a deep ravine on the banks of the river; Balba assigned it to his brother-in-law. Gokul is an island on the Jumna,[65] a few miles below Mathura, and celebrated in the early history of the pastoral divinity. The residence of this image at Jaipur does not deprive the little island of its honours as a place of pilgrimage; for the ‘god of Gokul’ has an altar on the original site, and his rites are performed by an aged priestess, who disowns the jurisdiction of the high-priest of Nathdwara, both in the spiritual and temporal concerns of her shrine; and who, to the no small scandal of all who are interested in Apollo, appealed from the fiat of the high-priest to the British court of justice. The royal grants of the Mogul emperors were produced, which proved the right to lie in the high-priest, though a long period of almost undisturbed authority had created a feeling of independent control in the family of the priestess, which they desired might continue. A compromise ensued, when the Author was instrumental in restoring harmony to the shrines of Apollo.
The fifth, Yadunath, is the deified ancestor of the whole Yadu race. This image, now at Surat, formerly adorned the shrine of Mahaban near Mathura which was destroyed by Mahmud [550].
The sixth, Vitthalnath, or Pandurang,[66] was found in the Ganges at Benares, Samvat 1572 (A.D. 1516), from which we may judge of their habit of multiplying divinities.
The seventh, Madan Mohana, ‘he who intoxicates with desire,’ the seductive lover of Radha and the Gopis, has his rites performed by a female. The present priestess of Mohana is the mother of Damodara, the supreme head of all who adore the Apollo of Vraj.
The Pontiff of Nāthdwāra.
—I am not aware of the precise period of Balba Acharya, who thus collected the seven images of Krishna now in Rajasthan; but he must have lived about the time of the last of the Lodi kings, at the period of the conquest of India by the Moguls (A.D. 1526). The present pontiff, Damodara, as before said, is his lineal descendant; and whether in addressing him verbally or by letter he is styled Maharaja or ‘great prince.’[67]As the supreme head of the Vishnu sect his person is held to be Ansa, or ‘a portion of the divinity’; and it is maintained that so late as the father of the present incumbent, the god manifested himself and conversed with the high-priest. The present pontiff is now about thirty years of age. He is of a benign aspect, with much dignity of demeanour: courteous, yet exacting the homage due to his high calling: meek, as becomes the priest of Govinda, but with the finished manners of one accustomed to the first society. His features are finely moulded, and his complexion good. He is about the middle size, though as he rises to no mortal, I could not exactly judge of his height. When I saw him he had one only daughter, to whom he is much attached. He has but one wife, nor does Krishna allow polygamy to his priest. In times of danger, like some of his prototypes in the dark ages of Europe, he poised the lance, and found it more effective than spiritual anathemas, against those who would first adore the god, and then plunder him. Such were the Mahratta chiefs, Jaswant Rao Holkar and Bapu Sindhia. Damodara accordingly made the [551] tour of his extensive diocese at the head of four hundred horse, two standards of foot, and two field-pieces. He rode the finest mares in the country; laid aside his 643pontificals for the quilted dagla, and was summoned to matins by the kettle-drum instead of the bell and cymbal. In this he only imitated Kanhaiya, who often mixed in the ranks of battle, and “dyed his saffron robe in the red-stained field.” Had Damodara been captured on one of these occasions by any marauding Pathan, and incarcerated, as he assuredly would have been, for ransom, the marauder might have replied to the Rana, as did the Plantagenet king to the Pope, when the surrender of the captive church-militant bishop was demanded, “Is this thy son Joseph’s coat?” But, notwithstanding this display of martial principle, which covered with a helmet the shaven crown, his conduct and character are amiable and unexceptionable, and he furnishes a striking contrast to the late head of the Vishnu establishments in Marwar, who commenced with the care of his master’s conscience, and ended with that of the State; meek and unassuming till he added temporal[68] to spiritual power, which developed unlimited pride, with all the qualities that too often wait on “a little brief authority,” and to the display of which he fell a victim. Damodara,[69] similarly circumstanced, might have evinced the same failings, and have met the same end; but though endeavours were made to give him political influence at the Rana’s court, yet, partly from his own good sense, and partly through the dissuasion of the Nestor of Kotah (Zalim Singh), he was not entrained in the vortex of its intrigues, which must have involved the sacrifice of wealth and the proper dignity of his station [552].
1. [Derived, through the Prākrit, from Krishna.]
2. Chhappan kula Yadava.
3. Qu. Japhet? [?].
4. Also called Vaivaswata Manu—‘the man, son of the sun.’
5. Ila, the earth—the Saxon Ertha. The Germans chiefly worshipped Tuisco or Teutates and Ertha, who are the Budha or Ila of the Rajputs [?].
6. A male divinity with the Rajputs, the Tatars, and ancient Germans.
7. ‘Triple Energy’ [‘he who strides over the three worlds’], the Hermes Triplex of the Egyptians. [There is no cult of Budha at Dwārka.]
8. I shall here subjoin an extract of the rise and progress of Vaishnavism as written at my desire by the Mukhya of the temple:
“Twenty-five years of the Dwapar (the brazen age) were yet unexpired, when the incarnation (avatar) of Sri Krishna took place. Of these, eleven were passed at Gokul,[A] and fourteen at Mathura. There he used to manifest himself personally, especially at Govardhan. But when the Kaliyug (the iron age) commenced, he retired to Dwarka, an island separated by the ocean from Bharatkand,[B] where he passed a hundred years before he went to heaven. In Samvat 937 (A.D. 881) God decreed that the Hindu faith should be overturned, and that the Turushka[C] should rule. Then the jizya, or capitation tax, was inflicted on the head of the Hindu. Their faith also suffered much from the Jains and the various infidel (asura) sects which abounded. The Jains were so hostile, that Brahma manifested himself in the shape of Sankaracharya who destroyed them and their religion at Benares. In Gujarat, by their magic, they made the moon appear at Amavas.[D] Sankara foretold to its prince, Siddhraj,[E] the flood then approaching, who escaped in a boat and fled to Toda, on which occasion all the Vidyas[F] (magicians) in that country perished.” [For a more correct version of Krishna’s legend see Growse, Mathura, 3rd ed.; for Vaishnavism, R. G. Bhandarkar, “Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems,” in Grundriss Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, 1913.
A. A small town in the Jumna, below Mathura. Hence one of Krishna’s titles is Gokulnath, ‘Lord of Gokul.’
B. The channel which separates the island of Dwarka from the mainland is filled up, except in spring tides. I passed it when it was dry.
C. We possess no record of the invasion of India in A.D. 881, by the Turki tribes, half a century after Mamun’s expedition from Zabulistan against Chitor, in the reign of Rawal Khuman [?].
D. The ides of the month, when the moon is obscured.
E. He ruled Samvat 1151 (A.D. 1095) to S. 1201 (A.D. 1145).
F. Still used as a term of reproach to the Jains and Buddhists, in which, and other points, as Ari (the foe, qu. Aria?), they bear a strong resemblance to the followers of the Arian Zardusht, or Zoroaster. Amongst other peculiarities, the ancient Persian fire-worshipper, like the present Jain, placed a bandage over the mouth while worshipping.
9. For an account of the discovery of the remains of this ancient city, see Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 314.
10. [Arrian, Indika, viii.]
11. [Growse (Mathura, 279) suggests that Cleisobora is Krishnapura, ‘Krishna’s city.’]
12. Hercules, Mercury, and Apollo; Balaram, Budha, and Kanhaiya.
13. The ‘God Bal,’ the Vivifier, the Sun [?].
14. Budha signifies ‘wisdom.’
15. Job chap. xxxi. 26, 27, 28.
16. Chand, the bard, after having separately invoked the three persons of the Hindu triad, says that he who believes them distinct, “hell will be his portion.”
17. [The Jains were not a Buddhist sect.]
18. A very curious cause was assigned by an eminent Jain priest for the innovation of enshrining and worshipping the forms of the twenty-four pontiffs: namely, that the worship of Kanhaiya, before and after the apotheosis, became quite a rage amongst the women, who crowded his shrines, drawing after them all the youth of the Jains; and that, in consequence, they made a statue of Neminath to counteract a fervour that threatened the existence of their faith. It is seldom we are furnished with such rational reasons for religious changes.
19. [Neminātha was the twenty-second Jain Tīrthakara or deified saint. Arishta means ‘unhurt, perfect.’]
20. It was the serpent (Budha) who ravished Ila, daughter of Ikshwaku, the son of Manu, whence the distinctive epithet of his descendants in the East, Manus, or men, the very tradition on an ancient sculptured column in the south of India, which evidently points to the primeval mystery. In Portici there is an exact lingam entwined with a brazen serpent, brought from the temple of Isis at Pompeii: and many of the same kind, in mosaic, decorate the floors of the dwelling-houses. But the most singular coincidence is in the wreaths of lingams and the yoni over the door of the minor temple of Isis at Pompeii; while on another front is painted the rape of Venus by Mercury (Budha and Ila). The Lunar race, according to the Puranas, are the issue of the rape of Ila by Budha. Aphah is a serpent in Hebrew. Ahi and Sarpa are two of its many appellations in Sanskrit. [These speculations are now obsolete.]
21. Taintīs kror devata.
22. The Mahabharata records constant wars from ancient times amongst the children of Surya (the sun), and the Tak or Takshak (serpent races). The horse of the sun, liberated preparatory to sacrifice, by the father of Rama, was seized by the Takshak Ananta; and Janamejaya, king of Delhi, grandson of Pandu, was killed by one of the same race. In both instances the Takshak is literally rendered the snake. The successor of Janamejaya carried war into the seats of this Tak or serpent race, and is said to have sacrificed 20,000 of them in revenge; but although it is specifically stated that he subsequently compelled them to sign tributary engagements (paenama), the Brahmans have nevertheless distorted a plain historical fact by a literal and puerile interpretation. The Paraitakai (Mountain-Tak) of Alexander were doubtless of this race, as was his ally Taxiles, which appellation was titular, as he was called Omphis till his father’s death. It is even probable that this name is the Greek Ὄφις, in which they recognized the tribe of the Tak or Snake. Taxiles may be compounded of is, ‘lord or chief,’ sila, ‘rock or mountain,’ and Tak, ‘lord of the mountain Tak,’ whose capital was in the range west of the Indus. We are indebted to the Emperor Babur for the exact position of the capital of this celebrated race, which he passed in his route of conquest. We have, however, an intermediate notice of it between Alexander and Babur, in the early history of the Yadu Bhatti, who came in conflict with the Taks on their expulsion from Zabulistan and settlement in the Panjab. [The Paraitakai or Paraitakenai have no connexion with Tāk or Takshak, the first part of the name perhaps representing Skt. parvata, ‘a mountain,’ or pahār in the modern dialect. They lived in the hill country between the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes (McCrindle, Alexander, 57). Omphis represents the Āmbhi, king of Taxila, a name supposed to mean ‘rock of the Tāk tribe’ (ibid. 413; Smith, EHI, 60), or, more probably, ‘city of cut stone.’]
23. The Buddhists appeared in this peninsula and the adjacent continent was the cradle of Buddhism, and here are three of the ‘five’ sacred mounts of their faith, i.e. Girnar, Satrunjaya and Abu. The Author purposes giving, hereafter, an account of his journey through these classic regions. [He refers to Jains; Buddhism arose in Bihār.]
24. The Buddhists and Jains are stigmatized as Vidyavan, which, signifying ‘possessed of science,’ is interpreted ‘magician.’
25. He is called Arishta-Nemi, ‘the black Nemi,’ from his complexion.
26. [The connexion of Hindu with Egyptian beliefs is no longer admitted.]
27. The Sun-god (Kan, according to Diodorus) is the Minos of the Egyptians. The hieroglyphics at Turin represent him with the head of an ibis, or eagle, with an altar before him, on which a shade places his offerings, namely, a goose, cakes of bread, and flowers of the lotus, and awaits in humble attitude his doom. In Sanskrit the same word means soul, goose, and swan [?], and the Hindu poet is always punning upon it; though it might be deemed a levity to represent the immaterial portion under so unclassical an emblem. The lotus flowers are alike sacred to the Kan of the Egyptians as to Kanhaiya the mediator of the Hindus, and both are painted blue and bird-headed. The claims of Kanhaiya (contracted Kan) as the sun divinity of the Hindus will be abundantly illustrated in the account of the festivals. [The above theories are obsolete.]
28. I do not mean to derive any aid from the resemblance of names, which is here merely accidental. [Nonīta probably = Navanīta, ‘fresh butter,’ a dairy god (Macdonell-Keith, Vedic Index, i. 437).]
29. When I heard the octogenarian ruler of Kotah ask his grandson, “Bapalal, have you been tending the cows to-day?” my surprise was converted into pleasure on the origin of the custom being thus classically explained.
30. From chha, ‘six,’ and tar, ‘a string or wire.’
31. Strabo says the Greeks consider music as originating from Thrace and Asia, of which countries were Orpheus, Musaeus, etc.; and that others “who regard all Asia, as far as India, as a country sacred to Dionysus (Bacchus), attribute to that country the invention of nearly all the science of music. We perceive them sometimes describing the cithara of the Asiatic, and sometimes applying to flutes the epithet of Phrygian. The names of certain instruments, such as the nabla, and others likewise, are taken from barbarous tongues.” This nabla of Strabo is possibly the tabla, the small tabor of India. If Strabo took his orthography from the Persian or Arabic, a single point would constitute the difference between the N (ن) and the T (ﺕ). [The Arabic tabl, tabla, has no connexion with Greek νάβλα, Hebrew nevel.]
32. An account of the state of musical science amongst the Hindus of early ages, and a comparison between it and that of Europe, is yet a desideratum in Oriental literature. From what we already know of the science, it appears to have attained a theoretical precision yet unknown to Europe, and that at a period when even Greece was little removed from barbarism. The inspirations of the bards of the first ages were all set to music; and the children of the most powerful potentates sang the episodes of the great epics of Valmiki and Vyasa. There is a distinguished member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and perhaps the only one, who could fill up this hiatus; and we may hope that the leisure and inclination of the Right Honourable Sir Gore Ousely will tempt him to enlighten us on this most interesting point.
33. [The lyrical drama of Jayadeva, Gītagovinda, dates from the twelfth century A.D. (Macdonell, Hist. Sanskrit Literature, 344 f.).]
34. I have often been struck with a characteristic analogy in the sculptures of the most ancient Saxon cathedrals in England and on the Continent, to Kanhaiya and the Gopis. Both may be intended to represent divine harmony. Did the Asi and Jits of Scandinavia, the ancestors of the Saxons, bring them from Asia?
35. [The Janamashtami, Krishna’s birthday, is celebrated on the 8th dark half of Sāwan (July-August).]
36. Trans. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 146.
37. [Rādha was daughter of Vrishabhānu.]
38. Madho in the dialect of Vraj.
39. We meet with various little philosophical phenomena used as similes in this rhapsody of Jayadeva. These aërolites, mentioned by a poet the contemporary of David and Solomon, are but recently known to the European philosopher. [But one was worshipped at Rome in B.C. 204.]
40. This is, in allusion to the colour of Krishna, a dark blue.
41. The Indian Pluto; she is addressing the Yamuna.
42. Thus the ancient statues do not present merely the sculptor’s fancy in the zone of bells with which they are ornamented.
43. This is a favourite metaphor with the bards of India, to describe the alternations of the exciting causes of love; and it is yet more important as showing that Jayadeva was the philosopher as well as the poet of nature, in making the action of the moon upon the tides the basis of this beautiful simile.
44. This yellow robe or mantle furnishes another title of the Sun-god, namely, Pitambara, typical of the resplendence which precedes his rising and setting.
45. It will be again necessary to call to mind the colour of Krishna, to appreciate this elegant metaphor.
46. This idea is quite new.
47. Childe Harold, Canto iii.
48. The anniversary of the birth of Kanhaiya is celebrated with splendour at Sindhia’s court, where the author frequently witnessed it, during a ten years’ residence.
49. The priests of Kanhaiya, probably so called from the chob or club with which, on the annual festival, they assault the castle of Kansa, the tyrant usurper of Krishna’s birthright, who, like Herod, ordered the slaughter of all the youth of Vraj, that Krishna might not escape. These Chaubēs are most likely the Sobii of Alexander, who occupied the chief towns of the Panjab, and who, according to Arrian, worshipped Hercules (Hari-kul-es, chief of the race of Hari), and were armed with clubs. The mimic assault of Kansa’s castle by some hundreds of these robust church militants, with their long clubs covered with iron rings, is well worth seeing. [The Chaubē Brāhmans of Mathura do not take their name from Chob, ‘a club,’ but from Skt. Chaturvedin, ‘learned in the four Vedas.’ By the Sobii the Author means the Sibi or Sivaya, inhabiting a district between the Hydaspes and the Indus (McCrindle, Alexander, 366). They have no possible connexion with the Mathura Chaubēs.]
50. [Govardhana means ‘nourisher of cattle.’]
51. [The title Guphanātha is not recorded.]
