Page:Valmiki - Ramayana, Griffith, 1895.djvu/18

ii INTRODUCTION. but mere personifications of certain events and circumstances. Sita (the furrow) he remarks, occurs both in the Rig-veda [R. V. IV, 57. 6] and in the Grihya ritual as an object of worship, and represents the A'ryan agriculture, while he regards Rama as the ploughman personified. The Ramayana has only, he thinks, a historical character in so far as it refers to an actual occurrence, the diffusion of Aryan civilization towards the south of the peninsula.' To attempt to ascertain the date of the events, real or imaginary related in the Ramayan would be a mere waste of time. I will only mention that Sir William Jones places Rama in the year 2029 B. 0., Tod in 1100, and Bentley in 950. Gorresio would place him about the thirteenth century before the Christian era.

The introductory Cantos of the Ramayan and general tradition ascribe the authorship of the poem to the inspired Saint Valmiki, one of the holy company of those whose eye could pierce 'The present, and the past, and the to-come,' who attained the science of secret things by

'Dreadful abstinence And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, Deep contemplation, and unwearied study, In years outstretched beyond the date of man.'

The same authority makes Valmiki contemporary with Rama, and assigns the composition of the poem to the age which saw the accomplishment of the great enterprise which forms its subject. 'Critical inquiry,' says Lassen, ' will not allow the actual authorship of Valmiki and the handing down of the poem unchanged from the beginning to pass current;' while Gorresio maintains that 'the popular tradition which makes Valmiki contemporary with Rama and relates all the particulars of the first propagation of the Ramayan appears as probable and as worthy of credit as any other ancient fact historically related.' The internal evidence offered by the poem is sufficiently strong confirmation of its remote antiquity, although it is impossible to fix even approximately the date of its composition. Portions of this and