Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s4.32

v2.c27.s4.32

The Toran Arch.—Thus terminates the Nauratri festival sacred to the god of war, which in every point of view is analogous to the autumnal festival of the Scythic warlike nations, when these princes took the muster of their armies, and performed the same rites to the great celestial luminary.¹ I have presented to the antiquarian reader these details, because it is in minute particulars that analogous customs are detected. Thus the temporary toran, or triumphal arch, erected in front of the tent at Mount Mataehala would scarcely claim the least notice, but that we discover even in this emblem the origin of the triumphal arches of antiquity, with many other rites which may be traced to the Indo-Scythic races of Asia. The toran in its original form consisted of two columns and an architrave, constituting the number three, sacred to Hara, the god of war. In the progress of the arts the architrave gave way to the Hindu arch, which consisted of two or more ribs without the keystone, the apex being the perpendicular junction of the archivaults; nor is the arc of the toran semicircular, or any segment of a circle, but with that graceful curvature which stamps with originality one of the arches of the Normans, who may have brought it from their ancient seats on the Oxus, whence it may also have been [589] carried within the Indus. The cromlech, or trilithic altar in the centre of all those monuments called Druidic, is most probably a toran, sacred to the Sun-god Belenus, like Har, or Balsiva, the god of battle, to whom as soon as a temple is raised the toran is erected, and many of these are exquisitely beautiful.