52. Jalandhara on the Indus is described by the Emperor Babur as a very singular spot, having numerous caves. The deity of the caves of Jalandhara is the tutelary deity of the Prince of Marwar. [When the body of Daksha was cut up, the breast fell at Jālandhar; the Daitya king, Jālandhara, was crushed by Siva under the Jawālamukhi hill (Āīn, ii. 314 f.).]
53. [Cave worship does not seem to be specially connected with the cult of Krishna. The mention of the cave at Govardhan seems to refer to the legend of Krishna protecting the people of Braj from a storm sent by Indra, by holding the hill over them (Growse, op. cit. 60). The Gaya caves are Buddhistic, and have no connexion with Krishna (IGI, xii. 198 f.). Guphanāth does not seem to be a Krishna title, and the cave of Gopnāth in Kāthiāwar is said to derive its name from Gopsinghji, a Gohil prince, who reigned in the sixteenth century (BG, viii. 445).]
54. “In Hebrew heres signifies the sun, but in Arabic the meaning of the radical word is to guard, preserve; and of haris, guardian, preserver” (Volney’s Ruins of Empires, p. 316). [Needless to say, Elysium (Ἠλύσιον πεδίον) has no connexion with Ἥλιος, the sun.]
55. The heaven of Vishnu, Vaikuntha, is entirely of gold, and 80,000 miles in circumference. Its edifices, pillars, and ornaments are composed of precious stones. The crystal waters of the Ganges form a river in Vaikuntha, where are lakes filled with blue, red, and white water-lilies, each of a hundred and even a thousand petals. On a throne glorious as the meridian sun resting on water-lilies, is Vishnu, with Lakshmi or Sri, the goddess of abundance (the Ceres of the Egyptians and Greeks), on his right hand, surrounded by spirits who constantly celebrate the praise of Vishnu and Lakshmi, who are served by his votaries, and to whom the eagle (garuda) is door-keeper (Extract from the Mahabharata—See Ward on the History and Religion of the Hindus, vol. ii. p. 14).
56. [Apollo Κάρνειος was probably ‘the horned god,’ connected with κέρας, ‘a horn,’ as a deity of herdsmen (Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. 131).]
57. Supposing these coincidences in the fabulous history of the ancient nations of Greece and Asia to be merely fortuitous, they must excite interest; but conjoined with various others in the history of the Herikulas of India and the Heraclidae of Greece, I cannot resist the idea that they were connected [?].
58. [The Annakūta festival, held on the first day of the light half of Kārttik (Oct.-Nov.). This was the old name of the hill which Krishna held aloft to protect his people (Growse, op. cit. 300).]
59. Gibbon records a similar offering of 200,000 sesterces to the Roman church, by a stranger, in the reign of Decius [ed. W. Smith, ii. 199].
60. I enjoyed no small degree of favour with the supreme pontiff of the shrine of Apollo and all his votaries, for effecting a meeting of the seven statues of Vishnu in 1820. In contriving this I had not only to reconcile ancient animosities between the priests of the different shrines, in order to obtain a free passport for the gods, but to pledge myself to the princes in whose capitals they were established, for their safe return: for they dreaded lest bribery might entice the priests to fix them elsewhere, which would have involved their loss of sanctity, dignity, and prosperity. It cost me no little trouble, and still more anxiety, to keep the assembled multitudes at peace with each other, for they are as outrageous as any sectarians in contesting the supreme power and worth of their respective forms (rupa). Yet they all separated, not only without violence, but without even any attempt at robbery, so common on such occasions.
61. [Kānkroli, 36 miles N.E. of Udaipur city: the image is said to have been brought from Mathura A.D. 1669 (Erskine ii. A. 113).]
62. [The form of Vishnu worshipped at Pāndharpur in Sholapur District. The name is probably a local corruption of Vishnupati, ‘Lord Vishnu,’ through the forms Bistu or Bittu (IA, iv. 361).]
63. [Said to mean ‘the child, giver of liberation.’]
64. The pera of Mathura can only be made from the waters of the Yamuna, from whence it is still conveyed to Nonanda at Nathdwara, and with curds forms his evening repast.
65. [Gokul is not an island, but a suburb of Mahāban in Mathura District.]
66. [Pāndurang is said to mean ‘white-coloured’; but others believe it to be the Sanskritized form of Pandaraga, that is, ‘belonging to Pandargē,’ the old name of Pāndharpur (BG, xx. 423).]
67. Gosain is a title more applicable to the célibataire worshippers of Hara than of Hari—of Jupiter than of Apollo. It is alleged that the Emperor Akbar first bestowed this epithet on the high-priest of Krishna, whose rites attracted his regard. They were previously called Dikshit, ‘one who performs sacrifice,’ a name given to a very numerous class of Brahmans. The Gotrācharya, or genealogical creed of the high-priest, is as follows: “Tailang Brahman, Bharadwaja gotra,[A] Gurukula,[B] Taittari sakha; i.e. Brahman of Telingana, of the tribe of Bharadwaja, of the race of Guru, of the branch Taittari.”
A. Bhāradwaja was a celebrated founder of a sect in the early ages.
B. Guru is an epithet applied to Vrishapati, ‘Lord of the bull,’ the Indian Jupiter, who is called the Guru, preceptor or guardian of the gods. [Brihaspati, ‘Lord of prayer,’ the regent of the planet Jupiter, is confused with Vrishapati. ‘Lord of the bull,’ an epithet of Siva.]
68. The high-priest of Jalandharnath used to appear at the head of a cavalcade far more numerous than any feudal lord of Marwar. A sketch of this personage will appear elsewhere. These Brahmans were not a jot behind the ecclesiastical lords of the Middle Ages, who are thus characterized: “Les seigneurs ecclésiatiques, malgré l’humilité chrétienne, ne se sont pas montrés moins orgueilleux que les nobles laïcs. Le doyen du chapitre de Notre Dame du Port, à Clermont, pour montrer sa grande noblesse, officiait avec toute la pompe féodale. Étant à l’autel, il avait l’oiseau sur la perche gauche, et on portait devant lui la hallebarde; on la lui portait aussi de la même manière pendant qu’on chantait l’évangile, et aux processions il avait lui-même l’oiseau sur le poing, et il marchait à la tête de ses serviteurs, menant ses chiens de chasse” (Dict. de l’Anc. Régime, p. 380).
69. The first letter I received on reaching England after my long residence in India was from this priest, filled with anxious expressions for my health, and speedy return to protect the lands and sacred kine of Apollo.
APPENDIX
No. I
Grant of the Rathor Rani, the Queen-Mother of Udaipur, on the death of her Son, the Heir-Apparent, Prince Amra.
Siddh Sri Bari[a4.20.1] Rathorji to the Patels and inhabitants of Girwa.[a4.20.2] The four bighas of land, belonging to the Jat Roga, have been assigned to the Brahman Kishna on the Anta Samya (final epoch) of Lalji.[a4.20.3] Let him possess the rents thereof.[a4.20.4] The dues for wood and forage (khar lakar) contributions (barar) are renounced by the State in favour of the Brahmans.
Samvat 1875, Amavas 15th of Asoj, A.D. 1819.
No. II
Grant held by a Brahman of Birkhera.
“A Brahman’s orphan was compelled by hunger to seek sustenance in driving an oil-mill; instead of oil the receptacle was filled with blood. The frightened oilman demanded of the child who he was; ‘A Brahman’s orphan,’ was the reply. Alarmed at the enormity of his guilt in thus employing the son of a priest, he covered the palm of his hand with earth, in which he sowed the tulasi seed,[5] and went on a pilgrimage to Dwarka. 645He demanded the presence (darsana) of the god; the priests pointed to the ocean, when he plunged in, and had an interview with Dwarkanath, who presented him with a written order on the Rana for forty-five bighas of land. He returned and threw the writing before the Rana, on the steps of the temple of Jagannath. The Rana read the writing of the god, placed it on his head, and immediately made out the grant. This is three hundred and fifty years ago, as recorded by an inscription on stone, and his descendant, Kosala, yet enjoys it.”
No. III
The Palod inscription is unfortunately mislaid; but in searching for it, another was discovered from Aner, four miles south-west of the ancient Morwan, where there is a temple to the four-armed divinity (Chaturbhuja), endowed in Samvat 1570, by Rana Jagat Singh [553]. On one of the pillars of the temple is inscribed a voluntary gift made in Samvat 1845, and signed by the village Panch, of the first-fruits of the harvest, namely, two sers and a half (five pounds weight) from each khal[6] of the spring, and the same of the autumnal harvests.
No. IV
Sri Amra Sing (II.) etc., etc.
Whereas the shrine of Sri Pratap-Iswara (the God of Fortune) has been erected in the meadows of Rasmi, all the groves and trees are sacred to him; whoever cuts down any of them is an offender to the State, and shall pay a fine of three hundred rupees, and the ass[7] shall be the portion of the officers of government who suffer it.
Pus. 14, Samvat 1712 (A.D. 1656).
No. V
Maharana Sri Raj Singh, commanding.
To the Nobles, Ministers, Patels,[8] Patwaris,[8] of the ten thousand [villages] of Mewar (das sahas Mewar-ra), according to your stations—read!
1. From remote times, the temples and dwellings of the Jains 646have been authorized; let none therefore within their boundaries carry animals to slaughter—this is their ancient privilege.
2. Whatever life, whether man or animal, passes their abode for the purpose of being killed, is saved (amara).[9]
3. Traitors to the State, robbers, felons escaped confinement, who may fly for sanctuary (saran) to the dwellings (upasra)[10] of the Yatis,[11] shall not there be seized by the servants of the court.
4. The kunchi[12] (handful) at harvest, the mutthi (handful) of kirana, the charity lands (dholi), grounds, and houses, established by them in the various towns, shall be maintained.
5. This ordinance is issued in consequence of the representation of the Rikh[13] Mana, to whom is granted fifteen bighas of adhan[14] land, and twenty-five of maleti.[14] The same quantity of each kind in each of the districts of Nimach and Nimbahera.—Total in three districts, forty-five bighas of adhan, and seventy-five of mal[15] [554].
On seeing this ordinance, let the land be measured and assigned, and let none molest the Yatis, but foster their privileges. Cursed be he who infringes them—the cow to the Hindu—the hog and corpse to the Musalman.
No. VI
Maharaja Chhattar Singh (one of the Rana’s sons), commanding.
In the town of Rasmi, whoever slays sheep, buffaloes, goats, or other living thing, is a criminal to the State; his house, cattle, and effects shall be forfeited, and himself expelled the village.
No. VII
Maharana Jai Singh to the inhabitants of Bakrol; printers, potters, oilmen, etc., etc., commanding.
From the 11th Asarh (June) to the full moon of Asoj (September), none shall drain the waters of the lake; no oil-mill shall work, or earthen vessel be made, during these the four rainy months.[16]
No. VIII
Maharana Sri Jagat Singh II., commanding.
The village of Siarh in the hills, of one thousand rupees yearly rent, having been chosen by Nathji (the god) for his residence, and given up by Rana Raghude,[17] I have confirmed it. The Gosain[18] and his heirs shall enjoy it for ever.
Samvat 1793, A.D. 1737.
No. IX
Siddh Sri Maharaja Dhiraj, Maharana Sri Bhim Singhji, commanding.
The undermentioned towns and villages were presented to Sriji[19] by copper-plate. The revenues (hasil), [20] contributions (barar), taxes, dues (lagat-be-lagat), trees, shrubs, foundations and boundaries (nim-sim), shall all belong to Sriji. If of my seed, none will ever dispute this [555].
The ancient copper-plate being lost, I have thus renewed it.
648Here follows a list of thirty-four entire towns and villages, many from the fisc, or confirmations of the grants of the chiefs, besides various parcels of arable land, from twenty to one hundred and fifty bighas, in forty-six more villages, from chiefs of every class, and patches of meadowland (bira) in twenty more.
No. X
Sri Maharana Bhima Singhji, commanding.
To the towns of Sriji, or to the [personal] lands of the Gosainji,[21] no molestation shall be offered. No warrants or exactions shall be issued or levied upon them. All complaints, suits, or matters, in which justice is required, originating in Nathdwara, shall be settled there; none shall interfere therein, and the decisions of the Gosainji I shall invariably confirm. The town and transit duties[22] (of Nathdwara and villages pertaining thereto), the assay (parkhai)[22] fees from the public markets, duties on precious metals (kasoti),[4.a.22] all brokerage (dalali), and dues collected at the four gates; all contributions and taxes of whatever kind, are presented as an offering to Sriji; let the income thereof be placed in Sriji’s coffers.
All the products of foreign countries imported by the Vaishnavas,[23] whether domestic or foreign, and intended for consumption at Nathdwara,[24] shall be exempt from duties. The right of sanctuary (saran) of Sriji, both in the town and in all his other villages,[25] will be maintained: the Almighty will take cognisance of any innovation. Wherefore, let all chiefs, farmers of duties, beware of molesting the goods of Nathji (the god), and wherever such may halt, let guards be provided for their security, and let each chief convey them through his bounds in safety. If of my blood, or if my servants, this warrant will be obeyed for ever and for ever. Whoever resumes this grant will be a caterpillar in hell during 60,000 years.
649By command—through the chief butler (Paneri) Eklingdas: written by Surat Singh, son of Nathji Pancholi, Magh sudi 1st, Samvat 1865; A.D. 1809.
No. XI
Personal grant to the high-priest, Damodarji Maharaj. 6000 Swasti Sri, from the abode at Udaipur, Maharana Sri Bhim Singhji, commanding [556].
To all the chieftains, landholders, managers of the crown and deorhi[26] lands, to all Patels, etc., etc., etc. As an offering to the Sri Gosainji two rupees have been granted in every village throughout Mewar, one in each harvest—let no opposition be made thereto. If of my kin or issue, none will revoke this—the an (oath of allegiance) be upon his head. By command, through Parihara Mayaram, Samvat 1860, Jeth sudi 5th Mangalwar; A.D. 1804.
At one side of the patent, in the Rana’s own hand, “An offering to Sri Girdhariji[27] Maharaj—If of my issue none will disobey—who dares, may the Almighty punish!”
No. XII
Maharana Bhim Singh, commanding.
To the Mandir (minster) of Sri Murali Manohar (flute delighting), situated on the dam of the lake at Mandalgarh, the following grant has been made, with all the dues, income, and privileges, viz.:
1. The hamlet called Kotwalkhera, with all thereto appertaining.
2. Three rupees’ worth of saffron monthly from the transit duty chabutra.[28]
3. From the police-office of Mandalgarh:
Three tunics (baga) for the idol on each festival, viz. Ashtami, Jaljatra, and Vasant Panchami.[29]
Five rupees’ worth of oil[30] on the Jaljatra, and two and a half in the full moon of Karttik [Oct.-Nov.].
6504. Both gardens under the dam of the lake, with all the fruits and flowers thereof.
5. The Inch[31] on all the vegetables appertaining to the prince.
6. Kunchi and dalali, or the handful at harvest, and all brokerage.
7. The income arising from the sale of the estates is to be applied to the repairs of the temple and dam.
Margsir [Nov.-Dec.] Sudi 1, Samvat 1866; A.D. 1810 [557].
a4.20.1. The great Rathor queen. There were two of this tribe; she was the queen-mother.
a4.20.2. [The tract in the centre of the State, including Udaipur city.]
a4.20.3. An endearing epithet, applied to children, from larla, beloved.
a4.20.4. It is customary to call these grants to religious orders ‘grants of land,’ although they entitle only the rents thereof; for there is no seizin of the land itself, as numerous inscriptions testify, and which, as well as the present, prove the proprietary right to be in the cultivator only. The tamba-pattra,[a4.20.4.A] or copper-plate patent (by which such grants are probably designated) of Yasodharman,[a4.20.4.B] the Pramara prince of Ujjain, seven hundred years ago, is good evidence that the rents only are granted; he commands the crown tenants of the two villages assigned to the temple “to pay all dues as they arise—money-rent—first share of produce,” not a word of seizing of the soil. See Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 223.
a4.20.4.A. To distinguish them from grants of land to feudal tenants, which patents (patta) are manuscript.
a4.20.4.B. [He defeated Mihiragula, leader of the White Huns, about A.D. 528 (Smith, EHI, 318).]
5. [The sacred basil plant, Ocymum sanctum.]
6. A khal is one of the heaps after the corn is thrashed out, about five maunds [400 lbs.].
7. The gadha-ghal is a punishment unknown in any but the Hindu code; the hieroglyphic import appears on the pillar, and must be seen to be understood.
8. Revenue officers.
9. Literally ‘immortal,’ from mara, ‘death,’ and the privative prefix.
10. Schools or colleges of the Yatis.
11. Priests of the Jains.
12. Kunchi and mutthi are both a ‘handful’; the first is applied to grain in the stalk at harvest time; the other to such edibles in merchandise as sugar, raisins, etc., collectively termed kirana.
13. Rikh[rishi] is an ancient title applied to the highest class of priests; Rikh-Rikhsha-Rikhiswara, applied to royalty in old times.
14. Adhan is the richest land, lying under the protection of the town walls; mal or maleti land is land not irrigated from wells.
