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Tapa Shotor
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/26/21


Tapa Shotor
(Hadda)
Tapa Shotor seated Buddha, with Classical figures of Herakles (left, as Vajrapani) and Tyche (right, as Hariti), in Niche V2, 2nd century CE. Photographed in 1981 by Louis Dupree, before its destructions by the Talibans in 1992.[1][2]

Tapa Shotor is located in Afghanistan
Type: Buddhist monastery
History
Founded: 1st century BCE
Abandoned: 9th century CE


Head of a Buddha or Bodhisattva, facing (4th-5th century), probably Hadda, Tapa Shotor.[3][4]


Seated Buddha, Tapa Shotor (Niche V1).

Tapa Shotor, also Tape Shotor or Tapa-e-shotor ("Camel Hill"),[5] was a large Sarvastivadin Buddhist monastery near Hadda, Afghanistan, and is now an archaeological site.[6]

The Sarvāstivāda was one of the early Buddhist schools established around the reign of Asoka (third century BCE). It was particularly known as an Abhidharma tradition, with a unique set of seven Abhidharma works.

The Sarvāstivādins were one of the most influential Buddhist monastic groups, flourishing throughout North India (especially Kashmir) and Central Asia until the 7th century. The orthodox Kashmiri branch of the school composed the large and encyclopedic Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra around the time of the reign of Kanishka (c. 127–150 CE).

The Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra is an ancient Buddhist text. It is thought to have been authored around 150 CE. It is an encyclopedic work on Abhidharma, scholastic Buddhist philosophy. Its composition led to the founding of a new school of thought, called Vaibhāṣika ('those [upholders] of the Vibhāṣa'), which was very influential in the history of Buddhist thought and practice.

-- Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra, by Wikipedia

Because of this, orthodox Sarvāstivādins who upheld the doctrines in the Mahāvibhāṣa were called Vaibhāṣikas.

The Sarvāstivādins are believed to have given rise to the Mūlasarvāstivāda sect as well as the Sautrāntika tradition, although the relationship between these groups has not yet been fully determined.

Sarvāstivāda is a Sanskrit term that can be glossed as: "the theory of all exists". The Sarvāstivāda argued that all dharmas exist in the past, present and future, the "three times". Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośakārikā states, "He who affirms the existence of the dharmas of the three time periods [past, present and future] is held to be a Sarvāstivādin."

-- Sarvastivada, by Wikipedia

According to archaeologist Raymond Allchin, the site of Tapa Shotor suggests that the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara descended directly from the art of Hellenistic Bactria, as seen in Ai-Khanoum.[7]

Bactria, or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia. Bactria proper was north of the Hindu Kush mountain range and south of the Oxus river, covering the flat region that straddles modern-day Afghanistan. More broadly Bactria was the area north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan, covering modern-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well, with the Amu Darya flowing west through the centre.

Called "beautiful Bactria, crowned with flags" by the Avesta, the region is one of the sixteen perfect Iranian lands that the supreme deity Ahura Mazda had created. One of the early centres of Zoroastrianism and capital of the legendary Kayanian kings of Iran, Bactria is mentioned in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great as one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire; it was a special satrapy and was ruled by a crown prince or an intended heir. Bactria was the centre of Iranian resistance against the Macedonian invaders after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the 4th century BC, but eventually fell to Alexander the Great. After the death of the Macedonian conqueror, Bactria was annexed by his general, Seleucus I.

Nevertheless, the Seleucids lost the region after declaration of independence by the satrap of Bactria, Diodotus I; thus started history of the Greco-Bactrian and the later Indo-Greek Kingdoms. By the 2nd century BC, Bactria was conquered by the Iranian Parthian Empire, and in the early 1st century, the Kushan Empire was formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories. Shapur I, the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran, conquered western parts of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century, and the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom was formed. The Sasanians lost Bactria in the 4th century, however, it was reconquered in the 6th century. With the Muslim conquest of Iran in the 7th century, Islamization of Bactria began.

Bactria was centre of an Iranian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries, and New Persian as an independent literary language first emerged in this region. The Samanid Empire was formed in Eastern Iran by the descendants of Saman Khuda, a Persian from Bactria; thus started spread of Persian language in the region and decline of Bactrian language.

Bactrian, an Eastern Iranian language, was the common language of Bactria and surroundings areas in ancient and early medieval times.

-- Bactria, by Wikipedia

Ai-Khanoum (Aï Khānum, also Ay Khanum, lit. “Lady Moon” in Uzbek), possibly the historical Alexandria on the Oxus, possibly later named Eucratidia, Εὐκρατίδεια) was one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom from circa 280 BCE, and of the Indo-Greek kings when they ruled both in Bactria and northwestern India, from the time of Demetrius I (200-190 BCE) to the time of Eucratides (170–145 BCE). Previous scholars have argued that Ai Khanoum was founded in the late 4th century BC, following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Recent analysis now strongly suggests that the city was founded c. 280 BC by the Seleucid emperor Antiochus I Soter. The city is located in Takhar Province, northern Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Panj River and the Kokcha River, both tributaries of the Amu Darya, historically known as the Oxus. It is on the lower of two major sets of routes (lowland and highland) which connect Western Asia to the Khyber Pass which gives road access to South Asia.

Ai-Khanoum was one of the focal points of Hellenism in the East for nearly two centuries until its annihilation by nomadic invaders around 145 BCE about the time of the death of Eucratides I.

Eucratides I (reigned c. 171–145 BC), sometimes called Eucratides the Great, was one of the most important Greco-Bactrian kings, descendants of dignitaries of Alexander the Great. He uprooted the Euthydemid dynasty of Greco-Bactrian kings and replaced it with his own lineage. He fought against the Indo-Greek kings, the easternmost Hellenistic rulers in northwestern India, temporarily holding territory as far as the Indus, until he was finally defeated and pushed back to Bactria. Eucratides had a vast and prestigious coinage, suggesting a rule of considerable importance.

-- Eucratides I, by Wikipedia

On a hunting trip in the 1960s, the Afghan Khan Gholam Serwar Nasher discovered ancient artifacts of Ai Khanom and invited Princeton archaeologist Daniel Schlumberger with his team to examine Ai-Khanoum. It was soon found to be the historical Alexandria on the Oxus, also possibly later named Arukratiya or Eucratidia), one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. Some of those artefects were displayed in Europe and USA museums in 2004. The site was subsequently excavated through archaeological work by a French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA) mission under Paul Bernard [fr] between 1964 and 1978, as well as Soviet scientists. The work had to be abandoned with the onset of the Soviet–Afghan War, during which the site was looted and used as a battleground, leaving very little of the original material. In 2013, the film-maker David Adams produced a six-part documentary mini-series about the ancient city entitled Alexander's Lost World.


Gold coin of Eucratides I (171–145 BC), one of the Hellenistic rulers of ancient Ai-Khanoum. This is the largest known gold coin minted in Antiquity (169,20 g; 58 mm).


Corinthian capital, found at Ai-Khanoum in the citadel by the troops of Commander Massoud, 2nd century BC.


Architectural antefixae with Hellenistic "Flame palmette" design, Ai-Khanoum.


Sun dial within two sculpted lion feet.


Winged antefix, a type only known from Ai-Khanoum.


Ai-Khanoum mosaic.


High-relief of a naked man in contrapposto, wearing a chlamys. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Stucco face found in the administrative palace. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC


Sculpture of an old man. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Close-up of the same statue.


Hellenistic gargoyle. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Stone block with the inscriptions of Kineas. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Inscription on one of the vases from the Ai-Khanoum treasury.


Plate depicting Cybele pulled by lions, a votive sacrifice and the Sun God. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Bronze Herakles statuette. Ai-Khanoum. 2nd century BC.


Bracelet with horned female busts. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.


Imprint from a mold found in Ai-Khanoum. 3rd-2nd century BC.


Ai-Khanoum ivory statuette. Temple of Indented Niches.


The Indian plate found in Ai-Khanoum, thought to represent the myth of Kunala (with reconstitution).


Coin of Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles with Hindu deities.


One of the Hellenistic-inspired "flame palmettes" and lotus designs, which may have been transmitted through Ai-Khanoum. Rampurva bull capital, India, circa 250 BCE.


Gold stater of the Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter minted at Ai-Khanoum, c. 275 BCE. Obverse: Diademed head of Antiochus. Reverse: Nude Apollo seated on omphalos, leaning on bow and holding two arrows. Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ (of King Antiochos). Δ monogram of Ai-Khanoum in left field.


Indian Emperor Ashoka addressed the Greeks of the region circa 258 BC in the Kandahar Edict of Ashoka, a bilingual inscription in Greek and Aramaic. Kabul Museum.

-- Ai-Khanoum, by Wikipedia

The site of Tapa Shotor was destroyed by arson and looted in 1992.[1]

Stylistic analysis

In view of the style of the objects found at Tapa Shotor, particularly the clay figures, Allchin suggests that either Bactrian artists came and worked for Buddhist monasteries, or that local artists had become "fully conversant" in Hellenistic art.[7] This opinion was confirmed by the archaeologist who excavated the site Tarzi: "in the light of the latest discoveries there is no longer any doubt about the prolongation of the Graeco-Bactrian artistic past".[8] According to Tarzi, Tapa Shotor, with clay sculptures dated to the 2nd century CE, represents the "missing link" between the Hellenistic art of Bactria, and the later stucco sculptures found at Hadda, usually dated to the 3rd-4th century CE.[1] The sculptures of Tapa Shortor are also contemporary with many of the early Buddhist sculptures found in Gandhara.[1]

Traditionally, the influx of artists conversant in Hellenistic art has been attributed to the migration of the Greek populations from the Greco-Bactrian cities of Ai-Khanoum and Takht-i Sangin.[9]

The ancient town of Takht-i Sangin is located near the confluence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, the source of the Amu Darya [Oxus], in southern Tajikistan.

The Greco-Bactrian temple site of Takht-i Sangin is believed by many to be the source of the Oxus Treasure that now resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum. Part of greater Transoxiana and built in the 3rd Century BC, the site consists of a well-fortified citadel containing the so-called "Temple of Oxus".


Painted clay and alabaster head, Takht-i Sangin, Tajikistan, 3rd-2nd century BCE. Possibly a Zoroastrian priest.


Hellenistic satyr Marsyas from Takhti Sangin, with dedication in Greek to the god of the Oxus, by "Atrosokes", a Bactrian name. 200-150 BCE. Tajikistan National Museum.


Hellenistic statuette from Takhti Sangin, 2nd century BCE, Tajikistan National Museum.


Hellenistic statuette from Takht-i Sangin, 2nd-3rd century BCE, Tajikistan National Museum.


Takht-i Sangin ivory sculpture.


Takht-i Sangin portrait of an old man, 3rd century BCE.


Fragment of the head of an elephant, 3rd-4th century BCE.

-- Takht-i Sangin, by Wikipedia

Tarzi further suggested that Greek populations were established in the plains of Jalalabad, which included Hadda, around the Hellenistic city of Dionysopolis, and that they were responsible for the Buddhist creations of Tapa Shotor in the 2nd century CE.[9]

Nagara (Ancient Greek: Νάγαρα), also known as Dionysopolis (Διονυσόπολις), was an ancient city in the northwest part of India intra Gangem (India within the Ganges), distinguished in Ptolemy by the title ἡ καὶ Διονυσόπολις 'also Dionysopolis'. It also appears in sources as Nagarahara, and was situated between the Kabul River and the Indus, in present-day Afghanistan.

From the second name which Ptolemy has preserved, we are led to believe that this is the same place as Nysa (Νύσα) or Nyssa (Νύσσα), which was spared from plunder and destruction by Alexander the Great because the inhabitants asserted that it had been founded by Dionysus, when he conquered the area and he named the city Nysa and the land Nysaea (Νυσαία) after his nurse and also he named the mountain near the city, Meron (Μηρὸν) (i.e. thigh), because he grew in the thigh of Zeus.

When Alexander arrived at the city, together with his Companion cavalry went to the mountain and they made ivy garlands and crowned themselves with them, as they were, singing hymns in honor of Dionysus. Alexander also offered sacrifices to Dionysus, and feasted in company with his companions. On the other hand, according to Philostratus although Alexander wanted to go up the mountain he decided not to do it because he was afraid that when his men will see the vines which were on the mountain they would feel home sick or they will recover their taste for wine after they had become accustomed to water only, so he decided to make his vow and sacrifice to Dionysus at the foot of the mountain.

The site of Nagara is usually associated with a site now called Nagara Ghundi, about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Jalalabad, south of the junction of the Surkhäb and Kabul rivers, where ancient ruins have been found.

Archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi has suggested that, following the fall of the Greco-Bactrian cities of Ai-Khanoum and Takht-i Sangin, Greek populations were established in the plains of Jalalabad, which included Hadda, around the Hellenistic city of Dionysopolis, and that they were responsible for the Buddhist creations of Tapa Shotor in the 2nd century CE.

-- Nagara (ancient city), by Wikipedia

Haḍḍa is a Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient region of Gandhara, ten kilometers south of the city of Jalalabad, in the Nangarhar Province of eastern Afghanistan.

Hadda is said to have been almost entirely destroyed in the fighting during the civil war in Afghanistan.

Some 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures, both clay and plaster, were excavated in Hadda during the 1930s and the 1970s. The findings combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism in an almost perfect Hellenistic style.

Although the style of the artifacts is typical of the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BCE, the Hadda sculptures are usually dated (although with some uncertainty), to the 1st century CE or later (i.e. one or two centuries afterward). This discrepancy might be explained by a preservation of late Hellenistic styles for a few centuries in this part of the world. However it is possible that the artifacts actually were produced in the late Hellenistic period.

Given the antiquity of these sculptures and a technical refinement indicative of artists fully conversant with all the aspects of Greek sculpture, it has been suggested that Greek communities were directly involved in these realizations, and that "the area might be the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style".

The style of many of the works at Hadda is highly Hellenistic, and can be compared to sculptures found at the Temple of Apollo in Bassae, Greece.

The toponym Hadda has its origins in Sanskrit haḍḍa n. m., "a bone", or, an unrecorded *haḍḍaka, adj., "(place) of bones". The former - if not a fossilized form - would have given rise to a Haḍḍ in the subsequent vernaculars of northern India (and in the Old Indic loans in modern Pashto). The latter would have given rise to the form Haḍḍa naturally and would well reflect the belief that Hadda housed a bone-relic of Buddha. The term haḍḍa is found as a loan in Pashto haḍḍ, n., id. and may reflect the linguistic influence of the original pre-Islamic population of the area.

It is believed the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts-indeed the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts of any kind -- were recovered around Hadda. Probably dating from around the 1st century CE, they were written on bark in Gandhari using the Kharoṣṭhī script, and were unearthed in a clay pot bearing an inscription in the same language and script. They are part of the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect that dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread into central and east Asia via the Silk Road. The manuscripts are now in the possession of the British Library.

-- Hadda, Afghanistan, by Wikipedia

Chronology

According to archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi, the first, pre-monastic, period of Tapa Shotor, corresponds to the reign of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (35-12 BCE).[10]

Azes II ([x]; both from Saka *Aza, meaning "leader".), may have been the last Indo-Scythian king, speculated to have reigned circa 35–12 BCE, in the northern Indian subcontinent (modern day Pakistan). His existence has been questioned; if he did not exist, artefacts attributed to his reign, such as coins, are likely to be those of Azes I.[3]

After the death of Azes II, the rule of the Indo-Scythians in northwestern India and Pakistan finally crumbled with the conquest of the Kushans, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi who had lived in Bactria for more than a century, and who were then expanding into India to create a Kushan Empire.

The Yuezhi were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat by the Xiongnu in 176 BC, the Yuezhi split into two groups migrating in different directions: the Greater Yuezhi and Lesser Yuezhi.

The Greater Yuezhi initially migrated northwest into the Ili Valley (on the modern borders of China and Kazakhstan), where they reportedly displaced elements of the Sakas. They were driven from the Ili Valley by the Wusun and migrated southward to Sogdia and later settled in Bactria. The Greater Yuezhi have consequently often been identified with peoples mentioned in classical European sources as having overrun the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, like the Tókharioi (Greek Τοχάριοι; Sanskrit Tukhāra) and Asii (or Asioi). During the 1st century BC, one of the five major Greater Yuezhi tribes in Bactria, the Kushanas, began to subsume the other tribes and neighbouring peoples. The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak in the 3rd century AD, stretched from Turfan in the Tarim Basin in the north to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain of India in the south. The Kushanas played an important role in the development of trade on the Silk Road and the introduction of Buddhism to China.

The Lesser Yuezhi migrated southward to the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Some are reported to have settled among the Qiang people in Qinghai, and to have been involved in the Liangzhou Rebellion (184–221 AD) against the Chinese Han dynasty. Another group of Yuezhi is said to have founded the city state of Cumuḍa (now known as Kumul and Hami) in the eastern Tarim. A fourth group of Lesser Yuezhi may have become part of the Jie people of Shanxi, who established the Later Zhao state of the 4th century AD (although this remains controversial).

Yuezhi, by Wikipedia

Soon after, the Parthians invaded from the west. Their leader Gondophares temporarily displaced the Kushans and founded the Indo-Parthian Kingdom that was to last until the middle of the 1st century CE.

Parthia is a historical region located in north-eastern Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC, and formed part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire following the 4th-century-BC conquests of Alexander the Great. The region later served as the political and cultural base of the Eastern-Iranian Parni people and Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD). The Sasanian Empire, the last state of pre-Islamic Iran, also held the region and maintained the Seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy.

-- Parthia, by Wikipedia

The Kushans ultimately regained northwestern India circa 75 CE, where they were to prosper for several centuries.


Azes II in armour, riding a horse, on one of his silver tetradrachms, minted in Gandhara


The Bimaran casket, representing the Buddha surrounded by Brahman (left) and Indra (right) was found inside a stupa with coins of Azes II inside. British Museum.


Coin of Azes II with Buddhist triratna symbol.


Coin of Azes II, with a clear depiction of his military outfit, with coat of mail and reflex bow in the saddle.


Azes II in armour, riding a horse, on one of his silver tetradrachms, minted in Gandhara. British Museum. Personal photograph.

-- Azes II, by Wikipedia

The first Buddhist period dates to the reign of Kushan king Huvishka (155-187 CE). This period correspond to the creation of vihara, and niches 1, 2 and 3 in particular.[10] The period after Vasudeva I to the last Kushans (225-350 CE) saw the creation of niche XIII. After the Kushans, a period of the site corresponds to the Kidarites (4th-5th century CE).[10] The site remained inactive for about 250 years, from around 500 to 750 CE. A last period of activity followed, only marked by restorations, before the destruction of the site by fire in the 9th century CE. The period have been structured as follows:[10]

• Tapa Shotor I: Indo-Scythian king Azes II (35-12 BCE)
• Tapa Shotor II: Kushan king Huvishka (155-187 CE). Vihara, and niches V1, V2 and V3
• Tapa Shotor III: (187-191 CE)
• Tapa Shotor IV: Vasudeva I (191-225 CE)
• Tapa Shotor V: Last Kushans (225-350 CE)
• Tapa Shotor VI: Kidarites (350-450 CE)
• Tapa Shotor VII: 5th century
• Tapa Shotor VIII: 6th century. Corresponds to the 1st period of Tape Tope Kalan.
• hiatus (6th-8th century)
• Tapa Shotor IX: mid 8th century-9th century. Destruction by fire

Excavation

The monastery was excavated by an all-Afghan archaeological team. It yieded numerous sculptures in an archaeologically intact environment, providing great insights on the art of the region. A stupa was excavated in the main courtyard.[11]

A coin of the Indo-Greek king Menander was found in the ruins, but the abundance of finds of Kushan coinage suggest a main 4th century CE date for the site.[11]

Menander I Soter ("Menander I the Saviour"; known in Indian Pali sources as Milinda) was an Indo-Greek King of the Indo-Greek Kingdom (165/155 –130 BC) who administered a large empire in the Northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent from his capital at Sagala. Menander is noted for having become a patron of Buddhism.

Menander was initially a king of Bactria. After conquering the Punjab he established an empire in the Indian Subcontinent stretching from the Kabul River valley in the west to the Ravi River in the east, and from the Swat River valley in the north to Arachosia (the Helmand Province). Ancient Indian writers indicate that he launched expeditions southward into Rajasthan and as far east down the Ganges River Valley as Pataliputra (Patna), and the Greek geographer Strabo wrote that he "conquered more tribes than Alexander the Great."

Large numbers of Menander’s coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and longevity of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism, and his conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the important Buddhist work, the Milinda Panha ("The Questions of King Milinda"; panha meaning "question" in Pali). After his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathokleia, the possible daughter of Agatokles, who ruled as regent for his son Strato I. Buddhist tradition relates that he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch relates that he died in camp while on a military campaign, and that his remains were divided equally between the cities to be enshrined in monuments, probably stupas, across his realm...

According to an ancient Sri Lankan source, the Mahavamsa, Greek monks seem to have been active proselytizers of Buddhism during the time of Menander: the Yona (Greek) Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita) is said to have come from "Alasandra" (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today’s Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, during the 2nd century BC:

From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera ("elder") Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus.

— Mahavamsa, XXIX

A coin of Menander I was found in the second oldest stratum (GSt 2) of the Butkara stupa suggesting a period of additional constructions during the reign of Menander. It is thought that Menander was the builder of the second oldest layer of the Butkara stupa, following its initial construction during the Maurya empire.

These elements tend to indicate the importance of Buddhism within Greek communities in northwestern India, and the prominent role Greek Buddhist monks played in them, probably under the sponsorship of Menander...

Plutarch reports that Menander died in camp while on campaign, thereby differing with the version of the Milindapanha. Plutarch gives Menander as an example of benevolent rule, contrasting him with disliked tyrants such as Dionysius, and goes on to explain that his subject towns fought over the honour of his burial, ultimately sharing his ashes among them and placing them in "monuments" (possibly stupas), in a manner reminiscent of the funerals of the Buddha....

Despite his many successes, Menander's last years may have been fraught with another civil war, this time against Zoilos I who reigned in Gandhara. This is indicated by the fact that Menander probably overstruck a coin of Zoilos....

After the reign of Menander I, Strato I and several subsequent Indo-Greek rulers, such as Amyntas, Nicias, Peukolaos, Hermaeus, and Hippostratos, depicted themselves or their Greek deities forming with the right hand a symbolic gesture identical to the Buddhist vitarka mudra (thumb and index joined together, with other fingers extended), which in Buddhism signifies the transmission of the Buddha's teaching. At the same time, right after the death of Menander, several Indo-Greek rulers also started to adopt on their coins the Pali title of "Dharmikasa", meaning "follower of the Dharma" (the title of the great Indian Buddhist king Ashoka was Dharmaraja "King of the Dharma"). This usage was adopted by Strato I, Zoilos I, Heliokles II, Theophilos, Peukolaos and Archebios.

Altogether, the conversion of Menander to Buddhism suggested by the Milinda Panha seems to have triggered the use of Buddhist symbolism in one form or another on the coinage of close to half of the kings who succeeded him. Especially, all the kings after Menander who are recorded to have ruled in Gandhara (apart from the little-known Demetrius III) display Buddhist symbolism in one form or another.

Both because of his conversion and because of his unequaled territorial expansion, Menander may have contributed to the expansion of Buddhism in Central Asia. Although the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and Northern Asia is usually associated with the Kushans, a century or two later, there is a possibility that it may have been introduced in those areas from Gandhara "even earlier, during the time of Demetrius and Menander" (Puri, "Buddhism in Central Asia").

