The Winter Season.

—The last day of the month Asoj ushers in the Hindu winter (sarad rit). On this day, nothing but white vestments and silver (chandi) ornaments are worn, in honour of the moon (Chandra), who gives his[49] name to the
Pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man.

This year there was an entire intercalary month: such are called Laund. There is a procession of all the chiefs to the Chaugan; and on their return, a full court is held in the great hall, which breaks up with ‘obeisance to the lamp’ (jot ka mujra), whose light each reverences; when the candles are lit at home, every Rajput, from the prince to the owner of a “skin (charsa) of land,” seated on a white linen cloth, should worship his tutelary divinity, and feed the priests with sugar and milk.

Karttika.

—This month is peculiarly sacred to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, the Juno Moneta of the Romans. The 13th is called the Dhanteras, or thirteenth [day] of wealth, when gold and silver coin are worshipped, as the representatives of the goddess, by her votaries of all classes, but especially by the mercantile [597]. On the 14th, all anoint with oil, and make libations thereof to Yama, the judge of departed spirits. Worship (puja) is performed to the lamp, which represents the god of hell, and is thence called Yamadiwa, ‘the lamp of Pluto’; and on this day partial illumination takes place throughout the city.

The Diwāli, or Festival of Lamps.

—On the Amavas, or Ides of Karttik, is one of the most brilliant fètes of Rajasthan, called the Diwali, when every city, village, and encampment exhibits a blaze of splendour. The potters’ wheels revolve for weeks before solely in the manufacture of lamps (diwa), and from the palace to the peasant’s hut every one supplies himself with them, in proportion to his means, and arranges them according to his fancy. Stuffs, pieces of gold, and sweetmeats are carried in trays and consecrated at the temple of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, to whom the day is consecrated. The Rana on this occasion honours his prime minister with his presence to dinner; and this chief officer of the State, who is always of the mercantile caste, pours oil into a terra-cotta lamp, which his sovereign holds; the same libation of oil is permitted by each of the near relations of the minister. On this day, it is incumbent upon every votary of Lakshmi to try the chance of the dice, and from their success in the Diwali, the prince, the chief, the merchant, and the artisan foretell the state of their coffers for the ensuing year.

Lakshmi, though on this festival depicted under the type of riches, is evidently the beneficent Annapurna in another garb, for the agricultural community place a corn-measure filled with grain and adorned with flowers as her representative; or, if they adorn her effigies, they are those of Padma, the water-nymph, with a lotos in one hand, and the pasa (or fillet for the head) in the other. As Lakshmi was produced at “the Churning of the Ocean,” and hence called one of the “fourteen gems,” she is confounded with Rambha, chief of the Apsaras, the Venus of the Hindus. Though both were created from the froth (sara) of the waters (ap),[50] they are as distinct as the representations of riches and beauty can be. Lakshmi became the wife of Vishnu, or Kanhaiya, and is placed at the feet of his marine couch when he is floating on the chaotic waters. As his consort, she merges into the character of Sarasvati, the goddess of eloquence, and here we have the combination of Minerva and Apollo. As of Minerva, the owl [598] is the attendant of Lakshmi;[51] and when we reflect that the Egyptians, who furnished the Grecian pantheon, held these solemn festivals, also called “the feast of lamps,” in honour of Minerva at Sais, we may deduce the origin of this grand Oriental festival from that common mother-country in Central Asia, whence the Diwali radiated to remote China, the Nile, the Ganges, and the shores of the Tigris; for the Shab-i-barat of Islam is but “the feast of lamps” of the Rajputs. In all these there is a mixture of the attributes of Ceres and Proserpine, of Plutus and Pluto. Lakshmi partakes of the attributes of both the first, while Kuvera,[52] who is conjoined with her, is Plutus: as Yama is Pluto, the infernal judge. The consecrated lamps and the libations of oil are all dedicated to him; and “torches and flaming brands are likewise kindled and consecrated, to burn the bodies of kinsmen who may be dead in battle in a foreign land, and light them through the shades of death to the mansion of Yama.”[53]

Festival of Yama.

