CHAPTER 6

Recapitulation.—Thus from the Great War six successive dynasties are given, presenting a continuous chain of eighty-two princes, reckoning from Sahadeva, the successor of Jarasandha, to Susarman.

To some of the short dynasties periods are assigned of moderate length: but as the first and last are without such data, the testalready decided on must be applied; which will yield 1704 years, being six hundred and four after Vikramaditya, whose contemporary will thus be Basdeva, the fifty-fifth prince from Sahadeva of the sixth dynasty, said to be a conqueror from the country of Katehr [or Rohilkhand]. If these calculations possess any value, the genealogies of the Bhagavat are brought down to the close of the fifth century following Vikramaditya. As we cannot admit the gift of prophecy to the compilers of these books, we may infer that they remodelled their ancient chronicles during the reign of Susarman, about the year of Vikrama 600, orA.D.546.

With regard to calculations already adduced, as to the average number of years for the reigns of the foregoing dynasties, a comparison with those which history affords of other parts of the world will supply the best criterion of the correctness of the assumed data.

From the revolt of the ten tribes against Rehoboam[41]to the capture of Jerusalem, a period of three hundred and eighty-seven years, twenty kings sat on the throne of Judah, making each reign nineteen and a half years; but if we include the three anterior reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, prior to the revolt, the result will be twenty-six and a half years each.

From the dismemberment of the Assyrian[42]empire under Sardanapalus, nearly nine hundred years before Christ, the three consequent confluent dynasties of Babylonia, Assyria, and Media afford very different results for comparison.

The Assyrian preserves the medium, while the Babylonish and Median run into extremes. Of the nine princes who swayed Babylon, from the period of its separation from, till its reunion to Assyria, a space of fifty-two years, Darius, who ruled Media sixty [thirty-six] years [55], outlived the whole. Of the line of Darius there were but six princes, from the separation of the kingdoms to their reunion under Cyrus, a period of one hundred and seventy-four years, or twenty-nine to each reign.

The Assyrian reigns form a juster medium. From Nebuchadnezzar to Sardanapalus we have twenty-two years to a reign; but from thence to the extinction of this dynasty, eighteen.

The first eleven kings, the Heraclidae of Lacedaemon, commencingwith Eurysthenes (1078 before Christ), average thirty-two years; while in republican Athens, nearly contemporary, from the first perpetual archon until the office became decennial in the seventh Olympiad, the reigns of the twelve chief magistrates average twenty-eight years and a half.

Thus we have three periods, Jewish, Spartan, and Athenian, each commencing about eleven hundred years before Christ, not half a century remote from the Mahabharata; with those of Babylonia, Assyria, and Media, commencing where we quit the Grecian, in the eighth century before the Christian era, the Jewish ending in the sixth century.

However short, compared with our Solar and Lunar dynasties, yet these, combined with the average reigns of existing Hindu dynasties, will aid the judgment in estimating the periods to be assigned to the lines thus afforded, instead of following the improbable value attached by the Brahmans.

From such data, longevity appears in unison with climate and simplicity of life: the Spartan yielding the maximum of thirty-two to a reign, while the more luxurious Athens gives twenty-eight and a half. The Jews, from Saul to their exile “to the waters of Babylon,” twenty-six and a half. The Medes equal the Lacedaemonians, and in all history can only be paralleled by the princes of Anhilwara, one of whom, Chawand, almost equalled Darius.[43]

Of the separated ten tribes, from the revolt to the captivity, twenty kings of Israel passed away in two centuries, or ten years each.

The Spartan and Assyrian present the extremes of thirty-two and eighteen, giving a medium of twenty-five years to a reign.

The average result of our four Hindu dynasties, in a period of nearly seven hundred years, is twenty-two years.

From all which data, I would presume to assign from twenty to twenty-two years to each reign in lines of fifty princes [56].

If the value thus obtained be satisfactory, and the lines of dynasties derived from so many authorities correct, we shall arrive at the same conclusion with Mr. Bentley; who, by the more philosophical process of astronomical and genealogicalcombination, places Yudhishthira’s era in the year 2825 of the world; which being taken from 4004 (the world’s age at the birth of Christ) will leave 1179 before Christ for Yudhishthira’s era, or 1123 before Vikramaditya.[44]

1. Indu, Som, Chandra, in Sanskrit ‘the moon’; hence the Lunar race is termed the Chandravansa, Somvansa, or Induvansa, most probably the root ofHindu. [Pers.hindū, Skr.sindhu.]

