Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 63

FEBRUARY, 1874.]
WEBER ON THE KRISHNAJANMASHTAMI.
51
action of Flavius Augustus in the first century, and so contemporaneous, or nearly so, with some of the Apostles. And Rossi's opponent P. Garucci, who attacks him vigorously on account of the figure which De Rossi supposes to be Joseph or the prophet Isaiah, but which Garucci takes to be Balaam, "il profeta della stella," raises no opposition to this date. The Abbé Martigny also, in his Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes (Paris, 1865), p. 659, agrees with them. Abbé Archangelo Scognamiglio, who edited the picture with another at the same time as De Rossi (Notices sur Deu. Catacombes ; Paris, 1863) starts with the same as. sumption. Lastly, our own Hase, to whom we are so much indebted, though in the eighth edition of his Kirchen geschichte (1858) he was still of opinion that "the Mother with the Child " was not painted until after the Nestorian controversy, has now modified, at least, this view, on the ground of De Rossi's statement, in so far as to say that the pictures published by De Rossi "seem to belong to the time before the synod at Ephesus." * Now in this picture from the Catacombs there is no leaning whatever to the Egyptian type of "Isis nursing Horus." It is of independent classical beauty, and carries no proof with it of the cor. rectness of Raoul Rochette's view with regard to the Byzantine pictures of which he speaks.
It follows, however, from this discovery of De Rossi's, that representations of the infant Christ at the breast of the divine maiden existed in the second century. And if I, on my side, can point to a second picture of the kind whose date--the 12th century-is certain, in the church of S. Maria di Trastevere, then though the space between remains unrepresented, yet the possibility that such a representation may have found its way to India as early as the first century is established. This does not, of course, give us the date at which the borrowing actually took place, but a terminus a quo, a point before which it could not have taken place.
Now this is only one part of the question we are dealing with, which has to do with a much wider circle of representations. The pictures of the fes-
tival of Kțishna's birthday show in their other details special analogiest to Christian subjects, and especially to the festival of the birth of Christ. They imply unmistakably its yearly celebration as a recognized part of the Christian ritual. This gives us a second and surer terminus a quo.
According to recent investigations into the festival of Christmas, vide Piper in his Evangelischen Kalendar for 1856 (pp. 41-46), it is established that it had no firm footing in the first three centuries of the Christian era. I It came into prominence for the first time with the victorious position of the Church in the fourth century;" and the oldest document which speaks of Christmas as at its present date, the 25th December, is a Romish calendar of festivals in a chronological work. Bishop Julius (1352) is supposed, according to a very untrustworthy tradition, to have introduced it; it was at least celebrated in the time of his successor Tiberius (352-366). "The festival then came from the West to the East. From a sermon of Chrysostom's preached in Antioch in the year 386, we see that it had begun to be celebrated there within the last ten years, though it was then, not without some objections being raised, almost universal.. In Alexandria there was, it is true, a celebration of the birth of Christ, but it was held at the same time as that of his baptism, on the 6th of January; the independent and exclusively Christmas festival on the 25th of December took its place shortly before the year 431." (Piper, as before, p. 82.) When we consider that the namakaranam, the giving a name, forms an integral part also of the celebrating of Krishna's birthday, we are strongly induced to pat' the borrowing at the time during which the custom peculiar to Egypt obtained "of celebrating on the 6th of January the birth and baptism of Christ," that is (vide Piper, p. 44), the time from the second half of the fourth century till the year 431, when the celebration of the birth alone on the 25th December took its place. Or if this period, which suits admirably the dates that follow from the position of Krishna in Indian literature, seems too short, we may extend it to
* See Handbuch der protestantischen Polemik, 2 of the black half of srdvana (July-August) or, according Aufl. 1865, p. 318: "Some of the pictures of the Madonna to the Vardha-Purana, the twelfth of the white half of found in the Roman Catacombs seem to belong to the time ashodha (June-July). before the synod of Ephesus."
According to Clemens Alexandrinas (beginning of the third + May not, e. g., the star which led the three Magi be century), there was in his time (see Piper, p. 43) a great connected with the great importance attached at the festival variety of opinion as to the birthday of Christ. He himof the Krishnajanmishtami to the conjunction with Rohini? self puts it at the 19th of November, others took the 20th
I Origen in the third century, and Arnobius in the of May, others the 19th or 20th of April. One party debeginning of the fourth, wage war against all birthday cided in favour of the 28th of March (Piper, p. 53), another celebrations; the latter especially against the pagan custom in that of the 5th of January, while the 6th of January of celebrating the birthdays of their gods. They could was chosen by Ephraim the Syrian and the Egyptians of the scarcely have done this if it had already become the custom second half of the fourth century. The 25th of December to celebrate the birth of Christ (Piper, pp. 52, 55).
was fixed long afterwards from Rome as the dies natalis 6 I cannot of course hazard any hypothesis as to what invicti, scil. solis (the birthday of the unconquered sun) may have induced the Indians to fix as the date of the because the Conception had been resigned to the spring festival, instead of the 6th of January (nenrly corresponding equinox. the 25th of March, as the day on which the world to the last onarter of pausha), the last quarter the eighth lwas made: Bee Piper, pp. 45, 46, 55.