15. In all a hundred and twenty bighas, or about forty acres.
17. The chief of Delwara.
18. There are other grants later than this, which prove that all grants were renewed in every new reign. This grant also proves that no chief has the power to alienate without his sovereign’s sanction.
19. Epithet indicative of the greatness of the deity.
20. Here is another proof that the sovereign can only alienate the revenues (hasil); and though everything upon and about the grant, yet not the soil. The nim-sim is almost as powerful an expression as the old grant to the Rawdons—
21. The high-priest.
22. All these are royalties, and the Rana was much blamed, even by his Vaishnava ministers, for sacrificing them even to Kanhaiya.
23. Followers of Vishnu, Krishna, or Kanhaiya, chiefly mercantile.
24. Many merchants, by the connivance of the conductors of the caravans of Nathji’s goods, contrived to smuggle their goods to Nathdwara, and to the disgrace of the high-priest or his underlings, this traffic was sold for their personal advantage. It was a delicate thing to search these caravans, or to prevent the loss to the State from the evasion of the duties. The Rana durst not interfere lest he might incur the penalty of his own anathemas. The Author’s influence with the high-priest put a stop to this.
25. This extent of sanctuary is an innovation of the present Rana’s, with many others equally unwise.
26. Lands for the queens or others of the immediate household.
27. Father of the present high-priest, Damodarji.
28. [Office, properly ‘a platform.’]
29. [Festivals of Krishna’s birthday, the water festival, the spring festival.]
30. Amongst the items of the Chartulary of Dunfermline is the tithe of the oil of the Greenland whale fisheries.
31. A handful of every basket of vegetables sold in the public markets.
CHAPTER 21
The Importance of Mythology.
—It has been observed by that philosophical traveller, Dr. Clarke, that, “by a proper attention to the vestiges of ancient superstition, we are sometimes enabled to refer a whole people to their original ancestors, with as much, if not more certainty, than by observations made upon their language; because the superstition is engrafted upon the stock, but the language is liable to change.”[1] Impressed with the justness, as well as the originality of the remark, I shall adopt it as my guide in the observations I propose to make on the religious festivals and superstitions of Mewar. However important may be the study of military, civil, and political history, the science is incomplete without mythological history; and he is little imbued with the spirit of philosophy who can perceive in the fables of antiquity nothing but the extravagance of a fervid imagination. Did no other consequence result from the study of mythology than the fact that, in all ages and countries, man has desecrated his reason, and voluntarily reduced himself below the level of the brutes that perish, it must provoke inquiry into the cause of this degradation. Such an investigation would develop, not only the source of history, the handmaid of the arts and sciences, but the origin and application of the latter, in a theogony typical of the seasons, their changes, and products. Thus mythology may be considered the parent of all history.The Aboriginal Tribes.
—With regard, however, to the rude tribes who still inhabit the mountains and fastnesses of India, 651and who may be regarded as the aborigines of that country, the converse of this doctrine is more probable. Not their language only, but [558] their superstitions, differ from those of the Rajputs: though, from a desire to rise above their natural condition, they have engrafted upon their own the most popular mythologies of their civilized conquerors, who from the north gradually spread themselves over the continent and peninsula, even to the remote isles of the Indian Ocean. Of the primitive inhabitants we may enumerate the Minas, the Meras, the Gonds, the Bhils, the Sahariyas, the Savaras, the Abhiras, the Gujars, and those who inhabit the forests of the Nerbudda, the Son, the Mahanadi, the mountains of Sarguja, and the lesser Nagpur; many of whom are still but little removed from savage life, and whose dialects are as various as their manners. These are content to be called the ‘sons of the earth,’[2] or ‘children of the forest,’[3] while their conquerors, the Rajputs, arrogate celestial descent.[4] How soon after the flood the Suryas, or sun-worshippers, entered India Proper, must ever remain uncertain.[5] It is sufficient that they were anterior in date to the Indus, or races tracing their descent from the moon (Ind); as the migration of the latter from the central lands of Indo-Scythia was antecedent to that of the Agnikulas, or fire-worshippers, of the Snake race, claiming Takshak as their original progenitor. The Suryas,[6] who migrated both to the East and West, as population became redundant in these fertile regions, may be considered the Celtic, as the Indu-Getae may be accounted the Gothic, races of India.[7] To attempt to discriminate these different races, and mark the shades which once separated them, after a system of priestcraft has amalgamated the mass, and identified their superstitions, would be 652fruitless; but the observer of ancient customs may, with the imperfect guidance of peculiar rites, discover things, and even names, totally incongruous with the Brahmanical system, and which could never have originated within the Indus or Atak,—the Rubicon of Gangetic antiquaries, who fear to look beyond that stream for the origin of tribes. A residence amongst the Rajputs would lead to a disregard of such boundaries, either to the moral or physical man, as the annals of Mewar abundantly testify.Comparative Study of Festivals.
—Sir Wm. Jones remarks, “If the festivals of the old Greeks, Persians, Romans [559], Egyptians, and Goths could be arranged with exactness in the same form with the Indian, there would be found a striking resemblance among them; and an attentive comparison of them all might throw great light on the religion, and perhaps on the history, of the primitive world.”Analogies to Rājput Customs in Northern Europe.
—In treating of the festivals and superstitions of the Rajputs, wherever there may appear to be a fair ground for supposing an analogy with those of other nations of antiquity, I shall not hesitate to pursue it. The proper names of many of the martial Rajputs would alone point out the necessity of seeking for a solution of them out of the explored paths; and where Sanskrit derivation cannot be assigned, as it happens in many instances, we are not, therefore, warranted in the hasty conclusion that the names must have been adopted since the conquests of Mahmud or Shihabu-d-din, events of comparatively modern date. Let us at once admit the hypothesis of Pinkerton,—the establishment of an original Indu-Getic or Indo-Scythic empire, “extending from the Caspian to the Ganges”; or if this conjecture be too extensive or too vague, let us fix the centre of this Madhya-Bhumi in the fertile region of Sogdiana;[8] and from the lights which modern history affords on the many migrations from this nursery of mankind, 653even since the time of Muhammad, let us form an opinion of those which have not been recorded, or have been conveyed by the Hindus only in imperfect allegory; and with the aid of ancient customs, obsolete words, and proper names, trace them to Indo-Scythic colonies grafted on the parent stock. The Puranas themselves bear testimony to the incorporation of Scythic tribes with the Hindus, and to the continual irruptions of the Saka, the Pahlavas, the Yavanas,[9] the Turushkas, names conspicuous amongst the races of Central Asia, and recorded in the pages of the earliest Western historians. Even so early as the period of Rama, when furious international wars were carried on between the military and sacerdotal classes for supremacy, we have the names of these tribes recorded as auxiliaries [560] to the priesthood; who, while admitting them to fight under the banners of Siva, would not scruple to stamp them with the seal of Hinduism. In this manner, beyond a doubt, at a much later period than the events in the Ramayana, these tribes from the North either forced themselves among, or were incorporated with, ‘the races of the sun.’ When, therefore, we meet with rites in Rajputana and in ancient Scandinavia, such as were practised amongst the Getic nations on the Oxus, why should we hesitate to assign the origin of both to this region of earliest civilization? When we see the ancient Asii, and the Iutae, or Jutes, taking omens from the white steed of Thor, shut up in the temple at Upsala; and in like manner, the Rajput of past days offering the same animal in sacrifice to the sun, and his modern descendant taking the omen from his neigh, why are we to refuse our assent to the common origin of the superstition practised by the Getae of the Oxus? Again, when we find the ‘homage to the sword’ performed by all the Getic races of antiquity in Dacia, on the Baltic, as well as by the modern Rajput, shall we draw no conclusion from this testimony of the father of history, who declares that such rites 654were practised on the Jaxartes in the very dawn of knowledge?[10] Moreover, why hesitate to give Eastern etymologies for Eastern rites, though found on the Baltic? The antiquary of the North (Mallet) may thus be assisted to the etymon of ‘Tir-sing,’ the enchanted sword of Angantýr, in tir, ‘water,’ and singh, ‘a lion’; i.e. in water or spirit like a lion; for even pani, the common epithet for water, is applied metaphorically to ‘spirit.’[11]It would be less difficult to find Sanskrit derivations for many of the proper names in the Edda, than to give a Sanskrit analysis of many common amongst the Rajputs, which we must trace to an Indo-Scythic root:[12] such as Eyvorsél, Udila, Attitai, Pujun, Hamira,[13] and numerous other proper names of warriors. Of tribes: the Kathi, Rajpali, Mohila, Sariaspah, Aswaria (qu. Assyrian?), Banaphar, Kamari, Silara, Dahima, etc. Of mountains: Drinodhar, Arbuda, Aravalli, Aravindha (the root ara, or mountain, being Scythic, and the expletive adjunct Sanskrit), ‘the hill of Budha,’ ‘of strength,’ ‘of limit.’ To all such as cannot be [561] resolved into the cognate language of India, what origin can we assign but Scythic?[14]
Festivals in Mewār. Naurātri Festival.
—In a memoir prepared for me by a well-informed public officer in the Rana’s court, on the chief festivals celebrated in Mewar, he commenced with those following the autumnal equinox, in the month Asoj or Aswini, 655opening with the Nauratri, sacred to the god of war. Their fasts are in general regulated by the moon; although the most remarkable are solar, especially those of the equinoxes and solstices, and the Sankrantis, or days on which the sun enters a new sign. The Hindu solar year anciently commenced on the winter solstice, in the month Pausha, and was emphatically called ‘the morning of the gods’; also Sivaratri, or night of Siva, analogous, as has been before remarked, to the ‘mother night,’ which ushered in the new year of the Scandinavian Asi, and other nations of Asiatic origin dwelling in the north.The Repose of Vishnu.
—They term the summer solstice in the month of Asarh, ‘the night of the gods,’ because Vishnu (as the sun) reposes during the four rainy months on his serpent couch. The lunar year of 360 days was more ancient than the solar, and 656commenced with the month of Asoj or Aswini: “the moon being at the full when that name was imposed on the first lunar station of the Hindu ecliptic.”[15]According to another authority, the festivals commenced on Amavas, or the Ides of Chait, near which the vernal equinox falls, the opening of the modern solar year; when, in like manner as at the commencement of the lunar year in Asoj, they [562] dedicate the first nine days of Chait (also called Nauratri) to Iswara and his consort Isani.
Having thus specified both modes of reckoning for the opening of the solar and lunar years, I shall not commence the abstract of the festivals of Mewar with either, but follow the more ancient division of time, when the year closed with the winter solstice in the month of Pus, consequently opening the new year with Magh. By this arrangement, we shall commence with the spring festivals, and let the days dedicated to mirth and gaiety follow each other; preferring the natural to the astrological year, which will enable us to preserve the analogy with the northern nations of Europe, who also reckoned from the winter solstice. The Hindu divides the year into six seasons, each of two months; namely, Vasanta, Grishma, Varsha, Sarad, Sisira, Sita; or spring, summer, rainy, sultry, dewy, and cold.
It is not, however, my intention to detail all the fasts and festivals which the Rajput of Mewar holds in common with the Hindu nation, but chiefly those restricted to that State, or such as are celebrated with local peculiarity, or striking analogies to those of Egypt, Greece, or Scandinavia. The goddess who presides over mirth and idleness preferred holding her court amidst the ruins of Udaipur to searching elsewhere for a dwelling. This determination to be happy amidst calamity, individual and national, has made the court proverbial in Rajwara, in the adage, ‘sat bara, aur nau teohara,’ i.e. nine holidays out of seven days. Although many of these festivals are common to India, and their maintenance is enjoined by religion, yet not only the prolongation and repetition of some, but the entire institution of others, as well as the peculiar splendour of their solemnization, originate with the prince; proving how much individual example may influence the manners of a nation.
Spring Festival, Vasant Panchami.
—By the arrangement we have adopted, the lovely Vasanti, goddess of the spring, will usher in the festivals of Mewar. In 1819 her rites were celebrated in the kalends of January, and even then, on the verge of the tropic, her birth was premature.The opening of the spring being on the 5th of the month Magha, is thence called the Vasant panchami, which in 1819 fell on the 30th of January; consequently the first of Pus (the antecedent month), the beginning of the old Hindu [563] year, or ‘the morning of the gods,’ fell on the 25th of December. The Vasant continues forty days after the panchami, or initiative fifth, during which the utmost license prevails in action and in speech; the lower classes regale even to intoxication on every kind of stimulating confection and spirituous beverage, and the most respectable individuals, who would at other times be shocked to utter an indelicate allusion, roam about with the groups of bacchanals, reciting stanzas of the warmest description in praise of the powers of nature, as did the conscript fathers of Rome during the Saturnalia. In this season, when the barriers of rank are thrown down, and the spirit of democracy is let loose, though never abused, even the wild Bhil, or savage Mer, will leave his forest or mountain shade to mingle in the revelries of the capital; and decorating his ebon hair or tattered turban with a garland of jessamine, will join the clamorous parties which perambulate the streets of the capital. These orgies are, however, reserved for the conclusion of the forty days sacred to the goddess of nature.
Bhān Saptami Festival.
—Two days following the initiative fifth is the Bhan saptami or ‘seventh [day] of the sun,’ also called ‘the birth of the sun,’ with various other metaphorical denominations.[16] On this day there is a grand procession of the Rana, his chiefs and vassals, to the Chaugan, where the sun is worshipped. At the Jaipur court, whose princes claim descent from Kusa, the second son of Rama, the Bhan saptami is peculiarly sacred. The chariot of the sun, drawn by eight horses, is taken from the temple dedicated to that orb, and moved in procession: a ceremony otherwise never observed but on the inauguration of a new prince.Sun Worship.
—In the mythology of the Rajputs, of which we have a better idea from their heroic poetry than from the legends of the Brahmans, the sun-god is the deity they are most anxious to propitiate; and in his honour they fearlessly expend their blood in battle, from the hope of being received into his mansion. Their highest heaven is accordingly the Bhanuthan or Bhanuloka, the ‘region of the sun’: and like the Indu-Scythic Getae, the Rajput warrior of the early ages sacrificed the horse in his honour,[17] and dedicated to him the first day of the week, namely, Adityawar, contracted to Itwar, also called Thawara[18] [564].The more we attend to the warlike mythology of the north, the more apparent is its analogy with that of the Rajputs, and the stronger ground is there for assuming that both races inherited their creed from the common land of the Yuti of the Jaxartes. What is a more proper etymon for Scandinavian, the abode of the warriors who destroyed the Roman power, than Skanda, the Mars or Kumara of the Rajputs? perhaps the origin of the Cimbri, derived by Mallet from koempfer, ‘to fight.’
Thor, in the eleventh fable of the Edda, is denominated Asa-Thor,[19] the ‘lord Thor,’ called the Celtic Mars by the Romans. The chariot of Thor is ignobly yoked compared with the car of Surya; but in the substitution of the he-goats for the seven-headed horse Saptasva we have but the change of an adjunct depending on clime, when the Yuti migrated from the plains of Scythia, of which the horse is a native, to Yutland, of whose mountains the goat was an inhabitant prior to any of the race of Asi. The northern warrior makes the palace of the sun-god Thor the most splendid of the celestial abodes, “in which are 659five hundred and forty halls”: vying with the Suryamandala, the supreme heaven of the Rajput. Whence such notions of the Aswa races of the Ganges, and the Asi of Scandinavia, but from the Scythic Saka, who adored the solar divinity under the name of ‘Gaeto-Syrus,’[20] the Surya of the Sachha Rajput; and as, according to the commentator on the Edda, “the ancient people of the north pronounced the th as the English now do ss,” the sun-god Thor becomes Sor, and is identified still more with Surya whose worship no doubt gave the name to that extensive portion of Asia called Συρία, as it did to the small peninsula of the Sauras, still peopled by tribes of Scythic origin. The Sol of the Romans has probably the same Celto-Etrurian origin; with those tribes the sun was the great object of adoration, and their grand festival, the winter solstice, was called Yule, Hiul, Houl, “which even at this day signifies the Sun, in the language of Bas-Bretagne and Cornwall.”[21] On the conversion of the descendants of these Scythic Yeuts, who, according to [565] Herodotus, sacrificed the horse (Hi) to the sun (El), the name of the Pagan jubilee of the solstice was transferred to the day of Christ’s nativity, which is thus still held in remembrance by their descendants of the north.[22]
Sun Worship at Udaipur.
—At Udaipur the sun has universal precedence; his portal (Suryapol) is the chief entrance to the city; his name gives dignity to the chief apartment or hall (Suryamahall) of the palace; and from the balcony of the sun (Suryagokhra) the descendant of Rama shows himself in the dark monsoon as the sun’s representative. A huge painted sun of gypsum in high relief, with gilded rays, adorns the hall of audience, and in front of it is the throne. As already mentioned, the sacred standard bears his image,[23] as does that Scythic part of the regalia called the changi, a disc of black felt or ostrich feathers, with a 660plate of gold to represent the sun in its centre, borne upon a pole. The royal parasol is termed kirania, in allusion to its shape, like a ray (kiran) of the orb. The last day but one of the month of Magha is called Sivaratri (night of Siva), and is held peculiarly sacred by the Rana, who is styled the Regent of Siva. It is a rigid fast, and the night is passed in vigils, and rites to the phallic representative of Siva.The Spring Hunt.