2. The isolated and now dependent chieftainship of Dhat, of which Umarkot is the capital, separates the Bhattis from the Jarejas. Dhat is now amalgamated with Sind; its prince, of Pramara race and Sodha tribe, ancient lords of all Sind.

3. A fourth and fifth might have been given, but imperfect. First the descendants of Kusa, second son of Rama, from whence the princes of Narwar and Amber: secondly, the descendants of Krishna, from whom the princes of Jaisalmer.

4. In modern times always written and pronouncedKutchwāha.

5. It is in the plateau of Central India, near Shahabad.

6. Whatever dignity attaches to this pedigree, whether true or false, every prince, and every Hindu of learning, admit the claims of the princes of Mewar as heir to ‘the chair of Rama’; and a degree of reverence has consequently attached, not only to his person, but to the seat of his power. When Mahadaji Sindhia was called by the Rana to reduce a traitorous noble in Chitor, such was the reverence which actuated that (in other respects) little scrupulous chieftain, that he could not be prevailed on to point his cannon on the walls within which consent established ‘the throne of Rama.’ The Rana himself, then a youth, had to break the ice, and fired a cannon against his own ancient abode.

7. Bryant, in hisAnalysis, mentions that the children of the Cushite Ham used his name in salutation as a mark of recognition. ‘Ram, Ram,’ is the common salutation in these Hindu countries; the respondent often joining Sita’s name with that of her consort Rama, ‘Sita Ram.’

8. Twenty-eighth prince from Rama in Mr. Bentley’s list, and twenty-fifth in mine.

9. Thirty-seventh in Mr. Bentley’s list and thirty-fourth in mine; but the intervening names being made to follow Rama, Bahuman (written by himBanumat) follows Takshak.

10. The period of time, also, would allow of their grafting the son of Artaxerxes and father of Darius, the worshipper of Mithras, on the stem of the adorers of Surya, while a curious notice of the Raja Jai Singh’s on a subsequent name on this list which he calls Naushirwan, strengthens the coincidence. Bahuman (see article ‘Bahaman,’ D’Herbelot’sBibl. Orient.) actually carried his arms into India, and invaded the kingdoms of the Solar race of Mithila and Magadha. The time is appropriate to the first Darius and his father; and Herodotus [iii. 94] tells us that the richest and best of the satrapies of his empire was the Hindu.

11. First lord.

12. Lord of the Bull.

13. Vidhyadhar was a Jain.

14. Pandu not being blessed with progeny, his queen made use of a charm by which she enticed the deities from their spheres. To Dharma Raj (Minos) she bore Yudhishthira; by Pavan (Aeolus) she had Bhima; by Indra (Jupiter Coelus) she had Arjuna, who was taught by his sire the use of the bow, so fatal in the Great War; and Nakula and Sahadeva owed their birth to Aswini Kumar (Aesculapius) the physician of the gods.

15. We must not disregard the intellect of the Amber prince, who allowed these ancient traditions to be incorporated with the genealogy compiled under his eye. The prince who obtained De Silva from Emmanuel III. of Portugal, who combined the astronomical tables of Europe and Asia, and raised these monuments of his scientific genius in his favourite pursuit (astronomy) in all the capital cities of India, while engrossed in war and politics, requires neither eulogy nor defence.

16. Drupada was of the Aswa race, being descended from Bajaswa (or Hyaswa) of the line of Ajamidha.

17. This marriage, so inconsistent with Hindu delicacy, is glossed over. Admitting the polyandry, but in ignorance of its being a national custom, puerile reasons are interpolated. In the early annals of the same race, predecessors of the Jaisalmer family, the younger son is made to succeed: also Scythic or Tatar. The manners of the Scythae described by Herodotus are found still to exist among their descendants: “a pair of slippers at the wife’s door” is a signal well understood by all Eimauk husbands (Elphinstone’sCaubul, vol. ii. p. 251).

18.Tarangini.