—To the infernal god Yama, who is “the son of the sun,” the second day following the Amavas, or Ides of Karttika, is also sacred; it is called the Bhratri dvitiya, or ‘the brothers’ second,’ because the river-goddess Yamuna on this day entertained her brother (bhratri) Yama, and is therefore consecrated to fraternal affection. At the hour of curfew (godhuli),[54] when the cattle return from the fields, the cow is worshipped, the herd having been previously tended. From this ceremony no rank is exempted on the preceding day, dedicated to Krishna: prince and peasant all become pastoral attendants on the cow, as the form of Prithivi,[55] or the earth.

The Annakūta Festival.

—The 1st (Sudi), or 16th of Karttika, is the grand festival of Annakuta, sacred to the Hindu Ceres, which will be described with its solemnities at Nathdwara. There is a State procession, horse-races, and elephant-fights at the Chaugan; the evening closes with a display of fireworks.

The Jaljātra Festival.

—The 14th (Sudi), or 29th, is another solemn festival in honour of Vishnu. It is called the Jaljatra, from being performed on the water (jal). The Rana, chiefs, ministers, and citizens go in procession to the lake, and adore the “spirit of the waters,” on which floating lights are placed, and the whole surface is illuminated by a grand display of pyrotechny. On this day “Vishnu rises from his slumber of four [599] months”;[56] a figurative expression to denote the sun’s emerging from the cloudy months of the periodical flood.

The Makara Sankrānti Festival.

—The next day (the Punim, or last day of Karttika), being the Makara sankranti, or autumnal equinox, when the sun enters the zodiacal sign Makara,[57] or Pisces, the Rana and chiefs proceed in state to the Chaugan, and play at ball on horseback. The entire last half of the month Karttika, from Amavas (the Ides) to the Punim, is sacred to Vishnu; who is declared by the Puranas to represent the sun, and whose worship, that of water, and the floating-lights placed thereon—all objects emblematic of fecundity—carry us back to the point whence we started—the adoration of the powers of nature: clearly proving all mythology to be universally founded on an astronomical basis.

Mitra Saptami, Bhāskara Saptami Festivals.

—In the remaining months of Aghan, or Margsir, and Pus, there are no festivals in which a state procession takes place, though in each there are marked days, kept not only by the Rajputs, but generally by the Hindu nation; especially that on the 7th of Aghan, which is called Mitra Saptami, or 7th of Mithras, and like the Bhaskara Saptami or the 7th of Magha, is sacred to the sun as a form of Vishnu. On this seventh day occurred the descent of the river-goddess (Ganga) from the foot of Vishnu; or the genius of fertilization, typified under the form of the river-goddess, proceeding from the sun, the vivifying principle, and impended over the head of Iswara, the divinity presiding over generation, in imitation of which his votary pours libations of water (if possible from the sacred river Ganga) over his emblem, the lingam or phallus: a comparison which is made by the bard Chand in an invocation to this god, for the sake of contrasting his own inferiority “to the mighty bards of old.”

“The head of Is[58] is in the skies; on his crown falls the ever-flowing stream (Ganga); but on his statue below, does not his votary pour the fluid from his patra?”

Phallicism.

—No satisfactory etymology has ever been assigned for the phallic emblem of generation, adored by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and even by the Christian, which may be from the same primeval language that formed the Sanskrit.

Phalisa is the ‘fructifier,’ from phala, ‘fruit,’ and Isa, ‘the god.’[59] Thus the type of Osiris can have a definite interpretation, still wanting to the lingam of Iswara [600]. Both deities presided over the streams which fertilized the countries in which they received divine honours: Osiris over the Nile, from ‘the mountains of the moon,’ in Ethiopia,[60] Iswara over the Indus[61] (also called the Nil), and the Ganges from Chandragiri, ‘the mountains of the moon,’ on a peak of whose glaciers he has his throne.

Siva and the Sun.

