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58
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1873.
book of the Taittiriya A'ranyaka is extant in two recensions which go by their name.
Sashagiri Sastri's paper on Vikramaditya and Bhoja is rather superficial ; his assertion that the Brihatkath & is believed to be the same as he Khathasarit Sagara, and that the author of the Vasavadatta inust therefore have flourished in the twelfth century, as he mentions the Brihatkathâ, is particularly misplaced in this number, which contains, some pages before, Bühler's excellent remarks on the same subject. His paper on Kalidasa in No. XI. is better, especially as it contains some very valuable inform- ation regarding a hitherto unknown work attributed to a person of Kalidasa's celebrated name, and the commentary on it by a Nichulakaviyogindra. I send you herewith my papers on the Jyotirvidabharana. In the first of them (page 727) I have pointed out the passage in Mallinâtha's commentary on the Meghadata, where he speaks of the poet Nichuln as a friend, and of Dinnaga as an adversary, of its author, and intimates that the fourtoenth verse of that poem contains an allusion to both of thein; and in the same paper I have also tried to deduce the consequences which would result from such a fact. The present discovery of a Nichulakavi as writing a commentary on a lexicographic production of a Sri-Kalidasa, and doing this at the instigation of a “Mahârâjâ Bhoja," is indeed very curious. Which of the many Bhojas may be meant here?
The Bengali Kirtans published by Beames in the same number are of the highest interest, as well as his notes and remarks on them. It is, for instance, a very curious coincidence that Bhojpuri, Bangali, and Oriya, that is to say, three quite modern Hindu dialects, have resorted again to the same expedient for the formation of the future tense as old Latin did more than 2,000 years earlier, vis., to the agglutination of the present tense of
. Such an occurrence, or, one ought to say, recurrence, is a striking evidence of the inherent consanguinity of the Aryan race and language, and of the inveterate and unchangeable character of them both.
Bhandarkar, in his paper on the date of the Mahabharata, makes good use of the Mahabhashya. And I hope shortly to be able to follow him, as soon as I get the edition of this work issued this summer in Banaras. I have always considered the publication of this work as one of the greatest services which could be rendered to Sanskrit philology, and I am very glad that it has come at last, It is true that, according to the statements of Hari's Vákyapadiya, as given by Goldstücker in his "Panini," and corrected by Stenzler and myself (Indische Studien, V. 166, 187), and according to those of the Rajatarangini, I. 176, IV. 487 (ibid. V. 166, 167), the Mahabháshya in its present form appears to have undergone much remodelling by "Chandrachary&dibhih." But still its testi-
mony will always be of great value, though not perhaps exactly decisive for Patanjali's time itself. I am very curious to know if really no direct allusions to the Ramayana will be met in it, as this would be very favourable to my conjecture regarding the comparatively late age of this work. With regard to the Mahabharata, the mentioning of Janamejaya and Dushyanta is not restricted to the Aitareya Brahmana, which alone is adduced by Bhandarkar, but they are mentioned also in the S'atapatha Brálmana, which contains moreover (partly relying on the Vajas. Sanhita and coinciding with the Taitt. Sanhita, and the Kathaka) quite a number of allusions to other names and personages who play a prominent part in the story, especially in the great war of the Mahabharata, viz., Nagrajit, Satânika, Amba, Ambika, Ambalika, Subhadra in Kampila (?), Arjuna and Phålguna (but as names of Indra!), Bhimasena, Ugrasena, and Srutasena asthree brothers of Janamejaya (compare Indische Studien, I. 189-207, and my lectures on Indian Literature (1852), pp. 110, 130-33, 175-7). The Kathaka has a legend about Dhritarashtra Vaichitravirya (Indische Studien, III. 469). The S'ankhayana sutra (XV. 16) speaks of an expulsion of the Kurus from the Kurukshetra, "Kuravah Kurukshetrad chyoshyante." There can be no doubt, therefore, that in the time of this work, as well as in that of Pånini, the main story of the Mahabharata had already firm existence, and probably also even then in a poetical form. The Buddhist legends, too (I mean those treating of Buddha's life-time and his jatakas, former births), contain direct allusions to some of these and to other personages of the same epic circle. But all this does not help to fix the age of the Mahabharata itself, which has grown out from the songs of the minstrels at the courts of the petty râjâs of Hindustan, and probably got its first form (it contains itself a tradition (I. 81] that formerly it consisted only of 8,800 verees) under the hands of either a Vaiņampâyana or a Pårds'arya (see my Indische Skizzen, p. 36), at a time when a race of Pandava kings was reigning in India (Indische Studien, II. 403), and in friendly connection with the Yavatia kings of north-western India; for the Yavanadhipa Bhagadatta, king of Maru and Naraka (very probably Apollodotos, about 160 before Christ), is called by Krishna "an old friend of the father of Yudhishthira Mahabharata, II. 578; Indische Studien, V. 152), and is mentioned repeatedly as supporter of his sake. The age of the grihya shtra, in which the passage occurs-Sumantu Jaimini-Vaisampayana-Paila-s'htra-bb­a-bharata-mahabharata dharmacharyah .. tripyantu-is itself uncertain : the corresponding passage in the Sankhayana-gribys omits the words "bh&rata-mahabharata-dharmacharyah" (compare my lectures on Ind. Lit., pp. 56-57), which may be a later addition. That the word "mahabharata" is mentioned also by Panini, I have pointed out very early (Indische Studien, I. 148); but I remarked at
