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This page is an extract from <br/>
ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES <br/>
OF <br/>
'''RAJASTHAN '''<br/>

OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN <br/>
RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA <br/>

By <br/>
LIEUT.-COL. JAMES TOD <br/>
Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States <br/>

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by <br/>
WILLIAM CROOKE, CIE. <br/>
Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., B.A., F.R.A.l. <br/>
Late of the Indian Civil Service <br/>

In Three Volumes <br/>
VOL. IV: ANNALS OF MEWAR<br/>
[The Annals were completed in 1829]<br/>

HUMPHREY MILFORD <br/>
Oxford University Press <br/>
London Edinburgh Glasgow New York <br/>
Toronto Melbourne Bombay <br/>
1920 [The edition scanned] <br/>
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Note: This article is likely to contain several spelling mistakes that occurred during scanning. If these errors are reported as messages to the Facebook page, [http://www.facebook.com/Indpaedia Indpaedia.com] your help will be gratefully acknowledged.


=Mewar 05: Alleged Persian extraction of the Ranas=

==Connexion of the Ranas with Persia==
Historic truth has, in all 
countries, been sacrificed to national vanity : to its gratification 
every obstacle is made to give way ; fictions become facts, and 
even rehgious prejudices vanish in this mirage of the imagination. 
What  but this spurious zeal could for a moment induce any 
genuine Hindu to believe that, only twelve centuries ago, ' an 
eater of beef ' occupied the chair of Rama, and enjoyed by univer
sal acclaim the title of ' Sun of the Hindus ' ; or that the most 
ancient dynasty in the world could owe its existence to the last 
of the Sassanian kings : 3 that a slip from such a tree could be sur
reptitiously grafted on that majestic stem, which has flourished 
from the golden to the iron age, covering the land with its 
branches ? That there existed a marked affinity in religious 
rites between the Rana's family and the Guebres, or ancient 
Persians, is evident. With both, the chief object of adoration 
was the sun ; each bore the image of the orb on their banners. 
The chief day in the seven 4 was dedicated to the sun ; to it is 

1 Ain, ii. 344 f. 
2   [The dates are open to much question. It is known fro:n inscriptions 
that Sakti Kumar was alive in a.d. 977.] 
3  Yezdegird died a.d. 651. 
4 Surajwar, or Adityaivar, Sun-day ; and the other days of the week, 
from the other planets, which Western nations have taken froiH the East. 
sacred the chief gate of the city, the principal bastion of every 
fortress. But though the faith of Islam has driven away the fairy 
inhabitants from the fountains of Mithras, that of Surya has still 
its devotees on the summit of Chitor, as at Valabhi : and could 
we trace with accuracy their creeds to a distant age, we might 
discover them to be of one family, worshipping the sun at the 
fountains of the Oxus and Jaxartes. 

The darkest period of Indian history is during the six centuries 
following Vikramaditya, which are scarcely enlightened by a ray 
of knowledge : but India was imdergoing great changes, and 
foreign tribes were pouring in from the north. To this period, 
the sixth century, the genealogies of the Puranas are brought 
down, which expressly declare (adopting the prophetic spirit to 
conceal [233] the alterations and additions they then underwent) 
that at this time the genuine line of princes would be extinct, and 
that a mixed race would rule conjointly with foreign barbarians ; 
as the Turushka, the Mauna,1 the Yavan,2  the Gorind, and 
1  See History of the Tribes, pp. 123, 135, articles ' Takshak,' and ' Jhala,' 
or Makwahana, in all probability the Mauna of the Puranas [?]. 
2  The Yavan, or Greek princes, who apparently continued to rule within 
the Indus after the Christian era, were either the remains of the Bactrian 
dynasty or the independent kingdom of Demetrius or Apollodotus, who 
ruled in the Panjab, having as their capital Sagala, changed by Demetrius 
to Euthymedia. Bayer says, in his Hist. Reg. Bad., p. 84 : "I find from 
Claudius Ptolemy, that there was a city within the Hydaspes yet nearer the 
Indus, called Sagala, also Euthymedia ; but I scarcely doubt that Demetrius 
called it Euthydemia, from his father, after his death and that of Menander. 
Demetrius was deprived of his patrimony A.U.C. 562." [The site of Sagala 
Chiniot, Shahkot, Sialkot {IGI, ii. 80 f. ; McCrindle, Ptolemy, 
122 ff.).] 

