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 68

60
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
FEBRUARY, 1873.
the Buddhists before he himself became a convert, is a mere supposition, not supported by any reliable authority. Kanishka is also not mentioned anywhere as having carried his conquests up to Saketa, while, as before observed, the Yavanas are mentioned by Hindu writers, and the Bactrian kings by Greek authors, as having done so.
The truth is that the name "Madhyamika" has been misunderstood both by D. Goldstücker and Professor Weber; and hence, in giving Dr. Goldstücker's argument in my article, I omitted the portion based on that name. The expression arunad Yavano Madhyamikán makes no sense, if we understand by the last word, the Buddhist school of that name. The root rudh means "to besiege" or "blockade;" and the besieging or blockading of a sect is something I cannot understand. Places are besieged or blockaded, but not sects. I am aware that Professor Weber translates this verb by a word which in English means "to oppress;" but I am not aware that the root is ever used in that sense. By the word "Madhyamika" is to be understood the people of a certain place, as Dr. Kern has pointed out in his preface to his edition of the. Brihat Sanhitâ, on the authority of the Sanhitâ itself. We are thus saved the necessity of making a string of very improbable suppositions; and in this way Professor Weber's argument, based as it is on the hypothesis that the Madhyamikas alluded to by Patanjali ere the Buddhist sect of that name, falls to the ground. The first of Dr. Goldstücker's passages (the word "Yavana" occurring in both of them), and the passage I have for the first time pointed out, taken together, determine the date of Patanjali to be about 144 B. C. And this agrees better with the other passages pointed out by Dr. Goldstücker. For if Patanjali lived in the reign of the founder of the S'unga dynasty, one can understand why the Mauryas and their founder should have been uppermost in us thoughts; but if he lived in 25 A. D., when the Andhra Bhritya dynasty was in power, one may well ask why he should have gone back for illustrating his rules to the Mauryas and Chandragupta, and passed over the intermediate dynasties of the S'ungas and the Kanvas.
more important than the other passage and the name Yavana. Why may we not rather take our stand on this latter name, and the mention of the conquests of the king so designated up to Saketa, and interpret the word Madhyamika by the light thus thrown upon it? And the passage I have brought forward is, I think, so decisive, and agrees so well with this statement, that some other explanation must be sought-for of the name Madhyamika; but of this more hereafter. In the next place, we have to suppose that the most important period of Nagarjuna's life was passed in the reign of Kanishka, that he lived so long in that reign as to have founded a school, and that in that reign the sect assumed the name of Madhyamika, and grew into such importance that its fame spread so far and wide, that even Patanjali in the far east knew of it. From the words of the Rajatarangini, however, it would appear that Nagarjuna and his disciples or school rose into importance in the reign of Abhimanyu, the successor of Kanishka; for the words are-" About that time (i. e., in the reign of Abhimanyu) the Bauddhas, protected by the wise Nagarjuna, the Bodhisattva, became predominant." And in the same reign, we are told in the history of Kashmir, the Bhashya of Patanjali was introduced by Chandrâchârya and others into that country. In the Vakyapadîya also it is stated that in the course of time it came to pass that Patanjali's work was possessed only by the inhabitants of the Dakhan, and that too only in books, i. e. it was not studied. Afterwards Chandracharya brought it into vogue. Now even supposing for a time that the Bhashya was written in the reign of Kanishka, i.e., about 25 A.D., fifteen or twenty years are too small a period for it to have come to be regarded as a work of authority, to have ceased to be studied, to have existed only in books in the South, and to have obtained such a wide reputation as to be introduced into Kashmir, a place far distant from Patanjali's native country and from the Dakhan. Even Professor Weber is staggered by the shortness of the interval; but instead of being thus led to call in question his theory or the soundness of his argument, he is inclined to doubt the authenticity of the texts brought forward by Dr. Goldstücker. Besides, he gives no evidence to show that the name Yavana was applied to the IndoScythic kings. I am aware that at different periods of Indian history it was applied to different races; but this vague knowledge ought not to be sufficient to lead us to believe as a matter of fact that it was applied to these kings. And the generic name by which they were known to the author of the Rajatarangini was Turushka. This name is not unknown to Sanskrit literature, for it occurs even in such a recent work as the Visvagunadars'a. I cannot, therefore, believe that Patanjali could not have known it, if he really lived so late as in the time of those kings. And that Kanishka persecuted
As to my paper on the Age of the Mahabharata, I have to observe that it was written with a certain purpose. Colonel Ellis, going upon the authority of the Gowja Agrahara grant, trauslated by Colebrook in 1806, and again by Mr. Narasimmiyengar in Part XII. of the Indian Antiquary, had referred the composition of the Mahabharata to a period subsequent to 1521 A.D., and had asked the Asiatic Society of Bombay to make inquiries as to whether the ashes of the Sarpa Sattra instituted by Janamejaya could be found by digging for them at Anagundi, with which the Colonel identified Hastinapur; and whether the remains of the palace, in which Bharata, the son of Dushyanta and S'akuntala, was crowned, were observable at the