19.Paenamais a [Persian] word peculiarly expressive of subserviency to paramount authority, whether the engagement be in money or service: frompae, ‘the foot.’

20. Sacrifice of the horse to the sun, of which a full description is given hereafter.

21. Duryodhana, as the elder branch, retained his title as head of the Kurus; while the junior, Yudhishthira, on the separation of authority, adopted his father’s name, Pandu, as the patronymic of his new dynasty. The site of the great conflict (or Mahabharata) between these rival clans, is called Kurukshetra, or ‘Field of the Kurus.’

22. Herodotus describes the ruinous passion for play amongst the Scythic hordes, and which may have been carried west by Odin into Scandinavia and Germany. Tacitus tells us that the Germans, like the Pandus, staked even personal liberty, and were sold as slaves by the winner [Germania, 24].

23. On it the last Hindu monarch, Prithwiraja, lost his kingdom, his liberty, and life.

24. Rajatarangini. The period of writing wasA.D.1740.

25. Having ventured to surmise analogies between the Hercules of the east and west, I shall carry them a point further. Amidst the snows of Caucasus, Hindu legend abandons the Harikulas, under their leaders Yudhishthira and Baldeva: yet if Alexander established his altars in Panchala, amongst the sons of Puru and the Harikulas, what physical impossibility exists that a colony of them, under Yudhishthira and Baldeva, eight centuries anterior, should have penetrated to Greece? Comparatively far advanced in science and arms, the conquest would have been easy. When Alexander attacked the ‘free cities’ of Panchala, the Purus and Harikulas who opposed him evinced the recollections of their ancestor, in carrying the figure of Hercules as their standard. Comparison proves a common origin to Hindu and Grecian mythology; and Plato says the Greeks had theirs from Egypt and the East. May not this colony of the Harikulas be the Heraclidae, who penetrated into the Peloponnesus (according to Volney) 1078 years before Christ, sufficiently near our calculated period of the Great War? The Heraclidae claimed from Atreus: the Harikulas claim from Atri. Eurysthenes was the first king of the Heraclidae: Yudhishthira has sufficient affinity in name to the first Spartan king not to startle the etymologist, thedandrbeing always permutable in Sanskrit. The Greeks or Ionians are descended from Yavan, or Javan, the seventh from Japhet. The Harikulas are also Yavans claiming from Javan or Yavan, the thirteenth in descent from Yayati, the third son of the primeval patriarch. The ancient Heraclidae of Greece asserted they were as old as the sun, and older than the moon. May not this boast conceal the fact that the Heliadae (orSuryavansa) of Greece had settled there anterior to the colony of the Indu (Lunar) race of Harikula? In all that relates to the mythological history of the Indian demi-gods, Baldeva (Hercules), Krishna or Kanhaiya (Apollo), and Budha (Mercury), a powerful and almost perfect resemblance can be traced between those of Hindu legend, Greece, and Egypt. Baldeva (the god of strength) Harikula, is still worshipped as in the days of Alexander; his shrine at Baldeo in Vraj (the Surasenoi of the Greeks), his club a ploughshare, and a lion’s skin his covering. A Hindu intaglio of rare value represents Hercules exactly as described by Arrian, with a monogram consisting of two ancient characters now unknown, but which I have found wherever tradition assigns a spot to the Harikulas; especially in Saurashtra, where they were long concealed on their exile from Delhi. This we may at once decide to be the exact figure of Hercules which Arrian describes his descendants to have carried as their standard, when Porus opposed Alexander. The intaglio will appear in theTrans. R.A.S.[The speculations in this note have no authority.]

26. The twenty-eighth prince, Khemraj, was the last in lineal descent from Parikshita, the grand-nephew of Yudhishthira. The first dynasty lasted 1864 years. The second dynasty was of Visarwa, and consisted of fourteen princes; this lasted five hundred years. The third dynasty was headed by Mahraj, and terminated by Antinai, the fifteenth prince. The fourth dynasty was headed by Dudhsen, and terminated by Rajpal, the ninth and last king (Rajatarangini).

27. The Rajatarangini gives the dateA.V.848, orA.D.792, for this; and adds: “Princes from Siwalik, or northern hills, held it during this time, and it long continued desolate until the Tuars.”