On this ancient city, Sagala, I have already said much ; conjecturing 
it to be the Salbhanpura of the Yadus when driven from Zabulistan, and 
that of the Yuoh-chi or Yuti, who were fixed there from Central Asia in the 
fifth century, and if so early as the second century, when Ptolemy wrote, 
may have originated the change of Yuti-media, the ' Central Yuti.' The 
numerous medals which I possess, chiefly found within the probable hunts of 
the Greek kingdom of Sagala, either belong to these princes or the Parthian 
kings of Minnagara on the Indus. The legends are in Greek on one side, 
and in the Sassanian character on the reverse. Hitherto I have not de
ciphered the names of any but those of Apollodotus and Menander ; but 
the titles of ' Great King,' ' Saviour,' and other epithets adopted by the 
Arsacidae, are perfectly legible. The devices, however, all incline me to 
pronounce them Parthian. It would be curious to ascertain how these 
Greeks and Parthians gradually merged into the Hindu population [see 
IQI, ii. 1.37]. 

Garddhabin.1  Tliere is much of truth in this ; nor is it to be 
doubted that many of the Rajput tribes entered India from the 
north-west regions about this period. Gor and Gardhaba have 
the same signification ; the first is Persian ; the second its version 
in Hindi, meaning the ' wild ass,' an appellation of the Persian 
monarch Bahram, surnamed Gor from his partiality to hunting 
that animal. Various authorities state Bahramgor being in India 
in the fifth century, and his having there left progeny by a princess 
of Kanauj. A passage extracted by the author from an ancient 
Jain HIS. indicates that " in S. 523 Raja Gardhabela, of Kakustha, 
or vSuryavansa, ruled in Valabhipura." It has been surmised 
that Gardhabela was the son of Bahramgor, a son of whom is 
stated to have obtained dominion at Patau ; which may be borne 
in mind when the authorities for the Persian extraction of the 
Rana's family are given.2  

The Hindus, when conquered by the Muhammadans, naturally 
wished to gild the chains they could not break. To trace a 
common, though distant, origin with the conquerors was to 
remove some portion of the taint of dishonour which arose from 
giving their daughters in marriage to the Tatar emperors of Delhi ; 
and a degree of satisfaction was derived from assuming that the 
blood thus corrupted once flowed from a common fountain 3 [234]. 
1  [The list in the Vishnu Purana (474 f.) gives 7 Abhiras, 10 Garddhabas, 
16 Sakas, 14 Tusharas, 13 Mundas, 11 Maunas. On the impossibihty of 
reducing the Puranic accounts to order see Smith, EHI, 274.] 
2 [RawUnson [Seventh Oriental Monarchy, 298) regards the eastern 
adventure of Bahramgor, Varahran V., as mythical. Sykes [Hist, of Persia, 
i. 470) thinks they can hardly be authentic, " but I do not reject it as entirely 
devoid of historical basis."] 
3 The Hindu genealogist, in ignorance of the existence of Aghuz Khan, 
the Tatar patriarch, could not connect the chain of Chagatai with Chandra. 
The Brahman, better read, sixpplied the defect, and with his doctrine of the 
metempsychosis animated the material frame of the beneficent Akbar with 
the ' good genius ' of a Hindu ; and that of their mortal foe, Aurangzeb, 
with one of evil destiny, being that of Kalayavana, the foe of Krishna. 
They gravely assert that Akbar visited his ancient hermitage at the conflu
ence of the Ganges and Jumna, and excavated the implements of penance 
used by him in hds former shape, as one of the sages of ancient times ; while 
such is their aversion to Aurangzeb, that they declare the final avatar, Time 
(Kal), on his white steed, will appear in his person. The Jaisalmer annals 
affirm that the whole Turkish (Turushha) race of Chagatai are of Yadu stock ; 
while the Jam Jareja of Cutch traces his descent from the Persian Jamshid, 
contemporary with Solomon. These are curious claims, but the Rana's 
family would consider such vanity criminal. 
Further to develop these claims of Persian descent, we shall 
commence with an extract from the Upadesa Prasad, a collection 
of historic fragments in the Magadhi dialect. " In Gujardes 
(Gujarat) there are eighty-foiir cities. In one of these, Kaira, 
resided the Brahman Devaditya, the expounder of the Vedas. 
He had an only child, Subhaga (of good fortune) by name, at 
once a maiden and a widow. Having learned from her preceptor 
the solar incantation, incautiously repeating it, the sun appeared 
and embraced her, and she thence became pregnant.1  

