Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 1.pdf/224

 196

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

As regards the translation : in the first half of the sloka there is a double entendre ; the compound word mārggana-guna grāmagraho meaning “ap preciation of the sum total of the merits of beggars,” when referring to dāne (liberality), and “his hold of the multitude of strings of his arrows,” when corresponding to the “overthrow of the irresistible forces of the enemies” (Durvvārāri varāthini-pramathane). In the second half the most enigmatical is the phrase—kunjaraghatá varshena. Word for word it means “elephant,” “collection,” and “rain,” or “year.” Being in the instrumental case, if it be taken as an epithet of Gandapatina, the meaning of the vahuvrihi com pressed may be, as suggested by Mr. Bhandarkar, “by him who rains a crowd of elephants.” But the compound is such an awkward one, it is so far re moved from its noun, and the raining of elephants is so unnatural a metaphor, that I feel very unwill ing to accept this interpretation as correct. The conjecture about ‘varshena' being a mislection of ‘ varshman' is not supported by the facsimile, and must therefore be at once rejected. I am driven therefore to the necessity of accepting ‘ varsha’ to mean a year, and the two words preceding it for the figures of the year. Now, ‘kunjara' unques tionably is equivalent to eight, the elephant regents of the eight quarters, and ‘ghata' after it can only imply a crowd or several eights the lowest limit of which is three, the plural beginning with three, and is therefore a more fixed quantity than any other number.

In

connexion with numerals no

other

meaning is admissible, and I do not think it forced to accept the word for “three-fold,” that is three eights standing in a row, and not the multiple of 8 by 3. Against this Mr. Bhandarkar urges the objection that to imply the year in which a work is completed the locative is more appro priate than the instrumental which is used to

indicate the total period occupied in completing a work. But he has himself solved the difficulty by the alternative meaning he has suggested in the remark “ or at least that it took the 888th year to be constructed.”

In the absence of all information

- as to the size of the temple I cannot positively assert that it was completed in course of a year, but the only grammatical objection to my reading of the date thus disappears.

Were it otherwise

[JUNE 7, 1872.

not appear to be so questionable as Mr. Bhandarkar is disposed to think. RAJENDRALALA MITRA. Calcutta, 21st May 1872. THE JAYA SRI MATIA BODIN WAHANSE IN CHANCERY.

ALL who have read Sir E. Tennant's charming work on Ceylon, or have glanced into Turnour's Mahāwanso, will recollect that the great Bo tree of Anuradhapara is the oldest historical tree in the world, and the highest earthly object of veneration to millions of Buddhists. When it was brought over to Ceylon more than 2,000 years ago, Dewanam piya-Tissa, the then king of Ceylon, appointed the chief who brought it, lord over the district, and gave him and his heirs the right to appoint for ever the chief priests of the sacred Bo tree. Like the best among the Rajpat chiefs the Newara Wewa family traces itself back through chiefs and rulers to that memorable time. The last young chief however died suddenly of cholera, leaving no male issue : and a man has come forward claiming to be descended from the last chief but one ; but the descendants in the female line saying that he is no Sir Roger and only some Tom Castro or Arthur Orton, and have elected a rival priest and brought the estates and the most ancient and honourable “fa

mily living” in the world into the District Court of Anurádhapura. In historical romance the trial is likely to be most interesting. The late young chief's grandfather was beheaded by the last tyrant of Kandy for marrying a Telugu princess: and his father was banished to Galle for high treason against the then newly established English Govern ment.

It is in banishment that he is said to have

married the daughter of another banished chief and to have had issue the present claimant.

Query 8–Rámes'vara. SIR,-Can any of your correspondents tell me who founded the temple of Rámes'wara at Cape Kumāri, and what has been its history 2 The Ta mils here say that it was built by Ráma B. C. circa 5000, which wonld be interesting, if probable. On an inscription at Dambula it is said of Parakrama Báhu the Great [1153-1188 A.D.] that after his con quest of South India “as there were then no rivals

“(pratriwalla) left in all the continent of India, he

still I do not think the misuse of the instrumental

“staid at Rāmeswara, and filled the hearts of all the

for the locative by a writer who has clearly sinned against grammar by using the neuter ‘bhushana' in

“poor by gifts of his own weight in precious things,

the masculine gender, is such as to justify the re jection of the interpretation. It is possible also that with a view to indulge in a double entendre, similar to what occurs in the first half of the sloka,

“ and drove not the poor away. Having put up a “column of victory to endure for many ages, he “built the déwale called Nissankeswara, and sur “rounded by his four-fold army returned to Ceylon.” The name of the king of Pandi at that time is

and make one word–serve both for a date and an

stated in Sinhalese books (see Turnour, Mahawanso, epithet of his royal patron, the poet has submitted

to a slight infraction of the rules of grammar, of which men of his class are generally much less mindful than of rhetoric. Anyhow the date does

lxvi) to have been Kulasekra. I should be glad to have an explanation of the words in italics.

Anuradhapura.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.