Indian Antiquary Vol 08

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 14

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANJARY, 1879.
condition, which was ready to be produced when the practical side of his events required it to be done; he has shown as as distinctly as possible that at the very time when Rama was wandering in exile through the wilds of the Danda kârany a, the Dakhan in which that aranya was situated, was occupied by the Vidarbhas and the other nations named above, to all of which emissaries were sent to search for the lost Sità. Moreover, the collocation of the Dandakâranya with the abovenamed nations in this forty-first chapter of the fourth book of the Ramayana shows that Valmiki regarded it as occupying a limited portion only of the Dakhan, in the midst of these nations, but yet quite distinct from them. After grouping together in the first ten verses several rivers and countries of the south under the grammatical government of the expression sarvamevánupashyata he proceeds to deal with another separate group thus - “ Vidarbhân rishikamschaiva Ramyanmahishakânapi tathamatsyakalingâmscha Kasikamschasamantataḥ Anvishyadardakâranyam Saparvatanadiguham Nadimgodâ varîmchaiva Sarvamevânupaśyata tathaivandhrâmśchapaņdramscha Choļanpandyansakeralån. Thus the Dandakâranya is as clearly separated from the countries with which it is here grouped as those countries are from each other, and still more so from the other countries of the Dakhan which are included in the other gronps.
It is so also in the Raghuvansa. Kálida sa, notwithstanding his extensive and minute knowledge of Indian geography, found no difficulty in describing the exile of Raghu's great-grandchildren to the Danda kâranyà, although he had been vividly describing the powerful kingdoms of the Dakhan a little while before in his account of the triumphal route of Raghu and of the marriage of Indumati; he tells of their wanderings there for thirteen of their fourteen years' exile, without bringing them once over the boundaries of the kingdoms which surrounded it.
The natural inference from all this is that the Danda karanya-whatever its actual limits may have been, and whether it did or did not cover a larger area in any earlier age-is not spoken of as extending over the whole of the Dakhan in the age of Raghu and Aja and
Dabaratha and Rama; and that its existence, from that time forward as well as previously, was quite compatible with the contemporaneous existence of several strong kingdoms, and of much civilization, in the regions around it.
We may now sum up the several items of evidence contained in the above quotations in support of the position advocated in this paper. They show that there has been a prevailing belief from very early times, which runs continuously through the most ancient historical or quasi-historical writings of both the Hindus and the Buddhists, that the Lakhan was the seat of well-ordered monarchical governments as far back, and therefore some time before, the time of Raghu, the great-grandfather of Rama the hero of the Ramayana ;-that the monarchy was hereditary and absolute; that the purity of the royal blood was maintained by intermarriages in the royal houses; and that the princesses obtained their husbands, in some instances at least, by their own choice from among several rival royal candidates for their hand ;--that the Da khan of those days contained the kingdoms of Orissa, Kalinga, Chô la, and Pandya on its eastern side, and, to the west of these, the kingdoms of Vidarbha, Rishika, Mâtsya, Kasika, Andhra, Pundra, Mahishaka, Korala, and some others ;--that the kingdom of Kalinga was divided into provinces of sufficient extent to admit of a treasonable combination being formed by some of them against their sovereign; and that the king had sufficient means to raise an army large enough to quell the rebellion ;-that these kingdoms contained cities, towns, villages, towers, and citadels ;that some of the cities had wide streets, and some were fortified with walls and gateways ;that the royal cities had palaces of considerable size, having an upper storey approached by an external flight of steps, containing dininghalls sufficiently large to entertain five hundred guests at a banquet, and wide stato-rooms supported by pillars of gold, and entered through doorways glittering with jewels, besides their private apartments ;-that both the royal palaces and the citizens' houses had windows opening upon the public streets ;--that there were noble families in those kingdoms; and that some of the nobles held office at court which they could resign at pleasure;-that among the court