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SEPTEMBER, 1908.) MATRICETA AND THE MAHARAJAKANIKALEKHA.
849
The Epistle contains. one, and perhaps. two other indications whiol may some day aid in establishing the identity of this king. In v. 47 he is clearly described as a northern king, and adviseil to add dignity to that region by endowing the temples. In v. 83 the words since we cannot
look upon the hurtful sun, act, O moon of kings, like the moon' must to students of Indian poetry suggest a play upon words, while another verse (No. 49) seems to speak of the king's family as the
sun of the Arya race. As I am unable to unravel these allusions, I must for the present be content with calling attention to the facts.
There are also two other small facts of which it may be worth while to take notice liere. In one of the Tibetan works dorling with Li-yul, or Khotan, which Bockhill has excepted in his Life of the Buddba,' a mention is made of a king of Kanika and of a people called Gujan.
The text runs thus: -.ka. ni kahi orgyal. po dan guzan gyi.rgyal.po.dan li. rje.rgyal.po.vi.ja .ys. kir.tila.sogs.pas .rgya.gar.yuldu.dmagdrans.nas. so.ked .ces. bgyi.bahi.gros. kbyer.phab«pahi.tshe | rgyal. po vijaya.kir.tis.sari.ram.man po.ig. rõen.payan.phranohi .mchod.rten.dehi.nan du stsal,
Translation: The king Kanika (or is it the king of Kanika'?) and the king of Guzan and king Vijayakirti, lord of Li, and others having led an army into India and overthrown the * city of Soked (Säketa), king Vijayakirti, obtaining many kariras, then bestowed them in that Stupa of Phru.io.'
The reference here would certainly seem to be, however mistakenly expressed, to Kanigka, and in the Guzan we cannot fail to recognize the Kuaņas of the coins and inscriptions, more especially as the form gupaņa is actually recorded in two places (see M, Lévi's article, Journal Asiatique, Sér, IX, Vol. IX. (1897) p. 40).
The other fact bears upon the question of the identity of Asvaghoya and Mátricota. The hymn in 150 versos is ascribed in the colophon to Agvaghoga. Nevertheless, the extended form in 400 verses, whicb bears the name Miárakastotra, is assigned not to Afvaghoga and Dignāga, but to Mātricea and Dignage, and this in agreement with the statements of I-tsing, who apparently distinguishes between the two poets and names the hymn in 150 stotras as the most celebrated work of Matricea (trans. pp. 156-7 and 165-6). What then are we to think of the facts adduced by M. Sylvain Lévi concerning the 5th verse in this hymn, which recurs also (ncc. to the statement of M. Lévi) in the Sütrālamkāra of Asvaghoga? The Tibetan text of the hymn reads as follows:
I rgya.mtshor .gs .gin.bu.ga .ral
russbal. mgrin.pa.chud. pabžin damchos. dgah.ston.cher.bcas pahi
minid. bdag .gis. thob nasni Translation :- When like the neck of a tortoise, entering the hole of a yoke in the ocean, I had obtained the state of man, attended with the great festival of the good religion.'
The reference to the blind tortoise, which rises from the bottom of the ocean once in a hundred years and by a rare chance happens to insert his neck into a yoke floating on the surface of the ocean,
11 Mr, Levi, in the articles before oited (Vol. VIII. PP. 449-451), rogards king Kanika as an invention of Taranatha, at least so far as he is distinguished from Kaniska. Even this, however, is not free from diffionlty. For the Epistle of Matrioota is addressed as to young man, and certainly we cannot suppose the author, already old and inflrm, to have subsequently become a courtier of the king, as the stories relato oonooming Asvaghop. Another of these diffioulties, which we must raise, however reluctantly, concerns the stories of Kapipka related in the Sutrālapkira by Alvaghopa himself (Vol. VIII. Pp. 453-88). Are we to understand that these are told by # oontemporary of his patron king P The extracts given by M, Lévi do not produce that improssion: but of this only a Chinese scholar oan judge.
Can Kasike have boon named Candra-Kanika or Capde-Kanika?