28. 56B.C.[Cunningham remarks that the defeat of Rāja Pāl of Delhi by Sukwanti, Sukdati, or Sukāditya, Rāja of Kumaun, must be assigned toA.D.79: but he has little confidence in such traditions, unless supported by independent evidence (ASR, i. 138).]

29. Raghunath.

30. Rājput, or Kshatriya.

31. This period of 4100 years may have been arrived at by the compiler taking for granted the number of years mentioned by Raghunath as having elapsed from the Mahabharata to Vikramaditya, namely 2915, and adding thereto the well-authenticated period of Prithwiraja, who was born in Samvat 1215: for if 2915 be subtracted from 4100, it leaves 1185, the period within thirty years of the birth of Prithwiraja, according to the Chauhan chronicles.

32. Solar.

33. From S. 1250, orA.D.1194, captivity and dethronement of Prithwiraja.

34. From S. 1212,A.D.1516, the founding of Jaisalmer by Jaisal, to the accession of Gaj Singh, the present prince, in S. 1876, orA.D.1820.

35. Many of its early princes were killed in battle; and the present prince’s father succeeded his own nephew, which was retrograding.

36. The historians sanction the propriety of these changes, in their remarks, that the deposed were “deficient in [capacity for] the cares and duties of government.”

37. Rajagriha, or Rajmahal, capital of Magadhades, or Bihar. [In Patna district,IGI, xxi. 72.]

38. Figuratively, the country of the ‘head of the Snakes’;Nag,Tak, orTakshak, being synonymous: and which I conclude to be the abode of the ancient ScythicTachariof Strabo, theTak-i-uksof the Chinese, theTajiksof the present day of Turkistan. This race appears to be the same with that of the Turushka (of the Puranas), who ruled on the Arvarma (the Araxes), in Sakadwipa, or Scythia. [This is a confused reference to the Saisunāga dynasty, which took its name from its founder, Sisunāga, and comprised roughly the present Patna and Gaya districts, its capital being Rājagriha; the modern Rājgīr-Sisunāga means ‘a young elephant,’ and has no connexion with Sheshnāg, the serpent king (Vishnu Purana, 466 f.; Smith,EHI, 31).]

39. [Chandragupta Maurya was certainly not a “Takshak”: he was probably “an illegitimate scion of the Nanda family” (Smith,EHI, 42).]

40. Mr. Bentley (‘On the Hindu System of Astronomy,’As. Res.vol. viii. pp. 236-7) states that the astronomer, Brahmagupta, flourished aboutA.D.527, or of Vikrama 583, shortly preceding the reign of Susarman; that he was the founder of the system called the Kalpa of Brahma, on which the present Hindu chronology is founded, and to which Mr. Bentley says their historical data was transferred. This would strengthen my calculations; but the weight of Mr. Bentley’s authority has been much weakened by his unwarrantable attack on Mr. Colebrooke, whose extent of knowledge is of double value from his entire aversion to hypothesis. [The Sunga dynasty, founded by Pushyamitra, about 185B.C., lasted till about 73B.C., when the tenth king, Devabhūti, was slain by his Brāhman minister, Vasudeva, who founded the Kānva dynasty. He was followed by three kings, and the dynasty lasted only forty-five years, the last member of it being slain, about 28B.C., by a king of the Andhra or Sātāvahana dynasty, then reigning in the Deccan. For the scanty details see Smith,EHI, 198 ff.]

41. 987 years before Christ.

42. For these and the following dates I am indebted to Goguet’s chronological tables in hisOrigin of Laws.

43. [It is not clear to whom the author refers: Chāmunda Chāvada (A.D.880-908): or Chāmunda Chaulukya (A.D.997-1010), (BG, i. Part i. 154, 162).]

44. [The evidence quoted in this chapter by which the author endeavours to frame a chronology for this early period, is untrustworthy. Mr. Pargiter tentatively dates the great Bhārata battle about 1000B.C., but the evidence is very uncertain (JRAS, January 1910, p. 56; April 1914, p. 294).]

Rajputs and Mongols.—Having thus brought down the genealogical history of the ancient martial races of India, from the earliest period to Yudhishthira and Krishna, and thence to Vikramaditya and the present day, a few observations on the races invading India during that time, and now ranked amongst the thirty-six royal races of Rajasthan, affording scope for some curious analogies, may not be inopportune.

