Indian Antiquary Vol 21

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 55

FEBRUARY, 1892.]
MISCELLANEA.
42
the child up in it, threw it in a bush, and went to a strange country, where she took employment in the king's house as a washer-woman. The child was picked up by the king of another country, who had happened to pass through the forest, and taken home and well cared for. As the king had no children of his own, he adopted this child as a son, and it was everywhere known as the prince of that country. One day this prince (for so we must call him), when he had grown up, happened, in company of a friend, to pass through the country where his mother was, and saw her at the tank wasbing clothes. He was so enamoured of her beauty that he asked her whence she came. She told him that she was a servant to the king of that country. He then went home and said to his foster-father :
"Father, there is a young woman at the palace of a certain king, and unless you get me married to her, I will never rest satisfied, and starve myself to death."
The king, who loved him exceedingly, did not like to refuse his request, and at once wrote to the other king and made arrangements for the marriage. Both parties made preparations on a grand scale to celebrate the occasion with befitting pomp, and in due time, on an appointed day, the son was married to his mother unawares. The wedding over, the bride was taken to the bridegroom's house. In the evening when they retired to bed, the bride chanced to see a rag hanging on the bedstead. On close examination she found it to be the very same rag, which she had torn from her sári, and in which she had wrapped her child before throwing it in the bush. She at once concluded that she had married her own son! But, there being no help for it, she lived with him happily as his wife! She was, however, convinced of the truth of what her mother had told her; and had learnt that no one can ever escape from the fate that is written on the forehead.
MISCELLANEA. MISCELLANEOUS DATES FROM INSCRIPTIONS patau Tavurê KrittikAyam: i.e., in the Saka year AND MSS.
548, on the first day of Vaisakha, the moon being 1.- Mr. Fleet's examinations of Hindu dates in the sign) Taurus (and) in (the nakehatra) have led to the conclusion that even in South Krittika. ern India, or at least in some parts of it, the This date does not furnish sufficient particulars amunta southern arrangement of the lunar fort-
for exact identification, but the fact that the
for exact identification hnt nights was not coupled with the Saka years until
moon is stated to have been in the nakshatra a comparatively late period," in fact, not before Krittika (No. 3) proves all the same that the first A. D. 804. Compared with this, it may be in. of Vaisakha spoken of was the first of the bright teresting to learn from soine dates in M. A. half, and the month therefore the amanta VaisaBarth's Inscriptions Sanscrites du Cambodge, ikha. For had it been the first of the dark halt, that, in Cambodia, the amanta scheme was
or, in other words, the first of the parnimanta used in connection with the Saka era at least Vaisakha, which follows immediately upon the as early as A.D. 626.
full-moon day of Chaitra, the moon would have On p. 41 of M. Barth's volume is a date of a been in Chitra (No. 14) or Svâti (No. 15). And the stone insoription from Vat Chakret, the chief possible equivalents of Vaisakha-eudi 1, i..., the items of which are
first of the amanta Vaisakha, actually are : Pindibhûte sak-abda vagu-jaladhi-sarair= for Saka 548 current, the 13th April, A. D. 625, vvasard Madhav-Adau ....... kumudavana. when the first tithi of the bright half ended 16 h.
. (This story is interesting for three reasons. It introduces us to a novel and very quaint version of our old friend Blue Beard. It gives us an insight into a queer state of morality, in which it is a more dreadful thing for a woman to marry into a casto beneath her than to marry her own son. It is to be observed that the heroin endures the latter evil, but cannot bear the former. And the moral of the tale apparently is that it is no sin to follow your fate, whatever it may be. This is a tale among Christians, be it observed. -ED.
1 Seo Gupta Inscriptions, Introduction, p. 79, note 2; and ante, Vol. XVII. pp. 141 and 149. ? I quote the words, as corrected by the Editor.