—The merry month of Phalgun is ushered in with the Aheria, or spring-hunt.[24] The preceding day the Rana distributes to all his chiefs and servants either a dress of green, or some portion thereof, in which all appear habited on the morrow, whenever the astrologer has fixed the hour for sallying forth to slay the boar to Gauri, the Ceres of the Rajputs: the Aheria is therefore called the Mahurat ka shikar, or the chase fixed astrologically. As their success on this occasion is ominous of future good, no means are neglected to secure it, either by scouts previously discovering the lair, or the desperate efforts of the hunters to slay the boar when roused. With the sovereign and his sons all the chiefs sally forth, each on his best steed, and all animated by the desire to surpass each other in acts of prowess and dexterity. It is very rare that in some one of the passes or recesses of the valley the hog is not found; the spot is then surrounded by the [566] hunters, whose vociferations soon start the dukkara,[25] and frequently a drove of hogs. Then each cavalier impels his steed, and with lance or sword, regardless of rock, ravine, or tree, presses on the bristly foe, whose knowledge of the country is of no avail when thus circumvented, and the ground soon reeks with gore, in which not unfrequently is mixed that of horse or rider. On the last occasion there occurred fewer casualties than usual; though the Chondawat Hamira, whom we nicknamed the ‘Red Riever,’ had his leg broken, and the second 661son of Sheodan Singh, a near relation of the Rana, had his neighbour’s lance driven through his arm. The young chief of Salumbar was amongst the distinguished of this day’s sport. It would appal even an English fox-hunter to see the Rajputs driving their steeds at full speed, bounding like the antelope over every barrier—the thick jungle covert, or rocky steep bare of soil or vegetation,—with their lances balanced in the air, or leaning on the saddle-bow slashing at the boar.The royal kitchen moves out on this occasion, and in some chosen spot the repast is prepared, of which all partake, for the hog is the favourite food of the Rajput, as it was of the heroes of Scandinavia. Nor is the munawwar piyala, or invitation cup, forgotten; and having feasted, and thrice slain their bristly antagonist, they return to the capital, where fame had already spread their exploits—the deeds done by the barchhi (lance) of Padma,[26] or the khanda (sword) blow of Hamira,[27] which lopped the head of the foe of Gauri. Even this martial amusement, the Aheria, has a religious origin. The boar is the enemy of Gauri of the Rajputs; it was so held of Isis by the Egyptians, of Ceres by the Greeks, of Freya by the north-man, whose favourite food was the hog: and of such importance was it deemed by the Franks, that the second chapter of the Salic law is entirely penal with regard to the stealers of swine. The heroes of the Edda, even in Valhalla, feed on the fat of the wild boar Saehrimner, while “the illustrious father of armies fattens his wolves Geri and Freki, and takes no other nourishment himself than the interrupted quaffing of wine”: quite the picture of Har, the Rajput god of war, and his sons the Bhairavas, Krodha, and Kala, metaphorically called the ‘sons of slaughter.’ We need hardly repeat that the cup of the Scandinavian god of war, like that of the Rajputs, is the human skull (khopra) [567].[28]
The Phāg or Holi Festival.
—As Phalgun advances, the bacchanalian mirth increases; groups are continually patrolling the streets, throwing a crimson powder at each other, or ejecting a solution of it from syringes, so that the garments and visages of all are one mass of crimson. On the 8th, emphatically called 662the Phag, the Rana joins the queens and their attendants in the palace, when all restraint is removed and mirth is unlimited. But the most brilliant sight is the playing of the Holi on horseback, on the terrace in front of the palace. Each chief who chooses to join has a plentiful supply of missiles, formed of thin plates of mica or talc, enclosing this crimson powder, called abira, which with the most graceful and dextrous horsemanship they dart at each other, pursuing, caprioling, and jesting. This part of it much resembles the Saturnalia of Rome of this day, when similar missiles are scattered at the Carnivâle. The last day or Punon ends the Holi, when the Nakkaras from the Tripolia summon all the chiefs with their retinues to attend their prince, and accompany him in procession to the Chaugan, their Champ de Mars. In the centre of this is a long sala or hall, the ascent to which is by a flight of steps: the roof is supported by square columns without any walls, so that the court is entirely open. Here, surrounded by his chiefs, the Rana passes an hour, listening to the songs in praise of Holika, while a scurrilous kavya or couplet from some wag in the crowd reminds him, that exalted rank is no protection against the license of the spring Saturnalia; though ‘the Diwan of Eklinga’ has not to reproach himself with a failure of obedience to the rites of the goddess, having fulfilled the command ‘to multiply,’ more than any individual in his kingdom.[29] While the Rana and his chiefs are thus amused above, the buffoons and itinerant groups mix with the cavalcade, throw powder in their eyes, or deluge their garments with the crimson solution. To resent it would only expose the sensitive party to be laughed at, and draw upon him a host of these bacchanals: so that no alternative exists between keeping entirely aloof or mixing in the fray [568].[30]663On the last day, the Rana feasts his chiefs, and the camp breaks up with the distribution of khanda nariyal, or swords and coco-nuts, to the chiefs and all “whom the king delighteth to honour.” These khandas are but ‘of lath,’ in shape like the Andrea Ferrara, or long cut-and-thrust, the favourite weapon of the Rajput. They are painted in various ways, like Harlequin’s sword, and meant as a burlesque, in unison with the character of the day, when war is banished, and the multiplication,[31] not the destruction, of man is the behest of the goddess who rules the spring. At nightfall, the forty days conclude with ‘the burning of the Holi,’ when they light large fires, into which various substances, as well as the crimson abira, are thrown, and around which groups of children are dancing and screaming in the streets like so many infernals. Until three hours after sunrise of the new month of Chait, these orgies are continued with increased vigour, when the natives bathe, change their garments, worship, and return to the rank of sober citizens; and princes and chiefs receive gifts from their domestics.[32]
Chait.
—The first of this month is the Samvatsara (vulg. Chamchari), or anniversary of the death of the Rana’s father, to whose memory solemn rites are performed both in the palace and at Ara, the royal cemetery, metaphorically termed Mahasati, or place of ‘great faith.’ Thither the Rana repairs, and offers oblations to the manes of his father; and after purifying in the Gangabheva, a rivulet which flows through the middle of ‘the abode of silence,’ he returns to the palace.On the 3rd, the whole of the royal insignia proceeds to Bedla, the residence of the Chauhan chief (one of the Sixteen), within the valley of the capital, in order to convey the Rao to court. The Rana advances to the Ganesa Deori[33] to receive him; when, 664after salutation, the sovereign and his chief return to the great hall of assembly, hand in hand, but that of the Chauhan above or upon his sovereign’s. In this ceremony we have another singular memorial of the glorious days of Mewar, when almost every chieftain established by deeds of devotion a right to the eternal gratitude of their princes; the decay of whose [569] power but serves to hallow such reminiscences. It is in these little acts of courteous condescension, deviations from the formal routine of reception, that we recognize the traces of Rajput history; for inquiry into these customs will reveal the incident which gave birth to each, and curiosity will be amply repaid, in a lesson at once of political and moral import. For my own part, I never heard the kettledrum of my friend Raj Kalyan strike at the sacred barrier, the Tripolia, without recalling the glorious memory of his ancestor at the Thermopylae of Mewar;[34] nor looked on the autograph lance, the symbol of the Chondawats, without recognizing the fidelity of the founder of the clan;[35] nor observed the honours paid to the Chauhans of Bedla and Kotharia, without the silent tribute of applause to the manes of their sires.
Sītala’s Festival.
—Chait badi sat, or ‘7th of [the dark fortnight] Chait,’ is in honour of the goddess Sitala, the protectress of children: all the matrons of the city proceed with their offerings to the shrine of the goddess, placed upon the very pinnacle of an isolated hill in the valley. In every point of view, this divinity is the twin-sister of the Mater Montana,[36] the guardian of infants amongst the Romans, the Grecian or Phrygian Cybele.Birthday of the Rana.
—This is also the Rana’s birthday,[37] on which occasion all classes flock with gifts and good wishes that “the king may live for ever”; but it is in the penetralia of the Rawala, where the profane eye enters not, that the greatest festivities of this day are kept.New Year’s Day. The Festival of Flowers.
—Chait Sudi 1st (15th of the month) is the opening of the luni-solar year of Vikramaditya. Ceremonies, which more especially appertain to the Nauratri of Asoj, are performed on this day; and the sword is worshipped 665in the palace. But such rites are subordinate to those of the fair divinity, who still rules over this the smiling portion of the year. Vasanti has ripened into the fragrant Flora, and all the fair of the capital, as well as the other sex, repair to the gardens and groves, where parties assemble, regale, and swing, adorned with chaplets of roses, jessamine, or oleander, when the Naulakha gardens may vie with the Tivoli of Paris. They return in the evening to the city.The Festival of Flowers.
—The Rajput Floralia ushers in the rites of the beneficent Gauri, which continue nine days, the number sacred to the creative [570] power. These vie with the Cerealia of Rome, or the more ancient rites of the goddess of the Nile: I shall therefore devote some space to a particular account of them.[38]Ganggor Festival.
—Among the many remarkable festivals of Rajasthan, kept with peculiar brilliancy at Udaipur, is that in honour of Gauri, or Isani, the goddess of abundance, the Isis of Egypt, the Ceres of Greece. Like the Rajput Saturnalia, which it follows, it belongs to the vernal equinox, when nature in these regions proximate to the tropic is in the full expanse of her charms, and the matronly Gauri casts her golden mantle over the beauties of the verdant Vasanti.[39] Then the fruits exhibit their promise to the eye; the koil fills the ear with melody; the air is impregnated with aroma, and the crimson poppy contrasts with the spikes of golden grain, to form a wreath for the beneficent Gauri.Gauri is one of the names of Isa or Parvati, wife of the greatest of the gods, Mahadeva or Iswara, who is conjoined with her in these rites, which almost exclusively appertain to the women. The meaning of Gauri is ‘yellow,’ emblematic of the ripened harvest, when the votaries of the goddess adore her effigies, which are those of a matron painted the colour of ripe corn; and though her image is represented with only two hands, in one of which she holds the lotos, which the Egyptians regarded as emblematic of reproduction, yet not unfrequently they equip her with the warlike conch, the discus, and the club, to denote that the goddess, whose gifts sustain life, is likewise accessary to the loss of it: uniting, as Gauri and Kali, the characters of life and death, like 666the Isis and Cybele of the Egyptians. But here she is only seen as Annapurna, the benefactress of mankind. The rites commence when the sun enters Aries (the opening of the Hindu year), by a deputation to a spot beyond the city, “to bring earth for the image of Gauri.”[40] When this is formed, a smaller one of Iswara is made, and they are placed together; a small trench is then excavated, in which barley is sown; the ground is irrigated and artificial heat supplied till the grain germinates, when the females join hands and dance round it, invoking the blessings of Gauri on their husbands.[41] The young corn is then taken up, distributed, and presented by the females to the men, who wear it in their turbans. Every wealthy family has its image, or at least every purwa or subdivision of the city. These and other [571] rites known only to the initiated having been performed for several days within doors, they decorate the images, and prepare to carry them in procession to the lake. During these days of preparation, nothing is talked of but Gauri’s departure from the palace; whether she will be as sumptuously apparelled as in the year gone by; whether an additional boat will be launched on the occasion; though not a few forget the goddess altogether in the recollection of the gazelle eyes (mrig-nayani) and serpentine locks (nagini-zulf)[42] of the beauteous handmaids who are selected to attend her. At length the hour arrives, the martial nakkaras give the signal “to the cannonier without,” and speculation is at rest when the guns on the summit of the castle of Eklinggarh announce that Gauri has commenced her excursion to the lake.
The Bathing of the Goddess.
—The cavalcade assembles on the magnificent terrace, and the Rana, surrounded by his nobles, leads the way to the boats, of a form as primitive as that which conveyed the Argonauts to Colchis. The scenery is admirably adapted for these fêtes, the ascent being gradual from the margin of the lake, which here forms a fine bay, and gently rising to the crest of the ridge on which the palace and dwellings of the chiefs are built. Every turret and balcony is crowded with spectators, 667from the palace to the water’s edge; and the ample flight of marble steps which intervene from the Tripolia, or triple portal, to the boats, is a dense mass of females in variegated robes, whose scarfs but half conceal their ebon tresses adorned with the rose and the jessamine. A more imposing or more exhilarating sight cannot be imagined than the entire population of a city thus assembled for the purpose of rejoicing; the countenance of every individual, from the prince to the peasant, dressed in smiles. Carry the eye to heaven, and it rests on ‘a sky without a cloud’: below is a magnificent lake, the even surface of the deep blue waters broken only by palaces of marble, whose arched piazzas are seen through the foliage of orange groves, plantain, and tamarind; while the vision is bounded by noble mountains, their peaks towering over each other, and composing an immense amphitheatre. Here the deformity of vice intrudes not; no object is degraded by inebriation: no tumultuous disorder or deafening clamour, but all await patiently, with eyes directed to the Tripolia, the appearance of Gauri. At length the procession is seen winding down the steep, and in the midst [572], borne on a pat,[43] or throne, gorgeously arrayed in yellow robes, and blazing with ‘barbaric pearl and gold,’ the goddess appears; on either side the two beauties wave the silver chamara over her head, while the more favoured damsels act as harbingers, preceding her with wands of silver: the whole chanting hymns. On her approach, the Rana, his chiefs and ministers rise and remain standing till the goddess is seated on her throne close to the water’s edge, when all bow, and the prince and court take their seats in the boats. The females then form a circle around the goddess, unite hands, and with a measured step and various graceful inclinations of the body, keeping time by beating the palms at particular cadences, move round the image singing hymns, some in honour of the goddess of abundance, others on love and chivalry; and embodying little episodes of national achievements, occasionally sprinkled with double entendre, which excites a smile and significant nod from the chiefs, and an inclination of the head of the fair choristers. The festival being entirely female, not a single male mixed in the immense groups, and even Iswara himself, the husband of Gauri, attracts no attention, as appears from his ascetic or mendicant form begging his dole 668from the bounteous and universal mother. It is taken for granted that the goddess is occupied in bathing all the time she remains, and ancient tradition says death was the penalty of any male intruding on these solemnities; but the present prince deems them so fitted for amusement, that he has even instituted a second Ganggor. Some hours are thus consumed, while easy and good-humoured conversation is carried on. At length, the ablutions over, the goddess is taken up, and conveyed to the palace with the same forms and state. The Rana and his chiefs then unmoor their boats, and are rowed round the margin of the lake, to visit in succession the other images of the goddess, around which female groups are chanting and worshipping, as already described, with which ceremonies the evening closes, when the whole terminates with a grand display of fireworks, the finale of each of the three days dedicated to Gauri.Considerable resemblance is to be discerned between this festival of Gauri and that in honour of the Egyptian Diana[44] at Bubastis, and Isis at Busiris, within the [573] Delta of the Nile, of which Herodotus says: “They who celebrate those of Diana embark in vessels; the women strike their tabors, the men their flutes; the rest of both sexes clap their hands, and join in chorus. Whatever city they approach, the vessels are brought on shore; the women use ungracious language, dance, and indelicately throw about their garments.”[45] Wherever the rites of Isis prevailed, we find the boat introduced as an essential emblem in her worship, whether in the heart of Rajasthan, on the banks of the Nile, or in the woods of Germany. Bryant[46] 669furnishes an interesting account from Diodorus and Curtius, illustrated by drawings from Pocock, from the temple of Luxor, near Carnac, in the Thebaid, of ‘the ship of Isis,’ carrying an ark; and from a male figure therein, this learned person thinks it bears a mysterious allusion to the deluge. I am inclined to deem the personage in the ark Osiris, husband of Isis, the type of the sun arrived in the sign of Aries (of which the ram’s heads ornamenting both the prow and stem of the vessel are typical), the harbinger of the annual fertilizing inundation of the Nile: evincing identity of origin as an equinoctial festival with that of Gauri (Isis) of the Indu-Scythic races of Rajasthan.
The German Suevi adored Isis, and also introduced a ship in her worship, for which Tacitus[47] is at a loss to account, and with his usual candour says he has no materials whence to investigate the origin of a worship denoting the foreign origin of the tribe. This Isis of the Suevi was evidently a form of Ertha, the chief divinity of all the Saxon races, who, with her consort Teutates or Hesus[48] (Mercury), were the chief deities of both the Celtic and early Gothic races: the [574] Budha and Ila of the Rajputs; in short, the earth,[49] the prolific mother, the Isis of Egypt, the Ceres of Greece, the Annapurna (giver of food) of the Rajputs. On some ancient temples dedicated to this Hindu Ceres we have sculptured on the frieze and pedestal of the columns the emblem of abundance, termed the kamakumbha, or vessel of desire, a vase of elegant form, from which branches of the palm are gracefully pendent. Herodotus says that similar water-vessels, filled 670with wheat and barley, were carried in the festival of Isis; and all who have attended to Egyptian antiquities are aware that the god Canopus is depicted under the form of a water-jar, or Nilometer, whose covering bears the head of Osiris.
