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? 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. India's religious rites have
crystallized long ago. Whoever has seen a Hindu wedding in 1879,
saw it as it was celebrated in ancient Aryavarta many centuries ago.
- - - - - - -
A few days before we left Bombay we read in a small local newspaper
two announcements of marriages:
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