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224
ANUGÎTA.
their native land than its form and extent. It follows consequently that this enumeration of mountains does not require the date of the Anugitå to be brought down to a later period than the fourth century B.C., and leaves it open to us, therefore, to accept whatever conclusion the other evidence available may seem to justify. On the other hand, it is plain also, that it affords no positive information as to when the Anugitâ was composed, and therefore we need not dwell any further upon the point on the present occasion.
There are a few other points which arise upon the contents of the Anugîtå, but which are not, in the present condition of our knowledge, capable of affording any certain guidance in our present investigation. Thus we have the story of Dharma appearing before king Ganaka disguised as a Brahmana. I am not aware of any case of such disguises occurring in any of the Upanishads, although there are numerous parallel instances throughout the Puranik literature. It is, however, difficult to draw any definite chronological inserence from this fact. There is further the reference to the attack of Rahu on the sun. It is difficult, in the present state of our knowledge, to say for certain, when the theory of eclipses there implied was prevalent. In the K handogya. upanishad ? we have the emancipated self compared to the moon cscaped from the mouth of Råhu. And a text of the Rig-veda, quoted by Mr. Yagãesvara Sastrin in his Aryavidyasudhakara ), speaks of the demon Râhu attacking the sun with darkness. Here again we have another matter of some interest; but I cannot sce that any safe deduction can be derived from it, without a more ample knowledge of other relevant matters than is at present accessible. Take again the references to certain practices which look very much like the practices of the Gainas of the present day. Is the Anugita, then, carlier or later than the rise of the Gaina system? It is not safe, I think, to found an answer to this question upon the very narrow basis afforded by the
"And see, too, Kalidasa Kumara V, st. 84
P. 629. · P. 26. ln Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa the true explanation of eclipecs is alladed to. Sec Canto XIV, 40.
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