The Annals Of Sweden
Point To Kashgar As The Fatherland Of The Swedes.
The likeness
between the languages of the Saxons and the Kipchak-Tartars is
striking; and the Keltic, which still exists in Brittany and in
Wales, is the best proof that their inhabitants are descendants
of the Tartar nation.
Whatever Pinkerton and others may say, the modern Rajput warriors
do not answer in the least the description Hippocrates gives us
of the Scythians. The "father of medicine" says: "The bodily
structure of these men is thick, coarse and stunted; their joints
are weak and flabby; they have almost no hair, and each of them
resembles the other." No man, who has seen the handsome, gigantic
warriors of Rajistan, with their abundant hair and beards, will
ever recognize this portrait drawn by Hippocrates as theirs.
Besides, the Scythians, whoever they may be, buried their dead,
which the Rajputs never did, judging by the records of their most
ancient MSS. The Scythians were a wandering nation, and are
described by Hesiod as "living in covered carts and feeding on
mare's milk." And the Rajputs have been a sedentary people from
time immemorial, inhabiting towns, and having their history at
least several hundred years before Christ - that is to say, earlier
than the epoch of Herodotus. They do celebrate the Ashvamedha,
the horse sacrifice; but will not touch mare's milk, and despise
all Mongolians. Herodotus says that the Scythians, who called
themselves Skoloti, hated foreigners, and never let any stranger
in their country; and the Rajputs are one of the most hospitable
peoples of the world. In the epoch of the wars of Darius, 516 B.C.,
the Scythians were still in their own district, about the mouth
of the Danube. And at the same epoch the Rajputs were already
known in India and had their own kingdom. As to the Ashvamedha,
which Colonel Tod thinks to be the chief illustration of his theory,
the custom of killing horses in honor of the sun is mentioned in
the Rig-Veda, as well as in the Aitareya-Brahmana. Martin Haug
states that the latter has probably been in existence since
2000-2400 B.C.
- - -
But it strikes me that the digression from the Babu's chum to the
Scythians and the Rajputs of the antediluvian epoch threatens to
become too long, so I beg the reader's pardon and resume the
thread of my narrative.
The Banns Of Marriage
Next day, early in the morning, the local shikaris went under the
leadership of the warlike Akali, to hunt glamoured and real tigers
in the caves. It took them longer than we expected. The old Bhil,
who represented to us the absent dhani, proposed that in the
meanwhile we should witness a Brahmanical wedding ceremony. Needless
to say, we jumped at this. The ceremonies of betrothal and marriage
have not changed in India during the last two millenniums at least.
They are performed according to the directions of Manu, and the
old theme has no new variations.
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