Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 1.pdf/386

 350

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

As yet education has not found its way among the Gonds, and I see little prospect of its doing so

[Nov. 1, 1872.

for many years to come, or until they have made further advances in general civilization.

ASIATIC SOCIETIES.

Bombay Br. R. Asiatic Society. AT the monthly meeting of the society held on Thursday, the 12th September 1872. Professor Ram krishna Gopal Bhandarkar, M.A., read a paper on the date of the Mahābhārata, of which the following is an

the names of Bhimasena, Sahadeva, and Nakula, whom he calls Kurus (IV. 1.4 ahu), and of Duryodhara, and Duhs'āsana (III-3-1 ahu) mentions that Yudhish thira was the elder brother of Arjuna (under Pan. II.

2. 34), and tells us (under Pin. VIII. 1.15) that these persons were popularly known in his time. As an

abstract :—

instance

There is a notice by Colebrooke, in the 9th vol. of the Asiatic Researches, of a copper plate grant in the posses sion of some Brahmans in Southern India, purporting to be from Janamejaya, of the race of the Pándavas. This king is described in the grant in the same terms as in the Mahābhārata. The grant was pronounced to be spurious by Colebrooke, since it appeared to be very modern. From the solar eclipse mentioned in the grant its date has been determined to be the 7th of April 1521 A.D. The earliest literary date is that of Patanjali. Prof. Goldstücker places him in the second century B.C., and the writer of this has recently discovered that he lived in the reign of Pushpamitra, the founder of the Sunga dynasty, who reigned from B.C. 178 to B.C. 142. Pånini must have preceded him by about three centuries, and the Sºrauta and Grihya Sūtras of the three Vedas, must have preceded Pánini, or some of them were probably written about the same time with him. The Sūtras again presuppose the Bráhmanas, between which and them a consider able interval must have elapsed. Now the Aitareya Brahmana mentions Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit and Bharata, the son of Dushyanta, as very powerful

kings (VIII. 21, 23). This shows at least that some of the elements of the story in the Mahābhārata run far into antiquity. In the Grihya Sūtra of Asva láyana the name of the Mahābhārata occurs. It is

of III. 2. 118

he

gives

Dharmena

sma

Auraro yudhyante, ‘the Kurus fought with fairness,'— in which yudhyante with sma has the sense of the perfect, i.e., remote past. It thus appears that there was in his time a work describing the war of the Kurus, that the war was considered to have taken place at a remote time, that Bhimasena, Nakula, Sahadeva, Yudhi shthira and Arjuna were heroes of the Kuru race, and that they were popularly known. The Mahá bhārata therefore existed in Patanjali's time, though it is not denied that the poem must have undergone a good deal of transformation in the course of ages and many episodes have been introduced into it. The main story, however, appears to have been substantially the same as it is now. Perhaps the Mahābhārata story was even made the subject of new poems in Patanjali's time, for under II-2-24, he quotes, as if from such a work, asideitiyonusasára Pandauam, “he followed the Pāndava, sword in hand.’ This forms a regular line in the vans'ast ha metre.

The Násik inscriptions date probably from the 1st to the 3rd century A.D. In one of these Gautami putra's exploits are compared to those of Bhimasena, Arjuna, and Janamejaya, all of whom are Mahābhā rata characters. (Jour. B. B. R. A. S.No. xviii. p. 41). The Chālukya copperplate grant translated by Prof.

Dowson (Jour. R. A. S., N. S. Vol. I. p. 269-70), and one

questioned whether the Mahābhārata here referred to

of the Gurjara dynasty, translated by the author last year, contain verses, quoted as from the work of Vyāsa, one of which is addressed to Yudhishthira. The

contained the story of the Kurus as the epic now

date of the former is 472 A.D. and of the latter 495 A.D.

known by that name does. But the question does not ap pear reasonable, since another author (Pánini), who pro bably lived soon after, or at about the same time, men

An inscription in a temple at Iwalli in the Dharwad district is dated in the 3730th year of the Bhārata war. The Saka date in the inscription is 506, corresponding

tions the names of some of the characters in the story, and the name of the poem also. Pánini in his Sutras, not Ganas, mentions Vásudeva and Arjuna (IV. 3. 98), Yudhishthira (VIII. 3. 95) and the Mahābhārata, (VI. 2. 38). The first is a remarkable rule, for it

to 584 A.D. (Jour. B. B. R. A. Soc. Vol. IX. p. 315.)

teaches the formation of derivatives from these names

signifying persons devoted to or worshipping Vásudeva or Arjuna. And the manner in which they are men tioned together, reminds one of the great friendship

Kálidasa lived before Bána, as he is mentioned as a

famous poet by the latter in his Harsha-Charita. Bana flourished in the first-half of the seventh century. For he tells us that he was patronized by Sri Harsha the same as Harshavardhana (the contemporary of

Hiwen Thsang,) who was conquered by Satyas'raya, a Chālukya prince mentioned in the Iwalli inscription as then reigning, and whose great-grandson was on

which, according to the Mahābhārata, existed between

the throne in 705 A.D. (Dr. Hall's edn, of Vaisaradatta

them, and looks like a reference to the representation of those heroes contained in that poem. Patanjali, in his comments on this Sátra, sees no reason why Vásudeva

p. 14, 17, notes, and Jour. B. B.R.A.S. Vol. III., p. 203-11).

should have been mentioned in this Sūtra, since the

same derivative from the name is taught in another rule. He says this Vásudeva is the name of the great

god Vásudeva, thus showing that in his time, and even in those of Pánini, the heroes of the Mahābhārata had come to be worshipped as gods, Patanjali gives

Kálidasa mentions the war of the Kurus that took

place in the Kurukshetra, and Arjuna, one of its heroes, in his Meghaduta. Bána himself in his Kádam bari makes Vilasvátí, the Queen of Tárápida, go to the temple of Mahākāla in Ujjayini and hear the Mahā bhārata read. The people of Ujjayini are represented in another place as fond of the Mahābhārata, Rāmā yana, and the Purānas. There are equivokes on the