________________
DECEMBER, 1926 ]
BOOK-NOTICES
than usual into those most erudite arguments and (p. 36) arrives at the conclusion that the dramas "published under the title of Bhasa's Works are not really the works of Bhasa at all," but of some poets of Kerala-"not of any one poet in particular, not even of Saktibhadra." They are "mete compilations got up to meet a local demand for dramatic works." And this point he takes some trouble to make good (pp. 37-47).
Mr. Pisharoty's final conclusion (p. 47) runs as follows: "From whatever point we may view these thirteen anonymous dramas, we are driven to conclude, not only that they are not Bhasa's works, but that they could all of them never have been the works of any one poet : that, on the other hand they are but compilations made by Kerala poets to suit a new style of staging Sanskrit dramas by the Chakkiyars on the reformed stage: that original compositions failing to satisfy the increased demand for dramas, systematic compilation must have set in, which meant the borrowing of every dramatic concept and poetic expression that came handy to the compilers from older works, or condensing, or partitioning them if their structure or length permitted or called for such treatment with a view to produce a sufficient number of suitable dramas for the reformed stage." R. C. TEMPLE.
ASOKA, by D. R. BHANDARKAB, M.A., (The Carmichael Lectures, 1923); published by the University
of Calcutta, 1925.
Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar has taken no small part during the last ten or fifteen years in the interpretation, collation and unification of the lithic records of the emperor Asoka, and is therefore better qualified than most people to give a picture of the life of the Asokan age. He gives as his reason for the publication of the present work the fact that, despite the large amount of research already conducted by scholars into the details of Asoka's position and career, the actual interpretation of the famous records is by no means yet completed beyond a shadow of doubt, and that there is still work to be accomplished in piecing together the information available in the various imperial Edicts. Some of the information contained in the present work has already been made availablo in the works of other scholars, and his comparison of Asoka's position towards Buddhism with that of St. Paul towards Christianity will also be found in Dr. V. A. Smith's Early History of India. But there are various items of information and several suggestions in the course of the work which are the outcome of Dr. Bhandarkar's own painstaking research, and it is on these that the reader will concentrate his attention. In the first chapter he is careful to show that the formula which open the Inscriptions is probably derived from Persia and was perhaps a legacy of the Achaemenian conquest and administration of northern India, and
239
that Piyadarsin was a biruda or epithet of Asoka, just as Piyadassana was of Chandragupta Maurya, according to a Ceylonese chronicle. Devanampriya, on the other hand, was an honorific or auspicious mode of addressing or referring to rulors, and was applied equally to Tissa of Ceylon and to King Dasaratha in the cave inscriptions of the Nagarjuni Hill.
Perhaps the most important suggestion in the first chapter concerns the dates given in the Asokan inscriptions. Dr. Bhandarkar holds that all the dates are those of current regnal years, in opposition to the view hitherto held by scholars, and further that there are really no grounds for supposing that Asoka's actual coronation took place four years after his accession. His view certainly appears to draw weight from the passage regarding the release of prisoners at the end of Pillar Edict V; and if it is accepted, it involves a revision of the dates of other incidents of his reign, e.g., his conversion, to Buddhism, which according to Dr. Bhandarkar must have occurred in the eighth regual year. Other interesting facts deduced from the inscriptions are that Asoka's nakshatra was Tishya, and that the emperor possessed an avarodhana or zenana, containing pardah' ladies of lower rank than his two queens. In a later chapter Dr. Bhandarkar exposes the fallacy of the view that the seclusion of women was introduced into India by the Muhamand Kalidasa and Vatayayana refer in their res madans. He shows that the dramatists Bhasa pective works to the custom, and that Asoka's had its counterpart or model in the antahpura avarodhana or inner closed female apartments' or harem mentioned in the Arthaddstra, and he quotes an even earlier phrase of Panini to prove the antiquity of this feature of social life. Interesting also is the identification in the course of the second chapter of the various countries, provinces and peoples mentioned in the Inscriptions. The Yona (Yavana) province, for example, Dr. Bhandarkar regards as a Greek colony of the period preceding Alexander's invasion, situated on the north-west boundary of India between the Kophen and Indus rivers. Its headquarters were prohably at the ancient place, called Po-lu-sha by Hiuen Tsiang, remains of which have been found near Shahbazgarhi. Kamboja, which included the present Hazara Dietrict, was contiguous to Yona. More remarkable, however, is Dr. Bhandarkar's interpretation of the word Petenika, which is associated with Rustika and Bhoja in the inecriptions. Rejecting the hitherto accepted view that this word (in the plural) means 'inhabitants of Paithan,' he regards it as an adjectival noun signifying 'one who enjoys hereditary property,' and that its juxtaposition with Bastika and Bhoja indicates that the Mahârâthis of the Deccan and the Mahabhojas of the N. Konkan bad in course of time become independent hereditary chieftains in their respective portions of Aparanta.
