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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

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Transcriber’s Note:
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.
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for
details regarding the handling of any textual issues
encountered during its preparation.
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ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES
OF RAJASTHAN

COLONEL JAMES TOD.
(By permission of Lt.-Col. C. D. Blunt-
Mackenzie, R.A.)
Frontispiece.

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES
OF

RAJASTHAN
OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN
RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA

BY

Lieut.-Col. JAMES TOD
LATE POLITICAL AGENT TO THE WESTERN RAJPUT STATES

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

WILLIAM CROOKE, C.I.E.
HON. D.SC. OXON., B.A., F.R.A.I.

LATE OF THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II

HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
1920

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 621
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

Appendix 644

CHAPTER 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— 679
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

CHAPTER 23

The nicer shades of character difficult to catch—Morals more 707
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

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 760
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

CHAPTER 26

The 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 820
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

CHAPTER 28

Nandla—Bisalpur—Remains of the ancient city—Pachkalia, or 850
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

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

Ajmer—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 929
—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

CHAPTER 2

Emigration of Siahji and Setram, grandsons of Jaichand—Their 940
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

CHAPTER 3

Accession of Rao Jodha—Transfers the seat of government from 947
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

CHAPTER 4

Altered conditions of the Princes of Marwar—Installation of Raja 960
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

CHAPTER 5

Accession of Raja Sur—His military talents obtain him honours 969
—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

CHAPTER 6

Raja Jaswant mounts the gaddi of Marwar—His mother a 979
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

CHAPTER 7

The pregnant queen of Jaswant prevented from becoming Sati— 990
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

CHAPTER 8

The clans petition to see the young Raja—Durjan Sal of Kotah 1007
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

CHAPTER 9

Ajit commanded to reduce Nahan and the rebels of the Siwalik 1020
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

CHAPTER 10

The 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

CHAPTER 12

Ram Singh succeeds—His impetuosity of temper—His uncle, 1054
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

CHAPTER 13

Accession of Bijai Singh—Receives at Merta the homage of his 1060
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

CHAPTER 14

Raja Bhim seizes upon the gaddi—Discomfiture of his 1077
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

CHAPTER 15

Amir Khan’s reception at Jodhpur—Engages to extirpate Sawai’s 1089
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

CHAPTER 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

Origin 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

BOOK 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

Rao Kehar, contemporary of the Caliph Al Walid—His offspring 1190
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.

CHAPTER 3

Preliminary observations—The early history of the Bhattis not 1206
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

CHAPTER 4

The Rathors of Mewa settle amidst the ruins of Jaisalmer— 1215
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

CHAPTER 5

Jaisalmer becomes a fief of the empire—Changes in the 1225
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

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 1244
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

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 848
Sānkhla

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 910
Rāna

Bridge of Nūrābād 914

The late Mahārāja Sir Sumer Singh, of Jodhpur (b. 928
1901; d. 1918), and his brother, the present Mahārāja
Ummed Singh (b. 1903)

Horoscope of Rāja Abhai Singh Page 1019

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES
OF RAJASTHAN

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, will 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 revenue 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 own. 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, one 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
ryot 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 and 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 There 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 close, 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 which, 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 the 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
luxuriance 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 the 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. Both 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 these 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 of 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 the
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 Apollo 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 eye. 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 Kanhaiya
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 this 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 this 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,

From Samarcand, by Oxus, Temir’s throne,
Down to the golden Chersonese,

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 midst 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 sea.[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 privileges 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) often 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 the 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,

... the flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound,

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], but by the Samoyede[73] of Siberia. There is not a petty
retailer professing the Vishnu creed who does not carry a tithe of his trade
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 the
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 given 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 of 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.

21. See the Appendix to this Part, No. II [p. 644].

22. Hallam.

23. See Appendix to this Part, No. III [p. 645].

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).]

31. See Appendix to this Part, No. IV [p. 645].

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.]

46. See Appendix to this Part [p. 645].

47. See Appendix to this part [p. 645].

48. See Appendix to this article [p. 646].

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).]

57. See Appendix to this Part, No. VIII [p. 647].

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.

65. See Appendix to this paper, Nos. IX. and X. [p. 647].

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,
the 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 altars
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 judge, 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 to

The Spirit in whose honour shrines are weak.

Hence 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 the 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 the
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
Budha 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 instrument 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.

In song and dance about the sacred hill;
Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets and of fixed in all her wheels
Resembles nearest; mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem;
And in their motions harmony divine
So smooths her charming tones that God’s own ear
Listens delighted.
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book v. 619-27.

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.

The 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.”
Radha 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.’”
Midnight 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.”
The poet proceeds to describe Apollo’s bower on the sable Yamuna, as
‘Love’s recess’; and sanctifies it as

... The ground
Where early Love his Psyche’s zone unbound.[47]

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 Elysium, 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 with
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
twenty-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 the 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 received 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 pontificals 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 (‫ )ن‬and 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. He
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.”
(A true Translation.) J. Tod.

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 have 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.
(By command.)
Samvat 1749, Magh sudi 5th, A.D. 1693. Sah Dyal (Minister).

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.
(By command).
Pus Sudi 14, Samvat 1705, A.D. 1649. The Pancholi Damaka Das.

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.
Here 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.
By 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.].

4. 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.

16. [For the annual Jain retreat see p. 606, above.]

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—

“From earth to heaven,
From heaven to hell,
For thee and thine
Therein to dwell.”

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, and 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 fruitless; 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, even 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 were 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, opening 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 commenced 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 five 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 plate 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 son 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 the 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]
On 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, after 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 in 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 the 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, from
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
from 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]
furnishes 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
with 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:

Above the reach of mortal ken,
On blest Coilasa’s top, where every stem
Glowed with a vegetable gem,
Mahesa stood, the dread and joy of men;
While Parvati, to gain a boon,
Fixed on his locks a beamy moon,
And hid his frontal eye in jocund play,
With reluctant sweet delay;
All nature straight was locked in dim eclipse,
Till Brahmins pure, with hallowed lips
And warbled prayers, restored the day,
When Ganga from his brow, with heavenly fingers prest,
Sprang radiant, and descending, graced the caverns of the west [575].

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 Himalaya, 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
indifference 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 Lucina: 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 thy 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 them 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 accordingly 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 the 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
bearing

Ambrosial fruit of vegetable gold;

which 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

... his words, replete with guile,
Into her heart too easy entrance won:
Fixed on the fruit she gazed.

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 Rajasthan, 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, ” ” Venus Apsaras because born
or Aripasa 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).

17. See Vol. I. p. 91.

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).]

34. See p. 394.

35. See p. 324.

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:

“Heavenly Stranger, please to taste
These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom
All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends,
To us for food and for delight, hath caused
The earth to yield.”
Paradise Lost, Bk. v. 397-401.
[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.

70. See p. 364.

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 civilization, 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 (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 makes 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 lake, 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.
11th. 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 of 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 of 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 Uma, 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.

Invocation of the Bard to Ganesa.

“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]
We 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 to 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.

Incantation
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 obtain 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
ancient 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 though

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude,

the 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,

With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of their realm,

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 Sonigira, 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.”
This 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 the

Pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man.

This 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, for 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 entertained 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 date 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 Arghanath, 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, qui 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 form of which resembles the
Sitaphala,[75] or fruit of Sita, whose rape by Ravana carried Rama from the
Ganges over many countries ere he recovered her.[76] In like manner Gauri,

the Rajput Ceres, is typified under the coco-nut, or sriphala,[77] the chief of
fruit, or fruit sacred to Sri, or Isa (Isis), whose other elegant emblem of
abundance, the kamakumbha, is drawn with branches of the palmyra,[78] or
coco-tree, gracefully pendent from the vase (kumbha).
The Sriphala[79] is accordingly presented to all the votaries of Iswara and
Isa on the conclusion of the spring-festival of Phalguna, the Phagesia of the
Greeks, the [604] Phamenoth of the Egyptian, and the Saturnalia of
antiquity; a rejoicing at the renovation of the powers of nature; the empire
of heat over cold—of light over darkness.[80]
The analogy between the goddess of the spring Saturnalia, Phalguni, and
the Phagesia of the Greeks, will excite surprise; the word is not derived
from (φαγεῖν) eating, with the Rajput votaries of Holika, as with those of
the Dionysia of the Greeks; but from phalguni, compounded of guna,
‘quality, virtue, or characteristic,’ and phala, ‘fruit’; in short, the fructifier.
From φαλλός,[81] to which there is no definite meaning, the Egyptian had the
festival Phallica, the Holika of the Hindus. Phula and phala, flower and
fruit, are the roots of all, Floralia and Phalaria, the Phallus of Osiris, the
Thyrsus of Bacchus, or Lingam of Iswara, symbolized by the Sriphala, or
Ananas, the ‘food of the gods,’[82] or the Sitaphala of the Helen of Ayodhya.
From the existence of this worship in Congo at this day, the author
already quoted asks if it may not have originated in Ethiopia, “qui, comme
le témoignent plusieurs écrivains de l’antiquité, a fourni ses dieux à
l’Égypte.“ On the first of the five complementary days called ”ἠπαγόμεναι
ἡμέραι” preceding New Year’s Day, the Egyptians celebrated the birth of
the sun-god Osiris, in a similar manner as the Hindus do their solstitial
festival, “the morning of the gods,” the Hiul of Scandinavia; on which
occasion, “on promenait en procession une figure d’Osiris, dont le Phallus
était triple”; a number, he adds, expressing “la pluralité indéfinie.” The
number three is sacred to Iswara, chief of the Trimurti or Triad, whose
statue adorns the junction (sangam) of all triple streams; hence called
Triveni, who is [605] Trinetra, or ‘three-eyed,’ and Tridanta, or ‘god of the
trident’; Triloka, ‘god of the triple abode, heaven, earth, and hell’; Tripura,
of the triple city, to whom the Tripoli or triple gates are sacred, and of
which he has made Ganesa the Janitor, or guardian. The grotesque figure
placed by the Hindus during the Saturnalia in the highways, and called
Nathurama (the god Rama), is the counterpart of the figure described by
Plutarch as representing Osiris, “ce soleil printanier,” in the Egyptian

Saturnalia or Phamenoth. Even Ramisa and Ravana may, like Osiris and
Typhon, be merely the ideal representatives of light and darkness; and the
chaste Sita, spouse of the Surya prince, the astronomical Virgo, only a
zodiacal sign.[83]

Wide Extension of Hindu Mythology.—That a system of Hinduism
pervaded the whole Babylonian and Assyrian empires, Scripture furnishes
abundant proofs, in the mention of the various types of the sun-god Balnath,
whose pillar adorned “every mount” and “every grove”; and to whose other
representative, the brazen calf (nandi), the 15th of each month (amavas)[84]
was especially sacred. It was not confined to these celebrated regions of the
East, but was disseminated throughout the earth; because from the Aral to
the Baltic, colonies were planted from that central region,[85] the cradle of
the Suryas and the Indus, whose branches (sakha),[86] the Yavan, the Aswa,
and the Meda, were the progenitors of the Ionians, the Assyrians, and the
Medes;[87] while in later times, from the same teeming region, the Galati and
Getae,[88] the Kelts and Goths, carried modifications of the system to the
shores of Armorica and the Baltic, the cliffs of Caledonia, and the remote
isles of the German Ocean. The monumental circles sacred to the sun-god
Belenus at once existing in that central region,[89] in India,[90] and throughout
Europe, is conclusive. The apotheosis of the patriarch Noah, whom the
Hindu styles Manu-Vaivaswata, ‘the man, son of the sun,’ may have
originated the Dolayatra of the Hindus, the ark of Osiris [606], the ship of
Isis amongst the Suevi, in memory of “the forty days” noticed in the
traditions of every nation of the earth.
The time may be approaching when this worship in the East, like the
Egyptian, shall be only matter of tradition; although this is not likely to be
effected by such summary means as were adopted by Cambyses, who slew
the sacred Apis and whipped his priests, while their Greek and Roman
conquerors adopted and embellished the Pantheon of the Nile.[91] But when
Christianity reared her severe yet simple form, the divinities of the Nile, the
Pantheon of Rome, and the Acropolis of Athens, could not abide her awful
majesty. The temples of the Alexandrian Serapis were levelled by
Theophilus,[92] while that of Osiris at Memphis became a church of Christ.
“Muni de ses pouvoirs, et escorté d’une foule de moines, il mit en fuite les
prêtres, brisa les idoles, démolit les temples, ou y établit des monastères.”[93]
The period for thus subverting idolatry is passed: the religion of Christ is
not of the sword, but one enjoining peace and goodwill on earth. But as
from him “to whom much is given,” much will be required, the good and
benevolent of the Hindu nations may have ulterior advantages over those
Pharisees who would make a monopoly even of the virtues; who “see the

mote in their neighbour’s eye, but cannot discern the beam in their own.”
While, therefore, we strive to impart a purer taste and better faith, let us not
imagine that the minds of those we would reform are the seats of impurity,
because, in accordance with an idolatry coeval with the flood, they continue
to worship mysteries opposed to our own modes of thinking [607].

1. Nauratri may be interpreted the nine days’ festival, or the ‘new night’
[?].

2. “It was natural enough,” says Gibbon, “that the Scythians should adore
with peculiar devotion the god of war; but as they were incapable of
forming either an abstract idea, or a corporeal representation, they
worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron cimeter. If the
rites of Scythia were practised on this solemn occasion,[A] a lofty altar, or
rather pile of faggots, three hundred yards in length and in breadth, was
raised in a spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the
summit of this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of
sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive” (Gibbon’s Roman Empire, ed.
W. Smith, iv. 194 f.).

A. Attila dictating the terms of peace with the envoys of
Constantinople, at the city of Margus, in Upper Moesia.

3. St. Palaye, Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry, p. 305.

4. Raj Jogi is the chief of the ascetic warriors; the Mahants are
commanders [the term being usually applied to the abbot of a monastery].
More will be said of this singular society when we discuss the religious
institutions of Mewar.

5. The god Krishna is called Kishan in the dialects.

6. This is the sthapana of the sword, literally its inauguration or
induction, for the purposes of adoration.

7. Tripolia, or triple portal.

8. [The chief centres of worship of Harsiddh Māta are Gāndhari and
Ujjain. It is said that her image stood on the sea-shore, and that she used to
swallow all the vessels that passed by (R. E. Enthoven, Folklore Notes
Gujarāt, 5; BG, ix. Part i. 226).]

9. [Formerly an important personage, but his authority has now much
decreased (BG, ix. Part i. 96).]