A frieze in Sanchi executed during or soon after the reign of Menander depicts Buddhist devotees in Greek attire. The men are depicted with short curly hair, often held together with a headband of the type commonly seen on Greek coins. The clothing too is Greek, complete with tunics, capes and sandals. The musical instruments are also quite characteristic, such as the double flute called aulos. Also visible are Carnyx-like horns. They are all celebrating at the entrance of the stupa. These men would probably be nearby Indo-Greeks from northwest India visiting the Stupa.


Vitarka Mudra gestures on Indo-Greek coinage. Top: Divinities Tyche and Zeus. Bottom: Depiction of Indo-Greek kings Nicias and Menander II.

-- Menander I, by Wikipedia

Tapa Shortor had some beautiful statuary in Hellenistic style, particularly one seated Buddha attended by Herakles-Vajrapani and a Tyche-like woman holding a cornucopia, now destroyed (Niche V2).[12][13] Another has an attendant reminding the portrait of Alexander the Great.[14][15] Boardman suggested that the sculpture in the area might be an "incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style".[16]


Figures of Herakles-Vajrapani with thunderbolt, and Tyche-Hariti with cornucopia, flanking a Buddha at Tapa Shotor, Hadda, 2nd century CE. This is unique photograph as the sculpture was destroyed in 1992 by the Talibans.

Many of the statues are three-dimensional representations in-the-round, a rare instance in the area of Hadda, which related the style of Tapa Shotor to the Hellenistic art of Bactria, and to the Buddhist caves of Xinjiang such as the Mogao Caves, probably directly inspired by these.[17]

Various niches display scenes of the Buddha surrounded by attendants (especially niches V1, V2, V3). Niche XIII, or "Aquatic niche", also demonstrates sculpture in the round, and depicts Naga Kalika predicting the success of the Bodhisattva towards attaining enlightenment. The niche is dated to the period 250-350 CE, and is probably synchronous with the clay sculptures of Temple II in Penjikent.[18][19] These sculptures are made of clay, while later sculptures molded in stucco can also be seen at the site.[20]


Map of Hadda, by Charles Masson in 1841. Tapa Shotor was the "Large Mound with a hollow".[21]


Painting of the lunette of an underground meditation chamber.[22] Tapa Shotor, period VI (350-450 CE).[23]


Attendants to the Buddha, Tapa Shotor (Niche V1)


Buddha attendants, Tapa Shotor (Niche V1)


Seated Buddha with "Vajrapani-Alexander" attendant. Tapa Shotor (Niche V3).[24]


Head of "Vajrapani-Alexander", Tapa (Niche V3).[25]


Buddha attendants, Tapa Shotor


Small decorated stupas in Tapa Shotor.[26]


Site of Tapa Shotor, with a protective roof.[26]

External links

• Description and plan of Tapa Shotor (French)
• The famous Buddha with Herakles-Vajrapani and Tyche can be seen in Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 150.

References

1. Tarzi, Zémaryalai. "Le site ruiné de Hadda": 62 ff.
2. "Tepe Shotor Tableau. Hadda, Nangarhar Province. ACKU Images System". ackuimages.photoshelter.com.
3. Behrendt, Kurt A. (2007). The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-224-4.
4. Boardman, George. The Greeks in Asia. pp. Greeks and their arts in India.
5. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 143.
6. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 158.
7. "Following discoveries at Ai-Khanum, excavations at Tapa Shotor, Hadda, produced evidence to indicate that Gandharan art descended directly from Hellenised Bactrian art. It is quite clear from the clay figure finds in particular , that either Bactrian artist from the north were placed at the service of Buddhism, or local artists, fully conversant with the style and traditions of Hellenistic art , were the creators of these art objects" in Allchin, Frank Raymond (1997). Gandharan Art in Context: East-west Exchanges at the Crossroads of Asia. Published for the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge by Regency Publications. p. 19. ISBN 9788186030486.
8. Tarzi, Zemaryalai (2005). "Sculpture in the Round and Very High Relief in the Clay Statuary of Hadda: The Case of the So-called Fish Porch (Niche XIII)" (PDF). East and West. 55 (1/4): 392. ISSN 0012-8376. JSTOR 29757655.
9. Tarzi, Zémaryalai. "Le site ruiné de Hadda": 63.
10. Vanleene, Alexandra. "Tapa-e Shotor". Hadda Archeo Data Base. ArcheoDB, 2021.
11. Kuwayama, Shoshin (1988). "Tapa Shotor and Lalma: Aspects of stupa courts at Hadda" (PDF). Annali dell'Università degli studi di Napoli "L'Orientale".
12. Behrendt, Kurt A. (2007). The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-58839-224-4.
13. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 148-149.
14. Boardman, John (1994). The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity. Princeton University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-691-03680-9.
15. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 150.
16. Boardman, John (1994). The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity. Princeton University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-691-03680-9.
17. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 152-153.
18. Tarzi, Zemaryalai (2005). "Sculpture in the Round and Very High Relief in the Clay Statuary of Hadda: The Case of the So-called Fish Porch (Niche XIII)". East and West. 55 (1/4): 383–394. ISSN 0012-8376. JSTOR 29757655.
19. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 152-153.
20. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 152-153.
21. Errington, Elizabeth. "Masson archive Vol. 2 (1).pdf": 36.
22. GREENE, ERIC M. (2013). "Death in a Cave: Meditation, Deathbed Ritual, and Skeletal Imagery at Tape Shotor". Artibus Asiae. 73 (2): 265–294. ISSN 0004-3648. JSTOR 24240815.
23. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 154.
24. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 150.
25. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art" (PDF): 150.
26. Tarzi, Zémaryalai. "Le site ruiné de Hadda".

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Menander I
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/26/21

The Periplus explains that coins of the Indo-Greek king Menander I were current in Barigaza.

To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus [sic] and Menander.— Periplus, §47[23]

-- Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, by Wikipedia

Buddhist symbolism is present throughout Indo-Scythian coinage. In particular, they adopted the Indo-Greek practice since Menander I of showing divinities forming the vitarka mudra with their right hand (as for the mudra-forming Zeus on the coins of Maues or Azes II), or the presence of the Buddhist lion on the coins of the same two kings, or the triratana symbol on the coins of Zeionises.

-- Indo-Scythians, by JatLand.com

Kanishka is renowned in Buddhist tradition for having convened a great Buddhist council in Kashmir. Along with his predecessors in the region, the Indo-Greek king Menander I (Milinda) and the Indian emperors Ashoka and Harsha Vardhana, Kanishka is considered by Buddhism as one of its greatest benefactors.

-- Kushan Empire, by Wikipedia

The Yavanarajya inscription, states Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, mentions year 116 of the yavana hegemony (yavanarajya), attesting to the 2nd-century and 1st-century BCE Indo-Greek presence. This makes the inscription unique in that it mentions the Indo-Greeks, and it "may confirm" the numismatic and literary evidence which suggests that Mathura was under the ruler of the Indo-Greeks during the period between 185 BCE-85 BCE....

Quintanilla states that the nearly contemporaneous coinage of Menander I (165-135 BCE) and his successors found in the Mathura region, in combination with this inscription, suggests the hypothesis that there was a tributary style relationship between the Indo-Greek suzerains and the Mitra dynasty that ruled that region at the time.

-- Yavanarajya inscription, by Wikipedia

Menander I
Portrait of Menander I
Indo-Greek king
Reign: 165/155–130 BC
Predecessor: Antimachus II
Successor: Strato I
Born: Kalasi, Alexandria of the Caucasus (present day Bagram, Afghanistan)[1][2]
Died: 130 BC
Burial: Stupas across the Indo-Greek Kingdom
Consort: Agathokleia
Issue: Strato I
House: House of Euthydemus
Religion: Buddhism

Menander I Soter (Ancient Greek: Μένανδρος Αʹ ὁ Σωτήρ, Ménandros Aʹ ho Sōtḗr, "Menander I the Saviour"; known in Indian Pali sources as Milinda) was an Indo-Greek King of the Indo-Greek Kingdom (165[3]/155[3] –130 BC) who administered a large empire in the Northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent from his capital at Sagala. Menander is noted for having become a patron of Buddhism.

Menander was initially a king of Bactria. After conquering the Punjab[2] he established an empire in the Indian Subcontinent stretching from the Kabul River valley in the west to the Ravi River in the east, and from the Swat River valley in the north to Arachosia (the Helmand Province). Ancient Indian writers indicate that he launched expeditions southward into Rajasthan and as far east down the Ganges River Valley as Pataliputra (Patna), and the Greek geographer Strabo wrote that he "conquered more tribes than Alexander the Great."

Large numbers of Menander’s coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and longevity of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism, and his conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the important Buddhist work, the Milinda Panha ("The Questions of King Milinda"; panha meaning "question" in Pali). After his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathokleia, the possible daughter of Agatokles, who ruled as regent for his son Strato I.[4] Buddhist tradition relates that he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch relates that he died in camp while on a military campaign, and that his remains were divided equally between the cities to be enshrined in monuments, probably stupas, across his realm.

Reign


Location of Sagala/ Sialkot, capital city of Menander I.


Attic Tetradrachm of Menander I in Greco-Bactrian style (Alexandria-Kapisa mint).
Obv: Menander throwing a spear.
Rev: Athena with thunderbolt. Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ (BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROU), "Of King Menander, the Saviour".

Menander was born to a Hellenistic family in a village called Kalasi adjacent to Alexandria of the Caucasus (present day Bagram, Afghanistan),[2] although another source says he was born near Sagala (modern Sialkot in the Punjab, Pakistan).[5] His territories covered Bactria (modern day ولایت بلخ or Bactria Province) and extended to India (modern day regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Greater Punjab.

His capital is supposed to have been Sagala, a prosperous city in northern Punjab (believed to be modern Sialkot), Pakistan. He was defeated at the banks of river Indus by Agnimitra,son of Pushyamitra Shunga.

The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander-- by Menander in particular (at least if he actually crossed the Hypanis towards the east and advanced as far as the Imaüs), for some were subdued by him personally and others by Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus the king of the Bactrians; and they took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis. In short, Apollodorus says that Bactriana is the ornament of Ariana as a whole; and, more than that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni.

— Strabo, Geographica[6]

2. Silver drachm of Menander I (155-130 BC).
Obv: Greek legend, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ (BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROU) lit. "Of Saviour King Menander".
Rev: Kharosthi legend: MAHARAJASA TRATARASA MENAMDRASA "Saviour King Menander". Athena advancing right, with thunderbolt and shield. Taxila mint mark.


Another silver drachm of Menander I, dated circa 160-145 BC. Obverse: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ ('of King Menander the Saviour'), heroic bust of Menander, viewed from behind, head turned to left; Reverse: Athena standing right, brandishing thunderbolt and holding aegis, Karosthi legend around, monogram in field to left. Reference: Sear 7604.


Silver coin of Menander
Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ
(BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROU)
lit. "Of Saviour King Menander". British Museum.

Accounts describe Indo-Greek campaigns to Mathura, Panchala, Saketa, and potentially Pataliputra. The sage Patanjali around 150 BC, describes Menander campaigning as far as Mathura. The Hathigumpha inscription inscribed by Kharavela the King of Kalinga also places the Yavanas, or Indo-Greeks, in Mathura. Kharavela states to have forced the demoralized Yavana army to retreat back to Mathura:

"Then in the eighth year, (Kharavela) with a large army having sacked Goradhagiri causes pressure on Rajagaha (Rajagriha). On account of the loud report of this act of valour, the Yavana (Greek) King [ta] retreated to Mathura having extricated his demoralized army."

— Hathigumpha inscription, lines 7-8, probably in the 1st century BCE-1st century CE.[1] Original text is in Brahmi script.

Menander may have campaigned as far as the Shunga capital Pataliputra resulting in a conflict. The religious scripture Yuga Purana, which describes events in the form of a prophecy, states:

After having conquered Saketa, the country of the Panchala and the Mathuras, the Yavanas (Greeks), wicked and valiant, will reach Kusumadhvaja. The thick mud-fortifications at Pataliputra being reached, all the provinces will be in disorder, without doubt. Ultimately, a great battle will follow, with tree-like engines (siege engines).

— Gargi-Samhita, Yuga Purana, ch. 5

Strabo also suggests that Indo-Greek conquests went up to the Shunga capital Pataliputra in northeastern India (today Patna):

Those who came after Alexander went to the Ganges and Pataliputra

— Strabo, 15.698

The events and results of these campaigns are unknown. Surviving epigraphical inscriptions during this time such as the Hathigumpha inscription states that Kharavela sacked Pataliputra. Furthermore, numismatics from the Mitra dynasty are concurrently placed in Mathura during the time of Menander. Their relationship is unclear, but the Mithra may potentially be vassals.

In the West, Menander seems to have repelled the invasion of the dynasty of Greco-Bactrian usurper Eucratides, and pushed them back as far as the Paropamisadae, thereby consolidating the rule of the Indo-Greek kings in the northwestern part of the Indian Subcontinent.

The Milinda Panha gives some glimpses of his military methods:

– Has it ever happened to you, O king, that rival kings rose up against you as enemies and opponents?
– Yes, certainly.
– Then you set to work, I suppose, to have moats dug, and ramparts thrown up, and watch towers erected, and strongholds built, and stores of food collected?
– Not at all. All that had been prepared beforehand.
– Or you had yourself trained in the management of war elephants, and in horsemanship, and in the use of the war chariot, and in archery and fencing?
– Not at all. I had learnt all that before.
– But why?
– With the object of warding off future danger.

— Milinda Panha, Book III, ch. 7

Generous findings of coins testify to the prosperity and extension of his empire: (with finds as far as Britain)[citation needed] the finds of his coins are the most numerous and the most widespread of all the Indo-Greek kings. Precise dates of his reign, as well as his origin, remain elusive however. Guesses among historians have been that Menander was either a nephew or a former general of the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius I, but the two kings are now thought to be separated by at least thirty years. Menander's predecessor in Punjab seems to have been the king Apollodotus I.

Menander's empire survived him in a fragmented manner until the last Greek king Strato II disappeared around 10 AD.

The 1st-2nd century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea further testifies to the reign of Menander and the influence of the Indo-Greeks in India:

To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus [sic] and Menander.

— Periplus, ch. 47.[7]

Menander and Buddhism

The Milinda Panha

Main article: Milinda Panha


King Milinda asks questions.


Indian-standard coinage of Menander I. Obv ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ "Of Saviour King Menander". Rev Palm of victory, Kharoshthi legend Māhārajasa trātadasa Menandrāsa, British Museum.[8]

According to tradition, Menander embraced the Buddhist faith, as described in the Milinda Panha, a classical Pali Buddhist text on the discussions between Milinda and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena. He is described as constantly accompanied by a guard of 500 Greek ("Yonaka") soldiers, and two of his counsellors are named Demetrius and Antiochus.

In the Milindanpanha, Menander is introduced as

King of the city of Sâgala in India, Milinda by name, learned, eloquent, wise, and able; and a faithful observer, and that at the right time, of all the various acts of devotion and ceremony enjoined by his own sacred hymns concerning things past, present, and to come. Many were the arts and sciences he knew--holy tradition and secular law; the Sânkhya, Yoga, Nyâya, and Vaisheshika systems of philosophy; arithmetic; music; medicine; the four Vedas, the Purânas, and the Itihâsas; astronomy, magic, causation, and magic spells; the art of war; poetry; conveyancing in a word, the whole nineteen. As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome; the acknowledged superior of all the founders of the various schools of thought. And as in wisdom so in strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, and the number of his armed hosts knew no end.

— The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890

Buddhist tradition relates that, following his discussions with Nāgasena, Menander adopted the Buddhist faith:

May the venerable Nâgasena accept me as a supporter of the faith, as a true convert from to-day onwards as long as life shall last!

— The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890

He then handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world:

And afterwards, taking delight in the wisdom of the Elder, he handed over his kingdom to his son, and abandoning the household life for the houseless state, grew great in insight, and himself attained to Arahatship!

— The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890

The Shinkot casket containing Buddhist relics was dedicated "in the reign of the Great King Menander".[9]

There is however little besides this testament to indicate that Menander in fact abdicated his throne in favour of his son. Based on numismatic evidence, Sir William Tarn believes that he in fact died, leaving his wife Agathocleia to rule as a regent, until his son Strato could rule properly in his stead.[10] Despite the success of his reign, it is clear that after his death, his "loosely hung" empire splintered into a variety of Indo-Greek successor kingdoms, of various size and stability.

His legacy as a Buddhist arhat reached the Greco-Roman world and Plutarch (Moralia 28.6) writes:

But when one Menander, who had reigned graciously over the Bactrians, died afterwards in the camp, the cities indeed by common consent celebrated his funerals; but coming to a contest about his relics, they were difficultly at last brought to this agreement, that his ashes being distributed, everyone should carry away an equal share, and they should all erect monuments to him."

The above seems to collaborate the claim:

It is unlikely that Menander’s support of Buddhism was a pious reconstruction of a Buddhist legend, for his deification by later traditions resonates with Macedonian religious trends that granted divine honours to monarchs and members of their family and worshipped them, like Alexander, as gods.85 It is no coincidence that similar motifs highlight the Buddha’s deification and his funereal rituals are commensurate with those of Macedonian kings and universal monarchs. The evidence is in favour of the conversion of King Menander to Buddhism, which is neither an isolated historical incident nor an invention of later traditions."[11]

Other Indian accounts


The Bharhut Yavana. Indian relief of probable Indo-Greek king, possibly Menander, with the flowing head band of a Greek king, northern tunic with Hellenistic pleats, and Buddhist triratana symbol on his sword. Bharhut, 2nd century BC. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

• A 2nd century BC relief from a Buddhist stupa in Bharhut, in eastern Madhya Pradesh (today at the Indian Museum in Calcutta), the Bharhut Yavana, represents a foreign soldier with the curly hair of a Greek and the royal headband with flowing ends of a Greek king, and may be a depiction of Menander. In his right hand, he holds a branch of ivy, symbol of Dionysos. Also parts of his dress, with rows of geometrical folds, are characteristically Hellenistic in style. On his sword appears the Buddhist symbol of the three jewels, or Triratana.
• A Buddhist reliquary found in Bajaur, the Shinkot casket, bears a dedicatory inscription referring to "the 14th day of the month of Kārttika" of a certain year in the reign of "Mahārāja Minadra" ("Great King Menander"):

Minadrasa maharajasa Katiassa divasa 4 4 4 11 pra[na]-[sa]me[da]... (prati)[thavi]ta pranasame[da]... Sakamunisa

On the 14th day of Kārttika, in the reign of Mahārāja Minadra, (in the year ...), (the corporeal relic) of Sakyamuni, which is endowed with life... has been established[12]

• According to an ancient Sri Lankan source, the Mahavamsa, Greek monks seem to have been active proselytizers of Buddhism during the time of Menander: the Yona (Greek) Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita) is said to have come from "Alasandra" (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today’s Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, during the 2nd century BC:

From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera ("elder") Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus.

— Mahavamsa, XXIX[13]

Buddhist constructions


The Butkara stupa as expanded during the reign of Menander I.

A coin of Menander I was found in the second oldest stratum (GSt 2) of the Butkara stupa suggesting a period of additional constructions during the reign of Menander.[14] It is thought that Menander was the builder of the second oldest layer of the Butkara stupa, following its initial construction during the Maurya empire.[15]

These elements tend to indicate the importance of Buddhism within Greek communities in northwestern India, and the prominent role Greek Buddhist monks played in them, probably under the sponsorship of Menander.

Coins of Menander


4. Silver coin of Menander, with Athena on reverse. British Museum.

Menander has left behind an immense corpus of silver and bronze coins, more so than any other Indo-Greek king. During his reign, the fusion between Indian and Greek coin standards reached its apogee. The coins feature the legend (Greek: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ (BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROU)/ Kharoshthi: MAHARAJA TRATARASA MENADRASA).

• According to Bopearachchi, his silver coinage begins with a rare series of drachma depicting on the obverse Athena and on the reverse her attribute the owl. The weight and monograms of this series match those of earlier king Antimachus II, indicating that Menander succeeded Antimachus II.
• On the next series, Menander introduces his own portrait, a hitherto unknown custom among Indian rulers. The reverse features his dynastical trademark: the so-called Athena Alkidemos throwing a thunderbolt, an emblem used by many of Menander's successors and also the emblem of the Antigonid kings of Macedonia.
• In a further development, Menander changed the legends from circular orientation to the arrangement seen on coin 4 to the right.[clarification needed] This modification ensured that the coins could be read without being rotated, and was used without exception by all later Indo-Greek kings.

These alterations were possibly an adaption on Menander's part to the Indian coins of the Bactrian Eucratides I, who had conquered the westernmost parts of the Indo-Greek kingdom, and are interpreted by Bopearachchi as an indication that Menander recaptured these western territories after the death of Eucratides.

• Menander also struck very rare Attic standard coinage with monolingual inscriptions (coin 5),[clarification needed] which were probably intended for use in Bactria (where they have been found), perhaps thought to demonstrate his victories against the Bactrian kings, as well as Menander's own claim to the kingdom.
• There exist bronze coins of Menander featuring a manifold variation of Olympic, Indian and other symbols. It seems as though Menander introduced a new weight standard for bronzes.

Menander was the first Indo-Greek ruler to introduce the representation of Athena Alkidemos ("Athena, saviour of the people") on his coins, probably in reference to a similar statue of Athena Alkidemos in Pella, capital of Macedon. This type was subsequently used by most of the later Indo-Greek kings.

Menander the Just


Coin of Menander II. Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ, "Of King Menander, the Just".


Comparison of the portraits of Menander I (left) and Menander II (right).

A king named Menander with the epithet Dikaios, "the Just", ruled in the Punjab after 100 BC. Earlier scholars, such as A. Cunningham and W. W. Tarn, believed there was only one Menander, and assumed that the king had changed his epithet and/or was expelled from his western dominions. A number of coincidences led them to this assumption:

• The portraits are relatively similar, and Menander II usually looks older than Menander I.
• The coins of Menander II feature several Buddhist symbols, which were interpreted as proof of the conversion mentioned in the Milinda Panha.
• The epithet Dikaios of Menander II was translated into Kharosthi as Dharmikasa on the reverse of his coins, which means "Follower of the Dharma" and was interpreted likewise.

However, modern numismatists as Bopearachchi and R.C. Senior have shown, by difference in coin findings, style and monograms, that there were two distinct rulers. The second Menander could have been a descendant of the first, and his Buddhist symbols a means of alluding to his ancestor's conversion. However, Menander I struck a rare bronze series with a Buddhist wheel (coin 3).

Menander's death

Plutarch reports that Menander died in camp while on campaign, thereby differing with the version of the Milindapanha. Plutarch gives Menander as an example of benevolent rule, contrasting him with disliked tyrants such as Dionysius, and goes on to explain that his subject towns fought over the honour of his burial, ultimately sharing his ashes among them and placing them in "monuments" (possibly stupas), in a manner reminiscent of the funerals of the Buddha.[16]

But when one Menander, who had reigned graciously over the Bactrians, died afterwards in the camp, the cities indeed by common consent celebrated his funerals; but coming to a contest about his relics, they were difficultly at last brought to this agreement, that his ashes being distributed, everyone should carry away an equal share, and they should all erect monuments to him.

