Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s3: Chapter 21

Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s3

Language: English

v2.c27.s3.t1 Affinities of Hindu to other Mythologies — 43 parts

Chapter 21 v2.c27.s3.1

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.”² 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.

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² Travels in Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 33.

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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,’¹ or ‘children of the forest,’² while their conquerors, the Rajputs, arrogate celestial descent.³ How soon after the flood the Suryas, or sun-worshippers, entered India Proper, must ever remain uncertain.⁴ 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,⁵ 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.⁶ 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.

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¹ Bhumiputra. ² Vanaputra. ³ Suryas and Induputras. ⁴ [For the Vedic cult of Sūrya see Macdonell, “Vedic Mythology,” Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, 1897, p. 30 ff.] ⁵ 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.] ⁶ [There are no grounds for this classification.]

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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.”

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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;¹ 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,¹ 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? ¹ 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 *sing*, ‘a lion’; *i.e.* in water or spirit like a lion; for even *pani*, the common epithet for water, is applied metaphorically to ‘spirit.’ ²

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¹ 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).

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¹ 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.]

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¹ [Such analogies of custom do not prove ethnical identity.] ² [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.] ³ See Turner’s *History of Anglo-Saxons* for Indo-Scythic words. ⁴ 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. ⁵ 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.]

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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: ³ such as Eyvorsél, Udila, Attitai, Pujun, Hamira,⁴ 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? ⁵

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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.

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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

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See Turner’s *History of the Anglo-Saxons*, vol. i. p. 35. [Many of the identifications are obsolete.]

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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.” ¹

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¹ Sir W. Jones, “On the Lunar Year of the Hindus,” *Asiatic Researches*, vol. iii. p. 257.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.¹ 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.

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¹ 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).

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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,¹ and dedicated to him the first day of the week, namely, Adityawar, contracted to Itwar, also called Thawara² [564].

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¹ See Vol. I. p. 91.

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² This word appears to have the same import as Thor, the sun-god and war divinity of the Scandinavians. [? Thāwar, Saturday; Skt. sthāvara, ‘stationary.’]

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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.’

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Thor, in the eleventh fable of the Edda, is denominated Asa-Thor,³ 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,’¹ 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.”² 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.³

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³ 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).]

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¹ 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.’]

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² Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 42.

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³ [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.]

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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,⁴ 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.

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⁴ [The Mughal emperors followed the same practice (Manucci i. 98).]

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The Spring Hunt.—The merry month of Phalgun is ushered in with the Aheria, or spring-hunt.¹ 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,² 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.

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¹ 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.

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² A hog in Hindi; in Persian khuk, nearly our hog [?].

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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,¹ or the *khanda* (sword) blow of Hamira,² 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].³

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¹ Chief of Salumbar.

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² Chief of Hamirgarh.

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³ [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.]

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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.¹ 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].²

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¹ He has been the father of more than one hundred children, legitimate and illegitimate, though very few are living.

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² 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

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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,¹ 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.²

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¹ Evinced in the presentation of the *sriphala*, the fruit of *Sri*, which is the coco-nut, emblematic of fruitfulness.

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² Another point of resemblance to the Roman Saturnalia.

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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.

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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 Deori³ to receive him; when,

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³ 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*).]

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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.

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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 of memory his ancestor at the Thermopylae of Mewar;¹ nor looked on the autograph lance, the symbol of the Chondawats, without recognizing the fidelity of the founder of the clan;² nor observed the honours paid to the Chauhans of Bedla and Kotharia, without the silent tribute of applause to the manes of their sires.

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¹ See p. 394.

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² See p. 324.

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Sitala’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,³ the guardian of infants amongst the Romans, the Grecian or Phrygian Cybele.

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³ [See Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii. 868 f.]

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Birthday of the Rana.—This is also the Rana’s birthday,⁴ 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.

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⁴ It fell on the 18th March 1819.

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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.

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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.¹

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¹ [For festivals in honour of Gauri see *IA*, xxxv. (1906) 61.]

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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.² 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.

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² Personification of spring.

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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."¹ 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.² 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)³ 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.

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¹ Here we have Gauri as the type of the earth.

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² [The Gardens of Adonis, for which see Sir J. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. i. 236 ff.]

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³ Here the Hindu mixes Persian with his Sanskrit, and produces the mongrel dialect Hindi.

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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,¹ 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.

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¹ Takht, Pat, Persian and Sanskrit, alike meaning board.

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Considerable resemblance is to be discerned between this festival of Gauri and that in honour of the Egyptian Diana ¹ 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.” ² 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 ³

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¹ 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:

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² ii. 59-64.

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³ *Analysis of Ancient Mythology*, p. 312.

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“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.

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[Diana is the feminine form of Dianus, Janus.]

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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.

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The German Suevi adored Isis, and also introduced a ship in her worship, for which Tacitus ¹ 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 ² (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, ³ 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.

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¹ [*Germania*, ix.]

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² 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, Jaets, 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).]

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³ 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*).

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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.

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Varāhapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
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Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s3: Chapter 21

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Chapter 21

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