The Agastya Festival.
—To render the analogy perfect between the vessels emblematic of the Isis of the Nile and the Ganges, there is a festival sacred to the sage Agastya, who presides over the star Canopus, when the sun enters Virgo (Kanya). The kamakumbha is then personified under the epithet kumbhayoni, and the votary is instructed to pour water into a sea-shell, in which having placed white flowers and unground rice, turning his face to the south, he offers it with this incantation: “Hail, Kumbhayoni, born in the sight of Mitra and Varuna (the sun and water divinities), bright as the blossom of the kusa (grass), who sprung from Agni (fire) and the Maruts.” By the prefix of Ganga (the river) to Gauri, we see that the Ganggor festival is essentially sacred to a river-goddess, affording additional proof of the common origin of the rites of the Isis of Egypt and India.The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, considered the Nile as flowing from Osiris, in like manner as the Hindu poet describes the fair Ganga flowing from the head of Iswara, which Sir W. Jones thus classically paints in his hymn to Ganga:
COLUMNS OF TEMPLES AT CHANDRĀVATI.
To face page 670.
The Goddess Ganga.
—Ganga, the river-goddess, like the Nile, is the type of fertility, and like that celebrated stream, has her source amidst the eternal glaciers of Chandragiri or Somagiri (the mountains of the moon); the higher peaks of the gigantic 671Himalaya, where Parvati is represented as ornamenting the tiara of Iswara “with a beamy moon.” In this metaphor, and in his title of Somanatha (lord of the moon), we again have evidence of Iswara, or Siva, after representing the sun, having the satellite moon as his ornament.[50] His Olympus, Kailasa, is studded with that majestic pine, the cedar; thence he is called Kedarnath, ‘lord of the cedar-trees.’[51] The mysteries of Osiris and those of Eleusis[52] were of the same character, commemorative of the first germ of civilization, the culture of the earth, under a variety of names, Ertha, Isis, Diana, Ceres, Ila. It is a curious fact that in the terra-cotta images of Isis, frequently excavated about her temple at Paestum,[53] she holds in her right hand an exact representation of the Hindu lingam and yoni combined; and on the Indian expedition to Egypt, our Hindu soldiers deemed themselves amongst the altars of their own god Iswara (Osiris), from the abundance of his emblematic representatives.The Aghori Ascetics.
—In the festival of Ganggor, as before mentioned, Iswara yields to his consort Gauri, and occupies an unimportant position near her at the water’s edge, meanly clad, smoking intoxicating herbs, and, whether by accident or design, holding the stalk of an onion in full blossom as a mace or club—a plant regarded by some of the Egyptians with veneration, and held by the Hindus generally in detestation: and why they should on such an occasion thus degrade Iswara, I know not. Onion-juice is reluctantly taken when prescribed medicinally, as a powerful stimulant, by those who would reject spirituous liquors; and there are classes, as the Aghori, that worship Iswara in his most degraded form, who will not only devour raw flesh, but that of man; and to whom it is a matter of perfect 672indifference whether the victim was slaughtered or died a natural death. For the honour of humanity, such monsters are few in number; but that they practise [576] these deeds I can testify, from a personal visit to their haunts, where I saw the cave of one of these Troglodyte monsters, in which by his own command he was inhumed; and which will remain closed, until curiosity and incredulity greater than mine may disturb the bones of the Aghori of Abu.The ὠμοφαγία, or eating raw flesh with the blood, was a part of the secret mysteries of Osiris, in commemoration of the happy change in the condition of mankind from savage to civilized life, and intended to deter by disgust the return thereto.[54]
The Buddhists pursued this idea to excess; and in honour of Adiswara, the First, who from his abode of Meru taught them the arts of agriculture, they altogether abandoned that type of savage life, the eating of the flesh of animals,[55] and confined themselves to the fruits of the earth. With these sectarian anti-idolaters, who are almost all of Rajput descent, the beneficent Lakshmi, Sri, or Gauri, is an object of sincere devotion.
Affinities of Hindu to other Mythologies.
—But we must close this digression; for such is the affinity between the mythology of India, Greece, and Egypt, that a bare recapitulation of the numerous surnames of the Hindu goddess of abundance would lead us beyond reasonable limits; all are forms of Parvati or Durga Mata, the Mater Montana of Greece and Rome, an epithet of Cybele or Vesta (according to Diodorus), as the guardian goddess of children, one of the characters of the Rajput ‘Mother of the Mount,’ whose shrine crowns many a pinnacle in Mewar; and who, with the prolific Gauri, is amongst the amiable forms of the universal mother, whose functions are more varied and extensive than her sisters of Egypt and of Greece. Like the Ephesian Diana, Durga wears the crescent on her head. She is also ‘the turreted Cybele,’ the guardian goddess of all places of strength (durga),[56] and like her she is drawn or carried by the lion. As Mata Janavi, ‘the Mother of Births,’ she is Juno 673Lucina: as Padma, ‘whose throne is the lotos,’ she is the fair Isis of the Nile: as Tripura,[57] ‘governing the three worlds,’ and Atmadevi, ‘the Goddess of Souls,’ she is the Hecate Triformis of the Greeks. In short, her power is manifested under every form from the birth, and all the [577] intermediate stages until death; whether Janavi, Gauri, or the terrific Kali, the Proserpine or Kalligeneia of the West.Whoever desires to witness one of the most imposing and pleasing of Hindu festivals, let him repair to Udaipur, and behold the rites of the lotus-queen Padma, the Gauri of Rajasthan.
Chait (Sudi) 8th, which, being after the Ides, is the 23rd of the month, is sacred to Devi, the goddess of every tribe; she is called Asokashtami, and being the ninth night (nauratri) from the opening of their Floralia, they perform the homa, or sacrifice of fire. On this day a grand procession takes place to the Chaugan, and every Rajput worships his tutelary divinity.
The Birth of Rāma.
—Chait (Sudi) 9th is the anniversary of Rama, the grand beacon of the solar race, kept with great rejoicings at Udaipur. Horses and elephants are worshipped, and all the implements of war. A procession takes place to the Chaugan, and the succeeding day, called the Dasahra or tenth, is celebrated in Asoj.The Festival of Kamadeva.
—The last days of spring are dedicated to Kamadeva, the god of love. The scorching winds of the hot season are already beginning to blow, when Flora droops her head, and “the god of love turns anchorite”; yet the rose continues to blossom, and affords the most fragrant chaplets for the Rajputnis, amidst all the heats of summer. Of this the queen of flowers, the jessamine (chameli), white and yellow, the mogra,[58] the champaka, that flourish in extreme heat, the ladies form garlands, which they twine in their dark hair, weave into bracelets, or wear as pendent collars. There is no city in the East where the adorations of the sex to Kamadeva are more fervent than in ‘the city of the rising sun’ (Udayapura). On the 13th and 14th of Chait they sing hymns handed down by the sacred bards:“Hail, god of the flowery bow:[59] hail, warrior with a fish on 674thy banner! hail, powerful divinity, who causeth the firmness of the sage to forsake him!”
“Glory to Madana, to Kama,[60] the god of gods; to Him by whom Brahma [578], Vishnu, Siva, and Indra are filled with emotions of rapture!”—Bhavishya Purana.[61]
Festivals in the month Baisākh: April-May.
—There is but one festival in this month of any note, when the grand procession denominated the ‘Nakkara ki aswari’ (from the equestrians being summoned, as already described, by the grand kettledrums from the Tripolia), takes place; and this is against the canons of the Hindu church, being instituted by the present Rana in S. 1847, a memorable year in the calendar. It was in this year, on the 2nd of Baisakh, that he commanded a repetition of the rites of Gauri, by the name of the Little Ganggor; but this act of impiety was marked by a sudden rise of the waters of the Pichola, the bursting of the huge embankment, and the inundation of the lake’s banks, to the destruction of one-third of the capital: life, property, mansions, trees, all were swept away in the tremendous rush of water, whose ravages are still marked by the site of streets and bazaars now converted into gardens or places of recreation, containing thousands of acres within the walls, subdivided by hedges of the cactus, the natural fence of Mewar, which alike thrives in the valley or covers the most barren spots of her highest hills. But although the superstitious look grave, and add that a son was also taken from him on this very day, yet the Rana persists in maintaining the fête he established; the barge is manned, he and his chiefs circumnavigate the Pichola, regale on ma’ajun, and terrify Varuna (the water-god) with the pyrotechnic exhibitions.Although the court calendar of Udaipur notices only those festivals on which State processions occur, yet there are many minor fêtes, which are neither unimportant nor uninteresting. We shall enumerate a few, alike in Baisakh, Jeth, and Asarh, which are blank as to the Nakkara Aswari.
Savitrivrata Festival.
—On the 29th Baisakh there is a fast common to India peculiar to the women, who perform certain rites under the sacred fig-tree (the vata or pipal), to preserve 675them from widowhood; and hence the name of the fast Savitri-vrata.[62]Festivals in the month Jeth: May-June.
—On the 2nd of Jeth, when the sun is in the zenith, the Rajput ladies commemorate the birth of the sea-born goddess Rambha, the queen of the naiads or Apsaras,[63] whose birth, like that of Venus, was from the froth of the waters; and [579] hence the Rajput bards designate all the fair messengers of heaven by the name of Apsaras, who summon the ‘chosen’ from the field of battle, and convey him to the ‘mansion of the sun.’[64]The Aranya-Shashthi Festival.
—On the 6th of Jeth the ladies have another festival called the Aranya Shashthi, because on this day those desirous of offspring walk in the woods (aranya) to gather and eat certain herbs. Sir W. Jones has remarked the analogy between this and the Druidic ceremony of gathering the mistletoe (also on the Shashthi, or 6th day of the moon), as a preservative against sterility.Festivals in the month Āsārh: June-July.
—Asarh, the initiative month of the periodical rains, has no particular festivity at Udaipur, though in other parts of India the Rathayatra, or procession of the car of Vishnu or Jagannatha (lord of the universe) is well known: this is on the 2nd and the 11th, ‘the night of the gods,’ when Vishnu (the sun) reposes four months.Festivals in the month Sāwan: July-August.
—Sawan, classically Sravana. There are two important festivals, with processions, in this month.The Tij.
—The third, emphatically called ‘the Tij’ (third), is sacred to the mountain goddess Parvati, being the day on which, after long austerities, she was reunited to Siva: she accordingly declared it holy, and proclaimed that whoever invoked her on that day should possess whatever was desired. The Tij is 676accordingly reverenced by the women, and the husbandman of Rajasthan, who deems it a most favourable day to take possession of land, or to reinhabit a deserted dwelling. When on the expulsion of the predatory powers from the devoted lands of Mewar, proclamations were disseminated far and wide, recalling the expatriated inhabitants, they showed their love of country by obedience to the summons. Collecting their goods and chattels, they congregated from all parts, but assembled at a common rendezvous to make their entry to the bapota, ‘land of their sires,’ on the Tij of Sawan. On this fortunate occasion, a band of three hundred men, women, and children, with colours flying, drums beating, the females taking precedence with brass vessels of water on their heads, and chanting the suhaila (song of joy), entered the town of Kapasan, to revisit their desolate dwellings [580], and return thanks on their long-abandoned altars to Parvati[65] for a happiness they had never contemplated.Red garments are worn by all classes on this day, and at Jaipur clothes of this colour are presented by the Raja to all the chiefs. At that court the Tij is kept with more honour than at Udaipur. An image of Parvati on the Tij, richly attired, is borne on a throne by women chanting hymns, attended by the prince and his nobles. On this day, fathers present red garments and stuffs to their daughters.
The Nāgpanchami Festival: Serpent Worship.
—The 5th is the Nagpanchami, or day set apart for the propitiation of the chief of the reptile race, the Naga or serpent. Few subjects have more occupied the notice of the learned world than the mysteries of Ophite worship, which are to be traced wherever there existed a remnant of civilization, or indeed of humanity; among the savages of the savannahs[66] of America, and the magi of Fars, with whom it was the type of evil,—their Ahrimanes.[67] The Nagas, or serpent-genii of the Rajputs, have a semi-human structure, precisely as Diodorus describes the snake-mother of 677the Scythae, in whose country originated this serpent-worship, engrafted on the tenets of Zardusht, of the Puranas of the priesthood of Egypt, and on the fables of early Greece.[68] Dupuis, Volney, and other expounders of the mystery, have given an astronomical solution to what they deem a varied ramification of an ancient fable, of which that of Greece, ‘the dragon guarding the fruits of Hesperides,’ may be considered the most elegant version. Had these learned men seen those ancient sculptures in India, which represent ‘the fall,’ they might have changed their opinion. The traditions of the Jains or Buddhists (originating in the land of the Takshaks,[69] or Turkistan) assert the creation of the human species in pairs, called jugal, who fed off the ever-fructifying kalpa-vriksha, which possesses all the characters of the Tree of Life, like it bearingwhich was termed amrita, and rendered them immortal. A drawing, brought by [581] Colonel Coombs, from a sculptured column in a cave temple in the south of India, represents the first pair at the foot of this ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth. The tempter appears to be at that part of his discourse, when
This is a curious subject to be engraved on an ancient pagan temple; if Jain or Buddhist, the interest would be considerably enhanced. On this festival, at Udaipur, as well as throughout India, they strew particular plants about the threshold, to prevent the entrance of reptiles.
The Rākhi Festival.
—This festival, which is held on the last day of Sawan, was instituted in honour of the good genii, when Durvasas the sage instructed Salono (the genius or nymph presiding over the month of Sawan) to bind on rakhis, or bracelets, as charms to avert evil. The ministers of religion and females alone are privileged to bestow these charmed wrist-bands. The ladies of 678Rajasthan, either by their handmaids or the family priests, send a bracelet as the token of their esteem to such as they adopt as brothers, who return gifts in acknowledgement of the honour. The claims thus acquired by the fair are far stronger than those of consanguinity: for illustration of which I may refer to an incident already related in the annals of this house.[70] Sisters also present their brothers with clothes on this day, who make an offering of gold in return.[71]This day is hailed by the Brahmans as indemnifying them for their expenditure of silk and spangles, with which they decorate the wrists of all who are likely to make a proper return.
Festivals in the month Bhādon: August-September.
—On the 3rd there is a grand procession to the Chaugan; and the 8th, or Ashtami, is the birth of Krishna, which will be described at large in an account of Nathdwara. There are several holidays in this month, when the periodical [582] rains are in full descent; but that on the last but one (Sudi 14, or 29th) is the most remarkable.Ancestor Worship.
—On this day[72] commences the worship of the ancestorial manes (the Pitrideva, or father-gods) of the Rajputs, which continues for fifteen days. The Rana goes to the cemetery at Ara, and performs at the cenotaph of each of his forefathers the rites enjoined, consisting of ablutions, prayers, and the hanging of garlands of flowers, and leaves sacred to the dead, on their monuments. Every chieftain does the same amongst the altars of the ‘great ancients’ (bara burha); or, if absent from their estates, they accompany their sovereign to Ara.1. Travels in Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 33.
2. Bhumiputra.
3. Vanaputra.
4. Suryas and Induputras.
5. [For the Vedic cult of Sūrya see Macdonell, “Vedic Mythology,” Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, 1897, p. 30 ff.]
6. The Sauromatae or Sarmatians of early Europe, as well as the Syrians, were most probably colonies of the same Suryavansi who simultaneously peopled the shores of the Caspian and Mediterranean, and the banks of the Indus and Ganges. Many of the tribes described by Strabo as dwelling around the Caspian are enumerated amongst the thirty-six royal races of India. One of these, the Sakasenae, supposed to be the ancestors of our own Saxon race, settled themselves on the Araxes in Armenia, adjoining Albania. [There are no grounds for these comparisons.]
7. [There are no grounds for this classification.]
8. Long after the overthrow of the Greek kingdom of Bactria by the Yuti or Getes [Sakas] this region was popular and flourishing. In the year 120 before Christ, De Guignes says: “Dans ce pays on trouvait d’excellens grains, du vin de vigne, plus de cent villes, tant grandes que petites. Il est aussi fait mention du Tahia situé au midi du Gihon, et où il y a de grandes villes murées. Le général chinois y vit des toiles de l’Inde et autres marchandises, etc., etc.” (Hist. Gén. des Huns, vol. i. p. 51).
9. Yavan or Javan is a celebrated link of the Indu (lunar) genealogical chain; nor need we go to Ionia for it, though the Ionians may be a colony descended from Javan, the ninth from Yayati, who was the third son of Ayu, the ancestor of the Hindu as well as of the Tatar Induvansi. [Yavana is the general term for a foreigner, especially the non-Hindu tribes of the N.W. Frontier, and those beyond them.] The Asuras, who are so often described as invaders of India, and which word has ordinarily a mere irreligious acceptation, I firmly believe to mean the Assyrians. [This theory was adopted by J. Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, 34.]
10. [Such analogies of custom do not prove ethnical identity.]