— Plutarch, Moralia: Praecepta gerendae reipublicae[17][18]

Despite his many successes, Menander's last years may have been fraught with another civil war, this time against Zoilos I who reigned in Gandhara. This is indicated by the fact that Menander probably overstruck a coin of Zoilos.

The Milinda Panha might give some support to the idea that Menander's position was precarious, since it describes him as being somewhat cornered by numerous enemies into a circumscribed territory:


Coin of Strato I and Agathokleia.
Obv: Conjugate busts of Strato and Agathokleia. Greek legend: BASILEOS SOTEROS STRATONOS KAI AGATOKLEIAS "Of King Strato the Saviour and Agathokleia".
Rev: Athena throwing thunderbolt. Kharoshthi legend: MAHARAJASA TRATASARA DHARMIKASA STRATASA "King Strato, Saviour and Just (="of the Dharma")".

After their long discussion Nagasaka asked himself "though king Milinda is pleased, he gives no signs of being pleased". Menander says in reply: "As a lion, the king of beasts, when put in a cage, though it were of gold, is still facing outside, even so do I live as master in the house but remain facing outside. But if I were to go forth from home into homelessness I would not live long, so many are my enemies".

— Quoted in Bopearachchi, Milinda Panha, Book III, Chapter 7[19]

Theories of Menander's successors

Menander was the last Indo-Greek king mentioned by ancient historians, and developments after his death are therefore difficult to trace.

a) The traditional view, supported by W.W. Tarn and Bopearachchi, is that Menander was succeeded by his Queen Agathokleia, who acted as regent to their infant son Strato I until he became an adult and took over the crown. Strato I used the same reverse as Menander I, Athena hurling a thunderbolt, and also the title Soter.

According to this scenario, Agathokleia and Strato I only managed to maintain themselves in the eastern parts of the kingdom, Punjab and at times Gandhara. Paropamisadae and Pushkalavati were taken over by Zoilos I, perhaps because some of Agathokleia's subjects may have been reluctant to accept an infant king with a queen regent.

b) On the other hand, R.C. Senior and other numismatics such as David Bivar have suggested that Strato I ruled several decades after Menander: they point out that Strato's and Agathokleia's monograms are usually different from Menander's, and overstrikes and hoard findings also associates them with later kings.

In this scenario, Menander was briefly succeeded by his son Thrason, of whom a single coin is known. After Thrason was murdered, competing kings such as Zoilos I or Lysias may have taken over Menander's kingdom. Menander's dynasty was thus dethroned and did not return to power until later, though his relative Nicias may have ruled a small principality in the Kabul valley.

Legacy

Buddhism

Main article: Greco-Buddhism


Vitarka Mudra gestures on Indo-Greek coinage. Top: Divinities Tyche and Zeus. Bottom: Depiction of Indo-Greek kings Nicias and Menander II.

After the reign of Menander I, Strato I and several subsequent Indo-Greek rulers, such as Amyntas, Nicias, Peukolaos, Hermaeus, and Hippostratos, depicted themselves or their Greek deities forming with the right hand a symbolic gesture identical to the Buddhist vitarka mudra (thumb and index joined together, with other fingers extended), which in Buddhism signifies the transmission of the Buddha's teaching. At the same time, right after the death of Menander, several Indo-Greek rulers also started to adopt on their coins the Pali title of "Dharmikasa", meaning "follower of the Dharma" (the title of the great Indian Buddhist king Ashoka was Dharmaraja "King of the Dharma"). This usage was adopted by Strato I, Zoilos I, Heliokles II, Theophilos, Peukolaos and Archebios.


Menander coin with elephant.

Altogether, the conversion of Menander to Buddhism suggested by the Milinda Panha seems to have triggered the use of Buddhist symbolism in one form or another on the coinage of close to half of the kings who succeeded him. Especially, all the kings after Menander who are recorded to have ruled in Gandhara (apart from the little-known Demetrius III) display Buddhist symbolism in one form or another.

Both because of his conversion and because of his unequaled territorial expansion, Menander may have contributed to the expansion of Buddhism in Central Asia. Although the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and Northern Asia is usually associated with the Kushans, a century or two later, there is a possibility that it may have been introduced in those areas from Gandhara "even earlier, during the time of Demetrius and Menander" (Puri, "Buddhism in Central Asia").


Foreigners on the Northern Gateway of Stupa I, Sanchi. Satavahana period, 2nd or 1st century BC.

A frieze in Sanchi executed during or soon after the reign of Menander depicts Buddhist devotees in Greek attire. The men are depicted with short curly hair, often held together with a headband of the type commonly seen on Greek coins. The clothing too is Greek, complete with tunics, capes and sandals. The musical instruments are also quite characteristic, such as the double flute called aulos. Also visible are Carnyx-like horns. They are all celebrating at the entrance of the stupa. These men would probably be nearby Indo-Greeks from northwest India visiting the Stupa.[20]

Representation of the Buddha

Main article: Greco-Buddhist art


One of the first known representations of the Buddha, Gandhara.


Detail of Asia in the Ptolemy world map. The "Menander Mons" are in the center of the map, at the east of the Indian subcontinent, right above the Malaysian Peninsula.

The anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha is absent from Indo-Greek coinage, suggesting that the Indo-Greek kings may have respected the Indian an-iconic rule for depictions of the Buddha, limiting themselves to symbolic representation only. Consistently with this perspective, the actual depiction of the Buddha would be a later phenomenon, usually dated to the 1st century, emerging from the sponsorship of the syncretic Kushan Empire and executed by Greek, and, later, Indian and possibly Roman artists. Datation of Greco-Buddhist statues is generally uncertain, but they are at least firmly established from the 1st century.

Another possibility is that just as the Indo-Greeks routinely represented philosophers in statues (but certainly not on coins) in Antiquity, the Indo-Greek may have initiated anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha in statuary only, possibly as soon as the 2nd-1st century BC, as advocated by Foucher and suggested by Chinese murals depicting Emperor Wu of Han worshipping Buddha statues brought from Central Asia in 120 BC (See picture). An Indo-Chinese tradition also explains that Nagasena, also known as Menander's Buddhist teacher, created in 43 BC in the city of Pataliputra a statue of the Buddha, the Emerald Buddha, which was later brought to Thailand.

Stylistically, Indo-Greek coins generally display a very high level of Hellenistic artistic realism, which declined drastically around 50 BC with the invasions of the Indo-Scythians, Yuezhi and Indo-Parthians. The first known statues of the Buddha are also very realistic and Hellenistic in style and are more consistent with the pre-50 BC artistic level seen on coins.

This would tend to suggest that the first statues were created between 130 BC (death of Menander) and 50 BC, precisely at the time when Buddhist symbolism appeared on Indo-Greek coinage. From that time, Menander and his successors may have been the key propagators of Buddhist ideas and representations: "the spread of Gandhari Buddhism may have been stimulated by Menander's royal patronage, as may have the development and spread of Gandharan sculpture, which seems to have accompanied it" (Mcevilley, "The Shape of Ancient Thought", p. 378).

Education

The Milind College in Aurangabad, India, is named after king Milind. The college is founded by B. R. Ambedkar, Indian Buddhist leader and the father of the Indian constitution.

Geography

In Classical Antiquity, from at least the 1st century, the "Menander Mons", or "Mountains of Menander", came to designate the mountain chain at the extreme east of the Indian subcontinent, today's Naga Hills and Arakan, as indicated in the Ptolemy world map of the 1st century geographer Ptolemy.[21]

See also

• Kanishka
• Indo-Greek Kingdom
• Greco-Buddhism
• Indo-Scythians

Notes

1. "Menander". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
2. Hazel, John (2013). Who's Who in the Greek World. Routledge. p. 155. ISBN 9781134802241. Menander king in India, known locally as Milinda, born at a village named Kalasi near Alasanda (Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus), and who was himself the son of a king. After conquering the Punjab, where he made Sagala his capital, he made an expedition across northern India and visited Patna, the capital of the Mauraya empire, though he did not succeed in conquering this land as he appears to have been overtaken by wars on the north-west frontier with Eucratides.
3. Bopearachchi (1998) and (1991), respectively. The first date is estimated by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior, the other Boperachchi
4. The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. 1970. p. 406. ISBN 978-0-521-23448-1.
5. Magill, Frank Northen (2003). Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 717. ISBN 9781579580407. MENANDER Born: c. 210 B.C.; probably Kalasi, Afghanistan Died: c. 135 B.C.; probably in northwest India Areas of Achievement: Government and religion Contribution: Menander extended the Greco-Bactrian domains in India more than any other ruler. He became a legendary figure as a great patron of Buddhism in the Pali book the Milindapanha. Early Life – Menander (not to be confused with the more famous Greek dramatist of the same name) was born somewhere in the fertile area to the south of the Paropamisadae or present Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan. The only reference to this location is in the semilegendary Milindapanha (first or second century A.D.), which says that he was born in a village called Kalasi near Alasanda, some two hundred yojanas (about eighteen miles) from the town of Sagala (probably Sialkot in the Punjab). The Alasanda refers to the Alexandria in Afghanistan and not the one in Egypt.
6. (in Greek) Strabo (1877). "11.11.1". In Meineke, A. (ed.). Geographica (in Greek). Leipzig: Teubner.
Jones, H. L., ed. (1924). "11.11.1". Missing or empty |title= (help) Jones, H. L., ed. (1903). "11.11.1". Missing or empty |title= (help) At the Perseus Project.
7. Full text, Schoff's 1912 translation
8. The coins of the Greek and Scythic kings of Bactria and India in the British Museum, p.50 and Pl. XII-7 [1]
9. Baums, Stefan (2017). A framework for Gandharan chronology based on relic inscriptions, in "Problems of Chronology in Gandharan Art". Archaeopress.}
10. William Tarn. The Greeks in Bactria and India. Second edition, 1951. Page 226.
11. Halkias (2014: 94)
12. "Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution", Smithsonian Institution, Bopearachchi, p19, quoting the analysis of N.G. Majumdar, D.C. Sicar, S.Konow
13. Chapter XXIX of the Mahavamsa: Text
14. Handbuch der Orientalistik, Kurt A. Behrendt, BRILL, 2004, p.49 sig
15. "King Menander, who built the penultimate layer of the Butkara stupa in the first century BCE, was an Indo-Greek."in Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River, Alice Albinia - 2012
16. A passage in the "Mahā-parinibbâna sutta" of the "Dighanikaya" relates the dispute of Indian kings over the ashes of the Buddha, which they finally shared between themselves and enshrined in a series of stupas.
17. Plutarch. "28, 6". Morals: Political Precepts. pp. 147–148.
18. (in Greek) Bernardakis, Gregorius N., ed. (1893). "821d". Moralia: Praecepta gerendae reipublicae(in Greek). Leipzig: Teubner.
Fowler, Harold North, ed. (1936). "28, 6". Missing or empty |title= (help) Goodwin, William W., ed. (1874). "28, 6". Missing or empty |title= (help) At the Perseus Project.
19. "Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution", Smithsonian Institution, Bopearachchi, p33
20. "A guide to Sanchi" John Marshall. These "Greek-looking foreigners" are also described in Susan Huntington, "The art of ancient India", p. 100
21. Boot, Hooves and Wheels: And the Social Dynamics behind South Asian Warfare, Saikat K Bose, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd, 2015 p.222

References

• Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné, Osmund Bopearachchi, 1991, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ISBN 2-7177-1825-7.
• The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies by Thomas McEvilley (Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts, 2002) ISBN 1-58115-203-5
• Buddhism in Central Asia by B.N. Puri (Motilal Banarsidass Pub, January 1, 2000) ISBN 81-208-0372-8* The Greeks in Bactria and India, W. W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press.
• Dictionary of Buddhism, Damien Keown, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-860560-9
• De l'Indus à l'Oxus, Archéologie de l'Asie Centrale, Osmund Bopearachchi, Christine Sachs, ISBN 2-9516679-2-2
• The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity by John Boardman (Princeton University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-691-03680-2
• The Crossroads of Asia. Transformation in Image and symbol, 1992, ISBN 0-9518399-1-8
• Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution, Smithsonian Institution, Bopearachchi, 1993

External links

• Coins of King Menander
• More coins of Menander
• Kapisa coinage of Menander
• The Debate of King Milinda
• The Questions of King Milinda
• Catalogue of the coins of Menander

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Hadda, Afghanistan
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/26/21


Hadda
(Afghanistan)
Buddhist stupas at Hadda, by William Simpson, 1881.[1]

Hadda, Afghanistan is located in Afghanistan
Type: Group of Buddhist monasteries
History
Founded: 1st century BCE
Abandoned: 9th century CE

Haḍḍa (Pashto: هډه‎) is a Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient region of Gandhara, ten kilometers south of the city of Jalalabad, in the Nangarhar Province of eastern Afghanistan.

Hadda is said to have been almost entirely destroyed in the fighting during the civil war in Afghanistan.

Background

Some 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures, both clay and plaster, were excavated in Hadda during the 1930s and the 1970s. The findings combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism in an almost perfect Hellenistic style.

Although the style of the artifacts is typical of the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BCE, the Hadda sculptures are usually dated (although with some uncertainty), to the 1st century CE or later (i.e. one or two centuries afterward). This discrepancy might be explained by a preservation of late Hellenistic styles for a few centuries in this part of the world. However it is possible that the artifacts actually were produced in the late Hellenistic period.

Given the antiquity of these sculptures and a technical refinement indicative of artists fully conversant with all the aspects of Greek sculpture, it has been suggested that Greek communities were directly involved in these realizations, and that "the area might be the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style".[2]

The style of many of the works at Hadda is highly Hellenistic, and can be compared to sculptures found at the Temple of Apollo in Bassae, Greece.

The toponym Hadda has its origins in Sanskrit haḍḍa n. m., "a bone", or, an unrecorded *haḍḍaka, adj., "(place) of bones". The former - if not a fossilized form - would have given rise to a Haḍḍ in the subsequent vernaculars of northern India (and in the Old Indic loans in modern Pashto). The latter would have given rise to the form Haḍḍa naturally and would well reflect the belief that Hadda housed a bone-relic of Buddha. The term haḍḍa is found as a loan in Pashto haḍḍ, n., id. and may reflect the linguistic influence of the original pre-Islamic population of the area.


Map of Hadda by Charles Masson, 1841.


The village of Hadda, seen from Tapa Shotor in 1976.

Buddhist scriptures

See also: Gandharan Buddhist texts

It is believed the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts-indeed the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts of any kind-were recovered around Hadda. Probably dating from around the 1st century CE, they were written on bark in Gandhari using the Kharoṣṭhī script, and were unearthed in a clay pot bearing an inscription in the same language and script. They are part of the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect that dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread into central and east Asia via the Silk Road. The manuscripts are now in the possession of the British Library.

Tapa Shotor monastery (2nd century CE)


Seated Buddha, Tapa Shotor monastery (Niche V1), 2nd century CE, Hadda

Main article: Tapa Shotor

Tapa Shotor was a large Sarvastivadin Buddhist monastery.[3][4] According to archaeologist Raymond Allchin, the site of Tapa Shotor suggests that the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara descended directly from the art of Hellenistic Bactria, as seen in Ai-Khanoum.[5]

The earliest structures at Tapa Shotor (labelled "Tapa Shotor I" by archaeologists) date to the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (35-12 BCE).[6]

A sculptural group excavated at the Hadda site of Tapa-i-Shotor represents Buddha surrounded by perfectly Hellenistic Herakles and Tyche holding a cornucopia.[7] The only adaptation of the Greek iconography is that Herakles holds the thunderbolt of Vajrapani rather than his usual club.

According to Tarzi, Tapa Shotor, with clay sculptures dated to the 2nd century CE, represents the "missing link" between the Hellenistic art of Bactria, and the later stucco sculptures found at Hadda, usually dated to the 3rd-4th century CE.[8] The scultptures of Tapa Shortor are also contemporary with many of the early Buddhist sculptures found in Gandhara.[8]


Head of a Buddha or Bodhisattva, facing (4th-5th century), probably Hadda, Tapa Shotor.[9][10]


Attendants to the Buddha, Tapa Shotor (Niche V1)


Site of Tapa Shotor, with a protective roof.[11]

Chakhil-i-Ghoundi monastery (2nd-3rd century CE)

Main article: Chakhil-i-Ghoundi Stupa

The Chakhil-i-Ghoundi monastery is dated to the 4th-5th century CE. Is is built around the Chakhil-i-Ghoundi Stupa, a small limestone stupa. Most of the remains of the stupa were gathered in 1928 by the archeological mission of Frenchman Jules Barthoux of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan, and have been preserved and reconstituted through a collaboration with the Tokyo National Museum. They are today on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris. It is usually dated to the 2nd-3rd century CE.

The decoration of the stupa provides an interesting case of Greco-Buddhist art, combining Hellenistic and Indian artistic elements. The reconstitution consists of several parts, the decorated stupa base, the canopy, and various decorative elements.


Canopy of the stupa


Scene of "The Gift of Dirt", Chakhil-i-Ghoundi Stupa, Gandhara.


Wine and dance scene, with people in Hellenistic clothing

Tapa Kalan monastery (4th-5th century CE)


The "Genius with flowers", Tapa Kalan, Hadda, Gandhara. 2-3rd century CE. Musée Guimet.

The Tapa Kalan monastery is dated to the 4th-5th century CE. It was excavated by Jules Barthoux.[12]

One of its most famous artifact is an attendant to the Buddha who display manifest Hellenistic styles, the "Genie au Fleur", today in Paris at the Guimet Museum.[13]


Buddha statue in Tapa Kalan, Hadda


Small stupa decorated with Buddhas, Tapa Kalan, 4th-5th century CE


Indo-Corinthian capital, with figure of the Buddha inside acanthus leaves. Tapa Kalan.



Buddha with flying Erotes holding a wreath overhead, Tapa Kalan, 3rd century CE


Heads, Tapa Kalan.[14]


The Great Departure

Bagh-Gai monastery (3rd-4th century CE)

The Bagh-Gai monastery is generally dated to the 3rd-4th century CE.[15] Bagh-Gai has many small stupas with decorated niches.[16]


Hadda number 13, Bagh Gai monastery, by Charles Masson, 1842.


Sculpture from Bagh-Gai


Decorative panel, Bagh-Gai monastery

Tapa-i Kafariha Monastery (3rd-4th century CE)


Head of a female devotee, Tapa-i-Kafariha, III-IVth cent.

The Tapa-i Kafariha Monastery is generally dated to the 3rd-4th century CE. It was excavated in 1926–27 by an expedition led by Jules Barthoux as part of the French Archaeological Delegation to Afghanistan.


Hadda number 9, Tepe Kafariha, by Charles Masson, 1842.


Niche with the seated Boddhisatva Shakyamuni, Tapa-i Kafariha. Metropolitan Museum of Art.[17]


Door casing: Life of the Buddha. Musée Guimet


Atlas, on the base of a stupa, Tapa-i Kafariha.[18]

Tapa Tope Kalān monastery (5th century CE)

This large stupa is about 200 meters to the northeast of the modern city of Hadda. Masson called it "Tope Kalān" (Hadda 10), Barthoux "Borj-i Kafarihā", and it is now designated as "Tapa Tope Kalān".[19]

The stupa at Tope Kalan contained deposits of over 200 mainly silver coins, dating to the 4th-5th century CE. The coins included Sasanian issues of Varhran IV (388–399 CE), Yazdagird II (438–457 CE) and Peroz I (457/9–84 CE). There were also five Roman gold solidi: Theodosius II (408–50 CE), Marcianus (450–457 CE) and Leo I (457–474 CE). Many coins were also Hunnic imitations of Sasanian coins with the addition of the Alkhon tamgha, and 14 Alkhon coins with rulers showing of their characteristic elongated skulls. All these coins point to a mid-late 5th century date for the stupa.[20]


Ruins of the stupa (Hadda 10)


Alchon Hun, Sassanian and Kidarite coins from Tapa Kalan (Hadda 10)


Small decorative stupa at Hadda 10

Gallery


Polychrome Buddha, 2nd century CE, Hadda.


"Laughing boy" from Hadda.

References

1. Simpson, William (1881). "Art. VII.—On the Identification of Nagarahara, with reference to the Travels of Hiouen-Thsang". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 13 (2): 183–207. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00017792. ISSN 2051-2066.
2. John Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity(ISBN 0-691-03680-2)
3. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art"(PDF): 143.
4. Vanleene, Alexandra. "The Geography of Gandhara Art"(PDF): 158.
5. "Following discoveries at Ai-Khanum, excavations at Tapa Shotor, Hadda, produced evidence to indicate that Gandharan art descended directly from Hellenised Bactrian art. It is quite clear from the clay figure finds in particular , that either Bactrian artist from the north were placed at the service of Buddhism, or local artists, fully conversant with the style and traditions of Hellenistic art , were the creators of these art objects" in Allchin, Frank Raymond (1997). Gandharan Art in Context: East-west Exchanges at the Crossroads of Asia. Published for the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge by Regency Publications. p. 19. ISBN 9788186030486.
6. Vanleene, Alexandra. "Tapa-e Shotor". Hadda Archeo Data Base. ArcheoDB, 2021.
7. See image Archived 2012-07-31 at archive.today
8. Tarzi, Zémaryalai. "Le site ruiné de Hadda": 62 ff.
9. Behrendt, Kurt A. (2007). The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-224-4.
10. Boardman, George. The Greeks in Asia. pp. Greeks and their arts in India.
11. Tarzi, Zémaryalai. "Le site ruiné de Hadda".
12. Vanleene, Alexandra. "Tapa Tope Kalān". Hadda Archeo DB.
13. See image Archived 2013-01-03 at archive.today
14. "Photograph". RMN.
15. Barthoux, J. (1928). "BAGH-GAI". Revue des arts asiatiques. 5 (2): 77–81. ISSN 0995-7510. JSTOR 43474661.
16. Rhie, Marylin M. (14 June 2010). Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, Volume 3: The Western Ch'in in Kansu in the Sixteen Kingdoms Period and Inter-relationships with the Buddhist Art of Gandh?ra. BRILL. pp. Fig. 8.32 a to d. ISBN 978-90-04-18400-8.
17. Behrendt, Kurt A. (2007). The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-58839-224-4.
18. "Photograph". RMN.
19. Vanleene, Alexandra. "Tapa Tope Kalān". Hadda Archeo DB.
20. Errington, Elizabeth (2017). Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan: Explorations, Excavations, Collections 1832–1835. British Museum. p. 34.

External links

• Vandalised Afghanistan
• Oldest Buddhist bark texts
• Photographs from Tepe Shotur/Haḍḍa

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The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahabharata [Spitzer Manuscript]
by Dieter Schlingloff
University of Kiel
1968

-- The Parvasamgraha of the Mahabharata, by D.D. Kosambi

-- Mahabharata, by Wikipedia

The Berlin collection of Sanskrit mss. from Qizil (Chinese Turkistan) comprises numerous fragments of an unpublished palmleaf-manuscript in Kushana characters, comprehending at least two philosophical texts of the Sarvastivadin School. In the present paper, the fragments of two successive leaves are edited and discussed, which consist of a list of Mahabharata-parvans. The juxtaposition of this parvan-list with the current lists of the 100 sub- and 18 major parvan proves that this list represents an earlier stage of development of the Mahabharata. It verifies the statement of Winternitz and other scholars, which have argued that the virataparvan and the anusasanaparvan do not belong to the original Mbh., but are later interpolations into the great Epos.

Noted below are few words about the eighteen sections of the Mahabharata. In Mahabharata, these sections are called parvan. A parvan means a book. The names of all parvas or books of the Mahabharata are noted below.

