=Asvamedha, the Horse Sacrifice.=—There are some things, animate and inanimate, which have been common objects of adoration amongst the nations of the earth, the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven; the sword; reptiles, as the serpent; animals, as the noblest, the horse. This last was not worshipped as an abstract object of devotion, but as a type of that glorious orb which has had reverence from every child of nature. The plains of Tatary, the sands of Libya, the rocks of Persia, the valley of the Ganges, and the wilds of Orinoco, have each yielded votaries alike ardent in devotion to his effulgence: Of this great world both eye and soul. His symbolic worship and offerings varied with clime and habit; and while the altars of Bal in Asia, of Belenus among the Celts of Gaul and Britain, smoked with human sacrifices, the bull[2.6.89] bled to Mithras in Babylon, and the steed was the victim to Surya on the Jaxartes and Ganges. The father of history says that the great Getae of Central Asia deemed it right to offer the swiftest of created to the swiftest of non-created beings. It is fair to infer that the sun’s festival with the Getae and Aswa nations of the Jaxartes, as with those of Scandinavia, was the winter solstice, the Sankrant of the Rajput and Hindu in general. _Hi_, _Haya_, _Hywor_, _Aswa_ denote the steed in Sanskrit and its dialects. In Gothic, _hyrsa_; Teutonic, _hors_; Saxon, _horse_. The grand festival of the German tribes of the Baltic was the _Hiul_, or _Hiel_ (already commented on), the Asvamedha[2.6.90] of the children of Surya, on the Ganges. =The Asvamedha Ceremonies.=—The ceremonies of the Asvamedha are too expensive, and attended with too great risk, to be attempted by modern princes. Of its fatal results we have many historical records, from the first dawn of Indian history to the last of its princes, Prithwiraja. The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the poems of Chand all illustrate this imposing rite and its effects.[2.6.91] The Ramayana affords a magnificent picture of the Asvamedha. Dasaratha, monarch of Ayodhya, father of Rama, is represented as commanding the rite: “Let the sacrifice be prepared, and the horse[2.6.92] liberated from the north bank of the Sarju!”[2.6.93] A year being ended, and the horse having returned from his wanderings,[2.6.94] The sacrificial ground was prepared on the spot of liberation. Invitations were sent to all surrounding monarchs to repair to Ayodhya: King Kaikeya,[2.6.95] the king of Kasi,[2.6.96] Lomapada of Angadesa,[2.6.97] Kosala of Magadhadesa,[2.6.98] with the kings of Sindhu,[2.6.99] Sauvira,[2.6.100] and Saurashtra [78].[2.6.101] d