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WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA.
APRIL 5, 1872.]
exile of Ráma seems intended to represent the winter-time, during which the activity of Nature, and especially the operations of agriculture, are at a stand-still. Any other direct evidence, however, of such a connection between these two is not in the meantime forthcoming. But on the other hand, as regards Rám a's wife Sítá, there are two points that are all the more deserving of notice :namely, first, her mythical character itself; secondly, and specially her relation to the similarly named goddess of the Vedic ritual, the symbol of the field-furrow (sítá); and indeed the significance of both these points should be so fully recognised as that it could hardly be called in question. The accounts in the Ramayana regarding her being born from a ploughed field and regarding her return into the bosom of her Mother Eartht; the name of her sister Ur milá, which can be explained as "waving seed-field;" finally, the surname of her father Janaka: Síradh vaja "bearing a plough on a banner :" are alone decisive of her .mythical, symbolical character. Fortunately, besides, for the working out of the conception, there was available the glorified representation of the similarly named spouse of Indra or Parjanya in the grihya texts, which picture her appearance§ in such plastic youthful beauty that the pencil of the poet needed only to add a few touches here and there. Endowed with these characteristics of the national goddess, the representation of the wife of
Ram, I, 66, 14, 15, (27) Schl: atha me krishatab kshetram lángalád utthita tatah | kshetram s'odhayatá labdhá námná Siteti vis'rutá, bhútalád utthitá sá tu. vurdha máná mamá tmajá | víryas'ulketi me kanyá sthápite ayonijá bhútalád utthitám tám ta..
† First mentioned indeed in the Uttarakanda.
First, so far as I have been able to discover, in the Uttara Ramacharita.
SCf. my Abh. über Omina und Portenta pp. 370, 373. Sriyam tvá manavo viduh are the words used so early as in the Kaus. 106, naturally, however, without any reference to the later position of S'ri as the wife of Vishnu, or to the identitiation of Sítá, as the wife of Ráma, with the later.
1. Was it Valmiki's finding of the two names, Rám a and Sítá united in the Buddhistie legend, that suggested to him the idea of making use of them for his contemplated work, which had for its object the restoration of the national gods? Or may we conjecture that he made such a use of these names with the intention of lowering the estimation in which Buddha was held, by glorifying his ancestor Ráma ?-a question which it is natural to ask, especially if Wheeler's view be adopted, with reference to the legend regarding the origin of the S'áky a race. Whether we are also to maintain, with regard to these Buddhistic legends of Ráma the progenitor of the S'áky a, and of Rama and Sitá as children of Dasaratha, that there is such a connection between them on the one hand, and Rám a Halabhrit and the Sitá of the grihya-ritual on the other, as I have assumed regarding the representations of Valmiki :-this seems to me to be at least very question
able.
Vide Akad. Vorles. über Ind. Lit. p. 182. †The Sopeithes, king of the Knxeos who waited upon Alexander the Great in person, is evidently only the analogue of As'vapati vide Lassen, Ind. Alt. I, 300 n. II, 161. Kadaia the name which his country also bears, I connect (let me say in passing) with Katha, the name of the Vedic Yajus-school. The practice of infanticide is mentioned in the Kathaka 27, 9 (CE. Ts. VL, 5, 10, 8. Nir. III, 4. Ind.
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Ráma must have awakened the widest interest; and this conception of her was admirably fitted either for purely poetical uses, or for the purpose of bringing back the hearers to their allegiance to the Brahmanical gods. Válmiki has besides introduced an additional element into his representation of Sítá, by making her the daughter of the pious Videha king, Janaka, highly honoured on account of his relations with Yajnavalkya in the Brahmana of the White Yajus, and in various legends of the Mahabharata, a circumstance which is no doubt partly due to the desire of giving, by means of this paternity, a decidedly Brahmanical colouring to her descent, and which in fact may easily be understood as in some measure favouring an earlier conjecture of my own namely, that Válmiki himself belonged to that part of India which corresponds to the kingdom of Kos' al a, bordering on the region of the Videha, and standing in the closest relations with them-in the chief city of which kingdom, Ay odhya, the scene of Valmiki's work is laid. It is also deserving of notice that As va pati, the king of the Kekaya, † who appears in the Rámáyana as the brother-in-law of Das'aratha, is mentioned in the Brahmana of the White Yajus as being nearly contemporary with Janaka. § And the name of Sitá herself occurs in a Yajus text as even then in use as a proper name: though the bearer of it appears there in a relation Stud. IX, 481); it was permitted to expose new-born female children, but not males: tasmát striyam játám parásyanti, na pumánsam.
10, 6, 1, 1 (Chand. Up. VII, 11, vide Ind. Stud. I, 179, 216, 265.)
SWith regard to this special reference to glorified names in the White Yajus, it should be added that Valmiki's own name, as is well-known, appears among the teachers who are mentioned in the Taittiriya-Prát. And indeed it appears in one passage (I, 9, 4) as coming next to that of Agnives'ya, vide Ind. Stud. 1,147, where I have called attention to the fact that a Rámáyana is also ascribed to one A'gnives'a. It is apparently, to be sure, quite a modern performance (vide Aufrecht, Catal. Codd. MSS. Sanskrit, 1216,) bearing the name Ramachandracharitrasáram, and composed in 102 s'drdúlavikridita-verses; but the indicating of this name is certainly significant, especially when we consider that Bhavabhuti Játukarniputra (for the form of this name vide S'atap XIV.9, 4,30) who celebrated Rá ma's exploits in a dramatic form, belonged to a Brahmanic family which studied the Taittiriya (in the Bhag. Pur. IX, 2, 21, ed. Burnouf, p. 191 Játúkarna-Agnivesya); that further there exists a drama called mahanátakan (vide Taylor, Catalogue of Or. MSS. I, 11. Madras 1857) composed by Bodhayanachari (Baudháyanáchárya ?) in sloka and corresponding to the first six kanda of the Rámáyana; and that, finally, the names of the Sages Bharadvaja and Atri, which are so remarkably prominent in Valmiki's description of the exile, appear also among t'he teachers of the Taitt. Veda. From all this, then, it appears to be fairly presumable that the Ráma-Saga was very carefully preserved among the followers of the Yajus, especially of the Taitt. Veda; though this is perhaps to be accounted for only on the ground that Valmiki, the first who made s poetical use of the Saga, was one of themselves, and bore a name peculiar to them. According to the tradition of the Adhyatma Ramayana II, 6, 64 ff., vide Hall in the Ind. Strei fen II, 85 and Wheeler p. 312, Valmiki was "of low caste" ! But neither in his work itself nor in Bhavabháti is there anything to be found that bears out this assertion.
Taitt. Br. II, 3, 10, 1-8.