Parva / Title / Contents

1 / Adi-Parva / Introduction, birth and growing up of the princes.
2 / Sabha-Parva / Life at the court, the game of dice, and the exile of the Pandavas. Maya Danava erects the palace and court (sabha), at Indraprastha.
3 / Aranyaka-Parva (also Vanaparva, Aranyaparva) / The twelve years in exile in the forest (aranya).
4 / Virata-Parva / The year in exile spent at the court of King Virata.
5 Udyoga-parva / Preparations for war.
6 / Bhishma-parva / The first part of the great battle, with Bhishma as commander for the Kauravas.
7 / Drona-parva / The battle continues, with Dronacharya as commander.
8 / Karna-parva / The battle again, with Karna as commander.
9 / Shalya-parva / The last part of the battle, with Shalya as commander.
10 / Sauptika-parva / How Ashvattama and the remaining Kauravas killed the Pandava army in their sleep (Sauptika).
11 / Stri-parva / Gandhari and the other women (stri) lament the dead.
12 / Shanti-parva / The crowning of Yudhisthira, and his instructions from Bhishma
13 / Anusasana-parva / The final instructions (anusasana) from Bhishma.
14 / Ashvamedhika-Parva / The royal ceremony of the Ashvamedha conducted by Yudhisthira.
15 / Ashramavasika-Parva / Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti leave for an ashram and eventual death in the forest.
16 / Mausala-parva / The infighting between the Yadavas with maces (masala).
17 / Mahaprasthanika-parva / The first part of the path to death (mahaprasthana or ‘the great journey’) of Yudhisthira and his brothers.
18 / Svargarohana-parva / The Pandavas return to the spiritual world (svarga).
19 / Harivamsha / Life of Krishna.

-- Mahabharata, by En.Wikipedia

Seated Buddha from the Sarvastivadin monastery of Tapa Shotor, 2nd century CE.

The Sarvāstivāda was one of the early Buddhist schools established around the reign of Asoka (third century BCE). It was particularly known as an Abhidharma tradition, with a unique set of seven Abhidharma works.

The Sarvāstivādins were one of the most influential Buddhist monastic groups, flourishing throughout North India (especially Kashmir) and Central Asia until the 7th century. The orthodox Kashmiri branch of the school composed the large and encyclopedic Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra around the time of the reign of Kanishka (c. 127–150 CE). Because of this, orthodox Sarvāstivādins who upheld the doctrines in the Mahāvibhāṣa were called Vaibhāṣikas.

The Sarvāstivādins are believed to have given rise to the Mūlasarvāstivāda sect as well as the Sautrāntika tradition, although the relationship between these groups has not yet been fully determined.

Sarvāstivāda is a Sanskrit term that can be glossed as: "the theory of all exists". The Sarvāstivāda argued that all dharmas exist in the past, present and future, the "three times". Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośakārikā states, "He who affirms the existence of the dharmas of the three time periods [past, present and future] is held to be a Sarvāstivādin."

-- Sarvastivada, by Wikipedia

The Berlin Collection of Sanskrit MSS. from Central Asia comprises numerous fragments of a palmleaf-manuscript from Qizil, which comprehends at least two philosophical texts of the Buddhist Sarvastivadin-school (Ms.Spitzer). The manuscript may be palaeographically assigned to the Kushana period [AD 30 to circa 375].

The Spitzer Manuscript is the oldest surviving philosophical manuscript in Sanskrit, and possibly the oldest Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to Buddhism and Hinduism discovered so far. The Spitzer Manuscript was found in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 palm leaf fragments in the Ming-oi, Kizil Caves, China during the third Turfan expedition headed by Albert Grünwedel. The calibrated age of the manuscript by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE). According to the Indologist Eli Franco, the palaeographical features suggest a date closer to 200–230 CE. According to Indologist Noriyuki Kudo, the Franco's 3rd-century estimate is a presumption based on a theory of palaeographic chronology. The text is written in the Brahmi script (Kushana period) and some early Gupta script. It is named after Moritz Spitzer, whose team first studied it in 1927–28.

First, briefly, the big picture. This is one of several hundred manuscripts discovered within the last 20 years from the ancient region of Gandhara. And I'll show a map later if you're not familiar with Gandhara and where it is. I'll get back to that. But we now know of several hundred manuscripts, almost all of them like this one, a birch bark scroll and written in the Gandhari language, which I'll describe a little bit later on, and in the Kharosthi script, which you'll also see some illustrations of. And these manuscripts date between the first century BC and the third century AD. So they are clearly the oldest manuscripts of any manifestation of Buddhism. And they're also the oldest South Asian manuscripts in existence....

So this manuscript has been tested by radiocarbon dating twice in two different labs and the results are here. And the results are a little disturbing because they should be the same, theoretically but they're not and there's been some discussion of that and probably there was some contamination. These things were packed in cotton wool when they were shipped here and that may have contaminated and damaged the accuracy of the test. So there's really no way to know which is the more accurate result, the one in Australia, number one, or the one that was done in University of Arizona, number two. So all in all, we have the big possible span from 206 BC to 1, what does it say, 133 CE. But that's not -- It's not a major problem because it's all in the ballpark and since then, quite a few other manuscripts of similar types have been tested and they all fall in period between first century BC to third century AD. And for specific reasons that I'm not going to take the time to explain now but I'm pretty sure that this manuscript is either first century BC or first century CE. So we have a pretty good idea of where we are historically.

-- One Buddha, 15 Buddhas, 1,000 Buddhas, by Richard Salomon

The Spitzer Manuscript were found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road. It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far. The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises. Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of Dukkha and the Four Noble Truths. The Hindu portions include treatises from the Nyaya-Vaiśeṣika, Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the parva (books) of the Mahabharata, along with numerals after each parva. This list does not include Anusasanaparvan and Virataparvan. Studies by the Indologist Dieter Schlingloff on these Spitzer Manuscript fragments suggest that more ancient versions of the Mahabharata was likely expanded and interpolated in the early centuries of the common era. According to Indologist and Sanskrit scholar John Brockington, known for his Mahabharata-related publications, the table of contents in the Spitzer Manuscript includes book names not found in later versions, and it is possible that the parvas existed but were with different titles. The epic known to the scribe of Spitzer Manuscript may have been in the form of a different arrangement and titles. The final portion of the Spitzer Manuscript is devoted to dialectics.

In addition to the Mahabharata, the Spitzer Manuscript refers to or includes sections from the Arthashastra and the Manusmriti (juridical chapters) –- a tradition of collecting Hindu texts that is found in ancient Buddhist monasteries' collections such as the Kharosthi-script manuscripts of the Bajaur Collection discovered in Buddhist ruins of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan since the 1990s, states Harry Falk and Ingo Strauch.

The decayed Spitzer Manuscript does not survive in the form it was discovered in 1906, and portions of it were likely destroyed during the World War II. Of what survives, predominant portions are now at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) in Germany and cataloged as SHT 810. Some surviving fragments are now at the British Library, and are catloged as Or 15005/6–8, Or 15005/17–21 and Or 15005/30–32.

-- Spitzer Manuscript, by Wikipedia

In WZKSO XII (1968), pp. 323-29, I gave an account of the ms. and the story of its investigation. Moreover I published fragments of two successive leaves, in order to give an impression of the style of the text, which sometimes elucidates philosophical terms by references to other sciences. In the meantime, I have been able to identify some fragments of these two leaves.1 The text thus runs as follows:

1. rtrparito///--///..[s]y.v.ne vasa///--///nk(e) = svarena ravane (n = a) pahrta sita rame///

2. nararajam///--///[sa]hayam = artthayi///--///[k].amsi ca ba[h ‘(a)].i[h].[ ] .i///

3. ///

rev.

1. ///

2. r.m = asya ra///--///pandavadharitarastra///--///r=yathapurvu[am] .r.///

3. lamam 2///--///aranyakam 7 [a]///--///ryyanam = 9 bhaga[v](a)yanam 10 bhismaparv[v]am///

fol. 100 + 90 + (x = 1)

obv.

1. ///nt(i)parvvam 15 atvamediham 1 [6]///

2. ///khilesu evam sarvvasya sloka[gram]///--/// = (s)r(a)m = ekam sastis = ca saha(s)r.///

3. ///yadavanam kauravanam = a.y.///--/// = rmmani yuddhani///

rev.

1. ///vyavaharah manaviya a///--///yyah = rauhabhu[t].///

2. ///strinimitte anucite marsit(a)///--///[sa]tah dve = vivadapade sa///

3. ///tir = iti tatra katamah kriya///

Evidently the obverse of fol. 100 + 90 + x refers to the story of the Ramayana: “Sita, with her husband’s welfare in mind” (bha)rtrparito(sa), “(followed him into exile, and,) living in the forest” v(a)ne vasa…, “she was carried off by Ravana, the emperor of Lanka” (la)nk(e)svarena ravane(na)pahrta; “by Rama, (who, searching for her, met) the king of the apes” (va)nararajam, “and …, having asked for his friendship” sahayam artthayi(tva), … “(besieged) the Raksas” (ra)k(s)amsi “and …” This passage is the oldest summary of the (epic) Rama story in a Buddhist text, some centuries older than the reference to the Ramayana in the Mahavibhasa discovered by Watanabe.2

The reverse of the next leaf, fol. 100 + 90 + (x + 1), deals with juridical questions. This is indicated by the words vyavaharah, “(legal) proceedings”, dve viv(a)dapade, “charge and countercharge” and kriya(padah), “production of (legal) evidence.” No further details are intelligible to me, but it should be of some interest, that the “code of the Manava,” manaviya a(gama) [Manusmriti], is quoted, which may be a prose predecessor of the metrical Manaviya Dharmasastra.3

The centre section between the quotation of the Ramayana and the juridical text, fol. 100 + 90 + x reverse and fol. 100 + 90 + (x +1) obverse, concerns an exposition of the Mahabharata. The first words pandavadharttarastra may represent an enumeration of the heroes, the end yadavanam kauravanam … (ka)rmmani yuddhani seems to belong to a summary concerning the fate of the tribes. The passage rev.2-obv.2 consists of a list of the Mahabharata-parvans, followed by a statement on the size of the epos.

The current organization of the Mahabharata is established by two separate parvan lists, fixed by the Parvasamgraha and rounded off to 100 (sub-) parvan and 18 (major parvan.4 The juxtaposition of the (sub-) parvan and (major) parvan names with the parvan-list of Ms.Spitzer makes it evident, that some names of this list correspond to (major) parvan names, others to (sub-) parvan names. At the very beginning the gap between (pau)lomam 2 and aranyakam 7 covers at least three (sub-) parvan names, (beside the (major) parvan sabha?). Subsequently, some (major) parvans are missing altogether, like 4.virata and 13.anusasana, likewise two of the five names 7.drona, 8.karna, 9.salya, 10.sauptika and 11.stri, as well as (probably)5 two of the four last names 15.asramavasika, 16.mausala, 17.mahaprasthanika and 18.svargarohana. The (major) parvan 5.udyoga, however, is represented by two names of the (sub-) parvan list, (ni)ryyanam 9 and bhaga(vad)yanam 10.6

To explain these facts, it should be realized that the parvan-list of Ms.Spitzer originated at a time when the Mahabharata was still in a state of development. With the interpolation of new subjects new parvan names were inserted, and, in order to maintain a comprehensive parvan-list, 18 of the most significant parvan-names were selected to form a list of (major) parvans, while the old parvan list was made up to the round number of 100 names.7

(sub=) parvan / (major) parvan / Ms. Spitzer

1. anukramani / 1. adi / [a] (diparvvam 1)

2. parvasamgraha

3. pausya

4. pauloma / -- / (pau) lomam 2

5. astika / [astika H]

6. adivamsavatarana

7. sambhava

8. jatugrhadaha

9. haidimba / -- / (…3)

10. bakavadha

11. caitraratha

12. svayamvara

13. vaivahika

14. viduragamana / -- / (…4)

15. rajyalambha

16. arjunavanavasa

17. subhadraharana

18. haranaharika

19. khandavadaha / -- / (…5)

20. sabha / 2. sabha

21. mantra

22. jarasandhavadha

23. digvijaya / -- / (…6)

24. rajasuyika

25. arghabhiharana

26. sisupalavadha

27. dyuta

28. anudyuta

29. aranyaka / 3. aranyaka / aranyakam 7

30. kirmiravadha

31. kairata

32. indralokabhigamana

33. tirthayatra

34. jatasuravadha

35. yaksayuddha

36. ajagara

37. markandeyasamasya

38. draupadisatabhamasamvada

39. ghosayatra

40. mrgasvapnabhaya

41. vrihidraunika

42. draupadiharana

43. kundalaharana

44. araneya / [arani H] / [a](raneyam 8)

45. vairata / 4. virata

46. kicakavadha

47. gograhana

48. vaivahika

49. udyoga / 5. udyoga

50. samjayayana

51. prajagara

52. sanatsujata

53. yanasandhi

54. bhagavadyana / -- / bhaga(vad) yanam 10

55. vivada

56. niryana / -- / (ni) ryyanam 9

57. rathatirathasamkhya

58. ulukadulagamana

59. ambopakhyana

60. bhismabhisecana / 6. bhisma / bhismaparvvam (11)

61. jambukhandanirmana

62. bhumi

63. bhagavadgita

64. bhismavadha

65. dronabhiseka / 7. d

66. samsaptakavadha

67. abhimanyuvadha / -- / (…12)

68. pratijna

69. jayadrathavadha

70. ghatotkacavadha

71. dronavadha

72. narayanasiramoksa / -- / (…13)

73. karna / 8. karna

74. salya / 9. salya

75. hradapravesa

76. gadayuddha / [gada A, H. K]

77. sarasvata

78. sauptika / 10 sauptika

79. aisika / [aisika H] / (…14)

80. jalapradanika / [jalapradanika A]

81. stri / 11. stri

82. sraddha

83. abhisecanika

84. carvakanigraha

85. grhapravibhaga

86. santi / 12. santi / (sa)ni(i)parvvam 15

87. apaddharma

88. moksadharma

89. anusasanika / 13. anusasana

90. bhismasvargarohana

91. asvamedhika / 14. asvamedhika / asvamedhikam 16

92. anugita

93. asramavasa / 15. asramavasika

94. putradarsana / -- / (…17)

95. naradagamana

96. mausala / 16. mausala / (…18)

97. mahaprasthanika / 17. mahaprasthanika

98. svargarohana / 18. svargarohana

99. harivamsa / [khilesu harivamsas / …

100. bhavisyat / ca bhavisyac ca] / … khilesu

As at the time of the origination of the parvan list of Ms.Spitzer the confusing double row of (major) and (sub-) parvan did not yet exist, the question of the size and the subjects represented by the parvan names should now be raised. Evidently the vast doctrinal passages of the santiparvan were already incorporated in the epos, and even the khilas were regarded as belonging to the Mahabharata.

The Shanti Parva (Sanskrit: शान्ति पर्व; IAST: Śānti parva; "Book of Peace") is the twelfth of eighteen books of the Indian Epic Mahabharata. It traditionally has 3 sub-books and 365 chapters. The critical edition has 3 sub-books and 353 chapters. It is the longest book among the eighteen books of the epic.

The book is set after the war is over -- the two sides have accepted peace and Yudhishthira starts his rule of the Pandava kingdom. The Shanti parva recites the duties of the ruler, dharma and good governance, as counseled by the dying Bhishma and various Rishis. The parva includes many symbolic tales such as one about "starving and vegetarian Vishvamitra stealing meat during a famine" and fables such as that of "the fowler and pigeons". The book also provides what some have described as a "theory of caste" as well as a comparative discussion between a rule of truth versus a rule of rituals, declaring truth to be far superior over rituals. Shanti parva has been widely studied for its treatises on jurisprudence, prosperity and success.

Scholars have questioned whether parts or all of the parva was inserted or interpolated at a later age....

Shanti parva on caste

Chapters 188 and 189 of the parva begin by reciting Bhrigu's theory of varna, according to whom Brahmins were white, Kshatriyas red, Vaishyas yellow, and Shudras black. Rishi Bharadwaja asks how can castes be discriminated when in truth all colors are observed in every class of people, when in truth people of all groups experience the same desire, same anger, same fear, same grief, same fatigue, same hunger, same love and other emotions? Everyone is born the same way, carries blood and bile, and dies the same way, asserts Bharadwaja. Why do castes exist, asks Bharadwaja? Bhrigu replies there is no difference among castes. It arose because of differentiation of work. Duty and rites of passage are not forbidden to any of them. According to John Muir, Shanti Parva and its companion book Anushasana Parva claim neither birth, nor initiation, nor descent, nor bookish knowledge determines a person's merit; only their actual conduct, expressed qualities and virtues determine one's merit. There is no superior caste, claims Shanti parva.

Shanti parva on governance

The parva dedicates over 100 chapters on duties of a king and rules of proper governance. A prosperous kingdom must be guided by truth and justice. Chapter 58 of Shanti parva suggests the duty of a ruler and his cabinet is to enable people to be happy, pursue truth and act sincerely. Chapter 88 recommends the king to tax without injuring the ability or capacity of citizens to provide wealth to monarchy, just like bees harvest honey from flower, keepers of cow draw milk without starving the calf or hurting the cow; those who cannot bear the burden of taxes, should not be taxed. Chapter 267 suggests the judicial staff to reflect before sentencing, only sentence punishment that is proportionate to the crime, avoid harsh and capital punishments, and never punish the innocent relatives of a criminal for the crime. Several chapters, such as 15 and 90, of the parva claim the proper function of a ruler is to rule according to dharma; he should lead a simple life and he should not use his power to enjoy the luxuries of life. Shanti parva defines dharma not in terms of rituals or any religious precepts, but in terms of that which increases Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence), Asteya (non-stealing of property created by another), Shoucham (purity), and Dama (restraint). Chapter 109 of Shanti parva asserts rulers have a dharma (duty, responsibility) to help the upliftment of all living beings. The best law, claims Shanti parva, is one that enhances the welfare of all living beings, without injuring any specific group.

-- Shanti Parva, by Wikipedia

On the other hand, the name of the anusasanaparvan [#13] is missing. It may be supposed that this parvan was already regarded as a part of the santiparvan, as it was in later times by Ksemendra, Alberuni and some mss.8 However, it is far more likely, that it was in those times unknown to the epos at all. We recall the statement of Winternitz: “While Book XII, even though it did not belong to the original epic, yet was probably inserted at a comparatively early date, there can be no doubt with regard to Book XIII, that it was made a component part of the Mahabharata at a still later time. It bears all the marks of a later fabrication. Nowhere in the Mahabharata, to mention only one thing, are the claims of the Brahmans to supremacy over all other strata of society vindicated in such an arrogant and exaggerated manner as in Book XIII.”9

Iyer, in 1923, compared different versions of Shanti Parva manuscripts found in east, west and south India, in Sanskrit and in different Indian languages. The comparison showed that while some chapters and verses on moral and ethical theories are found in all manuscripts, there are major inconsistencies between many parts of the manuscripts. Not only is the order of chapters different, large numbers of verses were missing, entirely different or somewhat inconsistent between the manuscripts. The most inconsistent sections were those relating to social customs, castes, and certain duties of kings. Iyer claims these chapters were smuggled and interpolated into the Mahabharata, or the answers rewritten to suit regional agenda or views.

-- Shanti Parva, by Wikipedia

Besides the anusasana, another parvan too seems to be a late interpolation: the virataparvan (4.), which is regarded by eminent scholars10 as a production not belonging to the original epos; cf. Winternitz: “there can scarcely be any doubt that the whole of Book IV (virata-parvan) is a later production than the magnificent battle-descriptions in the following books.”11 “I will only mention that we find in this book the whole battle of Kuruksetra, -- shall we say foreshadowed or repeated? –- but with the difference, that in the main story of the Epic it takes eighteen days of hard fighting, to conquer the Kauravas, and the final victory is only won by employing strategems which are anything but fair, while in the virata-parvan Arjuna puts the Kauravas to flight almost in no time.”12 Unfortunately, in Ms.Spitzer the word between aranyakam 7 (representing the third major parvan) and (ni)ryyanam 9 (representing the fifth major parvan) is missing, but the preserved part of the aksara a or a indicates that this word was not virata. It may be restored as a(raneya), (in conformity with the parvan list of the Harivamsa) or perhaps a(jagara), both being (sub-) parvan names of the aranyaka. As no (sub-) parvan of the virata begins with a or a, the virataparvan probably was missing altogether in the early Mahabharata represented by Ms.Spitzer, in accordance with the suggestion concerning this parvan by Professor Winternitz.

As Buhler has pointed out,13 a landgrant of A.D. 532/33, characterizing the Mahabharata as a compilation containing 100,000 Slokas (satasahasri samhita), proves with certainty, that the Mahabharata in those times had approximately the same bulk as at present. About the beginning of our era, the Mahabharata represented by Ms.Spitzer seems to have been much shorter, representing an earlier stage of development. The question of the extent of this earlier Mahabharata comes up, and indeed Ms.Spitzer promises an answer (fol. 100 + 90 + (x + 1) obv. 1.2) with the words: evam sarvvasya sloka[gram], “Thus the height of slokas14 altogether is …” Unfortunately, the gap between this fragment and the following could in no line be filled up with certainty, so that the number of missing aksaras and the restoration (sahas)r(a)m ekam sastis ca saha(s)r(ani) remains uncertain. Further investigation in the Ms.Spitzer perhaps will solve this problem.

_______________

Notes:

1. I owe the transcription of the underlined part of fol. 100 + 90 + x, the original of which is now missing, to the courtesy of Dr. Moritz Spitzer, Jerusalem, who transcribed the manuscript some 40 years ago.

2. K. Watanabe, “The Oldest Record of the Ramayana in a Chinese Buddhist Writing,” JRAS 1907, 99-103. In Watanabe’s translation of the Chinese version by Yuan Chwang the passage runs as follows: “As a book called the Ramayana, there are 12,000 slokas. They explain only two topics, namely: (1) Ravana carries Sita off by violence, and (2) Rama recovers Sita and returns. The Buddhist scriptures are not so simple. Their forms of composition and meanings are respectively immensurable and infinite.”

3. The term manaviya (instead of manava) in the title of Manu’s law-book is not to be found in the dictionaries. It is quoted in Bhasa’s Pratima Nataka, p. 79: katya-pagotro ‘smi, sangopangam vedam adhiye, manaviyam dharmasastram, mahesvaram yogasastram, barhaspatyam arthasastram, medhatither nyayasastram, praceltasam srad-dhakalpam ca. Cf. also Ep.Inc. 34, p. 237: manaviye … dharmmasastre. With reference to the quotation manavam sutram udaharanti in Vas.Dharmas. 4. 5, indicating a sutra as predecessor of the metrical sastra of J. Jolly, Recht und Sitte (Strassburg, 1896), p. 12.

4. Beside the parvan list of the parvasamgraha, there exists a list of 20 parvan-names in the Harivamsa [H], 16195-16210: 1. adi, 2. astika, 3. sabha, 4. aranyaka, 5. arani, 6. virata, 7. udyoga, 8. bhisma, 9. drone, 10. karna, 11. salya, 12. gada, 13. stri, 14. aisika, 15. santi, 16. asvamedhika, 17. asramanivasa, 18. mausala, 19. mahaprasthanika, 20. svarga. Alberuni [A] (ed. Sachau, vol. I, p. 133) quotes 18 parvan-names, omitting the adiparvan and inserting the jalapradanika. The statements of Ksemendra [K] in his Bharatamanjari are discussed by G. Buhler and J. Kirste, “Indian Studies, No. II, Contributions to the History of the Mahabharata, Sitzungsber d. Kais. Ak. d. Wiss. Wien, Phil.-hist Kl., Bd.CXXVII, 12. In our list the statement of the parvasamgraha is reproduced, without regard to the various differences of the mss.

