Indian Antiquary Vol 46

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

Page 92

80
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( APRIL, 1617
book under review): “KAlidasa must have writ. same people on the banks of the Oxus and defeatten his versus about the HÀņas shortly after 460, ed them there, would have been incomprehensible the date of the establishment of the Häna empiro to Kalidaa's contemporaries. The reference is, in the Oxus Basin, but before their first defeat in any case, too vague to admit of exact chronolo(A. D. 450-455), when they were still in the Oxus gical computations like those which Prof. Pathak Velloy and considered the most inivncible Warriors attempts. of their ayo"; and all this, because it was on the
The determination of the date of Kalidasa is, as banks of the Oxus (Vankshu) that Raghu during
remarked above, only one of the questiona doalt the course of his digvijaya is represented by Kili.
with in the introduction. Another topio discussed desa (anachronistically, adds Prof. Pathak) to have
there is the value of Vallabha's Commentary on encountored the Hôņa hordes. It is no doubt pog.
the Meghadata in settling the question the spu. si blo to argue in this way, but the conclusion of
rious verses. The verdict of Prof. Pathak is not the Professor is by no means inevitable. The
favourable to the commentator. Dr. Hultrach, it Hoņas are evidently introduced as a type of people
would appear, misguided by the opinion of the who had impreased the minds of Indians as formid.
Pandits Durgaprasad and Parab regarding the age able foes on the battlefield; and Prof. Pathak is
of Vallabha, identifies him with Kaiyata's grandperfootly right in implying that thu Ephthalitos
father of that name and assigna him therefore to belong to a category different from that of the
the first half of the tenth century (see Hultsach's classical enemies of the conquering hero, such as
edition of the Meghadila, Preface, p. ix). Prof. the kings of the Chola, Pandye, Kalinga and other
Pathak would rather place him two centuries later, kingdoms. But this estimation of their fighting
and the reasons adduced by him in support of his qualities was hardly possible to be formed, unless the Indians of Kalidasa's time had known the
opinion are worthy of careful consideration. If
it turn out that the Professor's surmise of the age nomadic hordes nearer at hand then from the remote
of Vallabhadeva is correct, this circumstance would Oxus Valley. To the same conclusion points the
detract considerably from the value to which the use of the phrase kapolapdf anadesi by Kalidasa, in the same work (oanto 4, verse 88), which discloses
commentary might otherwise be entitled on grounds close intimacy with the customs and manners
of its supposed antiquity. In any event, Prof. peculiar to the White Huns. It would be, therefore,
Pathak attaches far too much importance to this
fact; for it must be remembered that even the equally legitimate to assign Kalidasa to an opoch
author of the Paradbhyudaya is separated by at of Indian history following shortly on the expulsion
least two centuries from the time of Kalidt of the Hans hordes from the confines of India proper. This would be a time when the picture of
period which is long enough in India to engender. their ferocious barbarity was still vividly present
interpolations. Each work represents the version to the minds of the poet's contemporaries, and
looally ourront at the particular opoch to which
the commentator belongs. And neither in one 0940 reference to the rout of the Hoņas would have
the seclusion of the Kalmir Valley, nor in the other, immediately and strikingly appealed to the imagina. tion of the readers. Thus, even under these cir
the proximity to the poet by admitting Prof.
Pathak's estimation to be correct three centuries, cumstances there would be nothing incongruous in
is a sufficient guarantee of the entire purity of the the fact of the poet making Ragbu encounter the retreating Hapas in their epic 'home of the Vank.
reepootive texte. shu Valley. The upshot of this antinomian argu
In reprinting the text of Mallinatha's commenCentation seems to be to exclude the possibility of tary Prof. Pathak has introduced an innovation. referring Kalidasa to the period in which the Eph- Ho has expunged the remarks of the commentthaliter oocupied the position of Paramount sove. tor regarding the spuriousness of certain vorses, reigns within the limits of India. For, on the procedure which, being misleading, is not comcontrary supposition, with the Hopas actually hold. mondablo. ing their own in the Panjab and parts of Central India, the statement that Raghu fought with these
V. B. SUKTHAMAR