Art. II. Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajpoot States of India. By Lieut.-Col. James Tod, late Political Agent to the Western Rajpoot States. Vol. II. Royal 4to, pp. xxxii, 774. Maps and Plates. London, 1832.

THE first volume of this

splendid and interesting publication was reviewed in the second volume of our present series. The second volume, which concludes the work, comprises Annals of the States of Marwar, Bikaner, Jessulmer, Amber, and Haravati, and the sequel to the Personal Narrative. The view of Hindoo society which the copious and minute details of the narrative afford, seems to transport us to the days of chivalry and romance; and in the pages of Col. Tod, we seem to be listening to another Froissart. No chronicler of the olden time ever entered with more zest than he has done into his tale of knightly feats, baronial feuds, the pomp of courts, the picturesque array of marshalled camps; nor could any native bard discover more enthusiasm in celebrating the virtues and glories of this IndoGothic race, than their present Historian, the bracelet-bound 'brother' of three Rajpoot Queens. From the period when he first put his foot in Mewar, as a subaltern of the then Resident's escort, to the date of this personal narrative (1820-1), fourteen years after, his whole thoughts, he tells us, became occupied with the history of that and the neighbouring states. His attachment to the natives was gratefully and honourably rewarded with their affectionate loyalty; and Tod Sahib will for ages be remembered as an incarnation of Vishnoo.

It is not surprising that these circumstances should have exerted a very powerful effect upon the Author's imagination, and, through that medium, upon his feelings and opinions. Dazzled by the brilliant pageant of Asiatic manners, combined with feudal institutions, and set off by the associations of romantic legend and poetic history, he has not been able (can we wonder?) to rise so far above the soldier as to estimate the state of society he describes, with the cool judgement of a philosopher and a Christian. While we cannot refrain from thus briefly adverting to the only flaw in this most entertaining work, we have much pleasure in remarking upon the amiable feeling, the virtuous and honourable conduct, and the great ability which characterized Col. Tod's administration, and are reflected in his writings.

The position of a military man stationed in the interior of a heathen country, at a distance from all Christian ordinances, surrounded with a nation to whose customs he has learned to conform, in whose welfare he has become benevolently interested, and whose idolatrous superstition has, through familiarity with the spectacle, ceased to surprise or to revolt the feelings, seeming to be but a picturesque feature of the living scene,-is a position

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of such incalculable religious peril, that an entire escape from the corrupting effects of such evil communications is with men impossible -a moral miracle which unassisted human nature is wholly incompetent to achieve. Even the proud intolerance of the iconoclastic Mussulman has been soothed down, under such circumstances, to a philosophic complacency in the abominations of idolatry; and the enlightened minister of the great Akbar, in the "Ayeen Akbery ", appears as the apologist for the Hindoo system. 'God may be adored', he says, in the heart; or in the sun; or in fire; or in water; or in earth; or under the 'form of an idol."* This is the doctrine of Pope's Universal Prayer. It is the creed of every sect, Christian, Mohammedan, or Pagan, of the great antichurch of Deism. But, while we deprecate and shudder at the impiety of the sentiment, we are deeply convinced that nothing but the faith and zeal of the Missionary, sustained by Divine influence, can enable the human spirit to maintain itself erect, while all around is prostrate, and to resist for any length of time the most seductive and congenial of all delusions to the mind of fallen man, that of idolatry.

A large portion of the history in the present volume is given in the words of the Rajpoot Chronicles, which, contrary to all previous supposition, form a body of highly interesting and valuable historical documents. The Radja Taringini, or Chronicle of the Kings of Cashmeer, was long believed to be the only work having the slightest pretensions to the character of an historical composition in any of the Indian dialects; the only torch which ' remained to throw light on the antiquities of India'. Such is the language of M. Klaproth. Yet, it was certain, that other documents must have been within the reach of Ferishta and the Mohammedan writers. The records of which Col. Tod has been enabled to avail himself, though not of very remote antiquity, ascend beyond the Mohammedan era. 'It is a singular fact,' he remarks, that there is no available date beyond the fourth century for any of the great Rajpoot families, all of which are brought from the north. This was the period of one of the grand irruptions of Getic races from Central Asia, who esta'blished kingdoms in the Punjaub and on the Indus.' The genealogical roll of the Rahtore rajpoots begins with Yavanaswa, prince of Parlipoor; in whose name, as interpreted by our Author, (a Yavan prince of the Aswa tribe,) we have a proof of the Scythic origin of this Rajpoot family. The authentic annals commence with the conquest of Canouj in the year of the Hindoo era 526, answering to A. D. 470, by Nayn Pal, the founder of the Rahtore dynasty which terminated in the person of the Rajah

