Indian Antiquary Vol 51

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

Page 57

MABOX, 1922)
THE DATE OF THE MUDRA-RAKSHASA
Translation. For fifteen months we fought in France, eating much mud ; in 1916 there was garrison duty, having come to Egypt.
From India a letter comes in an envelope of paper : the 2/3rd Gurkhas must again fight in the land of Egypt.
Sitting in the trenches we fought, taking aim with the rifle. The 232 (Brigade) attacked; the Turks ran away.
Horse and foot move along the shore, men-of-war on the sea. On the first day fighting, in twenty days we reached the Turkish capital.
The Turk saw: the British surrounded them at this moment in the battle. Now is there hope for me of arriving among the people of my home.
The Gurkha soldiers advanced, having courage in their breasts; the Turkish army wo made to lift up their hands, distressing them in battle.
Notes. As opposed to the artificial metres in Nepali (e.g., the translation of the Mahabharat) which are made to depend on a system of quantity no longer existing, this popular metre depends on stress accent. The normal scansion here (supposing to represent a stressed syllable and an unstressed) is :
- - - - - - |- - - - - This shows very plainly the initial stregs of Nepali words. The English choras evidently oould not be quite fitted into the metre by its composers !
lipha : loanword from H. lifafa with haplology.
raddhani < råjdhani : here Aleppo, not Constantinople, Cf. below khodda kheri thoj. dakheri.
uprawn < uthauna. bydl< behdi.
(To be continued.)
THE DATE OF THE MUDRA-RAKSHASA.
.. BY V. J. ANTANI, M.A. Mr. K. P. Jayaswal has, ante, Vol. XLII, pp. 265-267, proposed the time of Chandragupta II for the date of the Mudrd-Rakshasa. His grounds for thus fixing the date in the fifth century A.D. Was his discovery in the bharata-udkya of that drama. This for the present purpose I quote in full :
वाराहीमात्मयोनेस्तनुमवनविधावस्थितस्यानुरूपां. * i waraftar Perform मलेच्छेहरिचमाना अजबुगमधुना संश्रिता पममूः
स श्रीमन्मभूत्याधिरमवतु महीं पार्थिवचन्द्रगुप्तः॥ The expressions in the above quotation on which Mr. Jayaswal bases his proposition, and lays his greatest stress, are adhund and Chandragupta. They suggest to him that the Mudrd-Rakshasa must have been written in the fifth century A.D. He says: “ The bharaiaodbye to the play names the reigning monarch at present (adhund) .... may long reign king Chandragupta."
He then essays to find out which Chandragupta is meant, and comes to the conclusion that he could have been no other than Chandragupta II. He is aware that there are difficulties in assuming the term Mléchchha to mean HQņa, and as to the meaning of the terns udvijya. mand. The first he endeavours to overcome by ascertaining that the Hanas, though they POBBessed no territory in India at the time, were well-known to the Indians ; that they had had no prominent position in the minds of the Indians previously, as proved by the fact that