10. On this day sons visit and pay adoration to their fathers. The diet is
chiefly of vegetables and fruits. Brahmans with their unmarried daughters
are feasted, and receive garments called chunri from their chiefs. [This is a
kind of cloth dyed by partly tying it in knots, which escape the action of the
dye.]

11. The Jogi’s patra is not so revolting as that of their divinity Hara (the
god of war), which is the human cranium; this is a hollow gourd.

12. From das, the numeral ten; the tenth. [It means ‘the feast that
removes ten sins.’]

13. In this ancient story we are made acquainted with the distant
maritime wars which the princes of India carried on. Even supposing
Ravana’s abode to be the insular Ceylon, he must have been a very
powerful prince to equip an armament sufficiently numerous to carry off
from the remote kingdom of Kosala the wife of the great king of the Suryas.
It is most improbable that a petty king of Ceylon could wage equal war with
a potentate who held the chief dominion of India; whose father, Dasaratha,
drove his victorious car (ratha) over every region (desa), and whose
intercourse with the countries beyond the Brahmaputra is distinctly to be
traced in the Ramayana. [Dasaratha has no connexion with desa: the name
means ‘he who possesses ten (dasa) chariots (ratha).’]

14. [Prosopis spicigera.]

15. “A la première lune de chaque année, tous ces officiers, grands et
petits, tenoient une assemblée générale à la cour du Tanjou, et y faisoient un
sacrifice solennel: à la cinquième lune, ils s’assembloient à Lumtching, où
ils sacrifioient au ciel, à la terre, aux esprits, et aux ancêtres. Il se tenoit

encore une grande assemblée à Tai-lin dans l’automne, parce qu’alors les
chevaux étoient plus gras, et on y faisoit en même-tems le dénombrement
des hommes et des troupeaux; mais tous les jours le Tanjou sortoit de son
camp, le matin pour adorer le soleil, et le soir la lune. Sa tente étoit placée à
gauche, comme le côté le plus honorable chez ces peuples, et regardoit le
couchant” (Avant J.-C. 209; L’Histoire Générale des Huns, vol. i. p. 24).

16. [There is no Skt. word pola, ‘gate’; the Hindi pol, paul is Skt. pura
dvāra, ‘city entrance.’]

17. [The words pol and pāl are not connected.]

18. Hence may be found a good etymology of janizary, the guardian of
the serai, a title left by the lords of Eastern Rome for the Porte. [Turkish
yeni-tsheri, ‘new soldiery.’]

19. In Sanskrit gana (pronounced as gun), the jinn of the Persians,
transmuted to genii; here is another instance in point of the alternation of
the initial, and softened by being transplanted from Indo-Scythia to Persia,
as Ganes was Janus at Rome. [Gana and Jinn, Ganesa and Janus, have no
connexion.

20. The Casius Mons of Ptolemy. [The derivation of the word Caucasus
is unknown.]

21. Parvati, ‘the mountain goddess,’ was called Sati, or ‘the faithful,’ in
her former birth. She became the mother of Jahnavi, the river (Ganga)
goddess.

22. Karttikeya, the son of Siva and Parvati, the Jupiter and Juno of the
Hindu theogony, has the leading of the armies of the gods, delegated by his
father; and his mother has presented to him her peacock, which is the steed
of this warlike divinity. He is called Karttikeya from being nursed by six
females called Krittika, who inhabit six of the seven stars composing the
constellation of the Wain, or Ursa Major. Thus the Hindu Mars, born of
Jupiter and Juno, and nursed by Ursa Major, is, like all other theogonies, an
astronomical allegory. There is another legend of the birth of Mars, which I
shall give in the text.

23. This elephant-headed divinity has but one tusk.

24. The bard thus modestly designates himself.

25. Chief (isa) of the gana (genii) or attendants on Siva.

26. So he was at Rome, and his statue held the keys of heaven in his right
hand, and, like Ganesa, a rod (the ankus) in his left.

27. [The rat is the emblem of Ganesa probably because, like Apollo
Smintheus, he protects the crops from vermin (Frazer, The Golden Bough,
3rd ed. Part v. vol. ii. 282 f.).]

28. [Persian āhanak, ‘a sword of steel.’]

29. [Anabasis, vii. 2.]

30. The Gothic invaders of Italy inaugurated their monarch by placing
him upon a shield, and elevating him on their shoulders in the midst of his
army.

31. All these proper names might have Oriental etymologies assigned to
them; Eyvor-sail is the name of a celebrated Rajput hero of the Bhatti tribe,
who were driven at an early period from the very heart of Scythia, and are
of Yadu race.

32. This word can have a Sanskrit derivation from haya, ‘a horse’;
marna, ‘to strike or kill’; Hjalmr, ‘the horse-slayer.’ [These theories are of
no value.]

33. The custom of engraving incantations on weapons is also from the
East, and thence adopted by the Muhammadan, as well as the use of
phylacteries. The name of the goddess guarding the tribe is often inscribed,
and I have had an entire copy of the Bhagavadgita taken from the turban of
a Rajput killed in action: in like manner the Muhammadans place therein
the Koran.

34. The metaphorical name of the sword Tyrfing.

35. I have already mentioned these fires (see p. 89), which the northern
nations believed to issue from the tombs of their heroes, and which seemed
to guard their ashes; them they called Hauga Elldr, or ‘the sepulchral fires,’
and they were supposed more especially to surround tombs which contained
hidden treasures. These supernatural fires are termed Shihaba by the
Rajputs. When the intrepid Scandinavian maiden observes that she is not
afraid of the flame burning her, she is bolder than one of the boldest
Rajputs, for Sri-kishan, who was shocked at the bare idea of going near
these sepulchral lights, was one of the three non-commissioned officers
who afterwards led thirty-two firelocks to the attack and defeat of 1500
Pindaris.

36. Like the Rajput Khanda, Tyrfing was double-edged; the poison of
these edges is a truly Oriental idea.

37. This poem is from the Hervarer Saga, an ancient Icelandic history.
See Edda, vol. ii. p. 192.

38. The Vulcan of the Hindus.

39. For an account of the initiation to arms of Bappa, the founder of the
Guhilots, see p. 264 [Vol. I.].

40. See p. 311 [Vol. I.].

41. The Mori prince, from whom Bappa took Chitor, was of the Tak or
Takshak race [?], of whom Nagnaicha or Nagini Mata was the mother,
represented as half woman and half serpent; the sister of the mother of the
Scythic race, according to their legends; so that the deeper we dive into
these traditions, the stronger reason we shall find to assign a Scythic origin
to all these tribes. As Bappa, the founder of the Guhilots, retired into
Scythia and left his heirs to rule in India, I shall find fault with no antiquary
who will throw overboard all the connexion between Kanaksen, the founder
of the Valabhi empire, and Sumitra, the last of Rama’s line. Many rites of
the Rama’s house are decidedly Scythic.

42. [Lovely maidens.]

43. See p. 317 [Vol. I.].

44. [“The kernel of the Rāmāyana was composed before 500 B.C., while
the more recent portions was probably not added till the second century B.C.,
and later” (Macdonell, Hist. Sanskrit Literature, 309).]

45. One of the names of the divinity of war, whose images are covered
with vermilion in imitation of blood. (Qy. the German roodur, ‘red’)[596].
[Rudra, ‘the roarer,’ originally “god of storms.”]

46. The Pleiades.

47. The festival of the birth of this son of Ganga, or Jahnavi, is on the
10th of Jeth. Sir W. Jones gives the following couplet from the Sancha: “On
the 10th of Jyaishtha, on the bright half of the month, on the day of
Mangala,[A] son of the earth, when the moon was in Hasta, this daughter of
Jahnu brought from the rocks, and ploughed over the land inhabited by
mortals.”

A. Mangala is one of the names (and perhaps one of the oldest) of
the Hindu Mars (Kumara), to whom the Wodens-dag of the Northmen,
the Mardi of the French, the Dies Martis of the Romans, are alike
sacred. Mangala also means ‘happy,’ the reverse of the origin of
Mongol, said to mean ‘sad’ [‘brave’]. The juxtaposition of the Rajput
and Scandinavian days of the week will show that they have the same
origin:

Rajput Scandinavian and Saxon.
Suryavar Sun-day.
Som, or Induvar Moon-day.
Budhvar Tuis-day.
Mangalvar Wodens-day.
Brihaspativar[a] Thors-day.
Sukravar[b] Frey-day.
Sani, or } -var Satur-day[c]

Sanichara }

(a) Brihaspati, ‘he who rides on the bull’; the steed of the Rajput
god of war [probably ‘lord of prayer,’ or ‘of increase,’ confounded in
the original note with Vrishapati, ‘Lord of the bull,’ a title of Siva.]]

(b) Sukra is a Cyclop, regent of the planet Venus.]

(c) [See Max Müller, Selected Essays, 1881, ii. 460 ff.]]

48. [Kumāra probably means ‘easily dying.’]

49. It will be recollected that the moon with the Rajputs as with the
Scandinavians is a male divinity. The Tatars, who also consider him a male
divinity, pay him especial adoration in this autumnal month.

50. [Apsaras means ‘going in the waters, or in the waters of the clouds.’]

51. [The owl is a bird of ill omen, and does not seem to be associated
with Lakshmi except in Bengal.]

52. The Hindu god of riches.

53. Yamala is the great god of the Finlanders (Clarke).

54. From go, ‘a cow’ [dhūli, ‘the dust raised by them as they return to the
stall’].F

55. See anecdote in Chap. 21, which elucidates this practice of princes
becoming herdsmen.

56. Matsya Purana. [Vishnu is generally said to wake on the Deothān,
11th light half of Kārttik.]

57. [Makara, a kind of shark or sea-monster, marks the 10th sign of the
Zodiac, Capricorn.]

58. Iswara, Isa, or as pronounced, Is.

59. [Monier-Williams in his Sanskrit Dict. records no such form as
phalīsa. φαλλός = Lat. palus, English pole, pale. The Author follows
Wilford (Asiatic Researches, iii. 135 f.).]

60. ‘The land of the sun’ (aditya). [This is impossible. The true derivation
is unknown; to the Greeks the word meant ‘swarthy-faced.’]

61. Ferishta calls the Indus the Nilab, or ‘blue waters’; it is also called
Abusin, the ‘father of streams.’

62. According to Diodorus Siculus. [Rudra-Siva has a benign side to his
character, and may be associated with the Sun (R. G. Bhandarkar,
Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems, 105). But the Author, in
his constant references to “Bāl”-Siva, has pressed this conception to an
excessive length.]

63. The vulture and crane, which soar high in the heavens, are also called
garuda, and vulgarly gidh. The ibis is of the crane or heron kind.

64. Phaeton was the son of Cephalus and Aurora. The former answers to
the Hindu bird-headed messenger of the sun. Aruna is the Aurora of the
Greeks, who with more taste have given the dawn a female character.

65. Also called Dolayatra.

66. Bhagavat and Matsya Puranas. See Sir W. Jones on the lunar year of
the Hindus, Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 286.

67. [Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me that this comes from a French translation
of Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, cap. xii. (birth of Osiris on the first of the
epagomenal days). This entry of Osiris into the moon seems to mean his
conception rather than his birth. Φαμενώθ is the name of the seventh month,
about 25th February.]

68. Arka, ‘the sun,’ in Sanskrit. [This is due to Wilford (Asiatic
Researches, iii. 134) and is, of course, impossible.]

69. Pha-ra is but a title, ‘the king.’ [Egyptian Pro, ‘the great house.’]

70. Des divinités génératives: ou du culte du Phallus chez les anciens et
les modernes (Paris).

71. Of the former race the Ranas of Mewar, of the latter the princes of
Narwar and Amber, are the representatives.

72. Aethiopia, ‘the country of the sun’; from Ait, contraction of Aditya.
Aegypt may have the same etymology, Aitia [see p. 699 above].

73. [The Author may refer to Pārsvanātha, 23rd Jain Tīrthakara, whose
symbol was his serpent; but his mother was Vāmadevi. Trisala was mother
of the 24th Tīrthakara, Mahāvira or Vardhamāna, but his cognizance was a
lion.]

74. It is absurd to talk of these being modern; decipher the characters
thereon, and then pronounce their antiquity. [Ellora, 5th to 9th or 10th
centuries A.D.; Elephanta, 8th to 10th (IGI, xii. 22, 4).]

75. Vulg. Sharifa.

76. Rama subjected her to the fiery ordeal, to discover whether her virtue
had suffered while thus forcibly separated.

77. Vulg. Nariyal.

78. Palmyra is Sanskrit corrupted, and affords the etymology of
Solomon’s city of the desert, Tadmor. The ‫ ﺙ‬p, by the retrenchment of a
single diacritical point, becomes ‫ ت‬t; and the ‫( ل‬l) and ‫( د‬d) being
permutable, Pal becomes Tad, or Tal—the Palmyra, which is the Mor, or
chief of trees; hence Tadmor, from its date-trees [?].

79. The Jayaphala, ‘the fruit of victory,’ is the nutmeg; or, as a native of
Java, Javuphala, ‘fruit of Java,’ is most probably derived from Jayadiva,
‘the victorious isle.’ [The nutmeg is Jātiphala: Java is yavadwīpa, ‘island of
barley.’]

80. The Kamari of the Saura tribes, or sun-worshippers of Saurashtra,
claims descent from the bird-god of Vishnu (who aided Rama[A] to the

discovery of Sita), and the Makara[B] or crocodile, and date the monstrous
conception from that event, and their original abode from Sankodra Bet, or
island of Sankodra. Whether to the Dioscorides at the entrance of the
Arabian Gulf this name was given, evidently corrupted from Sankhadwara
to Socotra, we shall not stop to inquire. Like the isle in the entrance of the
Gulf of Cutch, it is the dwara or portal to the Sinus Arabicus, and the pearl-
shell (sankha) there abounds. This tribe deduce their origin from Rama’s
expedition, and allege that their Icthyiopic mother landed them where they
still reside. Wild as is this fable, it adds support to this hypothesis. [The
Sanskrit name of Bet Island (“Bate” in the text) is Sankhuddhāra, from the
conch fishery. Socotra is Dwīpa Sukhadāra, ‘island of pleasure’ (not
Sakhādāra, as in EB, xxv. 355) (Yule, Marco Polo, 1st ed. ii. 342).]

A. Rama and Vishnu interchange characters.

B. It is curious that the designation of the tribe Kamar is a
transposition of Makar, for the final letter of each is mute.

