Indian Antiquary Vol 52

SR No.: 032544
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 568
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 24 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1923
miracle of flying through the air." But if my suggestion is right, we ought not to find the custom practised in India at the time and in the place where the Nala episode or any writing containing the same belief was written; for as long as the gods are to be seen carried about so that their feet may not touch the ground, this mark of kingship, viz., divinity, cannot be regarded in the light of a miracle. On the other hand when the custom has fallen into oblivion the perfectly true statement that gods used to move above the earth can only be interpreted in the sense of a supernatural manifestation. In Sanskrit and Pali literature therefore we cannot expect to find more than echoes of this ancient custom,-indications that it once existed. We seem to have such an echo in the history of Sona as related by Spence Hardy in his Manual of Buddhism (p. 254). From his childhood Sona never put his foot on the ground, because he had a circle of red hairs under the sole of his foot. He had only to threaten to put his foot down to bring his servants to reason, as they dreaded that so much merit should thus get lost. Now this wheel on the sole has been shown by Senart to be originally an emblem of the Sun-god. 10 Others better read than I may find more traces of this very ancient custom. I would just like to make a suggestion for what it is worth. Both Egypt11 and in Polynesia1 have a story that heaven and earth were in close embrace until a hero came and parted them by lifting up the Heavens. May not the customs of not allowing the solar king to touch the earth have some connection with this myth ?
Let us leave that aside however and return to the other attributes ascribed to gods by the Mahabharata: "sweatless, unwinking, crowned with fresh and dustless garlands." I confess these were long a stumbling block to me, for if we explain one attribute by the theory of divine kingship we must explain the others in the same way. Here I stuck until I chanced to read in the Golden Bough (I. 235) the following passage taken from Kaempfer's History of Japan: "In ancient times he (the Mikado) was obliged to sit altogether like a statue, with out stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body, because, by this means, it was thought he could preserve peace and tranquility in his empire." I mentioned at the outset the parallellism that exists between kings and saints; we could hardly expect that it would extend even to the contemplative exercises of the Indian ascetics.
Our inquiry, then, has had results which bear out the opinion I have frequently expressed before, that myths and miracles are excellent and reliable history, not of events but of customs. No one will wonder at this who has busied himself with collecting oral tradition, and who knows how anxious the average man is to get his tradition faultlessly accurate. If he goes wrong it is not that he alters statements he has heard, but that he misconceives their meaning, because the custom which is the clue to that meaning is lost.
THE DATE OF KANISHKA.
BY PROF. G. JOUVEAU-DUBREUIL.
The first volume of the Cambridge History of India is just out, and it is certain that all the Journals which are going to publish reviews of it will not allow themselves to do anything but praise it and congratulate the Editor, Prof. E. J. Rapson.
He is also himself the author of several of the chapters. As is well known, Prof. Rapson has specially studied Indian Numismatics, and no one is better qualified than he to write Chanters XXII and XXIII, which treat of the Greeks and Sakas of India, as the
10 Op. cit., pp. 88 ff., 139.
9 Cf. Myths in the Making, p. 64.
11 Erman; Handbook of Egyptian Religion.
13 Tregear; op. cit. s.v. Mani.-Arthur Grimble: Myths from the Gilbert Islands, Folk-Lore, 1922, p. 94. In Egypt the sky is a waman, the Earth a man; in Polynesia it is the reverse.