Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

This is a broad, catch-all category of works that fit best here and not elsewhere. If you haven't found it someplace else, you might want to look here.

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Wed Feb 02, 2022 4:25 am

Alien and Empathic: The Indian Poems of N.B. Halhed [Nathaniel Brassey Halhed]
by Rosane Rocher
The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia Before Dominion, by Blair B. Kling, Michael Naylor Pearson
1979
Pgs. 215-235

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 attitudes of the British in India have been the subject of a vast literature. Most often, the people whose reactions are analyzed were administrators, diplomats, soldiers, missionaries, and their wives -- persons whose avocations and bent of mind did not predispose them to accept their Indian surroundings. Whether in their professional capacity or in fiction,1 they revealed themselves as foreigners on an Indian scene. Orientalists were different: although most of them had come to India in some other capacity, and with no more preparation than their fellow British citizens, they often underwent a process of -- partial -- conversion to things Indian. Their attitudes have been studied at the hand of their scholarly disquisitions.2 The present study follows a different line of approach; it examines productions of an orientalist which are not of a scholarly nature. A picture will emerge of a man who was genuinely fascinated by India, through a medium that does not require the self-conscious drive for objectivity which is the hallmark of scientific activity. The picture may not look as sharp as others; it may appear as a blurred superposition of partial images with different foci. It will reveal the complexity of a man at once attracted and repelled, loving and lordly, and forever at odds with Britain as well as India.

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751-1830) went to India in 1772 for the same reasons others did: to make himself a fortune. He was, however, better educated than most of the young writers in the service of the East India Company. He had studied at Harrow and Oxford. He knew Persian.3 As a poet, he had published jointly -- and anonymously -- with his friend Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a versified English version of Greek erotic prose.4 His first year in Bengal was a miserable experience, as he indicated in the clearest terms in a letter to his friend Samuel Parr on 5 November 1773:

Give me then leave to inform you that India (the wealthy, the luxurious, and the lucrative) is so exceedingly ruined and exhausted, that I am not able by any means, not with the assistance of my education in England, and the exertion of all my abilities here, to procure even a decent subsistence. I have studied the Persian language with the utmost application in vain; 1 have courted employment without effect; and after having suffered much from the heat of the climate, spent whatever money I brought into the country, and seen the impossibility of providing for myself for some years to come, I have taken the resolution of quitting so disagreeable a spot, before the necessity of running deeply into debt confines me here for years (perhaps for life) .... You must grant, as my postulate, that Bengal is beyond conception exhausted .... I say, therefore, that as Bengal is so much altered for the worse that I find it impossible to get my bread, I have formed the plan of leaving it before my health and constitution be totally debilitated.5


Halhed's fate changed dramatically in early 1774. His knowledge of Persian finally paid off when Warren Hastings chose him to translate into English the compendium of Hindu laws which he had commissioned and which had been translated into Persian.6 By the time Halhed had composed a long preface,7 he was a genuine orientalist, curious about Sanskrit language and literature and Hindu antiquities. He was to pursue this interest with a grammar of Bengali8 and several works he did not care to publish.9 Thanks to Hastings' patronage and continuing interest,10 the young man who in November 1773 had been concerned only with making a quick fortune and returning to England as soon as possible became a scholar of considerable merit. Through the vicissitudes of a checkered career, two constants remained unchallenged: his interest in Hinduism and his devotion to Hastings.

The first of Halhed's Indian poems which have been preserved -- most of them are unpublished -- was addressed to Hastings on 22 May 1774 while Halhed was engaged in translation of the Code. It is a panegyric. Hastings is heralded as protector of science, patron of Sanskrit learning, and restorer of the ancient laws -- the sphere of activity in which Halhed had been set to work. He is presented as deeply concerned with the welfare of the people, a "guardian," "the parent, not the ruler of the state." Through Hastings, the role of the British in India is profiled as benevolent paternalism. In the triangle British-Hindu-Muslim, the mission of the British -- and Reason -- is to free Hindus and protect them from the despotic power and bigotry of the Muslims. Under British tutelage agriculture, the rule of law, arts -- and trade! -- will bloom. Even though they may not appreciate it now, the people will one day be duly thankful. Is is characteristic -- though surprising, considering that Halhed read Persian fluently and had but a smattering of Sanskrit -- that the authentic representative of India is the Hindu par excellence, a Brahman. The poem, entitled "The Bramin and the River Ganges," is introduced with a quotation from Virgil: si Pergama dextra / defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent. [Google translate: if Troy's right / could be defended they would have also been defended by this.]11

Silent and sad (where Ganges' waters roll)
A care-worn Bramin took his pensive way.
Proscient of ill, in agony of soul
Tracing his country's progress to decay.
Age on his brow her furrow stamp had wrought,
While sorrow added to th' impression deep:
And melting Nature at each pause of thought
Snatch'd the indulgent interval to weep,
Thus straying, as he wearied out with pray'r
Each fabled guardian of that hallow'd wave;
To soothe the misery of vain despair
The river's goddess left her oozy cave.
"O lost to thought and obstinately blind!
Weak man!" she cried, "thy baseless passion cease:
Rouse from this torpid lethargy of mind,
And wake at last to comfort and to peace.
Smile, that no more ambitious spoilers range
Thy lahour's fruits relentless to devour:
Smile to obey (and hail th' happy change)
The rule of reason for the rod of pow'r.
Hast thou forgot how Tartar fury spurn'd
The suppliant meekness of the patient sage;
How bigot zeal the groves of science burn' d,
While superstition sanctified the rage?
Hast thou forgot each prostitute decree,
Each venal law the plaint Coran sold:
While the fleec'd suitor famish'd on his plea,
And judges wallow'd in extorted gold?
What could Mahommed's race degen'rate teach,
Themselves to spoil alone and ruin taught?
Neglected commerce wept her silent beach,
And arts affrighted distant dwellings sought.
Think then on what ye were -- destruction's prey --
How low, how worthless in the scale of things!
While havock stain'd with Indian gore her way,
And deserts whiten'd with the bones of kings.
Ingrateful Hindus! when a tender hand
Pours balm into your wounds; is't right to weep?
Your guardian's anxious efforts to withstand,
Who wakes to lahour but that you may sleep!
Are murmurs then, and tears the tribute just,
Are plaints, to wisdom and to mercy due,
That rais'd your groveling functions from the dust,
And open'd life and freedom to your view?
The frail exotic might as well accuse
Th' officious kindness of the planter's care,
That shelters it from autumn's sickly dews,
And blunts the keenness of December's air.
Say. is it nought. that no insulting lord
With riotous arms the lab'ring plough impedes?
Nought, to behold your country's laws restor'd.
The moral system of the slighted Vedes?12
Nought, that deliver'd from a tyrant's chain
Diffusive trade re-m s13 the busy strand?
That arts invigorated bloom again,
And favour prospers each inventive hand?
Go, go, vain mourner! thy glad homage show
To Him who broke despotic slav'ry's tie:
Who gave thee, rescued from that bitt'rest woe,
To live uninjur'd, and unplunder'd die:
To Him, who yet hath other gifts in store,
Whom further deeds of worth shall render great:
Who still shall blend humanity with power,
The parent, not the ruler of the state.
Yet, not confin'd to legislation's sphere,
'T is He shall bid fair science too take root;
Shall nurture ev'ry plant that she may rear,
And teach her tender scyons how to shoot:
And haply animate some vent'rous eye
T' explore the mysteries conceal'd so long:
To trace where learning's earliest sources lie,
And ope the fountains of Sanscritian song.
Weep as thou wilt, thy sons will bless his name,
When thou art mingled with thy kindred earth;
And consecrate the happy hour to fame
Of Pollio's14 greatness, and of freedom's birth."15


Halhed left Bengal in 1778 and, back in England, became one of the most vocal defenders of Hastings' Indian policies. He published in 1779 an anonymous tract in defense of Hastings' Maratha policy.16 His involvement with East Indian politics grew even stronger in 1782, when he helped John Scott (Hastings' agent in England) and Joseph Price to wage a press campaign to refute the accusations leveled against Hastings by parliamentary committees. Under the pseudonym "Detector" he published from October 1782 to November 1783 a stream of letters in the Morning Herald17 and in separate pamphlets.18 John Scott described him to Hastings as "indefatigable upon this, as upon every other occasion, and he is esteemed the first political writer in England."19

It is in this atmosphere that our second poem originated. It was written on 8 June 1782 and therefore antedates the war of pamphlets. The combativeness, however, is already present. A paean to Hastings, the poem has a totally different tone from the preceding one. It has no peaceful scenes of flourishing arts and trade, no mention of science and Sanskrit learning; all these concerns are swept aside by a sudden burst of military enthusiasm. Hastings is no longer a "guardian," "the parent, not the ruler of the state," but "great arbiter of Hindostan." Although the lines resound with names of Indian princes and their cities, the mood is not Indian. It is a poem composed in England to extol military victories over barbaric rulers. The feeling emerges that, even though the Indian enemies have been defeated, the battle is not over; the British Commons remains to be conquered. The poem bears no title but announces itself as a paraphrase of an ode by Horace:20