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* Gladwin's Translation, Vol. II. p. 521.

Jeichund, A. D. 1193. On the fall of the kingdom of Canouj before the arms of the Ghiznian sultan, the fugitive Rahtore prince, Sevaji, with a small number of his followers, fled to the desert of Maroowar (Marwar), and ultimately established their power in that country.

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When the Rahtore chief, Nayn Pal, made himself master of Canouj*, the reigning monarch whom he defeated and slew, was Aji-pal, whose image is still worshipped by the inhabitants. If the adjunct pal or pali indicated, as Col. Tod supposes, the 'pastoral race of the invaders', it would indicate that those whom they invaded were also palli. But it is obviously an honorific affix, answering to bal in Hanni-bal, Asdru-bal, &c., and may safely be rendered lord', as identical with bel or baal. If these Rahtore rajpoots' may boast of their pedigree because they can trace it through a period of 1360 years', still, they appear in India, not only as foreigners, but as moderns in comparison with the annals of the native races. The era of Vicram-aditya or Bickermajit, which Col. Tod constantly refers to, dates five centuries before the intrusion of these Yavans. The true history of that renowned sovereign is a desideratum. That he too was a foreign conqueror, is evident, both from the manner in which he is referred to in the Cashmirian annals, and from the tradition which ascribes to him a religious belief very different from that of his subjects. † In the affix of his name-aditya, we have apparently the same word that terminates the titles of several of the Parthian and Bactrian sovereigns; as Eucratides, Tyridates, Mithridates. Now it is remarkable, that a little before this time, the Parthian Mithridates is stated to have extended his dominions into India beyond the limits of Alexander's conquests, and to have made the Ganges his eastern boundary. The Arsacides, Gibbon says, 'practised the worship of the magi, but they disgraced and polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry.' That Vicram-aditya held some modification of the Magian faith, is highly probable, if he was of the Zendish race. Bactra (or Balkh) was the Mekka of the primitive fire-worshippers; and in the first century of the Christian era, the Parthians, the Bactrians, the Sacans, the Medes, and many barbarous nations, had received the faith of Zoroaster. Will it be thought a fanciful hy

* Canouj is represented in the Mahabharat as having succeeded to the imperial honours of Ayodhya, or Oude, the capital of the great Rama.

To animate the religious zeal of the inferior classes, he set up the great image of Maha-Cali, or Time, in the city of Oojein, which he built, while he himself worshipped only the infinite and invisible God.' Maurice's Hindostan, I. 68-70. This Maha-Cali must have been the Saturn of the Sabean worship.

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pothesis that should explain the emblematic genealogy of the children of fire and the children of the sun as indicating the original faith of their ancestry? Several expressions which occur in the native annals, favour this theory. When the Father of Creation' regenerated the warrior race, it is said, * the fire-fountain (anhul-coond) was lustrated with the waters ' of the Ganges.' (p. 440.) This may be understood to mean that either by intermarriage with the daughters of the Hindoo race, or by renouncing their original superstition for the Brahminical faith, these fire-sprung warriors were purified and brought over to the pale of Hindooism. Such is the interpretation which we find Colonel Tod putting upon these singular expressions.