81. See Lempriere, arts. Phagesia and Phallica. “L’Abbé Mignot pense
que le Phallus est originaire de l’Assyrie et de la Chaldée, et que c’est de ce
pays que l’usage de consacrer ce symbole de la génération a passé en
Égypte. Il croit, d’après le savant Le Clerc, que le nom de ce symbole est
phénicien: qu’il dérive de Phalou qui, dans cette langue, signifie une chose
secrète et cachée, et du verbe phala, qui veut dire être tenu secret.”[A]

A. Des divinités génératives.

82. Anna, ‘food,’ and asa or isa, ‘the god.’ [Ananas comes from Brazilian
Nana or Nanas (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 25).]

83. [It is unnecessary to discuss these theories, which are based on
incorrect assumptions and obsolete etymologies.]

84. The Hindus divide the month into two portions called pakh or
fortnights. The first is termed badi, reckoning from the 1st to the 15th,
which day of partition is called amavas, answering to the Ides of the
Romans, and held by the Hindus as it was by the Jews in great sanctity. The
last division is termed sudi, and they recommence with the initial numeral,

thence to the 30th or completion, called punim; thus instead of the 16th,
17th, etc., of the month, they say Sudi ekam (1st), Sudi duj (3rd).

85. Sogdiana and Transoxiana.

86. Hence the word Saka [?].

87. See Genealogical Table No. 2 for these names. The sons of the three
Midas, pronounced Mede, founded kingdoms at the precise point of time,
according to calculation from the number of kings, that Assyria was
founded.

88. The former were more pastoral, and hence the origin of their name,
corrupted to Keltoi. The Getae or Jats pursued the hunter’s occupation,
living more by the chase, though these occupations are generally conjoined
in the early stages of civilization.

89. Rubruquis and other travellers.

90. Colonel Mackenzie’s invaluable and gigantic collection.

91. Isis and Osiris, Serapis and Canopus, Apis and Ibis, adopted by the
Romans, whose temples and images, yet preserved, will allow full scope to
the Hindu antiquary for analysis of both systems. The temple of Serapis at
Pozzuoli is quite Hindu in its ground plan.

92. In the reign of Theodosius.

93. Du Culte, etc., etc., p. 47.

CHAPTER 23

The Character of the Rājput. Influence of Custom.—The manners of
a nation constitute the most interesting portion of its history, but a thorough

knowledge of them must be the fruit of long and attentive observation: an
axiom which applies to a people even less inaccessible than the Rajputs.
The importance and necessity of such an illustration of the Rajput character,
in a work like the present, call for and sanction the attempt, however
inadequate the means. Of what value to mankind would be the interminable
narrative of battles, were their moral causes and results passed by
unheeded? Although both the Persian and Hindu annalists not unfrequently
unite the characters of moralist and historian, it is in a manner unsuitable to
the subject, according to the more refined taste of Europe. In the poetic
annals of the Rajput, we see him check his war-chariot, and when he should
be levelling his javelin, commence a discourse upon ethics; or when the
battle is over, the Nestor or Ulysses of the host converts his tent into a
lyceum, and delivers lectures on morals or manners. But the reflections
which should follow, and form the corollary to each action, are never given;
and even if they were, though we might comprehend the moral movements
of a nation, we should still be unable to catch the minute shades of character
that complete the picture of domestic life, and which are to be collected
from those familiar sentiments uttered in social intercourse, when the mind
unbends and nature throws aside the trammels of education and of
ceremony. Such a picture would represent the manners, which are
continually undergoing modifications, in contradistinction to the morals of
society; the latter, having a fixed creed for their basis, are definite and
unchangeable. The chal of the Rajput, like the mores of the Romans, or
costumi of modern Italy, is significant alike of mental and external habit. In
the moral point of view it is the path chalked out for him by the sages of
antiquity [608]; in the personal, it is that which custom has rendered
immutable. Kaisi buri chal men chalta, ‘in what a bad path does he march!’
says the moralist: Bap, Dada ki chal chhori, ‘he abandons the usages of his
ancestors,’ says the stickler for custom, in Rajasthan.[1]
Rājput Morals.—The grand features of morality are few, and nearly the
same in every nation not positively barbarous. The principles contained in
the Decalogue form the basis of every code—of Manu and of Muhammad,
as well as of Moses. These are grand landmarks of the truth of divine
history; and are confirmed by the less important traits of personal customs
and religious rites, which nations the most remote from each other continue
to hold in common. The Koran we know to have been founded on the

Mosaic law; the Sastra of Manu, unconsciously, approaches still more to the
Jewish Scriptures in spirit and intention; and from its pages might be
formed a manual of moral instruction, which, if followed by the disciples of
the framer, might put more favoured societies to the blush.
Variety of Customs due to Environment.—As it has been observed in a
former part of this work, the same religion governing all must tend to
produce a certain degree of mental uniformity. The shades of moral
distinction which separate these races are almost imperceptible: while you
cannot pass any grand natural barrier without having the dissimilarity of
customs and manners forced upon your observation. Whoever passes from
upland Mewar, the country of the Sesodias, into the sandy flats of Marwar,
the abode of the Rathors, would feel the force of this remark. Innovations
proceeding from external causes, such as conquest by irreligious foes, and
the birth of new sects and schisms, operate important changes in manners
and customs. We can only pretend, however, to describe facts which are
obvious, and those which history discloses, whence some notions may be
formed of the prevailing traits of character in the Rajput; his ideas of virtue
and vice, the social intercourse and familiar courtesies of Rajasthan, and
their recreations, public and private.
“The manners of a people,” says the celebrated Goguet, “always bear a
proportion to the progress they have made in the arts and sciences.” If by
this test we trace the analogy between past and existing manners amongst
the Rajputs, we must conclude at once that they have undergone a decided
deterioration. Where can we look for sages like those whose systems of
philosophy were the [609] prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works
Plato, Thales, and Pythagoras were disciples? Where shall we find the
astronomers, whose knowledge of the planetary system yet excites wonder
in Europe, as well as the architects and sculptors, whose works claim our
admiration, and the musicians, “who could make the mind oscillate from
joy to sorrow, from tears to smiles, with the change of modes and varied
intonation.”[2] The manners of those days must have corresponded with this
advanced stage of refinement, as they must have suffered from its decline:
yet the homage paid by Asiatics to precedent has preserved many relics of
ancient customs, which have survived the causes that produced them.

BUDDUN SING,
A RAJPOOTNI, RAHTORE.
Returned from Batlang
in the Jumna.

DARAB KHAN,
MEWATTI. SUDRAM GOSAEN.

PORTRAITS OF A RĀJPUTNI, A RĀJPUT, A MEWĀTI AND
GUSĀĪN. To face page 708.
Treatment of Women by the Rājputs.—It is universally admitted that
there is no better criterion of the refinement of a nation than the condition
Of the fair sex therein. As it is elegantly expressed by Comte Ségur, “Leur
sort est une boussole sûre pour le premier regard d’un étranger qui arrive
dans un pays inconnu.”[3] Unfortunately, the habitual seclusion of the higher
classes of females in the East contracts the sphere of observation in regard
to their influence on society; but, to borrow again from our ingenious
author, “les hommes font les lois, les femmes font les mœurs”; and their
incarceration in Rajasthan by no means lessens the application of the adage
to that country. Like the magnetic power, however latent, their attraction is
not the less certain. “C’est aux hommes à faire des grandes choses, c’est
aux femmes à les inspirer,” is a maxim to which every Rajput cavalier
would subscribe, with whom the age of chivalry is not fled, though ages of
oppression have passed over him. He knows there is no retreat into which
the report of a gallant action will not penetrate, and set fair hearts in motion
to be the object of his search. The bards, those chroniclers of fame, like the
Jongleurs of old, have everywhere access, to the palace as to the hamlet;
and a brilliant exploit travels with all the rapidity of a comet, and clothed
with the splendid decorations of poetry, from the Indian desert to the valley
of the Jumna. If we cannot paint the Rajput dame as invested with all the
privileges which Ségur assigns to the first woman, “compagne de l’homme
et son égale, vivant par lui, pour lui, associée à son bonheur, à ses plaisirs, à
la puissance qu’il exerçait sur ce vaste univers,” she is far removed from the
condition which demands commiseration [610].
The Seclusion of Women.—Like the ancient German or Scandinavian,
the Rajput consults her in every transaction; from her ordinary actions he
draws the omen of success, and he appends to her name the epithet of devi,
or ‘godlike.’ The superficial observer, who applies his own standard to the
customs of all nations, laments with an affected philanthropy the degraded
condition of the Hindu female, in which sentiment he would find her little
disposed to join. He particularly laments her want of liberty, and calls her
seclusion imprisonment. Although I cordially unite with Ségur, who is at

issue with his compatriot Montesquieu on this part of discipline, yet from
the knowledge I do possess of the freedom, the respect, the happiness,
which Rajput women enjoy, I am by no means inclined to deplore their state
as one of captivity. The author of the Spirit of Laws, with the views of a
closet philosopher, deems seclusion necessary from the irresistible influence
of climate on the passions; while the chivalrous Ségur, with more
knowledge of human nature, draws the very opposite conclusion, asserting
all restraints to be injurious to morals. Of one thing we are certain,
seclusion of females could only originate in a moderately advanced stage of
civilization. Amongst hunters, pastors, and cultivators, the women were
required to aid in all external pursuits, as well as internal economy. The
Jews secluded not their women, and the well, where they assembled to draw
water, was the place where marriages were contracted, as with the lower
classes in Rajputana. The inundations of the Nile, each house of whose
fertile valleys was isolated, is said to have created habits of secluding
women with the Egyptians; and this argument might apply to the vast
valleys of the Indus and Ganges first inhabited, and which might have
diffused example with the spread of population. Assuredly, if India was
colonized from the cradle of nations, Central Asia, they did not thence bring
these notions within the Indus; for the Scythian women went to the opposite
extreme, and were polyandrists.[4] The desire of eradicating those impure
habits, described by Herodotus, that the slipper at the tent-door should no
longer be a sign, may have originated the opposite extreme in a life of entire
seclusion. Both polygamy and polyandry originated in a mistaken view of
the animal economy, and of the first great command to people the earth: the
one was general amongst all the nations [611] of antiquity; the other rare,
though to be found in Scythia, India, and even amongst the Natchez, in the
new world; but never with the Rajput, with whom monogamy existed
during the patriarchal ages of India, as amongst the Egyptians.[5] Of all the
nations of the world who have habituated the female to a restricted
intercourse with society, whether Grecian, Roman, Egyptian, or Chinese,
the Rajput has given least cause to provoke the sentiment of pity; for if
deference and respect be proofs of civilization, Rajputana must be
considered as redundant in evidence of it. The uxoriousness of the Rajput
might be appealed to as indicative of the decay of national morals; “chez les
barbares (says Ségur) les femmes ne sont rien: les mœurs de ces peuples
s’adoucissent-t’-elles, on compte les femmes pour quelque chose: enfin, se

corrompent-elles, les femmes sont tout”; and whether from this decay, or
the more probable and amiable cause of seeking, in their society,
consolation for the loss of power and independence, the women are nearly
everything with the Rajput.
It is scarcely fair to quote Manu as an authority for the proper treatment
of the fair sex, since many of his dicta by no means tend to elevate their
condition. In his lengthened catalogue of things pure and impure he says,
however, “The mouth of a woman is constantly pure,”[6] and he ranks it with
the running waters and the sunbeam; he suggests that their names should be
“agreeable, soft, clear, captivating the fancy, auspicious, ending in long
vowels, resembling words of benediction.”[7]
“Where females are honoured” (says Manu), “there the deities are
pleased; but where dishonoured, there all religious rites become useless”:
and he declares, “that in whatever house a woman not duly honoured
pronounces an imprecation, that house, with all that belongs to it, shall
utterly perish.”[8] “Strike not, even with a blossom, a wife guilty of a
hundred faults,”[9] says another sage: a sentiment so delicate, that Reginald
de Born, the prince of troubadours, never uttered any more refined.
However exalted the respect of the Rajput for the fair, he nevertheless
holds that

Nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good [612].
The Chief of Sādri and his Wife.—In the most tempestuous period of
the history of Mewar, when the Ranas broke asunder the bonds which
united them to the other chiefs of Rajasthan, and bestowed their daughters
on the foreign nobles incorporated with the higher class of their own kin,
the chief of Sadri, so often mentioned, had obtained a princess to wife.
There was a hazard to domestic happiness in such unequal alliance, which
the lord of Sadri soon experienced. To the courteous request, “Ranawatji,
fill me a cup of water,” he received a contemptuous refusal, with the
remark, that “The daughter of a hundred kings would not become cup-
bearer to the chieftain of Sadri.”—“Very well,” replied the plain soldier,
“you may return to your father’s house, if you can be of no use in mine.” A
messenger was instantly sent to the court, and the message, with every
aggravation, was made known; and she followed on the heels of her
messenger. A summons soon arrived for the Sadri chief to attend his

sovereign at the capital. He obeyed; and arrived in time to give his
explanation just as the Rana was proceeding to hold a full court. As usual,
the Sadri chief was placed on his sovereign’s right hand, and when the court
broke up, the heir-apparent of Mewar, at a preconcerted sign, stood at the
edge of the carpet, performing the menial office of holding the slippers of
the chief. Shocked at such a mark of extreme respect, he stammered forth
some words of homage, his unworthiness, etc.; to which the Rana replied,
“As my son-in-law, no distinction too great can be conferred: take home
your wife, she will never again refuse you a cup of water” [613].[10]
Could authority deemed divine ensure obedience to what is considered a
virtue in all ages and countries, the conjugal duties of the Rajputs are
comprehended in the following simple text: “Let mutual fidelity continue to
death; this, in few words, may be considered as the supreme law between
husband and wife.”[11]
Devotion of Rājput Women.—That this law governed the Rajputs in
past ages, as well as the present, in as great a degree as in other stages of
society and other countries, we cannot doubt. Nor will the annals of any
nation afford more numerous or more sublime instances of female devotion,
than those of the Rajputs; and such would never have been recorded, were
not the incentive likely to be revered and followed. How easy would it be to
cite examples for every passion which can actuate the human mind! Do we
desire to see a model of unbounded devotion, resignation, and love, let us
take the picture of Sita, as painted by the Milton of their silver age, than
which nothing more beautiful or sentimental may be culled even from
Paradise Lost. Rama was about to abandon his faithful wife for the purpose

of becoming a Vana-prastha or hermit, when she thus pours out her ardent
desire to partake of his solitude.