11. [The theory breaks down, because the name of the sword of Argantýr was Tyrfing, or better Tyrfingr, the derivation of which word, as Mr. H. M. Chadwick kindly informs me, according to Vigfússon’s Icelandic Dictionary, is from tyrfi, a resinous fir-tree used for kindling a fire, because the sword flamed like resinous wood.]
12. See Turner’s History of Anglo-Saxons for Indo-Scythic words.
13. There were no less than four distinguished leaders of this name amongst the vassals of the last Rajput emperor of Delhi; and one of them, who turned traitor to his sovereign and joined Shihabu-d-din, was actually a Scythian, and of the Gakkhar race, which maintained their ancient habits of polyandry even in Babur’s time. The Haoli Rao Hamira was lord of Kangra and the Gakkhars of Pamir.
14. Turner, when discussing the history of the Sakai, or Sakaseni, of the Caspian, whom he justly supposes to be the Saxons of the Baltic, takes occasion to introduce some words of Scythic origin (preserved by ancient writers), to almost every one of which, without straining etymology, we may give a Sanskrit origin. [There is no ground for ascribing a Scythic origin to the proper names in the text.]
| Scythic. | Sanskrit or Bhakha. | |
| Exampaios | sacred ways | Agham is the sacred book; pai and pada, a foot; pantha, a path. |
| Arimu | one | Ad is the first; whence Adima, or man. |
| Spou | an eye. | |
| Oior | a man. | |
| Pata | to kill | Badh, to kill. |
| Tahiti | the chief deity is Vesta | Tap is heat or flame; the type of Vesta. |
| Papaios | ” ” | Jupiter Baba, or Bapa, the universal father. The Hindu Jiva-pitri, or Father of Life [?]. |
| Oitosuros | ” ” Apollo | Aitiswara, or Sun-God, applicable to Vishnu, who has every attribute of Apollo; from ait, contraction of aditya, the sun. |
| Artimpasa, or Aripasa | ” ” Venus | Apsaras because born from the froth or essence, ‘sara,’ of the waters, ‘ap’ [‘going in the water’]. |
| Thamimasadus | ” ” Neptune | Thoenatha; or God of the Waters. |
| Apia | wife of Papaios, or Earth | Amba, Ama, Uma, is the universal mother; wife of ‘Baba Adam,’ as they term the universal father. |
See Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 35. [Many of the identifications are obsolete.]
15. Sir W. Jones, “On the Lunar Year of the Hindus,” Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 257.
16. Bhaskara saptami, in honour of the sun, as a form of Vishnu (Varaha Purana) Makari, from the sun entering the constellation Makara (Pisces), the first of the solar Magha (see Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 273).
18. This word appears to have the same import as Thor, the sun-god and war divinity of the Scandinavians. [? Thāwar, Saturday; Skt. sthāvara, ‘stationary.’]
19. Odin is also called As or ‘lord’; the Gauls also called him Oes or Es, and with a Latin termination Hesus, whom Lucan calls Esus; Edda, vol. ii. pp. 45-6. The celebrated translator of these invaluable remnants of ancient superstitions, by which alone light can be thrown on the origin of nations, observes that Es or Oes is the name for God with all the Celtic races. So it was with the Tuscans, doubtless from the Sanskrit, or rather from a more provincial tongue, the common contraction of Iswara, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Syr, the sun-god. [These words have, of course, no connexion. Syria perhaps derives its name from the Suri, a north-Euphratian tribe (Encyclopaedia Biblica, iv. 4845).]
20. Which Mallet, from Hesychius, interprets ‘good star.’ [The name Goetosyrus or Octosyrus (Herodotus iv. 59) is so uncertain in form that it is useless to propose etymologies for it (E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 86). Rawlinson (Herodotus, 3rd ed. ii. 93) compares Greek αἴθος, Skt. sūrya, in the sense ‘bright, burning Sun.’]
21. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 42.
22. [Much of this is from Sir W. Jones, Wilford and Paterson (Asiatic Researches, i. 253, iii. 141, viii. 48). Herodotus (i. 216) ascribes the custom of Sun sacrifice to the Massagetae.]
23. [The Mughal emperors followed the same practice (Manucci i. 98).]
24. In his delight for this diversion, the Rajput evinces his Scythic propensity. The grand hunts of the last Chauhan emperor often led him into warfare, for Prithiraj was a poacher of the first magnitude, and one of his battles with the Tatars was while engaged in field sports on the Ravi. The heir of Jenghiz Khan was chief huntsman, the highest office of the State amongst the Scythic Tatars; as Ajanbahu, alike celebrated in either field of war and sport, was chief huntsman to the Chauhan emperor of Delhi, whose bard enters minutely into the subject, describing all the variety of dogs of chase.
25. A hog in Hindi; in Persian khuk, nearly our hog [?].
26. Chief of Salumbar.
27. Chief of Hamirgarh.
28. [On the slaughter of the boar representing a corn-spirit see Sir J. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. Part v. vol. i. 298 ff.; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed. 290 f.]
29. He has been the father of more than one hundred children, legitimate and illegitimate, though very few are living.
30. That this can be done without any loss of dignity by the Sahib log (a name European gentlemen have assumed) is well known to those who may have partaken of the hospitalities of that honourable man, and brave and zealous officer, Colonel James Skinner, C.B., at Hansi. That his example is worthy of imitation in the mode of commanding, is best evinced by the implicit and cheerful obedience his men pay to his instructions when removed from his personal control. He has passed through the ordeal of nearly thirty years of unremitted service, and from the glorious days of Delhi and Laswari under Lake, to the last siege of Bharatpur, James Skinner has been second to none. In obtaining for this gallant and modest officer the order of the Bath, Lord Combermere must have been applauded by every person who knows the worth of him who bears it, which includes the whole army of Bengal. [James Skinner, 1778-1841. See Compton, Military Adventurers, 389 ff.; Buckland, Dict. Indian Biography, s.v.]
31. Evinced in the presentation of the sriphala, the fruit of Sri, which is the coco-nut, emblematic of fruitfulness.
32. Another point of resemblance to the Roman Saturnalia.
33. A hall so called in honour of Ganesa, or Janus, whose effigies adorn the entrance. [Janus probably = Dianus: Ganesa, ‘lord of the troops of inferior deities’ (gana).]
36. [See Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii. 868 f.]
37. It fell on the 18th March 1819.
38. [For festivals in honour of Gauri see IA, xxxv. (1906) 61.]
39. Personification of spring.
40. Here we have Gauri as the type of the earth.
41. [The Gardens of Adonis, for which see Sir J. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. i. 236 ff.]
42. Here the Hindu mixes Persian with his Sanskrit, and produces the mongrel dialect Hindi.
43. Takht, Pat, Persian and Sanskrit, alike meaning board.
44. The Ephesian Diana is the twin sister of Gauri, and can have a Sanskrit derivation in Devianna, ‘the goddess of food,’ contracted Deanna, though commonly Anna-de or Anna-devi, and Annapurna, ‘filling with food,’ or the nourisher, the name applied by ‘the mother of mankind,’ when she places the repast before the messenger of heaven:
[Diana is the feminine form of Dianus, Janus.]
45. ii. 59-64.
46. Analysis of Ancient Mythology, p. 312.
47. [Germania, ix.]
48. Hesus is probably derived from Iswara, or Isa, the god. Toth was the Egyptian, and Teutates the Scandinavian, Mercury. I have elsewhere attempted to trace the origin of the Suevi, Su, or Yeuts of Yeutland (Jutland), to Yute, Getae, or Jat, of Central Asia, who carried thence the religion of Buddha into India as well as to the Baltic. There is little doubt that the races called Jotner, Jaeter, Jotuns, Jacts, and Yeuts, who followed the Asi into Scandinavia, migrated from the Jaxartes, the land of the great Getae (Massagetae); the leader was supposed to be endued with supernatural powers, like the Buddhist, called Vidiavan, or magician, whose haunts adjoined Aria, the cradle of the Magi. They are designated Aripunta [?], under the sign of a serpent, the type of Budha; or Ahriman, ‘the foe of man.’ [Much of this crude speculation is taken from Wilford (Asiatic Researches, iii. 133).]
49. The German Ertha, to show her kindred to the Ila of the Rajputs, had her car drawn by a cow, under which form the Hindus typify the earth (prithivi).
50. Let it be borne in mind that Indu, Chandra, Soma, are all epithets for ‘the moon,’ or as he is classically styled (in an inscription of the famous Kumarpal, which I discovered in Chitor), Nisanath, the ruler of darkness (Nisa).
51. [Kedārnāth has, of course, no connexion with the cedar tree. The origin of the name ‘Lord of Kedār’ is unknown; probably Kedār was an old cult title of Siva.]
52. I have before remarked that a Sanskrit etymology might be given to this word in Ila and Isa, i.e. ‘the goddess of the earth’ [?] [p. 636, note].
53. I was informed at Naples that four thousand of these were dug out of one spot, and I obtained while at Paestum many fragments and heads of this goddess.
54. Prichard’s Researches into the Physical History of Man, p. 369. [For a full discussion of ὠμοφαγία see Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 483 ff.]
55. The Buddhists of Tartary make no scruple of eating flesh.
56. Durga, ‘a fort’; as Suvarnadurg, ‘the golden castle,’ etc., etc.
57. Literally Tripoli, ‘the three cities,’ pura, polis.
58. [The double jasmin (Michelia champaka).]
59. Cupid’s bow is formed of a garland of flowers.
60. Madana, he who intoxicates with desire (kama), both epithets of the god of love. The festivals on the 13th and 14th are called Madana trayodasi (the tenth) and Chaturdasi (fourteenth).
61. Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 278.
62. [Savitri-vrata means ‘the vow to Savitri,’ and has no connexion with the vata or banyan-tree. But the tree is worshipped in connexion with it on 15th light or dark fortnight of the month Jeth (Census Report, Baroda, 1901, i. 127).]
63. Ap, ‘water,’ and sara, ‘froth or essence.’ [The word means ‘going in the waters, or between the waters of the clouds.’]
64. The Romans held the calends of June (generally Jeth) sacred to the goddess Carna, significant of the sun. Carneus was the sun-god of the Celts, and a name of Apollo at Sparta, and other Grecian cities. The Karneia was a festival in honour of Apollo.
65. The story of the vigils of Parvati, preparatory to her being reunited to her lord, consequent to her sacrifice as Sati, is the counterpart of the Grecian fable of Cybele, her passion for, and marriage with, the youth Atys or Papas, the Baba, or universal father, of the Hindus.
66. How did a word of Persian growth come to signify ‘the boundless brake’ of the new world?
67. Ari, ‘a foe’; manus, ‘man.’ [Angro Mainyush, ‘destructive spirit.’]
68. [There is no reason to believe that snake-worship was not independently practised in India.]
69. This is the snake-race of India, the foes of the Pandus.
71. I returned from three to five pieces of gold for the rakhis sent by my adopted sisters; from one of whom, the sister of the Rana, I annually received this pledge by one of her handmaids; three of them I have yet in my possession, though I never saw the donor, who is now no more. I had, likewise, some presented through the family priest, from the Bundi queen-mother, with whom I have conversed for hours, though she was invisible to me; and from the ladies of rank of the chieftains’ families, but one of whom I ever beheld, though they often called upon me for the performance of brotherly offices in consequence of such tie. There is a delicacy in this custom, with which the bond uniting the cavaliers of Europe to the service of the fair, in the days of chivalry, will not compare.
72. Sacred to Vishnu, with the title of Ananta, or infinite—Bhavishyottara. (See Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 291.) Here Vishnu appears as ‘lord of the manes.’
CHAPTER 22
Khadga Sthapana, Sword Worship.
—The festival in which this imposing rite occurs is the Nauratri,[1] sacred to the god of war, commencing on the first of the month Asoj. It is essentially martial, and confined to the Rajput, who on the departure of the monsoon finds himself at liberty to indulge his passion whether for rapine or revenge, both which in these tropical regions are necessarily suspended during the rains. Arguing from the order of the passions, we may presume that the first objects of emblematic worship were connected with war [583], and we accordingly find the highest reverence paid to arms by every nation of antiquity. The Scythic warrior of Central Asia, the intrepid Gete, admitted no meaner representative of the god of battle than his own scimitar.[2] He worshipped it, he swore by it; it was buried with him, in order that he might appear before the martial divinity in the other world as became his worshipper on earth: for the Gete of Transoxiana, from the earliest ages, not only believed in the soul’s immortality, and in the doctrine of rewards and punishments hereafter, but, according to the father of history, he was a monotheist; of which fact he has left a memorable proof in the punishment of the celebrated Anacharsis, who, on his return from a visit to Thales and his brother philosophers of Greece, attempted to introduce into the land of the Saka (Sakatai) the corrupted polytheism of Athens.If we look westward from this the central land of earliest 680civilization, to Dacia, Thrace, Pannonia, the seats of the Thyssagetae or western Getae, we find the same form of adoration addressed to the emblem of Mars, as mentioned by Xenophon in his memorable retreat, and practised by Alaric and his Goths, centuries afterwards, in the Acropolis of Athens. If we transport ourselves to the shores of Scandinavia, amongst the Cimbri and Getae of Jutland, to the Ultima Thule, wherever the name of Gete prevails, we shall find the same adoration paid by the Getic warrior to his sword.
The Frisian Frank also of Gothic race, adhered to this worship, and transmitted it with the other rites of the Getic warrior of the Jaxartes; such as the adoration of the steed, sacred to the sun, the great god of the Massagetae, as well as of the Rajput, who sacrificed it at the annual feast, or with his arms and wife burnt it on his funeral pile. Even the kings of the ‘second race’ kept up the religion of their Scythic sires from the Jaxartes, and the bones of the war-horse of Chilperic were exhumed with those of the monarch. These rites, as well as those long-cherished chivalrous notions, for which the Salian Franks have ever been conspicuous [584], had their birth in Central Asia; for though contact with the more polished Arab softened the harsh character of the western warrior, his thirst for glory, the romantic charm which fed his passion, and his desire to please the fair, he inherited from his ancestors on the shores of the Baltic, which were colonized from the Oxus. Whether Charlemagne addressed his sword as Joyeuse,[3] or the Scandinavian hero Angantýr as the enchanted blade Tyrfing (Hialmar’s bane), each came from one common origin, the people which invented the custom of Khadga Sthapana, or ‘adoration of the sword.’ But neither the falchion ‘made by the dwarfs for Suafurlama,’ nor the redoubled sword of Bayard with which he dubbed the first Francis,—not even the enchanted brand of Ariosto’s hero, can for a moment compare with the double-edged khanda (scimitar) annually worshipped by the chivalry of Mewar. Before I descant on this monstrous blade, I shall give an abstract of the ceremonies on each of the nine days sacred to the god of war.
The Dasahra Festival.
—On the 1st of Asoj, after fasting, ablution, and prayer on the part of the prince and his household, the double-edged khanda is removed from the hall of arms 681(ayudhsala), and having received the homage (puja) of the court, it is carried in procession to the Kishanpol (gate of Kishan), where it is delivered to the Raj Jogi,[4] the Mahants, and band of Jogis assembled in front of the temple of Devi ‘the goddess,’ adjoining the portal of Kishan.[5] By these, the monastic militant adorers of Hara, the god of battle, the brand emblematic of the divinity is placed[6] on the altar before the image of his divine consort. At three in the afternoon the nakkaras, or grand kettle-drums, proclaim from the Tripolia[7] the signal for the assemblage of the chiefs with their retainers; and the Rana and his cavalcade proceed direct to the stables, when a buffalo is sacrificed in honour of the war-horse. Thence the procession moves to the temple of Devi, where the Raja Krishan (Godi) has proceeded. Upon this, the Rana seats himself close to the Raj Jogi, presents two pieces of [585] silver and a coco-nut, performs homage to the sword (khadga), and returns to the palace.Asoj 2nd. In similar state he proceeds to the Chaugan, their Champ de Mars, where a buffalo is sacrificed; and on the same day another buffalo victim is felled by the nervous arm of a Rajput, near the Toranpol, or triumphal gate. In the evening the Rana goes to the temple of Amba Mata, the universal mother, when several goats and buffaloes bleed to the goddess.
The 3rd. Procession to the Chaugan, when another buffalo is offered; and in the afternoon five buffaloes and two rams are sacrificed to Harsiddh Mata.[8]
On the 4th, as on every one of the nine days, the first visit is to the Champ de Mars: the day opens with the slaughter of a buffalo. The Rana proceeds to the temple of Devi, when he worships the sword, and the standard of the Raj Jogi, to whom, as the high-priest of Siva, the god of war, he pays homage, and 682makes offering of sugar, and a garland of roses. A buffalo having been previously fixed to a stake near the temple, the Rana sacrifices him with his own hand, by piercing him from his travelling throne (raised on men’s shoulders and surrounded by his vassals) with an arrow. In the days of his strength, he seldom failed almost to bury the feather in the flank of the victim; but on the last occasion his enfeebled arm made him exclaim with Prithiraj, when, captive and blind, he was brought forth to amuse the Tartar despot, “I draw not the bow as in the days of yore.”
