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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(JUNE, 1924
brother's daughter, Subhadra (Krshna's sister). We need not examine here whether Krohna and Arjuna were Aryans or Non-Aryans, to determine whether the custom was Aryan or Non-Aryan. Anyhow it shows that the custom prevailed in Northern India. Arjuna married her in the Rakshasa form by abducting her, which involved him in a fight with the Yadavas, his cross-cousin relations. This may point to the rivalry adverted to by Mr. Hocart, but then it militates against the great friendship which existed between Krshṇa and the Pandavas. King Avimâraka in Bhasa's drama Avimaraka marries Kurangi, the daughter of his mother's brother, Kuntibhoja. Madhavâcârya in his commentary on Parâsara Samhita says that though marriage with a mother's brother's daughter is against the practice of wise men in Northern India (Udicyagishta garhitam) yet being a good practice in the Dekhan, this system is not indecorous (avinita) in Northern India. The Crulis support it (matúlasutavivdhasydnugrahakdh Çrubyádayah), and he quotes Rg Veda (7. 4. 3. 22. 6-lyptan jahurmátulasyeva yosha, etc.), as being the mantravarna used in that marriage. References to this marriage are also contained in Kumarila Bhatta's Tantravártika (pp. 127-129, Benares edition) and Viramitrodaya-Samskara-prakaca (pp. 139–141, 172, 203)14. But as I have not suffi. ciently investigated this line of evidence, I am unable to say if it strengthens Mr. Hocart's theory of cross-cousin rivalry. Mysterious are the ways in which the seeds and pollen of a myth or custom are carried and propagated and Mr. Hocart's theory demands serious investigation. CULTURAL, LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY HISTORICAL GLEANINGS
FROM THE KAUTILIYA.
BY HERMANN JACOBI. (From the Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, XLIV, 1911--Sitzung der phil.-hist. Classe vom 2 November, pages 954—973).
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY NARAYAN BAPUJI UTGIKAR, M.A. (954) Till recently, the oldest work of Sanskrit literature, that could be dated with reasonable probability, was Patañjali's Mahabharya, belonging approximately to the second part of the second century BC. Through the discovery and publication of the Kauţii ya, the Book of Polity by Kautilya, the chronologically certified basis for cultural and literaryhistorical investigations is further pushed back to the juncture of the fourth and the third century BC. The date of the composition of this work becomes well-nigh certain through the personality of its author, Kautilya, also known as Visnugupta and CAnakya. This person is indeed, as he himself says at the end of his work, in a verse breathing proud selfconsciousness, the same as the famous minister of Candragupta, who overthrew the dynasty of the Nandas. Now, as Candragupta, the EAN V PAKOTTOX of the Greek writers, ascended the throne between 320-315 B.O., the composition of the Kautiliya must be placed about 300 B.C., or a few years earlier.
However, it is not only the well-established antiquity of the Kautilya that makes it historical source of the first order; to this is to be also added a second important consideration, namely, that its author long occupied the first place in the management and direction of a great state, in the foundation and organisation of which he had the most important part. If such a man endowed with versatile learning writes, after having inastered the works
14 For the information contained in this and the preceding line, I am indebted to Pundit Harihara Sastri. 1 Compare the opening words: far
e merfor er : Ferrarför प्रायशस्तानि संहत्यकामिदमर्थशास्त्रं कृतम। .
