Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s2.89

v2.c27.s2.89

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.