The 
affliction of her father was diminished when he discovered the 
parent ; nevertheless [as others might be less charitable] he sent 
her with a female attendant to Valabhipura, where she was de
livered of twins, male and female. When grown up the boy was 
sent to school ; but being eternally plagued about his mysterious 
birth, whence he received the nickname of Ghaibi (' concealed '), 
in a fit of irritation he one day threatened to kill his mother if she 
refused to disclose the author of his existence. At this moment 
the sun revealed himself : he gave the youth a pebble, with which 
it was sufficient to touch his companions in order to overcome 
them. Being carried before the Balhara prince, who menaced 
Ghaibi, the latter slew him with the pebble, and became himself 
sovereign of Saurashtra, taking the name of Siladitya ^ (from 
sila, ' a stone or pebble,' and adiiya, ' the sun ') : his sister was 
married to the Raja of Broach." Such is the literal translation 
of a fragment totally unconnected with the history of the Rana's 
family, though evidently bearing upon it. The father of Siladitya, 
according to the Sandrai roll and other authorities of that period, 
is Suraj (the sun) Rao, though two others make a Somaditya 
intervene 2  [235]. 

1  [For legends of woinen impregnated by the sun see Frazer, Golden 
Bough, Part vii. vol. i. 74 ff.] 
2 This is probably the Siladitya of the Satrunjaya Mahatma, who re
paired the temple on Satrunjaya in S. 477 (a.d. 421). [A mere folk etymo
Siladitya, from sil, ' to worship,' aditya, ' the sun.'] 
3  In perusing this fragment we are struck by the similarity of production 
of these Hindu Hehadae and that of the celebrated Tatar dynasty from which 
Jenghiz Khan was descended. The Niruns, or ' children of light,' were from 
an amour of the sun with Alung Goa, from which Jenghiz was the ninth in 
descent. Authorities quoted by Petis do la Croix, in his Ufe of this con
queror, and Hkewise by Marjgny, in his History of the Saracens, afBrm 
Jenghiz Khan to be a descendant of Yazdegird, the last Sassanian prince. 
Jenghiz was an idolater, and hated the very name of Muhammadan [see 
Let us see what Abu-1 Fazl says of the descent of the Ranas 
from Niishirwan : " The chief of the State was formerly called 
Rawal, but for a long time past has been known as Rana. He is 
of the Ghelot clan, and pretends to descent from Noshirwan the 
Just. An ancestor of this family through the vicissitudes of 
fortune came to Berar and was distinguished as the chief of Narna
lah. About eight himdred years previous to the present time 1  
Narnalah was taken by the enemy and many were slain. One 
Bapa, a child, was carried by his mother from this scene of desola
tion to Mewar, and found refuge with Rajah Mandalikh, a Bhil.2 

