Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 2 of 3: or the Central and Western Rajput States of IndiaTod, James
History
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 2 of 3: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India
Tod, James
Rajasthan (India) -- History; Rajput (Indic people) -- History
[The chief sanctuaries in Rājputāna are: Nāgor; Barli, a few miles
distant; Chaupāsni; Udaimandir and Mahmandir, close to Jodhpur. The
system is a serious obstacle to the detection of crime (General
Hervey, _Some Records of Crime_, i. 122 f., ii. 327 ff.).]
Footnote 4.19.69:
[Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, 3rd ed. i. 235.]
Footnote 4.19.70:
[iv. 33; L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, iv. 101 ff.]
Footnote 4.19.71:
[_Perā_, a sweetmeat made of cream, sugar and spices, for which
Mathura is famous.]
Footnote 4.19.72:
Pallas gives an admirable and evidently faithful account of the
worship of Krishna and other Hindu divinities in the city of
Astrakhan, where a Hindu mercantile colony is established. They are
termed Multani, from the place whence they migrated—Multan, near the
Indus. This class of merchants of the Hindu faith is disseminated over
all the countries, from the Indus to the Caspian: and it would have
been interesting had the professor given us any account of their
period of settlement on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. In
costume and feature, as represented in the plate given by that author,
they have nothing to denote their origin; though their divinities
might be seated on any altar on the Ganges. The Multanis of Indeskoi
Dvor, or ‘Indian court,’ at Astrakhan, have erected a pantheon, in
which Krishna, the god of all Vaishnava merchants, is seated in front
of Jagannath, Rama, and his brothers, who stand in the background;
while Siva and his consort Ashtabhuja ‘the eight-armed,’ form an
intermediate line, in which is also placed a statue which Pallas
denominates Murali; but Pallas mistook the flute (_murali_) of the
divine Krishna for a rod. The principal figure we shall describe in
his own words. “In the middle was placed a small idol with a very high
bonnet, called Gupaledshi. At its right there was a large black stone,
and on the left two smaller ones of the same colour, brought from the
Ganges, and regarded by the Hindus as sacred. These fossils were of
the species called Sankara, and appeared to be an impression of a
bivalve muscle.” Minute as is the description, our judgment is further
aided by the plate. Gupaledshi is evidently Gopalji, the pastoral
deity of Vraj (from _gao_, a cow, and _pala_, a herdsman). The
head-dress worn by him and all the others is precisely that still worn
by Krishna, in the sacred dance at Mathura: and so minute is the
delineation that even the _pera_ or sugar-ball is represented,
although the professor appears to have been ignorant of its use, as he
does not name it. He has likewise omitted to notice the representation
of the sacred mount of Govardhana, which separates him from the Hindu
Jove and the turreted Cybele (Durga), his consort. The black stones
are the Salagramas, worshipped by all Vaishnavas. In the names of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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