________________
248
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
any great degree exceeding the difficulties which we have already encountered, namely, the variations in the different recensions, the notices in the scholia regarding interpolations, and the contradictions and repetitions within individual texts. These quotations in Bhavabhuti, in fact, furnish rather a most valuable guarantee that the Râmâyana, taking it as a whole, really existed at that time in essentially the same form as that in which: we at present possess it.-And indeed this further conclusion may be drawn from what we find in the Uttararamacharita, that at that time the stories also which are contained in the Uttarakânda were already thoroughly e tablished, in so far at least as they refer to the repuliation of Sitâ by Râma after his return, to the birth of her two sons, Kusa anu Lava, in the hermitage of Valmiki, to the latter's educating of the two boys in an acquaintance with the Râmâyana whic'. he had himself composed, and to the re-uniting of Râma and Sîtâ.* The same remark holds good for the Raghuvansa But in the telling of these stories Bhavabhuti deviates in some degree from the version of them given in the Uttarakanda (as also from that of the Raghuvañéa). He cannot find it in his heart, for instance, immediately to separate again the newly re-united pair, but leaves them in their state of restored union;† while in the Uttarakanda, CIV. 11; Raghuvans'a, XV. 82, (and in the Adhyatmarámáyana, according to
Neither the Ramayana itself, the Râmopakhyana, the notices in the third, seventh, and twelfth books of th Mahabharata, nor those in the Harivas'a (vide supra p. make any mention of these incidents; on the other hand, they are all unanimous in relating that Rama, after his return, das'a 's'vamedhân jahre jarathyan sa nirargalan (Rámopakhyana, Mahabharata XII. 952. Harivansa, bhûridakshinan Ramayana); or, as we find it in an amplified form in Mhdbh. VII. 2232-jahara.. Inirargalam sajârâthyam as'vamedhas'atam vibhuh.
Just as in the recension of the Ramayana followed by Wheeler (p. 408), and in the Jaimini Bharata, xxxvi. 87.
[AUGUST 2, 1872.
Wheeler) Sitâ is obliged to adduce this further proof of her innocence, that in answer to her prayer the grond opens, the earth-goddess ascends out of the chasm, and takes Sitâ And down with her into the Rasâtala. then, further, the first meeting of Ráma with his two sons, which in the Uttarakanda, C. 1ff. Raghuvans'a, XV. 63 ff. (and Adhyatmarámáyana) follows only upon their chanting, at Rama's sacrifice, of the Râmâyana which Valmiki had taught them, is much more poetically introduced in Bhavabhuti, namely, by Lava's defeating of the army sent out for the protection of the sacrificial horse; § the prowess of the son proves his legitimacy, and confirms the innocence of his mother. Whether these variations in Bhavabhuti are to be credited to himself, or whether the responsibility of making them rests on some other recension of the Uttarakanda less precise and possibly more wanting in reverence for the poet of the Râmâyana, must in the meantime be left an open question. The circumstance that the version given by Wheeler, equally with that in the Jaimini-Bhárata, harmonises in part with that of Bhavabhûti, certainly tells against the theory that these variations owe their origin to the latter; but yet it wants the force of direct evidence, inasmuch as both of inese versions may really bear a later date than his, a supposition which is in fact decidedly favoured by the exaggerations which they exhibit (vide infra n.§)
Very different therefore both from our version of her "wishing to sink into the earth with shame," and from the versions of the Buddhists. For in a Buddhist legend (Fausböll, Dhammapada, p. 840), the earth opens, the flames of Avicht (the hell under the earth) burst forth, and the slanderess sinks down into them; and in Rogers (p.158) several other instances are given of falsehood being similarly punished. Compare also Fausböll, l. c. p. 418, Wilson, Select Works, I. 69, and Bigandet, Life of Gaudama (1866), p. 231, according to which Suprabuddha, the father-in-law of Buddha, seven days after he had calumniated the latter, sank down through the earth into hell, as a punishment for his cffence. A similar fate befell Devadatta, Fausböll, L. c. p. 148, Bigandet, p. 252. According to Bigandet, p. 88, it was a universal custom among the Buddhists to cali upon the Earth as a witness "of the good works they have done or are about doing;" and this custom is said to have arisen from the circumstance that Buddha himself, in his contest with Mara, appealed to the Earth to bear witness in his favour.
Our "wishing to sink into the earth with shame" occurs in Sakuntale, LXXII. 7, ed. Böhtlingk, where S'akuntalà, repudiated by the king, cries out in her despair :bhaavadi vasube! dehi me vivaram! (bhaavadi vasundhare dehi me antaram, ed. Premachandra, p. 109, 1). So also in Bhavabhûti's Mahaviracharita p. 54, where Jamadagnya (Pras'arâma), after being defeated by Rama, cries out-bhagavati vasundhare prasida randhradânens
This idea is still more fully developed in the Jaimini Bharata (Chap. 30-36); and the recension of the Ramayana followed by also agrees with this version of the story. In the Jaimini Bharata, Ku s'a is victorious over his three uncles and even over Rå ma himself, after Lava has been taken prisoner by S'atrughna: the story is somewhat differently told in Wheeler.
From the Sahityadarpana § 304 (p. 136; see also p. 233) it appears that the rules of rhetoric not only permitted the dramatic poets. but even required the both to omit anything objectionable in the traditional legends which they made use of, and to select such variations in the stories as good taste might seem to demand. Thus we are told that Rama's slaying of Vali by means of a stratagem, in the Ramayana, is not mentioned at all in the drama UdattaRaghava; and that in the Sugriva-Viracharita the incident is modified to this extent that Vâli goes forth to kill Rama, and then is killed by Rama. This last reference is probably to Bhavabhuti's Mandotracharita (p. 7682, Wilson, Hindu Theatre, II. 330, 331) which among other deviations from the version given in the Râmâyaua, contains as a matter of fact, also the one here mentioned.