What thanks, O Hastings, from the chair,
What ballot of impartial names,
What vote of commons shall declare
The meed exerted virtue claims?
O first in rank! in merit first!
Whose influence Poona's restless hord,
Alien from law, in rapine nurs'd,
Hath felt, hath trembled, and ador'd.
For late, by thy strong legions back'd,
Hath Goddart21 hewn their armies down:
Where o'er the widely subject tract
Bassein's insulting bastions frown,
Bassein, for long resistance stor'd:
But fenceless to a British foe.
Nor long, ere Coote22 unsheath'd the sword,
And laid the proud Mysorean low.
Eager of fight, how fierce he prest
To struggle in the manly strife;
And harrass out each stubborn breast
Sworn to quit plunder but with life.
Rapid he rush' d resistless forth,
And drove along the surge of war.
Like some black storm, when West and North
Sweep o'er the verdure of Bahar.
As foams swol'n Ganges on the sides
Of some frail bank in rich Nattore.
Sudden it bursts -- th' impetuous tides
Destruction o'er the meadows pour.
So rag'd he 'gainst each adverse line;
Now charg'd the rear, now storm'd the van;
The troops, the auspices were thine,
Thine the campaign's digested plan.
For thee, on that important hour
When Guallior wide its portal threw
(A conquest for an empire's power)
To Popham23 and his daring few,
(While light'ning-wing'd the wond'rous tale
Thro' Asia's farthest regions ran)
Astonished millions join'd to hail
Great arbiter of Hindostan!
The Peshwa trembles at thy nod;
And stubborn Hyder bends the knee;
The Lama, king at once and god,
Hath bow'd to virtue and to thee.
To thee hath roll'd obedient waves
The Ganges of uncertain source;
And frequent Carumnassa laves
Thy laurels in her lengthen'd course.
Thy voice the stern Marattah's hear,
With hands in purple slaughter dy'd:
Fearless of death, yet thee they fear,
"And lay their vanquish'd arms aside.24


Halhed returned to Bengal in 1784 and was supposed to be appointed to the first vacancy on the Council of Revenue. When he reached Calcutta in July, Hastings was on a trip to Oudh and Banaras. He joined Hastings in Banaras in October and learned of his intention to resign and return to England. Hastings, anxious to have several of his supporters accompany him home to help fight the attacks that he knew were to continue, arranged that Halhed be made the agent of the nawab of Oudh in England.25 While Hastings returned to Calcutta, Halhed stayed behind and wrote Hastings three letters,26 all of which contain poems. Two of these poems have Indian themes.27

The letter in which the first "Indian" poem is inserted deals mainly with the technicalities of obtaining the agency for the nawab of Oudh. Toward the end, Halhed is reminded that all these dealings are caused by Hastings' impending departure. He voices concern for India. Hastings -- not any British administration -- is viewed now as India's sole protection against anarchy. Halhed reverts to the tone of the poem, quoted earlier, written during his first sojourn in Bengal: Hastings is again pictured as a considerate parent for India. The poem bears no title but links immediately with the paragraph that precedes in the letter:28

I am rendered exceedingly happy in the observation that each successive packet from England brings an addition of strength, or at least a presumption of such addition to your arm and to your cause. The prospect of daily invigorating influence will at all events throw a brighter lustre on the remaining products of your labours, and cast a rich tint of sunshine on your final arrangements.

But ah! when from the parting vessel's stern,
A nation's woes shall in your bosom burn;
While, as Calcutta fades beneath your eye,
That breast shall heave the last parental sign,
To think that o'er this strife-devoted plain,
So long reposing in your cares -- in vain.
Uprais'd by mammon, and by faction nurs'd,
So soon the storms of anarchy must burst.
Say can a frail exotic's tender frame
Repel the torrent, or defy the flame?
Your gardener hand, dear Sir, first gave it root,29
Your kindly30 influence bade its buds to shoot;
Can it but wither, when those beams are gone,
In air ungenial, and a foreign sun?


The poem included in the third letter, written during Halhed's trip to Oudh, is a very curious production and one in which the scholar comes to the fore. It does not touch upon East Indian politics, either in India or in Britain, but focuses exclusively on India and Hinduism. Although couched in less reserved terms than is usual, it is a fairly representative example of the westerner's uneasiness with popular Hinduism. Modern scholars make a distinction between philosophical and popular Hinduism; eighteenth-century scholars used to posit a historical development: the pure -- and monotheistic! -- religion of pristine ages had been debased to a gross, idolatrous superstition at the hands of a cunning Brahman priesthood. Halhed's tone is all the more raucous, his disgust for the practices he witnessed in Banaras is all the more profound, because he feels genuine admiration for what he considers to be the only real, unadulterated, elevated Hinduism. The Bhagavadgita figures prominently in the poem as the symbol of "the most ancient and pure religious principles of the Hindoos." Halhed's enthusiasm had been fanned by his visit to his friend Charles Wilkins, who was completing his English translation of the text at that precise time.31 The letter in which Halhed forwarded the poem to Hastings is nothing more than a note of explanation -- and apology -- for the theme he struck:

I arrived here at 1 P.M. at Mr. Magrath's bungalow, and scribble a copy of the enclosed while dinner is getting ready. In excuse for it I can only say, that I really intended to speak of the learning, the integrity, the virtue, the philosophy and the disinterestedness of Bramins. But that when I came to "sweep the sounding lyre," the devil of one of them could I find -- and Mrs. Melpomene or whoever is the proper officer on these occasions obliged me to say what I have said. As a poet I might plead the privilege of fiction. But alas it is all sober fact! and therefore I cannot possibly have hit the sublime. I believe there might have been more of it, but the accursed dawk bearers have obliged me to walk so much (not being able even to drag the palanquin after me in some places,) that I was tempted to bestow all my iambics upon them.32


Halhed describes the poem33 as an "ode on leaving Benaras" and dedicates it pointedly to what he considers alternative names for one primordial notion of the divine, now abandoned:

To Brahm or Kreeshna34

Who shall, O Brahm, thy mystic paths pervade?
Who shall unblam'd the sacred scenes disclose,
Where ancient wisdom's godlike sons are laid
Immortal sharers of divine repose?
Om! Veeshnu! Brahm![a] or by whatever name
Primeval Resbees [ b] have thy power ador'd:
They worshipp'd thee, they knew thee still the same,
One great eternal, undivided lord!
Tho' now, in these worn days, obscur'd thy light,
(Worn days, alas, and crazy wane of time!)
Tho' priest-crafts' puppets cheat man's bigot sight
With hell-born mockeries of things sublime,
Ages have been, when thy refulgent beam
Shone with full vigour on the mental gaze:
When doting superstition dar'd not dream,
And folly's phantoms perish'd in thy rays.
Yes, they have been, but ah! how fallen, how chang'd
Behold, on Caushee's [c] yet religious plain,
(Haunts where pure saints, enlighten'd seers have rang'd)
The hood-wink'd Hindu drag delusion's chain.
What boots it, that in groves of fadeless green
He tread where truth's best champions erst have trod?
Now in each mould'ring stump, and bust obscene,
The lie-fraught bramin bids him know a god.
What boots it, that on Gunga's hallow'd shore
He sees Dwypayan's [d] earliest scroll unfurl'd,
Where the proud turrets of Benaras soar,
And boast acquaintance with a former world?
For him, misguided wretch! nor ear nor eye
Perceives in hearing, nor beholds in sight:
Else might he still at Kreeshna's [e] camp supply
His blunted organs with caelestial light.
He rather glories at some flow'r-strew'd fane
Of Hanuman, baboon [f] obscene, to bow:
Or blind his blank existence in the train
Of gaping suppliants to a pamper'd cow!
'T is night -- from yon low door, in hallow din,
Bell, drum, and voice th' affrighted ear assault.
Hush -- 't is a temple -- Doorgah's rites begin:
What pious Hindu hails not Doorgha's vault?
Nich't in an angle of the seven-foot space
Stands a gaunt semblance of th' ill favour'd hag:
Her drizzling carcase and unseemly base
Veil'd in a squalid yard of scanty rag.
A silver'd convex marks each garish eye,
Her hideous visage shines imbrued with ink:
And as the bramin waves his lamp on high
The satisfied adorer sees her wink.
Here, as in silent horror we survey
The priest-rid mis'ry of the blinded throng,
A lip-learn'd yogee opes the choral lay,
And writhes and labours in a Sanscrit song.
Not far, a wretch with arms erect and shrunk
Full thrice-ten-years god's image hath defac'd:
Till like some age-worn Peepul's [g] leafless trunk
His very vegetation is a waste.
Here, in one spot, the dying and the dead
For rites funereal wait their sev'ral turn:
While the yet-gasping victim, from his shed,
Smells the parch'd bones, and sees his brother burn.
Where'er we tread 't is consecrated mould.
Streets choak'd with temples -- God's at ev'ry door --
But canst thou, Kreeshna! not inceas'd behold
Thy bramins grind the faces of the poor?
Thy bramins, did I say? -- degen'rated herd,
Offspring of Narak, [h] lucre-loving race,
Who crush thy Geeta's [ i] more than human word
T'exalt some pagan pootee35 in its place.
Accurst Benaras, wherefore are endus' d
Such foul misdeeds to taint pure Gunga's stream:
Wherefore have idols, heifers, apes, obscur'd
The simple science of the one supreme?
God of all good! yet once events controul!
Snatch yet thy volume from the night of time!
Let not this precious balsam of the soul
Waste all its virtues in a thankless clime!
E' en yet there is, whose spirit soars above
This finite mansion of distemper'd clay: [j]
Who leaves to groveling minds the wealth they love,
Nor stifles conscience in the lust of sway.
Him in thine essence late absorb! and here
lllumine, worthy, with thy truths divine!
So shall thy sastra see-girt nations chear:
So Kreeshna's light in northern darkness shine.


