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JUNE 7, 1872.]
WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA.
179
earth, that they may search for the lost Sitâ, the various regions are briefly described in their order, and the description is accompanied by an enumeration of the inhabitants. Regard- ing the west, for instance, we are told that the Monkeys are to search through the cities of the Yavana, the dwelling place of the Pahlava, and, in the neighbourhood of the same, the whole Panchanada (Panjab), Kashmir, (the Pârada, C.), Takshasila, Sakala, Pushkalâvati, the Sálva, and the mountain Manimant (Aratta, Kapisa, Vâlhi, in AC.), the country of the Gandhara &c.; and with regard to the north they are similarly directed to explore among the Gândhara and the Yavana, the Saka, Odra and Parada (G., Chîna, Paundra, Mâlava AC.), the VAlhika, Rishika, Paurava, Kimkara (Râmaţha AC.), Chîna, Apara-China (Parama-China AC.), Tukhâra, Varvara, Kamboja, (and Khasa ? C.), also the Darada, and Himavant. Here also the texts to which I have had access harmonise in the main ; † and it is obvious that such notices I could belong only to a time in which the Yavana (that is, the Greeks), the Pahlava, Pârada, Saka, &c. were settled in the north-west of India, and were consequently neighbours, as specified, of the Kâmboja, Balhika, Darada, Gândhára, &c. In another passage, in the second book, the Yavana at least appear in the immediate neighbourhood of the Saka ; this occurs, however, in addition to Gorresio, only in A., while the other texts show a variety of readings.
A second point that calls for examination here is one that has already been largely discussed,
namely, the horoscope of the birth of Rama and his brothers : more specifically, the names given to the zodiacal figures, karkața (with kulina) and mina. It will be remembered that A. W. von Schlegel looked on the mention of these names as a proof not only of the high antiquity, but even of the Indian origin of the Zodiac. But since the appearance of Holtzmann's admirable memoir Ueber den griechischen Ursprung des Indischen Thierkreises, (Karlsruhe 1841), it is hardly possible for any one longer to doubt that the truth is quite the other way, and that the converse position is the correct one. The evidence brought forward, to use my own words on a former occasion,* « furnishes only an additional proof of what has been made sufficiently clear from other sources, namely, the late date of the composition of the Ramayana itself, though certainly only of that recension," in which the passage in question occurs. For as the Zodiac, in the particular form in which it is found among the people of India," was completed by the Greeks only in the first century B. C., it could not possibly have found its way into India earlier than this nor, we may be pretty sure, until several decades later ; and a considerable time must have elapsed before this new conception could have so become, as it were, the possession of the people as that the poet could refer to it as something perfectly wellknown." And although the horoscope is certainly wanting in the Bengal recension and also in A, B, C, 9 yet it is found without any material variations in the Serampur, in Schlegel's,
• IV. 44, 13 ff. Gorr.
+ The Bombay edition alone has nothing corresponding to the first pussage (in IV. 42, 18 Gorresio's v. 27 comes immediately after his v. 17); and in the second passage which fully agrees with Gorr. so far as the matter in ques tion is concerned, it reads thus :. Kamboja-Yavanans' chaive S'akanim pattapâni cha anvikshya Varada' (Darsdans'?) chaiva Himavantam vichinvatha (1) The detailed statementa in G A C, taking as a basis, given by the author, nead not be detailed here.-Ed.]
In Gorrosio, vol. IV. p. 526, we find the following various reading of the verse IV. 43, 20, represented as occurring in Cod. G.
Striloka(b) Pahlavasthanam Dandamitram Arundhatim Purûna' chaiva vannam cha vichinudhvam vanaukasah ||
And here perhaps we may find a still further direct trace of the Greek dominion. In case the reading which occurs here, and which is certainly very doubtful see the Varietas lectionis given by Prof. Weber-Ed.], should need to be confirmed from other sources, we might very fairly cite (vide Ind. Stud. V., 150) the name of the city Dâttâmitri, in the Schol. in Pån. IV. 2, 76, which there appears to have been founded by the Sauvira-king Dattamitra, who is mentioned in the Mahabharata as the contemporary and the opponent of Arjuna, but regarding whom Lassen vide Ind. Alterth, I. 657n.) seems not disinclined, following Tod's example, to believe that we are to find in him a trace of the Baktrian King Demetrius (the son of Euthydemus), who reigned (According to Lassen, II., 298-808. xxiv.) from about 205 to 165 B. C. With reference to a conjecture,
which certainly receives considerable support from the data that have just been quoted regarding the city Dattamitri, since there is mention made also of Demetrius-to the effect that a city, in Arachosis however, bore his name (Demnetrias), and was probably founded by him, vide Lassen, II. 300. It should be added that inscriptions attest with regard to the city Dattmittri that it numberedt Yavanas, i. e. Greeks, among its inhabitants. This has been confirmed by the mention of a Datâmiti yaka Yonaka : vide Journal Bombay Branch R. As. S. V. 64. Indische Skizzens p. 37, 82.
A similar use has already been made of these notices by the Abbe Guérin in a note on the Ramayana embodied (p. 237-40) in his curious book Astronomie Indienne (Paris. 1847).
$ II. 2, 10, Gorr. I I. 19, 2, 8; II. 15, 3, Schlegel.
Vide . fur die Kunde des Morgenl. I. 854 ff.; III. 369 ff. * Vide Ind. Stud. 11. 240, 241. 1852.
+ See my Preface to the translation of Malavika, P. xxxiv-v. 1856.
1 Vide Kern, Vorrede u Varahamihira's Brihatsamhita p. 40.
9All three manuscripts agree here also; and indeed the first two verses of the chapter in question, quoted in the Catalogue of the Berlins Sanskrit Manuscripts, follow the closing verse of Chapter 18 in Gorresio.-Conf. the verses following Gorr. 19. 8, in MSS. A, B, & C.
