________________
DECEMBER, 1896.]
BOOK-NOTICE.
343
excite the reverence and generosity of good some selected spot. The animals must be deca. Hinds by showing them the sacred mark.
pitated at one blow with a sharp sword before the J. Wilson in P. N. and Q. 1883. goddess is appeased. If more than one blow is
necessary the goddess is not propitiated, and the A RELIC OF HUMAN SACRIFICE.
ceremony fails. The Satbals ceremony is not MART MAI, the goddess of cholera, is propi.
now in use, for it consisted of the above with a tiated in the Kangra district by the Pachbala man and a woman added, being in fact human and Satbald ceremonies. At the Pachbala cere sacrifice; bald (?) sacrifice, of, bal jánd, to mony a pumpkin (péthd), a male buffalo, a cock, a sacrifice one's self. ram, and a he-goat are offered to the goddess at
R. C. TEMPLE in P. N. and Q. 1883.
BOOK-NOTICE. PROFESSOR WEBER'S ANNIVERSARY, been succeeded very quickly by Dr. Dahlmann's Professor A. WEBER,of Berlin, the distinguish book on the Mahabharata viewed as an epic ed Sanskritist, was in a position to celebrate last and as a lawbook.' This is a very remarkable year, in good health, the fiftieth anniversary of work, and the author, an industrious and the day on which he took his degree of Ph.D. clever pupil of Prof. Bühler's, has worked out in the University of Breslau. In commemoration his new theory regarding the rise and origin of of the day, a Festgabe has been published, the great epic with great care and skill. under the editorship of Prof. Kuhn, which con- Starting upon the hints thrown out by Prof. tains learned papers by thirty friends and pupils Bühler, in his well-known Contributions to the of Prof. Weber. We subjoin a list of the History of the Mahdbharata, to the effect that several heads under which it will perhaps be per- the Mahabharata certainly was a smriti or committed to arrange the subjects treated in the pendium of the sacred law from A. D. 300, and thirty papers, with the names of the authore similar in contents to the now extant works about added in brackets; dir., Vedic Studies (Delbrück, 500 A. D., Dr. Dahlmann has examined the Garbe, Geldner, Leumann, R. von Roth, L. von references to the Mahabharata, and the legends Schröder, Sieg), Tales and Folklore (Eggeling. related in it, in the Jitakns, the Dharmkatlil of Kern, Kuhn, E. Müller, Windisch), Biography of the Jains, Asvaghosha's Buddhacharita, Asvalê. Sanskrit Writers (Clenm, Pischel). Dramatic yana's Grihyasátra, Påņini and Patañjali. He Literature (Cappeller, Zachariä), Geography thus arrives at the result thnt an epic little (Huth, Stein), History of Writing (Ludwig, differing in size and character from the present Pertach), Metrics (Jacobi, Oldenberg), Sanskrit work must have existed as early as the fifth Grammar (Heller, Kielhorn), Comparative Philo- century B. C. This is a somewhat startling prology (Schmidt, Zimmer Pali Lexicography position, and it may be questioned whether (Franke ), Siamese (Frankfurter), Singhalese Dr. Dahlmann has not overrated the value of Geiger ), Sanskrit Law (the present writer). some of the evidence collected by himself. He The variety of the topics discussed in the papers is quite right, no doubt, in assuming that Asvaghois even greater than what might be inferred from sha was acquainted with the Malibhirata, and his the foregoing enumeration, and corresponds to lucid discussion of the difficult texts in question, the wide range of Prof. Weber's own investiga- in collecting which he has received much valuable tions. The universality of his studies and the | assistance from Prof. Bühler, is among the most importance of his distinguished achievements remarkable parts of his work. in the entire field of Indo-Aryan Philology has
The early date which Dr. Dahlmann has thus been well brought in a Dedicatory Preface to the
endeavoured to make out for the great epic present volume by Prof. Bühler. We join heartily
concerns the whole of it, the theory of a gradual in the wish that Prof. Weber may be spared
rise of the Mahabharata in successive ages being for many years to come to enjoy his eminent
vigorously contested by him. Indeed, it is his position in the learned world and to add to the
principal aim to prove that the Mahitblirata is lustre of Sanskrit Philology by his scientifo work.
and has always been a moral tale, and that it is Würzburg
J. JOLLY.
impossible to separate the didactic portion from SOME RECENT RESEARCHES CONCERNING the narrative without destroying the latter. The THE MAHABHARATA.
main plot of the poem, Dr. Dahlmann argues, is PROFESSOR HOLTZMANN's four volumes on intended to illustrate the persecution of the just the Mahabhirata in the East and West have by the unjust and the final triumph of innocence.
1 Das Muhabharata ala Epos strul Rechtsbuch. Von Joseph Dahlmann, S. J. Berlin : 1895.