The tribes here alluded to are the Haihaya or Aswa, the Takshak, and the Jat or Getae; the similitude of whose theogony, names in their early genealogies, and many other points, with the Chinese, Tatar, Mogul, Hindu, and Scythic races, would appear to warrant the assertion of one common origin.

Though the periods of the passage of these tribes into India cannot be stated with exactitude, the regions whence they migrated may more easily be ascertained.

Mongol Origin.—Let us compare the origin of the Tatars and Moguls, as given by their historian, Abulghazi, with the races we have been treating of from the Puranas.

Mogol was the name of the Tatarian patriarch. His son was Aghuz,[1]the founder of all the races of those northern regions, called Tatars and Mogol [57]. Aghuz had six sons.[2]First, Kun,[3]‘the sun,’ the Surya of the Puranas; secondly, Ai,[4]‘the moon,’the Indu of the Puranas. In the latter, Ai, we have even the same name [Ayus] as in the Puranas for the Lunar ancestor. The Tatars all claim from Ai, ‘the moon,’ the Indus of the Puranas. Hence with them, as with the German tribes, the moon was always a male deity. The Tatar Ai had a son, Yulduz. His son was Hyu, from whom[5]came the first race of the kings of China. The Puranic Ayus had a son, Yadu (pronounced Jadon); from whose third son, Haya, the Hindu genealogist deduces no line, and from whom the Chinese may claim their Indu[5]origin. Il Khan (ninth from Ai) had two sons: first, Kian; and secondly, Nagas; whose descendants peopled all Tatary. From Kian, Jenghiz Khan claimed descent.[6]Nagas was probably the founder of the Takshak, or Snake race[7]of the Puranas and Tatar genealogists, the Tak-i-uk Moguls of De Guignes.

Such are the comparative genealogical origins of the three races. Let us compare their theogony, the fabulous birth assigned by each for the founder of the Indu race.

Mongol and Hindu Traditions.—1. The Puranic. “Ila (the earth), daughter of the sun-born Ikshwaku, while wandering in the forests was encountered by Budha (Mercury), and from the rape of Ila sprung the Indu race.”

2. The Chinese account of the birth of Yu (Ayu), their first monarch. “A star[8](Mercury or Fo) struck his mother while journeying. She conceived, and gave to the world Yu, the founder of the first dynasty which reigned in China. Yu divided China into nine provinces, and began to reign 2207[9]years before Christ” [58].

Thus the Ai of the Tatars, the Yu of the Chinese, and the Ayusof the Puranas, evidently indicate the great Indu (Lunar) progenitor of the three races. Budha (Mercury), the son of Indu (the moon), became the patriarchal and spiritual leader; as Fo, in China; Woden and Teutates,[10]of the tribes migrating to Europe. Hence it follows that the religion of Buddha must be coeval with the existence of these nations; that it was brought into India Proper by them, and guided them until the schism of Krishna and the Suryas, worshippers of Bal, in time depressed them, when the Buddha religion was modified into its present mild form, the Jain.[11]

Scythian Traditions.—Let us contrast with these the origin of the Scythic nations, as related by Diodorus;[12]when it will be observed the same legends were known to him which have been handed down by the Puranas and Abulghazi.

"The Scythians had their first abodes on the Araxes.[13]Their origin was from a virgin born of the earth[14]of the shape of a woman from the waist upwards, and below a serpent (symbol of Budha or Mercury); that Jupiter had a son by her, named Scythes,[15]whose name the nation adopted. Scythes had two sons, Palas and Napas (qu.the Nagas, or Snake race, of the Tatar genealogy?), who were celebrated for their great actions, and who divided the countries; and the nations were called after them, the Palians (qu.Pali?)[16]and Napians. They led their forces as far as the Nile on Egypt, and subdued many nations. They enlarged the empire of the Scythians as far as the Eastern ocean,and to the Caspian and lake Moeotis. The nation had many kings, from whom the Sacans (Sakae), the Massagetae (GetaeorJats), the Ari-aspians (Aswasof Aria), and many other races. They overran Assyria and Media[17][59], overturning the empire, and transplanting the inhabitants to the Araxes under the name of Sauro-Matians."[18]

As the Sakae, Getae, Aswa, and Takshak are names which have crept in amongst our thirty-six royal races, common with others also to early civilization in Europe, let us seek further ancient authority on the original abodes.

