Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 74

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(APRIL, 1933
in his genuine poems and the language and style in general seem to me quite certainly to belong to a later epoch. The preoccupation with sound in preference to senae is also symptomatic of lateness and I miss the closely packed construction and the carefully arranged balance which is so characteristic of Ašvaghoșa. Further the latter's affection for similes is not to be found here and it looks as if the one elaborate comparison, that in verse 12, is an attempt to improve on Raghuvamsa, vi, 85. Confrontation of the passages of this poem describing Måra's temptation with canto xiii of the Buddhacarita will make these points clear. It will be noted that verse 20 refers to Kashmir, showing that the poem was written there; that Tomits the name is not sufficient reason for doubting the reconstruction of it from C, since we know from the Sragdhardstotra, a work of the eighth century and in a style which seems to be later than that of the Gandistotra, that this form of composition was practised there. Ašvaghosa is described in the colophons of his two epics as belonging to Saketa, though there is a tradition that he went to live in Kashmir. If we could have held that the poem was his, this would have been admirable corroboration of the tradition, but, as it is, in the absence of any cogent evidence I conclude on subjective grounds that the poem, so far from being from his hand, is of a date posterior by some centuries to him and is not necessarily all by the same hand or of the same date.
In the translation I have only used asterisks to show the sounds of the gong, which in some of the earlier verses drown the words. These sounds are represented in a way evidently intended to suggest the mood of the words obliterated by them and probably reproduce the various methods in which the gong could be struck, like the sounds which the Bharatiya Natyasástra uses for beating a drun. The variants given omit unimportant errors in C but give H's reading wherever I have departed from his text.
TUGTENTIA, THE LAUDS OF THE GONG.
यः पूर्व बोधिमूने रविगमनपथान्मार गागृङ्गागागृङ्गागागृङ्गागगागृहानघधनषद् बद्धसंनद्धकः। यः स्त्रीभिर्दिव्यरूपैर् दुदुपतिदुदुभिर्ददुदूभिर्दुदूभिः क्षोभं नैवानुयातः सुरनरनमितः पातु वः शाक्यसिंहः ॥१॥ Var. b, ETC; DET,T;°95 27°, H.
c. gegragstheera GTA:, T. 1. The Lion of the Sakyas, adored by gods and men, did not waver of yore benoath the 'Treo of Illumination before the . . . . of Mâra, as they, from the path where the sun travels, . . . . with their bodies girt in armour, or before the divine forms of women..... May He protect you !
In a T takes mara as the first part of marayata, but nowhere else does the gong drown part of a word and despite the parallels quoted by H for the use of such expressions by the demons, it seems better to take it as the first word of a compound, the rest of which is obliterated. In 6 T either read baddhasamnáhakakşaih or else took sarnaddha in the sense of samnáha. It renders kakşa by lus, 'body,' and i translate accordingly. It might also mean, with their clothes tightly girt up.' But kakşdsanndha is used in Brhatsamhita (ed. Bombay, 1897), 94, 13 (in other editions 96, 4), for harnessing an elephant, and in accordance with the simile common in kávya of lions defeating elephants we may possibly have to understand here that Mara's followers are depicted as elephants conquered by the lion of the sakyas ; if so, translate, 'with their girths tightly bound.'
यः कन्दपाङ्गनाना कहकहककहाहाहहीति प्रहास&: Friarzami aizaaizaazaa ait: 1