Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s1.39

v1.c17.s1.39

The Rajput tribes could scarcely have acquired some of their still existing Scythic habits and warlike superstitions on the burning plains of Ind It was too hot to hail with fervent adoration the return of the sun from his southern course to enliven the northern hemisphere. This should be the religion of a colder clime, brought from their first haunts, the sources of the Jihun and Jaxartes. The grand solstitial festival, the Aswamedha, or sacrifice of the horse (the type of the sun), practised by the children of Vaivaswata, the ‘sun-born,’ was most probably simultaneously introduced from Scythia into the plains of Ind, and west, by the sons of Odin, Woden, or Budha, into Scandinavia, where it became the Hi-el or Hi-ul,¹ the festival of the winter solstice ; the grand jubilee of northern nations, and in the first ages of Christianity, being so near the epoch of its rise, gladly used by the first fathers of the church to perpetuate that event ² [25].