Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s4.1

v2.c27.s4.1

Khadga Sthapana, Sword Worship.—The festival in which this imposing rite occurs is the Nauratri,¹ sacred to the god of war, commencing on the first of the month Asoj. It is essentially martial, and confined to the Rajput, who on the departure of the monsoon finds himself at liberty to indulge his passion whether for rapine or revenge, both which in these tropical regions are necessarily suspended during the rains. Arguing from the order of the passions, we may presume that the first objects of emblematic worship were connected with war [583], and we accordingly find the highest reverence paid to arms by every nation of antiquity. The Scythic warrior of Central Asia, the intrepid Gete, admitted no meaner representative of the god of battle than his own scimitar.² He worshipped it, he swore by it; it was buried with him, in order that he might appear before the martial divinity in the other world as became his worshipper on earth: for the Gete of Transoxiana, from the earliest ages, not only believed in the soul’s immortality, and in the doctrine of rewards and punishments hereafter, but, according to the father of history, he was a monotheist; of which fact he has left a memorable proof in the punishment of the celebrated Anacharsis, who, on his return from a visit to Thales and his brother philosophers of Greece, attempted to introduce into the land of the Saka (Sakatai) the corrupted polytheism of Athens.