Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, vol. 2 of 3, by James Tod

The Agastya Festival.

—To render the analogy perfect between the vessels emblematic of the Isis of the Nile and the Ganges, there is a festival sacred to the sage Agastya, who presides over the star Canopus, when the sun enters Virgo (Kanya). The kamakumbha is then personified under the epithet kumbhayoni, and the votary is instructed to pour water into a sea-shell, in which having placed white flowers and unground rice, turning his face to the south, he offers it with this incantation: “Hail, Kumbhayoni, born in the sight of Mitra and Varuna (the sun and water divinities), bright as the blossom of the kusa (grass), who sprung from Agni (fire) and the Maruts.” By the prefix of Ganga (the river) to Gauri, we see that the Ganggor festival is essentially sacred to a river-goddess, affording additional proof of the common origin of the rites of the Isis of Egypt and India.

The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, considered the Nile as flowing from Osiris, in like manner as the Hindu poet describes the fair Ganga flowing from the head of Iswara, which Sir W. Jones thus classically paints in his hymn to Ganga:

The Goddess Ganga.

—Ganga, the river-goddess, like the Nile, is the type of fertility, and like that celebrated stream, has her source amidst the eternal glaciers of Chandragiri or Somagiri (the mountains of the moon); the higher peaks of the gigantic Himalaya, where Parvati is represented as ornamenting the tiara of Iswara “with a beamy moon.” In this metaphor, and in his title of Somanatha (lord of the moon), we again have evidence of Iswara, or Siva, after representing the sun, having the satellite moon as his ornament.^[50] His Olympus, Kailasa, is studded with that majestic pine, the cedar; thence he is called Kedarnath, ‘lord of the cedar-trees.’^[51] The mysteries of Osiris and those of Eleusis ^[52] were of the same character, commemorative of the first germ of civilization, the culture of the earth, under a variety of names, Ertha, Isis, Diana, Ceres, Ila. It is a curious fact that in the terra-cotta images of Isis, frequently excavated about her temple at Paestum,^[53] she holds in her right hand an exact representation of the Hindu lingam and yoni combined; and on the Indian expedition to Egypt, our Hindu soldiers deemed themselves amongst the altars of their own god Iswara (Osiris), from the abundance of his emblematic representatives.

The Aghori Ascetics.

—In the festival of Ganggor, as before mentioned, Iswara yields to his consort Gauri, and occupies an unimportant position near her at the water’s edge, meanly clad, smoking intoxicating herbs, and, whether by accident or design, holding the stalk of an onion in full blossom as a mace or club—a plant regarded by some of the Egyptians with veneration, and held by the Hindus generally in detestation: and why they should on such an occasion thus degrade Iswara, I know not. Onion-juice is reluctantly taken when prescribed medicinally, as a powerful stimulant, by those who would reject spirituous liquors; and there are classes, as the Aghori, that worship Iswara in his most degraded form, who will not only devour raw flesh, but that of man; and to whom it is a matter of perfect indifference whether the victim was slaughtered or died a natural death.death. For the honour of humanity, such monsters are few in number; but that they practise [576] these deeds I can testify, from a personal visit to their haunts, where I saw the cave of one of these Troglodyte monsters, in which by his own command he was inhumed; and which will remain closed, until curiosity and incredulity greater than mine may disturb the bones of the Aghori of Abu.

The ὠμοφαγία, or eating raw flesh with the blood, was a part of the secret mysteries of Osiris, in commemoration of the happy change in the condition of mankind from savage to civilized life, and intended to deter by disgust the return thereto.^[54]

The Buddhists pursued this idea to excess; and in honour of Adiswara, the First, who from his abode of Meru taught them the arts of agriculture, they altogether abandoned that type of savage life, the eating of the flesh of animals,^[55] and confined themselves to the fruits of the earth. With these sectarian anti-idolaters, who are almost all of Rajput descent, the beneficent Lakshmi, Sri, or Gauri, is an object of sincere devotion.

Affinities of Hindu to other Mythologies.