—Siva occasionally assumes the attributes of the sun-god; they especially appertain to Vishnu, who alone is styled “immortal, the one, creator, and uncreated”; and in whom centre all the qualities (gunan), which have peopled the Hindu pantheon with their ideal representatives. The bard Chand, who has embodied the theological tenets of the Rajputs in his prefatory invocation to every divinity who can aid his intent, apostrophizes Ganesa, and summons the goddess of eloquence (Sarasvati) “to make his tongue her abode”; deprecates the destroying power, “him whom wrath inhabits,” lest he should be cut off ere his book was finished; and lauding distinctly each member of the triad (trimurti), he finishes by declaring them one, and that “whoever believes them separate, hell will be his portion.” Of this One the sun is the great visible type, adored under a variety of names, as Surya, Mitra, Bhaskar, Vivasvat, Vishnu, Karna, or Kana, likewise an Egyptian epithet for the sun.[62]

The emblem of Vishnu is Garuda, or the eagle,[63] and the Sun-god both of the Egyptians and Hindus is typified with the bird’s head. Aruna (the dawn), brother of Garuda, is classically styled the charioteer of Vishnu, whose two sons, Sampati and Jatayu, attempting in imitation of their father to reach the sun, the wings of the former were burnt and he fell to the earth: of this the Greeks may have made their fable of Icarus.[64]

Festivals in Honour of Vishnu.

—In the chief zodiacal phenomena, observation will discover that Vishnu is still the object of worship. The Phuladola,[65] or Floralia, in the vernal equinox, is so called from the image of Vishnu being carried in a dola, or ark, covered with garlands of flowers (phula). Again, in the month of Asarh, the commencement of [601] the periodical rains, which date from the summer solstice, the image of Vishnu is carried on a car, and brought forth on the first appearance of the moon, the 11th of which being the solstice, is called “the night of the gods.” Then Vishnu reposes on his serpent-couch until the cessation of the flood on the 11th of Bhadon, when “he turns on his side.”[66]

The 4th is also dedicated to Vishnu under his infantine appellation Hari (Ἥλιος), because when a child “he hid himself in the moon.” We must not derogate from Sir W. Jones the merit of drawing attention to the analogy between these Hindu festivals on the equinoxes, and the Egyptian, called the entrance of Osiris into the moon, and his confinement in an ark. But that distinguished writer merely gives the hint, which the learned Bryant aids us to pursue, by bringing modern travellers to corroborate the ancient authorities: the drawings of Pocock from the sun temple of Luxor to illustrate Plutarch, Curtius, and Diodorus. Bryant comes to the same conclusion with regard to Osiris enclosed in the ark, which we adopt regarding Vishnu’s repose during the four months of inundation, the period of fertilization. I have already, in the rites of Annapurna, the Isis of the Egyptians, noticed the crescent form of the ark of Osiris, as well as the ram’s-head ornaments indicative of the vernal equinox, which the Egyptians called Phamenoth, being the birthday of Osiris, or the sun; the Phag, or Phalgun month of the Hindus; the Phagesia of the Greeks, sacred to Dionysus.[67]

The Argonauts.

—The expedition of Argonauts in search of the golden fleece is a version of the arkite worship of Osiris, the Dolayatra of the Hindus: and Sanskrit etymology, applied to the vessel of the Argonauts, will give the sun (argha) god’s (natha) entrance into the sign of the Ram. The Tauric and Hydra foes, with which Jason had to contend before he obtained the fleece of Aries, are the symbols of the sun-god, both of the Ganges and the Nile; and this fable, which has occupied almost every pen of antiquity, is clearly astronomical, as the names alone of the Arghanath, sons of Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Sol, Arcus or Argus,[68] Jupiter, Bacchus, etc., sufficiently testify, whose voyage is entirely celestial.

Egyptian Influence on Hindu Mythology.