Back in England, Halhed led the easy life of a gentleman of independent means, traveling, appearing at court, and eventually becoming a member of Parliament in 1791. He was, however, deeply disappointed with England, which did not appear to appreciate the achievements of Hastings in Bengal. Together with John Shore, and several other devoted friends of Hastings', he participated in the preparation of his patron's defense presented before the House of Commons in 1786. His rancor kept growing throughout the impeachment, particularly vis-a-vis Edmund Burke, who requited Halhed's hostility.36 Halhed gave vent to his feelings in a series of poems written at every step of the legal proceedings. Although these poems refer to events in India, their theme is the struggle of the Hastings faction in Britain; India is only the background for matters debated at home. These poems are therefore peripheral to the concerns analyzed here.

For Halhed, only a few special people -- not Britain at large -- could understand and carry out the policies that were needed in India. His friend and fellow defender of Hastings, John Shore, was such a person, and Halhed was delighted at his appointment as governor-general in 1792. He wrote on that occasion a congratulatory poem in imitation of an epigram by Martial:37 Halhed's loss will be Indian's gain:

To parch'd Bengal's Brahminical domains,
Where floods of Ganges fertilize the plains,
Go, virtuous Shore! I urge thy journey -- go!
A nation's welfare compensates my woe.
Go! -- I can court regret on such a plea;
The bliss of millions should be bliss to me.
Thy patriot toils a few short seasons claim:
Guard but thyself, and leave the rest to Fame.
Go! -- and imbibe incessant suns once more.
We rate not merit by complexion, Shore.
Nay, if inglorious ease can feel concern,
Thy fairer friends shall blush at thy return:
One British winter Asia's tint shall chase,
And feed thy glory, as it clears thy face.


As the years went by, Halhed's alienation grew. His tragic involvement with Richard Brothers, who prophesized the imminent end of the millennium and destruction of London, completed the process which had been initiated with his bitterness over the trial which Hastings had to endure. Halhed was an object of ridicule for his defense of Brothers and had to relinquish his seat in Parliament. He severed all ties with society and lived as a recluse from 1796 to 1808. He wanted no contact with what he named "Sclerocardia," the hardhearted city of London. Even when he emerged from his self-imposed confinement, he did not make his peace with his British surroundings. His friends, his concerns, even the employment he obtained in the home administration of the East India Company, were all linked to his India days. His letters to Hastings attest to his patient study of the Mahabharata. His intimacy with Hastings and the Daylesford circle became stronger, more exclusive. Halhed was not the only member of the group who dabbled in poetry, but he was the undisputed judge in this field. There were endless exchanges of verses, particularly with Hastings. Halhed usually offered Hastings verses when he arrived for a visit and again when he left. He dedicated poems to him on his successive birthdays. Two such poems, in which the indologist comes to the fore, are published here. They testify to Halhed's continuing captivation with Hinduism.

The poem written to celebrate Hastings' eighty-third birthday uses the theory of yugas, the concept of cyclical time which fascinated Halhed throughout his life, from his first indological publication38 to his last work in manuscript.39 The poem, dated 17 December 1815, is provided with a note of explanation by the author:40

Firm on four feet the Sati-Jug behold!
As symboliz'd (and wherefore?) by a bull!
'Tis Taurus -- whence the sun in vigour full
First through the zodiac his fixt period roll'd,
Op' ning with joy the pristine age of gold.
Trita less stedfast under virtue's rule,
Stands but on three. From these another pull
'Tis Dwapar: -- Kali reels on one, grown old.
To mortals scriptures four-score years assign.
Youth's satya then compute at thirty two
For Trita twenty-four are manhood's due:
Sixteen mark Dwapar, verging tow'rd decline:
Eight the decrepitude of Kali close.
Hastings, at eighty three, a second satya knows.


The poem offered to Hastings on the occasion of his last birthday, on 17 December 1817, draws a simile from the stages of life recommended for the orthodox Brahmans, "the sages whom we both admire." Halhed's admiration for philosophical, monotheistic Hinduism remains intact:41

Hastings! The sages whom we both admire,
Offspring, so fable wills, of Brahma's head,
When of their century the first half is fled, [a]
Narrowing their labours, as the Veds require,
Burst all mundane obstructions, that so higher
Their intellect's expansive force may spread,
Till like the poles, with Brahm [ b]concentrated,
They move in thought the universe entire.

This heav' n-taught Hindus life-directing rule,
Hadst thou, illustrious friend, long since in view,
Renouncing empire's cares at fifty-two,
To dwell with wisdom in her spiritual school.
Tow'rds its true center there thy mind gains way,
Year after year advanc'd -- and eight-five to day.


Some of Halhed's poems appear to be irretrievably lost, together with most of his private papers. According to Grant, Halhed wrote "a series of Sonnets on the ten incarnations of Vishnu."42 Grant prints one of these sonnets as "a specimen of the mode in which he associated our sacred writings with those of the Hindoos,"43 The blending of Christian and Hindu myths was a common preoccupation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and was pursued by Halhed with particular vigor. The trend appears indeed to have grown stronger with the years; the pages of his last work44 are replete with far-fetched parallels between biblical, classical, and Indian data. The only sonnet in the series on the incarnations of Visnu that has been preserved pursues the same line of thought. It is devoted to the dwarf Vamana, the fifth incarnation of Visnu, who is likened to Christ:

Vaman

O'er the three worlds when Vali's45 empire spread,
Vaman, a holy dwarf, before him bow'd.
"Take what thou wilt" exclaimed the monarch proud.
"Space his three steps to cover," were, he said,
"Enough." The sovereign's priest opposed, in dread
Of latent mischief: but the king allow'd.
Vaman strode twice and spann'd (a god avow'd)
The universe. The third took Vali's head.
So Christ, a dwarf in reason's lofty eyes,
Two steps had trod, where Satan's glories swell,
The first, his cross, o'erstriding death and hell;
The next his resurrection clear'd the skys.
For his last step, his second advent know
To bruise the serpent's head, and chain him down below.46


Grant gives no indication as to the date of this series of poems. It is probable that they are late in Halhed's life, possibly in the 1810s, if they are related to his renewed indological activities after his period of reclusion. If this is the case, they would follow the hymns to Hindu deities of Sir William Jones,47 although the latter do not seem to have occasioned them.

Hastings died in 1818. Halhed resigned his post with the home administration of the East India Company less than one year later. His very last poem, entitled "Mes adieux," dated 23 July 1819,48 not only takes leave of the company, but at the same time bids farewell to poetry. Although he lived on for more than a decade, he was not heard from any more. The death of his patron and the end of his involvement in Indian affairs signified the close of his active life. For years his existence had been led under the sign of past Indian days. For better or for worse he was a "Nabob," a returned Anglo-Indian, who never could call England home again.49

_______________

Notes:

1. See the latest addition to the literature on the subject: Benita Parry, Delusions and Discoveries: Studies on India in the British Imagination 1880-1930 (Berkeley, 1972).

2. See, recently, P.J. Marshall (ed.), The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1970), published in a series with the revealing title "The European Understanding of India."

3. William Jones to Viscount Althorp on 18 August 1772: "I do not know whether you ever heard me mention a schoolfellow of mine named Halhed: 1 received a letter from him the other day, partly Persian and partly Latin, dared the Cape of Good Hope. He was in his way to Bengal ..." Garland Cannon (ed.), The Letters of Sir William Jones (Oxford, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 114-115.

4, The Love Epistles of Aristaenetus: Translated from the Greek into English Metre (London, 1771).

5. Samuel Parr, Works; with Memoirs of His Life and Writings and a Selection from His Correspondence, ed. John Johnstone, (London, 1828), vol. 1, pp. 469-470 n.

6. Hastings had it published by the East India Company: A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pandits. From a Persian Translation, Made from the Original, Written in the Shanscrit Language (London, 1776).

