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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1880.
-this wheel red with heat, and glowing as from a furnace, terrible to behold. Seeing this terri- ble sight, Mâitri exclaimed: "Who are you? why do you carry that terrible wheel on your head ?' On this, that wretched man replied : Dear sir! is it possible you know me not? I am a merchant chief called Govinda.' Then Mâitri asked him, and said, Pray then tell me, what dreadful crime have you committed in former days that you are constrained to wear that fiery wheel on your head?' Then Govinda answered, In former days I was angry with and struck my mother on the head as she lay upon the ground, and for this reason I am condemn ed to wear this fiery iron wheel around my head. At this time, Maitri, self-accused, began to cry out and lament; he was filled with remorse in recollection of his own conduct, and exclaimed in his agony, Now am I caught like a deer in the spare.'
"Then a certain Yaksha, who kept guard over that city, whose name was Viraka, saddenly came to the spot, and removing the fiery wheel from off the head of Govinda, he placed it on the head of Mâitri. Then the wretched man cried out in his agony, and said, 'Oh, what bave I done to merit this torment?' (The Gáthas are to this effect.] To which the Yaksha replied, 'You, wretched man, dared to strike (kick) your mother on the head as she lay on the ground; now, therefore, on your head you must wear this fiery wheel, through 60,000 years your punishment shall last; be assured of this, through all these years you shall wear this wheel.'
«Now, Bhikshus! I was that wicked Maitri, and for 60,000 years I wore that wheel for disobedience to my mother; so be ye assured that disobedience to your religious superiors will be punished in the same way.'"
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA. PROF. WEBER AND BABU RAJENDRALALA drinking at his mother's breast': DevaklstanarMITRA
dhaya, (Srikrishnapratimd) Devaklatanan dhava. 1. Letter published in the Academy, Nov. 15, 1879. yanti (better dhayamtí): see vol. VI. 286f; and "To Babu Rajendra Lala Mitra, Calcutta
" (2) at p. 285, vol. VI," yon will read the follow"Ritterstrasse, 56, Berlin, S.W.: Oct. 27, 1879. ing statement :-Here, again, is something very "MY DEAR SIR, I have just received your beau- surprising about this representation. For while tiful work on Buddha Gayd, and my attention has the legend throughout informs as that at Krishna's naturally been drawn first to your polemio against birth there was danger in delay, that his father, my ideas on the influence of Greek,.&c., art on Vasudeva, had to carry the newly-born child imIndia. I shall not attempt to defend them here, I mediately away to escape the dangers that threatas our points of issue are so very different; but I l ened him, the above representation, which shows venture to call your attention to a gross mistake us the mother and child (the former, too, "joyfully which you have committed on p. 178 note, when moved") slumbering beside each other on a couch, you, 'say: 'Pr. W. erroneously calls the mother presents a picture of undisturbed repose, and Dovaki, who never had an opportunity to perform stands, therefore, in such direct contrast to the the maternal duty of nursing her child. Accord legend that it is difficult to suppose that both reing to the Harivansa and the Bhagavata Purana, presentations have grown up on the same ground. the child as soon as born was taken away from her The representation in this place appears as foreign prison abode and left with Yagoda, who reared it as the difference discussed above (p. 283) in reup.... Hindus in this country would never ference to the locality of Křishna's birth. The so grossly falsify the story as to make Devaki nurse passage quoted here runs thus :- It is highly her son.' Now, my dear Sir, you certainly cannot surprising, first of all, that, according to these have read at all my paper on the Krishnajanmish. statements, the stitikágriham (house for a woman tami as it stands translated in the Indian Anti- in childbirth) is to be set up like & gókulam. For quary, vol. III. (1874) pp. 21 f., vol. VI. (1877) pp. the legend itself is quite consistent throughout in 281 f. For there you will find
stating that Devaki gave birth to Krishna in (1) the distinct statement that at the festival of prison. Evidently a transference has here taken Krishpa's birthday he is to be represented as place to Devaki of those circumstances in which
From the Oriental, Oct. 9th, 1976, also reprinted in marked this, and speaks quite earnestly of his having The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha.
failed to find in vol. VII. anything about the nativity of In the Academy this was mispriuted' VII'; the Baba, Christ.-A. W. in his reply (Acadenzy, Feb. 28), appears not to have re
