________________
alluded to by Patanjali was Menander, because it has been inferred from Strabo that he reached the Yamunā on his Indian expedition. Now Strabo speaks of Isamos and not of Yamunā, but it is of course very likely that Lassen was right in his emendation of the passage, reading Yamunā into the text. But then Säketa is a long way to the east of the Yamunā, and there is absolutely no information to the effect that Menander transgressed that river. Strabo remarks that he crossed the Hypanis, which may be the Hyphasis, but he does not make a similar remark with regard to the Yamunā. And if Demetrios is really mentioned in the Khāravela inscription, we must necessarily inser that he was the ruler who according to Patañjali besieged Sāketa and Madhyamikā. In other words, Patañjali wrote the third book of his commentary about B.C. 174. If Khāravela was anointed king in or a little before B.C. 180, he must have been born in or a little before B.C. 205, for we are told in II.2 - 3 that, after having
aving completed his twenty-fourth year, he was anointed mahārāja in the third generation of the royal family of Kalinga, tatiye kalimgarājavase (or vamsa) purisayuge mahārāj(a) bhisecanam pāpunāti. I think it unnecessary to discuss the various readings suggested of this passage, because they do not affect the sense, in which I am, for the present, solely interested. I shall only mention that the words have been considered by Mr. Jayaswal to imply that Khāravela's line was the third royal dynasty of Kalinga. I do not, however, think that purisayuge can mean, as suggested by him, 'for a generation', or, as the compound has been translated by Mr. R.C. Majumdar', 'in the make line'. It must, I think, mean, as it was translated by Professor Luders, ‘in a generation', and it must be taken together with tatiye. If the correct reading is vamsa, the compound ending with that word forms a new compound with purisayuge; if kalimgarājavamse proves to be the correct reading, we must translated. 'within the royal lineage of Kalinga'. At all events, Khāravela was the third king of his dynasty, and if we assume a duration of thirty years for each of the two preceding generations, we arrive at the result that the dynasty came into power about B.C. 240, i.e. about fifteen years after Asoka's conquest of Kalinga. I think that we can safely infer the Khāravela's family rose to power about the time of Asoka's viceroy in Tosali, who later on made himself independent of Magadha. It has usually been assumed that the name of the dynasty was Ceta, while its members used the titles and designations aira, mahārāja and
T
WEI 31941 , 2006 -
-
109
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
