Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s3.6

v2.c27.s3.6

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