Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 270

266
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[NOVEMBER, 1912.
K shiragvami tells us that Raghu encountered the Hûņas in the Vahlika-desa, where the saffron plant was cultivated. If this view is accepted, the reading pangare adopted by Mallinatha, a commentator of the fourteenth century and a native of Southern India, mast be abandoned. Before examining the other reading rate, I shall try to settle the date of Vallabha, who gives this latter reading. On the word asa ocearring in on 32919
: (Kumdrasambhata I. 35), Vallabha remarks: prefata ATT TT TT .....5 5T* fara sa anarTe facea Ta These remarks are thus reproduced by Vardhamana : वबभस्य तु तिङन्तप्रतिरूपको निपात इति न सम्मतम् | ताशस्येव तिङन्तस्वाभावास् |
Ganaratnamahodadhi I 13. Benares Edition, p. 16. Mallinâtba says:
वल्लभस्तु न तिङन्तप्रतिरूपकमव्ययम् । अस्त' इति भ्वादेशनियमातादृक्तिन्तस्यैवाभावात् | किन्तु कवीनामय प्रामादिकः प्रयोगः इत्याह।
Vallabha, who is quoted by Vardhamana, mentions Biblana in his comments on the last verse of Magha's Kavi-vanía-varnana in his sisupalaradha. On these grounds we may safely assign Vallabha to the first half of the twelfth century. It is a well-known fact that he was a native of Kishmir. These facts invest his opinion with exceptional importance. In the above passage cited from Kalidasa, Vallabha reads F and explains it thus TFT
* Teatret. According to Kshfrasvåmi, Vahlika-desa or Bactria was the country where Raghu encountered the HQņas, and this region was, in Vallabha's opinion, watered by the river Varkû. In the fifteenth canto of the Raghuvainsa, verse 89, the towns of Taksbasila and Pashkalâvatt are mentioned. The last named town was called by the Greeks Peukelaotis. In the Greek form of this word the letters is superfluous, and the letter o corresponds to the Sanskrit va. According to this rule, the Greek word Oxas, the name of the celebrated river, would be in Sanskrit; and in Pråkpit it would be spelt and pronounced 46. The sign for doubling being mistaken for anusvára, the word would be pronounced Vaikų. The Sanskrit form Vakshû, with a saperflaous nasal, would be pronounced Vankshů. It is thus plain that the Vankú or Vankshû river is the Oxas river. It is interesting to note here that the famous Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang calls this river Pochu or Fochu. This Chinese came is only a phonetio transcription of the Indian form of the name Vaksbû or Vakků. Va answers to the Chinese po or fo, as in Molopo for Málava, or in Nafo-ti-po-ko-lo for Navadevakula, while the Indian ksha or kka corresponds to the Chinese ch, as in Ta-cha-shi-lo for Takshasila or Takkasilâ. Thus the Chinese form of the name of the river Oxas, Pochu or Fochu, presupposes the Indian original Vakshů or Valka, mispronounce Vankshû or Vanků.
We have thus soon that in the opinion of Kshirasvami and Vallabha, Kalidasa makes Raghu invade the northern country and conquer the Hûņas, who had already established themselves on the banks of the Oxas in Baotria. General Cunningham says: "According to the Chinese authorities the white Hung first appeared in the countries on the Oxos in the beginning of the fifth century" and then gives a list of the Hûņa kings who ruled on the Oxus. Mr. V. A. Smith, in his Early History of India, p. 297, says that the Huns were in the Oxus
• Read TITEITSD. C. Ms. No. 72 of 1888-84. * Some manuoripta of Vallabha's commontary read : • S. P. Pandit'e Ed. of Raghu, potea, p. lii.
Watter's Yuan Chwang, VOL. II, pp. 32-18. . Four D. O. MSS. of Raghwania and its commentaries read Vank and two read Vankeha. • Ephthalites or White Huns, Transactions of the Ninth Congress of Orientalists,