—If it be destined that any portion of the veil which covers these ancient mysteries [602], connecting those of the Ganges with the Nile, shall be removed, it will be from the interpretation of the expedition of Rama, hitherto deemed almost as allegorical as that of the Arghanaths. I shall at once assume an opinion I have long entertained, that the western coast of the Red Sea was the Lanka of the memorable exploit in the history of the Hindus. If Alexander from the mouths of the Indus ventured to navigate those seas with his frail fleet of barks constructed in the Panjab, what might we not expect from the resources of the King of Kosala, the descendant of Sagara, emphatically called the sea-king, whose “60,000 sons” were so many mariners, and who has left his name as a memorial of his marine power at the island (Sagar) at the embouchure of the main arm of the Ganges, and to the ocean itself, also called Sagara? If the embarkation of Ramesa and his heroes for the redemption of Sita had been from the Gulph of Cutch, the grand emporium from the earliest ages, the voyage of Rama would have been but the prototype of that of the Macedonians; but local tradition has sanctified Rameswaram, the southern part of the peninsula, as the rendezvous of his armament. The currents in the Straits of Manar, curiosity, or a wish to obtain auxiliaries from this insular kingdom, may have prompted the visit to Ceylon; and hence the vestiges there found of this event. But even from this “utmost isle, Taprobane,” the voyage across the Erythrean Sea is only twenty-five degrees of longitude, which with a flowing sail they would run down in ten or twelve days. The only difficulty which occurs is in the synchronical existence of Rama and the Pharaoh[69] of Moses, which would tend to the opposite of my hypothesis, and show that India received her Phallic rites, her architecture, and symbolic mythology from the Nile, instead of planting them there.

“Est-ce l’Inde, la Phénicie, l’Éthiopie, la Chaldée, ou l’Égypte, qui a vu naître ce culte? ou bien le type en a-t-il été fourni aux habitans de ces contrées, par une nation plus ancienne encore?” asks an ingenious but anonymous French author, on the origin of the Phallic worship.[70] Ramesa, chief of the Suryas, or sun-born race, was king of the city designated from his mother, Kausalya, of which Ayodhya was the capital. His sons were Lava and Kusa, who originated the races we may term the Lavites and Kushites, or Kushwas of India.[71] Was then Kausalya [603] the mother of Ramesa, a native of Aethiopia,[72] or Kusadwipa, ‘the land of Cush’? Rama and Krishna are both painted blue (nila), holding the lotus, emblematic of the Nile. Their names are often identified. Ram-Krishna, the bird-headed divinity, is painted as the messenger of each, and the historians of both were contemporaries. That both were real princes there is no doubt, though Krishna assumed to be an incarnation of Vishnu, as Rama was of the sun. Of Rama’s family was Trisankha,[73] mother of the great apostle of Buddha, whose symbol was the serpent; and the followers of Buddha assert that Krishna and this apostle, whose statues are facsimiles of those of Memnon, were cousins. Were the Hermetic creed and Phallic rites therefore received from the Ethiopic Cush? Could emblematic relics be discovered in the caves of the Troglodytes, who inhabited the range of mountains on the Cushite shore of the Arabian straits, akin to those of Ellora and Elephanta,[74] whose style discloses physical, mythological, as well as architectural affinity to the Egyptian, the question would at once be set at rest.

I have derived the Phallus from Phalisa, the chief fruit. The Greeks, who either borrowed it from the Egyptians or had it from the same source, typified the Fructifier by a pineapple, the form of which resembles the Sitaphala,[75] or fruit of Sita, whose rape by Ravana carried Rama from the Ganges over many countries ere he recovered her.[76] In like manner Gauri, the Rajput Ceres, is typified under the coco-nut, or sriphala,[77] the chief of fruit, or fruit sacred to Sri, or Isa (Isis), whose other elegant emblem of abundance, the kamakumbha, is drawn with branches of the palmyra,[78] or coco-tree, gracefully pendent from the vase (kumbha).