A woman’s bliss is found, not in the smile
Of father, mother, friend, nor in herself:
Her husband is her only portion here,
Her heaven hereafter. If thou indeed
Depart this day into the forest drear,
I will precede, and smooth the thorny way.
A gay recluse
On thee attending, happy shall I feel
Within the honey-scented grove to roam,
For thou e’en here canst nourish and protect;
And therefore other friend I cannot need.
To-day most surely with thee will I go,
And thus resolved, I must not be deny’d.
Roots and wild fruit shall be my constant food;
Nor will I near thee add unto thy cares,
Nor lag behind, nor forest-food refuse,
But fearless traverse every hill and dale.
Thus could I sweetly pass a thousand years;
But without thee e’en heaven would lose its charms [614].
Pleased to embrace thy feet, I will reside
In the rough forest as my father’s house.
Void of all other wish, supremely thine,
Permit me this request—I will not grieve,
I will not burden thee—refuse me not.
But shouldst thou, Raghuvu, this prayer deny
Know, I resolve on death.

Vide Ward, On the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindus,
ed. 1815, ii. p. 308 ff. [Cp. Manu, vi. 2 ff.]
The publication of Mr. Wilson’s specimens of the Hindu drama has put
the English public in possession of very striking features of ancient Hindu
manners, amongst which conjugal fidelity and affection stand eminently
conspicuous. The Uttara Rama Charitra, the Vikrama and Urvasi, and the
Mudra Rakshasa, contain many instances in point. In the latter piece occurs

an example, in comparatively humble life, of the strong affection of a Hindu
wife. Chandana Das, like Antonio in the Merchant of Venice, is doomed to
die, to save his friend. His wife follows him to the scene of execution, with
their only child, and the succeeding dialogue ensues:

Chand. Withdraw, my love, and lead our boy along.
Wife. Forgive me, husband,—to another world
Thy steps are bound, and not to foreign realms,
Whence in due time thou homeward wilt return;
No common farewell our leave-taking now
Admits, nor must the partner of thy fate
Leave thee to trace thy solitary way.
Chand. What dost thou mean?
Wife. To follow thee in death.
Chand. Think not of this—our boy’s yet tender years
Demand affectionate and guardian care.
Wife. I leave him to our household gods, nor fear
They will desert his youth:—come, my dear boy,
And bid thy sire a long and last farewell.
The Tale of Dewaldai.—The annals of no nation on earth record a more
ennobling or more magnanimous instance of female loyalty than that
exemplified by Dewaldai, mother of the Bannaphar brothers, which will at
once illustrate the manners of the Rajput fair, and their estimation and
influence in society.
The last Hindu emperor of Delhi, the chivalrous Prithiraj of the Chauhan
race, had abducted the daughter of the prince of Sameta. Some of the
wounded who had covered his retreat were assailed and put to death by
Parmal, the Chandel prince of Mahoba.[12] In order to avenge this insult, the
emperor had no sooner conveyed his bride to Delhi than he invaded the
territory of the Chandel, whose troops were cut to pieces at Sirswa,[13] the
advanced post of his kingdom. While [615] pursuing his success, the

Chandel called a council, and by the advice of his queen Malandevi
demanded a truce of his adversary, on the plea of the absence of his
chieftains Alha and Udala. The brother of the bard of Mahoba was the
envoy, who found the Chauhan ready to cross the Pahuj. He presented his
gifts, and adjured him, “as a true Rajput, not to take them at such
disadvantage.” The gifts were accepted, and the Chauhan pledged himself,
“albeit his warriors were eager for the fight,” to grant the truce demanded;
and having dismissed the herald, he inquired of his own bard, the prophetic
Chand, the cause of the disaffection which led to the banishment of the
Bannaphar; to which he thus replies: “Jasraj was the leader of the armies of
Mahoba when his sovereign was defeated and put to flight by the wild race
of Gonds; Jasraj repulsed the foe, captured Garha their capital, and laid his
head at his sovereign’s feet. Parmal returning with victory to Mahoba, in
gratitude for his service, embraced the sons of Jasraj, and placed them in his
honours and lands, while Malandevi the queen made no distinction between
them and her son.” The fief of the young Bannaphar[14] chieftains was at the
celebrated fortress Kalanjar, where their sovereign happening to see a fine
mare belonging to Alha, desired to possess her, and being refused, so far
forgot past services as to compel them to abandon the country. On retiring
they fired the estates of the Parihara chief who had instigated their disgrace.
With their mother and families they repaired to Kanauj, whose monarch
received them with open arms, assigning lands for their maintenance.
Having thus premised the cause of banishment, Chand conducts us to
Kanauj, at the moment when Jagnakh the bard was addressing the exiles on
the dangers of Mahoba.
War with Prithirāj.—“The Chauhan is encamped on the plains of
Mahoba; Narsingh and Birsingh have fallen, Sirswa is given to the flames,
and the kingdom of Parmal laid waste by the Chauhan. For one month a
truce has been obtained: while to you I am sent for aid in his griefs. Listen,
O sons of Bannaphar; sad have been the days of Malandevi since you left
Mahoba! Oft she looks towards Kanauj; and while she recalls you to mind,
tears gush from her eyes and she exclaims, ‘The fame of the Chandel is
departing’; but when gone, O sons of Jasraj, great will be your self-accusing
sorrow: yet, think of Mahoba.”
“Destruction to Mahoba! Annihilation to the Chandel who, without fault
[616], expelled us our home: in whose service fell our father, by whom his

kingdom was extended. Send the slanderous Parihara—let him lead your
armies against the heroes of Delhi. Our heads were the pillars of Mahoba;
by us were the Gonds expelled, and their strongholds Deogarh and
Chandbari added to his sway. We maintained the field against the Jadon,
sacked Hindaun,[15] and planted his standard on the plains of Katehr.[16] It
was I (continued Alha) who stopped the sword of the conquering
Kachhwaha[17]—The amirs of the Sultan fled before us.—At Gaya we were
victorious, and added Rewa[18] to his kingdom. Antarved[19] I gave to the
flames, and levelled to the ground the towns of Mewat.[20] From ten princes
did Jasraj bring spoil to Mahoba. This have we done; and the reward is exile
from our home! Seven times have I received wounds in his service, and
since my father’s death gained forty battles; and from seven has Udala
conveyed the record of victory[21] to Parmal. Thrice my death seemed
inevitable. The honour of his house I have upheld—yet exile is my reward!”
The bard replies—“The father of Parmal left him when a child to the care
of Jasraj. Your father was in lieu of his own; the son should not abandon
him when misfortune makes him call on you. The Rajput who abandons his
sovereign in distress will be plunged into hell. Then place on your head the
loyalty of your father. Can you desire to remain at Kanauj while he is in
trouble, who expended thousands in rejoicings for your birth? Malandevi
(the queen), who loves you as her own, presses your return. She bids me
demand of Dewaldai fulfilment of the oft-repeated vow, that your life and
Mahoba, when endangered, were inseparable. The breaker of vows,
despised on earth, will be plunged into hell, there to remain while sun and
moon endure.”
Dewaldai heard the message of the queen. “Let us fly to Mahoba,” she
[617] exclaimed. Alha was silent, while Udala said aloud, “May evil spirits
seize upon Mahoba!—Can we forget the day when, in distress, he drove us
forth?—Return to Mahoba—let it stand or fall, it is the same to me; Kanauj
is henceforth my home.”
“Would that the gods had made me barren,” said Dewaldai, “that I had
never borne sons who thus abandon the paths of the Rajput, and refuse to
succour their prince in danger!” Her heart bursting with grief, and her eyes
raised to heaven, she continued: “Was it for this, O universal lord, thou
mad’st me feel a mother’s pangs for these destroyers of Bannaphar’s fame?
Unworthy offspring! the heart of the true Rajput dances with joy at the mere
name of strife—but ye, degenerate, cannot be the sons of Jasraj—some carl

must have stolen to my embrace, and from such ye must be sprung.” The
young chiefs arose, their faces withered in sadness. “When we perish in
defence of Mahoba, and covered with wounds, perform deeds that will
leave a deathless name; when our heads roll in the field—when we embrace
the valiant in fight, and treading in the footsteps of the brave, make
resplendent the blood of both lines, even in the presence of the heroes of the
Chauhan, then will our mother rejoice.”
The envoy having, by this loyal appeal of Dewaldai, attained the object
of his mission, the brothers repair to the monarch of Kanauj,[22] in order to
ask permission to return to Mahoba; this is granted, and they are dismissed
with magnificent gifts, in which the bardic herald participated;[23] and the
parting valediction was “preserve the faith of the Rajputs.” The omens
during the march were of the worst kind: as Jagnakh expounded them, Alha
with a smile replied, “O bard, though thou canst dive into the dark recesses
of futurity, to the brave all omens are happy,[24] even though our heroes shall
fall, and the fame of the Chandel must depart; thus in secret does my soul
assure me.” The saras[25] was alone on the right—the eagle as he flew
dropped his prey—the chakwa[26] “separated from his mate—drops fell from
the eyes of the warlike steed—the siyal[27] sent forth sounds of lamentation;
spots were seen on the disc of the sun” [618]. The countenance of Lakhan
fell;[28] these portents filled his soul with dismay: but Alha said, “though
these omens bode death, yet death to the valiant, to the pure in faith, is an
object of desire not of sorrow. The path of the Rajput is beset with
difficulties, rugged, and filled with thorns; but he regards it not, so it but
conducts to battle.”—“To carry joy to Parmala alone occupied their
thoughts: the steeds bounded over the plain like the swift-footed deer.” The
brothers, ere they reached Mahoba, halted to put on the saffron robe, the
sign of “no quarter” with the Rajput warrior. The intelligence of their
approach filled the Chandela prince with joy, who advanced to embrace his
defenders, and conduct them to Mahoba; while the queen Malandevi came
to greet Dewaldai, who with the herald bard paid homage, and returned
with the queen to the city. Rich gifts were presented, gems resplendent with
light. The queen sent for Alha, and extending her hands over his head,
bestowed the asis[29] (blessing) as kneeling he swore his head was with
Mahoba, and then waved a vessel filled with pearls over his head, which
were distributed to his followers.[30]

The bardic herald was rewarded with four villages. We are then
introduced to the Chauhan camp and council, where Chand the bard is
expatiating on the return of the Bannaphars with the succours of Kanauj. He
recommends his sovereign to send a herald to the Chandel to announce the
expiration of the truce, and requiring him to meet him in the field, or
abandon Mahoba. According to the bard’s advice, a dispatch was
transmitted to Parmal, in which the cause of war was recapitulated—the
murder of the wounded; and stating that, according to Rajput faith, he had
granted seven days beyond the time demanded, “and although so many days
had passed since succour had arrived from Kanauj, the lion-horn had not yet
sounded (singhnad)”: adding, “if he abandon all desire of combat, let him
proclaim his vassalage to Delhi, and abandon Mahoba.”
Parmal received the hostile message in despair; but calling his warriors
around him, he replied to the herald of the Chauhan, that “on the day of the
sun, the first of the month, he would join him in strife” [619].
“On the day sacred to Sukra (Friday), Prithiraj sounded the shell, while
the drums thrice struck proclaimed the truce concluded.[31] The standard was
brought forth, around which the warriors gathered; the cup circulated, the
prospect of battle filled their souls with joy. They anointed their bodies with
fragrant oils, while the celestial Apsaras with ambrosial oils and heavenly
perfumes anointed their silver forms, tinged their eyelids, and prepared for
the reception of heroes.[32] The sound of the war-shell reached Kailas; the
abstraction of Iswara was at an end—joy seized his soul at the prospect of
completing his chaplet of skulls (mundamala). The Yoginis danced with joy,
their faces sparkled with delight, as they seized their vessels to drink the
blood of the slain. The devourers of flesh, the Palankashas, sung songs of
triumph at the game of battle between the Chauhan and Chandel.”
In another measure, the bard proceeds to contrast the occupations of his
heroes and the celestials preparatory to the combat, which descriptions are
termed rupaka. “The heroes gird on their armour, while the heavenly fair
deck their persons. They place on their heads the helm crowned with the
war-bell (viragantha), these adjust the corset; they draw the girths of the
war-steed, the fair of the world of bliss bind the anklet of bells; nets of steel
defend the turban’s fold, they braid their hair with golden flowers and gems;
the warrior polishes his falchion—the fair tints the eyelid with anjan;[33] the
hero points his dagger, the fair paints a heart on her forehead; he braces on
his ample buckler—she places the resplendent orb in her ear; he binds his

arms with a gauntlet of brass—she stains her hands with the henna. The
hero decorates his hand with the tiger-claw[34]—the Apsaras ornaments with
rings and golden bracelets; the warrior shakes the ponderous lance—the
heavenly fair the garland of love[35] to decorate those who fall in the fight;
she binds on a necklace of pearls, he a mala of the tulasi.[36] The warrior
strings his bow—the fair assume their killing [620] glances. Once more the
heroes look to their girths, while the celestial fair prepare their cars.”
After the bard has finished his rupaka, he exclaims, “Thus says Chand,
the lord of verse; with my own eyes have I seen what I describe.” It is
important to remark, that the national faith of the Rajput never questions the
prophetic power of their chief bard, whom they call Trikala, or cognoscent
of the past, the present, and the future—a character which the bard has
enjoyed in all ages and climes; but Chand was the last whom they admitted
to possess supernatural vision.
We must now return to Mahoba, where a grand council had assembled at
a final deliberation; at which, shaded by screens, the mother of the
Bannaphars, and the queen Malandevi, were present. The latter thus opens
the debate: “O mother of Alha, how may we succeed against the lord of the
world?[37] If defeated, lost is Mahoba; if we pay tribute, we are loaded with
shame.” Dewaldai recommends hearing seriatim the opinions of the
chieftains, when Alha thus speaks: “Listen, O mother, to your son; he alone
is of pure lineage who, placing loyalty on his head, abandons all thoughts of
self, and lays down his life for his prince; my thoughts are only for Parmal.
If she lives she will show herself a woman, or emanation of Parvati.[38] The
warriors of Sambhar shall be cut in pieces. I will so illustrate the blood of
my fathers, that my fame shall last for ever. My son Indal, O prince! I
bequeath to you, and the fame of Dewaldai is in your keeping.”
The queen thus replies: “The warriors of the Chauhan are fierce as they
are numerous; pay tribute, and save Mahoba.” The soul of Udala inflamed,
and turning to the queen, “Why thought you not thus when you slew the
defenceless? but then I was unheard. Whence now your wisdom? thrice I
beseeched you to pardon. Nevertheless, Mahoba is safe while life remains
in me, and in your cause, O Parmal! we shall espouse celestial brides.”
“Well have you spoken, my son,” said Dewaldai, “nothing now remains
but to make thy parent’s milk resplendent by thy deeds. The call of the
peasant driven [621] from his home meets the ear, and while we deliberate,
our villages are given to the flames.” But Parmal replied: “Saturn[39] rules