7. Reprinted in Marshall, British Discovery of Hinduism, pp. 140-183.

8. A Grammar of the Bengal Language (Hooghly, 1778).

9. British Museum Add. MSS 5657-9; Asiatic Society, Calcutta, MS E. 48.

10. The importance of Hastings' role in this regard has been highlighted recently by P.J. Marshall, "Warren Hastings as Scholar and Patron," Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants: Essays in Eighteenth-Century History Presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland, ed. Anne Whiteman et al. (Oxford, 1973), pp. 242-262.

11. Virgil Aeneid 2.291-292: "If a hand could save Troy, this hand would have."

12. Bedes, corrected into Vedes = Vedas. In 1774, when the poem was written, Halhed consistently reproduced the Bengali pronunciation of Sanskrit. By the time the collection which preserves this poem was made, after Hastings' death, Halhed had occasion to eliminate spellings influenced by Bengali pronunciation.

13. Illegible.

14. Pollio, Roman politician and patron of the arts, friend of Virgil. Here Pollio = Hastings.

15. British Museum Add. MS 39,899, ff. 2-3.

16. A Narrative of teh Events Which Have Happened in Bombay and Bengal, Relative to the Maharatta Empire, Since July 1777 (London, 1779).

17. Morning Herald, 7, 9, 12, 16, 18, 21, 23, 28 October and 1, 2, 11, 18, 20, 25 November 1782; collected and reprinted in The Letters of Detector on the Reports of the Select Committee of the House of Commons Appointed to Consider How the British Possessions in the East-Indies May Be Held and Governed with the Greatest Secureity and Advantage to This Country and How the Happiness of the Natives May Be Best Promoted (London, 1782). Morning Herald, 28 April and 1, 5, 15 May 1783; collected and reprinted in The Letters of Detector, on the Seventh and Eighth Reports of the Select Committee and on the India Regulating Bill (London, 1783). Morning Herald, 17 July and 7 November 1783, the latter also printed as a separate pamphlet and distributed at a meeting of proprietors of East India stock.

18. A letter to Governor Johnstone ... on Indian Affairs (London, 4 January 1783); A letter to the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Subject of His Late Charges against the Governor-General of Bengal (London, 18 October 1783).

19. British Museum Add. MS 29, 160, f. 170.

20. Horace Odes 4. 14.

21. Thomas Goddard, who defeated Mahadaji Sindhia and captured Bassein in 1781.

22. Sir Eyre Coote, who defeated Haidar Ali at Potto Novo in 1781.

23. William Popham, who Stormed the fort of Gwalior in 1780.

24. British Museum Add. MS 39,899, ff. 4-5.

25. Hastings to his wife on 20 November 1784: "Halhed is at Lucnow, busied in the Execution of a Plan which I have concerted for his Return to England. I wish he was there, but I hope to precede him. His Talents were always of the first Rate; but they are improved far beyond what you knew them, and I shall still require them in Aid of Scott's Exertions." Sydney C. Grier (ed.), The Letters of Warren Hastings to His Wife (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 368.

26. Dated Muzaffarpur, 9 November 1784; Banaras, 12 November; Kanpur, 18 November. Printed in John Grant's "Warren Hastings in Slippers: Unpublished Letters of Warren Hastings," Calcutta Review 26 (1856):76-80. When printing the last letter, Grant omitted -- or did not have -- the poem.

27. The poem in the letter dated 12 November, not reproduced here, is introduced in the following terms: "I have hit upon a source of perpetual amusement on an inexhaustible subject: 'The abuse of language in modern poetry, by introducing the idioms and expressions of the poetic language of the ancients into modern verses.' I have taken the liberty to subjoin a few stanzas by way of specimen: and I hope I am not presumptuous in requesting your assistance, when you feel a necessity of relaxing a little from the toils of empire, in adding to my humble effort, which has only the merit of being so lax and disjointed, that it will admit a stanza on any subject in any part where you may be pleased to put it." Grant, "Hastings in Slippers," p. 77.

28. Grant's article "Hastings in Slippers" is our only source for the text of Halhed's letter. The poem printed in Grant's article, from Halhed's private papers, is also included in the collection which Halhed made of his poems to Hastings "that happen to have been preserved" and offered to Hastings' widow (British Museum Add. MS 39,899. f. 6). There are some variants in the two copies of the poem. The text reproduced here is that in Grant's article; the variant readings in the British Museum manuscript are mentioned in notes. It is probable that, when Halhed collected his poems after Hastings' death, he emended some verses which he felt could be improved. Grant may have committed minor mistakes while copying the poem, but he is not likely to have changed the wording. The version quoted in Grant's article has therefore a better chance to represent the original poem written in 1784.

29. "Your animating hand first gave it root" (British Museum Add. MS 39,899. f. 6).

30. "quick'ning" (British Museum Add. MS 39,899. f. 6).

31. Charles Wilkins, The Bhagvat-Geeta (London, 1785). The letter dedicating the translation to Hastings (reprinted in Marshall, British Discovery of Hinduism, p. 192) is dated 19 November 1784, one day after Halhed wrote his poem.

32. Grant, "Hastings in Slippers," p. 80.

33. Preserved only in British Museum Add. MS 39,899. ff. 6-8.

34. Halhed's spelling of Indian names is not consistent. Since the terms are generally clear, however, it would be superfluous to add to Halhed's glosses (marked a through j):
a. "names of the deity."
b. "saints or prophets."
c. "Benaras."
d. "Dwypayan (i.e. Vyas the great Hindo legislator and hierophant and sacred penman)."
e. "i.e. in the Geeta."
f. "a sacred ape."
g. "a species of tree."
h. "Hell."
i. "a book containing some of the most ancient and pure religious principles of the Hindoos."
j. "a Sanscrit phrase for the body."

35. Book.

36. See a letter from Burke to Dundas dated 7 April 1787: Holden Furber (ed., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (Chicago, 1965), vol. 5, pp. 323-324.

37. Halhed published, anonymously, Imitations of Some of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 1793-1794). The poem to John Shore, in imitation of Martial Epigrams 10, 12, is published in pt. 4, pp. 23-25. It is also quoted in Lord Teignmouth, Memoir of the Life and Correspondence of John, Lord Teignmouth (London, 1843), vol. 1, pp. 225-226.

38. Preface to the Code of Gentoo Laws (reprinted in Marshall, British Discovery of Hinduism, pp. 158-159).

39. Translations from and notes on the Persian Mahabharata, which he made from 1811 to 1813, with an additional note in 1816 (Asiatic Society, Calcutta, MS E. 48).

40. British Museum Add. MS 39,899, f. 32:
"The proportions of the four Hindu Yugas.

Satya / 32
Trita / 24
Dwapar / 16
Kali / 8
Total / 80."

41. British Museum Add. MS 39,899, f. 37. Halhed provides his poem with explanatory notes (marked a and b):

a. "The quadripartite subdivision of human life -- supposed to consist for each individual among the bramins of a 100 years -- is thus allotted. In the first 25 years the person is a Brahmachari, or pupil; in the next quarter he is called grathasta, or a house-holder; at the close of 50 years he becomes a vanaprasta or a dweller in the woods; and after 75 he is a saniasi or pilgrim."

b. "The One omnipotent."

42. "Hastings in Slippers," p. 137.

43. Ibid.

44. Asiatic Society, Calcutta, MS E. 48.

45. Bali.

46. Grant, "Hastings in Slippers," p. 137.

47. William Jones, Works (London, 1799), vol. 6, pp. 313-392.

48. British Museum Add. MS 39,899, f. 42.

49. I thank the authorities of the British Museum for permission to publish Halhed's poems preserved in manuscript in the Hastings papers in their collections.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Wed Feb 02, 2022 5:28 am

Part 1 of 3

Cultural Possession, Imperial Control, and Comparative Religion: The Calcutta Perspectives of Sir William Jones and Nathaniel Brassey Halhed
by Michael J. Franklin
The Yearbook of English Studies, 2002, Vol. 32, Children in Literature (2002), pp. 1-18
2002

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.



 
This article focuses on the contrast between the attempts of Sir William Jones and those of his fellow Orientalist, Nathaniel Halhed, to introduce the Hindu deities and their native devotees to a Western audience, both within the colony and in Europe. Works written by imperial administrators in Bengal represent a distinctive discourse of Orientalism, and it will be considered to what extent they constitute a case of possessing India culturally [pace Edward Said] or of being culturally possessed by India.

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1750- 83) enjoyed his time at Oxford and the culmination of his literary and libertine researches was to publish with Richard Sheridan a verse translation of The Love Epistles of Aristaenetus (1771). Halhed, who used to sign his letters to Sheridan as LYD (lazy young dog), was sent out to India in 1772 to cure him of his riotous behaviour. In England he had been a rival with Sheridan for the hand of Elizabeth Linley and in Calcutta he lost no time in presenting his poetic and personal addresses to the most attractive women, married or single, of Fort William.1 [For an important and scholarly biography of Halhed, see Rosane Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millenmium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed 1751-1830 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983).] In contrast with the conventional picture of the nabob, however, India ultimately exerted a maturing influence upon Halhed. The Calcutta catalyst proved to be Halhed's meeting with Warren Hastings, Governor and Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785.