5. The gap in Ms.Spitzer, however, may have contained more than two names.

6. The transformation of the two names may be due to the confusion of a scribe.

7. With justification the late Professor V.S. Sukthankar has suggested, that the names of the major parvans were obtained from the (older) sub-parvan list; cf. “Epic Studies I. Some aspects of the Mahabharata Cannon,” JBBRAS, N.S.4; repr. in V.S. Sukthankar Memorial Edition, Vol. I, Critical Studies in the Mahabharata (Poona, 1944), p. 202, n. 1: “It will be noticed that 17 (out of the aggregate of 19) names of the (major) parvans, in this scheme, are identical with the names of the initial (sub-) parvan of each group. This is valuable because it suggests how the names of the 19 (major) parvans were obtained from the (older) list of the hundred (sub-)parvans.”

8. Cf. Buhler-Kirste, op. cit., p. 56f.

9. A History of Indian Literature I (Calcutta, 1927), p. 424f.

10. E.W. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India, p. 382f.; A. Holtzmann, Das Mahabharata II, p. 98.

11. A History of Indian Literature I, p. 458.

12. ABORI, V, p. 23.

13. Op. cit., p. 26.

14. slokagra, “the number of slokas”, cf.Mbh. 1, 2.135: slokagram api me srnu; 1,2.177: slokagram catra sasyate; 1,2.189: slokagram atra kathitam; 1, 2.95, no.: slokagram ca sahasram ca trisatam cottaram tatha.

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Neil B. Edmonstone
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/21

Fort William College aimed at training British officials in Indian languages and, in the process, fostered the development of languages such as Bengali and Urdu. The period is of historical importance. In 1815, Ram Mohan Roy settled in Calcutta. It is considered by many historians to be the starting point of the Bengali Renaissance. Establishment of The Calcutta Madrassa in 1781, the Asiatic Society in 1784 and the Fort William College in 1800, completed the first phase of Kolkata’s emergence as an intellectual centre.

Teaching of Asian languages dominated: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali. Later, Marathi and even Chinese were added. Each department of the college was staffed by notable scholars. The Persian department was headed by Neil B. Edmonstone, Persian translator to the East India Company's government since 1794. His assistant teacher was John H. Harington, a judge of Sadar Diwani Adalat and Francis Gladwin, a soldier diplomat. For Arabic studies, there was Lt. John Baillie, a noted Arabist. The Urdu department was entrusted to John Borthwick Gilchrist, an Indologist of great repute. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the famous orientalist, was head of the Sanskrit department. William Carey, a non-civilian missionary and a specialist in many Indian languages, was selected to head the department of vernacular languages. While notable scholars were identified and appointed for different languages, there was no suitable person in Calcutta who could be appointed to teach Bengali. In those days, the Brahmin scholars learnt only Sanskrit, considered to be the language of the gods, and they did not study Bengali. The authorities decided to appoint Carey, who was with the Baptist Mission in Serampore. He, in turn, appointed Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar as head pandit, Ramnath Bachaspati as second pandit and Ramram Basu as one of the assistant pandits.

-- Fort William College [East India College Calcutta], by Wikipedia

Neil B. Edmonstone

Neil Benjamin Edmonstone (1765–1841) was a civil servant in and director of the East India Company.

Early life

Edmonstone, born on 6 December 1765, was fifth son of Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath, M.P. for Dumbartonshire 1761–80 and 1790–6, and the Ayr Burghs 1780–90, who, made a baronet in 1774, died in 1807. He obtained a writership in the East India Company's civil service, and reached India in 1783. He was soon attached to the secretariat at Calcutta, and was appointed deputy Persian translator to government by Lord Cornwallis in 1789, and Persian translator by Sir John Shore in 1794.

Career

On the arrival of Lord Wellesley, in 1798, the new governor-general appointed Edmonstone to be his acting private secretary, and in that capacity he accompanied him to Madras in 1799. Lord Wellesley now determined to crush Tippoo Sultan, and finally annihilate the power which the French officers were building up in India by taking service with Nizam Ali Khan and other native princes. Edmonstone was by his chief's side throughout this important year, and translated and published the documents found in Tippoo's palace, which formed the principal justification of the English attack upon him. That the whole policy of Lord Wellesley in making the company the paramount power in India by means of his system of subsidiary treaties was largely due to Edmonstone there can be no doubt, though he modestly kept in the background.

Sir John William Kaye speaks of him, in his Lives of Indian Officers, as "the ubiquitous Edmonstone, one of the most valuable officials and far-seeing statesmen which the Indian civil service has ever produced". On 1 January 1801 he was appointed secretary to the government of India in the secret, political, and foreign department, and he played as important a part in forming the plans which were to crush the Marathas as he had done in the war against Tippoo Sultan. He continued to hold his office after the departure of Lord Wellesley, and as Lord Cornwallis did not survive long enough to counteract the policy of that statesman, Edmonstone was able to carry on the system he had done so much to initiate during the interregnum after his death. When Lord Minto arrived as governor-general in 1807, Edmonstone acted as his private secretary, as in former days to Lord Wellesley, and soon obtained much the same influence over him.

Later life

On 30 October 1809 he became Chief Secretary to Government, and on 30 October 1812 he succeeded his old friend and colleague James Lumsden as member of the Supreme Council at Calcutta.

The Supreme Council of Bengal was the highest level of executive government in British India from 1774 until 1833: the period in which the East India Company, a private company, exercised political control of British colonies in India. It was formally subordinate to both the East India Company's Court of Directors (board) and to the British Crown.

The Supreme Council was established by the British government, under Regulating Act of 1773. It was to consist of five members, including the Governor General, and was appointed by the Court of Directors (board) of the East India Company. At times it also included the British military Commander-in-Chief of India (although this post was usually held concurrently by the Governor General). Hence the council was also known as Governor-General-in-Council.

The Charter Act of 1833 formally separated the East India Company from political control, and established the new Council of India.

-- Supreme Council of Bengal, by Wikipedia

Having completed his five years in this appointment, he left India after thirty-four years' service there, and returned to England. He was soon after, in 1820, elected a director of the East India Company, and continued to act in this capacity until his death.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1826 as "an East India Director, and late Vice President of the Supreme Government of Bengal, (of 49 Portland Place) a Gentleman eminently versed in Oriental Literature and much attached to Science."[1]

He died at his residence, 49 Portland Place, on 4 May 1841. He married the daughter of Peter Friell, by whom he had a family of five sons and six daughters, of whom the most distinguished was the fourth son, Sir George Frederick Edmonstone, who was Lord Canning's foreign secretary, and governor of the north-western provinces after the Sepoy Mutiny. The eldest son, Neil Benjamin (born 13 June 1809), was also in the East India Company's service. He also had an Indian family which he provided for and maintained quite separately from his European one.[2]

References

1. "Library and Archive catalog". Royal Society. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
2. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 Christopher Bayly

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Dāyabhāga
by Wikipedia
Accessed :6/1/21

The Dayabhaga itself was only translated once before, by H.T. Colebrooke in 1810, reprinted by Parimal Publications (Delhi, 1984). In Colebrooke’s time, the Dayabhaga and the Mitakshara were virtually declared by him to be Hindu law on the subject of succession and inheritance in Bengal and the rest of British India. The frustrating process of seeking to ascertain “Hindu law” through new compilations of texts had earlier been abandoned as unworkable, and Colebrooke was deeply unhappy with the confusing array of responses from the pundits (experts on dharma who were asked leading questions about “law”, a classic case of failed cross-cultural communication). While the pundits still produced their learned opinions as part of the standard legal process, Colebrooke was desperate to procure a codified source of Hindu law. Ultimately he performed this task himself, fully aware that a British pandit’s work might not be acceptable to the Hindus. Evidently, British colonial agenda, rather than socio-legal sensitivity, were driving this astonishing enterprise….

Today, as Rocher states in the Preface, the present translation and edition are no longer primarily aimed at lawyers and the goal is purely academic: “to present, not only to Sanskritists and Indologists but also to legal historians, a translation of a text of a Sanskrit book that, for about one century and a half, has regulated all questions of partition and inheritance for Hindus living in Bengal” (p. vii).

All questions, really? While there can be no doubt about the place of the Dayabhaga as a key text in Anglo-Hindu law, Rocher himself had earlier (1972) questioned to what extent the Dayabhaga was actually “current in Bengal” (p. 20). How much of its eventual practical application reflects just the formal “official” law? Given the central role of patriarchy and of various customs all over India, the assumption that two texts could entirely govern “the law” seems inflated. What about the central role of family arrangements, to which Derrett – also from a practical angle – gave so much importance in his numerous writings? When a matter goes to court – if it ever comes to a final hearing – Anglo-Indian judges often deliberately overlooked social reality and textual variety in their desire to create a uniform system (as Rocher confirms at p. 39 n. 18). In recent litigation over Hindu property law, succession, and so-called “dowry disputes”, family arrangements have been upheld in an effort to achieve equity – and such arrangements might follow neither the principles of the Dayabhaga nor its rival text. Indeed, Colebrooke’s colonial construct is no longer operative in practice – not because it was superseded by the Hindu law reforms of 1956, but because formal legal approaches have never ruled the field to the total exclusion of family practices, covered by sadacara, the informal assessment of dharma.

In his detailed, learned introduction (pp. 1-50), Rocher first locates the Dayabhaga as “part of a long tradition of Sanskrit texts concerned with legal matters” (p. 1). But are we just dealing with “law” here, or with dharma? Without wishing to detract for a moment from the excellence of Rocher’s philological project, I must register some protest here over lack of legal clarity. When Rocher asserts that “[t]he oldest legal prescriptions in India are contained in the dharma-sutras (p. 1), are we to understand that the old texts were written by “jurists” for “lawyers” and were really prescriptive, rather than discussing and recommending various alternatives? Later, it becomes obvious that Rocher himself does not accept that view.

Further we read that “[w]hat is understood as “law” in the West is expressed in Sanskrit by the terms vivada and vyavahara, the former corresponding to substantive law, the latter to legal procedure” (p. 4). There is, however, no agreement in the West as to how we should understand or define “law” (see now Brian Tamanaha, A general jurisprudence of law and society. Oxford, 2001). More seriously, Robert Lingat, in The Classical law of India (Berkeley et al. 1973, p. 285) saw vivada as dispute or private litigation, and vyavahara as the more formal judicial process and procedure. Thus, both terms are “litigation” rather than substantive law, or merely “law”, as the Sanskrit-English dictionary of Monier-Williams also suggests.

When it comes to British colonial interference, Rocher is crystal clear that Colebrooke was desperate to have a code-like text and even doctored the manuscript to achieve that impression (p. 36). Rocher’s new translation cannot ignore this, so entrenched is the colonial pattern. Colebrooke created legal facts in 1810 by elevating these two Sanskrit texts above all others “as the Main representatives of two distinct systems of inheritance” (p. 21). This constructed duality gave rise to many questions about dates and mutual influence of the two authors.

While the Mitakshara must have been composed around 1120-1125 (p. 24), there has been much discussion about the date of the Dayabhaga. Rocher concludes with Derrett that the two authors must have been contemporaneous, working independently of each other in the beginning of the twelfth century.

Next, Rocher tackles the differences between Dayabhaga and Mitakshara law. In a nutshell, the Mitakshara principle has the effect that any male member of the joint family becomes a co-owner of the property from birth. Under the Dayabhaga, ownership of property only arises on the death of the estate’s owner, which clearly favours patriarchal authority; it is no surprise that there should have been various objections to this (p. 29). Rocher shows that Jimutavahana cannot have been the original inventor of the principles of the Bengal school, because they were known to Vijnanesvara, the supposed rival author, who rejected them at great length (p. 31). Thus, Jimutavahana cannot have been the founder of the Bengal School, nor was there anything Bengali about the Dayabhaga principles before Colebrooke intervened to make life easier for British lawyers. An old text was simply given a new lease of life.

Commenting on the text itself, in essence a commentary on earlier smriti works, Rocher highlights that there is actually little nyaya [justice] in this work, while the omnipresence of mimamsa techniques [critical investigation] is remarkable, making Colebrooke’s translation cumbersome to read. Rocher decided to include those tortuous passages, since his main endeavour was to let the original text speak for itself, while the commentaries are given less prominence. This is sound scholarly technique, and Rocher’s translation reads very well indeed as a result.

Researching over many years, Rocher found 44 manuscripts useful for collation. However, he argues that preparing a truly critical edition of the text is no longer possible, given the multitude of manuscripts and their highly conflated [many becoming one] nature.

-- Review of Jīmūtavāhana's Dāyabhāga. The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal by Ludo Rocher, by Werner Menski

The Dāyabhāga is a Hindu law treatise written by Jīmūtavāhana which primarily focuses on inheritance procedure.

Jimutavahana
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/21

Jīmūtavāhana (c. 12th century) was an Indian Sanskrit scholar and writer of legal and religious treatises of early medieval period. He was the earliest writer on smriti (law) from Bengal whose texts are extant.

Major works

Jīmūtavāhana is known for his three major works. These three works are probably the parts of a bigger comprehensive digest, the Dharma Ratna.

His Kalaviveka is an exhaustive analysis of the auspicious kala (timings) for the performance of religious rites and ceremonies. This text also contains discussions on solar and lunar months. Based on the evidence of the last of a number of exact dates examined in this text, it is assumed that the text was written soon after March, 1093.

His Vyvahāra-mātrikā or Nyayaratna-mātrikā or Nyayamātrikā has dealt with vyavahāra (judicial procedure). The text is divided into five sections, Vyvaharamukha, Bhashapada, Uttarapada, Kriyapada and Nirnayapada.

His magnum opus Dāyabhāga has dealt with the laws of inheritance based on Manusmriti. In Bengal (and post-independence West Bengal and Tripura) and Assam, Dāyabhāga was the principal guide for laws on inheritance till the enactment of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. This treatise differs in some aspects from Mitakshara, which was prevalent in other parts of India based on Yajnavalka Smriti. The right of a widow without any male issue to inherit the properties of her deceased husband is recognized in Dāyabhāga.

Dayabhagatippani of Srinath Acharyachudamani (c. 16th century), Dayabhagatika of Raghunandan Bhattacharya (16th century) and Dayabhagatika of Srikrishna Tarkalankar (18th century) are the notable commentaries written on Dayabhaga during the late medieval period.

See also

• Dāyabhāga

References

• Roy, Niharranjan. Bangalir Itihas: Adiparba (in Bengali), Dey’s Publishing, Kolkata, 1993, ISBN 81-7079-270-3, pp. 615–616.
• Rocher, Ludo. Jīmūtavāhana's Dāyabhāga, Oxford Univ Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-513817-1

The Dāyabhāga was the strongest authority in Modern British Indian courts in the Bengal region of India, although this has changed due to the passage of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 and subsequent revisions to the act.[1] Based on Jīmūtavāhana's criticisms of the Mitākṣarā, it is thought that his work is precluded by the Mitākṣarā. This has led many scholars to conclude that the Mitākṣarā represents the orthodox doctrine of Hindu law, while the Dāyabhāga represents the reformed version.[2]

The central difference between the texts is based upon when one becomes the owner of property. The Dāyabhāga does not give the sons a right to their father's ancestral property until after his death, unlike Mitākṣarā, which gives the sons the right to ancestral property upon their birth. The digest has been commented on more than a dozen times.[3]

Translation

Henry Thomas Colebrooke

Henry Thomas Colebrooke translated the Dāyabhāga in 1810 through the use of manuscripts and pandits. Colebrooke, a Calcutta Supreme Court judge, broke the text into chapters and verses which were not in the original text and is often criticized for numerous errors in translation.[4] Rocher believes the mistakes were due to three factors:[5]

1. The format of the Sanskrit texts
2. The texts were deeply involved with an ancient civilization, which the translators were not familiar with
3. The misconception that the text was written by lawyers, for lawyers

Colebrooke created the division of two schools of thought in India, separating the majority of India, thought to follow the Mitākṣarā and the Bengal region, which followed the Dāyabhāga system.

Topics covered in the digest

• Partition of the father and grandfather's property
• Inheritance procedure among brothers after the death of the father
• Those excluded from inheritance due to disabilities
• The order of succession of one who dies without a son

Sages mentioned in the Dāyabhāga

• Manu: Among Smrtis, Manu is quoted the most frequently by Jīmūtavāhana.[3]
• Yajnavalkya
• Visnu
• Narada
• Bṛhaspati
• Katyayana
• Vyasa

Central differences between the Dāyabhāga and the Mitākṣarā

Son's inheritance

• The son has no right to the father's ancestral property until after his death, or the father's ownership becomes extinct through other means, such as being excluded from the caste or becoming ascetic. This is in direct contrast to the Mitākṣarā, which gives the sons a claim upon birth.[3]

The rights of the widow

• The widow succeeds the husband's property rights on his death, not in their own right, but representing him, even in cases where husband held property jointly with his brother.[6]

Ancestral property

• Dāyabhāga states that the father is the sole ruler of all property, both ancestral and personal. Unlike the Mitākṣarā, ancestral property is not seen as communal, therefore the father does not require the consent of his sons to act over the ancestral property. The essential difference between the 'Dāyabhāga' and the Mitākṣarā family is that the 'Dāyabhāga' sees no difference between the father's total control over ancestral and personal property.[6]

Personal property

• The father has the right to do as he wishes with his personal property in both the Mitākṣarā and the Dāyabhāga.

Inheritance

Succession

• After the father's death, the sons will succeed his portion of the ancestral property. This can be done during the father's lifetime, but only if the father chooses to do so. The property is not communally owned by the family, as it is in the Mitākṣarā. Each son has the ability to do what he wishes with his portion of the property after his father's death.[7]

Dharmaratna

• The Dāyabhāga is one of three recovered parts of Jīmūtavāhana's digest, the Dharmaratna. Only the Dāyabhāga has been commented on.
The other surviving parts include:

Vyavahāra-Mātrkā

Focuses on the Vyavahāra, or judicial procedure. Covers the four traditional areas of jurisprudence:[8]

• Plaint
• Reply
• Evidence
• Decision

Kāla-Viveka

Focuses on the appropriate times for the performance of religious duties and sacrifices.[3]

Commentaries

More than a dozen commentaries have been written on the Dāyabhāga. Pandurang Vaman Kane lists the most important commentators as:[9]

Śrīnātha Ācāryacūda

• Dāyabhāga-ṭippaṇī
• (1470-1540)
• The oldest commentary on the Dāyabhāga.
• Ācāryacūda was the teacher of jurist Raghunandana.

Rāmabhadra Nyāylankāra

• Dāyabhāga-vivṛti
• (1510-1570)
• Son of Śrīnātha Ācāryacūda, often defended his father against the criticism of Cakraviartin in his commentaries.

Acyutānanda Cakraviartin

• Dāyabhāga-siddhāntakumudacandrikā
• (1510-1570)
• Often critical of Ācāryacūda's commentary through the use of extensive quotations.

Maheśvara Bhaṭṭācārya

• Dāyabhāga-ṭīkā
• (1530-1600)

Śrīksṛṣṇa

• Dāyabhāga-probidhinī
• (Mid 18th century)
• Considered to be the most popular of all Dāyabhāga commentators, with most editions of the Dāyabhāga containing his commentary.[10]

Raghunandana

Raghunandana (c. 16th century) was the author of the Dāya-Tattva. Dayabhaga tika (or Dayabhaga vyakhya), a commentary on Dayabhaga, is also attributed to him.

Whether this commentary was actually done by Raghunandana, or another scholar using his name, is a topic of debate. Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1810) and Julius Eggeling (1891) suspected that it was not authored by him. Monmohan Chakravarti (1915), Rajendra Chandra Hazra (1950) and Pandurang Vaman Kane (1972), on the other hand, ascribed the work to Raghunandana.[11]

The commentary retained high standing and was used in court to answer disputed questions of Dāyabhāga.[12] The Calcutta High Court declared that Raghunandana's commentary of the Dāyabhāga is the best of all commentaries.[13]

Dating

The time of the writing is a topic of debate in the Hindu Law field. Many of the previous authors to which Jīmūtavāhana refers have been lost. Scholars such as Rājkumār Sarvādhikārī estimate his writing to have occurred in the fifteenth century, yet Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kāne believes he wrote between 1090 and 1130.[14] Commentaries and names mentioned in the Dāyabhāga prove that Jīmūtavāhana cannot be placed earlier than 1125 AD.[15] The vast differences between scholars appear on later dates.

Location

The provisions relating to property rights are followed in West Bengal, Bihar, Purvanchal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam.

Hindu Succession Act

• The Hindu Succession Act (Act No. 30 of 1956) resulted in many changes being made to both the Mitākṣarā and the Dāyabhāga systems regarding succession and partition.[3]

Notes

1. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 703.
2. Rocher, Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 23.
3. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 704.
4. Rocher,Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 33.
5. Rocher,Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 35.
6. Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 172.
7. Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 173.
8. Rocher,Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 9.
9. Kāne, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 711.
10. Rocher,Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 17.
11. Ludo Rocher (2002). Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga : The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal. Oxford University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-19-803160-4.
12. Rocher,Jimutavahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, (Oxford University Press, 2002), 16.
13. Kāne, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 892.
14. M. Chakravarti, Part I. Bengal, (J.A.S.B., 1915) 321-327
15. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 712.

References

• Chakravarti, M. (1915). Part 1. Bengal. J.A.S.B. Publ.
• Lingat, Robert (1973). The Classical law of India. New York: Oxford UP Publ.

[admin]

Review of Jīmūtavāhana's Dāyabhāga. The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal by Ludo Rocher
by Werner Menski
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Third Series, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Nov., 2002), pp. 394-396 (3 pages)

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

-- A Juridical Fabrication of Early British India: The Mahanirvana-Tantra, by J. Duncan M. Derrett

-- Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq.

-- Henry Thomas Colebrooke, by Wikipedia

-- Manusmriti, by Wikipedia

Institutes of Hindu Law: Or, The Ordinances of Menu, According to the Gloss of Culluca. Comprising the Indian System of Duties, Religious and Civil, Verbally translated from the original Sanscrit, With a Preface, by Sir William Jones

-- Manu (Hinduism), by Wikipedia

-- A Code of Gentoo Laws, Or, Ordinations of the Pundits, From a Persian Translation, Made From the Original, Written in the Shanscrit Language, by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed

-- William Jones (philologist), by Wikipedia

Jimutavahana’s Dayabhaga, The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal, Edited and translated with an introduction and notes by Ludo Rocher, pp. xii, 426. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

After Richard Larivier’s edition and translation of the Naradasmriti in two volumes (Philadelphia, 1989) and Patrick Olivelle’s edition and translation of the Dharmasutras of Apastamba, Gautama, Baudhayana and Vasishtha (Oxford, 1999, tr. Only; Delhi, 200, Vols. I and II ed. & tr.), this is the latest product of a most impressive concerted effort mainly by American Indologists, to make new editions and translations of key texts available to scholars and the wider public. This is also not the last: Ludo and Rosane Rocher appear to have been working on the Mitakshara (p. 25), Lariviere is engaged in a critical edition of the Vyavaharmatrika, a treatise on Hindu legal procedure composed by the author of the Dayabhaga, and Harry Falk in Germany is preparing a critical edition of the Vasishtha Dharmasutra.