the day, to-morrow we shall meet the foe.” With indignation Alha turned to
the king: “He who can look tamely on while the smoke ascends from his
ruined towns, his fields laid waste, can be no Rajput—he who succumbs to
fear when his country is invaded, his body will be plunged into the hell of
hells, his soul a wanderer in the world of spirits for sixty thousand years;
but the warrior who performs his duty will be received into the mansion of
the sun, and his deeds will last for ever.”
But cowardice and cruelty always accompany each other, nor could all
the speeches of the brothers “screw his courage to the sticking place.”
Parmal went to his queen, and gave fresh vent to his lamentation. She
upbraided his unmanly spirit, and bid him head his troops and go forth to
the fight. The heroes embraced their wives for the last time, and with the
dawn performed their pious rites. The Bannaphar offered oblations to the
nine planets, and having adored the image of his tutelary god, he again put
the chain round his neck;[40] then calling his son Indal, and Udala his
brother, he once more poured forth his vows to the universal mother “that
he would illustrate the name of Jasraj, and evince the pure blood derived
from Dewaldai, whene’er he met the foe.”—“Nobly have you resolved,”
said Udala, “and shall not my kirwan[41] also dazzle the eyes of Sambhar’s
lord? shall he not retire from before me?”—“Farewell, my children,” said
Dewaldai, “be true to your salt, and should you lose your heads for your
prince, doubt not you will obtain the celestial crown.” Having ceased, the
wives of both exclaimed, “What virtuous wife survives her lord? for thus
says Gauriji,[42] ‘the woman, who survives her husband who falls in the field
of battle, will never obtain bliss, but wander a discontented ghost in the
region of unhallowed spirits.’”
This is sufficient to exhibit the supreme influence of women, not only on,
but also in society.
The extract is taken from the Bardic historian, when Hindu customs were
pure, and the Chauhan was paramount sovereign of India. It is worth while
to compare it with another written six centuries after the conquest by the
Muhammadans; although six dynasties—namely, Ghazni, Ghor, Khilji
[622], Sayyid, Lodi, and Mogul, numbering more than thirty kings, had
intervened, yet the same uncontrollable spirit was in full force,
unchangeable even in misfortune. Both Hindu and Persian historians

expatiate with delight on the anecdote; but we prefer the narrative of the
ingenuous Bernier, under whose eye the incident occurred.
Jaswant Singh and his Wife.—In the civil war for empire amongst the
sons of Shah Jahan, when Aurangzeb opened his career by the deposal of
his father and the murder of his brothers, the Rajputs, faithful to the
emperor, determined to oppose him. Under the intrepid Rathor Jaswant
Singh, thirty thousand Rajputs, chiefly of that clan, advanced to the
Nerbudda, and with a magnanimity amounting to imprudence, they
permitted the junction of Murad with Aurangzeb, who, under cover of
artillery served by Frenchmen, crossed the river almost unopposed. Next
morning the action commenced, which continued throughout the day. The
Rajputs behaved with their usual bravery; but were surrounded on all sides,
and by sunset left ten thousand dead on the field.[43] The Maharaja retreated
to his own country, but his wife, a daughter of the Rana of Udaipur,
“disdained (says Ferishta) to receive her lord, and shut the gates of the
castle.”
Bernier, who was present, says, “I cannot forbear to relate the fierce
reception which the daughter of the Rana gave to her husband Jeswunt
Singh [Jessom Seingue], after his defeat and flight. When she heard he was
nigh, and had understood what had passed in the battle; that he had fought
with all possible courage; that he had but four or five hundred men left; and
at last, no longer able to resist the enemy, had been forced to retreat; instead
of sending some one to condole him in his misfortunes, she commanded in
a dry mood to shut the gates of the castle, and not to let this infamous man
enter; that he was not her husband; that the son-in-law of the great Rana
could not have so mean a soul; that he was to remember, that being grafted
into so illustrious a house, he was to imitate its virtue; in a word, he was to
vanquish, or to die. A moment after, she was of another humour; she
commands a pile of wood to be laid, that she might burn herself; that they
abused her; that her husband must needs be dead; that it could not be
otherwise. And a little while after, she was seen to change countenance, to
[623] fall into a passion, and break into a thousand reproaches against him.
In short, she remained thus transported eight or nine days, without being
able to resolve to see her husband, till at last her mother coming, brought
her in time to herself, composed by assuring her that as soon as the Raja
had but refreshed himself he would raise another army to fight Aurangzeb,

and repair his honour. By which story one may see,” says Bernier, “a
pattern of the courage of the women in that country”; and he adds this
philosophical corollary on this and the custom of satis, which he had
witnessed: “There is nothing which opinion, prepossession, custom, hope,
and the point of honour, may not make men do or suffer.”[44]
The Tale of Sanjogta.—The romantic history of the Chauhan emperor of
Delhi abounds in sketches of female character; and in the story of his
carrying off Sanjogta, the princess of Kanauj, we have not only the
individual portrait of the Helen of her country, but in it a faithful picture of
the sex. We see her, from the moment when, rejecting the assembled
princes, she threw the “garland of marriage” round the neck of her hero, the
Chauhan, abandon herself to all the influences of passion—mix in a combat
of five days’ continuance against her father’s array, witness his overthrow,
and the carnage of both armies, and subsequently, by her seductive charms,
lulling her lover into a neglect of every princely duty. Yet when the foes of
his glory and power invade India, we see the enchantress at once start from
her trance of pleasure, and exchanging the softer for the sterner passions, in
accents not less strong because mingled with deep affection, she conjures
him, while arming him for the battle, to die for his fame, declaring that she
will join him in “the mansions of the sun.” Though it is difficult to extract,
in passages sufficiently condensed, what may convey a just idea of this
heroine, we shall attempt it in the bard’s own language, rendered into prose.
He announces the tidings of invasion by the medium of a dream, which the
Chauhan thus relates:
“‘This night, while in the arms of sleep, a fair, beautiful as Rambha,
rudely seized my arm; then she assailed you, and while you were
struggling, a mighty elephant,[45] infuriated, and hideous as a demon, bore
down upon me. Sleep fled—nor Rambha nor demon remained—but my
heart was panting, and [624] my quivering lips muttering Har! Har![46]
What is decreed the gods only know.’
“Sanjogta replied, ‘Victory and fame to my lord! O, sun of the Chauhans,
in glory, or in pleasure, who has tasted so deeply as you? To die is the
destiny not only of man but of the gods: all desire to throw off the old
garment; but to die well is to live for ever. Think not of self, but of
immortality; let your sword divide your foe, and I will be your ardhanga[47]
hereafter.’

“The king sought the bard, who expounded the dream, and the Guru
wrote an incantation, which he placed in his turban. A thousand brass
vessels of fresh milk were poured in libations to the sun and moon. Ten
buffaloes were sacrificed to the supporters of the globe, and gifts were
made to all. But will offerings of blood or libations of milk arrest what is
decreed? If by these man could undo what is ordained, would Nala or the
Pandus have suffered as they did?”
While the warriors assemble in council to consult on the best mode of
opposing the Sultan of Ghazni, the king leaves them to deliberate, in order
to advise with Sanjogta. Her reply is curious:
“Who asks woman for advice? The world deems their understanding
shallow; even when truths issue from their lips, none listen thereto. Yet
what is the world without woman? We have the forms of Sakti[48] with the
fire of Siva; we are at once thieves and sanctuaries; we are vessels of virtue
and of vice—of knowledge and of ignorance. The man of wisdom, the
astrologer, can from the books calculate the motion and course of the
planets; but in the book of woman he is ignorant: and this is not a saying of
to-day, it ever has been so: our book has not been mastered, therefore, to
hide their ignorance, they say, in woman there is no wisdom! Yet woman
shares your joys and your sorrows. Even when you depart from the mansion
of the sun, we part not. Hunger and thirst we cheerfully partake with you;
we are as the lakes, of which you are the swans; what are when absent from
our bosoms?”
The army having assembled, and all being prepared to march against the
Islamite, in the last great battle which subjugated India, the fair Sanjogta
armed her lord for the encounter. In vain she sought the rings of his corslet;
her eyes were [625] fixed on the face of the Chauhan, as those of the
famished wretch who finds a piece of gold. The sound of the drum reached
the ear of the Chauhan; it was as a death-knell on that of Sanjogta: and as
he left her to head Delhi’s heroes, she vowed that henceforward water only
should sustain her. “I shall see him again in the region of Surya, but never
more in Yoginipur.”[49] Her prediction was fulfilled: her lord was routed,
made captive and slain; and, faithful to her vow, she mounted the funeral
pyre.
The Queen of Ganor.—Were we called upon to give a pendant for
Lucretia, it would be found in the queen of Ganor.[50] After having defended

five fortresses against the foe, she retreated to her last stronghold on the
Nerbudda, and had scarcely left the bark, when the assailants arrived in
pursuit. The disheartened defenders were few in number, and the fortress
was soon in possession of the foe, the founder of the family now ruling in
Bhopal. The beauty of the queen of Ganor was an allurement only
secondary to his desire for her country, and he invited her to reign over it
and him. Denial would have been useless, and would have subjected her to
instant coercion, for the Khan awaited her reply in the hall below; she
therefore sent a message of assent, with a complimentary reflection on his
gallant conduct and determination of pursuit; adding, that he merited her
hand for his bravery, and might prepare for the nuptials, which should be
celebrated on the terrace of the palace. She demanded two hours for
unmolested preparation, that she might appear in appropriate attire, and
with the distinction her own and his rank demanded.
Ceremonials, on a scale of magnificence equal to the shortness of the
time, were going on. The song of joy had already stifled the discordant
voice of war, and at length the Khan was summoned to the terrace. Robed
in the marriage garb presented to him by the queen, with a necklace and
aigrette of superb jewels from the coffers of Ganor, he hastened to obey the
mandate, and found that fame had not done justice to her charms. He was
desired to be seated, and in conversation full of rapture on his side, hours
were as minutes while he gazed on the beauty of the queen. But presently
his countenance fell—he complained of heat; punkas and water were
brought, but they availed him not, and he began to tear the bridal garments
from his frame, when the queen thus addressed him [626]: “Know, Khan,
that your last hour is come; our wedding and our death shall be sealed
together. The vestments which cover you are poisoned; you had left me no
other expedient to escape pollution.” While all were horror-struck by this
declaration, she sprung from the battlements into the flood beneath. The
Khan died in extreme torture, and was buried on the road to Bhopal; and,
strange to say, a visit to his grave has the reputation of curing the tertian of
that country.[51]
Rāja Jai Singh and his Wife.—We may give another anecdote
illustrative of this extreme delicacy of sentiment, but without so tragical a
conclusion. The celebrated Raja Jai Singh of Amber had espoused a
princess of Haraoti, whose manners and garb, accordant with the simplicity

of that provincial capital, subjected her to the badinage of the more refined
court of Amber, whose ladies had added the imperial costume to their own
native dress. One day being alone with the prince, he began playfully to
contrast the sweeping jupe of Kotah with the more scanty robe of the belles
of his own capital; and taking up a pair of scissors, said he would reduce it
to an equality with the latter. Offended at such levity, she seized his sword,
and assuming a threatening attitude, said, “that in the house to which she
had the honour to belong, they were not habituated to jests of this nature;
that mutual respect was the guardian, not only of happiness but of virtue”;
and she assured him, that if he ever again so insulted her, he would find that
the daughter of Kotah could use a sword more effectively than the prince of
Amber the scissors; adding, that she would prevent any future scion of her
house from being subjected to similar disrespect, by declaring such
intermarriages talak, or forbidden, which interdict I believe yet exists.[52]
A Courageous Rājput Woman.—I will append an anecdote related by
the celebrated Zalim Singh, characteristic of the presence of mind, prowess,
and physical strength of the Rajput women. To attend and aid in the
minutiae of husbandry is by no means uncommon with them, as to dress
and carry the meals of their husbands to the fields is a general practice. In
the jungle which skirts the knolls of Pachpahar, a huge bear assaulted a
Rajputni as she was carrying her husband’s dinner. As he approached with
an air of gallantry upon his hind-legs, doubting whether the food or herself
[627] were the intended prey, she retreated behind a large tree, round the
trunk of which Bruin, still in his erect attitude, tried all his powers of
circumvention to seize her. At length, half exhausted, she boldly grasped his
paws, and with so vigorous a hold that he roared with pain, while in vain,
with his short neck, did he endeavour to reach the powerful hand which
fixed him. While she was in this dilemma, a Pardesi (a foreign soldier of the
State) happened to be passing to the garrison of Gagraun, and she called out
to him in a voice of such unconcern to come and release her for a time, that
he complied without hesitation. She had not retired, however, above a
dozen yards ere he called loudly for her return, being scarcely able to hold
his new friend; but laughingly recommending perseverance, she hastened

on, and soon returned with her husband, who laid the monster prostrate with
his matchlock, and rescued the Pardesi from his unpleasing predicament.[53]
Such anecdotes might be multiplied ad infinitum; but I will conclude with
one displaying the romantic chivalry of the Rajput, and the influence of the
fair in the formation of character; it is taken from the annals of Jaisalmer,
the most remote of the States of Rajasthan, and situated in the heart of the
desert, of which it is an oasis.
The Wedding of Sādhu.—Raningdeo was lord of Pugal, a fief of
Jaisalmer; his heir, named Sadhu, was the terror of the desert, carrying his
raids even to the valley of the Indus, and on the east to Nagor. Returning
from a foray, with a train of captured camels and horses, he passed by
Aurint, where dwelt Manik Rao, the chief of the Mohils, whose rule
extended over 1440 villages. Being invited to partake of the hospitality of
the Mohil, the heir of Pugal attracted the favourable regards of the old
chieftain’s daughter:

