Indian Antiquary Vol 31

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

Page 13

JANUARY, 1902.)
THE MAHABHARATA QUESTION.
which corresponds to the avestic naon haithya, the demon of vanity, and that, precisely in virtue of this fault, Nakula and Sahadeva do not reach the svarga. Is there not a common origin? The principal hero, who gains the bride and whom Draupadi prefers above all - proference for which she is punished in the end - is Arjuna ; and for this reason, his son is the true heir. Finally I may mention that in the Mujmil-at-Tavarikh the five brothers are begotten long after På du's death by inhabitants of the atmosphere' (sAkindn i hará), which points to their being individuals without fixed lineage. In fact the god 'Dharma is but an imaginary personality.
To sum up, the Pandava are true Indians, and there is no reason to assume that the pivot of their great national epos was modelled on the customs of a foreign people.
IV.-Date. Regarding the date of the diaskeuasis, we can only look for internal evidence in the epic itself. An often quoted passage of the Vanaparvan proves, as has been pointed out by Barth (L. c., p. 42), that Dahlmann is wrong in placing the compilation before Baddha. Besides that the Mahabharata itself professes to be written down, and nothing written has been found which goes back to a time before the third century B, C. (Barth, I. c., p. 39). Hopkins (A. J. Pk., 1898, p. 22; of. Jacobi, G. G. N., 1896, p. 55) also accepts this as the higher limit. On tje other hand the signs for the liquid vowels are said to have been invented either by Nagarjuna or by Sarvavaman, who lived in the second century A. D., and it would bare been well-nigh impossible to write down a Sanskrit text without them. Of course, it does not follow from this circumstance that the poem did not exist
orally in its Sanskrit garb before that latter period; on the contrary several reasons seem to prove that - this was really the case.
First, Bühler has shown that the katasdhasri sanihitá existed ca. 500 A: D.,13 but that its compilation in all probability was to be pushed back by four to five centuries and perhaps even further (Indian Studies, 1892, p. 27). Jacobi holds now the same view (G. G. 4., 1899, p. 882). Then, Weber has long ago (I. St., XIII., p. 357) alleged a passage of Dio Chrysostomus, in which this author mentions the Indian Homer, and this quotation goes back to the second century B. O. To the same epoch point two facts brought to light by Kielborn (J. R. 4. S., 1898, pp. 18 sq.) and d'Oldenburg (R. H. R., 1898, p. 848). The first is that the epic Sanskrit, as well as the Pali of the Jatako have much in common with the language used by Patanjali in his Mahabhdeya, a work composed in all probability in the second century B.C.; the second is that the bisastanyopákhyána of the XIIIth book, ch. 93 and 94, oceurs in the Pâli and the Sanskrit Jataka-collection with many coincidences of detail, and is represented on the Stupa of Bharhut, which has been constructed ca. 150 B. C. Finally it may be worth recording that Asvaghoßa mentions in the Buddhacarital several epic personages, that in the Lalitavistara the Påņdava are spoken of as belonging to one family, and that in the inscription of Pulumayi, which dates before 150 A.D., Kroņa, Arjana, Nabuşa'and Janamējaya are alluded to (Lévi, Rev. Cr., 1893, Vol. I., p. 281). Although Asvaghoss lived in the first century A. D., he drew of course from older sources, and the same may be supposed of the authors of the Lalitavistara and the insoription.
We come, then, to the conclusion that a committee of rhapsodiste collected in the second centary B. C. the most popular songs into one large work, translating them at the same time into Sanskrit. This work was handed down orally till the second century A. D. and then written down.
Now the question arises, if we know of an event, which could possibly induce the bards to gather together the “disjecta membra" of the tradition of the past. I think there was one. As long 28 Indis proper was under the sway of kings favourable to the Buddhista, we can hardly imagine the
Professor Hörnle hun kindly drwn my attention to this point. # This was also the opinion of Cunningham (Bhila Tepes, p. 187).
And in the Vajrasiict, but it is doubtful, whether this work is of the
author.