Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s7.t7: No. I
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s7.t7
- Language
- English
No. I
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Memorial of a Gete or Jit prince of the fifth century, discovered 1820, in a temple at Kunswa, near the Chumbul river, south of Kotah.
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May the Jit'ha be thy protector! What does this Jit'h resemble? which is the vessel of conveyance across the waters of life, which is partly white, partly red? Again, what does it resemble, where the hissing-angered serpents dwell? What may this Jit'ha be compared to, from whose root the roaring flood descends? Such is the Jit'h; by it may thou be preserved (1).
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BRIDGE OF NŪRĀBĀD.
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The fame of RAJA JIT I now shall tell, by whose valour the lands of SALPOORA (2) are preserved. The fortunes of Raja Jit are as flames of fire devouring his foe. The mighty warrior JIT SALINDRA (2) is beautiful in person, and from the strength of his arm esteemed the first amongst the tribes of the mighty; make resplendent, as does the moon the earth, the dominions of SALPOORI. The whole world praises the JIT prince, who enlarges the renown of his race, sitting in the midst of haughty warriors, like the lotos in the waters, the moon of the sons of men. The foreheads of the princes of the earth worship the toe of his foot. Beams of light irradiate his countenance, issuing from the gems of his arms of strength. Radiant is his array; his riches abundant; his mind generous and profound as the ocean. Such is he of SARYA (3) race, a tribe renowned amongst the tribes of the mighty, whose princes were ever foes to treachery, to whom the earth surrendered her fruits, and who added the lands of their foes to their own. By sacrifice, the mind of this lord of men has been purified; fair are his territories, and fair is the FORTRESS OF TAK'HYA (4). The string of whose bow is dreaded, whose wrath is the reaper of the field of combat; but to his dependents he is as the pearl on the neck; who makes no account of the battle, though streams of blood run through the field. As does the silver lotos bend its head before the fierce rays of the sun, so does his foe stoop to him, while the cowards abandon the field [796].
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From this lord of men (Narpati) SÁLINDRA sprung DEVANGLI, whose deeds are known even at this remote period.
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From him was born SUMBOOKA, and from him DEGALI, who married two wives of YADU race (5), and by one a son named VIRA NARINDRA, pure as a flower from the fountain.
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Amidst groves of amba, on whose clustering blossoms hang myriads of bees, that the wearied traveller might repose, was this edifice erected. May it, and the fame of its founder, continue while ocean rolls, or while the moon, the sun, and hills endure. Samvat 597.—On the extremity of MALWA, this minster (Mindra) was erected, on the banks of the river TAVELI, by SALICHANDRA (6), son of VIRACHANDRA.
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Whoever will commit this writing to memory, his sins will be obliterated. Carved by the sculptor SEVANARYA, son of DWARASIVA, and composed by BUTENA, chief of the bards.
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to discard the Author's versions, and to replace them by the translations of recent scholars; partly, as an example of the Author's methods of translation and annotation. With the help of Mr. Vincent A. Smith and Pandit Gaurishankar Ojha of the Rājputāna Museum, Ajmer, references have been added to modern translations of the Inscriptions.]
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(Note 1).—In the prologue to this valuable relic, which superficially viewed would appear a string of puerilities, we have conveyed in mystic allegory the mythological origin of the Jit or Gete race. From the members of the chief of the gods Iswara or Mahadeva, the god of battle, many races claim birth: the warrior from his arms; the Charun from his spine; the prophetic Bhat (Vates) from his tongue; and the Gete or Jit derive theirs from his tiara, which, formed of his own hair, is called Jit'ha. In this tiara, serpents, emblematic of TIME (kal) and DESTRUCTION, are wreathed; also implicative that the Jits, who are of Takshac, or the serpent race, are thereby protected. The “roaring flood” which descends from this Jit'ha is the river goddess, Ganga, daughter of Mena, wife of Iswara. The mixed colour of his hair, which is partly white, partly of reddish (panduranga) hue, arises from his character of Ard'hnari, or Hermaphroditus. All these characteristics of the god of war must have been brought by the Scythic Gete from the Jaxartes, where they worshipped him as the Sun (Balnat'h) and as XAMOLSCS (Yama, vulg. Jama) the infernal divinity.
