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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

ing with the golden statue of Sitá, whom he had abandoned in the forest,”—with reference to which Wilsont has called attention to the

similarf situation in the Alkestis of Euripides (v. 341–345).S. And in view of what has been adduced, regarding Western influences, the sup position that the Sopeithes, king of the Knzio, who entered into friendly personal relations with Alexander the Great, may be identified with the Ašva pati, king of the Kekaya, who is men tioned in the Rāmāyana as the brother-in-law of Dašaratha, may not appear, as a mere ques

tion of literary history, so absolutely untenable as Lassen is inclined to regard it ; though un doubtedly there seems to be greater probability in the view (v. supra p. 123) that Vālmiki in troduced 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 Vālmiki 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 AElian—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 a 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 in fluence in the Mahābhārata, quite as much as

in the Rāmāyana, 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 Lafikā and the siege of that city in the Rāmāyana certainly offer a closer analogy with the expedition to the dis tant [and similarly transmarine] Troy and the siege thereof, than is presented by the conflict on the open battle-field between the neighbouring Kuru and Paſic hala described in the Mahabh.; but that on the other hand the absence of any men

tion in Dio Chrysostom of a similarity so strik

ing (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 un

derstand, not a poem on the Saga of the Rāmā yana, 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 trans lated 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 mentioning only 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 xcviii.

26, cvi. 8, (vide Wheeler, p. 402), which does not indeed belong to the Rāmāyana proper, but is a later addition ; it occurs besides in Bhavabhuti in the Uttararámacharita; and also in the Jaimini-Bhdrata, xxix. 47, 48. Attention should, however, be called to the reference to this, so early as in the Karmapradipa III. 1, 10, Ramo 'pi kritvå sauvar nim Sitam patnim Yasasvinim, je yajnair bahuvidhaih saha bhrātribhir arcitah || This work bears the name of Kātyāyana, and is regarded as a parisſishta to the Sama Veda ; vide Ind. Stud I, 58. Verz, d. Berl. S. H. p. 81 (I remark here, in passing, that architah is found only in Chambers 106, and then, too, only prima manu; it is changed, on the other hand, secunda manu into achyutah. A'sſarka rends it thus in his Comm., Chambers, 134 and 370b, explains

[JUNE 7, 1872.

“Thy beauteous figure 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 interven tion of Herakles, who rescues her from Thanatos.-As the Greek settlers in the frontier lands of India, for instance in Bactria, seem to have kept up their acquaintance with the Greek drama (cf. the accounts from Plutarch in my transla

tion of the Mālavikā, p. xlvi., note 33) it may readily be supposed that the substance of a passage from Euripides

might easily find its way into India.

this word by Vishnuh. This is evidently a hypercritical

We might also perhaps have pointed out with Wheeler (p. 33.1) the similarity to which he calls attention “between the seven-walled city of Lankä and the seven

enendation of the text, in which Rāma is regarded only

walled city of Ecbatana” (Herod. I. 98).

as a math.

of the Itámáyana contain nothing of the kind ; on the contrary, mention is made in the poem of only one great golden prákárà (V. 9, 16 Gorr, V. 2, 16, 3, 6 Bomb.), and


 * 1) In the Hindu Theatre, I. 337.

But the editions

The incident in Euripides however, undoubtedly,

besides, in general, only of earth walls and trenches

differs in important respects from that referred to here. In

(yapraib sºvetachayākāraih parikhābhis' cha. Gorr. W. 9,

the anguish caused by the approaching loss of his wife,

15).

who is about to die for him, Admetos exclaims—


 * Ind. Stud. II. 162.