Strabo[19]says: "All the tribes east of the Caspian are called Scythic. The Dahae[20]next the sea, the Massagetae (greatGete) and Sakae more eastward; but every tribe has a particular name. All are nomadic: but of these nomads the best-known are the Asii,[21]the Pasiani, Tochari, Sacarauli, who took Bactria from the Greeks. The Sakae[22](‘races’) have made in Asia irruptions similar to those of the Cimmerians; thus they have been seen to possess themselves of Bactria, and the best district of Armenia, called after them Sakasenae."[23]

Which of the tribes of Rajasthan are the offspring of the Aswa and Medes, of Indu race, returned under new appellations, weshall not now stop to inquire, limiting our hypothesis to the fact of invasions, and adducing some evidence of such being simultaneous with migrations of the same bands into Europe. Hence the inference of a common origin between the Rajput and early races of Europe; to support which, a similar mythology, martial manners and poetry, language, and even music and architectural ornaments, may be adduced.[24]

Of the first migrations of the Indu-Scythic Getae, Takshak, and Asii, into India, that of Sheshnag (Takshak), from Sheshnagdes (Tocharistan?) or Sheshnag, six centuries, by calculation, before Christ, is the first noticed by the Puranas.[25]About this period a grand irruption of the same races conquered Asia Minor, and [60] eventually Scandinavia; and not long after the Asii and Tochari overturned the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the Romans felt the power of the Asi,[26]the Chatti, and Cimbri, from the Baltic shore.

“If we can show the Germans to have been originally Scythae or Goths (Getes or Jits), a wide field of curiosity and inquiry is open to the origin of government, manners, etc.; all the antiquities of Europe will assume a new appearance, and, instead of being traced to the bands of Germany, as Montesquieu and the greatest writers have hitherto done, may be followed through long descriptions of the manners of the Scythians, etc., as given by Herodotus. Scandinavia was occupied by the Scythae five hundred years before Christ. These Scythians worshipped Mercury (Budha), Woden or Odin, and believed themselves his progeny. The Gothic mythology, by parallel, might be shownto be Grecian, whose gods were the progeny of Coelus and Terra (Budha and Ella).[27]Dryads, satyrs, fairies, and all the Greek and Roman superstition, may be found in the Scandinavian creed. The Goths consulted the heart of victims, had oracles, had sibyls, had a Venus in Freya, and Parcae in the Valkyrie.”[28]

The Scythian Descent of the Rajputs.—Ere we proceed to trace these mythological resemblances, let us adduce further opinions in proof of the position assumed of a common origin of the tribes of early Europe and the Scythic Rajput.

The translator of Abulghazi, in his preface, observes: "Our contempt for the Tatars would lessen did we consider how nearly we stand related to them, and that our ancestors originally came from the north of Asia, and that our customs, laws, and way of living were formerly the same as theirs. In short, that we are no other than a colony of Tatars.

"It was from Tatary those people came, who, under the successive names of Cymbrians,[29]Kelts, and Gauls, possessed all the northern part of Europe. What were the Goths, Huns, Alans, Swedes, Vandals, Franks, but swarms of the same hive? The Swedish chronicles bring the Swedes[30]from Cashgar, and [61] the affinity between the Saxon language and Kipchak is great; and the Keltick language still subsisting in Britany and Wales is a demonstration that the inhabitants are descended from Tatar nations."

From between the parallels of 30° and 50° of north latitude, and from 75° to 95° of east longitude, the highlands of Central Asia, alike removed from the fires of the equator and the cold of the arctic circle, migrated the races which passed into Europe and within the Indus. We must therefore voyage up the Indus, cross the Paropanisos, to the Oxus or Jihun, to Sakatai[31]or Sakadwipa, and from thence and the Dasht-i Kipchak conduct the Takshaks, the Getae, the Kamari, the Chatti, and the Huns, into the plains of Hindustan.