She loved him for the dangers he had passed;

for he had the fame of being the first riever of the desert. Although
betrothed to the heir of the Rathor of Mandor, she signified her wish to
renounce the throne to be the bride of the chieftain of Pugal; and in spite of
the dangers he provoked, and contrary to the Mohil chief’s advice, Sadhu,
as a gallant Rajput, dared not reject the overture, and he promised “to
accept the coco,”[54] if sent in form to Pugal [628]. In due time it came, and
the nuptials were solemnized at Aurint. The dower was splendid; gems of
high price, vessels of gold and silver, a golden bull, and a train of thirteen
dewadharis,[55] or damsels of wisdom and penetration.
Arankanwal, the slighted heir of Mandor, determined on revenge, and
with four thousand Rathors planted himself in the path of Sadhu’s return,
aided by the Sankhla Mehraj, whose son Sadhu had slain. Though entreated
to add four thousand Mohils to his escort, Sadhu deemed his own gallant
band of seven hundred Bhattis sufficient to convey his bride to his desert
abode, and with difficulty accepted fifty, led by Meghraj, the brother of the
bride.
The rivals encountered at Chondan, where Sadhu had halted to repose;
but the brave Rathor scorned the advantage of numbers, and a series of
single combats ensued, with all the forms of chivalry. The first who entered

the lists was Jaitanga, of the Pahu clan, and of the kin of Sadhu. The enemy
came upon him by surprise while reposing on the ground, his saddle-cloth
for his couch, and the bridle of his steed twisted round his arm; he was soon
recognized by the Sankhla, who had often encountered his prowess, on
which he expatiated to Arankanwal, who sent an attendant to awake him;
but the gallant Panch Kalyan (for such was the name of his steed) had
already performed this service, and they found him upbraiding white-legs[56]
for treading upon him. Like a true Rajput, “toujours prêt,” he received the
hostile message, and sent the envoy back with his compliments, and a
request for some amal or opium, as he had lost his own supply. With all
courtesy this was sent, and prepared by the domestics of his antagonist;
after taking which he lay down to enjoy the customary siesta. As soon as he
awoke, he prepared for the combat, girt on his armour, and having reminded
Panch Kalyan of the fields he had won, and telling him to bear him well
that day, he mounted and advanced. The son of Chonda admiring his sang-
froid, and the address with which he guided his steed, commanded Jodha
Chauhan, the leader of his party, to encounter the Pahu. “Their two-edged
swords soon clashed in combat”; but the gigantic Chauhan fell beneath the
Bhatti, who, warmed with the fight, plunged amidst his foes, encountering
all he deemed worthy of his assault.
The fray thus begun, single combats and actions of equal parties
followed, the [629] rivals looking on. At length Sadhu mounted: twice he
charged the Rathor ranks, carrying death on his lance; each time he returned
for the applause of his bride, who beheld the battle from her car. Six
hundred of his foes had fallen, and nearly half his own warriors. He bade
her a last adieu, while she exhorted him to the fight, saying, “she would
witness his deeds, and if he fell, would follow him even in death.” Now he
singled out his rival Arankanwal,[57] who was alike eager to end the strife,
and blot out his disgrace in his blood. They met: some seconds were lost in
a courteous contention, each yielding to his rival the first blow, at length
dealt out by Sadhu on the neck of the disappointed Rathor. It was returned
with the rapidity of lightning, and the daughter of the Mohil saw the steel
descend on the head of her lover. Both fell prostrate to the earth: but
Sadhu’s soul had sped; the Rathor had only swooned. With the fall of the
leaders the battle ceased; and the fair cause of strife, Karamdevi, at once a
virgin, a wife, and a widow, prepared to follow her affianced. Calling for a
sword, with one arm she dissevered the other, desiring it might be conveyed

to the father of her lord—“tell him such was his daughter.” The other she
commanded to be struck off, and given, with her marriage jewels thereon,
to the bard of the Mohils. The pile was prepared on the field of battle; and
taking her lord in her embrace, she gave herself up to the devouring flames.
The dissevered limbs were disposed of as commanded; the old Rao of Pugal
caused the one to be burnt, and a tank was excavated on the spot, which is
still called after the heroine, “the lake of Karamdevi.”
This encounter took place in S. 1462, A.D. 1406. The brunt of the battle
fell on the Sankhlas, and only twenty-five out of three hundred and fifty left
the field with their leader, Mehraj, himself severely wounded. The rejected
lover had four brothers dangerously hurt; and in six months the wounds of
Arankanwal opened afresh: he died, and the rites to the manes of these
rivals in love, the chhamasa[58] of Sadhu, and the duadasa[59] of Arankanwal,
were celebrated on the same day.
Without pausing to trace the moral springs of that devotion which
influenced the Mohila maiden, we shall relate the sequel to the story
(though out of place)[60] in illustration of the prosecution of feuds
throughout Rajasthan. The fathers [630] now took up the quarrel of their
sons; and as it was by the prowess of the Sankhla vassal of Mandor that the
band of Sadhu was discomfited, the old Rao, Raningdeo, drew together the
lances of Pugal, and carried destruction into the fief of Mehraj. The
Sankhlas yield in valour to none of the brave races who inhabit the “region
of death”; and Mehraj was the father of Harbuji Sankhla, the Palladin of
Marudes, whose exploits are yet the theme of the erratic bards of Rajasthan.
Whether he was unprepared for the assault, or overcome by numbers, three
hundred of his kin and clan moistened the sand-hills of the Luni with their
blood. Raningdeo, flushed with revenge and laden with spoil, had reached
his own frontier, when he was overtaken by Chonda of Mandor, alike eager
to avenge the loss of his son Arankanwal, and this destructive inroad on his
vassal. A desperate conflict ensued, in which the Rao of Pugal was slain;
and the Rathor returned in triumph to Mandor.
Unequal to cope with the princes of Mandor, the two remaining sons of
Raningdeo, Tana and Mera, resolved to abandon their faith, in order to
preserve the point of honour, and “to take up their father’s feud.”[61] At this
period the king, Khizr Khan,[62] was at Multan; to him they went, and by
offers of service and an open apostacy, obtained a force to march against
Chonda, who had recently added Nagor to his growing dominions. While

the brothers were thus negotiating, they were joined by Kilan, the third son
of their common sovereign, the Rawal of Jaisalmer, who advised the use of
chal, which with the Rajput means indifferently stratagem or treachery, so
that it facilitates revenge. With the ostensible motive of ending their feuds,
and restoring tranquillity to their borderers, whose sole occupation was
watching, burning, and devastating, Kilan offered a daughter in marriage to
Chonda, and went so far as to say, that if he suspected aught unfair, he
would, though contrary to custom and his own dignity, send the Bhatti
princess to Nagor. This course being deemed the wisest, Chonda acquiesced
in his desire “to extinguish the feud (wair bujhana).”
Nāgor taken by Stratagem.—Fifty covered chariots were prepared as
the nuptial cortège, but which, instead of the bride and her handmaids,
contained the bravest men of Pugal.[63] These were preceded by a train of
horses led by Rajputs, of whom seven hundred also attended the camels
laden with baggage, provisions, and gifts, while a small armed [631] retinue
brought up the rear. The king’s troops, amounting to one thousand horse,
remained at a cautious distance behind. Chonda left Nagor to meet the
cavalcade and his bride, and had reached the chariots ere his suspicions
were excited. Observing, however, some matters which little savoured of
festivity, the Rathor commenced his retreat. Upon this the chiefs rushed
from their chariots and camels, and the royal auxiliaries advancing, Chonda
was assailed and fell at the gate of Nagor; and friend and foe entering the
city together, a scene of general plunder commenced.
Once more the feud was balanced; a son and a father had fallen on each
side, and the petty Rao of Pugal had bravely maintained the wair against the
princes of Mandor. The point of honour had been carried to the utmost
bound by both parties, and an opportunity of reconciliation was at hand,
which prevented the shadow of disgrace either to him who made or him
who accepted the overture. The Rathors dreaded the loss of the recent
acquisition, Nagor, and proposed to the Bhattis to seal their pacification
with the blood of their common foe. United, they fell on the spoil-
encumbered Tatars, whom they slew to a man.[64] Their father’s feud thus
revenged, the sons of Raningdeo (who, as apostates from their faith, could
no longer hold Pugal in fief, which was retained by Kilan, who had aided
their revenge) retired amongst the Aboharia Bhattis, and their descendants
are now styled Momin Musalman Bhatti.

From such anecdotes it will be obvious wherein consists the point of
honour with the Rajputs; and it is not improbable that the very cause which
has induced an opinion that females can have no influence on the lords of
the creation, namely, their seclusion, operates powerfully in the contrary
way.
Influence of Women on Rājput Society.—In spite of this seclusion, the
knowledge of their accomplishments and of their personal perfections,
radiates wherever the itinerant bard can travel. Though invisible
themselves, they can see; and accident often favours public report, and
brings the object of renown within the sphere of personal observation: as in
the case of Sadhu and the Mohila maiden. Placed behind screens, they see
the youths of all countries, and there are occasions when permanent
impressions are made, during tournaments and other martial exercises. Here
we have just seen that the passion of the [632] daughter of the Mohil was
fostered at the risk of the destruction not only of her father’s house, but also
that of her lover; and as the fourteen hundred and forty towns, which owned
the sway of the former, were not long after absorbed into the accumulating
territory of Mandor, this insult may have been the cause of the extirpation
of the Mohils, as it was of the Bhattis of Pugal.
The influence of women on Rajput society is marked in every page of
Hindu history, from the most remote periods. What led to the wars of
Rama? the rape of Sita. What rendered deadly the feuds of the Yadus? the
insult to Draupadi. What made prince Nala an exile from Narwar? his love
for Damayanti. What made Raja Bhartari abandon the throne of Avanti? the
loss of Pingali. What subjected the Hindu to the dominion of the Islamite?
the rape of the princess of Kanauj. In fine, the cause which overturned
kingdoms, commuted the sceptre to the pilgrim’s staff, and formed the
groundwork of all their grand epics, is woman. In ancient, and even in
modern times, she had more than a negative in the choice of a husband, and
this choice fell on the gallant and the gay. The fair Draupadi was the prize
of the best archer, and the Pandu Bhima established his fame, and bore her
from all the suitors of Kampila. The princess of Kanauj, when led through
ranks of the princes of Hind, each hoping to be the object of her choice,
threw the marriage-garland (barmala) over the neck of the effigy of the
Chauhan, which her father in derision had placed as porter at the gate. Here
was incense to fame and incentive to gallantry![65]

In the same manner, as related in another part of this work, did the
princess of Kishangarh invite Rana Raj Singh to bear her from the
impending union with the emperor of the Moguls; and abundant other
instances could be adduced of the free agency of these invisibles.
It were superfluous to reason on the effects of traditional histories, such
as these, on the minds and manners of the females of Rajasthan. They form
the amusement of their lives, and the grand topic in all their conversaziones;
they read them with the Purohit, and they have them sung by the itinerant
bard or Dholi minstrel [633], who disseminates them wherever the Rajput
name extends. The Rajput mother claims her full share in the glory of her
son, who imbibes at the maternal fount his first rudiments of chivalry; and
the importance of this parental instruction cannot be better illustrated than
in the ever-recurring simile, “make thy mother’s milk resplendent”; the full
force of which we have in the powerful, though overstrained expression of
the Bundi queen’s joy on the announcement of the heroic death of her son:
“the long-dried fountain at which he fed, jetted forth as she listened to the
tale of his death, and the marble pavement, on which it fell, rent asunder.”
Equally futile would it be to reason on the intensity of sentiment thus
implanted in the infant Rajput, of whom we may say without metaphor, the
shield is his cradle, and daggers his playthings; and with whom the first
commandment is, “avenge thy father’s feud”; on which they can heap text
upon text, from the days of the great Pandu moralist Vyasa to the not less
influential bard of their nation, the Trikala Chand.

1. [“The custom handed down in regular succession since time
immemorial among the four chief castes and the mixed races of that
country, is called the conduct of virtuous men” (Manu, Laws, ii. 18).]

2. So says Valmiki, the author of the oldest epic in existence, the
Ramayana [see p. 693 above].

3. Les Femmes, leur condition et leur influence dans l’ordre social, vol. i.
p. 10.

4. So are some of the Hindu races in the mountainous districts about the
Himalaya, and in other parts of India. This curious trait in ancient manners
is deserving of investigation: it might throw some light on the early history

of the world. [“Each man has but one wife, yet all the women are held in
common: for this is a custom of the Massagetae, and not of the Scythians,
as the Greeks wrongly say” (Herodotus i. 216). For polyandry in India see
Risley, The People of India, 2nd ed. 206 ff.]

5. [Polygamy does to some extent prevail (Census Report, Rājputāna,
1911, i. 157 f.)]

6. Laws, v. 130.

7. Ibid. ii. 33.

8. Digest of Hindu Law, Colebrooke, vol. ii. p. 209 [Manu iii. 55-8].

9. Of all the religions which have diversified mankind, whatever man
might select, woman should choose the Christian. This alone gives her just
rank in the scale of creation, whether arising from the demotic principle
which pervades our faith, or the dignity conferred on the sex in being
chosen to be the mother of the Saviour of man. In turning over the pages of
Manu we find many mortifying texts, which I am inclined to regard as
interpolations; as the following, so opposed to the beautiful sentiment above
quoted: “A wife, a son, a servant, a pupil, and a younger brother, may be
corrected when they commit faults with a rope, or the small thong of a
cane” [viii. 299]. Such texts might lead us to adopt Ségur’s conclusions,
that ever since the days of the patriarchs women were only brilliant slaves
—victims, who exhibited, in the wreaths and floral coronets which
bedecked them, the sacrifices to which they were destined. In the
patriarchal ages their occupations were to season the viands, and bake the
bread, and weave cloth for the tents: their recreations limited to respire the
fresh evening air under the shade of a fig tree, and sing canticles to the
Almighty. Such a fate, indeed, must appear to a Parisian dame, who passes
her time between the Feydeau and Tivoli, and whose daily promenade is
through the Champs Élysées, worse than death: yet there is no positive
hardships in these employments, and it was but the fair division of labour in
the primitive ages, and that which characterizes the Rajputni of the present
day.

10. Manu lays down some plain and wholesome rules for the domestic
conduct of the wife; above all, he recommends her to “preserve a cheerful
temper,” and “frugality in domestic expenses” [Laws, v. 150]. Some of his
texts savour, however, more of the anchorite than of a person conversant
with mankind; and when he commands the husband to be reverenced as a
god by the virtuous wife, even though enamoured of another woman, it may
be justly doubted if ever he found obedience thereto; or the scarcely less
difficult ordinance, “for a whole year let a husband bear with his wife who
treats him with aversion,” after which probation he is permitted to separate
[ix. 77]. It is very likely the Rajputs are more in the habit of quoting the
first of these texts than of hearing the last: for although they have a choice
at home, they are not ashamed to be the avowed admirers of the Aspasias
and Phrynes of the capital; from the same cause which attracted Socrates
and made Pericles a slave and which will continue until the united charms
of the dance and the song are sanctioned to be practised by the légitimes
within.