The work which has furnished all the knowledge which exists 
on the Persian ancestry of the Mewar princes is the Maasiru-l
Umara, or that (in the author's possession) founded on it, entitled 
Bisaiu-l-Ghanim, or 'Display of the Foe,' written in a.h. 1204 3  
[a.d. 1789]. The writer of this work styles himself Lachhun 
Narayan Shafik Aurangabadi, or ' the rhymer of Aurangabad. 
He professes to give an accomit of Sivaji, the founder of the 
Mahratta empire ; for which purpose he goes deep into the lineage 
of the Ranas of Mewar, from whom Sivaji was descended,4  quoting 
Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, i. 37 ff.]. A courtier telling Aurangzeb of his 
celestial ancestry, gravely quoting the affair of the mother of the race of 
Timur with the sun, the bigoted monarch coarsely replied, " Mama qahba 
bud," which we will not translate. 

1  Akbar commenced his reign a.d. 1556, and had been forty years on the 
throne when the ' Institutes ' were composed by the Abu-l Fazl. [The 
translation of Gladwin in the original text has been replaced by that of 
Jarrett, Ain, ii. 268.] 
2 Orme [Historical Fragments, Notes, p. xxii] was acquainted with this 
passage, and shows his knowledge of the Hindu character by observing 
that it was a strange pedigree to assign a Hindu prince, for Khusru, of the 
religion of Zoroaster, though compelled to many abstinences, was not re
strained from eating beef : and Anquetil du Perron says of the Parsis, their 
descendants, that they have refrained since their emigration from slaying 
the cow merely to please the Hindu. 

3  The cryptographic da,te is contained in the numerical value of the letters 
which compose the title : 

B.S. A. T. a. 1. G. N. A. E. M.
        
2.60. 1. 9. 1. 9. 1000. 50. 1. 10. 40.
 
As the total is only 1183, either the date is wrong, or a deficient value given to the numerals.
4  WiLford, who by his indefatigable research and knowledge of Sanskrit 
had accumulated extensive materials, unhappily deteriorated by a too 
credulous imagination, yet containing much valuable matter available to 
those sufficiently familiar with the subject to select with safety, has touched 
on this, and almost on every other point in the circle of Hindu antiquities. 
at length the Maasiru-l-Umara, from which the following is a 
literal translation : " It is well known that the Rajas of Udaipur 
are exalted over all the princes of Hind. Other Hindu princes, 
before they can succeed to the throne of their fathers, must 
receive the khushka, or tilak of regality and investiture, from 
them. This type of sovereignty is received with humility and 
veneration. The khushka of these princes is made with human 
blood : their title is Rana, and they deduce [236] their origin 
from Noshirwan-i-Adil (i.e. the Just), who conquered the countries 
of -,1 and many parts of Hindustan. During his lifetime his 
son Noshizad, whose mother was the daughter of Kaiser of Rum,2 
quitted the ancient worship and embraced the ' faith 3 of the 
Christians,' and with numerous followers entered Hindustan. 
Thence he marched a great army towards Iran, against his father 
Noshirwan ; who despatched his general, Rambarzin,4 with 
Ali Ibrahim, a learned native of Benares, was Wilford's authority for assert
ing the Rana's Persian descent, who stated to him that he had seen the 
original history, which was entitled, Origin of the Peishwas from the Ranas 
of Mewar. (Ibrahim must have meant the Satara princes, whose ministers 
were the Peshwas.) From this authority three distinct emigrations of the 
Guebres, or ancient Persians, are recorded, from Persia into Gujarat. The 
first in the time of Abu Bakr, a.d. 631 ; the second on the defeat of Yazde
gird, A.D. 651 ; and the third when the descendants of Abbas began to prevail, 
A.D. 749. Also that a son of Noshirwan landed near Surat with eighteen 
thousand of his subjects, from Laristan, and were well received by the prince 
of the country. Abu-1 Fazl confirms this account by saying, " the followers 
of Zoroaster, when they fled from Persia, settled in Surat," the contracted 
term for the peninsular of Saurashtra, as well as the city of this name 
[Ai7i, ii. 243]. 

