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 67

FEBRUARY, 1873.]
the same time that it does not signify there a work of that name, but very probably a person, just like th Mahajâbâla and the Mahâhailihila mentioned in the same sûtra along with it. According to the scholion it is to be taken as a masculine. "In connexion with âhava, yuddha, or taken as a substantive, with a word for war supplied" it means: "great war of the Bharata"-M. Bh. V. 4811; "yuddha, XIV. 1809 (Petersburg Dictionary). After all, the first direct testimony of the existence of an epic work treating of the same subject as our Mahabharata remains still as yet that passage from Dio Chrysostomos about the "Indian Homer."
CORRESPONDENCE, &c.
Your paper on Narayana Swâini is also very interesting and instructive.
With best wishes for the continuance of your highly welcome and valuable undertaking, I am, &c., A. WEBER.
Berlin, 28th Nov. 1872.
NOTE ON THE ABOVE BY PROF. RAMKRISHNA 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 Mahabharata. 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 his critique on Dr. Goldstücker's "Pâniui." 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 "Pushpamitra Sabha." 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 imaginary person. My reasoning in the article in question is based on the words iha Pushpamitram Yajayamah. This is given by Patanjali as an instance of the Varttika, 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. Goldstücker; 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 Mahabhâshya flourished in
an
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the reign of Pushpamitra. And the conclusion based on this and on one of the two instances pointed out by Dr. Goldstücker, viz., Arunad Yavanah Sáketam, 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. Goldstücker contain the name Yavana; and a king of that generic name is spoken of as having besieged Sâketa, commonly understood to be Ayodhya. This name was applied most unquestionably, though not exclusively, to the Greek kings of Bactria. The Yavanas are spoken f, in a Sanskrit astronomical work noticed by Dr. Kern, as having pushed their conquests up to Saketa; and Bactrian kings are also mentioned by some classical writers as having done the same. Looked at independently, this passage leads us to the conclusion arrived at by Dr. Goldstücker, that is, it fixes the date of Patanjali at about 150 B. C. But the other instance contains, in addition, the name Mádhyamika. The Buddhist school of that name is said to have been founded by Nagarjuna, who, according to the Rajatarangini, flourished in the reigns of Kanishka and Abhimanyu, that is, a few years after Christ. This instance then brings the author of the Mahabhashya to some period after Christ. Here then is a case resembling those which are frequently discussed by our Pandits, in which a Sruti and a Smriti (or a Sruti and an inference) conflict with each other. The Brahmanical rule is that the Sruti 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 Sruti, and the inference must be somehow explained away. Now, in the present case, Professor Weber's Sruti is the instance containing the rame of the Madhyamikas. 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 understood the Indo-Scythic king Kanishka, who reigned before Abhimanyu. But Kanishka cannot be regarded as having oppressed or persecuted the Madhyamikas, for he was himself a Buddhist. This objection is obviated by the Professor by the supposition 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 improbabilities. In the first place, I do not see why the passage containing the name Madhyamika and the name itself should be regarded as so much
By the way, I prefer the form "Pushpamitra" to "Pushyamitra," as the latter appears to me to be a mislection for the former, which might easily occur, 4, p, being often by careless scribes written as q, y.