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2
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
of them are connected in sense, as the description of the seasons; others form a whole by themselves, and may be most fitly compared to miniature paintings, as presenting to us a complete picture in the narrow frame of one strophe. As to the tradition that their author was Bhartrihari, it probably arose from the circumstance that, according to one story, he is said to have retired to Banaras after he resigned the crown; for the last hundred in the collection of poems attributed to him contain the praises of a contemplative life, and the city of Banaras is mentioned as one in which such a life can be profitably spent; on the other hand, as soon as Bhartrihari's authorship was generally believed, a strophe in the first hundred in which the faithlessness of women is censured, and a curse is pronounced on them and on the god of love, may well have given rise to the notion that he became disgusted with kingly power on discovering the faithlessness of his wife Anangasenâ, and abdicated his throne."
Considering the great uncertainty which attaches to Hindu literary history, we may perhaps think it fortunate that there is something like a consensus as to the date of these poems. Whether the author of these you was a king or a sage, a man of the world or a pedant, no one can help endorsing Professor Lassen's opinion of their literary merits. Some of them are characterized by an epigrammatic point and a subacid humour rarely to be met with in Sanskrit literature, and remind us of the best pieces in the Greek Anthology.
She whom I worship night and day, she loathes my very sight,
And on my neighbour dotes, who in another takes delight;
A third she in my humble self nothing but good
[JANUARY, 1875. Easy is a fool to manage, easier still a man of
sense,
Brahma's self is foiled by one of little brains and great pretence.
If you squeeze with might and main, Oil from sand you may obtain; If with parching thirst you burn, Some mirage may serve your turn; If you wander far and wide, Rabbits' horns may grace your side; But you'll never trust my rulePlease a headstrong, bumptious fool. As well attempt to pierce with flowers the diamond of the mine,
As well attempt with honey-drops to sweeten ocean's brine,
As well go bind with lotus-bands the lord of forest herds,†
As strive to lead in wisdom's ways the bad with
sugared words.
When the Creator made the dolt, He left him not without his bolt; That fool shows best the wise among
Who strokes his beard and holds his tongue.‡ When but a little I had learned, in my own partial eyes
FIRST SECTION.
I seemed a perfect Solon and immeasurably wise; Eternal, Holy Spirit, free from bonds of space But when a little higher I had climbed ir. and time, wisdom's school, Whose essence is self-knowledge, Thee I call to The fever-fit was over and I knew myself a bless my rhyme. fool.
can see:
Now out upon the god of love, and him, and them, and me!
Lassen observes that the etymology of her name (host of love) confirms his view.
i.e. the elephant.
Snatch a jewel, if it please you, from the tiger's ravening throat;
Cross the ocean, though its billows toss in foamwreaths round your boat; Fearless twine an angry cobra like a garland round your head;
But with fools forbear to argue,-better strive to wake the dead.
See that pariah making off there with a filthy greasy bone,
How he'll mumble and enjoy it when he finds himself alone!
Not if Indra's self reproved him would he blush and leave his treat,
For the mean abhor no meanness if it only yield
them meat.
Compare the epigram of Palladas -
Πᾶς τις ἀπάιδετος φρονιμώτατος ἐστι σιωπῶν Τὸν λογόν ἐγκρυύπτων ὡς πάθος ἀισχρότατον.
