Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3: or the Central and Western Rajput States of IndiaTod, James
History
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India
Tod, James
Rajasthan (India) -- History; Rajput (Indic people) -- History
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.’
Footnote 2.5.22:
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].
Footnote 2.5.23:
On it the last Hindu monarch, Prithwiraja, lost his kingdom, his
liberty, and life.
Footnote 2.5.24:
Rajatarangini. The period of writing was A.D. 1740.
Footnote 2.5.25:
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, the _d_ and _r_ being 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 (or _Suryavansa_) 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
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