The Sriphala[79] is accordingly presented to all the votaries of Iswara and Isa on the conclusion of the spring-festival of Phalguna, the Phagesia of the Greeks, the [604] Phamenoth of the Egyptian, and the Saturnalia of antiquity; a rejoicing at the renovation of the powers of nature; the empire of heat over cold—of light over darkness.[80]

The analogy between the goddess of the spring Saturnalia, Phalguni, and the Phagesia of the Greeks, will excite surprise; the word is not derived from (φαγεῖν) eating, with the Rajput votaries of Holika, as with those of the Dionysia of the Greeks; but from phalguni, compounded of guna, ‘quality, virtue, or characteristic,’ and phala, ‘fruit’; in short, the fructifier. From φαλλός,[81] to which there is no definite meaning, the Egyptian had the festival Phallica, the Holika of the Hindus. Phula and phala, flower and fruit, are the roots of all, Floralia and Phalaria, the Phallus of Osiris, the Thyrsus of Bacchus, or Lingam of Iswara, symbolized by the Sriphala, or Ananas, the ‘food of the gods,’[82] or the Sitaphala of the Helen of Ayodhya.

From the existence of this worship in Congo at this day, the author already quoted asks if it may not have originated in Ethiopia, “qui, comme le témoignent plusieurs écrivains de l’antiquité, a fourni ses dieux à l’Égypte.“ On the first of the five complementary days called ”ἠπαγόμεναι ἡμέραι” preceding New Year’s Day, the Egyptians celebrated the birth of the sun-god Osiris, in a similar manner as the Hindus do their solstitial festival, “the morning of the gods,” the Hiul of Scandinavia; on which occasion, “on promenait en procession une figure d’Osiris, dont le Phallus était triple”; a number, he adds, expressing “la pluralité indéfinie.” The number three is sacred to Iswara, chief of the Trimurti or Triad, whose statue adorns the junction (sangam) of all triple streams; hence called Triveni, who is [605] Trinetra, or ‘three-eyed,’ and Tridanta, or ‘god of the trident’; Triloka, ‘god of the triple abode, heaven, earth, and hell’; Tripura, of the triple city, to whom the Tripoli or triple gates are sacred, and of which he has made Ganesa the Janitor, or guardian. The grotesque figure placed by the Hindus during the Saturnalia in the highways, and called Nathurama (the god Rama), is the counterpart of the figure described by Plutarch as representing Osiris, “ce soleil printanier,” in the Egyptian Saturnalia or Phamenoth. Even Ramisa and Ravana may, like Osiris and Typhon, be merely the ideal representatives of light and darkness; and the chaste Sita, spouse of the Surya prince, the astronomical Virgo, only a zodiacal sign.[83]

Wide Extension of Hindu Mythology.

—That a system of Hinduism pervaded the whole Babylonian and Assyrian empires, Scripture furnishes abundant proofs, in the mention of the various types of the sun-god Balnath, whose pillar adorned “every mount” and “every grove”; and to whose other representative, the brazen calf (nandi), the 15th of each month (amavas)[84] was especially sacred. It was not confined to these celebrated regions of the East, but was disseminated throughout the earth; because from the Aral to the Baltic, colonies were planted from that central region,[85] the cradle of the Suryas and the Indus, whose branches (sakha),[86] the Yavan, the Aswa, and the Meda, were the progenitors of the Ionians, the Assyrians, and the Medes;[87] while in later times, from the same teeming region, the Galati and Getae,[88] the Kelts and Goths, carried modifications of the system to the shores of Armorica and the Baltic, the cliffs of Caledonia, and the remote isles of the German Ocean. The monumental circles sacred to the sun-god Belenus at once existing in that central region,[89] in India,[90] and throughout Europe, is conclusive. The apotheosis of the patriarch Noah, whom the Hindu styles Manu-Vaivaswata, ‘the man, son of the sun,’ may have originated the Dolayatra of the Hindus, the ark of Osiris [606], the ship of Isis amongst the Suevi, in memory of “the forty days” noticed in the traditions of every nation of the earth.