—But we must close this digression; for such is the affinity between the mythology of India, Greece, and Egypt, that a bare recapitulation of the numerous surnames of the Hindu goddess of abundance would lead us beyond reasonable limits; all are forms of Parvati or Durga Mata, the Mater Montana of Greece and Rome, an epithet of Cybele or Vesta (according to Diodorus), as the guardian goddess of children, one of the characters of the Rajput ‘Mother of the Mount,’ whose shrine crowns many a pinnacle in Mewar; and who, with the prolific Gauri, is amongst the amiable forms of the universal mother, whose functions are more varied and extensive than her sisters of Egypt and of Greece. Like the Ephesian Diana, Durga wears the crescent on her head. She is also ‘the turreted Cybele,’ the guardian goddess of all places of strength (durga),^[56] and like her she is drawn or carried by the lion. As Mata Janavi, ‘the Mother of Births,’ she is Juno Lucina: as Padma, ‘whose throne is the lotos,’ she is the fair Isis of the Nile: as Tripura,^[57] ‘governing the three worlds,’ and Atmadevi, ‘the Goddess of Souls,’ she is the Hecate Triformis of the Greeks. In short, her power is manifested under every form from the birth, and all the [577] intermediate stages until death; whether Janavi, Gauri, or the terrific Kali, the Proserpine or Kalligeneia of the West.

Whoever desires to witness one of the most imposing and pleasing of Hindu festivals, let him repair to Udaipur, and behold the rites of the lotus-queen Padma, the Gauri of Rajasthan.

Chait (Sudi) 8th, which, being after the Ides, is the 23rd of the month, is sacred to Devi, the goddess of every tribe; she is called Asokashtami, and being the ninth night (nauratri) from the opening of their Floralia, they perform the homa, or sacrifice of fire. On this day a grand procession takes place to the Chaugan, and every Rajput worships his tutelary divinity.

The Birth of Rāma.

—Chait (Sudi) 9th is the anniversary of Rama, the grand beacon of the solar race, kept with great rejoicings at Udaipur. Horses and elephants are worshipped, and all the implements of war. A procession takes place to the Chaugan, and the succeeding day, called the Dasahra or tenth, is celebrated in Asoj.

The Festival of Kamadeva.

—The last days of spring are dedicated to Kamadeva, the god of love. The scorching winds of the hot season are already beginning to blow, when Flora droops her head, and “the god of love turns anchorite”; yet the rose continues to blossom, and affords the most fragrant chaplets for the Rajputnis, amidst all the heats of summer. Of this the queen of flowers, the jessamine (chameli), white and yellow, the mogra,^[58] the champaka, that flourish in extreme heat, the ladies form garlands, which they twine in their dark hair, weave into bracelets, or wear as pendent collars. There is no city in the East where the adorations of the sex to Kamadeva are more fervent than in ‘the city of the rising sun’ (Udayapura). On the 13th and 14th of Chait they sing hymns handed down by the sacred bards:

“Hail, god of the flowery bow:^[59] hail, warrior with a fish on thy banner! hail, powerful divinity, who causeth the firmness of the sage to forsake him!”

“Glory to Madana, to Kama,^[60] the god of gods; to Him by whom Brahma [578], Vishnu, Siva, and Indra are filled with emotions of rapture!”—Bhavishya Purana.^[61]

Festivals in the month Baisākh: April-May.

—There is but one festival in this month of any note, when the grand procession denominated the ‘Nakkara ki aswari’ (from the equestrians being summoned, as already described, by the grand kettledrums from the Tripolia), takes place; and this is against the canons of the Hindu church, being instituted by the present Rana in S. 1847, a memorable year in the calendar. It was in this year, on the 2nd of Baisakh, that he commanded a repetition of the rites of Gauri, by the name of the Little Ganggor; but this act of impiety was marked by a sudden rise of the waters of the Pichola, the bursting of the huge embankment, and the inundation of the lake’s banks, to the destruction of one-third of the capital: life, property, mansions, trees, all were swept away in the tremendous rush of water, whose ravages are still marked by the site of streets and bazaars now converted into gardens or places of recreation, containing thousands of acres within the walls, subdivided by hedges of the cactus, the natural fence of Mewar, which alike thrives in the valley or covers the most barren spots of her highest hills. But although the superstitious look grave, and add that a son was also taken from him on this very day, yet the Rana persists in maintaining the fête he established; the barge is manned, he and his chiefs circumnavigate the Pichola, regale on ma’ajun, and terrify Varuna (the water-god) with the pyrotechnic exhibitions.

