Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s4.7

v2.c27.s4.7

The Frisian Frank also of Gothic race, adhered to this worship, and transmitted it with the other rites of the Getic warrior of the Jaxartes; such as the adoration of the steed; sacred to the sun, the great god of the Massagetae, as well as of the Rajput, who sacrificed it at the annual feast, or with his arms and wife burnt it on his funeral pile. Even the kings of the ‘second race’ kept up the religion of their Scythic sires from the Jaxartes, and the bones of the war-horse of Chilperic were exhumed with those of the monarch. These rites, as well as those long-cherished chivalrous notions, for which the Salian Franks have ever been conspicuous [584], had their birth in Central Asia; for though contact with the more polished Arab softened the harsh character of the western warrior, his thirst for glory, the romantic charm which fed his passion, and his desire to please the fair, he inherited from his ancestors on the shores of the Baltic, which were colonized from the Oxus. Whether Charlemagne addressed his sword as Joyeuse,¹ or the Scandinavian hero Angantýr as the enchanted blade Tyrfing (Hialmar’s bane), each came from one common origin, the people which invented the custom of Khadga Sthapana, or ‘adoration of the sword.’ But neither the falchion ‘made by the dwarfs for Suafurlama,’ nor the redoubled sword of Bayard with which he dubbed the first Francis,—not even the enchanted brand of Ariosto’s hero, can for a moment compare with the double-edged khanda (scimitar) annually worshipped by the chivalry of Mewar. Before I descant on this monstrous blade, I shall give an abstract of the ceremonies on each of the nine days sacred to the god of war.