On the 5th, after the usual sacrifice at the Chaugan, and an elephant fight, the procession marches to the temple of Asapurna (Hope); a buffalo and a ram are offered to the goddess adored by all the Rajputs, and the tutelary divinity of the Chauhans. On this day the lives of some victims are spared at the intercession of the Nagar-Seth, or chief-magistrate,[9] and those of his faith, the Jains.
On the 6th, the Rana visits the Chaugan, but makes no sacrifice. In the afternoon, prayers and victims to Devi; and in the evening the Rana visits Bhikharinath, the chief of the Kanphara Jogis, or split-ear ascetics.
The 7th. After the daily routine at the Chaugan, and sacrifices to Devi (the goddess of destruction), the chief equerry is commanded to adorn the steeds with their new caparisons, and lead them to be bathed in the lake. At night, the sacred fire (hom) is kindled, and a buffalo and a ram are sacrificed to Devi; the Jogis [586] are called up and feasted on boiled rice and sweetmeats. On the conclusion of this day, the Rana and his chieftains visit the hermitage of Sukharia Baba, an anchorite of the Jogi sect.
8th. There is the homa, or fire-sacrifice in the palace. In the afternoon, the prince, with a select cavalcade, proceeds to the village of Samina, beyond the city walls, and visits a celebrated Gosain.[10]
9th. There is no morning procession. The horses from the royal stables, as well as those of the chieftains, are taken to the 683lake, and bathed by their grooms, and on returning from purification they are caparisoned in their new housings, led forth, and receive the homage of their riders, and the Rana bestows a largess on the master of the horse, the equerries, and grooms. At three in the afternoon, the nakkaras having thrice sounded, the whole State insignia, under a select band, proceed to Mount Matachal, and bring home the sword. When its arrival in the court of the palace is announced, the Rana advances and receives it with due homage from the hands of the Raj Jogi, who is presented with a khilat; while the Mahant, who has performed all the austerities during the nine days, has his patra[11] filled with gold and silver coin. The whole of the Jogis are regaled, and presents are made to their chiefs. The elephants and horses again receive homage, and the sword, the shield, and spear are worshipped within the palace. At three in the morning the prince takes repose.
The 10th, or Dasahra,[12] is a festival universally known in India, and respected by all classes, although entirely military, being commemorative of the day on which the deified Rama commenced his expedition to Lanka for the redemption of Sita;[13] the ‘tenth of Asoj’ is consequently deemed by the Rajput a fortunate day for warlike enterprise. The day commences with a visit from the [587] prince or chieftain to his spiritual guide. Tents and carpets are prepared at the Chaugan or Matachal mount, where the artillery is sent; and in the afternoon the Rana, his chiefs, and their retainers repair to the field of Mars, worship the khejra tree,[14] liberate the nilkanth or jay (sacred to Rama), and return amidst a discharge of guns.
68411th. In the morning, the Rana, with all the State insignia, the kettledrums sounding in the rear, proceeds towards the Matachal mount, and takes the muster of his troops, amidst discharges of cannon, tilting, and display of horsemanship. The spectacle is imposing even in the decline of this house. The hilarity of the party, the diversified costume, the various forms, colours, and decorations of the turbans, in which some have the heron plume, or sprigs from some shrub sacred to the god of war; the clusters of lances, shining matchlocks, and black bucklers, the scarlet housings of the steeds, and waving pennons, recall forcibly the glorious days of the devoted Sanga, or the immortal Partap, who on such occasions collected round the black changi and crimson banner of Mewar a band of sixteen thousand of his own kin and clan, whose lives were their lord’s and their country’s. The shops and bazaars are ornamented with festoons of flowers and branches of trees, while the costliest cloths and brocades are extended on screens, to do honour to their prince; the toran (or triumphal arch) is placed before the tent, on a column of which he places one hand as he alights, and before entering makes several circumambulations. All present offer their nazars to the prince, the artillery fires, and the bards raise ‘the song of praise,’ celebrating the glories of the past; the fame of Samra, who fell with thirteen thousand of his kin on the Ghaggar; of Arsi and his twelve brave sons, who gave themselves as victims for the salvation of Chitor; of Kumbha, Lakha, Sanga, Partap, Amra, Raj, all descended of the blood of Rama, whose exploits, three thousand five hundred years before, they are met to celebrate. The situation of Matachal is well calculated for such a spectacle, as indeed is the whole ground from the palace through the Delhi portal to the mount, on which is erected one of the several castles commanding the approaches to the city. The fort is dedicated to Mata, though it would not long remain stable (achal) before a battery of thirty-six pounders. The guns are drawn up about the termination of the slope of the natural glacis; the Rana and his court remain on horseback [588] half up the ascent; and while every chief or vassal is at liberty to leave his ranks, and “witch the world with noble horsemanship,” there is nothing tumultuous, nothing offensive in their mirth.
The steeds purchased since the last festival are named, and as the cavalcade returns, their grooms repeat the appellations 685of each as the word is passed by the master of the horse; as Baj Raj, ‘the royal steed’; Hayamor, ‘the chief of horses’; Manika, ‘the gem’; Bajra, ‘the thunderbolt,’ etc., etc. On returning to the palace, gifts are presented by the Rana to his chiefs. The Chauhan chief of Kotharia claims the apparel which his prince wears on this day, in token of the fidelity of his ancestor to the minor, Udai Singh, in Akbar’s wars. To others, a fillet or balaband for the turban is presented; but all such compliments are regulated by precedent or immediate merit.
The Toran Arch.
—Thus terminates the Nauratri festival sacred to the god of war, which in every point of view is analogous to the autumnal festival of the Scythic warlike nations, when these princes took the muster of their armies, and performed the same rites to the great celestial luminary.[15] I have presented to the antiquarian reader these details, because it is in minute particulars that analogous customs are detected. Thus the temporary toran, or triumphal arch, erected in front of the tent at Mount Mataehala would scarcely claim the least notice, but that we discover even in this emblem the origin of the triumphal arches of antiquity, with many other rites which may be traced to the Indo-Scythic races of Asia. The toran in its original form consisted of two columns and an architrave, constituting the number three, sacred to Hara, the god of war. In the progress of the arts the architrave gave way to the Hindu arch, which consisted of two or more ribs without the keystone, the apex being the perpendicular junction of the archivaults; nor is the arc of the toran semicircular, or any segment of a circle, but with that graceful curvature which stamps with originality one of the arches of the Normans, who may have brought it from their ancient seats on the Oxus, whence it may also have been [589] carried within the Indus. The cromlech, or trilithic altar in the centre 686of all those monuments called Druidic, is most probably a toran, sacred to the Sun-god Belenus, like Har, or Balsiva, the god of battle, to whom as soon as a temple is raised the toran is erected, and many of these are exquisitely beautiful.Gates.
—An interesting essay might be written on portes and torans, their names and attributes, and the genii presiding as their guardians. Amongst all the nations of antiquity, the portal has had its peculiar veneration: to pass it was a privilege regarded as a mark of honour. The Jew Haman, in the true Oriental style, took post at the king’s gate as an inexpugnable position. The most pompous court in Europe takes its title from its porte, where, as at Udaipur, all alight. The Tripolia, or triple portal, the entry to the magnificent terrace in front of the Rana’s palace, consists, like the Roman arcs of triumph, of three arches, still preserving the numeral sacred to the god of battle, one of whose titles is Tripura, which may be rendered Tripoli, or lord of the three places of abode, or cities, but applied in its extensive sense to the three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell. From the Sanskrit Pola we have the Greek πύλη, a gate, or pass; and in the guardian or Polia, the πυλωρός or porter; while to this langue mère our own language is indebted, not only for its portes and porters, but its doors (dwara).[16] Pylos signified also a pass; so in Sanskrit these natural barriers are called Palas, and hence the poetical epithet applied to the aboriginal mountain tribes of Rajasthan, namely, Palipati and Palindra, ‘lords of the pass.’[17]Ganesa.
—One of the most important of the Roman divinities was Janus, whence Januae, or portals, of which he was the guardian.[18] A resemblance between the Ganesa of the Hindu pantheon and the Roman Janus has been pointed out by Sir W. Jones, but his analogy extended little beyond nominal similarity. The fable of the birth of Ganesa furnishes us with the origin of the worship of Janus, and as it has never been given, I shall transcribe it from the bard Chand. Ganesa is the chief of the genii[19] attendant on the god of war, and was expressly formed by 687Uma, the Hindu Juno, to guard the entrance of her caverned retreat in the [590] Caucasus, where she took refuge from the tyranny of the lord of Kailasa (Olympus), whose throne is fixed amidst eternal snows on the summit of this peak of the gigantic Caucasus (Koh-khasa).[20]“Strife arose between Mahadeo and the faithful Parvati: she fled to the mountains and took refuge in a cave. A crystal fountain tempted her to bathe, but shame was awakened; she dreaded being seen. Rubbing her frame, she made an image of man; with her nail she sprinkled it with the water of life, and placed it as guardian at the entrance of the cave.” Engrossed with the recollection of Parvati,[21] Siva went to Karttikeya[22] for tidings of his mother, and together they searched each valley and recess, and at length reached the spot where a figure was placed at the entrance of a cavern. As the chief of the gods prepared to explore this retreat, he was stopped by the Polia. In a rage he struck off his head with his discus (chakra), and in the gloom discovered the object of his search. Surprised and dismayed, she demanded how he obtained ingress: “Was there no guardian at the entrance?” The furious Siva replied that he had cut off his head. On hearing this, the mountain-goddess was enraged, and weeping, exclaimed, “You have destroyed my child.” The god, determined to recall him to life, decollated a young elephant, replaced the head he had cut off, and naming him Ganesa, decreed that in every resolve his name should be the first invoked.
“Oh, Ganesa! thou art a mighty lord; thy single tusk[23] is beautiful, and demands the tribute of praise from the Indra of song.[24] Thou art the chief of the human race; the destroyer of unclean spirits; the remover of fevers, whether daily or tertian. Thy bard sounds thy praise; let my work be accomplished!”
Thus Ganesa is the chief of the Di minores of the Hindu pantheon, as the etymology of the word indicates,[25] and like Janus, was entrusted with the gates of heaven [591]; while of his right to preside over peace and war, the fable related affords abundant testimony. Ganesa is the first invoked and propitiated[26] on every undertaking, whether warlike or pacific. The warrior implores his counsel; the banker indites his name at the commencement of every letter; the architect places his image in the foundation of every edifice; and the figure of Ganesa is either sculptured or painted at the door of every house as a protection against evil. Our Hindu Janus is represented as four-armed, and holding the disk (chakra), the war-shell, the club, and the lotos. Ganesa is not, however, bifrons, like the Roman guardian of portals. In every transaction he is adi, or the first, though the Hindu does not, like the Roman, open the year with his name. I shall conclude with remarking that one of the portes of every Hindu city is named the Ganesa Pol, as well as some conspicuous entrance to the palace: thus Udaipur has its Ganesa dwara, who also gives a name to the hall, the Ganesa deori; and his shrine will be found on the ascent of every sacred mount, as at Abu, where it is placed close to a fountain on the abrupt face about twelve hundred feet from the base. There is likewise a hill sacred to him in Mewar called Ganesa Gir, tantamount to the Mons Janiculum of the eternal city. The companion of this divinity is a rat, who indirectly receives a portion of homage, and with full as much right as the bird emblematic of Minerva.[27]
689We have abandoned the temple of the warlike divinity (Devi), the sword of Mars, and the triumphal toran, to invoke Ganesa. It will have been remarked that the Rana aids himself to dismount by placing his hand on one of the columns of the toran, an act which is pregnant with a martial allusion, as are indeed the entire ceremonials of the “worship of the sword.”
Analogies to Western Customs. Oaths by the Sword.
—It might be deemed folly to trace the rites and superstitions of so remote an age and nation to Central Asia; but when we find the superstitions of the Indo-Scythic Getae prevailing within the Indus, in Dacia, and on the shores of the Baltic, we may assume their common origin; for although the worship of arms has prevailed among all warlike tribes, there is a peculiar respect paid to the sword amongst the Getic races. The Greeks and Romans paid devotion to their arms, and swore by them. The Greeks brought their habits from ancient Thrace, where the custom existed of presenting as the greatest gift that peculiar kind of sword called acinaces,[28] which we dare not derive from the Indo-Scythic or Sanskrit asi, a [592] sword. When Xenophon,[29] on his retreat, reached the court of Seuthes, he agreed to attach his corps to the service of the Thracian. His officers on introduction, in the true Oriental style, presented their nazars, or gifts of homage, excepting Xenophon, who, deeming himself too exalted to make the common offering, presented his sword, probably only to be touched in recognition of his services being accepted. The most powerful oath of the Rajput, next to his sovereign’s throne (gaddi ka an), is by his arms, ya silah ka an, ‘by this weapon!’ as, suiting the action to the word, he puts his hand on his dagger, never absent from his girdle. Dhal, tarwar, ka an, ‘by my sword and shield!’ The shield is deemed the only fit vessel or salver on which to present gifts; and accordingly at a Rajput court, shawls, brocades, scarfs, and jewels are always spread before the guest on bucklers.[30]In the Runic “incantation of Hervor,” daughter of Angantýr, at the tomb of her father, she invokes the dead to deliver the enchanted brand Tyrfing, or “Hjalmr’s bane,” which, according 690to Getic custom, was buried in his tomb; she adjures him and his brothers “by all their arms, their shields, etc.” It is depicted with great force, and, translated, would deeply interest a Rajput, who might deem it the spell by which the Khanda of Hamira, which he annually worships, was obtained.
Hervor—“Awake, Angantýr! Hervor, the only daughter of thee and Suafu, doth awaken thee. Give me out of the tomb the tempered sword which the dwarfs made for Suafurlama.
“Can none of Eyvors’[31] sons speak with me out of the habitations of the dead? Hervardur,[31] Hurvardur?”[31]
The tomb at length opens, the inside of which appears on fire, and a reply is sung within:
Angantýr—“Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise the dead, why dost thou call so? I was not buried either by father or friends; two who lived after me got Tyrfing, one of whom is now in possession thereof [593].”
Hervor—“The dead shall never enjoy rest unless Angantýr deliver me Tyrfing, that cleaveth shields, and killed Hjalmr.”[32]
Angantýr—“Young maid, thou art of manlike courage, who dost rove by night to tombs, with spear engraven with magic spells,[33] with helm and coat of mail, before the door of our hall.”
Hervor—“It is not good for thee to hide it.”
Angantýr—“The death of Hjalmr[34] lies under my shoulders; it is all wrapt up in fire: I know no maid that dares to take this sword in hand.”
Hervor—“I shall take in hand the sharp sword, if I may 691obtain it. I do not think that fire will burn which plays about the site of deceased men.”[35]
Angantýr—“Take and keep Hjalmr’s bane: touch but the edges of it, there is poison in them both;[36] it is a most cruel devourer of men.”[37]
The Magic Sword of Mewār.
—Tradition has hallowed the two-edged sword (khanda) of Mewar, by investing it with an origin as mysterious as “the bane of Hjalmr.” It is supposed to be the enchanted weapon fabricated by Viswakarma,[38] with which the Hindu Proserpine girded the founder of the race, and led him forth to the conquest of Chitor.[39] It remained the great heirloom of her princes till the sack of Chitor by the Tatar Ala, when Rana Arsi and eleven of his brave sons devoted themselves at the command of the guardian goddess of their race, and their capital falling into the hands of the invader, the last scion of Bappa became a fugitive amidst the mountains of the west. It was then the Tatar inducted the Sonigira Maldeo [594], as his lieutenant, into the capital of the Guhilots. The most celebrated of the poetic chronicles of Mewar gives an elaborate description of the subterranean palace in Chitor, in one of whose entrances the dreadful sacrifice was perpetuated to save the honour of Padmini and the fair of Chitor from the brutalized Tatars.[40] The curiosity of Maldeo was more powerful than his superstition, and he determined to explore these hidden abodes, though reputed to be guarded by the serpent genii attendant on Nagnaicha, the 692ancient divinity of its Takshak founders.[41] Whether it was through the identical caverned passage, and over the ashes of those martyred Kaminis,[42] that he made good his way into those rock-bound abodes, the legend says not; but thoughthe intrepid Maldeo paused not until he had penetrated to the very bounds of the abyss, where in a recess he beheld the snaky sorceress and her sister crew seated round a cauldron, in which the materials of their incantation were solving before a fire that served to illume this abode of horror. As he paused, the reverberation of his footsteps caused the infernal crew to look athwart the palpable obscure of their abode, and beholding the audacious mortal, they demanded his intent. The valiant Sonigira replied that he did not come as a spy,
but in search of the enchanted brand of the founder of the Guhilots. Soon they made proof of Maldeo’s hardihood. Uncovering the cauldron, he beheld a sight most appalling: amidst divers fragments of animals was the arm of an infant. A dish of this horrid repast was placed before him, and a silent signal made for him to eat. He obeyed, and returned the empty platter: it was proof sufficient of his worth to wear the enchanted blade, which, drawn forth from its secret abode, was put into the hand of Maldeo, who bowing, retired with the trophy [595].
