The evidence of the Chinese traveller, Hiuen-thsang, to the existence of sun-worship at Multán in 640 A.D., is very decisive. He found there a “temple of the sun, and an idol erected to repre­sent that grand luminary,” with dwellings for the priests, and reservoirs for ablution;* yet he says the city was inhabited chiefly by men of the Bráhmanical religion. A few centuries before, if Philostratus is to be believed, Apollonius, after crossing the Indus, visited the temple of the sun at Taxila, and Phraotes, the chief of the country, describes the Indians as in a moment of joy “snatching torches from the altar of the sun,” and mentions that he himself never drank wine except “when sacrificing to the sun.” After crossing the Hyphasis, Apollonius goes to a place, which would seem to represent Jwála Mukhí, where they “worship fire” and “sing hymns in honour of the sun.”* When the Arabs arrived in the valley of the Indus, they found the same temple, the same idol, the same dwellings, the same reservoirs, as had struck the Chinese, but their description of the idol would lead us to suppose that it was a representation of Budh. Bírúní, however, whose testimony is more valuable than that of all other Muhammadans, as he was fully acquainted with the religious system of the Hindús, plainly tells us* that the idol of Multán was called Aditya,* because it was conse­crated to the sun, and that Muhammad bin Kásim, the first invader, suspended a piece of cow's flesh from its neck, in order to show his contempt of the superstition of the Indians, and to disgust them with this double insult to the dearest objects of their veneration.*

Shortly before Bírúní wrote, we have another instance of this tendency to combine the two worships. In the message which Jaipál sent to Násiru-d dín, in order to dissuade him from driving the Indians to desperation, he is represented to say, according to the Táríkh-i Alfí: “The Indians are accustomed to pile their property, wealth, and precious jewels in one heap, and to kindle it with the fire, which they worship. Then they kill their women and children, and with nothing left in the world they rush to their last onslaught, and die in the field of battle, so that for their victorious enemies the only spoil is dust and ashes.” The declaration is a curious one in the mouth of a Hindú, but may perhaps be considered to indicate the existence of a modified form of pyrolatry in the beginning of the eleventh century. The practice alluded to is nothing more than the Jauhar, which is so frequently practised by Hindús in despair, and was not unknown to the nations of antiquity. Sardana-palus performed it, on the capture of Babylon. “He raised a large pyre in his palace, threw upon it all his wealth in gold, silver, and royal robes, and then placing his concubines and eunuchs on it, he, they, and the entire palace were consumed in the flames.”* The Saguntines did the same, when their city was taken by Hannibal;* Juba also had prepared for a Jauhar,* and Arrian gives us an account of one performed by the Bráhmans, without noticing it as a practice exclusively observed by that class.* The peculiarity of the relation consists in Jaipál's declaration that the Indians worshipped the fire, not in the fact of their throwing their property and valuables into it. The practice of self-cremation also appears to have been common at an earlier period; and there were conspicuous instances of it when foreign nations first became acquainted with India. One occurs in Vol. II. p. 27, where this very Jaipál, having no opportunity of dying in the field of battle, committed himself to the flames. Other histories tell us that it was then a custom amongst the Hindús that a king who had been twice defeated was disqualified to reign, and that Jaipál, in compliance with this custom, resigned his crown to his son, lighted his funeral pyre with his own hands, and perished in the flames. The Greeks and Romans were struck with the instances which they witnessed of the same practice. Calanus, who followed the Macedonian army from Taxila, solemnly burnt himself in their presence at Pasargadæ, being old and tired of his life.* Zarmanochegas, who accompanied the Indian ambassadors sent by a chief, called Porus, to Augustus, burnt himself at Athens, and directed the following inscription to be engraved on his sepulchral monument:—“Here lies Zarmanochegas, the Indian of Bargosa, who deprived himself of life, according to a custom prevailing among his countrymen.”*