Religious Rites.
Customs of War.
The Suevi, or Suiones, erected the celebrated temple of Upsala, in which they placed the statues of Thor, Woden, and Freya, the triple divinity of the Scandinavian Asii, the Trimurti of the Solar and Lunar races. The first (Thor, the thunderer, or god of war) is Hara, or Mahadeva, the destroyer; the second (Woden) is Budha,[[56]] the preserver; and the third (Freya) is Uma, the creative power.
The grand festival to Freya was in spring, when all nature revived; then boars were offered to her by the Scandinavians, and even boars of paste were made and swallowed by the peasantry.
As Vasanti, or spring personified, the consort of Hara is worshipped by the Rajput, who opens the season with a grand hunt,[[57]] led by the prince and his vassal chiefs, when they chase, slay, and eat the boar. Personal danger is disregarded on this day, as want of success is ominous that the Great Mother will refuse all petitions throughout the year.
Pinkerton, quoting Ptolemy (who was fifty years after Tacitus), says there were six nations in Yeutland or Jutland, the country of the Juts, of whom were the Sablingii (Suevi,[[58]] or Suiones), the Chatti and Hermandri, who extended to the estuary of the Elbe and Weser. There they erected the pillar Irmansul to “the god of war,” regarding which Sammes[[59]] observes: “some will have it to be Mars his pillar, others Hermes Saul, or the pillar of Hermes or Mercury”; and he naturally asks, “how did the Saxons come to be acquainted with the Greek name of Mercury?”
Sacrificial pillars are termed Sula in Sanskrit; which, conjoined with Hara,[[60]] the Indian god of war, would be Harsula. The Rajput warrior invokes Hara with his trident (trisula) to help him in battle, while his battle-shout is ‘mar! mar!’ The Cimbri, one of the most celebrated of the six tribes of Yeutland, derive their name from their fame as warriors [68].[[61]]
Kumara[[62]] is the Rajput god of war. He is represented with seven heads in the Hindu mythology: the Saxon god of war has six.[[63]] The six-headed Mars of the Cimbri Chersonese, to whom was raised the Irmansul on the Weser, was worshipped by the Sakasenae, the Chatti, the Siebi or Suevi, the Jotae or Getae, and the Cimbri, evincing in name, as in religious rites, a common origin with the martial warriors of Hindustan.
Rajput Religion.
The Rajput slays buffaloes, hunts and eats the boar and deer, and shoots ducks and wild fowl (kukkut); he worships his horse, his sword, and the sun, and attends more to the martial song of the bard than to the litany of the Brahman. In the martial mythology and warlike poetry of the Scandinavians a wide field exists for assimilation, and a comparison of the poetical remains of the Asi of the east and west would alone suffice to suggest a common origin.