Although the court calendar of Udaipur notices only those festivals on which State processions occur, yet there are many minor fêtes, which are neither unimportant nor uninteresting. We shall enumerate a few, alike in Baisakh, Jeth, and Asarh, which are blank as to the Nakkara Aswari.

Festivals in the month Jeth: May-June.

—On the 2nd of Jeth, when the sun is in the zenith, the Rajput ladies commemorate the birth of the sea-born goddess Rambha, the queen of the naiads or Apsaras,^[63] whose birth, like that of Venus, was from the froth of the waters; and [579] hence the Rajput bards designate all the fair messengers of heaven by the name of Apsaras, who summon the ‘chosen’ from the field of battle, and convey him to the ‘mansion of the sun.’^[64]

The Aranya-Shashthi Festival.

—On the 6th of Jeth the ladies have another festival called the Aranya Shashthi, because on this day those desirous of offspring walk in the woods (aranya) to gather and eat certain herbs. Sir W. Jones has remarked the analogy between this and the Druidic ceremony of gathering the mistletoe (also on the Shashthi, or 6th day of the moon), as a preservative against sterility.

Festivals in the month Āsārh: June-July.

—Asarh, the initiative month of the periodical rains, has no particular festivity at Udaipur, though in other parts of India the Rathayatra, or procession of the car of Vishnu or Jagannatha (lord of the universe) is well known: this is on the 2nd and the 11th, ‘the night of the gods,’ when Vishnu (the sun) reposes four months.

The Tij.

—The third, emphatically called ‘the Tij’ (third), is sacred to the mountain goddess Parvati, being the day on which, after long austerities, she was reunited to Siva: she accordingly declared it holy, and proclaimed that whoever invoked her on that day should possess whatever was desired. The Tij is accordingly reverenced by the women, and the husbandman of Rajasthan, who deems it a most favourable day to take possession of land, or to reinhabit a deserted dwelling. When on the expulsion of the predatory powers from the devoted lands of Mewar, proclamations were disseminated far and wide, recalling the expatriated inhabitants, they showed their love of country by obedience to the summons. Collecting their goods and chattels, they congregated from all parts, but assembled at a common rendezvous to make their entry to the bapota, ‘land of their sires,’ on the Tij of Sawan. On this fortunate occasion, a band of three hundred men, women, and children, with colours flying, drums beating, the females taking precedence with brass vessels of water on their heads, and chanting the suhaila (song of joy), entered the town of Kapasan, to revisit their desolate dwellings [580], and return thanks on their long-abandoned altars to Parvati ^[65] for a happiness they had never contemplated.

Red garments are worn by all classes on this day, and at Jaipur clothes of this colour are presented by the Raja to all the chiefs. At that court the Tij is kept with more honour than at Udaipur. An image of Parvati on the Tij, richly attired, is borne on a throne by women chanting hymns, attended by the prince and his nobles. On this day, fathers present red garments and stuffs to their daughters.

The Nāgpanchami Festival: Serpent Worship.

—The 5th is the Nagpanchami, or day set apart for the propitiation of the chief of the reptile race, the Naga or serpent. Few subjects have more occupied the notice of the learned world than the mysteries of Ophite worship, which are to be traced wherever there existed a remnant of civilization, or indeed of humanity; among the savages of the savannahs ^[66] of America, and the magi of Fars, with whom it was the type of evil,—their Ahrimanes.^[67] The Nagas, or serpent-genii of the Rajputs, have a semi-human structure, precisely as Diodorus describes the snake-mother of the Scythae, in whose country originated this serpent-worship, engrafted on the tenets of Zardusht, of the Puranas of the priesthood of Egypt, and on the fables of early Greece.^[68] Dupuis, Volney, and other expounders of the mystery, have given an astronomical solution to what they deem a varied ramification of an ancient fable, of which that of Greece, ‘the dragon guarding the fruits of Hesperides,’ may be considered the most elegant version. Had these learned men seen those ancient sculptures in India, which represent ‘the fall,’ they might have changed their opinion. The traditions of the Jains or Buddhists (originating in the land of the Takshaks,^[69] or Turkistan) assert the creation of the human species in pairs, called jugal, who fed off the ever-fructifying kalpa-vriksha, which possesses all the characters of the Tree of Life, like it bearing

which was termed amrita, and rendered them immortal. A drawing, brought by [581] Colonel Coombs, from a sculptured column in a cave temple in the south of India, represents the first pair at the foot of this ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth. The tempter appears to be at that part of his discourse, when

This is a curious subject to be engraved on an ancient pagan temple; if Jain or Buddhist, the interest would be considerably enhanced. On this festival, at Udaipur, as well as throughout India, they strew particular plants about the threshold, to prevent the entrance of reptiles.