A key plank of Hastings's rigorously Orientalist policies was to establish the authority of the British government in Bengal on Indian laws, which necessitated European judges' familiarity with native laws, and the reassurance of the British public concerning the sophistication of these laws. This had led to the employment of eleven learned Brahmans by the Revenue Board from 1773 to 1775 to compile for use in the courts of the province a Sanskrit law code that was subsequently rendered into Persian. In choosing Halhed to translate the Persian text into English, Hastings, always astute in recognizing and recruiting potential Indologists, cured him of his aimless dissipation. Halhed's A Code of Gentoo Laws (1776) effectively marks the transformation of libertine into Orientalist; its preface reveals Halhed's intense fascination with Hindu culture. Two years later, having become expert in Bengali, the principal medium for commercial transactions, Halhed published A Grammar of the Bengal Language. Increasingly, Halhed's concerns were with the control of language and the language of control.

One of the first of Halhed's Indian poems, 'The Bramin and the River Ganges', written while he was at work on his translation of the Code, was sent to Hastings on 22 May 1774. As the first European privileged to receive the full cooperation of Hindu pandits, it is perhaps not surprising that, in this poem at least, he initially appeared to empathize with the 'care-worn Bramin':

Silent and sad (where Ganges' waters roll)
A care-worn Bramin took his pensive way,
Prescient of ill, in agony of soul
Tracing his country's progress to decay.

Age on his brow her furrow stamp had wrought,
While sorrow added to th' impression deep:
And melting Nature at each pause of thought
Snatch'd the indulgent interval to weep.
Thus straying, as he wearied out with pray'r
Each fabled guardian of that hallow'd wave;
To soothe the misery of vain despair
The river's goddess left her oozy cave. (1. I)2 [See Rosane Rocher, 'Alien and Empathic: The Indian Poems of N. B. Halhed', in The Age of Partnership. Europeans in Asia before Dominion, ed. by Blair B. Kling and M. N. Pearson (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), pp. 215-35, 217- 9. The poem is quoted here from London, British Library, Add. MS 39,899, ff. 2-3, from which Rocher's text shows slight deviations.]


In her response the river goddess Ganga, despite her 'oozy' environs, demonstrates an almost 'British' stiffness of upper lip/bank as she berates in pronounced 'masculine' tones this lamenting stereotype of the feminized Hindoo, this lethargic and torpid Gentoo:3 [For a more dynamic representation of the Brahman, as symbol of opposition to Company policies, see Eyles Irwin's 'Ramah: or, the Bramin', allegedly based upon a suicide he witnessed while revenue collector in the Carnatic. In protest at Hastings's military support for the Muslim nawab of Arcot's invasion of Tanjore (1777), a Brahman hurls himself, with Bard-like defiance, from the summit of a temple, to 'leave a lesson to the British throne!', not before prophesying the ultimate defeat of the Cross by the Crescent of Islam (Eastern Eclogues (London: Dodsley, 1780), pp. 24-25).]

'O lost to thought and obstinately blind!
Weak man!' she cried, 'thy baseless passion cease:
Rouse from this torpid lethargy of mind,

And wake at last to comfort and to peace.
Smile, that no more ambitious spoilers range
Thy labour's fruits relentless to devour:
Smile to obey (and hail the happy change)
The rule of reason for the rod of pow'r.'
(1. 13)


Smile and obey, you are now under British imperial control. The 'unreasoning' Hindu is slow to recognize the benefits of 'the rule of reason', having been habituated to the rod of Asiatic despotism. But now, you lucky Hindu people, the East India Company is in control, and as Hegel was to write his Philosophy of History: 'The English, or rather the East India Company, the lords of the land; for it is the necessary fate of Asiatic Empires subjected to Europeans.'4 [G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. by J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956), pp. 142-43.] A case, pace Gayatri Spivack, of white men saving brown men from other brown men. The goddess Ganga reminds forgetful Bramin of the successive waves of invasion and conquest that proved the unmaking of India:

Hast thou forgot how Tartar fury spurn'd
The suppliant meekness of the patient sage;
How bigot zeal the groves of science burn'd,
While superstition sanctified the rage? (l. 21)


The animus against the Muhammadan superstition absorbs his Eurocentricity to the extent that here Halhed allows of Indian rationality sufficient to people the groves of Hindu science. Nor does Halhed neglect to kick the Mughal empire while it is down. The rhetoric of this poem's polemical preoccupations problematizes the normal gendered relationship between East and West as the mighty Indian mother goddess is made the mouthpiece not of company propaganda but of a politically divisive fear of Islam, that fanatical cousin of Christianity.

Hast thou forgot each prostitute decree,
Each venal law the pliant Coran sold:
While the fleec'd suitor famish'd on his plea,
And judges wallow'd in extorted gold? (1. 25)5 [Occasionally the picture looked different from the metropolis. John Scott (of Amwell), a admirer of Sir William Jones, saw the East India Company as the criminal and avaricious tyrant, creating the devastating 'artificial' famine of 1769-70. By contrast: 'When Timur's House renown'd, Delhi reign'd, / 'Distress, assistance unimplor'd obtain'd'. Scott's footnote reads: 'The famous Mahometan tyrant, Auranzebe, during a famine which prevailed in different parts of India, exerted himself to alleviate the distress of his subjects. "He remitted the taxes that were due; he employed those already collected in the purchase of corn, which was distributed among the poorer sort. He even expended immense sums out of the treasury, in conveying grain, by land and water, into the provinces, from Bengal, and the countries which lie on the five branches of the Indus." [Dow's Indostan, vol. iii. p. 340.]' ('Serim; or, The Artificial Famine', The Poetical Works (London: Buckland, 1782), p. 141).]


But it must be remembered that Hastings, the dedicatee of the poem and object of Halhed's panegyric, might well have found such censure of Muslim law highly embarrassing. Apart from the political necessity for being (and appearing to be) even-handed towards both religious groups, Hastings actively engaged in sponsoring the translation of key Islamic law codes. In July 1774, only two months after the composition of this poem, Hastings obtained an Arabic text of the important Fatawa al-Alamgiri, originally compiled for the Emperor Aurangzeb, and was subsidizing its translation first into Persian and subsequently into English. 6 [See P. J. Marshall, 'Warren Hastings as Scholar and Patron', in Statesmen, Scholars, and Merchants: Essays in Eighteenth-Century History Presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland, ed. by Anne Whiteman and others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 242-62, 246.]

Hastings's enthusiasm for Islamic art and literature is similarly well documented; his library contained 190 volumes in Arabic and Persian.7 [ P. Gordon, The Oriental Repository at the India House (London: Murray, 1835), p. 4.] He owned a beautifully illuminated Shah-nameh and an exquisite Kulliyat-i Sadi, and his interest in contemporary Muslim literature extended to patronage of the sufi poet Mir Kamar al-Din.8 [See Marshall, p. 245.] In his admiration for the memory of Akbar, whose legislation was remarkable for its justice and humanity and whose rule was marked by religious toleration and patronage of the arts, Hastings encouraged Francis Gladwin's translation of the A'in-i Akbari, which he saw as containing the original constitution of the Mughal empire.9 [Reprinted in Representing India: Indian Culture and Imperial Control in Eighteenth-Century British Orientalist Discourse, ed. by Michael J. Franklin, 9 vols (London: Routledge, 2000), v and vi.] Hastings, fully aware that it was knowledge from the Muslim elite that was of most practical use to the British in their conquest of parts of India, also valued the historical investigations of Jonathan Scott, his Private Persian Translator, which took their cue from Robert Orme's thesis that the reign of Aurangzeb and his successors was the key epoch of Mughal Indian history.10 [Jonathan Scott (not to be confused with John Scott of n. 5) concluded that a fuller understanding of recent history might be gained from an insight into the history of the Deccan, see An Historical and Political View of the Decan (London: Debrett, 1791), reprinted in Representing India, iv. C. A. Bayly demonstrates that those who first understood the importance of information to the empire also realized that it dictated the impermanence of empire, see Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 2. This understanding is crystal clear in Hastings's comment that: '[Indian writings] will survive when the British dominion in the East shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which it once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance' ('Letter to Nathaniel Smith' prefacing Charles Wilkins, The Bhagavat-Geeta (London: Nourse, 1785), reprinted in The European Discovery of India: Key Indological Sources of Romanticism, ed. by Michael J. Franklin, 6 vols (London: Ganesha, 2001), I).] Intent upon his mission to codify both Hindu and Muslim law as 'consonant to the ideas, manners and inclinations of the people for whose use it is intended', Hastings was concerned that the translation of Islamic legal texts was not keeping pace with Halhed's own work on the Hindu code.11 [In 1780 Hastings founded a Muslim college or madraseh meeting the costs of the site, the maulavi's stipend and his pupils' fees out of his own resources. See Marshall, 'Warren Hastings as Scholar and Patron', pp. 246-47. Jones published The Mohamedan Law of Succession to the Property of Intestates (London: Dilly, 1782) before going to India.]

