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408
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1891.
Four months, thou knowest well, extends The season when the rain descends. No time for deeds of war is this: Seek thon thy fair metropolis, And I with Lakshmaņ, O my friend, The time npon this hill will spend.
When Karttik's month shall clear the skies,
Then tempt the mighty enterprise. And later on he thus laments over the inactivity of his ally :
Lord Indra thousand-eyed has sent The sweet rain from the firmament, Sees the rich promise of the grain, And turns him to his rest again. The clouds with voices loud and deep, Veiling each tree upon the steep, Upou the thirsty earth have shed Their precions burden, and are fled. Now in kings' hearts ambition glows: They rush to battle with their foes; But in Sugriva's sloth I see
No care for deeds of chivalry 11 In the Raghuvamsa Raghu undertakes his digvijaya in autumn. Antamn, decorated with lotus-flowers, approaches him like a second Rajalakshmi, and invites him to set out before Raghu himself is resolved ; in autumn the balls even seek to equal him in vikrama.13 Similarly Bharavi speaks of autumn at the marching out of Arjuna 13 In the Rávanavahô and in the Bhattidvya Râma sets out in autumn to slay Råvana and regain Sitâ.14 In the Gaüdavaho Yasovarma starts at the end of the rainy season, in autumn, to subject the whole earth to his sway.16 In the Harshacharita, Bâņa speaks of the grey beard of an aged warrior as the beginning of autumn (sarad-drambha), white with fowering grasses, ejected again from the mouth after it had been drunk at war-time (vikrama-kdlé).16 In the third act of the Mudrárdhshasa the poet devotes several stanzas to the description of autumn, solely to intimate to the audience
11 The original text, in the Bombay edition, is :
Anyonya-baddha-vairņ& jigtehunan nripAtmaja! adyôga-samayaḥ saumya párthivandm upasthitaḥ 11 Iyam så prathamå yAtrå pårtLivandí nripAtmaja!
na cha pabyAmi Sugrivam adyôgam cha tath vidham 11 11. See Raghuvarsa, iv, 14, 22, and 24. 13 See Kirdtarjuniya, iv. 14 See Råvanavaho, ed. by S. Goldschmidt, i, 14 and 18:
"With diffculty passed for DAarathi the rainy season, the evening twilight for the sun of his energy, the strong fetter for the elephant of his anger, the cage of the lion of victory.
" Then there came,- for the monkey chief the path of glory, the prime support of the life of Raghava, for SitA the stoppage of her tears, for the Ten-headed the day of death, there came the autumn." And compare also i, 34, where the commentary has the noto : karat-samay& bhafanam ymaana
: farat-samayd bhatandth yuddha udyBg6 bhavati. Soo also Bhattikavya, vii, 14; and compare particularly ii, 1, with the remarks of the commentators.
18 Soe Gaüd avaho, verse 192.
16 The passage of the Harshacharita, referred to in the abovo, ooonrs in the 6th uchchhudaa (on p. 166 of the Caloutta edition), and has been already cited by Mr. S. P. Pandit in the Introduction of his edition of the Gaudavaho, p. 102, but explained altogether differently, probably because Mr. Pandit's text was oorrupt and yields Do sense at all. My own reading of the text is : vamann iva vilrama-kala-pftam akale-pi vikasi-da-lamand-Visadam sarad-Arambham. In my opinion B&ns would never have used the preseion vikrama-kala in the way he doel, if it had been already in his time a technical term denoting an era.
