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
Suraseni,” are the Mathura and Suryapur occupied by the descendants of
Sursen.[4.20.11] Had Arrian afforded as many hints for discussing the
analogy between the Hindu and Grecian Apollos as he has for the Hercules
of Thebes and India, we might have come to a conclusion that the three
chief divinities[4.20.12] of Egypt, Greece, and India had their altars
first erected on the Indus, Ganges, and Jumna.
=Sun and Moon Worship.=—The earliest objects of adoration in these
regions were the sun and moon, whose names designated the two grand
races, Surya and Chandra of Indu. Budha, son of Indu, married Ila, a
grandchild of Surya, from which union sprung the Indu race. They deified
their ancestor Budha, who continued to be the chief object of adoration
until Krishna: hence the worship of Balnath[4.20.13] and Budha[4.20.14]
were coeval. That the Nomadic tribes of Arabia, as well as those of
Tartary and India, adored the same objects, we learn from the earliest
writers; and Job, the probable contemporary of Hasti, the founder of the
first capital of the Yadus on the Ganges, boasts in the midst of his
griefs that he had always remained uncorrupted by the Sabaeism which
surrounded him. “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking
in brightness, and my mouth had kissed my hand, this also were an
iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the [535]
God that is above.”[4.20.15] That there were many Hindus who, professing
a pure monotheism like Job, never kissed the hand either to Surya or his
herald Budha, we may easily credit from the sublimity of the notions of
the ‘One God,’ expressed both by the ancients and moderns, by poets and
by princes, of both races;[4.20.16] but more especially by the sons of
Budha, who for ages bowed not before graven images, and deemed it
impious to raise a temple to
The Spirit in whose honour shrines are weak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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