The Dayabhaga itself was only translated once before, by H.T. Colebrooke in 1810, reprinted by Parimal Publications (Delhi, 1984). In Colebrooke’s time, the Dayabhaga and the Mitakshara were virtually declared by him to be Hindu law on the subject of succession and inheritance in Bengal and the rest of British India. The frustrating process of seeking to ascertain “Hindu law” through new compilations of texts had earlier been abandoned as unworkable, and Colebrooke was deeply unhappy with the confusing array of responses from the pundits (experts on dharma who were asked leading questions about “law”, a classic case of failed cross-cultural communication). While the pundits still produced their learned opinions as part of the standard legal process, Colebrooke was desperate to procure a codified source of Hindu law. Ultimately he performed this task himself, fully aware that a British pandit’s work might not be acceptable to the Hindus. Evidently, British colonial agenda, rather than socio-legal sensitivity, were driving this astonishing enterprise.

Today, as Rocher states in the Preface, the present translation and edition are no longer primarily aimed at lawyers and the goal is purely academic: “to present, not only to Sanskritists and Indologists but also to legal historians, a translation of a text of a Sanskrit book that, for about one century and a half, has regulated all questions of partition and inheritance for Hindus living in Bengal” (p. vii).

All questions, really? While there can be no doubt about the place of the Dayabhaga as a key text in Anglo-Hindu law, Rocher himself had earlier (1972) questioned to what extent the Dayabhaga was actually “current in Bengal” (p. 20). How much of its eventual practical application reflects just the formal “official” law? Given the central role of patriarchy and of various customs all over India, the assumption that two texts could entirely govern “the law” seems inflated. What about the central role of family arrangements, to which Derrett – also from a practical angle – gave so much importance in his numerous writings? When a matter goes to court – if it ever comes to a final hearing – Anglo-Indian judges often deliberately overlooked social reality and textual variety in their desire to create a uniform system (as Rocher confirms at p. 39 n. 18). In recent litigation over Hindu property law, succession, and so-called “dowry disputes”, family arrangements have been upheld in an effort to achieve equity – and such arrangements might follow neither the principles of the Dayabhaga nor its rival text. Indeed, Colebrooke’s colonial construct is no longer operative in practice – not because it was superseded by the Hindu law reforms of 1956, but because formal legal approaches have never ruled the field to the total exclusion of family practices, covered by sadacara, the informal assessment of dharma.

In his detailed, learned introduction (pp. 1-50), Rocher first locates the Dayabhaga as “part of a long tradition of Sanskrit texts concerned with legal matters” (p. 1). But are we just dealing with “law” here, or with dharma? Without wishing to detract for a moment from the excellence of Rocher’s philological project, I must register some protest here over lack of legal clarity. When Rocher asserts that “[t]he oldest legal prescriptions in India are contained in the dharma-sutras (p. 1), are we to understand that the old texts were written by “jurists” for “lawyers” and were really prescriptive, rather than discussing and recommending various alternatives? Later, it becomes obvious that Rocher himself does not accept that view.

Further we read that “[w]hat is understood as “law” in the West is expressed in Sanskrit by the terms vivada and vyavahara, the former corresponding to substantive law, the latter to legal procedure” (p. 4). There is, however, no agreement in the West as to how we should understand or define “law” (see now Brian Tamanaha, A general jurisprudence of law and society. Oxford, 2001). More seriously, Robert Lingat, in The Classical law of India (Berkeley et al. 1973, p. 285) saw vivada as dispute or private litigation, and vyavahara as the more formal judicial process and procedure. Thus, both terms are “litigation” rather than substantive law, or merely “law”, as the Sanskrit-English dictionary of Monier-Williams also suggests.

When it comes to British colonial interference, Rocher is crystal clear that Colebrooke was desperate to have a code-like text and even doctored the manuscript to achieve that impression (p. 36). Rocher’s new translation cannot ignore this, so entrenched is the colonial pattern. Colebrooke created legal facts in 1810 by elevating these two Sanskrit texts above all others “as the Main representatives of two distinct systems of inheritance” (p. 21). This constructed duality gave rise to many questions about dates and mutual influence of the two authors. While the Mitakshara must have been composed around 1120-1125 (p. 24), there has been much discussion about the date of the Dayabhaga. Rocher concludes with Derrett that the two authors must have been contemporaneous, working independently of each other in the beginning of the twelfth century.

Next, Rocher tackles the differences between Dayabhaga and Mitakshara law. In a nutshell, the Mitakshara principle has the effect that any male member of the joint family becomes a co-owner of the property from birth. Under the Dayabhaga, ownership of property only arises on the death of the estate’s owner, which clearly favours patriarchal authority; it is no surprise that there should have been various objections to this (p. 29). Rocher shows that Jimutavahana cannot have been the original inventor of the principles of the Bengal school, because they were known to Vijnanesvara, the supposed rival author, who rejected them at great length (p. 31). Thus, Jimutavahana cannot have been the founder of the Bengal School, nor was there anything Bengali about the Dayabhaga principles before Colebrooke intervened to make life easier for British lawyers. An old text was simply given a new lease of life.

Commenting on the text itself, in essence a commentary on earlier smriti works, Rocher highlights that there is actually little nyaya [justice] in this work, while the omnipresence of mimamsa techniques [critical investigation] is remarkable, making Colebrooke’s translation cumbersome to read. Rocher decided to include those tortuous passages, since his main endeavour was to let the original text speak for itself, while the commentaries are given less prominence. This is sound scholarly technique, and Rocher’s translation reads very well indeed as a result.

Researching over many years, Rocher found 44 manuscripts useful for collation. However, he argues that preparing a truly critical edition of the text is no longer possible, given the multitude of manuscripts and their highly conflated [many becoming one] nature. The result of all these labours is therefore rather too modestly described as a purely eclectic edition (p. 50).

The translation covers pp. 51-245, the edited Sanskrit text in Devanagari pp. 247-396. An excellent bibliography and a list of quotations from ancient texts are useful assets. The text itself is full of details on all kinds of topics, helpfully identified in the index. I particularly checked marriage/wedding entries and found myself soon immersed in enjoyable reading of Rocher’s lucid translations and innumerable learned explanations. Some of this material may as yet become legally relevant again, since recent so-called “dowry disputes” in English law concern family arrangements over such complex topics as stridhanam or the obligations of men to arrange the wedding of their sisters. While this translation will not lead to a revival of Dayabhaga law, there is a wealth of information in this volume that lawyers, legal historians and others may indeed find useful, because these principles live on and continue to compete for attention in the socio-legal arena.

[admin]

Mitākṣarā
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/21

The Dayabhaga itself was only translated once before, by H.T. Colebrooke in 1810, reprinted by Parimal Publications (Delhi, 1984). In Colebrooke’s time, the Dayabhaga and the Mitakshara were virtually declared by him to be Hindu law on the subject of succession and inheritance in Bengal and the rest of British India. The frustrating process of seeking to ascertain “Hindu law” through new compilations of texts had earlier been abandoned as unworkable, and Colebrooke was deeply unhappy with the confusing array of responses from the pundits (experts on dharma who were asked leading questions about “law”, a classic case of failed cross-cultural communication). While the pundits still produced their learned opinions as part of the standard legal process, Colebrooke was desperate to procure a codified source of Hindu law. Ultimately he performed this task himself, fully aware that a British pandit’s work might not be acceptable to the Hindus. Evidently, British colonial agenda, rather than socio-legal sensitivity, were driving this astonishing enterprise….

Today, as Rocher states in the Preface, the present translation and edition are no longer primarily aimed at lawyers and the goal is purely academic: “to present, not only to Sanskritists and Indologists but also to legal historians, a translation of a text of a Sanskrit book that, for about one century and a half, has regulated all questions of partition and inheritance for Hindus living in Bengal” (p. vii).

All questions, really? While there can be no doubt about the place of the Dayabhaga as a key text in Anglo-Hindu law, Rocher himself had earlier (1972) questioned to what extent the Dayabhaga was actually “current in Bengal” (p. 20). How much of its eventual practical application reflects just the formal “official” law? Given the central role of patriarchy and of various customs all over India, the assumption that two texts could entirely govern “the law” seems inflated. What about the central role of family arrangements, to which Derrett – also from a practical angle – gave so much importance in his numerous writings? When a matter goes to court – if it ever comes to a final hearing – Anglo-Indian judges often deliberately overlooked social reality and textual variety in their desire to create a uniform system (as Rocher confirms at p. 39 n. 18). In recent litigation over Hindu property law, succession, and so-called “dowry disputes”, family arrangements have been upheld in an effort to achieve equity – and such arrangements might follow neither the principles of the Dayabhaga nor its rival text. Indeed, Colebrooke’s colonial construct is no longer operative in practice – not because it was superseded by the Hindu law reforms of 1956, but because formal legal approaches have never ruled the field to the total exclusion of family practices, covered by sadacara, the informal assessment of dharma.

In his detailed, learned introduction (pp. 1-50), Rocher first locates the Dayabhaga as “part of a long tradition of Sanskrit texts concerned with legal matters” (p. 1). But are we just dealing with “law” here, or with dharma? Without wishing to detract for a moment from the excellence of Rocher’s philological project, I must register some protest here over lack of legal clarity. When Rocher asserts that “[t]he oldest legal prescriptions in India are contained in the dharma-sutras (p. 1), are we to understand that the old texts were written by “jurists” for “lawyers” and were really prescriptive, rather than discussing and recommending various alternatives? Later, it becomes obvious that Rocher himself does not accept that view.

Further we read that “[w]hat is understood as “law” in the West is expressed in Sanskrit by the terms vivada and vyavahara, the former corresponding to substantive law, the latter to legal procedure” (p. 4). There is, however, no agreement in the West as to how we should understand or define “law” (see now Brian Tamanaha, A general jurisprudence of law and society. Oxford, 2001). More seriously, Robert Lingat, in The Classical law of India (Berkeley et al. 1973, p. 285) saw vivada as dispute or private litigation, and vyavahara as the more formal judicial process and procedure. Thus, both terms are “litigation” rather than substantive law, or merely “law”, as the Sanskrit-English dictionary of Monier-Williams also suggests.

When it comes to British colonial interference, Rocher is crystal clear that Colebrooke was desperate to have a code-like text and even doctored the manuscript to achieve that impression (p. 36). Rocher’s new translation cannot ignore this, so entrenched is the colonial pattern. Colebrooke created legal facts in 1810 by elevating these two Sanskrit texts above all others “as the Main representatives of two distinct systems of inheritance” (p. 21). This constructed duality gave rise to many questions about dates and mutual influence of the two authors.

While the Mitakshara must have been composed around 1120-1125 (p. 24), there has been much discussion about the date of the Dayabhaga. Rocher concludes with Derrett that the two authors must have been contemporaneous, working independently of each other in the beginning of the twelfth century.

Next, Rocher tackles the differences between Dayabhaga and Mitakshara law. In a nutshell, the Mitakshara principle has the effect that any male member of the joint family becomes a co-owner of the property from birth. Under the Dayabhaga, ownership of property only arises on the death of the estate’s owner, which clearly favours patriarchal authority; it is no surprise that there should have been various objections to this (p. 29). Rocher shows that Jimutavahana cannot have been the original inventor of the principles of the Bengal school, because they were known to Vijnanesvara, the supposed rival author, who rejected them at great length (p. 31). Thus, Jimutavahana cannot have been the founder of the Bengal School, nor was there anything Bengali about the Dayabhaga principles before Colebrooke intervened to make life easier for British lawyers. An old text was simply given a new lease of life.

Commenting on the text itself, in essence a commentary on earlier smriti works, Rocher highlights that there is actually little nyaya [justice] in this work, while the omnipresence of mimamsa techniques [critical investigation] is remarkable, making Colebrooke’s translation cumbersome to read. Rocher decided to include those tortuous passages, since his main endeavour was to let the original text speak for itself, while the commentaries are given less prominence. This is sound scholarly technique, and Rocher’s translation reads very well indeed as a result.

Researching over many years, Rocher found 44 manuscripts useful for collation. However, he argues that preparing a truly critical edition of the text is no longer possible, given the multitude of manuscripts and their highly conflated [many becoming one] nature.

-- Review of Jīmūtavāhana's Dāyabhāga. The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal by Ludo Rocher, by Werner Menski

-- Yajnavalkya Smriti, With the Commentary of Vijnanesvara Called The Mitaksara and Notes from the Gloss of Balambhatta, Translated by Late Rai Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vidyarnava

The Mitākṣarā is a vivṛti (legal commentary) on the Yajnavalkya Smriti best known for its theory of "inheritance by birth." It was written by Vijñāneśvara, a scholar in the Western Chalukya court in the late eleventh and early twelfth century. Along with the Dāyabhāga, it was considered one of the main authorities on Hindu Law from the time the British began administering laws in India.

Vijnaneshwara was a prominent jurist of twelfth century India. His treatise, the Mitakshara, dealt with inheritance, and is one of the most influential legal treatises in Hindu law. Mitakshara is the treatise on Yājñavalkya Smṛti, named after a sage of the same name.

Vijnaneshwara was born in the village of Masimadu, near Basavakalyan in Karnataka.

He lived in the court of king Vikramaditya VI (1076-1126), the Western Chalukya Empire monarch.[1]

References

1. Sen, Sailendra (2013). A Textbook of Medieval Indian History. Primus Books. pp. 52–53. ISBN 978-9-38060-734-4.
• Vijnaneshwara

The entire Mitākṣarā, along with the text of the Yājñavalkya-smṝti, is approximately 492 closely printed pages.[1]

Author

Vijñāneśvara lived at Marthur near kalaburagi (Karnataka), near the end of the eleventh century during the reign of Vikramaditya VI of the Cālukya dynasty of Kalyāni, one of the great rulers of the Deccan.[2] He was a "profound student of the Purva-Mimamsa system,"[3] a system of exegetical thought focused on the interpretation of the Vedas. Contrary to Derrett's opinion based on Yajnavalkya 2.4 and 2.305 that Vijñāneśvara was a judge, Kane holds that these passages about characteristics of judges do not reflect a social or historical reality, but rather an interpretation based upon Mimamsa.[4]

Date and historical context

Kane places the Mitākṣarā between 974 CE and 1000 CE, but he says, "there is no evidence to establish the exact time when the work was undertaken."[5] He places it after 1050 CE because it names Viśvarūpa, Medhātithi, and Dhāreśvara, other commentators, as authoritative sources. Derrett places the text between 1121 CE and 1125 CE, a much shorter time frame than Kane, but Kane claims that this time frame is purely arbitrary, and Derrett does not provide the evidence to support his claim.[6] Lingat, however, is content to place the Mitākṣarā simply at the end of the eleventh century.[7] Historically, Vijñāneśvara was attempting to clarify and explain parts of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, and he was criticizing and discussing earlier commentaries on the same text in an attempt to reconcile differences and further explain the meaning and the significance of the text.

Sources and topics

Vijñāneśvara's commentary "brings together numerous smṛti passages, explains away contradictions among them by following the rules of interpretation laid down in the Purva Mimamsa system, brings about order by assigning to various dicta their proper scope and province...and effects a synthesis of apparently unconnected smṛti injunctions."[8] In this sense, the commentary is similar to a digest (nibandha) in that it attempts to draw into the commentary outside opinions about the same passages of the text which he is commenting on. Although he is commenting on the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, he cites numerous earlier commentators as well, including Viśvarūpa,[9] Mēdhātithi,[10] and Dhāreśvara. The Mitākṣarā's most important topics include property rights, property distribution, and inheritance. This text has become the authority, especially on inheritance, throughout most of India after the British began to move in.

Effect on British India

The Mitākṣarā, along with the Dāyabhāga, became an influential source for British Courts in India. The Mitākṣarā was influential throughout the majority of India, except in Bengal, Assam and some of the parts in Odisha and Bihar, where the Dāyabhāga prevailed as an authority for law. The British were interested in administering law in India, but they wanted to administer the law that already existed to the people. Thus, they searched for a text that could be used to help solve disputes among the people of India in manners which were already customary in the sub continent. These disputes often involved property rights or inheritance issues. Thus, the first translation of the Mitākṣarā was by Colebrooke in 1810,[11] and it was only this section of the text that gave the British insight on how to deal with inheritance issues. At that point, the Mitākṣarā held the status of a legislative text because it was used as a direct resource regarding inheritance in the courts of law in most of India.

Translations

Colebrooke did the first translation of the Mitākṣarā in 1810 because there was an immediate need in the British courts for the "law" (or as close as they could get to the law) regarding inheritance that already existed among the people of India. W. Macnaghten did the second translation, dealing with procedure, in 1829. Finally, J. R. Gharpure provided us with a complete translation of the Mitākṣarā.[12]

Sub-commentaries

Several sub-commentaries have been written on the Mitākṣarā, including the Subodhinī of Viśveśvara (c.1375), the Bālaṃbhaṭṭī of Bālaṃbhaṭṭa Payagunde (c.1770).[13] and the Pratītākṣarā of Nandapaṇḍita.

Notes

1. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 604.
2. Lingat, Robert, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 113.
3. Kane, P. V., The History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 603.
4. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 610. Kane's opinion is confirmed in Ludo Rocher, "Schools of Hindu Law," India Maior (Gonda Volume). Leiden, 1972, 172, who emphasizes Vijñāneśvara's self-presentation as a yogi, ascetic, or hermit.
5. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 609.
6. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 609.
7. Lingat, Robert, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 113.
8. Kane, P. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975), Volume I, Part II, 600.
9. Author of the Bālakrīḍā, a commentary of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti
10. An earlier commentator on the Manusmṛti
11. Lingat, Robert, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 113.
12. Lingat, Robert, The Classical Law of India, (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), 113.
13. Bhattacharya, D.C. (1962). The Nibandhas in S. Radhakrishnan (ed.) The Cultural Heritage in India, Vol.II, Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, ISBN 81-85843-03-1, p.366

References

• Suryanath U. Kamat, A Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present, Jupiter books, MCC, Bangalore, 2001 (Reprinted 2002) OCLC: 7796041
• K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, History of South India, From Prehistoric times to fall of Vijayanagar, 1955, OUP, New Delhi (Reprinted 2002), ISBN 0-19-560686-8
External links[edit]
• The Importance of Mitakshara in the 21st century by Justice Markandey Katju

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He still lives in his work [Vijnaneshwara]
by Anand V. Yamnur ([email protected])
News Editor/ Chief of Bureau, Hubballi
Deccan Herald
October 3, 2003

He wrote a law treatise in the 11th century, which is still in circulation. Serious efforts are now on to resurrect the greatness of Vijnaneshwara, the author of Mitakshara

An emperor in the 11th century touched the feet of this man to salute him. The inscriptions on a stone plaque, dated 1124 AD, found at the Kalingeshwara Temple in Martur village, 18 kilometres from Gulbarga, reveal: “Ariraya Mukuta Tadhita Charanan-enalu Negabdi Vikramankana Ratnokara Nichita Mukuta Tadhita,” meaning “When Emperor Vikramaditya bent down to salute Vijnaneshwara, the Emperor's jewelled crown touched the feet of Vijnaneshwara”.

Such was the respect Vijnaneshwara commanded during his time. The inscriptions state that Vijnaneshwara lived in the court of Emperor Vikramaditya (1076-1126 AD). He wrote Mitakshara, a law treatise explaining the Yagnvalkya Smruthi, propounded by philosopher Yagnvalkya.

Except for minor changes, the laws in India relating to Hindu Joint Family, distribution of property, property rights, stree dhana (women property), and succession are still governed by Mitakshara. Though written 10 centuries ago, the relevance of Mitakshara is greatly felt, especially in the courts all over the country.

Till 1932, little was known about when and where Vijnaneshwara lived, and where he wrote his Mitakshara. The credit of discovering the time and place of Vijnaneshwara goes to Prof P B Desai of Dharwad. In the journal Prachina Karnataka: Hosa Belaku (Historical Karnataka: New Light), dated February 1, 1932, he wrote about a stone inscription at Kalingeshwara Temple at Martur, which discloses that Vijnaneshwara was a Kannadiga, and was born at Masemadu village in the present Bidar district.

It was only recently that the famous epigraphist Sitaram Jagirdar took out a paper impression of the Martur inscriptions, and published its contents. Dr Jagirdar points out that the stone inscriptions date back to 1124 AD. The inscriptions also disclose that Martur was the place of work of Vijnaneshwara, and in recognition of his merit and contribution, he was gifted lands and honoured by Emperor Vikramaditya the VI of the Chalukya Dynasty.

Vijnaneshwara’s original name was Kancha, and he was the son of Somaraj and Bhagyavanithe. His wife's name was Kethikabbe. Of his four sons, Beethiraja got the temples of Shiva and Mahadeva constructed at Martur, and for this, the land was donated to him on January 6, 1123.

Through the inscriptions it is clear that Vijnaneshwara lived in Martur, where he also wrote his commentary Mitakshara.

Until the inscriptions were deciphered, it was believed that Vijnaneshwara was born in the Kalyan region of Maharashtra. But, the Martur inscriptions prove that the legal luminary of the forgotten era was a Kannadiga born in the Kalyan region, which is now Basavakalyan in Bidar district.

In 1970 the present Bihar Governor M Rama Jois who served as the Chief Justice in Punjab began writing a book Legal and Constitutional History of India. At that time, he came across the earliest translations of Mitakshara by H. T. Colebrooke of the UK (1867), and by Prof J R Gharapure of Pune (1912). Greatly impressed by the work, Justice Jois erected a befitting memorial for this medieval India’s greatest jurist. The fact that Vijnaneshwara was a Kannadiga and hailed from the Gulbarga region was little known to the world. The need to create awareness about this great personality among the common people, and promote research on his works led to the establishment of Vijnaneshwara Souhardhaka Co-operative Society.

The Society came into existence last year in Gulbarga with Justice Jois as its chief patron. The main aim of this Society is to construct a befitting memorial for Vijnaneshwara at Martur at a cost of Rs one crore, and start a full-fledged research centre to study the life and works of the man.

The State Government has already allotted six acres of land for the purpose. A local farmer Gundappa Kambar has donated half-an-acre of his land as a tribute to this great personality of yesteryears.


Anand V. Yamnur

Anand joined Deccan Herald in the Bengaluru office. In these two decades of service, he has worked in Bengaluru, and eight years in Kalaburagi, specialising in development reporting. At present, he is News Editor and Chief of Bureau of the DH Hubballi office, which has a jurisdiction of 16 districts covering North, Central and parts of South Karnataka. Hubballi bureau is the only bureau after Bengaluru where the local pages are done (12 pages).

Before joining Deccan Herald, Anand was a guest lecturer at Karnatak University in Dharwad in Mass Communication & Journalism. He has Masters in Mass-Communication & Journalism, and in Social Work. He has been awarded with the Karnataka Media Academy award in 2015.

[admin]

He still lives in his work [Vijnaneshwara]
by Anand V. Yamnur ([email protected])
News Editor/ Chief of Bureau, Hubballi
Deccan Herald
October 3, 2003

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

-- Review of Jīmūtavāhana's Dāyabhāga. The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal by Ludo Rocher, by Werner Menski

-- Dāyabhāga, by Wikipedia

-- Mitākṣarā, by Wikipedia

He wrote a law treatise in the 11th century, which is still in circulation. Serious efforts are now on to resurrect the greatness of Vijnaneshwara, the author of Mitakshara

An emperor in the 11th century touched the feet of this man to salute him. The inscriptions on a stone plaque, dated 1124 AD, found at the Kalingeshwara Temple in Martur village, 18 kilometres from Gulbarga, reveal: “Ariraya Mukuta Tadhita Charanan-enalu Negabdi Vikramankana Ratnokara Nichita Mukuta Tadhita,” meaning “When Emperor Vikramaditya bent down to salute Vijnaneshwara, the Emperor's jewelled crown touched the feet of Vijnaneshwara”.

