It is enough to remember how
entangled and obscure is the history of the ancient Scythians to
abstain from drawing any positive conclusions whatsoever from it.
The tribes that go under one general denomination of Scythians were
many, and still it is impossible to deny that there is a good deal
of similitude between the customs of the old Scandinavians, worshipers
of Odin, whose land indeed was occupied by the Scythians more than
five hundred years B.C. and the customs of the Rajputs. But this
similitude gives as much right to the Rajputs to say that we are a
colony of Surya-vansas settled in the West as to us to maintain
that the Rajputs are the descendants of Scythians who emigrated
to the East. The Scythians of Herodotus and the Scythians of Ptolemy,
and some other classical writers, are two perfectly distinct
nationalities. Under Scythia, Herodotus means the extension of
land from the mouth of Danube to the Sea of Azoff, according to
Niebuhr; and to the mouth of Don, according to Rawlinson; whereas
the Scythia of Ptolemy is a country strictly Asiatic, including
the whole space between the river Volga and Serika, or China.
Besides this, Scythia was divided by the western Himalayas, which
the Roman writers call Imaus, into Scythia intra Imaum, and Scythia
extra Imaum. Given this lack of precision, the Rajputs may be
called the Scythians of Asia, and the Scythians the Rajputs of
Europe, with the same degree of likelihood.
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