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

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176
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE 7, 1872
ing with the golden statue of Sité, whom he had abandoned in the forest, with reference to which Wilsont has called attention to the similart situation in the Alkestis of Euripides (v. 341-345). And in view of what has been adduced, regarding Western influences, the supposition that the Sopeithes, king of the Kinki, who entered into friendly personal relations with Alexander the Great, may be identified with the Asva pati, king of the Kekaya, who is mentioned in the Ramdyana as the brother-in-law of Dasaratha, may not appear, as a mere question of literary history, so absolutely untenable as Lassen is inclined to regard it ; though undoubtedly there seems to be greater probability in the view (v. supra p. 123) that Valmiki introduced this name into his poem simply because he found it already in use in the Yajus-text.
Are we able, then, to fix approximately the date at which the work of Vâlmîki was com- posed ? It is known that we have accounts in Greek writers-first in Dio Chrysostom (in the time of Trajan), and then in Ælian--of an Indian translation of Homer. I have already expressed my opinion elsewhere that we must not take this statement in too literal a sense, but that we should accept it rather as & testimony, that at the time when it was made the people of India, equally with those of Greece, were in possession of an epic, conceived in the style of the Homeric poems. And in the same place I have pointed out that the more detailed statements of Dio Chrysostom-namely, that the people of India were well acquainted with the sorrows of Priam, with the dirges and lamentations of Andromache and Hekabe, and with the bravery of Achilleus and Hektor-point to a Greek influence in the Mahabharata, quite as much as
in the Ramdyana, and that in fact this may be seen even in larger measure in the former than in the latter : that at the same time, however, the expedition to the distant Laska and the siege of that city in the Ramayana certainly offer & closer analogy with the expedition to the distant (and similarly transmarine] Troy and the siege thereof, than is presented by the conflict on the open battle-field between the neighbouring Kuru and Pancha la described in the Mahabh.; but that on the other hand the absence of any mention in Dio Chrysostom of a similarity so striking (and, I ought to have added, the omission of any reference to the similar origin of the war in the two cases, the abduction, namely, of the wife of the hero of the one party by the heroes of the other) was a convincing proof that under the title of the Indian Homer" we were to understand, not a poem on the Saga of the Ramiyana, but a poem on the Saga of the Mahabharata. It may no doubt be said, in opposition to this opinion, that as Dio Chrysostom proceeds on the assumption that Homer had actually been translated into the language of India, he would take it as a matter of course that the origin and the locality of the conflict were the same, that he would not think it necessary therefore to call special attention to this, and that he would content himself with mentioningonly what seemed to him to be most suitable for the rhetorical purpose which he had in view. In accordance with this theory, it would certainly be possible that his account of the matter was founded on some actual intimation of the existence of the Ramayana. Nor indeed do I mean absolutely to deny such a possibility ; but on the other hand it evidently does not allow of being used, even remotely, as a proof of that existence, or
• First, it must be owned, in the Uttarakanda xeviii. 26, vl. 8, (vide Wheeler, p. 402), which does not indeed belong to the Ramdyapa proper, but is a later addition; it oecurs besides in Bhavabhuti in the Uttarardmacharita: and also in the Jaimini-Bharata, xxix. 47, 48. Attention should, however, be called to the reference to this, so early as in the Karmapradipa III. 1, 10, Ramo 'pi kritvi suvar nim Sitam patnim yaa'asvintm, fje yajnair bahuvidhaih Baba bhratibhir arcitah|| This work bears the name of K&ty yana, and is regarded as a paris'ishta to the Sama Veda, vide Ind. Stud I, 58. Verz. d. Berl. S. H. p 81 (I remark here, in passing, that architab is found only in Chambers 106, and then, too, only prima manu; it is changed, on the other hand, secunda manu into schyutah. A's'ärka rese it thus in his Comm., Chambers, 134 and 3706, explains this word by Vishnuh. This is evidently a hypercritical emendation of the text, in which Rims is regarded only As a man.
+ In the Hindu Theatre, I. 337.
I The incident in Euripides however, undoubtedly, ditern in important respects from that referred to here. In the anguish caused by the approaching loss of his wife, who is about to die for him, Admetos exclaims
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"Thy beauteous figare by the artists' hand Skilfully wrought, shall in my bed be laid: By that reclining I will clasp it to me, And call it by thy name, and think I hold
My dear wife in my arms, though far she dwells. (Potter). But he receives her back again alive, through the intervention of Herakles, who rescues her from Thanatos.-As the Greek settlers in the frontier lands of India, for instance in Bactris, seem to have kept up their acquaintance with the Greek drama (cf. the accounts from Plutarch in my translation of the Malaviks, p. xlvi., note 88) it may readily be supposed that the substance of a passage from Euripides might easily find its way into India.
We might also perhaps have pointed out with Wheeler (p. 881) the similarity to which he calls attention " between the seven-walled city of Lanka and the seven Walled city of Ecbatana" (Herod. I. 98). But the editions of the Råmdyapa contain nothing of the kind; on the contrary, mention is made in the poem of only one great golden prakars (V. 9, 16 Gorr., V.2, 16, 3, 6 Bomb.), and besides, in general, only of earth walls and trenches (vapnib svetachay karaib parikhâbbis cba. Gorr. V. 9, 1 Ind. Stud. IL. 162.
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