Page:Valmiki - Ramayana, Griffith, 1895.djvu/19

Rh other evidence I will not lay before the reader, gathered chiefly from Gorresio's Introduction to his magnificent edition of the Ramayan.

'What I have said,' observes Gorresio, 'with regard to the antiquity of Rama may be applied to Valmiki the author of the Ramayan, whose synchronism with. Rama is indicated, as I have pointed out, in the introduction to the poem, and confirmed by two passages of the poem itself. In such a case the question would be ended and the antiquity of the poem proved, although without determining its age with absolute precision, a difficult question not in the case of the Ramayan only but in the poems of Homer themselves. But because there will be found some people to whom the testimony of the introduction to the poem will appear suspicious, and the authority of the two passages (not found in the Bengal recension) doubtful, I will here condense the indications and arguments which appear to me to confirm the antiquity of the Ramayaii. Passing over the Purana period I come to the era of Vikramaditya (57 B. 0.) Here I find a poem which celebrates in a compendious form the exploits sung in the Ramayan, I mean the Raghuvaiisa of Kalidasa. The poet himself in his introduction gives direct testimony that preceding poets have opened the way for him in this same subject. It is hardly necessary to say that amongst these poets Valmiki is certainly comprised, the copious and original source of all the poems which celebrate the deeds of Rama. As I proceed beyond the age of Kalidasa there appears before me a great epic monument to which Indian tradition ascribes a most remote antiquity so far as to make Vyasa the compiler of the Vedas its author. This monument is the Mahabharata, I bow before this colossal epic : but without wishing to detract from its antiquity, I do not hesitate to declare it less ancient than the Ramayan. And here I first observe that when we speak of the antiquity of a literary monument, especially an epic one, we must distinguish the elements of which it is composed from the arranging hand which collected and put them together. These elements may be most ancient ; and so are in fact the elements of the Mahabharata : the work of arranging and uniting them may be more or less ancient. And it is precisely this work of union and arrangement in the Mahabharata which I affirm to be later than that in the Ramayan. If this posteriority were not declared in the Mahabharata itself which says that the exploits of Rama had already been sung by Valmiki inspired by Narada, it would be sufficiently proved by the fact that there is embodied in the Mahabharata a summary of the Ramuyan of Valmiki in the same order and very often in the same words. Besides the life and worship of Krishna celebrated in the Mahabharata indicate an age later than the Ramayan in which there is no mention of Krishna or Krishnaism The invention of the sloka attributed to Valmiki in the introduction to the Ramayan appears to confirm the antiquity of the poem It should be observed that the sloku is not only mentioned in the Rig-veda but the very metre is used. How can these apparent contradictions be reconciled ? Tradition says that Valmiki was the inventor of the sloka and that he first made use of it in the Ramayan : but in the Ramayan the Vedas are very frequently spoken of in which the sloka is both mentioned and employed. It may be that the hymns referred to are later than the Ramayan; but at present we must be content to leave the difficulty unsolved

The Ramayan is mentioned in the Rajatarangini (Rajatarangini, Histoire des

circumscribed within narrow limits : in one word, history was checked by contemplation and poesy.' GOKRESIO.