Such was the respect Vijnaneshwara commanded during his time. The inscriptions state that Vijnaneshwara lived in the court of Emperor Vikramaditya (1076-1126 AD). He wrote Mitakshara, a law treatise explaining the Yagnvalkya Smruthi, propounded by philosopher Yagnvalkya.

Except for minor changes, the laws in India relating to Hindu Joint Family, distribution of property, property rights, stree dhana (women property), and succession are still governed by Mitakshara. Though written 10 centuries ago, the relevance of Mitakshara is greatly felt, especially in the courts all over the country.

Till 1932, little was known about when and where Vijnaneshwara lived, and where he wrote his Mitakshara. The credit of discovering the time and place of Vijnaneshwara goes to Prof P B Desai of Dharwad. In the journal Prachina Karnataka: Hosa Belaku (Historical Karnataka: New Light), dated February 1, 1932, he wrote about a stone inscription at Kalingeshwara Temple at Martur, which discloses that Vijnaneshwara was a Kannadiga, and was born at Masemadu village in the present Bidar district.

It was only recently that the famous epigraphist Sitaram Jagirdar took out a paper impression of the Martur inscriptions, and published its contents. Dr Jagirdar points out that the stone inscriptions date back to 1124 AD. The inscriptions also disclose that Martur was the place of work of Vijnaneshwara, and in recognition of his merit and contribution, he was gifted lands and honoured by Emperor Vikramaditya the VI of the Chalukya Dynasty.

Vijnaneshwara’s original name was Kancha, and he was the son of Somaraj and Bhagyavanithe. His wife's name was Kethikabbe. Of his four sons, Beethiraja got the temples of Shiva and Mahadeva constructed at Martur, and for this, the land was donated to him on January 6, 1123.

Through the inscriptions it is clear that Vijnaneshwara lived in Martur, where he also wrote his commentary Mitakshara.

Until the inscriptions were deciphered, it was believed that Vijnaneshwara was born in the Kalyan region of Maharashtra. But, the Martur inscriptions prove that the legal luminary of the forgotten era was a Kannadiga born in the Kalyan region, which is now Basavakalyan in Bidar district.

In 1970 the present Bihar Governor M Rama Jois who served as the Chief Justice in Punjab began writing a book Legal and Constitutional History of India. At that time, he came across the earliest translations of Mitakshara by H. T. Colebrooke of the UK (1867), and by Prof J R Gharapure of Pune (1912). Greatly impressed by the work, Justice Jois erected a befitting memorial for this medieval India’s greatest jurist. The fact that Vijnaneshwara was a Kannadiga and hailed from the Gulbarga region was little known to the world. The need to create awareness about this great personality among the common people, and promote research on his works led to the establishment of Vijnaneshwara Souhardhaka Co-operative Society.

The Society came into existence last year in Gulbarga with Justice Jois as its chief patron. The main aim of this Society is to construct a befitting memorial for Vijnaneshwara at Martur at a cost of Rs one crore, and start a full-fledged research centre to study the life and works of the man.

The State Government has already allotted six acres of land for the purpose. A local farmer Gundappa Kambar has donated half-an-acre of his land as a tribute to this great personality of yesteryears.


Anand V. Yamnur

Anand joined Deccan Herald in the Bengaluru office. In these two decades of service, he has worked in Bengaluru, and eight years in Kalaburagi, specialising in development reporting. At present, he is News Editor and Chief of Bureau of the DH Hubballi office, which has a jurisdiction of 16 districts covering North, Central and parts of South Karnataka. Hubballi bureau is the only bureau after Bengaluru where the local pages are done (12 pages).

Before joining Deccan Herald, Anand was a guest lecturer at Karnatak University in Dharwad in Mass Communication & Journalism. He has Masters in Mass-Communication & Journalism, and in Social Work. He has been awarded with the Karnataka Media Academy award in 2015.

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Martur fort and Mithakshara inscription [Maratur Fort] [Shri Kalingeshwara Gudi] [Shankaralingeshwara Gudi also called Mahalingeshwara Gudi]
by siddeshwar
Journeys across Karnataka
November 29, 2013 & Jul 2, 2014

Jul 2, 2014
Maratur fort was discovered by chance while scanning Gulbarga district on Wikimapia. Maratur is about 20+ kms south of Gulbarga, off Gulbarga-Shahabad road.

November 29, 2013
Our day rolled off with a drive to Malkhed fort and back to Gulbarga. Breakfast was at a cart vending fresh and hot idli, vade, upit, tea Then we took the ring road, found the right junction linking to Shahabad. Road was good, not much traffic at that time, its easy to miss the right turn. in fact we overshot 4 kms. Finally we found the turn and reached Maratur village. Fort's bastions very visible from the outskirts.



We drove through the very narrow street towards the fort entrance. We stopped at an ancient temple - I had no information about this temple.. two temples. Village folks were shy but eventually became friendly. They invited me to check out the main temple- Kashi Vishwanatha Gudi. Inside, the temple premises was clean, rituals were performed regularly. This temple is also called as Shri Kalingeshwara Gudi.



Attached to the temple is an open well with a steep stairway descending into it. Water was clean, this water is used for rituals and also for drinking.



The second temple is Shankaralingeshwara Gudi also called Mahalingeshwara Gudi (painted red and white). Rituals are performed everyday here too. This temple is interesting.. it has a cave like feel to it.



On the platform at the entrance are sculptures of Ganesha and other gods.



Also there are two inscriptions in Kannada. Later I learned that Maratur is known for an inscription named Mitakshara which was shifted and installed at Vijnaneshwara Bhavan.



These temple were built during the rule of Chalukyan king Vikramaditya VI. Just behind these temples is the fort entrance.



Siddanna Kalnoor an elderly person and Sharanabasappa Vishwanath the young man were my guides - first and second from left. The fort entrance is hidden behind the wall. Here two types of walls can be seen- in the front is Shahbad stone wall while the wall behind is built of harder black coloured blocks.



A closer look at both types of walls. Now are looking up at the fort's main entrance. This structure is generally known as vaadae rather than kote - Kannada words for fort.



This doorway was a grand sight during its days. The doorframe is decorated with rich art, a pair of prancing horses flank the lintel. Sadly woodwork has faded and corroded.



The massive wooden doors though aged carry out their function well. Note the raised platforms flanking the doorway - this is a common feature in any vaadae in North Karnataka. In fact some are higher.



View of the main entrance from inside. Within the fort, are several structures.. dwellings, animal shelters and store rooms. Few more people had joined us out of curiosity.



The white walled structure is actually the house, the present day owner of this fort lives there. Check out the sloping roofs here, what seems like tiled roof are actually stone slabs measuring 2' x 2'. Majority of buildings in rural Gulbarga have Shahabad stone walls and black stone slab roofs.



This fort has six bastions of which five can be seen. The bastion seen below is one of the three still standing.



Idol of ganesha abandoned below a banyan tree. A stone bowl for cattle to drink water (see inset).



The owner's house ~ Gaudappana Manae with a big Tulasi Katte. One of the villagers mentioned this fort had a secret tunnel to escape during emergencies.



Having seen the temple and fort, I was ready to leave but my friend Sharanabasappa mentioned the recently constructed Vijnaneshwara Bhavan. Vijnaneshwara was a prominent jurist of XII century. He authored Mitakshara, a legal treatise in Hindu law about property inheritance. Rules stated in Mitakshara have been adopted by courts through out India except West Bengal.



This building- Vijnaneshwara Bhavan & Research Centre -was inaugurated on Dec 31, 2004 by Shri. R C Lahoti, Chief Justice of India and Shri. T N Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka. This simple building, octagonal in plan has a courtyard like space in the center and surrounded by several individual halls. Idol of Vijnaneshwara mounted on a pedestal opposite the entrance.



A signage gave out below information:

This inscription was composed and inscribed during the reign of Vikramaditya VI of Chalukya dynasty. It is dated Saturday, Magha Shudha Saptami of Shobhakrutu Samvastra during Chalukya Vikrama year 48 corresponding to Saturday, the 6th January 1123 AD.

Scribes: Srimat Kulkarni Kunige Bhairava and Namana

Important stanza in the inscription indicating greatness of Vijnaneshwara the author of Mitakshara:

"When the emperor Vikramaditya VI of Chalukya dynasty, who was being honoured even by his enemies, hostile kings, wearing the jewelled crown touched the feet of Vijnaneshwara, the effulgent rays reflecting from the jewelled crown worn by him fell on the feet of Vijnaneshwara."

This inscription was found at Shri Kalingeshwara Gudi. It was shifted and installed at here.. the black stone slab bearing the inscription is embedded into a wall. Personally I feel this is a bad idea. Mounting it on a pedestal and keeping all four sides would have been better. Besides the inscription is a life size painting of Vijnaneshwara placed haphazardly on a wooden table.



Closer look at the painting and inscription. Years ago, some political leaders conceived an idea of having a law university at Martur, so far it has not materialized.



Thanks to Sharanabasappa for insisting on visiting this memorial. Now I realize the importance of Martur.

To see more more of Martur see Rajesh Naik's post: ಮರೆಯಬಾರದ ಮರತೂರು

Maratur fort coordinates: 17°12'43"N 76°53'7"E


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Ignoring Vijnaneshwara - There can’t be a greater crime!
by K.N. Reddy
Deccan Chronicle
Published Oct 15, 2017, 6:18 am IST Updated Oct 15, 2017, 7:16 am IST

The grass is overgrown in the lawns around the Bhavan and the bushes in the six acre park in front of it seem far too many.


Vijnaneshwara’s statue

In a land of a billion people, a million customs and hundreds of law treatises, deciphering the ancient texts and drawing up a common law to govern and make sure all are governed by the same rule, is no simple task. A legal luminary from Karnataka did it in the 11th century and has become a hallowed name in the annals of legal history but in Martur, his native village near Kalaburagi, a project to set up a research centre in his name has fallen into bad times, forgotten and ignored by those in power. K.N. REDDY highlights the monumental neglect of a legend, who should have been one of Karnataka’s leading lights of all time.

Former SC judge Markandey Katju says Mitakshara was accepted as an authoritative text on Hindu law not through any promulgation by a sovereign authority, but due to the scholarship, logical analysis and sheer intellectual force of its author.

Martur ironically, remains what it has always been - sleepy and calm, undisturbed by the presence of the Vijnaneshwara Bhavan and Research Centre in its midst.
Built in memory of the 11th century legal luminary, Vijnaneshwara, who wrote the famous ‘Mitakshara’ that became the basis of Hindu law and Indian jurisprudence, the Bhavan opened its doors here in 2009 with the promise of becoming one of the major law universities and research centres of the country.

But approach the building that houses it and you see that all is not well. The watchman, a man in his late fifties, who opens the gate, explains while glancing at the name board with all its letters erased, “Everything is gone due to the rain Sir.”





Step inside and you see more signs of neglect. The grass is overgrown in the lawns around the Bhavan and the bushes in the six acre park in front of it seem far too many. Ask the watchman how many people work at the centre, and his response is shocking. “Only two sir, myself and a lady, who is a sweeper,” he says.

Probe more and he admits gingerly, “You are right sir, but for the occasional visit by some law professor or retired judge and the organising of NSS camps by local institutions, not much activity takes place here.”

It was only in the early 20th century that Martur's link with Vijnaneshwara was revealed. Little was known about where and when he lived, and the place he penned his Mitakshara until Prof P.B. Desai of Dharwad wrote in the journal, "Prachina Karnataka: Hosa Belaku" (Ancient Karnataka: New Light), on February 1, 1932, about a stone inscription in the Kalingeshwara Temple in Martur, which disclosed that Vijnaneshwara was a Kannadiga born in Masemadu village of Bhalki taluk in Bidar district.


The watchman of Vijnaneshwara Bhavan and Research Centre

And it was only recently that the famous epigraphist, Sitaram Jagirdar, took a paper impression of the Martur inscription, and published its contents. Going by Dr Jagirdar, the stone inscription, which dates back to 1124 AD, says it was at Martur that Vijnaneshwara wrote his famed legal treatise and was gifted lands and honoured by Emperor Vikramaditya the VI of the Chalukya dynasty in recognition of his merit and contribution.


Visitors at Vijnaneshwara Bhavan

Until the Martur inscription came to light, it was believed that Vijnaneshwara was born in the Kalyan region of Maharashtra. The revelation was a feather in the cap of Karnataka as the laws in India relating to the Hindu joint family, distribution of property, property rights, stree dhana (women property), and succession are still governed by Mitakshara. Though written 10 centuries ago in the south of the country by a Kannadiga, its authority spread all over India, except Bengal and Assam where the Dayabhaga prevailed. Today it is accepted as the authoritative text on Hindu law from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Markandey Katju says the Mitakshara was accepted as an authoritative text on Hindu law not through any promulgation by a sovereign authority such as a king or parliament, but due to the tremendous scholarship, logical analysis and sheer intellectual force of its author.

“The importance of the Mitakshara lies in the fact that it made traditional Hindu law secular. Until it came into existence, Smritis and commentaries were largely religious and not secular. It was the Mitakshara which made the laws on property and inheritance secular,” Justice Katju observes, also noting that it liberalised the law on women, providing for maintenance of not only a “chaste” wife but also of an “unchaste wife or widow.” Due to Vijnaneshwara’s progressive views, women also became entitled to hold and inherit property, he recalls.

Greatly impressed by the earliest translations of Mitakshara by H.T. Colebrooke of the UK (1867), and by Prof J.R. Gharapure of Pune (1912), that he came across while writing his book, “Legal and Constitutional History of India” in 1970, former Governor, M Rama Jois, who also served as the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, took the initiative to build a Bhavan in Martur in memory of the great man. The project cost one crore, which he put together with donations from philanthropists and aid from the government. A local farmer, Gundappa Kambar donated half-an-acre for the centre. Besides sanctioning six acres of land for a park, the then Yeddyurappa government in the state also released Rs 1.30 crore for its development.

Senior Journalist, Srinivas Sirnoorkar, who authored the book “Mitakshara of Vijnaneshwarana,” is unhappy about the Bhavan’s neglect and the lack of research on its campus despite the fanfare surrounding its opening. Recalling that the state government had started a law college in Martur in Vijnaneshwara’s memory, he laments that it has now been shifted to the Gulbarga University due to lack of facilities in the village.

“In addition, a Vijnaneshwara Study Chair on Mitakshara and Human Rights has been established and a PG course started in Dharmashastra on him. But unfortunately all the academic and research activity here has come to a standstill,” Mr Sirnoorkar regrets, suggesting that the Bhavan should be taken over either by the Gulbarga University or the state Law University and upgraded to an international centre.

In the course of a thousand years, Vijnaneshwara’s prophetic wisdom and striking logic have remained infallible, standing up to the persuasive arguments of innumerable legal eagles.

But in Martur, at the Vijnaneshwara Bhavan surrounded by bushes, there’s nothing happening to remind anyone that Karnataka is doing its bit to give its great son the prideful place he deserves in history.

***************************

11th Century Kannada Inscription Found
by The New Indian Express
Published: 28th may 2012 07:53 AM Last Updated: 02nd June 2012 10:34 PM

Bangalore: Historian and research scholar D.N. Akki Gogi from Yadagir district has unearthed an 11th century inscription written in Kannada from a ruined Jain temple in Allur village in Gulbarga district.

According to the experts, the inscription, which is on a stone pillar, was written in the form of Kannada that was used in 1050 A.D.

The inscription was read by eminent epigraphers, including Sitaram Jagirdar and Dr. M. G. Manjunath from Mysore University.

M. Yaseen Quddusi and Sitaram Jagirdar, Persian Arabic and Urdu Inscriptions of Karnataka, p. 38.

It is said that Allur village was ruled by the chieftains of Kalyana Chalukya rulers.

The ruined Jain temple, where the inscription was found, was reportedly built by the devotee Benneya Machisetty during the time of Jain saint Munigunachandra.

Experts said that the three line- ling inscription revealed an account of those who built the temple in the 11th century.

Apart from the inscription, the Jain temple also houses a three-foot-long statue of Lord Parshwanath, the 23rd Tirthankara in whose memory the structure was built.

"This temple is a treasure trove for researchers of ancient temples, " D.N. Akki informed.

Experts added that the place where the inscription was found has traces Nishadi Shilpas.

The findings signify that there Jain saints used to practice "Sallekhana Vritha," a rigorous ritual of holy fast unto death, which aimed to gain "Moksha" from the world.

[admin]

The Parvasamgraha of the Mahabharata
by D.D. Kosambi
Poona, India
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 110-117 (8 pages)
(Apr-Jun, 1946)

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

-- The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahabharata, by Dieter Schlingloff

-- Mahabharata, by Wikipedia

[Summary. This note, based upon a numerical and statistical analysis of the first five books (parvans) of the Mahabharata (Mbh) now available in the critical edition1 [The Mahabharata ... critically edited by V.S. Sukthankar (Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933--).] presents evidence for the view that the Parvasamgraha (par.) figures give very accurate counts of some recension [a revised edition of a text]. The critical edition approximates to this recension, but in general reaches a little behind it. On the present manuscript evidence, there can be no hope of restoring the Par. recension itself. During the course of the study, the concept of textual fluidity can be given a somewhat more precise definition than hitherto, as regards the Mbh.]

1. The first three chapters (adhyayas) are palpably among the final additions made to the work during the long course of its original expansion. This is generally admitted because of the duplicated opening: lomaharsanaputra ugrasravah sutah pauraniko naimisaranye saunakasya kulapater dvadasavarsike satre (1.1.1. and 1.4.1) which occurs at the beginning of the first as well as of the fourth chapter. A reference to Mr. E.D. Kulkarni's counts2 [E.D. Kulkarni, The Parvasamgraha Figures, following this paper.] following this paper will show that these chapters are very much longer than any of the rest in the Adi [the beginning, and so forth]. Modern statistical analysis of the type utilized towards the end of this paper shows that there is very little chance of these three chapters belonging to the same distribution of adhyaya[chapter]-lengths as the remaining 222 in the same Book. To make the position clearer, however, it is worth while demonstrating that these three chapters (each of which is also a sub-parvan) are remarkably self-contradictory even for an epic that pays little attention to logical development of its narrative.

The first chapter, the Anukramani, corresponds to what would be, in a modern work, a combination of prefaces to several editions, reviews of the work itself, and the publisher's advertisements. The status of the work is very curiously described. The bard (suta) Ugrasravas, son of Lomaharsana, is versed in mythology (pauranika), so that no surprise need be felt when the narrative (akhyana) is called a purana (1.1.15); it was originally composed by the dark (krsna) Dvaipayana (1.1.8, 15). This puranic contention, incidentally, is borne out by the studies of Ruben, 3 [W. Ruben, JRAS 1941. 247-56 and 337-58; also A Volume of Eastern and Indian Studies presented to F. W. Thomas 188-203. See also M.S. Vaidya, ABORI Silver Jubilee volume 609-20.] which prove the claim of the Mbh. to be regarded as a purana, or even the purana. But the work is also a history (Itihasa) in 1.1.16; this too may pass muster because of the historical or pseudo-historical character of the main event, the great war described in the epic. The poem then rises a step higher in the scale of sanctity to parade as a samhita [the most ancient layer of text in the Vedas, consisting of mantras, hymns, prayers, litanies and benedictions.] (1.1.61), then as an upanisad [late Vedic Sanskrit texts of religious teachings which form the foundations of Hinduism. They are the most recent part of the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, the Vedas, that deal with meditation, philosophy, and ontological knowledge] (1.1.191), and finally reaches the peak of sanctity as a veda (1.1.204). There is nothing to show how or why this progressively higher status was achieved; the work is at one and the same time all of these. Yet the accepted divisions (of scripture) as given by Patanjali (Mahabhasya 1.1.1.5, Kielhorn, p. 9, 1. 20-25), or even by the Buddhists (Milindapanho, Trenckner, pp. 3, 178), show that purana, itihasa, upanisad, and veda are all distinct; it would be impossible for one work to appear simultaneously as two or more of these if the older tradition were followed. Moreover, the function of this variously described composition is shockingly different from that of any of the authentic Brahminical scriptures. It is in fact to delineate [describe] the three sastras of dharma, artha, kama; as it were, ethics, economics, erotics (a poor equivalent for kama). To anyone who took seriously the injunctions laid down for the observance of physical and mental purity during the study of sacred texts, such a claim would be blasphemous when made for any document on the level of a veda or even of an upanisad.

Still more interesting is the nomenclature and extent of the work. To be sure, it is called the Mahabharata near the beginning (1.1.10), but the name throughout is merely the Bharata [capacity; loading/load; quantity]. The adjective is explained at the end (1.1. 209-9). The greatness is not derived from the extent but from its importance and weight, for it outweighed all the four vedas taken together when the gods and sages put it in the other pan of the balance. Thus, the maha is not an official part of the original title, just as the adjective divina was prefixed to Dante's Commedia by a later enthusiastic publisher. Moreover, we are told that the learned recognize as the Bharata a work of 24,000 (stanzas or sloka), without any of the minor episodes (upakhyana); to this the sage added an Anukramani chapter of 150 stanzas as an epitome (1.1. 61-2). Yet this composition of the sage, presumably Krsna-Dvaipayana-Vyasa, is the same Bharata as the present much more extensive work. The difference is trifling, the work is after all one which the twice-born possess in both the expanded and contracted forms: vistarais ca samasais ca dharyate yad dvijatibhih (1.1.25). The sage uttered it in both the expanded and contracted forms: vistiryaitan mahaj njanam rsih samksepam abravit (1.1.49). In fact, some are skilled in explaining the work, others only in sticking to the text: vyakhyatum kusalah kecid grantham dharayitum pare (1.1.51).

This can mean only thing thing: at the time the text of the critically edited Adi was composed there still existed a much shorter version of the epic which had full authority among the orthodox, and this new version could gain its own authority only by claiming to be the same as the shorter work in a more understandable form, not by ignoring the shorter work or by claiming to be a new one. This would be impossible for a veda or an upanisad, whose texts, at least in theory, are unalterable. So claims to special merit are made again and again, both for the whole of the present version (1.1. 191-8) and for the new beginning, the Anukramani itself (1.1. 999, 200, 206). The rather mixed claims to religious merit and scriptural equivalence surely indicate efforts made to gain sanction for what was, after all, a popular work -- a compendium of ethics, economics, erotics -- meant for persons of little learning whereas the real veda shied at such: bibhety alpasrutad vedo (1.1.204). The position at the time of composition must have been precarious, both as to authenticity and religious importance of the text we now possess.

