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DECEMBER, 1884.]
HISTORY OF NEPÅL.
417
It is evident that, though this Vansávali these two. Mostly they ignore altogether the contains many elements of historical truth, it existence of the namerous other eras that were possesses no value whatever as a whole. As used in ancient India, and the fact that several is always the case with Indian chroniclers, who homonymous kings, e.g. two or three Vikramaattempt to give a complete view of the history dityas are, as the Indian expression is," foundof their country, the author has tried to con- ers of Satvats." nect the beginning of his narrative with the | The existence of mistakes thus caused is legends regarding the four ages of the world, only too clearly seen in the Nepalese Varnsa. and with the epic traditions of the Great valt. The first dynasty named by the author War between the Kurus and the Pandavas. is said to have descended from the pious Through their anxiety to prove that the early cowherds whom Krishņa brought into the kings of each province of the Bharatakhanda country. The kings all follow one another in took part in the contest described in the the direct line of descent, and their reigns are Mahábharata, the Hindus furnish a complete of truly patriarchal length. analogy to the ancient Greeks, who believed It is most probable that not only the details that a town or republic was dishonoured if its narrated regarding them are totally erroneous, mythical heroes did not appear in Homer's but that the dynasty had no real existence. catalogue of the Greek leaders engaged in the The names seem to have been taken from conquest of Troy, and whose earlier historians, some Purana or Mahátmya, and to have been like Herodotos; were inclined to seek the prefixed to the authentic list of the kings of ultimate causes of the events of their days in Nepal. The same remarks apply to the second the legendary occurrences narrated by Homer. short line, that of the Ahirs, who, being But, while in the case of the Greeks this likewise cowherds, are also named in the tendoncy has not produced any serious results, Puranas as companions and worshippers of it has almost entirely destroyed the usefulness Krishņa. The case is different with the followof the Indian historical works. The Hindu ing dynasty, the Kirâtas, whose native chroniclers known to us, all wrote after the country is the Himalayas and who, therefore, astronomers had fixed the lengths of the four may have held Nepal in ancient times. The Yugas, and had assigned to the Great War its number of 1118 years allotted to the twentyplace at the beginning of the Kaliyuga. As nine kings of this race is, however, too great. the authentic lists of kings which the chronic- For in India the duration of a generation lers possessed in no case sufficed to fill the amounts, as the statistical tables of the lifeenormously long periods supposed to have | insurance companies show, at the outside, to only elapsed between their starting point and their twenty-six years. If all the twenty-nine kings own times, they were induced not only to followed each other in the direct line of descent, lengthen unduly the duration of the reigns of they could not possibly have ruled longer than many historical kings, but to place contem- | 600 or 700 years. Moreover, if the statements porary dynasties one after the other, and to that så kyamuni was a contemporary of press into service the mythical kings enumera- Jitê dâsti, the seventh king, and that A śôka ted in the Puranas or Máhátmyas.
came to Nepal, i.e., extended his rule to Nepal, In addition to the distortion of the truth in the reign of the fourteenth ruler, Sthunko, resulting from these causes, no less serious are worth anything, they furnish a clear proof consequences have arisen from the errors which of the arbitrary lengthening of the reigns. the chroniclers made regarding the various For the author of the Varnéávalt is a Northern native eras used in their native country. Buddhist, he probably knew one Abôka only, and Modern Hindu writers, who are accustomed to placed him one hundred years after Sakyamuni's the exclusive use of the two eras—that of Nirvana. If the distance between Jitedasti Vikramaditya, 57 B.C. and that of SAlivahana, the seventh king, and Sthunko, the fouror the Šaka era, 78 A.D.-invariably refer the teenth, amounted to one hundred years only, the Samvats occurring in their sources to one of absurdity of the assertion that the twenty-nine
** See the naiyo confessions of Kalhana in the Rajatarangint.