The time may be approaching when this worship in the East, like the Egyptian, shall be only matter of tradition; although this is not likely to be effected by such summary means as were adopted by Cambyses, who slew the sacred Apis and whipped his priests, while their Greek and Roman conquerors adopted and embellished the Pantheon of the Nile.[91] But when Christianity reared her severe yet simple form, the divinities of the Nile, the Pantheon of Rome, and the Acropolis of Athens, could not abide her awful majesty. The temples of the Alexandrian Serapis were levelled by Theophilus,[92] while that of Osiris at Memphis became a church of Christ. “Muni de ses pouvoirs, et escorté d’une foule de moines, il mit en fuite les prêtres, brisa les idoles, démolit les temples, ou y établit des monastères.”[93] The period for thus subverting idolatry is passed: the religion of Christ is not of the sword, but one enjoining peace and goodwill on earth. But as from him “to whom much is given,” much will be required, the good and benevolent of the Hindu nations may have ulterior advantages over those Pharisees who would make a monopoly even of the virtues; who “see the mote in their neighbour’s eye, but cannot discern the beam in their own.” While, therefore, we strive to impart a purer taste and better faith, let us not imagine that the minds of those we would reform are the seats of impurity, because, in accordance with an idolatry coeval with the flood, they continue to worship mysteries opposed to our own modes of thinking [607].

1. Nauratri may be interpreted the nine days’ festival, or the ‘new night’ [?].

2. “It was natural enough,” says Gibbon, “that the Scythians should adore with peculiar devotion the god of war; but as they were incapable of forming either an abstract idea, or a corporeal representation, they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron cimeter. If the rites of Scythia were practised on this solemn occasion,[A] a lofty altar, or rather pile of faggots, three hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive” (Gibbon’s Roman Empire, ed. W. Smith, iv. 194 f.).

A. Attila dictating the terms of peace with the envoys of Constantinople, at the city of Margus, in Upper Moesia.

3. St. Palaye, Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry, p. 305.

4. Raj Jogi is the chief of the ascetic warriors; the Mahants are commanders [the term being usually applied to the abbot of a monastery]. More will be said of this singular society when we discuss the religious institutions of Mewar.

5. The god Krishna is called Kishan in the dialects.

6. This is the sthapana of the sword, literally its inauguration or induction, for the purposes of adoration.

7. Tripolia, or triple portal.

8. [The chief centres of worship of Harsiddh Māta are Gāndhari and Ujjain. It is said that her image stood on the sea-shore, and that she used to swallow all the vessels that passed by (R. E. Enthoven, Folklore Notes Gujarāt, 5; BG, ix. Part i. 226).]

9. [Formerly an important personage, but his authority has now much decreased (BG, ix. Part i. 96).]

10. On this day sons visit and pay adoration to their fathers. The diet is chiefly of vegetables and fruits. Brahmans with their unmarried daughters are feasted, and receive garments called chunri from their chiefs. [This is a kind of cloth dyed by partly tying it in knots, which escape the action of the dye.]

11. The Jogi’s patra is not so revolting as that of their divinity Hara (the god of war), which is the human cranium; this is a hollow gourd.

12. From das, the numeral ten; the tenth. [It means ‘the feast that removes ten sins.’]

13. In this ancient story we are made acquainted with the distant maritime wars which the princes of India carried on. Even supposing Ravana’s abode to be the insular Ceylon, he must have been a very powerful prince to equip an armament sufficiently numerous to carry off from the remote kingdom of Kosala the wife of the great king of the Suryas. It is most improbable that a petty king of Ceylon could wage equal war with a potentate who held the chief dominion of India; whose father, Dasaratha, drove his victorious car (ratha) over every region (desa), and whose intercourse with the countries beyond the Brahmaputra is distinctly to be traced in the Ramayana. [Dasaratha has no connexion with desa: the name means ‘he who possesses ten (dasa) chariots (ratha).’]

14. [Prosopis spicigera.]

15. “A la première lune de chaque année, tous ces officiers, grands et petits, tenoient une assemblée générale à la cour du Tanjou, et y faisoient un sacrifice solennel: à la cinquième lune, ils s’assembloient à Lumtching, où ils sacrifioient au ciel, à la terre, aux esprits, et aux ancêtres. Il se tenoit encore une grande assemblée à Tai-lin dans l’automne, parce qu’alors les chevaux étoient plus gras, et on y faisoit en même-tems le dénombrement des hommes et des troupeaux; mais tous les jours le Tanjou sortoit de son camp, le matin pour adorer le soleil, et le soir la lune. Sa tente étoit placée à gauche, comme le côté le plus honorable chez ces peuples, et regardoit le couchant” (Avant J.-C. 209; L’Histoire Générale des Huns, vol. i. p. 24).