1 The names are obliterated in the original. Ferishta [i. Introd. Ixxix] 
informs us that Ramdeo Rathor, sovereign of Kananj, was made tributary 
by Firoz ' Sassan ' ; and that Partap Chand, who usurped the tlvrone of 
Ramdeo, neglecting to pay this tribute, Noshirwan marched into India to 
recover it, and in his progress siibdued Kabul and the Panjab. From the 
striking coincidence of these original and decisive authorities, we may rest 
assured that they had recourse to ancient records, both of the Guebres and 
the Hindus, for the basis of their histories, which research may yet discover. 
2 Maurice, emperor of Byzantium. [Sykes {Hist, of Persia, ii. 495) calls 
the son of Nushirwan Nushishad, and mentions his rebellion against his 
father. There seems to be no evidence that Nushishad reached India : he 
was slain after he revolted (Malcolm, Hist. Persia, 2nd ed. i. 112 ff.).] 
3  Din-i-Tarsar. See Ebn Haukal, art. ' Serir,' or Russia ; whose king, 
a son of Bahram Chassin, whom he styles a Tersar or Christian, first possessed 
it about the end of the sixth century. 
4  The Ve.rames of Western historians [Malcolm, op. cit. i. 113]. 
numerous forces to oppose him. An action ensued, in which 
Noshizad was slain ; but his issue remained in Hindustan, from 
zvhom are descended the Ranas of Udaipur. Nushirwan had a 
wife from the Khakhan 1  of China, by whom he had a son called 
Hormuz, declared heir to the throne shortly before his death. 
As according to the faith of the fire-worshippers - it is not custom
ary either to bury or to burn the dead, but to leave the corpse 
exposed to the rays of the sun, so it is said the body of Nushirwan 
has to this day suffered no decay, but is still fresh." 
I now come to the account of Yazd, " the son of Shahriyar, 
the son of Khusru Parves, the son of Hormuz, the son of Nush
irwan. 

" Yazd was the last king of Ajam. It is well known he fought 
many battles with the IMuhammadans. In the fifteenth year of 
the caliphat, Rustam, son of P^'erokh, a great chief, was slain in 
battle by Saad-bin-wakas, who commanded for Omar, which 
was the death-blow to the fortunes of the house of Sassan : so 
that a remnant of it did not remain in a.h. 31, when Iran was 
seized by the Muhammadans. This battle had lasted four days 
when Rustam Ferokzad was slain by the hand of Hilkal, the son 
of Al Kumna, at Saad's command [237] ; though Firdausi asserts 
by Saad himself. Thirty thousand Muslims were slain, and the 
same number of the men of Ajam. To count the spoils was a 
torment. During this year (the thirty-first), the sixteenth of the 
prophet,* the era of the Hegira was introduced. In a.h. 17 Abu 
Musa of Ashur seized Hormuz, the son of the uncle of Yazdegird, 
whom he sent with Yazdegird's daughter to Imam Husain, and 
another daughter to Abubakr. 

" Thus far have I 4 extracted from the history of the fire
worshippers. He who has a mind to examine these, let him do 
so. The people of the religion of Zardusht have a full knowledge 
1  Khakhan was the title of the kings of Chinese Tartary. It was held 
by the leader of the Huns, who at this period held power on the Caspian : 
it was also held by the Urus, Khuzr, Bulgar, Serir, all terms for Russia, 
before its Kaisar was cut down into Tzar, for the original of which, the kings 
of Rome, as of Russia, were indebted to the Sanskrit Kesar, a" lion ' [Lat. 
Caesar] {vide Ibn Haukal, art. ' Khozr '). 
2  Din-i-Majusi ; literally, ' faith of the Magi.' 
3  Muhammad, born a.d. 578 ; the Hegira, or flight, a.d. 622. 
4  It must be borne in mind that it is the author of the Maasiru-l-Umara, 
not the rhymer of Aurungabad, who is speaking. 
of all these events, with their dates ; for the pleasure of their 
lives is the obtaining accounts of antiquity and astronomical 
knowledge, and their books contain information of two and three 
thousand years. It is also told, that when the fortunes of Yazde
gird were on the wane, his family dispersed to different regions. 
The second daughter, Shahr Banu, was married to Imam Husain, 1
who, when he fell a martyr (shahid), an angel carried her to 
heaven. The third daughter, Banu, was seized by a plundering 
Arab and carried into the wilds of Chichik, thirty coss from 
Yazd. Praying to God for deliverance, she instantly disap
peared ; and the spot is still held sacred by the Parsis, and named 
' the secret abode of perfect purity.' Hither, on the twenty
sixth of the month Bahman, the Parsis yet repair to pass a month 
in pilgrimage, living in huts under indigenous vines skirting the 
rock, out of whose fissures water falls into a fountain below : but 
if the unclean approach the spring, it ceases to flow. 

