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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(OCTOBER, 1881.
and dignity--they are rendered into awkward edition or commentary he used, which sometimes English rhymes, and forced and sometimes ladi. one cannot but regret, as occasionally doubts arise crous constructions, which convey to the English as to the exact reading followed in the translation. reader a totally erroneous idea of the sublimity He does not appear to know of the excellent and endless variety of the original. We hope edition and commentary published by Nawal Mr. Redhouse will give us the second book in Kishor of Laknan; or he would hardly have prose; it would certainly be more appropriate than stated, in reference to the phrase in the author's his present inartistic rhymes, and, as Oldbuck said preface, "I was a Kurd one evening and was an to Lovell in favour of blank verse for his epic, "it Arabian in the morning" (which also occurs in the is, I have an idea, more easily written !"
14th tale), that "I have not met with an explanaJelal-ud-din Rami, the author of the Mesnavi, tion of this expression"; as it is fully explained (4. D. 1204-1273), is the only Persian poet who by a legend given at length in the Laknau edition. Beems to rise above his age and country, and to
E. B. COWELL. have something cosmopolitan in his genius; Sir W. Jones was not far wrong when he said that he The SACRED LAws of the Å RYAS, as taught in the Schools could be only compared to Chaucer or Shakes
of Åpastamba, Gautama, Vesishtha and Baudhayang. peare. He possessed humour as well as pathog
Translated by Georg Bühler. Part I, Ápastamba_and
Gautama. Vol. II of the Sacred Books of the East, and sublimity; so that, in reading his long poem, edited by Professor Max Müller. Oxford : 1879. we are continually delighted by the ever-varying Though the Dharmasútra of Åpastamba has colours of the web, in which, like the lady of long been accessible to Sanskļit scholars through Shalott, he weaves the magic sights' of his the medium of Dr. Bühler's excellent edition of genius' mystic mirror. The external form of the the text and of copious extracts from the old poem is an endless series of apologues which are Commentary of Haradatta, it is not the general continually interrupted by digressions of saff reader only who will feel obliged to Dr. Bühler philosophy. Fine thoughts and original com- | for having translated it into English. The very parisons are scattered everywhere with no sparing peculiar style and apparently ante-Påninian hand; and the didactic portions are a mine of language of Apastamba's aphorisms on the sacred mystical lore for all who are interested in Oriental law, while rendering their study highly useful theosophy. The general reader will be more for the purposes of lexicography, and clearing them interested in the apologues themselves, as the from the suspicion of having been tampered with stories are often striking and new, and they are by interpolators, must cause even the specialist to always adorned with all the splendour of their welcome the appearance of an English translation, author's fervid imagination.
especially as it comes from the pen of the first I do not know how far these stories have been authority on the subject. examined as supplying materials for the investi- The importance of Apastamba's aphorisms gation of the history of folk-lore. In the Cam- for the history of Hindu law and usage cannot be bridge Journal of Philology (No. 12) for 1876 F rated too highly. They afford a clear insight into pointed out a parallel to a legend current in Nor- what the Hindu law-books were, before they had folk and in Holland in the 15th century, which been converted from manuals composed and studied described a man who was directed by a dream to by the Vedic schools into law-codes of general go to a certain place where he would hear tidings authority, whose composition was attributed to of a buried treasure, and was eventually sent back the Vedic Rishis and other mythical personages. to find it in his own home. Jelal-ud-din tells the There exista moreover no other Indian work on tale of a man of Baghdad, who is directed by his law, in which may be studied to equal advantage dream to Cairo, and there meets with a watchman the growth and constitation of the Brahmanical in the street who had dreamed that he too would schools of law, the character of the relations find a treasure if he went to a certain house in a between teacher and papil, the Brahmanical certain street of Baghdad; and of course it is the method of instruction and education, from their man's own house. Of one or two I have found way of arguing (vide e.g. the carious story of traces as haggadahs in the Babylonian Talmud; and Dharmaprahådana and Kumalana, p. 98) down to I have no doubt anyone whose reading lay especially the smallest details of their daily life, and the grain this direction would make some interesting dis- dual rise of conflicting opinions regarding the sacred coveries connected with the history of popular tales, law. Those few other Dharmastitras even, which and their migration from the East to the West. besides the Apastamba Sutra have come down to the
Mr. Redbouse's translation, as far as I have present time, have not been preserved intact like compared it with the original, appears to be care- the latter, but have been exposed to more or less ful and accurate. He does not mention what considerable alterations and interpolations. The
