Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 1.pdf/57

 THE DASYUs AT ssNCHI.

FEB, 2, 1872.]

An elephant, I thought, was nigh:

complied by leading the point of a stick which the blind ones held in their hands.

39

I aimed and let an arrow fly, Swift to the place I made my way, And there a wounded hermit lay

When they

reached their destination, the bereaved parents againgave vent to their feelings by much weeping, and praying to the titular gods. The mother, on examination, finding that all signs of life had vanished, gave utterance to the following Satya Kiriyſi :— If it be true that my son Sáma un ceasingly devoted himself to the duties of Brahma chariyā and that he has ever maintained the ordin

Gasping for breath ; the deadly dart Stood quivering in his youthful heart. I hastened near with pain oppressed, He faltered out his last behest,

And quickly, as he bade me do, From his pierced side the shaft I drew. I drew the arrow from the rent,

And up to heaven the hermit went, Lamenting, as from earth he passed, His aged parents to the last.

ances of the Attha sila; and if it be also true

Thus unaware the deed was done,

that I have entertained no other faith except Bud

My hand, unwitting, killed thy son;

dhism, and that I have ever performed tilakuna

For what remains, O, let me win,

Bhavana, may, by the power of those truths, my

Thy pardon for my heedless sin.”

Kiriyā and by the might of the gods, Sáma

Mr. Fergusson has published this scene in his great work,f but says that it represents one of

moved from one side to another.

When the

those transactions between the H in d us and

father had also uttered a similar Satya Kiriyā, Sāma again moved to a side, and by the power of the goddess already named he revived, and the parents received their lost sight. Instantly the morning sun arose, and Sáma dismissed the astonished king, after preaching to him on the merits of nourshing one's parents, and above all of leading a religious life, as they were testi fied to by his miraculous restoration to life.”—

D as y us which have probably only a local meaning, and to which, therefore, it is impro

son receive life.”

By the influence of this Satya

p. 167 et seqq.

This story will no doubt appear as a Buddhist adaptation of the anecdote of D as a rath a and the blind sage And h a k a 5 but it has been reproduced in stone on the standing pillar of the western gateway of the Sánchi Tope, and we see in it Gotama as Sāma wounded by the King, and his parents, the hermit and his wife, dress ed in the same garb which has been assigned to the D as y us. According to the Jātaka,

bable we shall ever be able to affix a definite

meaning. To those, however, who are familiar with the story of the Rámáyana and the Játaka, the indefiniteness will give place to unmistakable certainty, the only difficulty being the presence of a companion of the king in the scene of action, due probably to the Buddhist version having in cluded such a personage in the tale—whose name has been omitted in Mr. D'Alwis's abstract as

unimportant. According to the Rāmāyana, the king went to the wood in his car, and was at tended by his charioteer. General Cunningham, as already observed, takes the blind hermits of Sánchi to be ascetics, and adds—“I am unable

to offer any explanation of this curious scene, but it may possibly have reference to some event in the early life of Shakya.” Mr. Fergusson ap

Sáma recovered from his wounds and was re

peals to this scene as an evidence of the Aryans

stored to his parents, as we see in the sculpture. The Rāmāyana kills the boy and sends his parents to the funeral pyre, to immolate them

or Hindus having formerly indulged in the wicked pastime of shooting the inoffensive D as y us; but if our identification be correct it will of course lose its only foothold. Exception might also be taken to our identi fication of the so-called D as y us with V 4 n a pr as tha ascetics on the ground of its being inconsistent in such people to engage in domes tic and pastoral occupations. But the laws of Manu do not at all prohibit such pursuits. On the contrary, they ordained that the retired hermit should not only live in a hut and go

selves.

The following is Mr. Griffith's version of the

Rāmāyana story" as related by the king to the blind hermits — “High-minded saint, not I thy child, A warrior, Dasaratha styled, I bear a grievous sorrow's weight,

Born of a deed which good men hate. My lord, I came to Sarju's shore And in my hand my bow I bore, Fºr elephant or beast of chase hat seeks by night his drinking place.

There from the stream a sound

I heard,

As if a jar the water stirred.

about dressed, but even horde food sufficient

to last for a year (vi. 18). He should also pro vide means for the performance of various rites

-

his

. * Vol. II. p. 247. and compare
 * of old Indian Poetry, p. 12.

another version in

t Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, Plate XXX. page 138.