Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/69

 Fkbbuaby, 1873.] CORRESPONDENCE, Ac. 59 the same time that it does not signify there a work of that name, but very probably a person, just like the Mah&j&b&la and the Mah&hailihila mentioned in the same sfltra along with it. According to the scho- lion it is to be taken as a masculine. “ In con¬ nexion with Ahava, yuddha, or taken as a substan¬ tive, with a word for war supplied” it means: “ great war of the Bh&rata”—M. Dh. V. 4811; °yud- dha, XIV. 1809 (Petersburg Dictionary). After all, the fast direct testimony of the existence of an epic work treating of the same subject as our Mahd- bharata remains still as yet that passage from Dio Chrysostomos about the “ Indian Homer.” Your paper on N&r&yana Swftmi is also very inter¬ esting and instructive. With best wishes for the continuance of your highly welcome and valuable undertaking, I am, Ac., A. Weber. Berlin, 28th Nov. 1872. NOTE on the above by Pbof. RAMKR1SHNA G. BHANDARKAR. Through the courtesy of the Editor of the Indian Antiquary, I have been permitted to see Professor Weber’s letter, which contains notices of my article on the Date of Patanjali, and of my paper on the Age of the Mahdbhdrata. This is not the first time the Professor has been so kind to me. One of my humble productions he has deemed worthy of a place in his Indische Studien. While, therefore, I am thankful to him for these favours, I feel bound to consider his remarks on my articles, and to reply to them. Professor Weber thinks it a pity that I should not 'have been acquainted with liis critique on Dr. Goldstiicker’s “ P&nini.” I hardly share in his regret, because the facts which I have brought forward are new, and my conclusions are not affected by anything he has said in the review. He certainly brought to notice, in that critique (as I now learn), the occurrence in Patanjali of the expression “ Pushpainitra SabhA0 But Professor Weber will see that my argument is not at all based on that passage. I simply quoted it to show that even Patanjali tells us that the Pushpamitra he speaks of in another place was a king, and not an ordinary individual or an imaginary person. My reasoning in the article in question is based on the words iha Push- pamitram Yajayamah. This is given by Patanjali as an instance of the V&rttika, which teaches that the present tense (lat) should be used to denote an action which has begun but not ended. Now this passage was noticed neither by Professor Weber nor by Dr. Goidstucker; and hence the trouble I gave to the Editor of the Antiquary. The passage enables us, I think, to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to the date of Patanjali, since it shows that the author of the Mahdbhdshya flourished in the reign of Pushpamitra. And the conclusion based on this and on one of the two instances pointed out by Dr. Goidstucker, «u., Arunad Yava- nah Sdketam, agree so thoroughly with each other, that they can leave but little doubt on the mind of the reader as to the true date of Patanjali. But I must consider Professor Weber’s argument for bringing Patanjali down to about 25 after Christ. The two instances brought forward by Dr. Goidstucker contain the name Yavana ; and a king of that generic name is spoken of as having besieged S&keta, commonly under¬ stood to be AyodhyA This name was applied most unquestionably, though not exclusively, to the Greek kings of Bactria. The Yavanas are spoken of, in a Sanskrit astronomical work noticed by Dr. Kern, as having pushed their conquests up to S&keta ; and Bactrian kings are also mentioned by some classical writers as having done the same. Looked at in¬ dependently, this passage leads us to the conclusion arrived at by Dr. Goldstiicker, that is, it fixes the date of Patanjali at about 150 B. C. But the other instance contains, in addition, the name Mddhya- mika. The Buddhist school of that name is said to have been founded by Ndg&rjuna, who, according to the Rdjatarangini, flourished in the reigns of Kanishka and Abhimanyu, that is, a few years after Christ. This instance then brings the author of the Mahdbhdshya to some period after Christ. Here then is a case resembling those which are frequently discussed by our Pandits, in which a Si'uti and a Smriti (or a S'ruti and an inference) conflict with each other. The Brahmanical rule is that the S'ruti must be understood in its natural sense, and the Smriti so interpreted as to agree with it, that is, any sort of violence may be done to the Smriti to bring it into conformity with the S'ruti, and the inference must be somehow explained away. Now, in the preseut case, Professor Weber’s S'ruti is the instance containing the name of the Mftdhyamikas. But the word Yavana, occurring in it and in the other instance, cannot be taken to apply to the Greek kings of Bactria, for the dynasty had become extinct a pretty long time before Christ. Professor Weber therefore thinks that by it is to be under¬ stood the Indo-Scythic king Kanishka, who reigned before Abhimanyu. But Kanishka cannot be re¬ garded as having oppressed or persecuted the M&dhyamikas, for he was himself a Buddhist. This objection is obviated by the Professor by the suppo¬ sition that he must have persecuted them before he became one of them. I must confess this argument appears to me to be very weak. It has many inherent improbabi¬ lities. In the first place, I do not see why the passage containing the name Mddhyamika and the name itself should be regarded as so much lection for the former, which might easily occur, 3, p, being often by careless scribes written as J, y.
 * By the way, I prefer the form u Pushpamitra” to “ Pushyamitra,” as the latter appears to me to be a mis-