Cutting swords in Asia are made with a hilt so small as to render it impossible for a European hand to use them in the manner of cutting which is common with Europeans. In cutting, an oriental does not straighten his arrn at the elbow. The handle is pmposely made small and confined, in order that the swordsman may not be forced to straighten his arm, but draw the cut as he delivers it. Mr. Vigne, when at Teheran, had seen a sheep laid in two at one stroke ; and Suliman Mirza, one of the numerous sons of the late Futteh Ali Shah, king of Persia, had been known to cut a donkey in half at one sweep of his sword. Thirty-eight of the swords of the As,iatic races were described by Mr. Egerton in 1880 in a IIandbook of Indian Arms. The worship of the sword (asi) may divide with that of the horse (aswa) the honour of giving a name to the continent of .Asia. It prevailed amongst the Scythic Getm, and is described exactly by Herodotus. To Dacia and Thrace it was carried by Getic colonies from the Jaxartes, and fostered by these lovers of liberty when their hordes over ran Europe. The worship of the sword in the
Acropolis of Athens by the Getic Atila, with all the accompaniments of pomp and place, forms an admirable episode in the history of the. decline and fall of Rome ; and had Gibbon witnessed the worship of the double-edged sword (khanda) by the prince of Mewarand all his chivalry, he might even have embellished his animated account of the adoration of the scimitar, the symbol of Mars. The devotion of the Rajput is still paid to his arms as to his horse. He swears by the steel, and prostrates himself before his defensive buckler, his lance, his sword, or his dagger. The sword is an object of veneration or worship among the Govind Sikhs, as it was amongst the Getes, the Scythian ancestors of the Jats, from whom the Sikhs are descended. Tir-Singh, the enchanted sword of Angautyr, means Tir, water, and Sing, a lion, i.e. in water or spirit like a lion.—Tod's Rajasthan, ii. p. 204 ; Royle's Arts, etc., of India,. p. 460 ; Rohde, MSS.; History of the Paiyab, p. 105 ; Egerton.