Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1884

INTRODUCTION.
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I think, we have pretty satisfactory evidence to show that the middle of the fifth century A. C. is the very latest date to which he can be referred. In a small tract (written by me in 1873), discussing Professor Weber's theory about the Ramayana, I have pointed out'that the Pañkatantra quotes from Kalidasa a passage which there is good reason to believe formed part of the Paxkatantra when it was translated for king Nushirvan of Persia about the beginning of the sixth century A.C.: Allowing for the time required to raise Kalidasa to the position of being cited as an authority, and for the time required for the spread of the fame of an Indian work to Persia in those early days, I think, that the middle of the fifth century is a date to which Kalidasa cannot well have been subsequent. Now in the works of Kalidasa we have some very remarkable allusions to the Bhagavadgita. It is not necessary to go through all these allusions. I will only mention the most remarkable, one from the Raghuvamsa, and one from the Kumarasambhava. lo Raghu, canto X, stanza 67, the gods addressing Vishnu my: 'There is nothing for you to acquire which has not beca acquired. The one motive in your birth and work is the good of the worlds.' The first sentence here reminds onc at once of Gita, chapter III, stanza 22, the coincidence with which in sense as well as expression is very striking. The second sentence contains the words 'birth and work,' the precise words employed at Gita IV, 9; and the idea of 'good of the worlds' is identical with the idea expressed in Gita III, 20-24, the words only in which it is clothed being different. Couple this passage with the one from Kumarasambhava, canto VI, 67, where the seven Rishis say to the Himalaya mountain, Well hast thou been called Vishnu is a firmly-fixed form.' The allusion there to the Gha, chapter X, stanza 25 (p. 89), is, I venture to think,
"Was ibe Ramayana copied from Homerl' See pp. 36–59.
'CL Colebrooke's Essays, vol. ii, p. 166 seq. It may be remarked that thus argumcot is not affected by the attempt to distinguish the Kalidasa of the leketall from the Kalidasa of the Raghunims. Because the work cited in the treatenin to the Kumarasambhan, which indisputably belongs to the Mke wtbox as the Raghavan.
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