Indian Antiquary Vol 01

SR No.: 032493
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

Page 199

JUNE 7, 1872.)
WEPER ON THE RAMAYANA.
173
rigines, or with the Buddhists, as Wheeler ima of a dream; the surveying and enumerating of the gines? or has he borrowed the materials for | hostile troops from the battlements of Lanka; this part of the poem from some other quarter? and the appearing of Sità before the army. Let me say at once that I consider the latter Nor do I wish to discuss the very wide and faralternative to be the true account of the matter, reaching question, In how far an acquaintance and that the rape of Helen and the siege of with the Greek epic may have exercised an inTroy have served as a model for the correspond- fluence on the development of the Indian one ? ing incidents in the poem of Valmiki. I do I content myself rather with the sinple asnot indeed imagine that he had himself studied sumption that in consequence of the mutual Homer, or even that he must have been aware relations, which Alexander's expedition into of the existence of the Homeric poems. Nor am India brought about, between the inhabitants of I inclined to go so far as to attach importance that country and the Greeks (and which, in so (though the idea is by no means far-fetched, as far as the Buddhists are concerned, have found even Monier Williams admits)t to the apparent remarkable expression, for instance in the Mianalogies between Agamemnon and Sugriva, lindapanha), some kind of knowledge of the subPatroklos and Lakshmana, Nestor and Jâmba- stance of the Homeric story found its way to Invant, Odysseus and Hanumant, Hektor and dia. And I feel all the more justified in assumIndrajit,----analogies which have led Hippolyte ing this by the fact that, in addition to the coinFauche, who has translated the Ramayana into cidences suggested by the rape of Sitâ and the French, to adopt the converse theory that Homer war before L aika, two other Homeric incidents has borrowed the materials for his work from are found, not indeed in the Ramayana itself, but that of Valmiki! I pass over the coincidences in the Pali texts of Ceylon:*-namely, the adalso noticed by Monier Williams himself: I venture of Odysseus and his companions on the is-the consoling of the forsaken Sita by means land of Kirke, in the Mahavanso;t and the Trojan
not the entire men that the
details, so early as the
Without questioning the possible anti-Buddhistic design in the selection of Lafka as the scene of the conflict. Ind. Ep. Poetry, p. 46.
# P. 74, 82, 86. $ As Monier Williams (p. 8) assumes that the greater part of the Ramayana, if not the entire work, dates from a period so early as the fifth century B. C., he regards these details, as well as those which he imagines are borrowed from a Christian source (p. 75), as probably only later embellishments-that is, it he sees in them anything more than purely accidental coincidences. L Vide Ind. Stud. II. 166.
It is greatly to be desired that this important work were given to the public with the least possible delay. It contains the conversations held by the Yavana king of Sajala, Milinda (Menandros, cf. Ind. Skiseen p. 83, reigned according to Lassen, Ind. Al. II. 327 and p. xxiv, from 144 B. C.), with the Buddhist priest Nigasena ; but as yet we have been made acquainted only with extracts from it. in Hardy. Cf. Ind. Stud. III. 359.
• Vide Ind. Streifen II, 216.1, 370.
+ Cap. VII. vide Turqour, p. 48. I think it advisable to give here the Indian version in detail. When Vijay, Bent into exile on account of his insolence by Liis father Sfhabâha, King of Lala, landed on Laska with 700 companious exhausted by the fatigues of the voyage, they immediately fell in with the tutelary divinity of the island, the god UPPalavanna (Vishnu), who was sitting, in the form of & paribb ajaka (“devotee," Turnour), at the foot of a tree, for the purpose of receiving them and providing thein with a counter-charm against enchantment (Ct. Od. X, 277, 287. Lane, Arabian Night III. 299, 307). In reply to their enquiry, he told them the name of the island, then besprinkled them with water out of his pitcher, tied "(charmed) threads on their arms" (suftara tesam bactheau laggetve) and vanished. Immediately therealer there Appeared to them a Yaksha female attendant in a canine form. Although the Prince warned him not to do so, yet one of the men followed her, saying to himself, "Where you mee dogs, you may look for village." And so by-and-bye he found himsell in the presence of her mistress, the Yakkhini Kuvent (" with bad plaited hair" ? or bad, wickedly plaiting" ?) who (near a tank) was sitting spinning (Od. X, 2205 under a tree," in the character of a devotee (tapaaf viya). When he saw this tank and the anchoress sitting beside it, he bathed and drank from it, and collected
(edible) roots, as well as water with lotus flowers. There upon she stood up aud said to him, "Thou art my food (prey) "" Then he stood spell-bound; but because the (cbarmed) thread was tied (on his hand), she could not dovour bim; and although she begged him to give her the
thread, he would not. She therefore laid hold of him, and i cast him bellowing loudly (Od. X, 241) into an under
ground cave (v. I tik gabetva sarufigayau rudentam yakkhinf khipi). And in like manner the whole 700 companions of the Prince) were gradually, one by one, caught and shut up in the cave. Seeing that none of the came back, Vijaya became anxious, went after them, and also arrived at the tank. Then he saw that there were no footsteps of any that had come out (apasai m'uttinnapadam; mi is probably used here for ns? Turnour bas "he could perceive footsteps leading down only into the tank" ; but there is nothing of the sort in the text); bat he saw the anchoress, and he thought : "I shouldn't wonder if she has caught hold of my attendants." So he asked her : * Now, hast thou not seen my attendants?" She said: 4 What are thy attendants to me, Prince! Drink and bethe I" Then he perceived -"Shein Yakkhini (enchantress) I she knows my rank ;'aud, resolved in a moment, bending his bow and natning lalo own name, be sprang on her, caught her by the Deck with a Dâráchs-Doone, seized ber hair with his lett hand, drew his sword with his right (Od. X, 294,321) and said: "Slave, deliver up any attendants: or I will put thee to death." Struck wiis terror, she begged for ber lite : " Lord, grant me life: I will sive thee a kingdom, I will serve thee as thy wife, and do everything that thou may'at wish." In order to avoid the risk of a similar danger being repeated, he made her swear on oath (Od. X, 299, 348). Forthwith she restored to him his attendaos, and, becauso she saw that they were exhausted (Od X, 463), whoset before then rice and other food, and all kinds of ships' stores, once the property of merchants who had formerly Allen . prey to her. The attendants prepared the rice, do, and they enjoyed, with the Prince, a delicious meal. The Tak khini also received some of it to taste and she was in consequence so delighted, that sbe changed her form into tha. of A maiden of sixteen. Having adorod her person with splendid attire, the Mira-wife (Manggan : Tarnour has crroneously : "lovely as Miranga herself approacbed he Prince, and speedily conquered his heart. Under a treo the caused a sumptuous, bed to arise, enclosed with curtaine As with a wall, and perfumed with the most frugnat odours