" Of the eldest daughter of Yazdegird, Maha Banu, the Parsis 
have no accounts ; but the books of Hind give evidence to her 
arrival in that country, and that from her issue is the tribe Sesodia. 
But, at all events, this race is either of the seed of Nushishad, 
the son of Nushirwan, or of that of the daughter of Yazdegird." 2

Thus have we adduced, perhaps, all the points of evidence for 
the supposed Persian origin of the Rana's family. The period 
of the invasion of Saurashtra by Nushishad, who mounted the 
throne a.d. 531, corresponds well with the sack of Valabhi, a.d. 
521 [238]. The army he collected in Laristan to depose his father 
might have been from the Parthians, Getae, Huns, and other 
Scythic races then on the Indus, though it is unlikely, with such 
an object in view as the throne of Persia, that he would waste his 
strength in Saurashtra. Khusru Parvez, grandson of Nushirwan 

1  [This is the Persian tradition (Sykes, op. cit. ii. 44).] 
2 For the extract from " The Annals of Princes (Maasiru-l-Umara) " let 
us laud the memory of the rhymer of Aurungabad. An original copy, which 
1 in vain attempted to procure in India, is stated by Sir Wilham Ouseley 
to be in the British Museum. We owe that country a large debt, for we have 
robbed her of all her literary treasures, leaving them to sleep on the shelves 
of our public institutions. [There is no real evidence of the Persian descent 
of the Ranas, and it has been suggested that the story is based on the fire 
symbols on the coinage found in Kathiawar and Mewar, these, though in the 
main Indo-Scythic, betraying from about sixth century a more direct 
iSassanian influence (BG, i. Part i. 102). At the same time recent discoveries 
indicate Persian influence in N. India.] 
the great, and who assumed this title according to Firdausi, 
married Marian, the daughter of Maurice, the Greek emperor of 
Byzantium. She bore him Shirauah (the Siroes of the early 
Christian writers), who slew his father. It is dillicult to separate 
the actions of the two Nushirwans, and still more to say which 
of them merited the epithet of adil, or ' just.' 

According to the ' Tables ' in Moreri,1  Nushishad, son of Khusru 
the Great, reigned from a.d. 531 to 591. This is opposed to the 
Maasiru-l-Umara, which asserts that he was slain during his 
rebellion. Siroes, son of lOiusru (the second Nushirwan) by his 
wife Marian, alternately called the friend and foe of the Christians, 
did raise the standard of revolt, and met the fate attributed to 
Nushishad ; on which Yazdegird, his nephew, was proclaimed. 
The crown was intended for Shirauah's yoimger brother, which 
caused the revolt, during which the elder sought refuge in India. 
These revolutions in the Sassanian house were certainly simul
taneous with those which occurred in the Rana's, and no barrier 
existed to the political mtercourse at least between the princely 
worshippers of Surya and Mithras. It is, therefore, curious to 
speculate even on the possibility of such a pedigree to a family 
whose ancestry is lost in the mists of time ; and it becomes 
interesting when, from so many authentic sources, we can raise 
testimonies which would furnish, to one even untinctured with 
the love of hypothesis, grounds for giving ancestors to the Ranas 
in Maurice of Byzantium and Cyrus (Khusru) of Persia [239]. We 
have a singular support to these historic relics in a geographical 
fact, that places on the site of the ancient Valabhi a city called 
Byzantium, which almost affords conclusive proof that it must 
have been the son of Nushirwan who captured Valabhi and Gajni, 
and destroyed the family of Siladitya ; for it would be a legitimate 
occasion to name such conquest after the city where his Christian 
mother had had birth.- Whichever of the propositions we adopt 
at the command of the author of The Annals of Princes, namely, 
" that the Sesodia race is of the seed of Nushishad, son of Nushir
wan, or of that of Mahabanu, daughter of Yazdegird," we arrive 
at a singular and startling conclusion, viz. that the ' Hindua 