Ganga, meanwhile, continues to spout anti-Muslim propaganda; the degenerate Mughals not only corrupted justice, but disrupted commerce and culture, whitening the deserts with the bones of Indian kings:

What could Mahommed's race degen'rate teach,
Themselves to spoil alone and ruin taught?
Neglected Commerce wept her silent Beach,
And Arts affrighted distant dwellings sought.
Think then on what ye were -- destruction's prey --
How low, how worthless in the scale of things!

While havock stain'd with Indian gore her way,
And deserts whiten'd with the bones of kings. (I. 29)12


[fn12: It is instructive to compare competing representations of Islam from the metropolis, although of a slightly later date. Coleridge and Southey's 1799 collaboration on a poem entitled 'Mahomet' produced fourteen hexameters by Coleridge in which 'th 'enthusiast warrior of Mecca' is represented as a Unitarian imperialist and revolutionary tyrant:

Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing,
Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution,
Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan
And idolatrous Christians.


For Francis Wrangham, in a poem dedicated to Lady Anna Maria Jones: ' 'Twas Mecca's star, whose orb malignant shed / It's baleful ray o'er India's distant head.' The Muslim invaders embodied 'the Lust of Empire and Religious Hate': 'Witness imperial Delhi's fatal day, / When bleeding Rajahs choked proud Jumna's way' (The Restoration of Learning in the East (London: Baldwin, 1816), pp. 436-37). Eight years later Josiah Conder, in more Coleridgean vein, admires the monotheistic 'zeal iconoclast' of the 'Saracen' which 'swept away the unhallow'd trumpery' of Hinduism, (The Star in the East (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1824), ll. 47-48).]

The mighty Ganga, her anger now in full flood at the memory of Mughal oppression, excoriates the base ingratitude of her grovelling acolytes:

Ingrateful Hindus! when a tender hand
Pours balm into your wound; is't right to weep?
Your guardian's anxious efforts to withstand,
Who wakes to labour but that you may sleep!
Are murmurs, then, and tears the tribute just,
Are plaints, to wisdom and to mercy due,
That raised your grovelling functions from the dust,
And open'd life and freedom to your view?
(l. 38).


There are, of course, piquant ironies inherent in Halhed's making the Vedic goddess Ganga insist that the Hindus must be guided like children by the modern rational West in the shape of the 'guardian' Governor-General, 'The parent, not the ruler of the state'. The idea that Hastings 'wakes to labour but that [the Hindu] may sleep' anticipates Hegel's characterization of Indian thought 'as imagination shorn of "distinct conceptions," that is, of rational ordering'.13 [Ronald Inden, 'Orientalist Constructions of India', Modern Asian Studies, 20 (1986), 401-46, 407-08. Jones, on the other hand, was to view Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws as 'a proof of the similarity, or rather identity, which pure unbiassed reason in all ages and nations fails to draw. [...] Although the rules of the Pundits concerning succession to property, the punishment of offences, and the ceremonies of religion, are widely different from ours, yet, in the great system of contracts and the common intercourse between man and man, the POOTEE of the Indians and the DIGEST of the Romans are by no means dissimilar' (Essay on the Law of Bailments (London: Dilly, 1781), p. 114).] Hegel compares it to the working of the mind asleep, and indeed thought as dream has been a dominant metaphor in the study of the subcontinent. The Hindu, irrational, illogical, unrealistic, and subjective requires the rational, scientific, and enlightened European 'to raise [his] grovelling functions from the dust'. Where now are 'the groves of science' (1. 23) burned by the 'bigot zeal' of Islam? It will be seen that Halhed's concern is not internal consistency, but to indicate the comprehensive advantages that accrue from Company rule, and from 'Him who broke despotic slav'ry's tie' (1. 58).

Halhed continues to utilize a favourite Rousseauistic image; that of the parental and animating hand of Hastings tending his Indian garden.14

[fn14: Halhed was to use this image again, in an untitled poem of 1784 also sent to Hastings in a letter. Here it is Calcutta itself that is the 'frail exotic' soon to lose its protective governor:

Say can a frail exotic's tender frame
Repel the torrent, or defy the flame?
Your animating hand first gave it root,
Your quick'ning influence bade its buds to shoot;
Can it but wither, when those beams are gone,
In air ungenial, and a foreign sun?'


(British Library, Add. MS 39,899, f. 6)


As well might the exotic sensitive plant resent the gardener's tender care as the recalcitrant Hindus complain of Hastings's rule.

The frail exotic might as well accuse
Th' officious kindness of the planter's care,
That shelters it from autumn's sickly dews,
And blunts the keenness of December's air. (1. 45)


Notwithstanding the fact that this renders Hastings vulnerable to the pejorative connotations of being something of an East Indian planter, Halhed, adopting the 'improving' ethic of the Enlightenment, favours the image in the knowledge of his patron's abiding interest in botany.15 ['At his new house at Alipur, near Calcutta, he created a garden for "curious and valuable exotics from all quarters", such as Cinnamon trees from Ceylon' (Marshall, p. 25). For Jones's pioneering and culturally sensitive botanical researches, see 'Botanical Observations', The Works of Sir William Jones, ed. by Anna Maria Jones, 13 vols (London: Stockdale and Walker, 1807), v, 62-162.] Thus an absolute contrast is established between Hastings and his predecessor Clive, who in the rhetoric of earlier anti-Company propaganda was frequently depicted as a despoiler of the paradisal garden that was India.16 [See, for example, Gentleman's Magazine, 42 (1772), 69.] The reductive comparison of Hindus with botanical specimens, however, would seem to anticipate later constructions of India involving 'a rationalization of the irrationality of the Indians by pointing to a natural cause. Indian civilization is conceived of on the analogy of an organism [...] fundamentally a product of its environment'.17 [Inden, 'Orientalist Constructions of India', p. 441.]

Halhed (or should I say Ganga) returns to the benign paternalism of this gardening metaphor when he turns to the influence that Hastings will exert upon scientific researches:

Yet, not confin'd to legislation's sphere,
'Tis He shall bid fair science too take root;
Shall nurture ev'ry plant that she may rear,
And teach her tender scyons how to shoot:
And haply animate some vent'rous eye
T' explore the mysteries concealed so long:
To trace where learning's earliest sources lie,
And ope the fountains of Sanscritian song. (1. 65)


Again at first the implication would seem to be that Western rationality and objectivity are required to graft scientific method on to the irrationality and subjectivity of the subcontinent. However, the references to concealed mysteries and 'learning's earliest sources' betray Halhed's growing realization that Hindu learning, in Hastings's words, 'comprises many of the most abstruse sciences, and those carried to a high degree of perfection many ages before the existence of the earliest writers of the European world'.18 [ I.O.R., B.R.C., 9 December 1783, Home Miscellaneous, 207, p. 172. Halhed himself wrote: 'The Raja of Kishenagur, who is by much the most learned antiquary which Bengal has produced within this century, has lately affirmed, that he has in his possession Shanscrit books which give an account of a communication formerly subsisting between India and Egypt; wherein the Egyptians are constantly described as disciples, not as instructors, and as seeking that liberal education and those sciences in Hindostan, which none of their own countrymen had sufficient knowledge to impart' (preface to Grammar of the Bengal Language (Calcutta: Hoogly Press, 1778), p. v).]

If Halhed's panegyric on Hastings can be seen to blur Halhed's appreciation of the antiquity of Hindu science, we must nevertheless acknowledge the truth of his large claims; this is not merely the partiality of the protege. According to Peter Marshall: 'That there was a coterie of potential scholars and a foundation of knowledge, which made the [Indological] feats of the 1780s and 1790s possible, was largely the achievement of Warren Hastings, Governor or Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785' (p. 243). Nor should we underestimate Halhed's own contribution in this field. He was the first beneficiary of systematic panditic instruction; the first to be involved in Hastings's great project of the codification of Indian law; the first European to gain a complete knowledge of Bengali; and his Grammar of the Bengal Language was the first book ever printed in Bengali script, earning its printer, Charles Wilkins, the title of the 'Caxton of India'. He was the ground breaker for both Wilkins and Sir William Jones, inspiring Wilkins to become the first European with a perfect knowledge of Sanskrit, and anticipating Jones's famous 1786 pronouncement (that the classical languages of India and Europe descend from a common source) by some eight years.19 [In the preface to his Grammar of the Bengal Language he wrote: 'I have been astonished to find the similitude of Shanscrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek: and these not in technical and metaphorical terms, which the mutation of refined arts and improved manners might have occasionally introduced; but in the main ground-work of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellation of such things as would be discriminated on the immediate dawn of civilization' (pp. iii-iv). He also uses the epithet 'refined' (p. xiii), a term Jones was to echo in describing the nature of Sanskrit; see 'The Third Anniversary Discourse' (1786) in my Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995), p. 381 (hereafter cited as Selected Works).]

