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A PRIL, 1874.]
LASSEN ON WEBER'S RÅMÅYANA.
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Aryan Indians with the aborigines, but the Vishnu, it will be impossible to deny the hostile attitude of the Buddhists and Brahmans historical character of the Pithoid (?) + to each other; third, R & ma is to be identi- Rama, although at a later period he was infied with Balarama, the mythical founder cluded in the circle of the avataras. On the same of agriculture, and that Sita is the deified fur- ground I consider myself bound to accept as row; fourth, that the abduction of Sita by an historical personage the [Da-?]Saratid Rê vaņa, and the victory of the second R â ma Rama. As soon as he was transported into over his elder namesake, are echoes of an the ranks of the gods, he was naturally folacquaintance with the Homeric poems; finally, lowed by Sità, whose name of itself led to her that the present form of the poem is not to be being turned into a daughter of the Earth-into
ced before the third century A.D. As regards a deified Furrow. Again, the assumption that the first point, it may be regarded as true that the flight of Helen and the Trojan war were the the now existing oldest form of the Råva-legend prototypes of the abduction of Sita, and of the is presented in a Buddhistic narrative, according conflict around Lanka, appears very parato which Rama, with his brother, and his sister doxical. It presupposes, further, an acquaintSitá, is banished to the Hima vat. But this ance with the Homeric poems, of which there narrative appeti's to me to be a misconception is no proof whatever. Among a people one of or distortion of the Brahmanical original, due whose chief weapons was the bow, it was to the Buddhists, who represent the sister as natural that stories of heroes who conquered following the banished prince-a duty which their foes by superiority in the use of this elsewhere is only regarded as incumbent on the weapon should be invented. By means of this wife. This conjecture would be raised to cer- style of comparison, the account of Arjuna's tainty if it should be discovered that any verses defeat of the rival suitors for Draupadi's hand of the Ramayana were to be found in the Bud- through his superior skill in archery might be dhist narrative. Secondly, attention must be ascribed to Homeric influence. Besides, a comrecalled to the fact that in the Rámáyana, parison of the circle of tales current among the with the exception of one single passage, no two nations would not be quite appropriate, allusions to the Buddhists occur. In the pas- as in the Ramayana the abduction of Sita sage referred to, a Nàstika is treated with forms an important part of the story, while in contempt on account of his reprehensible, prin- the Homeric songs the rape of Helen is indeed ciples; but this word, moreover, does not neces- introduced as the motive of the war, but is sarily denote a Buddhist, but can just as well nowhere described at length. Finally, although refer to a Chár váka, or materialist. But, I am still convinced that the Indians have debesides, the passage is interpolated. It is fur- rived their zodiacal signs, not from the Greek ther to be considered that the powerful king- but from the Chaldean astrologers, the astrodoms in Southern India were ruled by kings nomical data occurring in the Ramayanı have of Brahmanical sentiments, and that conse- no foroé as proofs. The reference to the Y'aquently an attack on the part of the Buddhists vanás and Sakas, as powerful nations in could only proceed from the side of Ceylon, the northern region only shows, strictly speakthe history of which is correctly handed down ing, that these nations were known to the to us from the time of the second Asoka, Indians as such, but not that they had already and only relates wars of the Cingalese kings established their dominion in that quarter. In with the rulers of the opposite coasts. Again, conformity with my views on the history of the Brahmans always accurately distinguish Indian epic poetry, I regard as an issible the between the second and the third Råma; statement of the historian ot' Kasmir (Rájaand there is no ground for regarding the second tarangini, I. 166] that the king of that country, as a divine personification of agriculture. As Då modars, caused the Ramayana, with all the story of the first Rama is to be found its episodes, to be read to him. How much in the Aitareyi Brahmana, a work which sooner the existing poem was composed will makes no reference whatever to incarnations of probably never admit of determination.
• This conjecture has also been already advanced by for his patronymic.. Talboys Wheeler, History of India, vol. II. p. 232, p. 659. It impates to the Brahmanical poets a great poverty
+ This must surely be a misprint. The Rama mentioned in creative power, whilst the contrary is shown by the in the Aitareya Brahmuna bus Märgaveya, or son of Mrigu, great number of their tales.
