Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 304

274
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
always reputed to be one of the earliest Christian settlements in India. Nor were these Persians. disliked, as foreigners are now, by the natives of India. Before the beginning of the ninth century A.D. they had acquired sovereign rights over their original settlement, Manigramam, by a grant from the Perumål. These Persians were thus established long before the origin of the modern schools of the Vedanta, and the founders of these sects were all natives of places close to Persian settlements. Sankaracharya was born not far from Cranganor, where the Persians first founded a colony; Râmânuja was born and educated near Madras; and Madhavâcharya, the founder of the sect which approaches nearest of all to Christianity, was a native of Udupi, a place only three or four miles south of Kalyanapar. A comparison of the doctrines of these sects with those of the Manichans will, I think, settle the question; but I must reserve that for another occasion. That these Persians were Manichæans is, I think, to be concluded from the name of their settlement, Manigramam. This can only mean "Manes-town;" the only other possible meaning, "Jewel-town," is utterly improbable.
Prof. Weber has shown that the Brahmasamâj doctrines are an unacknowledged result of Christian missions in this century; the S. Indian Vedanta sects must be taken as a similar result of perhaps the earliest Christian (though Manichæan) mission to India.
How close the connection between Persia and India was in the sixth century A. D. is also known from the history of the European versions of the Panchatantra. Tho existence of this work in India was then known to the Persians, and this knowledge presupposes a greater knowledge of Indian matters by foreigners than has ever since been the case up to the end of the last century.
I may remark also that the facts I have mentioned above render it probable that Burzweih or Barzdych, who first translated the Punchatantra into Pehlevi, was actually a Christian, as the Arab historian, Ibn Abu Oseibia, states. The S. Indian Sanskrit Panchatantra is the oldest yet discovered (see Prof. Benfey's note, Academy, vol. iii. pp. 139. 140); may not Bârzuyeh have got his copy in S. W. India?
Patriotic Hindus will hardly like the notion that their greatest modern philosophers have borrowed from Christianity; but as they cannot give an historical or credible account of the origin of these Vedantist sects, if we take the above facts into consideration, there is more against them than a strong presumption, for these doctrines were certainly unknown to India in Vedic or Buddhistic times.
[SEPTEMBER, 1873.
I have mentioned before the discovery of an old Jain version of the Rámdyana in Canarese.. This is certainly more than a thousand years old, and differs greatly from the Valmiki-Rimayana. The Tamil version (by Kampan) is also very old and deserves examination if the question of the original form of the Sanskrit epic is to be really decided. I hope soon to be able to give some account of the Canarese version, as I have found an excellent MS., written about 420 years ago, which is wonderfully correct.-A. BURNELL in The Academy.
Professor Palmer, the Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, has an Arabic Grammar in the press, mainly founded on Syrian authorities. From what I hear of the arrangement, it will be more like a portable edision of Silvestre de Sacy's Grammaire Arabe than anything else one knows. The Professor has also been translating Alice in Wonderland into Arabic verse and prose, and proposes publishing it, provided he can get the use of the original plates. C. M..
An answer to the query respecting the right and left hand Castes (p. 214) will be found in the edition of the Kural by F. W. Ellis. The distinction arises primarily from the landowners and their serfs being the heads of one class, and the Brahmans, artizans, and other interlopers forming the other. But the constituent castes of either party vary. A.B.
CASTES OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. (Continued from page 242.)
Kabbar: A caste of low rank in Southern India; in Dhârwâd they are numerous, and, like the village Kolis, act as ferrymen in Kanara they are few, and are engaged like Bhuis in fishing and carrying palanquins: their habits are those of their class. Buchanan describes the Cubbaru' as a branch of the Bhuis, some being cultivators and others lime-burners. Morals and habits rude. Kabalgári is the name of a similar caste in Dharwad.
Chavadrid:--A Bhill tribe in Gujarat, chiefly in the Surat collectorate, numerous; small cultivators, labourers, or fishermen in the Tâpî river. Their condition is hardly raised above the lowest level; they are one of the classes included in the Kâlâ Prajâ, or the black race.
Patharwat:-A caste of middle rank, in the Dekhan, stone-masons and artificers in stone. Kandvi:-A caste in Gujarat who are confectioners, &c.
Jangars :-Singers and bards; holding middle rank, and often in public or private employ.