These warriors, thus regenerated to fight the battles of Brahminism, and brought within the pale of that faith, must have been either the aboriginal debased classes, raised to moral importance by the ministers of the pervading (prevailing?) religion, or foreign races who had obtained a footing among them. The contrasted physical appearance of the respective races will decide this question. The aborigines are dark, diminutive, and ill-favoured: the Agniculas (fire-race) are of good stature and fair, with prominent features, like those of the Parthian kings. The ideas which pervade their martial poetry, are such as were held by the Scythian in distant ages, and which even Brahminism has failed to eradicate; while the tumuli containing ashes and arms, discovered throughout India, indicate the nomadic warrior of the north as the proselyte of Mount Aboo.” p. 442.

Of the four Agnicula races, the Chohans, the progenitors of the Hara rajpoots, were the first who obtained extensive dominion. The original seat of their sovereignty was that part of Central India bordering upon the Nerbuddah, whence they are stated to have extended their conquests to Delhi, Lahore, Cabul, and even Nepaul. Ajipal, whom the Rahtores drove from Canouj, was probably a Chohan; as a prince of the same name, and of the Chohan dynasty, having established himself at Ajimeer, laid the foundation of that state; and at the time of the earliest Mohammedan invasion, Ajimeer had become the chief seat of Chohan power.

At this period, the close of the twelfth century, and, according to Colonel Tod, for centuries previous, Hindoosthan Proper comprised four great kingdoms; viz., 1. Delhi, under the Tuars and Chohans; 2. Canouj, under the Rahtores; 3. Mewar, under the Ghelotes; and 4. Anhulwarra, under the Chauras and Solankhies. To one or other of these states, the numerous petty princes of India paid homage and feudal service. The kingdom of Delhi' extended over all the countries westward of the Indus, embracing the lands watered by its arms, from the foot of the 'Himalaya and the desert to the Aravulli chain; being divided

from Canouj by the Cali-nuddee (black-stream), the Calindi of the Greek geographers. The reigning monarch, at the time of the invasion of Shahab-ud-deen, was the Rajah Pithowra, or Pirthiraj, of the Chohan race, whose romantic adventure, referred to by Colonel Tod, is given more at length in the “Ayeen Akbery". According to the Mohammedan authority, the Ghiznian monarch was invited to invade the dominions of the Chohan monarch of Delhi, by his incensed foe, Jeichund, the Maharajah of Canouj; who is moreover represented to have been ‘of so tolerant ' a disposition, that many natives of Persia and Tatary were engaged in his service." The Rahtore sovereign who reigned at Canouj at the time of Sultan Mahmoud's invasion, is even stated by some, Ferishta says, to have turned true believer. The Parthian or Scythian origin of this dynasty renders the statement the more credible. The kingdom of Canouj is supposed to have extended, at this time, northward to the Himalaya, eastward to Casi (Benares), westward to the Cali-nuddee, and southward to Bundelkhund and Mewar *. The latter kingdom, the proper name of which (Medya-war) signifies, according to Colonel Tod, 'the central region', had for its boundaries, the Aravulli chain on the north, Anhulwarra on the west, and the Dhar principality on the south: it seems to answer very nearly to Malwah. Anhulwarra extended southward to the ocean, westward to the Indus, and northward to the desert, and must therefore have comprised Gujerat. But if these four kingdoms were the only Rajpoot empires, it must not be supposed that they were the only great Indian kingdoms. In the east, the empire of Magadha, under the Andhra dynasty, appears to have vied in wealth and importance with any of the western kingdoms; and to the south of the Nerbuddah, the empire founded by Shalivahan, about A.D. 77, whose accession forms the Mahratta era, comprised an extensive region. In fact, the Brahmins divide India into ten great kingdoms; which included several smaller states more or less independent.

Of the early mixture of the Scythic and Hindoo races, there is abundant evidence; and the Institutes of Menu speak of the Sacas (Saca), Yavanas, Pahlavas (ancient Persians), Paradas, &c., as kindred races of the warrior caste, distinct from the Brahminical tribes. The precise situation of Yavana-dwipa, the land of the Yavans, it is difficult to determine; but it most probably included Bactria; and although the Bactrian Greeks may not have been the original Yavans, they were considered as belong

* Jeichund is stated, in the Chohan annals, to have defeated twice Sidraj, King of Anhulwarra, and to have extended his dominions south of the Nerbuddah.