Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s1.38

v2.c27.s1.38

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,¹ 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 ² 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,¹ ‘offering of the bull,’ was made, but human sacrifices.² 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.