The Rākhi Festival.

—This festival, which is held on the last day of Sawan, was instituted in honour of the good genii, when Durvasas the sage instructed Salono (the genius or nymph presiding over the month of Sawan) to bind on rakhis, or bracelets, as charms to avert evil. The ministers of religion and females alone are privileged to bestow these charmed wrist-bands. The ladies of Rajasthan, either by their handmaids or the family priests, send a bracelet as the token of their esteem to such as they adopt as brothers, who return gifts in acknowledgement of the honour. The claims thus acquired by the fair are far stronger than those of consanguinity: for illustration of which I may refer to an incident already related in the annals of this house.^[70] Sisters also present their brothers with clothes on this day, who make an offering of gold in return.^[71]

This day is hailed by the Brahmans as indemnifying them for their expenditure of silk and spangles, with which they decorate the wrists of all who are likely to make a proper return.

Festivals in the month Bhādon: August-September.

—On the 3rd there is a grand procession to the Chaugan; and the 8th, or Ashtami, is the birth of Krishna, which will be described at large in an account of Nathdwara. There are several holidays in this month, when the periodical [582] rains are in full descent; but that on the last but one (Sudi 14, or 29th) is the most remarkable.

Ancestor Worship.

—On this day ^[72] commences the worship of the ancestorial manes (the Pitrideva, or father-gods) of the Rajputs, which continues for fifteen days. The Rana goes to the cemetery at Ara, and performs at the cenotaph of each of his forefathers the rites enjoined, consisting of ablutions, prayers, and the hanging of garlands of flowers, and leaves sacred to the dead, on their monuments. Every chieftain does the same amongst the altars of the ‘great ancients’ (bara burha); or, if absent from their estates, they accompany their sovereign to Ara.

1. Travels in Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 33.

4. Suryas and Induputras.

5. [For the Vedic cult of Sūrya see Macdonell, “Vedic Mythology,” Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, 1897, p. 30 ff.]

6. The Sauromatae or Sarmatians of early Europe, as well as the Syrians, were most probably colonies of the same Suryavansi who simultaneously peopled the shores of the Caspian and Mediterranean, and the banks of the Indus and Ganges. Many of the tribes described by Strabo as dwelling around the Caspian are enumerated amongst the thirty-six royal races of India. One of these, the Sakasenae, supposed to be the ancestors of our own Saxon race, settled themselves on the Araxes in Armenia, adjoining Albania. [There are no grounds for these comparisons.]

7. [There are no grounds for this classification.]

8. Long after the overthrow of the Greek kingdom of Bactria by the Yuti or Getes [Sakas] this region was popular and flourishing. In the year 120 before Christ, De Guignes says: “Dans ce pays on trouvait d’excellens grains, du vin de vigne, plus de cent villes, tant grandes que petites. Il est aussi fait mention du Tahia situé au midi du Gihon, et où il y a de grandes villes murées. Le général chinois y vit des toiles de l’Inde et autres marchandises, etc., etc.” (Hist. Gén. des Huns, vol. i. p. 51).

9. Yavan or Javan is a celebrated link of the Indu (lunar) genealogical chain; nor need we go to Ionia for it, though the Ionians may be a colony descended from Javan, the ninth from Yayati, who was the third son of Ayu, the ancestor of the Hindu as well as of the Tatar Induvansi. [Yavana is the general term for a foreigner, especially the non-Hindu tribes of the N.W. Frontier, and those beyond them.] The Asuras, who are so often described as invaders of India, and which word has ordinarily a mere irreligious acceptation, I firmly believe to mean the Assyrians. [This theory was adopted by J. Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, 34.]

