Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s2.19

v2.c27.s2.19

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 Balnath⁴ and Budha⁵ 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.” ¹ 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 ; ² 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