11. Manu ix. 101.

12. Parmāl or Paramardi Chandel (A.D. 1165-1203). He was defeated by
Prithirāj Chauhān in 1182.]

13. On the Pahuj, and now belonging to the Bundela prince of Datia. The
author has been over this field of battle.

14. [On the Bannāphar sept, from which sprang the heroes Alha and
Udal, see Crooke, Tribes and Castes North-West Provinces, i. 137 ff.; their
bravery forms the subject of numerous ballads (ASR, ii. 455 ff.).]

15. Hindaun was a town dependent on Bayana, the capital of the Jadons,
whose descendants still occupy Karauli and Sri Mathura.

16. [The modern Rohilkhand Division.]

17. Rao Pajun of Amber, one of the great vassals of the Chauhan, and
ancestor of the present Raja of Jaipur.

18. In the original, “the land of the Baghel to that of the Chandel.” Rewa
is capital of [or leading State in] Baghelkhand, founded by the Baghela
Rajputs, a branch of the Solanki kings of Anhilwara.

19. Antarved, the Duab, or Mesopotamia of the Jumna and Ganges.

20. A district S.W. of Delhi, notorious for the lawless habits of its
inhabitants: a very ancient Hindu race, but the greater part forced proselytes
to the faith of Islam. In the time of Prithiraj the chief of Mewat was one of
his vassals.

21. Jayapattra, or ‘bulletin of victory.’

22. Jaichand was then king of this city, only second to Delhi. He was
attacked in 1193 (A.D.) by Shihabu-d-din, after his conquest of the Chauhan,
driven from his kingdom, and found a watery grave in the Ganges. [The
battle was fought at Chandāwar in the Etāwa District, A.D. 1194 (Smith,
EHI, 385).]

23. Jagnakh had two villages conferred upon him, besides an elephant
and a dress.

24. [Compare Iliad, xii. 237 ff.]

25. The phenicopteros. [The great crane, Grus antigone.]

26. A large red duck, the emblem of fidelity with the Rajputs. [The
Brahmani duck, Anas casarca.]

27. The jackal.

28. Commander of the succours of Kanauj.

29. Asis is a form of benediction only bestowed by females and priests: it
is performed by clasping both hands over the person’s head, and waving a
piece of silver or other valuable over him, which is bestowed in charity [the
object being to disperse evil influence].

30. This is a very ancient ceremony, and is called Nicharavali [or ārti.
The Author has frequently had a large salver filled with silver coin waved
over his head, which was handed for distribution amongst his attendants. It
is most appropriate from the fair, from whom also he has had this
performed by their proxies, the family priest or female attendants.

31. The sankh, or war-shell, is thrice sounded, and the nakkaras strike
thrice, when the army is to march; but should it after such proclamation
remain on its ground, a scape-goat is slain in front of the imperial tent.

32. This picture recalls the remembrance of Hacon and the heroes of the
north; with the Valkyries or choosers of the slain; the celestial maids of war
of Scandinavia.

33. [Collyrium.]

34. Baghnakh or Naharnakh. [This weapon is best known by its use by
Sivaji when he slew Afzu-l Khān in 1659 at Pratāpgarh (Grant Duff, Hist.
Mahrattas, 78). Four specimens in the Indian Museum are described, with
an illustration, by Hon. W. Egerton (Illustrated Handbook of Indian Arms,
115).]

35. Barmala.

36. Mala, a necklace. The tulasi [the plant Olymum sanctum] or
rudraksha [the nuts of Elaeocarpus ganitrus, the former worn by
Vaishnavas, the latter by Saivas] had the same estimation amongst the
Hindus that the mistletoe had amongst the ancient Britons, and was always
worn in battle as a charm.

37. Prithiraj.

38. A Rajput never names his wife. Here it is evidently optional to the
widow to live or die, though Alha shows his wish for her society above. See
chapter on Satis, which will follow.

39. Sanichar.

40. It was a jantar or phylactery of Hanuman the monkey deity; probably
a magical stanza, with his image.

41. A crooked scimitar.

42. One of the names of Mena or Parvati. This passage will illustrate the
subject of Satis in a future chapter.

43. “’Tis a pleasure (says Bernier) to see them with the fume of opium in
their heads, embrace each other when the battle is to begin, and give their

mutual farewells, as men resolved to die.” [Ed. 1914, p. 40. The battle of
Dharmāt was fought on the banks of the river Sipra (IGI, xxi. 14 f.) on 15th
April, 1658. Manucci was not present, but gives an account derived from
Aurangzeb’s artillery officers of the battle at Dharmātpur, about 14 miles
from Ujjain (i. 259 f., and see Jadunath Sarkar, Life of Aurangzeb, ii. 1 ff.).
The latter (ii. 20 f.) speaks highly of the valour of Jaswant Singh, but Khāfi
Khan (Elliot-Dowson vii. 219) says that he acted in a cowardly way. The
account quoted by the author is not in the original work of Ferishta, but in
Dow’s continuation (ed. 1812, iii. 206 f).].

44. Bernier’s History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Mogul,
fol. p. 13, ed. 1684 [ed. 1914, p. 40 f., where a somewhat different version
is given].

45. It is deemed unlucky to see this emblem of Ganesa in sleep.

46. The battle-shout of the Rajput. [Hara, a title of Siva.]

47. ‘Half-body,’ which we may render, in common phraseology, ‘other
half.’

48. [The impersonation of the female energy.]

49. Delhi [“the city of the witch or sorceress”].

50. [The “Ganore” of the text possibly represents the town of Ganora in
the Bānswāra State. There is another place of the same name in Gwalior.]

51. [Several of our best authorities—Sir Lauder Brunton, Sir G.
Birdwood, Professors A. Keith and A. Doran of the Royal College of
Surgeons—have kindly investigated the question of death by poisoned
robes, of which various instances are reported in this work. The general
result is that it is doubtful if any known poison could be used in this way.
Sir Lauder Brunton remarks that a paste of the seeds of Abrus precatorius is
used for killing animals. Dr. N. Chevers (Manual of Medical Jurisprudence
in India, p. 299) writes: “Any one who has noticed how freely a robust
person in India perspires through a thin garment can understand that, if a
cloth were thoroughly impregnated with the cantharidine of that very

powerful vesicant, the Telini, the result would be as dangerous as an
extensive burn.” For telini (Mylabris punctum), used as a substitute for
Cantharis vesicatoria, see Sir G. Watt (Dict. Economic Products of India, v.
309). Manucci (i. 149) says that Akbar placed such poisons in charge of a
special officer. The stock classical case is that of Herakles killed by an
ointment made from the blood of Nessus. An old writer, W. Ramesey (Of
Poisons (1660), p. 14 f.) speaks of poisoning done in this way: but he
regards some of “these and the like storeyes to be merely Fabulous ... and
rather to be attributed to the Subtilty, Craft, and Malice of the Devill” (12
series, Notes and Queries, i. (1916) p. 417).]

52. The physician (unless he unite with his office that of ghostly
comforter) has to feel the pulse of his patient with a curtain between them,
through a rent, in which the arm is extended. [See the amusing account by
Fryer (New Account of E. India and Persia, Hakluyt Society, ed. i. 326 f.).]

53. [This is a stock story (Risley, The People of India, 2nd ed. 179 f.;
Rose, Glossary, ii. 220; cf. Herodotus v. 12).]

54. Sriphala.

55. Literally ‘lamp-holders’; such is the term applied to these handmaids;
who invariably form a part of the daeja or ‘dower.’ [The custom of sending
handmaids with the bride, the girls often becoming concubines of the
bridegroom, is common (Russell, Tribes and Castes Central Provinces, i.
63, ii. 77). In Gujarāt they are known as Goli or Vadhāran, and are
sometimes married to the Khawās, or male slaves of the harem (BG, ix. Part
i. 147, 235).]

56. Panch Kalyan is generally, if not always, a chestnut, having four
white legs, with a white nose and list or star.

57. Arankanwal, ‘the lotos of the desert,’ from aranya (Sanskrit), ‘a
waste,’ and kamala (pronounced kanwal), ‘a lotos’: classically it should be
written aranykamala; I write it as pronounced.

58. The rites to the manes on the completion of the ‘sixth month.’

59. The rites to the manes on the ‘twelfth day.’

60. The greater portion of these anecdotes, the foundation of national
character, will appear in the respective annals.

61. Bap ra wair lena.

62. [Khizr Khān, of the Sayyid dynasty of Delhi, was left in charge by
Timūr, and died A.D. 1421.]

63. [For this legend see Vol. I. p. 308 above.]

64. Khizr Khan succeeded to the throne of Delhi in A.D. 1414 [or rather,
was left in charge of Delhi by Timūr, and died A.D. 1421], and according to
the Jaisalmer annals the commencement of these feuds was in A.D. 1406.

65. The Samnite custom, so lauded by Montesquieu as the reward of
youthful virtue, was akin in sentiment to the Rajput, except that the fair
Rajputni made herself the sole judge of merit in her choice. It was more
calculated for republican than aristocratic society: “On assembloit tous les
jeunes gens, et on les jugeoit; celui qui était déclaré le meilleur de tout
prenoit pour sa femme la fille qu’il vouloit: l’amour, la beauté, la chastité,
la vertu, la naissance, les richesses même, tout cela était, pour ainsi dire, la
dot de la vertu.” It would be difficult, adds Montesquieu, to imagine a more
noble recompense, or one less expensive to a petty State, or more influential
on the conduct of both sexes (L’Esprit des Lois, chap. xvi. livre vii.).

CHAPTER 24

The Immolation of Women.—We now proceed to consider another trait
of Rajput character, exemplified in the practice of female immolation, and
to inquire whether religion, custom, or affection has most share in such
sacrifice. To arrive at the origin of this rite, we must trace it to the recesses
of mythology, where we shall discover the precedent in the example of Sati,

who to avenge an insult to Iswara, in her own father’s omission to ask her
lord to an entertainment, consumed herself in the presence of the assembled
gods. With this act of fealty (sati) the name of Daksha’s daughter has been
identified; and her regeneration and reunion to her husband, as the
mountain-nymph Mena, or Parvati, furnish the incentive to similar [634]
acts. In the history of these celestial beings, the Rajputni has a memorable
lesson before her, that no domestic differences can afford exemption from
this proof of faith: for Jupiter and Juno were not more eminent examples of
connubial discord than Mena and Siva, who was not only alike unfaithful,
but more cruel, driving Mena from his Olympus (Kailas), and forcing her to
seek refuge in the murky caverns of Caucasus. Female immolation,
therefore, originated with the sun-worshipping Saivas, and was common to
all those nations who adored this the most splendid object of the visible
creation. Witness the Scythic Gete or Jat warrior of the Jaxartes, who
devoted his wife, horse, arms, and slaves, to the flames; the “giant Gete” of
Scandinavia, who forgot not on the shores of the Baltic his Transoxianian
habits; and the Frisian Frank and Saxon descended from him, who ages
after omitted only the female. Could we assign the primary cause of a
custom so opposed to the first law of nature with the same certainty that we
can prove its high antiquity, we might be enabled to devise some means for
its abolition. The chief characteristic of Satiism is its expiating quality: for
by this act of faith, the Sati not only makes atonement for the sins of her
husband, and secures the remission of her own, but has the joyful assurance
of reunion to the object whose beatitude she procures. Having once imbibed
this doctrine, its fulfilment is powerfully aided by that heroism of character
inherent to the Rajputni; though we see that the stimulant of religion
requires no aid even in the timid female of Bengal, who, relying on the
promise of regeneration, lays her head on the pyre with the most
philosophical composure.
Nothing short of the abrogation of the doctrines which pronounce such
sacrifices exculpatory can be effectual in preventing them; but this would
be to overturn the fundamental article of their creed, the notion of
metempsychosis. Further research may disclose means more attainable, and
the sacred Shastras are at once the surest and the safest. Whoever has
examined these is aware of the conflict of authorities for and against
cremation; but a proper application of them (and they are the highest who
give it not their sanction) has, I believe, never been resorted to. Vyasa, the

chronicler of the Yadus, a race whose manners were decidedly Scythic, is
the great advocate for female sacrifice: he (in the Mahabharata) pronounces
the expiation perfect. But Manu inculcates no such doctrine [635]; and
although the state of widowhood he recommends might be deemed onerous
by the fair sex of the west, it would be considered little hardship in the east.
“Let her emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and
fruit; but let her not, when her lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of
another man.” Again he says, “A virtuous wife ascends to heaven, if, after
the decease of her lord, she devote herself to pious austerity; but a widow,
who slights her deceased husband by marrying again, brings disgrace on
herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord.”[1]
These and many other texts, enjoining purity of life and manners to the
widow, are to be found in this first authority, but none demanding such a
cruel pledge of affection. Abstinence from the common pursuits of life, and
entire self-denial, are rewarded by “high renown in this world, and in the
next the abode of her husband”; and procure for her the title of “sadhwi, or
the virtuous.” These are deemed sufficient pledges of affection by the first
of sages.[2] So much has been written on this subject that we shall not
pursue it further in this place; but proceed to consider a still more inhuman
practice, infanticide.
Although custom sanctions, and religion rewards, a Sati, the victim to
marital selfishness, yet, to the honour of humanity, neither traditionary
adage nor religious text can be quoted in support of a practice so revolting
as infanticide. Man alone, of the whole animal creation, is equal to the task
of destroying his offspring [636]: for instinct preserves what reason
destroys. The wife is the sacrifice to his egotism, and the progeny of her
own sex to his pride; and if the unconscious infant should escape the
influence of the latter, she is only reserved to become the victim of the
former at the period when life is most desirous of extension. If the female
reasoned on her destiny, its hardships are sufficient to stifle all sense of joy,
and produce indifference to life. When a female is born, no anxious
inquiries await the mother—no greetings welcome the newcomer, who
appears an intruder on the scene, which often closes in the hour of its birth.
But the very silence with which a female birth is accompanied forcibly
expresses sorrow; and we dare not say that many compunctious visitings do
not obtrude themselves on those who, in accordance with custom and
imagined necessity, are thus compelled to violate the sentiments of nature.