2. This same performance, rather shifty as well as self-contradictory, continues in the second chapter, which is a list of contents of the entire work. Here we learn that the work as originally composed by Vyasa in a hundred parvans [books of the Mahabharata] was recast by the bard into eighteen and recited in that form in the Naimisa forest (1.2.70-1):

etat parvasatam purnam vyasenoktam mahatmana yathavat sutaputrena lomaharsanina punah kathitam naimisaranye parvany astadasaiva tu samaso bharatasyayam tatroktah parvasamgrahah

The list of original parvans does actually add up to a hundred, dispelling the controversies raised by those who based their conjectures on editions other than the critical. But there is a fundamental contradiction nevertheless in the entire passage, which is supposed to have been recited by Lomaharsani himself, beginning with 1.2.15. The beginning is innocuous enough, as the sages ask the bard to define the extent of an army corps (aksauhini) and he gives the size in quite fantastic numbers; then he says that eighteen such divisions were destroyed in the great war, gives the extent of the original narrative, and then says himself that he recited the work in its revised form before the sages -- when he has hardly begun the recital! However one may attempt to smooth the difficulty over, it is impossible to explain the contradiction entirely away. The use of the past participle kathitam spoils the game, which could have been saved by using the future tense.

Furthermore, when the number of chapters in the revised first book, the Adiparvan (which does not figure in the original hundred), comes to be given, the division is again passed off as Vyasa's composition (1.2. 95-6). It remains to note that the Par. also ends with praise of the Bharata, the merit to be acquired by its recitation or by hearing it recited. The penultimate sloka (1.2. 242) is in the vasantatilaka metre, the final one being a praharsini (1.2. 243). Though both have the proper ending [x], they are unquestionably later 'fancy' metres, being almost unique examples in the critical text. Therefore, the boast that the narrative is the sustenance of all the leading poets (1.2. 241) also becomes suspiciously indicative of late composition.

In the third chapter, the Pausyaparvan, one need only note the horrible mess that has been made of the hymn to the Asvins. According to Renou,4 [L. Renou, A Volume of Eastern and Indian Studies presented to F.W. Thomas 177-87.]

'On sait que ce poeme imite deliberement la maniere des hymnes vediques ... Bref, si le style est pseudo-vedique, le rythme est upanisado-pali.' [Google translate: We know that this poem deliberately imitates the manner of vedic hymns ... In short, if the style is pseudo-vedic, the rhythm is upanisado-pali.]

This, with the extraordinarily corrupt text, goes to show that those who transmitted the narrative did claim to be Brahmins, did attempt to substantiate their further claim that this work was a veda, or at least had vedic embellishments: vedarthair bhusitasya ca (1.1. 16). But their scholarship was of no high order. We are not dealing here with a revival of Hinduism of the sort that must have occurred in the days of Pusyamitra and Patanjali, but a resurgence in a new form, oriented towards the people rather than based upon the possession of obscure and archaic ritual.

Yet, with these considerable doubts on the fitness and consistence of these prefatory chapters, we note that the manuscript evidence (apart from correspondences as between 1.1 and 1.56) completely proves their authenticity [??]; in fact even their popularly accepted text survives with comparatively trifling changes. This bring us to our real problem: What weight should we attach to the detailed figures given in the Par.? What do the numbers given for each book of the whole Mbh. indicate?

3. The late Dr. V.S. Sukthankar considered as negligible the editorial uses of the Par [book list].5 [Prolegomena to his Adiparvan, esp. xcvii-c; Introduction to his Aranyakaparvan; ABORI Silver Jubilee volume 549-58).] His objections to taking the Par. seriously may briefly be summarized as follows: (1) What text of the Par. [book list] should the editor take as authentic from so many divergent manuscript readings? (2) What would be the meaning of the unit sloka [a couplet of Sanskrit verse, especially one in which each line contains sixteen syllables], generally taken to indicate a stanza [verse], when the text contains all sorts of metres and long prose passages? What is the proper method of counting? (3) In any case the text contains so many variants that even if the Par. [book list] figures were unique and there were no difficulty about the method of counting, a sound critical method would be needed to determine the proper reading. The same method, however, would fix the entire text without recourse to the Par. [book list] (4) The text is fluid, so that its absolutely precise determination should not be considered as a serious possibility. Finally, he gave it as a guess that the Par. [book list] figures were probably obtained by counting a few pages at the beginning and end of the manuscripts carefully, and estimating the remainder by averaging the number per folio.

Now this last explanation of his contradicts (2) above in that it implies the existence of some method and unit of counting. In fact, Sukthankar himself believed in Haraprasad Sastri's traditional interpretation (Adiparvan xcix) that the sloka here was to be taken in its restricted meaning of 32 syllables, and everything in the manuscript down to the numerals counted accordingly. As to (1), the critic might very well ask why Sukthankar did not check his own critically edited Par. [book list] against the actual contents of the books of the critical edition. As a matter of fact, the editors (among them S.K. De who noticed that the numbered slokas in his Udyoga amount to 6063, far shorter than any Par. [book list] figure) pay very little attention to the Par. [book list] Sukthankar's final paper shows his state of doubt clearly, when he attempts to settle the Par. [book list] figures by comparison of his own critical text with the Javanese and the Southern recensions; this contradicts his own usually rigorous and brilliantly applied method, in that his text of the Par. [book list] is based on an extensive manuscript apparatus whereas the other two are single versions, edited by rather doubtful methods.

The one real, valid objection is, of course, (3) above: that a sound canon of text-criticism would be needed to select the proper readings from a vast and conflicting array of manuscripts, and this by itself determines the entire text without any attention to the Par. The question that still remains would be that of the original function of the Par. itself, not of its use to the editor. No criticism made here is to be taken as directed in any way against Sukthankar's editorial method, for which any intelligent person could have nothing but the highest admiration. If we can see a considerable distance through the epic wilderness today, it is only because of the path he cleared for us with giant stride.

The theory of the fluid text is more difficult to deal with. The idea seems intuitively clear to any Indian without further explanation, though a western scholar like Edgerton naturally dismisses it as meaningless. In any case, it is beyond doubt impossible to restore the absolute archetype. For example, suta uvaca may be replaced in the recitative directions by sautir uvaca, or lomaharsanir uvaca, and to the uncritical Indian eye (which alone roamed over the manuscripts till a century ago) [??] there is no real difference. To the question 'which is the real reading?' the reply would be 'any or all of them!' But was there any fluidity about the slokas themselves? Should not the wavy line that runs through so much of the critical text be taken as evidence of fluidity? In justice to Sukthankar, it should be said that in spite of his undefined concept of fluidity, he himself defended his own critical text, even the wavy line readings, with consummate skill, as may be seen in so many of his epic studies. I believe I owe it to his memory to interpolate here a personal record which will make it clear that the theory of the 'fluid text' never interfered with his faith in the superb critical method. When the text of the Adi [the beginning, and so forth] was virtually complete, I questioned him as to the possibility of invalidation by some future discovery of a manuscript much older than any used in his critical apparatus. He considered the idea in his usual calm, judicial manner and said that the possibility could certainly not be denied. Then with a sudden flash of the inner spirit, so rare with him, he burst out, 'No! This text will stand no matter what discoveries are made later on. At the very most, an occasional wavy line reading may be exchanged for another in the critical apparatus.' I had the good fortune of reminding him of this remark, which he had himself forgotten, when the famous Rajaguru manuscript was discovered in Nepal, to confirm in spite of its antiquity not only his accepted readings but many even of his judicious emendations which were not to be found in any manuscript of the original critical apparatus.6 [V.S. Sukthankar, Epic Studies VII, in ABORI 19. 201-62 (1938).] So, his undefined concept of the fluid text cannot be of any use to us here.

4. The most striking feature of the criticism levelled against Sukthankar's neglect of the Par. [Book list], and of his own defence, was the total absence on both sides of any numerical data. The critical text had never been properly counted. Having admitted the justice of this criticism of mine (made in private conversation), Sukthankar directed his staff of learned scribes, pandits, and sastris in the collation department to count the edited text by any method they considered traditional. The work was interrupted by his sudden and untimely death. Whatever had been done was handed over to me, but a brief check sufficed to convince me that the data so gathered was useless. Besides actual errors of counting and arithmetic, the omission of adhyaya [chapter] colophons and the uvaca ["said"] insertions made serious differences inevitable. My own supplementary counts, however, made it clear that the Par. [book list] was a document to be taken seriously, and for that reason the entire published text had to be counted again by some one who would take the utmost care, but who had no theory to prove or disprove as I did.

Mr. Kulkarni took up the problem at my suggestion, and I have every reason to believe that his work is satisfactory, on both the above scores. My criterion for the counts was derived from the recitative purpose of this (or any other ancient Indian) text: every syllable that is pronounced must be counted. Thus, only the avagraha, the numerals at the end of each sloka, the adhyaya-heading numbers, and the vertical bars that terminate each half-sloka had all to be taken as silent punctuation marks, therefore not counted. There does, therefore, remain a slight ambiguity; but the result, it seems to me, justifies my reasonable criterion. Taking the counts of just five books out of a total of eighteen would seem rather premature, but there remains no alternative to one who is not certain of surviving to the completion of a critically edited text. The results may be summarized in

Table I

Books / Adi / Sabha / Aranyaka / Virata / Udyoga
Par. chapters / 218 / 72 / 269 / 67 / 186
Actual chapters / 225 / 72 / 299 / 67 / 197
Par. slokas / 7984 / 2511 / 11664 / 2050 / 6698
'Official' stanzas /7196 / 2390 / 10316 / 1824 / 6063
syllable/32 / 7964.125 / 2599.53125 / 11421.000 / 2036.000 / 6754.4375

What do these figures tell us?

In the first place, the chapters are never less than the number indicated in the Par., actually greater in three out of the five cases; moreover, the adhyaya[chapter]-number automatically counts itself by means of the colophons. If this indicates changes in the text as such, they should naturally be in the direction of inflation, not contraction. But if we count the official number of stanzas, remembering that even the prose passages are divided into convenient though not exactly regular lengths and numbered as slokas, we find that in every case without exception the observed number comes out to be far below that expected from the Par. The different is very highly significant, using the statistician's chi-square test. So, the method of counting did not take sloka as a stanza. Taking the total number of syllables divided by 32, we see at once that we come extraordinarily close to the Par. sloka-number, and that the text we now possess does actually represent something of very nearly the Par. [book list] lengths. The adhyaya[chapter] discrepancy may be explained by the fact that a chapter is a recitative unit, not a narrative one; many of them break off in the middle of some incident and the next begins at the right place. Hence, the most plausible interpretation would be that the text length has been restored to an excellent approximation, but that the adhyayas[chapters] were broken up into more convenient lengths since the Par. days, hence could not be restored as neatly as the text.

The method of counting, therefore, may be taken as reasonably well determined. The 32 syllable units is traditional even in prose counts of Jaina and Mahayana Buddhist works; according to my colleague Dr. V.V. Gokhale, the latter take asvasa to mean the unit of 32 syllables, explaining it as the number that can conveniently be uttered in one breath. The method of counting may ultimately be traced back to the dual system to be seen in the weights of Mohenjo Daro. The work of Pingala on the Vedic metre gives a highly artificial series progressing by differences of four syllables; the quadragesimal system survives to the present day in Indian currency, and is used in accounting with its own special notation. The statistical argument of the previous paragraph is that while 'official' stanzas as sloka would give, except for Sabha [Book 2], probabilities of less than one in a million (by chi-square), the 32 syllable unit gives a significant discrepancy only for the Aranyaka [Book 3], where the probability is about 2.75 percent of so great a difference in either direction from the expected total of 11,664. Finally, if we count the very shortest of all parvans, the Mahaprasthanika (no. 17), from the Vulgate, we find its stanzas to be 109, whereas the 32 syllable unit gives 120 and a fraction over, very close indeed to the Par. figure of 120 slokas. It cannot be argued that so short a parvan had to be counted by some method of approximation.

In fact, it is rather difficult to settle the conjecture of Sukthankar's (ABORI Silver Jubilee volume, 550) that the sloka counts were estimated by folio averages. Taking modern printed and lithographed pothi-styled works and my own random sample counts as a guide, I conclude that the Adi figures, for example, could have been estimated to about 15 slokas (taking 2s as the confidence interval). With Gupta period copper plate inscriptions, the estimate could have been made to about 25 slokas. But this is very misleading in that the line and not the page is taken as my fundamental unit; or what amounts to the same thing, a constant number of lines per page has been assumed. I have seen no long manuscript where there are no gaps, no abbreviations, and the number of lines is exactly the same from page to page; so, such accurate estimation would seem definitely out of the question. In any case, none of the Par. figure variants can possibly have been obtained by such estimation because these variants make a point of changing the Par. reading as little as possible. The last two digits are usually retained, some change being made in the hundreds or the thousands to bring the number nearer to the actual bulk of the parvan in the recension concerned. I feel justified in maintaining that the original Par. figures must have been obtained by the diaskeuast [editor] from accurate counts, syllable by syllable, of some text before him. It follows that he had a recension which he considered as the norm. The puranic taste for large numbers and grasp of the necessary arithmetic are both demonstrated in the aksauhini [described in the Mahabharata as a battle formation consisting of 21,870 chariots (Sanskrit ratha); 21,870 elephants (Sanskrit gaja); 65,610 horses (Sanskrit turaga) and 109,350 infantry (Sanskrit pada sainyam) as per the Mahabharata (Adi Parva 2.15-23).[1][2] Thus one akshauhini consisted of 218,700 warriors (not including the charioteers, who didn't fight).] definition which precedes the counts (1.2. 15-23)

5. What interpretation should be give to the accurate sloka counts coexisting with manifestly wrong adhyaya[chapter] figures?

As has been said before, the adhyaya[chapter] number has generally been increased for recitative purposes. The average number of slokas calculated from the Par. figures themselves would be, for the five parvans before us: 36.62; 34.86; 43.36; 30.6; 36.01. It is to be noticed that the highest average, the Aranyaka, is cut down to an actual 39.01 by the great addition of 30 adhyayas[chapters]. The Udyoga average was reduced by the increase of 11 in adhyaya[chapter] number, the Adi has only seven more chapters than the Par. text gives, but we must note that the average length is still further reduced if one leaves out the first three -- palpably later -- chapters which are inordinately long. The two shortest parvans, Sabha [Book 1] and Virata [Book 4], have also the lowest mean value for chapter length, and it is to be noted that they have exactly the same number of adhyayas[chapers] as originally given by the Par. It will be interesting to see whether this tendency towards reduction of adhyaya[chapter]-length to a more convenient average is present in later parvans. The entire work, according to the Par., has 82,136 slokas in 1948 chapters, which gives the average of 42.16, much higher than in any book of the critical text so far available.

Every additional adhyaya[chapter] means, even if no sloka is changed, increase in the text by at least one colophon. Yet our critical edition shows reduction in the sloka number except in the Udyoga [Book 5] parvan, where the difficulties of both editor and tabulator are increased by such passages as the Sanatsujatiya (5. 42-45), and in Sabha [Book 2], discussed later. The discrepancy is most serious for the Aranyaka [Book 3], where all Indian variants of the Par. agree as to 11,664 slokas, and only the Javanese version gives a different reading which, incidentally, is significantly closer to the number actually counted. This parvan is remarkable (Introduction to the Aranyakaparvan xvi) in that here the Northern recension is longer than the Southern, contrary to all other examples so far known.

Incomplete as the evidence is, one may venture upon a plausible conjecture to explain these observed facts. The Mbh. in its formative period was the property of a single Brahminic gens, the Bhargavas7 [V.S. Sukthankar, Epic Studies VI, in ABORI 18. 1-76 (1936).] The story was becoming very popular, having spread to South India by the end of the fourth century, as is seen by Buddhaghosa's reference and the injunction that it was not lawful for good Buddhists to attend such recitals: Dighanikaya Atthakatha, PTS 1.84: Akkhanam ti Bharata-Ramayanadi; tam yasmim thane kathiyati, tattha gantum na vattati. Before the completion of the second century of the Gupta era our epic has gained tremendous authority; Vyasa is quoted in making land grants, and the Mahabharata is cited as such by name. We have come far from the days when the ridiculous etymology of 1.1. 209 mahattvaa bharavattvac ca mahabharatam ucyate was necessary. But the body of the narrative must have been complete by the beginning of the fourth century if Puranas recast in their present form by 330 A.D. 8 [F.E. Pargiter, The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age (Oxford, 1913).] could take the Mbh. text as base.9 [See fn. 3.]

Chronology

Newly discovered Puranas manuscripts from the medieval centuries has attracted scholarly attention and the conclusion that the Puranic literature has gone through slow redaction and text corruption over time, as well as sudden deletion of numerous chapters and its replacement with new content to an extent that the currently circulating Puranas are entirely different from those that existed before 11th century, or 16th century.

For example, a newly discovered palm-leaf manuscript of Skanda Purana in Nepal has been dated to be from 810 CE, but is entirely different from versions of Skanda Purana that have been circulating in South Asia since the colonial era. Further discoveries of four more manuscripts, each different, suggest that document has gone through major redactions twice, first likely before the 12th century, and the second very large change sometime in the 15th-16th century for unknown reasons.

-- Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App

The different versions of manuscripts of Skanda Purana suggest that "minor" redactions, interpolations and corruption of the ideas in the text over time.

Rocher states that the date of the composition of each Purana remains a contested issue. Dimmitt and van Buitenen state that each of the Puranas manuscripts is encyclopedic in style, and it is difficult to ascertain when, where, why and by whom these were written:

As they exist today, the Puranas are a stratified literature. Each titled work consists of material that has grown by numerous accretions in successive historical eras. Thus no Purana has a single date of composition. (...) It is as if they were libraries to which new volumes have been continuously added, not necessarily at the end of the shelf, but randomly.

— Cornelia Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas[117]

Forgeries

Many of the extant manuscripts were written on palm leaf or copied during the British India colonial era, some in the 19th century. The scholarship on various Puranas, has suffered from frequent forgeries, states Ludo Rocher, where liberties in the transmission of Puranas were normal and those who copied older manuscripts replaced words or added new content to fit the theory that the colonial scholars were keen on publishing.

-- Puranas, by Wikipedia

Granting the first three chapters of the first book as final additions, one can only regard the Par. as an attempt to fix the text when an enormously increased demand was already in sight.

Even at the beginning of such a period of enhanced popularity, it would be most difficult to retain the text as the sole property of a small or at least a compact group of bards. Some attempt at fixing the text would, therefore, be logical and necessary. Now it is clear that not even the prodigious memory of a good Indian pandita could retain the entire work; but a parvan or two, say 10,000 slokas in all, would not be considered too much to memorize, as there are old-fashioned Brahmins even today -- in rapidly decreasing number -- who demand this of their boys. The memory of any person old enough to be considered as an authority represents, in the main, the tradition of some thirty years earlier, apart form possible defects of transmission arising in his own mind. The very existence of the Par. shows that there could have been no local versions (leaving aside the older and shorter Bharata) of the Mbh. then being recited, comparable in divergence to our present Northern and Southern recensions; but the need for a Par. with accurate sloka counts would seem to indicate that minor variants had already begun to be committed to writing. This would occur at a period when the work was still a popular recital, not a super-veda. That is, when the subject matter was more important than the exact words in which the story was recited. Thus, the Parvasamgraha recension would not be the original source of our present manuscript evidence, but these manuscripts would derive (at several removes) from various slightly divergent versions written, or at least memorized, a generation or so earlier than the text of the Par. diaskeuast [editor] attempted to fix. For, there was no way of putting a 4th century manuscript before the public in a vast number of copies, no way of erasing variants from human memories. The veterans would still have to be consulted when more copies were to be made; the copies do not necessarily derive from a manuscript, but are very likely to be taken down by dictation from memory. For all these reasons, the critical edition indicates, in my own opinion, a pre-Par. state of fluidity. We are not restoring the actual Par. recension in general. The process of taking the highest common factor from best available manuscripts reaches to some point, or rather to several points, on the parent stem of tradition from which both the Par. recension and our present manuscript evidence would have been derived. The result is in many ways analogous to the starred forms of the philologist which explains numerous extant cognate derivatives, though all the starred forms themselves need not have existed simultaneously in any single living language. Our critical edition, therefore, may not represent any particular version or recension recited at one time, let alone the Par. recension. The Mbh. was as living as any language, as changeable; the wavy lines in our printed text may go back to a stage behind the Par. But even further, the text as reduced to print in the critical edition may be taken as the starred form of a great and living tradition. This is the meaning we must ascribe to Sukthankar's concept of fluidity, and to his idea that an absolute archetype would remain an ideal impossible of attainment (Adiparvan ciii).

Sabha [Book 2] needs special comment as its editor does not subscribe to the fluid text theory and believes (this is my impression, as the volume has not yet been issued) that the archetype has been restored in all essentials. This may certainly be true, but the archetype cannot possibly be the version before the original composer of the Par. For, in the first place, the serious excess of 88 slokas and 17 letters is still less serious than the default found if sloka is interpreted as 'official' stanza. The discrepancy between our counts and the Par. figure remains much too large to be explained by Sukthankar's approximation theory, for any reasonable method of approximation would give much closer results. The only variant in Par. readings that might help us here is the 2611 of D1, and this is not likely to be received with any favour, seeing the uniformity of the most reliable manuscripts, and the poor show that the D group makes in contrast with the rest. There are no extra adhyayas[chapters], and there seem to be no specially difficult passages. All that can be said is that the tristubh [a Vedic meter of 44 syllables (four padas of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this meter. It is the most prevalent meter of the Rigveda.] stanzas, particularly the 'hypermetric' ones, tend to bunch towards the end of the parvan, though it is difficult to see how this helps in the matter under consideration. It should not be taken as an unreasonable conclusion if one decides that Sabha derives from a later or at least more inflated version than the Par. recension [revised edition], just as Aranyaka seems to have developed from an older one. It may be noted in passing that the actual figure is very near to the 2590 in the colophon of S1, (perhaps repeated from the missing S1 Par.) the manuscript being the one most favoured by our editors.

6. Something may be done from more refined statistics applied to the study of adhyaya[chapter]-lengths. Mr. G.U. Yule1 [G.U. Yule, Biometrika 30. 363-90 (1938).] has reached the conclusion, by use of Pearsonian statistics, that the Imitatio Christi shows sentence-lengths compatible with the style of Thomas a Kempis, not with that of Gerson (Groote being left out of consideration). We cannot discuss sentence lengths here, as the work is mostly in verse without modern punctuation. But adhyaya[chapter]-lengths may be so discussed. The statistics I use derives from R.A. Fisher; and I leave out all details and technical terms, merely giving enough description of the metho to show anyone who knows the subject how my conclusions were drawn; at the same time, the pure philologist will not be bored.

The distribution of adhyaya[chapter]-lengths is not normal (using the word always in its technical sense). The curves would be asymmetrical, having a long tail to the right, and a flatter top than in the familiar bell-shaped curve that everyone has seen. To overcome this, I use a well-known device, of taking logarithms. The distributions are again tested for normality. As, even in the worst cases, anormality is sensibly reduced, one can apply the technique known as analysis of variance to see whether the variation between sub-parvans is of the same order as that within a sub-parvan (of the same book). Normality of the entire distribution in logarithmic units would not necessarily prove, but would be compatible with, the hypothesis of composition by one person at one time; similarly, uniform sub-division into sub-parvans would be compatible with the idea that the recension was unitary or done by several similarly constituted person. The results are as follows.

The shortest parvans, Virata and Sabha, are both normally distributed and show uniform division, so that they may have been derived from works of unitary authorship; of course, no one would maintain that Virata, statistically the most satisfactory of all the books before us, represents the Par. recension, if only for the wavy line that runs so prominently through the printed text. Adi and Udyoga are anormal, the sub-parvans also vary materially among themselves in both cases, even when we leave out the first three chapters of Adi on grounds made clear at the beginning of this paper. Aranyaka is decidedly skew-positive platykurtic, but surprisingly enough bears no sign of uneven division into sub-parvans. That is, it may have been composed by different people at different times, but the process of subdivision was more or less uniform.