We have much to learn in these unexplored regions, the abode of ancient civilisation, and which, so late as Jenghiz Khan’s invasion, abounded with large cities. It is an error to suppose that the nations of Higher Asia were merely pastoral; and De Guignes, from original authorities, informs us that when the Su invaded the Yueh-chi or Jats, they found upwards of a hundred cities containing the merchandise of India, and with the currency bearing the effigies of the prince.

Such was the state of Central Asia long before the Christian era, though now depopulated and rendered desert by desolating wars, which have raged in these countries, and to which Europe can exhibit no parallel. Timur’s wars, in more modern times, against the Getic nation, will illustrate the paths of his ambitious predecessors in the career of destruction.

If we examine the political limits of the great Getic nation in the time of Cyrus, six centuries before Christ, we shall find them little circumscribed in power on the rise of Timur, though twenty centuries had elapsed [62].

Jāts and Getae.—At this period (A.D.1330), under the last prince of Getic race, Tughlak Timur Khan, the kingdom of Chagatai[32]was bounded on the west by the Dasht-i Kipchak, andon the south by the Jihun, on which river the Getic Khan, like Tomyris, had his capital. Kokhand, Tashkent, Utrar,[33]Cyropolis, and the most northern of the Alexandrias, were within the bounds of Chagatai.

The Getae, Jut, or Jat, and Takshak races, which occupy places amongst the thirty-six royal races of India, are all from the region of Sakatai. Regarding their earliest migrations, we shall endeavour to make the Puranas contribute; but of their invasions in more modern times the histories of Mahmud of Ghazni, and Timur abundantly acquaint us.

From the mountains of Jud[34]to the shores of Makran,[35]and along the Ganges, the Jat is widely spread; while the Takshak name is now confined to inscriptions or old writings.

Inquiries in their original haunts, and among tribes now under different names, might doubtless bring to light their original designation, now best known within the Indus; while the Takshak or Takiuk may probably be discovered in the Tajik, still in his ancient haunts, the Transoxiana and Chorasmia of classic authors; the Mawaru-n-nahr of the Persians; the Turan, Turkistan, or Tocharistan of native geography; the abode of the Tochari, Takshak, or Turushka invaders of India, described in the Puranas and existing inscriptions.

The Getae had long maintained their independence when Tomyris defended their liberty against Cyrus. Driven in successive wars across the Sutlej, we shall elsewhere show them preserving their ancient habits, as desultory cavaliers, under the Jat leader of Lahore, in pastoral communities in Bikaner, the Indiandesert and elsewhere, though they have lost sight of their early history. The transition from pastoral to agricultural pursuits is but short, and the descendant of the nomadic Getae of Transoxiana is now the best husbandman on the plains of Hindustan[36][63].

The invasion of these Indu-Scythic tribes, Getae, Takshaks, Asii, Chatti, Rajpali,[37]Huns, Kamari, introduced the worship of Budha, the founder of the Indu or Lunar race.

Herodotus says the Getae were theists,[38]and held the tenets of the soul’s immortality; so with the Buddhists.

Before, however, touching on points of religious resemblance between the Asii, Getae, or Jut of Scandinavia (who gave his name to the Cimbric Chersonese) and the Getae of Scythia and India, let us make a few remarks on the Asii or Aswa.

The Aswa.—To the Indu race of Aswa (the descendants of Dvimidha and Bajaswa), spread over the countries on both sides the Indus, do we probably owe the distinctive appellation of Asia. Herodotus[39]says the Greeks denominated Asia from the wife of Prometheus; while others deduce it from a grandson of Manes, indicating the Aswa descendants of the patriarch Manu. Asa,[40]Sakambhari,[41]Mata,[42]is the divinity Hope, ‘mother-protectress of the Sakha,’ or races. Every Rajput adores Asapurna, ‘the fulfiller of desire’; or, as Sakambhari Devi (goddess protectress), she is invoked previous to any undertaking.

The Aswas were chiefly of the Indu race; yet a branch of the Suryas also bore this designation. It appears to indicate their celebrity as horsemen.[43]All of them worshipped the horse, which they sacrificed to the sun. This grand rite, the Asvamedha, onthe festival of the winter solstice, would alone go far to exemplify their common Scythic origin with the Getic Saka, authorising the inference of Pinkerton, “that a grand Scythic nation extended from the Caspian to the Ganges.”

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