10. [Such analogies of custom do not prove ethnical identity.]

11. [The theory breaks down, because the name of the sword of Argantýr was Tyrfing, or better Tyrfingr, the derivation of which word, as Mr. H. M. Chadwick kindly informs me, according to Vigfússon’s Icelandic Dictionary, is from tyrfi, a resinous fir-tree used for kindling a fire, because the sword flamed like resinous wood.]

12. See Turner’s History of Anglo-Saxons for Indo-Scythic words.

13. There were no less than four distinguished leaders of this name amongst the vassals of the last Rajput emperor of Delhi; and one of them, who turned traitor to his sovereign and joined Shihabu-d-din, was actually a Scythian, and of the Gakkhar race, which maintained their ancient habits of polyandry even in Babur’s time. The Haoli Rao Hamira was lord of Kangra and the Gakkhars of Pamir.

14. Turner, when discussing the history of the Sakai, or Sakaseni, of the Caspian, whom he justly supposes to be the Saxons of the Baltic, takes occasion to introduce some words of Scythic origin (preserved by ancient writers), to almost every one of which, without straining etymology, we may give a Sanskrit origin. [There is no ground for ascribing a Scythic origin to the proper names in the text.]

	Scythic.	Sanskrit or Bhakha.
Exampaios	sacred ways	Agham is the sacred book; pai and pada, a foot; pantha, a path.
Arimu	one	Ad is the first; whence Adima, or man.
Spou	an eye.
Oior	a man.
Pata	to kill	Badh, to kill.
Tahiti	the chief deity is Vesta	Tap is heat or flame; the type of Vesta.
Papaios	” ”	Jupiter Baba, or Bapa, the universal father. The Hindu Jiva-pitri, or Father of Life [?].
Oitosuros	” ” Apollo	Aitiswara, or Sun-God, applicable to Vishnu, who has every attribute of Apollo; from ait, contraction of aditya, the sun.
Artimpasa, or Aripasa	” ” Venus	Apsaras because born from the froth or essence, ‘sara,’ of the waters, ‘ap’ [‘going in the water’].
Thamimasadus	” ” Neptune	Thoenatha; or God of the Waters.
Apia	wife of Papaios, or Earth	Amba, Ama, Uma, is the universal mother; wife of ‘Baba Adam,’ as they term the universal father.

See Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 35. [Many of the identifications are obsolete.]

15. Sir W. Jones, “On the Lunar Year of the Hindus,” Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 257.

16. Bhaskara saptami, in honour of the sun, as a form of Vishnu (Varaha Purana) Makari, from the sun entering the constellation Makara (Pisces), the first of the solar Magha (see Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 273).

17. See Vol. I. p. 91.

18. This word appears to have the same import as Thor, the sun-god and war divinity of the Scandinavians. [? Thāwar, Saturday; Skt. sthāvara, ‘stationary.’]

19. Odin is also called As or ‘lord’; the Gauls also called him Oes or Es, and with a Latin termination Hesus, whom Lucan calls Esus; Edda, vol. ii. pp. 45-6. The celebrated translator of these invaluable remnants of ancient superstitions, by which alone light can be thrown on the origin of nations, observes that Es or Oes is the name for God with all the Celtic races. So it was with the Tuscans, doubtless from the Sanskrit, or rather from a more provincial tongue, the common contraction of Iswara, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Syr, the sun-god. [These words have, of course, no connexion. Syria perhaps derives its name from the Suri, a north-Euphratian tribe (Encyclopaedia Biblica, iv. 4845).]

20. Which Mallet, from Hesychius, interprets ‘good star.’ [The name Goetosyrus or Octosyrus (Herodotus iv. 59) is so uncertain in form that it is useless to propose etymologies for it (E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 86). Rawlinson (Herodotus, 3rd ed. ii. 93) compares Greek αἴθος, Skt. sūrya, in the sense ‘bright, burning Sun.’]

21. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 42.

22. [Much of this is from Sir W. Jones, Wilford and Paterson (Asiatic Researches, i. 253, iii. 141, viii. 48). Herodotus (i. 216) ascribes the custom of Sun sacrifice to the Massagetae.]

23. [The Mughal emperors followed the same practice (Manucci i. 98).]