Jones had been senior to Halhed at Harrow, and during the period of Halhed's studies of Persian at Oxford, the two men, with their common interest in the Middle East and their mutual acquaintance in Sheridan, had maintained a desultory correspondence. In I774, the date of Halhed's poem, William Jones was admitted to the bar, making his first appearance at Westminster Hall. Despite the fact that in that year he published his Latin commentary on Asiatic poetry, any thoughts of Bengal were far from his mind; the Welsh circuit towns of Cardigan and Carmarthen bulked larger in his thoughts than Calcutta.20 [Poeseos Asiaticae Commentariorum (London: Cadell, 1774).] In view of this it is interesting to consider how neatly Oriental Jones fits Halhed's prescriptive description of 'some vent'rous eye' animated by Hastings to 'ope the fountains of Sanscritian song' ('The Bramin and the River Ganges', l. 72). Both as translator of Kalidasa's Sakuntala (1789) and of Jayadeva's Gitagovinda (I789) and as the poet of 'Hymns to Hindu Deities' (1784-88) Jones accomplished exactly that. Remarkably similar imagery occurs in Jones's 'A Hymn to Surya', written twelve years after Halhed's poem in 1786, where the Vedic Sun-god is made to depict Jones liberating Sanskrit learning from the abysm of the past:

He came; and, lisping our celestial tongue,
Though not from Brahma sprung,
Draws orient knowledge from its fountains pure,
Through caves obstructed long, and paths too long obscure.


(Selected Works, p. 152, l. 184)


The year before in 1785 Jones, while he was learning Sanskrit with the aid of a pandit at the university of Nadia, had composed two hymns to two deified rivers, the Ganges and the Sarasvati. Perhaps with a fuller understanding of both the active maternal principle of the Hindu cosmos and the centrality of water to Hindu theology, Jones's 'A Hymn to Ganga' involves a more convincing evocation of the Vedic river goddess. Its propaganda is more subtle, lacking both the panegyric bias and the racial divisiveness of Halhed's poem, but its political message is equally clear. 'A Hymn to Ganga', as he explains in its prefacing argument, 'is feigned to be the work of a Brahmen, in an early age of Hindu antiquity, who, by a prophetical spirit, discerns the toleration and equity of the BRITISH government, and concludes with a prayer for its peaceful duration under good laws well administered' (Selected Works, p. 124). Here, as in 'A Hymn to Surya', Jones poses as a Hindu poet, taking upon himself the sacred thread of the Brahman as interpreter of the Laws of Manu, emphasizing continuity and good government. Jones can thus be seen to apply a novel syncretic spin to the Saidian concept of appropriation. His imposture denies to Indians the power to represent themselves and appropriates that power to himself, but it is an appropriation that involves a characteristic blurring of Self and Other.

A Hymn to Surya

THE ARGUMENT.


A PLAUSIBLE opinion has been entertained by learned men, that the principal source of idolatry among the ancients was their enthusiastick admiration of the Sun; and that, when the primitive religion of mankind was lost amid the distractions of establishing regal government, or neglected amid the allurements of vice, they ascribed to the great visible luminary, or to the wonderful fluid, of which it is the general reservoir, those powers of pervading all space and animating all nature, which their wiser ancestors had attributed to one eternal Mind, by whom the substance of fire had been created as an inanimate and secondary cause of natural phenomena. The Mythology of the East confirms this opinion; and it is probable, that the triple Divinity of the Hindus was originally no more than a personification of the Sun, whom they call Treyitenu, or Three-bodied, in his triple capacity of producing forms by his genial heat, preserving them by his light, or destroying them by the concentrated force of his igneous matter: this, with the wilder conceit of a female power united with the Godhead, and ruling nature by his authority, will account for nearly the whole system of Egyptian, Indian, and Grecian polytheism, distinguished from the sublime Theology of the Philosophers, whose understandings were too strong to admit the popular belief, but whose influence was too weak to reform it.

SURYA, the PHEBUS of European heathens, has near fifty names or epithets in the Sanscrit language; most of which, or at least the meanings of them, are introduced in the following Ode; and every image, that seemed capable of poetical ornament, has been selected from books of the highest authority among the Hindus: the title Arca is very singular; and it is remarkable, that the Tibetians represent the Sun's car in the form of a boat.

It will be necessary to explain a few other particulars of the Hindu Mythology, to which allusions are made in the poem. Soma, or the Moon, is a male Deity in the Indian system, as Mona was, I believe, among the Saxons, and Lunus among some of the nations, who settled in Italy: his titles also, with one or two of the ancient fables, to which they refer, are exhibited in the second stanza. Most of the Lunar mansions are believed to be the daughters of Casyapa, the first production of Brahma's head, and from their names are derived those of the twelve months, who are here feigned to have married as many constellations: this primeval Brahman and Vinata are also supposed to have been the parents of Arun, the charioteer of the sun, and of the bird Garuda, the eagle of the great Indian Jove, one of whose epithets is Madhava.

After this explanation, the Hymn will have few or no difficulties, especially if the reader has perused and studied the Bhagavadgita, with which our literature has been lately enriched, and the fine episode from the Mahabharat, on the Productionof the Amrita, which seems to be almost wholly astronomical, but abounds with poetical beauties. Let the following description of the demon Rahu, decapitated by Narayan, be compared with similar passages in Hesiod and Milton:

tach ch'hailasringapratiman danavasya siro mahat
chacrach’hinnam c'hamutpatya nenadíti bhayancaram,
tat cabandham pepatasya visp’hurad dharanitale
sapervatavanadwípan daityasyacampayanmahím.


The Hymn

FOUNTAIN of living light,
That o'er all nature streams,
Of this vast microcosm both nerve and soul;
Whose swift and subtil beams,
Eluding mortal sight,
Pervade, attract, sustain th' effulgent whole,
Unite, impel, dilate, calcine,
Give to gold its weight and blaze,
Dart from the diamond many-tinted rays,
Condense, protrude, transform, concoct, refine
The sparkling daughters of the mine;
Lord of the lotos, father, friend, and king,
O Sun, thy pow'rs I sing:
Thy substance Indra with his heav'nly bands
Nor sings nor understands;
Nor e'en the Vedas three to man explain
Thy mystick orb triform, though Brahma tun'd the strain.

Thou, nectar-beaming Moon,
Regent of dewy night,
From yon black roe, that in thy bosom sleeps,
Fawn-spotted Sasin hight;
Wilt thou desert so soon
Thy night-flow'rs pale, whom liquid odour steeps,

And Oshadhi's transcendent beam
Burning in the darkest glade?
Will no lov'd name thy gentle mind persuade
Yet one short hour to shed thy cooling stream?
But ah! we court a passing dream:
Our pray'r nor Indu nor Himansu hears;
He fades; he disappears --
E'en Casyapa's gay daughters twinkling die,
And silence lulls the sky,
Till Chatacs twitter from the moving brake,
And sandal-breathing gales on beds of ether wake.

Burst into song, ye spheres;
A greater light proclaim,
And hymn, concentrick orbs, with sev'nfold chime
The God with many a name;
Nor let unhallow'd ears
Drink life and rapture from your charm sublime
'Our bosoms, Aryama, inspire,

'Gem of heav'n, and flow'r of day,
'Vivaswat, lancer of the golden ray,
'Divacara, pure source of holy fire,
'Victorious Rama's fervid sire,
'Dread child of Aditi, Martunda bless'd,
'Or Sura be address'd,
'Ravi, or Mihira, or Bhanu bold,
'Or Arca, title old,
'Or Heridaswa drawn by green-hair'd steeds,
'Or Carmasacshi keen, attesting secret deeds.

'What fiend, what monster fierce
'E'er durst thy throne invade?
'Malignant Rahu. Him thy wakeful sight,
'That could the deepest shade
'Of snaky Narac pierce,
'Mark'd quaffing nectar; when by magick sleight

'A Sura's lovely form he wore,
'Rob'd in light, with lotos crown'd,
'What time th’ immortals peerless treasures found
'On the churn'd Ocean's gem-bespangled shore,
'And Mandar's load the tortoise bore:
'Thy voice reveal'd the daring sacrilege;
'Then, by the deathful edge
'Of bright Sudersan cleft, his dragon head
'Dismay and horror spread
'Kicking the skies, and struggling to impair
'The radiance of thy robes, and stain thy golden hair.

'With smiles of stern disdain
'Thou, sov'reign victor, seest
'His impious rage; soon from the mad assault
'Thy coursers fly releas'd;
'Then toss each verdant mane,
'And gallop o'er the smooth aerial vault;
'Whilst in charm'd Gocul's od'rous vale
'Blue- ey'd Yamuna descends
'Exulting, and her tripping tide suspends,
'The triumph of her mighty sire to hail:
'So must they fall, who Gods assail!
'For now the demon rues his rash emprise,
'Yet, bellowing blasphemies
'With pois'nous throat, for horrid vengeance thirsts,
'And oft with tempest bursts,
'As oft repell'd he groans in fiery chains,
'And o'er the realms of day unvanquish'd Surya reigns.'