Families may exult in the Satis which their cenotaphs portray,[3] but none
ever heard a Rajput boast of the destruction of his infant progeny.
The Origin of Infanticide.—What are the causes, we may ask,
sufficiently powerful to induce the suppression of a feeling which every
sentient being has in common for its offspring? To suppose the Rajput
devoid of this sentiment would argue his deficiency in the ordinary
attributes of humanity: often is he heard to exclaim, “Accursed the day
when a woman child was born to me!” The same motive which studded
Europe with convents, in which youth and beauty were immured until
liberated by death, first prompted the Rajput to infanticide: and, however
revolting the policy, it is perhaps kindness compared to incarceration. There
can be no doubt that monastic seclusion, practised by the Frisians in France,
the Langobardi in Italy, and the Visigoths in Spain, was brought from
Central Asia, the cradle of the Goths.[4] It is, in fact, a modification of the
same feeling which characterizes the Rajput and the ancient German
warrior—the dread of dishonour to the fair: the former raises the poniard to
the breast of his wife rather than witness her captivity, and he gives the
opiate to the infant, whom, if he cannot portion and marry to her equal, he
dare not see degraded [637].
Infanticide.—Although religion nowhere authorizes this barbarity, the
laws which regulate marriage amongst the Rajputs powerfully promote
infanticide. Not only is intermarriage prohibited between families of the
same clan (khanp), but between those of the same tribe (got); and though
centuries may have intervened since their separation, and branches thus
transplanted may have lost their original patronymic, they can never be
regrafted on the original stem: for instance, though eight centuries have
separated the two grand subdivisions of the Guhilots, and the younger, the
Sesodia, has superseded the elder, the Aharya, each ruling distinct States, a
marriage between any of the branches would be deemed incestuous: the
Sesodia is yet brother to the Aharya, and regards every female of the race as
his sister. Every tribe has therefore to look abroad, to a race distinct from its
own, for suitors for the females. Foreign war, international feuds, or other
calamities affect tribes the most remote from each other; nor can war or
famine thin the clans of Marwar, without diminishing the female population
of Amber: thus both suffer in a twofold degree. Many virtuous and humane
princes have endeavoured to check or mitigate an evil, in the eradication of

which every parental feeling would co-operate. Sumptuary edicts alone can
control it; and the Rajputs were never sufficiently enamoured of despotism
to permit it to rule within their private dwellings. The plan proposed, and in
some degree followed by the great Jai Singh of Amber, might with caution
be pursued, and with great probability of success. He submitted to the
prince of every Rajput State a decree, which was laid before a convocation
of their respective vassals, in which he regulated the daeja or dower, and
other marriage expenditure, with reference to the property of the vassal,
limiting it to one year’s income of the estate. This plan was, however,
frustrated by the vanity of the Chondawat of Salumbar, who expended on
the marriage of his daughter a sum even greater than his sovereign could
have afforded; and to have his name blazoned by the bards and
genealogists, he sacrificed the beneficent views of one of the wisest of the
Rajput race. Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled, and the aristocratic
Rajput submit to republican simplicity,[5] the evils arising from nuptial
profusion will not cease. Unfortunately, those who could check it find their
interest in stimulating it, namely, the whole class of Mangtas [638]
(mendicants), bards, minstrels, jugglers, Brahmans who assemble on these
occasions, and pour forth their epithalamiums in praise of the virtue of
liberality. The Bardais are the grand recorders of fame, and the volume of
precedent is always recurred to, in citing the liberality of former chiefs;
while the dread of their satire (visarva, literally ‘poison’)[6] shuts the eyes of
the chiefs to consequences, and they are only anxious to maintain the
reputation of their ancestors, though fraught with future ruin. “The Dahima
emptied his coffers” (says Chand, the pole-star of the Rajputs) “on the
marriage of his daughter with Prithiraj; but he filled them with the praises
of mankind.” The same bard retails every article of these daejas or
‘dowers,’ which thus become precedents for future ages; and the “lakh
pasarna,”[7] then established for the chief bardai, has become a model to
posterity. Even now the Rana of Udaipur, in his season of poverty, at the
recent marriage of his daughters bestowed “the gift of a lakh” on the chief
bard; though the articles of gold, horses, clothes, etc., were included in the
estimate, and at an undue valuation, which rendered the gift not quite so
precious as in the days of the Chauhan. Were bonds taken from all the
feudal chiefs, and a penal clause inserted, of forfeiture of their fief by all
who exceeded a fixed nuptial expenditure, the axe would be laid to the root,
the evil would be checked, and the heart of many a mother (and we may

add father) be gladdened, by preserving at once the point of honour and
their child. When ignorance declaims against the gratuitous love of murder
amongst these brave men, our contempt is excited equally by its short-
sighted conclusions, and the affected philanthropy which overlooks all
remedy but the “sic volo.” Sir John Shore,[8] when acting on the suggestions
of the benevolent Duncan for the suppression of this practice amongst the
Rajkumars, judged more wisely as a politician, and more charitably in his
estimate of human motives. “A prohibition,” says he, “enforced by the
denunciation of the severest temporal penalties, would have had little
efficacy in abolishing a custom which existed in opposition to the feelings
of humanity and natural affection”; but “the sanction of that religion which
the Rajkumars professed was appealed to in aid of the ordinances of civil
authority; and an engagement binding themselves to desist from the
barbarous practice was prepared, and circulated for signature amongst the
Rajkumars.” It may well be doubted how far this influence could extend,
when the root of the evil [639] remained untouched, though not unseen, as
the philanthropic Duncan pointed out in the confession of the Rajkumars:
“all unequivocally admitted it, but all did not fully acknowledge its atrocity;
and the only reason they assigned for the inhuman practice was the great
expense of procuring suitable matches for their daughters, if they allowed
them to grow up.” The Rajkumar is one of the Chauhan sakha, chief of the
Agnikulas, and in proportion to its high and well-deserved pretensions on
the score of honour, it has more infanticides than any other of the “thirty-six
royal races.” Amongst those of this race out of the pale of feudalism, and
subjected to powers not Rajput, the practice is fourfold greater, from the
increased pressure of the cause which gave it birth, and the difficulty of
establishing their daughters in wedlock. Raja Jai Singh’s enactment went far
to remedy this. Conjoin his plan with Mr. Duncan’s, provide dowers, and
infanticide will cease. It is only by removing the cause that the
consequences can be averted.[9]
As to the almost universality of this practice amongst the Jarejas, the
leading cause, which will also operate to its continuance, has been entirely
overlooked. The Jarejas were Rajputs, a subdivision of the Yadus; but by
intermarriage with the Muhammadans, to whose faith they became
proselytes, they lost their caste. Political causes have disunited them from
the Muhammadans, and they desire again to be considered as pure Rajputs;
but having been contaminated, no Rajput will intermarry with them. The

owner of a hyde of land, whether Sesodia, Rathor, or Chauhan, would scorn
the hand of a Jareja princess. Can the “sic volo” be applied to men who
think in this fashion?
Johar.—Having thus pointed out the causes of the sacrifice of widows
and of infants, I shall touch on the yet more awful rite of Johar, when a
whole tribe may become extinct, of which several instances have been
recorded in the annals of Mewar. To the fair of other lands the fate of the
Rajputni must appear one of appalling hardship. In each stage of life death
is ready to claim her; by the poppy at its dawn, by the flames in riper years;
while the safety of the interval depending on the uncertainty of war, at no
period is her existence worth a twelve-month’s purchase. The loss of a
battle, or the capture of a city, is a signal to avoid captivity and its horrors,
which to the Rajputni are worse than death. To the doctrines of Christianity
Europe owes the boon of protection to the helpless and the fair, who are
[640] comparatively safe amidst the vicissitudes of war; to which security
the chivalry of the Middle Ages doubtless contributed. But it is singular that
a nation so refined, so scrupulous in its ideas with regard to females, as the
Rajput, should not have entered into some national compact to abandon
such proof of success as the bondage[10] of the sex. We can enter into the
feeling, and applaud the deed, which ensured the preservation of their
honour by the fatal johar, when the foe was the brutalized Tatar. But the
practice was common in the international wars of the Rajputs; and I possess
numerous inscriptions (on stone and on brass) which record as the first
token of victory the captive wives of the foeman. When “the mother of
Sisera looked out of the window, and cried through the lattice, Why tarry
the wheels of his chariot—have they not sped? have they not divided the
prey; to every man a damsel or two?”[11] we have a perfect picture of the
Rajput mother expecting her son from the foray.
The Jewish law with regard to female captives was perfectly analogous to
that of Manu; both declare them “lawful prize,” and both Moses and Manu
establish rules sanctioning the marriage of such captives with the captors.
“When a girl is made captive by her lover, after a victory over her
kinsman,” marriage “is permitted by law.”[12] That forcible marriage in the
Hindu law termed Rakshasa, namely, “the seizure of a maiden by force
from her house while she weeps and calls for assistance, after her kinsman
and friends have been slain in battle,”[13] is the counterpart of the ordinance

regarding the usage of a captive in the Pentateuch,[14] excepting the “shaving
of the head,” which is the sign of complete slavery with the Hindu.[15] When
Hector, anticipating his fall, predicts the fate which awaits Andromache, he
draws a forcible picture of the misery of the Rajput; but the latter, instead of
a lachrymose and enervating harangue as he prepared for the battle with the
same chance of defeat, would have spared her the pain of plying the
“Argive loom” by her death. To prevent such degradation, the brave [641]
Rajput has recourse to the johar, or immolation of every female of the
family: nor can we doubt that, educated as are the females of that country,
they gladly embrace such a refuge from pollution. Who would not be a
Rajput in such a case? The very term widow (rand) is used in common
parlance as one of reproach.[16]
Manu commands that whoever accosts a woman shall do so by the title of
“sister,”[17] and that “way must be made for her, even as for the aged, for a
priest, a prince, or a bridegroom”; and in the admirable text on the laws of
hospitality, he ordains that “pregnant women, brides, and damsels shall
have food before all the other guests”[18]; which, with various other texts,
appears to indicate a time when women were less than now objects of
restraint; a custom attributable to the paramount dominion of the
Muhammadans, from whose rigid system the Hindus have borrowed. But so
many conflicting texts are to be found in the pages of Manu, that we may
pronounce the compilation never to have been the work of the same
legislator: from whose dicta we may select with equal facility texts tending
to degrade as to exalt the sex. For the following he would meet with many
plaudits: “Let women be constantly supplied with ornaments at festivals
and jubilees, for if the wife be not elegantly attired, she will not exhilarate
her husband. A wife gaily adorned, the whole house is embellished.”[19] In
the following text he pays an unequivocal compliment to her power: “A
female is able to draw from the right path in this life, not a fool only, but
even a sage, and can lead him in subjection to desire or to wrath.” With this
acknowledgment from the very fountain of authority, we have some ground
for asserting that les femmes font les mœurs, even in Rajputana; and that
though immured and invisible, their influence on society is not less certain
than if they moved in the glare of open day.
Position of Rājput Women.—Most erroneous ideas have been formed
of the Hindu female from the pictures drawn by those who never left the

banks of the Ganges. They are represented [642] as degraded beings, and
that not one in many thousands can even read. I would ask such travellers
whether they know the name of Rajput, for there are few of the lowest
chieftains whose daughters are not instructed both to read and write; though
the customs of the country requiring much form in epistolary writing, only
the signature is made to letters. But of their intellect, and knowledge of
mankind, whoever has had to converse with a Rajputni guardian of her
son’s rights, must draw a very different conclusion.[20] Though excluded by
the Salic law of India from governing, they are declared to be fit regents
during minority; and the history of India is filled with anecdotes of able and
valiant females in this capacity.[21]
Rājput Character.—The more prominent traits of character will be
found disseminated throughout the annals; we shall therefore omit the
customary summaries of nationalities, those fanciful debtor and creditor
accounts, with their balanced amount, favourable or unfavourable according
to the disposition of the observer; and from the anecdotes through these
pages leave the reader to form his own judgement of the Rajput. High
courage, patriotism, loyalty, honour, hospitality, and simplicity are qualities
which must at once be conceded to them; and if we cannot vindicate them
from charges to which human nature in every clime is obnoxious; if we are
compelled to admit the deterioration of moral dignity, from the continual
inroads of, and their consequent collision with, rapacious conquerors; we
must yet admire the quantum of virtue which even oppression and bad
example have failed to banish. The meaner vices of deceit and falsehood,
which the delineators of national character attach to the Asiatic without
distinction, I deny to be universal with the Rajputs, though some tribes may
have been obliged from position to use these shields of the weak against
continuous oppression. Every court in Rajasthan has [643] its characteristic
epithet; and there is none held more contemptible than the affix of jhutha
darbar, ‘the lying court,’ applied to Jaipur; while the most comprehensive
measure of praise is the simple epithet of sachha,[22] ‘the truth-teller.’ Again,
there are many shades between deceit and dissimulation: the one springs
from natural depravity; the other may be assumed, as with the Rajput, in
self-defence. But their laws, the mode of administering them, and the
operation of external causes, must be attentively considered before we can
form a just conclusion of the springs which regulate the character of a

people. We must examine the opinions of the competent of past days, when
political independence yet remained to the Rajputs, and not found our
judgment of a nation upon a superficial knowledge of individuals. To this
end I shall avail myself of the succinct but philosophical remarks of Abu-l-
fazl, the wise minister of the wise Akbar, which are equally applicable to
mankind at large, as to the particular people we are treating of. “If,” he says,
speaking of the Hindus, “a diligent investigator were to examine the temper
and disposition of the people of each tribe, he would find every individual
differing in some respect or other. Some among them are virtuous in the
highest degree, and others carry vice to the greatest excess. They are
renowned for wisdom, disinterested friendship, obedience to their superiors,
and many other virtues: but, at the same time, there are among them men
whose hearts are obdurate and void of shame, turbulent spirits, who for the
merest trifle will commit the greatest outrages.”[23]
Again: “The Hindus are religious, affable, courteous to strangers,
cheerful, enamoured of knowledge, lovers of justice, able in business,
grateful, admirers of truth, and of unbounded fidelity in all their dealings.
Their character shines brightest in adversity. Their soldiers (the Rajputs)
know not what it is to fly from the field of battle; but when the success of
the combat becomes doubtful, they dismount from their horses, and throw
away their lives in payment of the debt of valour.”[24]
I shall conclude this chapter with a sketch of their familiar habits, and a
few of their indoor and outdoor recreations.
Introduction of Melons, Grapes, Tobacco, Opium: the Use of Opium.
—To Babur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, India is indebted for the
introduction [644] of its melons and grapes; and to his grandson Jahangir
for tobacco.[25] For the introduction of opium we have no date, and it is not
even mentioned in the poems of Chand.[26] This pernicious plant has robbed
the Rajput of half his virtues; and while it obscures these, it heightens his
vices, giving to his natural bravery a character of insane ferocity, and to the
countenance, which would otherwise beam with intelligence, an air of
imbecility. Like all stimulants, its effects are magical for a time; but the
reaction is not less certain: and the faded form or amorphous bulk too often
attest the debilitating influence of a drug which alike debases mind and
body. In the more ancient epics we find no mention of the poppy-juice as
now used, though the Rajput has at all times been accustomed to his