16. [There is no Skt. word pola, ‘gate’; the Hindi pol, paul is Skt. pura dvāra, ‘city entrance.’]

17. [The words pol and pāl are not connected.]

18. Hence may be found a good etymology of janizary, the guardian of the serai, a title left by the lords of Eastern Rome for the Porte. [Turkish yeni-tsheri, ‘new soldiery.’]

19. In Sanskrit gana (pronounced as gun), the jinn of the Persians, transmuted to genii; here is another instance in point of the alternation of the initial, and softened by being transplanted from Indo-Scythia to Persia, as Ganes was Janus at Rome. [Gana and Jinn, Ganesa and Janus, have no connexion.

20. The Casius Mons of Ptolemy. [The derivation of the word Caucasus is unknown.]

21. Parvati, ‘the mountain goddess,’ was called Sati, or ‘the faithful,’ in her former birth. She became the mother of Jahnavi, the river (Ganga) goddess.

22. Karttikeya, the son of Siva and Parvati, the Jupiter and Juno of the Hindu theogony, has the leading of the armies of the gods, delegated by his father; and his mother has presented to him her peacock, which is the steed of this warlike divinity. He is called Karttikeya from being nursed by six females called Krittika, who inhabit six of the seven stars composing the constellation of the Wain, or Ursa Major. Thus the Hindu Mars, born of Jupiter and Juno, and nursed by Ursa Major, is, like all other theogonies, an astronomical allegory. There is another legend of the birth of Mars, which I shall give in the text.

23. This elephant-headed divinity has but one tusk.

24. The bard thus modestly designates himself.

25. Chief (isa) of the gana (genii) or attendants on Siva.

26. So he was at Rome, and his statue held the keys of heaven in his right hand, and, like Ganesa, a rod (the ankus) in his left.

27. [The rat is the emblem of Ganesa probably because, like Apollo Smintheus, he protects the crops from vermin (Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. Part v. vol. ii. 282 f.).]

28. [Persian āhanak, ‘a sword of steel.’]

29. [Anabasis, vii. 2.]

30. The Gothic invaders of Italy inaugurated their monarch by placing him upon a shield, and elevating him on their shoulders in the midst of his army.

31. All these proper names might have Oriental etymologies assigned to them; Eyvor-sail is the name of a celebrated Rajput hero of the Bhatti tribe, who were driven at an early period from the very heart of Scythia, and are of Yadu race.

32. This word can have a Sanskrit derivation from haya, ‘a horse’; marna, ‘to strike or kill’; Hjalmr, ‘the horse-slayer.’ [These theories are of no value.]

33. The custom of engraving incantations on weapons is also from the East, and thence adopted by the Muhammadan, as well as the use of phylacteries. The name of the goddess guarding the tribe is often inscribed, and I have had an entire copy of the Bhagavadgita taken from the turban of a Rajput killed in action: in like manner the Muhammadans place therein the Koran.

34. The metaphorical name of the sword Tyrfing.

35. I have already mentioned these fires (see p. 89), which the northern nations believed to issue from the tombs of their heroes, and which seemed to guard their ashes; them they called Hauga Elldr, or ‘the sepulchral fires,’ and they were supposed more especially to surround tombs which contained hidden treasures. These supernatural fires are termed Shihaba by the Rajputs. When the intrepid Scandinavian maiden observes that she is not afraid of the flame burning her, she is bolder than one of the boldest Rajputs, for Sri-kishan, who was shocked at the bare idea of going near these sepulchral lights, was one of the three non-commissioned officers who afterwards led thirty-two firelocks to the attack and defeat of 1500 Pindaris.

36. Like the Rajput Khanda, Tyrfing was double-edged; the poison of these edges is a truly Oriental idea.