1  Vide Grand Dictionnaire Historique. 
2  [Byzantium cannot have been a Greek colony, the name apparently 
representing Vijayanta, now Vijayadurga, the southern entrance of the 
Vaghotan River in Katnagiri (Mecrindle, Polcmy, 47 ; BG, i. Part ii. 174 f.).] 
Suraj, descendant of a hundred kings,' the luidisputed possessor 
of the honours of Rama, the patriarch of the Solar race, is the 
issue of a Christian princess : that the chief prince amongst the 
nations of Hind can claim affinity with the emperors of ' the 
mistress of the world,' though at a tunc when her. glory had 
waned, and her crown had been transferred from the Tiber to the 
Bosphorus. 

But though I deem it morally impossible that the Ranas should 
have their lineage from any male branch of the Persian house, I 
would not equally assert that Mahabanu, the fugitive daughter 
of Yazdegird, may not have foimd a husband, as well as sanctuary, 
with the prince of Saurashtra ; and she may be the Subhagna 
(mother of Siladitya), whose mysterious amour with the ' sun ' 1
compelled her to abandon her native city of Kaira. The son of 
Marian had been in Saurashtra, and it is therefore not unlikely 
that her grandchild should there seek protection in the reverses 
of her family. 

The Salic law is here in full force, and honours, though never 
acquired by the female, may be stained by her ; yet a daughter 
of the noble house of Sassan might be permitted to perpetuate 
the line of Rama without the reproach of taint.2  
We shall now abandon this point to the reader, and take leave 
1  It will be recollected that the various authorities given state Raja 
Suraj (sun), of Kakustha race, to be the father of Siladitya. Kakustha is a 
term used synonymously with Suryavansa, according to the Solar genea
logists. Those who may be inchned to the Persian descent may trace it from 
Kaikaus, a well-known epithet in the Persian dynasties. I am unacquainted 
with the etymology of Kakustha ; but it may possibly be from ka, ' of or 
belonging to,' Kusa (Cush), the second son of Rama [?]. I have already 
hinted that the Assyrian Medes might be descendants of Hyaspa, a branch 
of the Indu-Mede of the family of Yayati which bore the name of Kausika. 
[The reference in the text may be to Kakutstha, grandson of Ikshwaku, 
who is said to have taken his name because he stood on the hump (Kukuda) 
of Indra when he was turned into a bull (Wilson, Vishna Purana, 361).] 

2  " The moral consequence of a pedigree," says Hume, " is differently 
marked by the influence of law and custom. The male sex is deemed more 
noble than the female. The association of our ideas pursues the regular 
descent of honour and estates from father to son, and their wives, however 
essential, are considered only in the light of foreign auxiharies " {Essays, 
vol. ii. p. 192). Not unlike the Rajput axiom, though more coarsely ex
pressed ; " It is, who planted the tree, not where did it grow," that marks 
his idea of the comparative value of the side whence honours originate ; 
though purity of blood in both hnes is essential. 
of Yazdegird, 1 the last of the house of Sassan, in the words of the 
historian of Rome : " Avec lui, on voit perir pour jamais la gloire 
et I'empire des Perses. Les rochers du Mazendaran et les sables 
du Kerman, furent les seuls - asiles que les vainqueurs hisserent 
aux sectateurs de Zoroastre "' ' [240].