24. In his delight for this diversion, the Rajput evinces his Scythic propensity. The grand hunts of the last Chauhan emperor often led him into warfare, for Prithiraj was a poacher of the first magnitude, and one of his battles with the Tatars was while engaged in field sports on the Ravi. The heir of Jenghiz Khan was chief huntsman, the highest office of the State amongst the Scythic Tatars; as Ajanbahu, alike celebrated in either field of war and sport, was chief huntsman to the Chauhan emperor of Delhi, whose bard enters minutely into the subject, describing all the variety of dogs of chase.

25. A hog in Hindi; in Persian khuk, nearly our hog [?].

26. Chief of Salumbar.

27. Chief of Hamirgarh.

28. [On the slaughter of the boar representing a corn-spirit see Sir J. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. Part v. vol. i. 298 ff.; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed. 290 f.]

29. He has been the father of more than one hundred children, legitimate and illegitimate, though very few are living.

30. That this can be done without any loss of dignity by the Sahib log (a name European gentlemen have assumed) is well known to those who may have partaken of the hospitalities of that honourable man, and brave and zealous officer, Colonel James Skinner, C.B., at Hansi. That his example is worthy of imitation in the mode of commanding, is best evinced by the implicit and cheerful obedience his men pay to his instructions when removed from his personal control. He has passed through the ordeal of nearly thirty years of unremitted service, and from the glorious days of Delhi and Laswari under Lake, to the last siege of Bharatpur, James Skinner has been second to none. In obtaining for this gallant and modest officer the order of the Bath, Lord Combermere must have been applauded by every person who knows the worth of him who bears it, which includes the whole army of Bengal. [James Skinner, 1778-1841. See Compton, Military Adventurers, 389 ff.; Buckland, Dict. Indian Biography, s.v.]

31. Evinced in the presentation of the sriphala, the fruit of Sri, which is the coco-nut, emblematic of fruitfulness.

32. Another point of resemblance to the Roman Saturnalia.

33. A hall so called in honour of Ganesa, or Janus, whose effigies adorn the entrance. [Janus probably = Dianus: Ganesa, ‘lord of the troops of inferior deities’ (gana).]

36. [See Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii. 868 f.]

37. It fell on the 18th March 1819.

38. [For festivals in honour of Gauri see IA, xxxv. (1906) 61.]

39. Personification of spring.

40. Here we have Gauri as the type of the earth.

41. [The Gardens of Adonis, for which see Sir J. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. i. 236 ff.]

42. Here the Hindu mixes Persian with his Sanskrit, and produces the mongrel dialect Hindi.

43. Takht, Pat, Persian and Sanskrit, alike meaning board.

44. The Ephesian Diana is the twin sister of Gauri, and can have a Sanskrit derivation in Devianna, ‘the goddess of food,’ contracted Deanna, though commonly Anna-de or Anna-devi, and Annapurna, ‘filling with food,’ or the nourisher, the name applied by ‘the mother of mankind,’ when she places the repast before the messenger of heaven:

“Heavenly Stranger, please to taste
These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom
All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends,
To us for food and for delight, hath caused
The earth to yield.”
Paradise Lost, Bk. v. 397-401.

[Diana is the feminine form of Dianus, Janus.]

46. Analysis of Ancient Mythology, p. 312.

48. Hesus is probably derived from Iswara, or Isa, the god. Toth was the Egyptian, and Teutates the Scandinavian, Mercury. I have elsewhere attempted to trace the origin of the Suevi, Su, or Yeuts of Yeutland (Jutland), to Yute, Getae, or Jat, of Central Asia, who carried thence the religion of Buddha into India as well as to the Baltic. There is little doubt that the races called Jotner, Jaeter, Jotuns, Jacts, and Yeuts, who followed the Asi into Scandinavia, migrated from the Jaxartes, the land of the great Getae (Massagetae); the leader was supposed to be endued with supernatural powers, like the Buddhist, called Vidiavan, or magician, whose haunts adjoined Aria, the cradle of the Magi. They are designated Aripunta [?], under the sign of a serpent, the type of Budha; or Ahriman, ‘the foe of man.’ [Much of this crude speculation is taken from Wilford (Asiatic Researches, iii. 133).]