50 Buddhism and Odin ism. [No. 1. 



Col. Tod has noticed a number of curious analogies between the 

 customs, habits, manners and belief of the Rajputs and the ancestors 

 of the Northern Scythians; and these go a great way to shew that 

 they could not have existed, unless we admit a community of origin. 

 The worship of the sword, the reverence for the horse, the sacrifice 

 of that animal as a religious obligation, were alike common botli in 

 India and Scandinavia. In Iceland, where the horse is not indi- 

 genous, there existed the same reverence for the sacrifice of that 

 auimal as it did among the Asiatic Scythians, and the early Chris- 

 tian fathers had to issue strict injunctions to restrain the people 

 from indulging in that unchristian ritual. 



The Indo-Scythiaus were an equestrian race, and unlike most other 

 nations, used the horse both for the saddle and in the war-chariot. 

 The charioteers were always the flower of their armies, and the heroes 

 of the Mahabharat and the Eamayana and even of the Vedas always 

 appear in their chariots. Such was also the case with the Getes ; 

 they too centred their chief strength in the chariot. These analogies 

 are, no doubt much more ancient than Buddhism, but the Hindus 

 and the Scythians, by becoming Buddhists changed their code of 

 theological belief, not their customs and their kuowledge, and there- 

 fore they may be fairly taken, ad valorem, as proofs of a community 

 of origin of the different races among whom they are found. 



"In the last rites for the dead," says Tod, " comparison will 

 yield proofs of original similarity. The funeral ceremonies of Scandina- 

 via have distinguished the national eras ; and the ' age of fire' and 

 the 'age of hills,'* designated the periods when the warrior was 

 committed to mother-earth or consumed on the pyre. Odin (Boodha) 

 introduced the latter custom and the raising of tumuli over the ashes 

 when the body was burned ; as also the practice of the wife burning 

 with her deceased lord. These manners were carried from Saca- 

 dvvipa or Saca Scythia 'where the Gete,' says Herodotus 'was 

 consumed on the pyre or burned alive with her lord.' "f It is not 

 necessary to enquire whence the Buddhists obtained their practice 

 of burning the dead and raising tumuli on their ashes; suffice it to 

 say, that they have it from an early age, long before it was introduced 



* Mallet's Northern Antiquities, chap. XII. 

 t Bajasthan I. p. 73. 