Rana Hamira recovered this heirloom of his house, and with it the throne of Chitor, by his marriage with the daughter of the 693Sonigira, as related in the annals.[43] Another version says it was Hamira himself who obtained the enchanted sword, by his incantations to Charani Devi, or the goddess of the bards, whom he worshipped.
The Birth of Kumāra.
—We shall conclude this account of the military festival of Mewar with the birth of Kumara, the god of war, taken from the most celebrated of their mythological poems, the Ramayana, probably the most ancient book in the world.[44] “Mena, daughter of Meru, became the spouse of Himavat, from whose union sprung the beauteous Ganga, and her sister Uma. Ganga was sought in marriage by all the celestials; while Uma, after a long life of austerity, was espoused by Rudra.”[45] But neither sister was fortunate enough to have offspring, until Ganga became pregnant by Hutasana (regent of fire), and “Kumara, resplendent as the sun, illustrious as the moon, was produced from the side of Ganga.” The gods, with Indra at their head, carried him to the Krittikas[46] to be nursed, and he became their joint care. “As he resembled the fire in brightness, he received the name of Skanda, when the immortals, with Agni (fire) at their head, anointed him as general of the armies of the gods.”[47]—“Thus (the bard Valmiki speaks), oh! Rama, have I related the story of the production of Kumar.”694This is a very curious relic of ancient mythology, in which we may trace the most material circumstances of the birth of the Roman divinity of war. Kumara (Mars) was the son of Jahnavi (Juno), and born, like the Romans, without sexual intercourse, but by the agency of Vulcan (regent of fire). Kumara has the peacock (sacred to Juno likewise) as his companion; and as the Grecian goddess is feigned to have her car drawn by peacocks, so Kumara (the evil-striker)[48] has a peacock for his steed [596]. Ganga, ‘the river goddess,’ has some of the attributes of Pallas, being like the Athenian maid (Ganga never married) born from the head of Jove. The bard of the silver age makes her fall from a glacier of Kailasa (Olympus) on the head of the father of the gods, and remain many years within the folds of his tiara (jata), until at length being liberated, she was precipitated into the plains of Aryavarta. It was in this escape that she burst her rocky barrier (the Himalaya), and on the birth of Kumara exposed those veins of gold called jambunadi, in colour like the jambu fruit, probably alluding to the veins of gold discovered in the rocks of the Ganges in those distant ages.
The Winter Season.
—The last day of the month Asoj ushers in the Hindu winter (sarad rit). On this day, nothing but white vestments and silver (chandi) ornaments are worn, in honour of the moon (Chandra), who gives his[49] name to the695This year there was an entire intercalary month: such are called Laund. There is a procession of all the chiefs to the Chaugan; and on their return, a full court is held in the great hall, which breaks up with ‘obeisance to the lamp’ (jot ka mujra), whose light each reverences; when the candles are lit at home, every Rajput, from the prince to the owner of a “skin (charsa) of land,” seated on a white linen cloth, should worship his tutelary divinity, and feed the priests with sugar and milk.
Karttika.
—This month is peculiarly sacred to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, the Juno Moneta of the Romans. The 13th is called the Dhanteras, or thirteenth [day] of wealth, when gold and silver coin are worshipped, as the representatives of the goddess, by her votaries of all classes, but especially by the mercantile [597]. On the 14th, all anoint with oil, and make libations thereof to Yama, the judge of departed spirits. Worship (puja) is performed to the lamp, which represents the god of hell, and is thence called Yamadiwa, ‘the lamp of Pluto’; and on this day partial illumination takes place throughout the city.The Diwāli, or Festival of Lamps.
—On the Amavas, or Ides of Karttik, is one of the most brilliant fètes of Rajasthan, called the Diwali, when every city, village, and encampment exhibits a blaze of splendour. The potters’ wheels revolve for weeks before solely in the manufacture of lamps (diwa), and from the palace to the peasant’s hut every one supplies himself with them, in proportion to his means, and arranges them according to his fancy. Stuffs, pieces of gold, and sweetmeats are carried in trays and consecrated at the temple of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, to whom the day is consecrated. The Rana on this occasion honours his prime minister with his presence to dinner; and this chief officer of the State, who is always of the mercantile caste, pours oil into a terra-cotta lamp, which his sovereign holds; the same libation of oil is permitted by each of the near relations of the minister. On this day, it is incumbent upon every votary of Lakshmi to try the chance of the dice, and from their success in the Diwali, the prince, the chief, the merchant, and the artisan foretell the state of their coffers for the ensuing year.Lakshmi, though on this festival depicted under the type of riches, is evidently the beneficent Annapurna in another garb, 696for the agricultural community place a corn-measure filled with grain and adorned with flowers as her representative; or, if they adorn her effigies, they are those of Padma, the water-nymph, with a lotos in one hand, and the pasa (or fillet for the head) in the other. As Lakshmi was produced at “the Churning of the Ocean,” and hence called one of the “fourteen gems,” she is confounded with Rambha, chief of the Apsaras, the Venus of the Hindus. Though both were created from the froth (sara) of the waters (ap),[50] they are as distinct as the representations of riches and beauty can be. Lakshmi became the wife of Vishnu, or Kanhaiya, and is placed at the feet of his marine couch when he is floating on the chaotic waters. As his consort, she merges into the character of Sarasvati, the goddess of eloquence, and here we have the combination of Minerva and Apollo. As of Minerva, the owl [598] is the attendant of Lakshmi;[51] and when we reflect that the Egyptians, who furnished the Grecian pantheon, held these solemn festivals, also called “the feast of lamps,” in honour of Minerva at Sais, we may deduce the origin of this grand Oriental festival from that common mother-country in Central Asia, whence the Diwali radiated to remote China, the Nile, the Ganges, and the shores of the Tigris; for the Shab-i-barat of Islam is but “the feast of lamps” of the Rajputs. In all these there is a mixture of the attributes of Ceres and Proserpine, of Plutus and Pluto. Lakshmi partakes of the attributes of both the first, while Kuvera,[52] who is conjoined with her, is Plutus: as Yama is Pluto, the infernal judge. The consecrated lamps and the libations of oil are all dedicated to him; and “torches and flaming brands are likewise kindled and consecrated, to burn the bodies of kinsmen who may be dead in battle in a foreign land, and light them through the shades of death to the mansion of Yama.”[53]
Festival of Yama.
—To the infernal god Yama, who is “the son of the sun,” the second day following the Amavas, or Ides of Karttika, is also sacred; it is called the Bhratri dvitiya, or ‘the brothers’ second,’ because the river-goddess Yamuna on this day 697entertained her brother (bhratri) Yama, and is therefore consecrated to fraternal affection. At the hour of curfew (godhuli),[54] when the cattle return from the fields, the cow is worshipped, the herd having been previously tended. From this ceremony no rank is exempted on the preceding day, dedicated to Krishna: prince and peasant all become pastoral attendants on the cow, as the form of Prithivi,[55] or the earth.The Annakūta Festival.
—The 1st (Sudi), or 16th of Karttika, is the grand festival of Annakuta, sacred to the Hindu Ceres, which will be described with its solemnities at Nathdwara. There is a State procession, horse-races, and elephant-fights at the Chaugan; the evening closes with a display of fireworks.The Jaljātra Festival.
—The 14th (Sudi), or 29th, is another solemn festival in honour of Vishnu. It is called the Jaljatra, from being performed on the water (jal). The Rana, chiefs, ministers, and citizens go in procession to the lake, and adore the “spirit of the waters,” on which floating lights are placed, and the whole surface is illuminated by a grand display of pyrotechny. On this day “Vishnu rises from his slumber of four [599] months”;[56] a figurative expression to denote the sun’s emerging from the cloudy months of the periodical flood.The Makara Sankrānti Festival.
—The next day (the Punim, or last day of Karttika), being the Makara sankranti, or autumnal equinox, when the sun enters the zodiacal sign Makara,[57] or Pisces, the Rana and chiefs proceed in state to the Chaugan, and play at ball on horseback. The entire last half of the month Karttika, from Amavas (the Ides) to the Punim, is sacred to Vishnu; who is declared by the Puranas to represent the sun, and whose worship, that of water, and the floating-lights placed thereon—all objects emblematic of fecundity—carry us back to the point whence we started—the adoration of the powers of nature: clearly proving all mythology to be universally founded on an astronomical basis.Mitra Saptami, Bhāskara Saptami Festivals.
—In the remaining months of Aghan, or Margsir, and Pus, there are no festivals in which a state procession takes place, though in each there are marked days, kept not only by the Rajputs, but generally by the Hindu nation; especially that on the 7th of Aghan, which is called Mitra Saptami, or 7th of Mithras, and like the Bhaskara Saptami or the 7th of Magha, is sacred to the sun as a form of Vishnu. On this seventh day occurred the descent of the river-goddess (Ganga) from the foot of Vishnu; or the genius of fertilization, typified under the form of the river-goddess, proceeding from the sun, the vivifying principle, and impended over the head of Iswara, the divinity presiding over generation, in imitation of which his votary pours libations of water (if possible from the sacred river Ganga) over his emblem, the lingam or phallus: a comparison which is made by the bard Chand in an invocation to this god, for the sake of contrasting his own inferiority “to the mighty bards of old.”“The head of Is[58] is in the skies; on his crown falls the ever-flowing stream (Ganga); but on his statue below, does not his votary pour the fluid from his patra?”
Phallicism.
—No satisfactory etymology has ever been assigned for the phallic emblem of generation, adored by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and even by the Christian, which may be from the same primeval language that formed the Sanskrit.Phalisa is the ‘fructifier,’ from phala, ‘fruit,’ and Isa, ‘the god.’[59] Thus the type of Osiris can have a definite interpretation, still wanting to the lingam of Iswara [600]. Both deities presided over the streams which fertilized the countries in which they received divine honours: Osiris over the Nile, from ‘the mountains of the moon,’ in Ethiopia,[60] Iswara over the Indus[61] (also called the Nil), and the Ganges from Chandragiri, ‘the mountains of the moon,’ on a peak of whose glaciers he has his throne.
Siva and the Sun.
—Siva occasionally assumes the attributes of the sun-god; they especially appertain to Vishnu, who alone is styled “immortal, the one, creator, and uncreated”; and in whom centre all the qualities (gunan), which have peopled the Hindu pantheon with their ideal representatives. The bard Chand, who has embodied the theological tenets of the Rajputs in his prefatory invocation to every divinity who can aid his intent, apostrophizes Ganesa, and summons the goddess of eloquence (Sarasvati) “to make his tongue her abode”; deprecates the destroying power, “him whom wrath inhabits,” lest he should be cut off ere his book was finished; and lauding distinctly each member of the triad (trimurti), he finishes by declaring them one, and that “whoever believes them separate, hell will be his portion.” Of this One the sun is the great visible type, adored under a variety of names, as Surya, Mitra, Bhaskar, Vivasvat, Vishnu, Karna, or Kana, likewise an Egyptian epithet for the sun.[62]The emblem of Vishnu is Garuda, or the eagle,[63] and the Sun-god both of the Egyptians and Hindus is typified with the bird’s head. Aruna (the dawn), brother of Garuda, is classically styled the charioteer of Vishnu, whose two sons, Sampati and Jatayu, attempting in imitation of their father to reach the sun, the wings of the former were burnt and he fell to the earth: of this the Greeks may have made their fable of Icarus.[64]
Festivals in Honour of Vishnu.
—In the chief zodiacal phenomena, observation will discover that Vishnu is still the object of worship. The Phuladola,[65] or Floralia, in the vernal equinox, is so called from the image of Vishnu being carried in a dola, or ark, covered with garlands of flowers (phula). Again, in the month of Asarh, the commencement of [601] the periodical rains, which 700date from the summer solstice, the image of Vishnu is carried on a car, and brought forth on the first appearance of the moon, the 11th of which being the solstice, is called “the night of the gods.” Then Vishnu reposes on his serpent-couch until the cessation of the flood on the 11th of Bhadon, when “he turns on his side.”[66]The 4th is also dedicated to Vishnu under his infantine appellation Hari (Ἥλιος), because when a child “he hid himself in the moon.” We must not derogate from Sir W. Jones the merit of drawing attention to the analogy between these Hindu festivals on the equinoxes, and the Egyptian, called the entrance of Osiris into the moon, and his confinement in an ark. But that distinguished writer merely gives the hint, which the learned Bryant aids us to pursue, by bringing modern travellers to corroborate the ancient authorities: the drawings of Pocock from the sun temple of Luxor to illustrate Plutarch, Curtius, and Diodorus. Bryant comes to the same conclusion with regard to Osiris enclosed in the ark, which we adopt regarding Vishnu’s repose during the four months of inundation, the period of fertilization. I have already, in the rites of Annapurna, the Isis of the Egyptians, noticed the crescent form of the ark of Osiris, as well as the ram’s-head ornaments indicative of the vernal equinox, which the Egyptians called Phamenoth, being the birthday of Osiris, or the sun; the Phag, or Phalgun month of the Hindus; the Phagesia of the Greeks, sacred to Dionysus.[67]
The Argonauts.
—The expedition of Argonauts in search of the golden fleece is a version of the arkite worship of Osiris, the Dolayatra of the Hindus: and Sanskrit etymology, applied to the vessel of the Argonauts, will give the sun (argha) god’s (natha) entrance into the sign of the Ram. The Tauric and Hydra foes, with which Jason had to contend before he obtained the fleece of Aries, are the symbols of the sun-god, both of the Ganges and the Nile; and this fable, which has occupied almost every pen of antiquity, is clearly astronomical, as the names alone of the 701Arghanath, sons of Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Sol, Arcus or Argus,[68] Jupiter, Bacchus, etc., sufficiently testify, whose voyage is entirely celestial.Egyptian Influence on Hindu Mythology.
—If it be destined that any portion of the veil which covers these ancient mysteries [602], connecting those of the Ganges with the Nile, shall be removed, it will be from the interpretation of the expedition of Rama, hitherto deemed almost as allegorical as that of the Arghanaths. I shall at once assume an opinion I have long entertained, that the western coast of the Red Sea was the Lanka of the memorable exploit in the history of the Hindus. If Alexander from the mouths of the Indus ventured to navigate those seas with his frail fleet of barks constructed in the Panjab, what might we not expect from the resources of the King of Kosala, the descendant of Sagara, emphatically called the sea-king, whose “60,000 sons” were so many mariners, and who has left his name as a memorial of his marine power at the island (Sagar) at the embouchure of the main arm of the Ganges, and to the ocean itself, also called Sagara? If the embarkation of Ramesa and his heroes for the redemption of Sita had been from the Gulph of Cutch, the grand emporium from the earliest ages, the voyage of Rama would have been but the prototype of that of the Macedonians; but local tradition has sanctified Rameswaram, the southern part of the peninsula, as the rendezvous of his armament. The currents in the Straits of Manar, curiosity, or a wish to obtain auxiliaries from this insular kingdom, may have prompted the visit to Ceylon; and hence the vestiges there found of this event. But even from this “utmost isle, Taprobane,” the voyage across the Erythrean Sea is only twenty-five degrees of longitude, which with a flowing sail they would run down in ten or twelve days. The only difficulty which occurs is in the synchronical existence of Rama and the Pharaoh[69] of Moses, which would tend to the opposite of my hypothesis, and show that India received her Phallic rites, her architecture, and symbolic mythology from the Nile, instead of planting them there.“Est-ce l’Inde, la Phénicie, l’Éthiopie, la Chaldée, ou l’Égypte, 702qui a vu naître ce culte? ou bien le type en a-t-il été fourni aux habitans de ces contrées, par une nation plus ancienne encore?” asks an ingenious but anonymous French author, on the origin of the Phallic worship.[70] Ramesa, chief of the Suryas, or sun-born race, was king of the city designated from his mother, Kausalya, of which Ayodhya was the capital. His sons were Lava and Kusa, who originated the races we may term the Lavites and Kushites, or Kushwas of India.[71] Was then Kausalya [603] the mother of Ramesa, a native of Aethiopia,[72] or Kusadwipa, ‘the land of Cush’? Rama and Krishna are both painted blue (nila), holding the lotus, emblematic of the Nile. Their names are often identified. Ram-Krishna, the bird-headed divinity, is painted as the messenger of each, and the historians of both were contemporaries. That both were real princes there is no doubt, though Krishna assumed to be an incarnation of Vishnu, as Rama was of the sun. Of Rama’s family was Trisankha,[73] mother of the great apostle of Buddha, whose symbol was the serpent; and the followers of Buddha assert that Krishna and this apostle, whose statues are facsimiles of those of Memnon, were cousins. Were the Hermetic creed and Phallic rites therefore received from the Ethiopic Cush? Could emblematic relics be discovered in the caves of the Troglodytes, who inhabited the range of mountains on the Cushite shore of the Arabian straits, akin to those of Ellora and Elephanta,[74] whose style discloses physical, mythological, as well as architectural affinity to the Egyptian, the question would at once be set at rest.
I have derived the Phallus from Phalisa, the chief fruit. The Greeks, who either borrowed it from the Egyptians or had it from the same source, typified the Fructifier by a pineapple, the 703form of which resembles the Sitaphala,<
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