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FOLKLORE FROM KASHMIR.
DECEMBER, 1882.]
portion of the above tale concerning the killing of the Rakshasa demon or dragon, I will say a few words as to who he was and how his story came into my possession.
Raja Rasalû of Sialkot in the Panjab and his brother P ûr an Bhagat may be called the two chief legendary heroes of Panjâb stories. They are popularly called the sons of Sahilwân or Sálhâhan, king of Sialkot, who is better known as the great Saliva hana, king of the Sakas or Skythians and the author of the Šaka era commencing from A. D. 78. I am not prepared now to go fully into the proba bilities of this legend, but would remark that there is perhaps more truth in it than would at first appear, especially if we are to take Sâlivâhana to be of Takka or Takshaka descent, that is from the people whom Alexander the Great found at Takshila, identified by Cunningham with Shahderî or Derâ Shâhân near Rawal Pindi at the foot of the Hazârâ Mountains, and not far from the Marhi (Murree) Sanitarium.
Again, according to the local legends Râjâ Rasâlâ married the daughter of Raja Hodî, whose castle has been identified by some with the Aornos Rock on the Indus assaulted by Alexander, but my legends say variously that Hodi lived at what is now Ajnâlà in the Amritsar district and not far from Lâhor, or that he came from Ata k, but across the river Indus from the Atak side."
Rasâlû was the hero and Pûran the saint of the two brothers, and their legends differ accordingly to a very great extent.
I have a lithographed version in Panjâbî verse in the alphabetical or pati style, of the story of Pûran Bhagat, and I believe there are several other versions in existence, lithographed or printed. Mine is in the Persian character. The story of Raja Rasâlû has, however, I believe never been printed or indeed previously committed to writing, but some years ago Mr. Delmerick of the Panjab Commission got a patwari (village accountant) of the Râwal Pindi district to take down the tale as repeated and sung in those parts. He had also a translation of it
17 Hunter, Imp. Gazetteer of India, vol. VIII, pp. 275-6; Tod, Rajasthan, Madras Ed. vol. I, pp. 53, 93, 95; McCrindle's Ancient India of Megasthenes and Arrian, p. 111, or Ind. Ant. vol. VI, p. 247, footnote, quoting Grote's History of Greece, vol. VIII, pp. 437-8 footnote. However, for an idea of the confusion in which the whole subject is still involved see Hunter vol. VIII, pp. 274-5, and all the authorities he quotes. Compare also his
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made into Urdû at the same time. Both these MSS. he kindly placed at my disposal, and I had the former copied, and am translating it as fast as my scant leisure will permit. It consists of prose and verse, as is often the case in the genuine folk recitations of the Panjab. The prose portion is in indifferent Urdû, and I fancy the patwari has tried to show off in it what learning he possessed. It is therefore of no linguistic value whatever, but the verses he could not mutilate, and they are of the highest philological value, being in the purest dialectic vernacular, thenth Panjabi, as the natives call it. The whole forms a genuine collection of folklore of more than usual interest, as it most probably records the traditions and tales of the most important non-Aryan race that inhabited Northern India in days of yore. The "Adventures of Raja Rasâlú" are a series of more or less disconnected stories, of which the following is one :
Rájá Rasálú and the Rakshasas.
Then Raja Ras al û started again on his journeys, and came to Nilâ city, and there he saw an old woman making chupátis, and while she was making them she kept on crying and laughing by turns. So the Râjâ said to her," Why do you weep and laugh, mother, while you are making the chupátis ?"
"Why do you ask ?" she said, "what good will it be to you to know ?"
"Tell me the truth," replied the Râjâ, "I daresay it will do both of us good."
So the old woman told her story, and said: "I had seven sons, and six of them have been killed one by one by a Rakshasa, and to-day it is the turn of the seventh to go to him. He is the only one that remains, and that is why I laugh and sing and weep, for he too will be killed today. And I make the chupútis, because by the order of the Râjâ of this city the victim of the day has to go to the Rakshasa with a basket of chupútis and a buffalo, and he eats up the whole lot for his dinner."
Then answered Raja Rasâlû
Ná ro, máta bholiye; ná aswán dhalkae: Tere bete di'iwaz main sir desán chúe.
own contradictory accounts of Salivahana and the Saka era at pp. 273 and 276.
I am nearly certain that this is a point not far to the south of Atak on the Indus on the old road between Peshawar and the Salt Range where the river is very blue, now known as Bigh Niláb. See Cracroft's Settlement Report of the Rawal Pindi District, 1875, p. 16, sec. 58.