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The 12th chapter of the Edda, in describing Balder the second son of Odin, particularly dwells on the beauty of his hair, whence “the whitest of all vegetables is called the eyebrow of Balder, on the columns of whose temples there are verses engraved, capable of recalling the dead to life.”
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How perfectly in unison is all this of the Jits of Jutland and the Jits of Rajast'han. In each case the hair is the chief object of admiration; of Balnath as Balder, and the magical effect of the Runes is not more powerful than that attached by the chief of the Scalds of our Gete prince at the end of this inscription, fresh evidences in support of my hypothesis, that many of the Rajpoot races and Scandinavians have a common origin—that origin, Central Asia.
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(Note 2).—Salpoora is the name of the capital of this Jit prince, and his epithet of Sal-indra is merely titular, as the Indra, or lord of Sal-poori, ‘the city of Sal,’ which the fortunate discovery of an inscription raised by Komarpal, king of Anhulwarra (Nehrwalla of D'Anville), dated S. 1207, has enabled me to place “at the base of the Sewaluk Mountains.” In order to elucidate this point, and to give the full value to this record of the Jit princes of the Punjab, I append (No. V.) a translation of the Nehrwalla conqueror's inscription, which will prove beyond a doubt that these JIT princes of SALPOORI in the Punjab were the leaders of that very colony of the Yuti from the Jaxartes, who in the fifth century, as recorded by De Guignes, crossed the Indus and possessed themselves of the Punjab; and strange to say, have again risen to power, for the Sikhs (disciples) of Nanuk are almost all of Jit origin.
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(Note 3).—Here this Jit is called of SARYA SAC'HA, branch or ramification of the Saryas: a very ancient race which is noticed by the genealogists synonymously with the SARIASPA, one of the thirty-six royal races, and very probably the same as the SARWYA of the Komarpal Charitra, with the distinguished epithet " the flower of the martial races " (Sarwya c'shatrya tyn Sar).
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(Note 4).—" The fortress of Takshac." Whether this TAKSHACNAGARI, or castle of the Tâk, is the [797] stronghold of SALPOORI, or the name given to a conquest in the environs of the place, whence this inscription, we can only surmise, and refer the reader to what has been said of Takitpoora. As I have repeatedly said, the Tâks and Jits are one race.
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(Note 5).—As the Jits intermarried with the Yadus at this early period, it is evident they had forced their way amongst the thirty-six royal races, though they have again lost this rank. No Rajpoot would give a daughter to a Jit, or take one from them to wife.
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(Note 6).—Salichandra is the sixth in descent from the first-named prince, JIT SALINDRA, allowing twenty-two years to each descent = 132—S. 597, date of ins. = S. 465—56 = A.D. 409; the period of the colonization of the Punjab by the Getes, Yuti, or Jits, from the Jaxartes.¹
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¹ [This Inscription is on a stone built into a wall of a temple of Mahādeva, at Kanaswa, near Kotah. The Author's "Jit prince" of Sālpur is due to a misunderstanding, and in all probability owes its origin to the words Sambhor-jjatā, 'the matted hair of Sambhu,' a title of Siva, in line 2 of the Inscription. The Inscription begins with verses in honour of Siva as Sambhu and Sthānu, and glorifies the Maurya race, and a king of that race named Dhavala. Dhavala had as his friend a prince of the Brāhman caste, named Sankuha, whose wife, Degini, bore to him the prince Sivagana, who built a temple to Siva, and endowed it with the revenues of two villages. The date is A.D. 738-9 (IA, xix. 55 ff.).]