These Bards Or Bhattas Live In Rajistan,
But Visit The Bhils Yearly, In Order Not To Lose The Leading Thread
Of The Achievements Of Their Countrymen.
Their songs are history,
because the bhattas have existed from time immemorial, composing
their lays for future generations, for this is their hereditary
duty.
And the songs of the remotest antiquity point to the lands
over the Kalapani as the place whence the Bhils came; that is to say,
some place in Europe. Some Orientalists, especially Colonel Tod,
seek to prove that the Rajputs, who conquered the Bhils, were
newcomers of Scythian origin, and that the Bhils are the true
aborigines. To prove this, they put forward some features common
to both peoples, Rajput and Scythian, for instance (1) the worship
of the sword, the lance, the shield and the horse; (2) the worship
of, and the sacrifice to, the sun (which, as far as I know, never
was worshiped by the Scythians); (3) the passion of gambling
(which again is as strong amongst the Chinese and the Japanese);
(4) the custom of drinking blood out of the skull of an enemy
(which is also practised by some aborigines of America), etc., etc.
I do not intend entering here on a scientific ethnological discussion;
and, besides, I am sure no one fails to see that the reasoning of
scientists sometimes takes a very strange turn when they set to
prove some favorite theory of theirs. It is enough to remember how
entangled and obscure is the history of the ancient Scythians to
abstain from drawing any positive conclusions whatsoever from it.
The tribes that go under one general denomination of Scythians were
many, and still it is impossible to deny that there is a good deal
of similitude between the customs of the old Scandinavians, worshipers
of Odin, whose land indeed was occupied by the Scythians more than
five hundred years B.C. and the customs of the Rajputs. But this
similitude gives as much right to the Rajputs to say that we are a
colony of Surya-vansas settled in the West as to us to maintain
that the Rajputs are the descendants of Scythians who emigrated
to the East. The Scythians of Herodotus and the Scythians of Ptolemy,
and some other classical writers, are two perfectly distinct
nationalities. Under Scythia, Herodotus means the extension of
land from the mouth of Danube to the Sea of Azoff, according to
Niebuhr; and to the mouth of Don, according to Rawlinson; whereas
the Scythia of Ptolemy is a country strictly Asiatic, including
the whole space between the river Volga and Serika, or China.
Besides this, Scythia was divided by the western Himalayas, which
the Roman writers call Imaus, into Scythia intra Imaum, and Scythia
extra Imaum. Given this lack of precision, the Rajputs may be
called the Scythians of Asia, and the Scythians the Rajputs of
Europe, with the same degree of likelihood. Pinkerton's opinion
is that European contempt for the Tartars would not be half so
strong if the European public learned how closely we are related
to them; that our forefathers came from northern Asia, and that
our primitive customs, laws and mode of living were the same as
theirs; in a word, that we are nothing but a Tartar colony...
Cimbri, Kelts and Gauls, who conquered the northern part of Europe,
are different names of the same tribe, whose origin is Tartary.
Who were the Goths, the Swedes, the Vandals, the Huns and the Franks,
if not separate swarms of the same beehive?
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