The steeds purchased since the last festival are named, and as the cavalcade returns, their grooms repeat the appellations of each as the word is passed by the master of the horse; as Baj Raj, ‘the royal steed’; Hayamor, ‘the chief of horses’; Manika, ‘the gem’; Bajra, ‘the thunderbolt,’ etc., etc. On returning to the palace, gifts are presented by the Rana to his chiefs. The Chauhan chief of Kotharia claims the apparel which his prince wears on this day, in token of the fidelity of his ancestor to the minor, Udai Singh, in Akbar’s wars. To others, a fillet or _balaband_ for the turban is presented; but all such compliments are regulated by precedent or immediate merit. =The Toran Arch.=—Thus terminates the Nauratri festival sacred to the god of war, which in every point of view is analogous to the autumnal festival of the Scythic warlike nations, when these princes took the muster of their armies, and performed the same rites to the great celestial luminary.[4.22.15] I have presented to the antiquarian reader these details, because it is in minute particulars that analogous customs are detected. Thus the temporary _toran_, or triumphal arch, erected in front of the tent at Mount Mataehala would scarcely claim the least notice, but that we discover even in this emblem the origin of the triumphal arches of antiquity, with many other rites which may be traced to the Indo-Scythic races of Asia. The _toran_ in its original form consisted of two columns and an architrave, constituting the number three, sacred to Hara, the god of war. In the progress of the arts the architrave gave way to the Hindu arch, which consisted of two or more ribs without the keystone, the apex being the perpendicular junction of the archivaults; nor is the arc of the _toran_ semicircular, or any segment of a circle, but with that graceful curvature which stamps with originality one of the arches of the Normans, who may have brought it from their ancient seats on the Oxus, whence it may also have been [589] carried within the Indus. The cromlech, or trilithic altar in the centre of all those monuments called Druidic, is most probably a _toran_, sacred to the Sun-god Belenus, like Har, or Balsiva, the god of battle, to whom as soon as a temple is raised the _toran_ is erected, and many of these are exquisitely beautiful.