Ye clouds, in wavy wreathes
Your dusky van unfold;
O'er dimpled sands, ye surges, gently flow,
With sapphires edg'd and gold!
Loose-tressed morning breathes,
And spreads her blushes with expansive glow;

But chiefly where heav'n's op'ning eye
Sparkles at her saffron gate,
How rich, how regal in his orient state!
Erelong he shall emblaze th' unbounded sky:
The fiends of darkness yelling fly;
While birds of liveliest note and lightest wing
The rising daystar sing,
Who skirts th' horizon with a blazing line
Of topazes divine;
E'en, in their prelude, brighter and more bright,
Flames the red east, and pours insufferable light.* [See Gray's Letters, p. 382, 4to. and the note.]

First 'er blue hills appear,
With many an agate hoof
And pasterns fring'd with pearl, sev'n coursers green;
Nor boasts yon arched woof,
That girds the show'ry sphere,
Such heav'n-spun threads of colour'd light serene,
As tinge the reins, which Arun guides,
Glowing with immortal grace,
Young Arun, loveliest of Vinatian race,
Though younger He, whom Madhava bestrides,
When high on eagle-plumes he rides:
But oh! what pencil of a living star
Could paint that gorgeous car,
In which, as in an ark supremely bright,
The lord of boundless light
Ascending calm o'er th' empyrean sails,
And with ten thousand beams his awful beauty veils.
Behind the glowing wheels
Six jocund seasons dance,
A radiant month in each quick-shifting hand;
Alternate they advance,
While buxom nature feels
The grateful changes of the frolick band:
Each month a constellation fair
Knit in youthful wedlock holds,
And o'er each bed a varied sun unfolds,
Lest one vast blaze our visual force impair,
A canopy of woven air.
Vasanta blythe with many a laughing flow'r
Decks his Candarpa's bow'r;
The drooping pastures thirsty Grishma dries,
Till Versha bids them rise;
Then Sarat with full sheaves the champaign fills,
Which Sisira bedews, and stern Hemanta chills.

Mark, how the all-kindling orb
Meridian glory gains!
Round Mrru's breathing zone he winds oblique
O'er pure cerulean plains:
His jealous flames absorb
All meaner lights, and unresisted strike
The world with rapt'rous joy and dread.
Ocean, smit with melting pain,
Shrinks, and the fiercest monster of the main
Mantles in caves profound his tusky head
With sea-weeds dank and coral spread:
Less can mild earth and her green daughters bear
The noon's wide-wasting glare;
To rocks the panther creeps; to woody night
The vulture steals his flight;
E'en cold cameleons pant in thickets dun,
And o'er the burning grit th' unwinged locusts run!

But when thy foaming steeds
Descend with rapid pace
Thy fervent axle hast'ning to allay,
What majesty, what grace
Dart o'er the western meads
From thy relenting eye their blended ray!

Soon may sense th' undazzled sensen behold
Rich as Vishnu's diadem,
Or Amrit sparkling in an azure gem,
Thy horizontal globe of molten gold,
Which pearl'd and rubied clouds infold.
It sinks; and myriads of diffusive dyes
Stream o'er the tissued skies,
Till Soma smiles, attracted by the song
Of many a plumed throng
In groves, meads, vales; and, whilst he glides above,
Each bush and dancing bough quaffs harmony and love.

Then roves thy poet free,
Who with no borrow'd art
Dares hymn thy pow'r, and durst provoke thy blaze,
But felt thy thrilling dart;
And now, on lowly knee,
From him, who gave the wound, the balsam prays.
Herbs, that assuage the fever's pain,
Scatter from thy rolling car,
Cull'd by sage Aswin and divine Cumar;
And, if they ask, “What mortal pours the strain?"
Say (for thou seest earth, air, and main)
Say: “From the bosom of yon silver isle,
"Where skies more softly smile,
“He came; and, lisping our celestial tongue,
“Though not from Brahma sprung,
“Draws orient knowledge from its fountains pure,
“Through caves obstructed long, and paths too long obscure."


Yes; though the Sanscrit song
Be strown with fancy's wreathes,
And emblems rich, beyond low thoughts refin'd,
Yet heav'nly truth it breathes
With attestation strong,
That, loftier than thy sphere, th' Eternal Mind,
Unmov'd, unrival'd, undefil'd,
Reigns with providence benign:
He still’d the rude abyss, and bade it shine
(Whilst Sapience with approving aspect mild
Saw the stupendous work, and smil'd);
Next thee, his flaming minister, bade rise
O'er young and wondering skies.
Since thou, great orb, with all-enlight’ning ray
Rulest the golden day,
How far more glorious He, who said serene,
Be, and thou wast -- Himself unform'd, unchang'd, unseen!

-- The Works of Sir William Jones, With the Life of the Author, by Lord Teignmouth, in Thirteen Volumes, Volume XIII, 1807, p. 277-287

A Hymn to Ganga

THE ARGUMENT.


THIS poem would be rather obscure without geographical notes; but a short introductory explanation will supply the place of them, and give less interruption to the reader.

We are obliged to a late illustrious Chinese monarch named Can-hi, who directed an accurate survey to be made of Potyid or (as it is called by the Arabs) Tebbut, for our knowledge, that a chain of mountains nearly parallel with Imaus, and called Cantese by the Tartars, forms a line of separation between the sources of two vast rivers; which, as we have abundant reason to believe, run at first in opposite directions, and, having finished a winding circuit of two thousand miles, meet a little below Dhaca, so as to inclose the richest and most beautiful peninsula on earth, in which the British nation, after a prosperous course of brilliant actions in peace and war, have now the principal sway. These rivers are deified in India; that, which rises on the western edge of the mountain, being considered as the daughter of Mahadeva or Siva, and the other as the son of Brahma; their loves, wanderings, and nuptials are the chief subject of the following Ode, which is feigned to have been the work of a Brahmen, in an early age of Hindu antiquity, who, by a prophetical spirit, discerns the toleration and equity of the British government, and concludes with a prayer for its peaceful duration under good laws well administered.

After a general description of the Ganges, an account is given of her fabulous birth, like that of Pallas, from the forehead of Siva, the Jupiter Tonans and Genitor of the Latins; and the creation of her lover by an act of Brahma's will is the subject of another stanza, in which his course is delineated through the country of Potyid, by the name of Sanpo, or Supreme Bliss, where he passes near the fortress of Rimbu, the island of Palte or Yambro (known to be the seat of a high priestess almost equally venerated with the Goddess Bhawani) and Trashilhumbo (as a Potya or Tebbutian would pronounce it), or the sacred mansion of the Lama next in dignity to that of Potala, who resides in a city, to the south of the Sanpo, which the Italian travellers write Sgigatzhe, but which, according to the letters, ought rather to be written in a manner, that would appear still more barbarous in our orthography. The Brahmaputra is not mentioned again till the twelfth stanza, where his progress is traced, by very probable conjecture, through Rangamati, the ancient Rangamritica or Rangamar, celebrated for the finest spikenard, and Sríhat or Siret, the Serratae of Elian, whence the fragrant essence extracted from the Malobathrum, called Sadah by the Persians, and Trjapatra by the Indians, was carried by the Persian gulf to Syria, and from that coast into Greece and Italy. It is not, however, positively certain, that the Brahmaputra rises as it is here described: two great geographers are decidedly of opposite opinions on this very point; nor is it impossible that the Indian river may be one arm of the Sanpo, and the Nau-cyan, another; diverging from the mountains of Asham, after they have been enriched by many rivers from the rocks of China.

The fourth and fifth stanzas represent the Goddess obstructed in her passage to the west by the hills of Emodi, so called from a Sanscrit word signifying snow, from which also are derived both Imaus and Himalaya or Himola. The sixth describes her, after her entrance into Hindustan through the straits of Cupala, flowing near Sambal, the Sambalaca of Ptolemy, famed for a beautiful plant of the like name, and thence to the once opulent city and royal place of residence, Canyacuvja, erroneously named Calinipaxa by the Greeks, and Canauj, not very accurately, by the modern Asiaticks: here she is joined by the Calinadi, and pursues her course to Prayaga, whence the people of Bahar were named Prasii, and where the Yamuna, having received the Sereswati below Indraprestha or Dehli, and watered the poetical ground of Mathura and Agara, mingles her noble stream with the Ganga close to the modern fort of Ilahabad. This place is considered as the confluence of three sacred rivers, and known by the name of Triveni, or the three plaited locks; from which a number of pilgrims, who there begin the ceremonies to be completed at Gaya, are continually bringing vases of water, which they preserve with superstitious veneration, and are greeted by all the Hindus, who meet them on their return.

Six of the principal rivers, which bring their tribute to the Ganges, are next enumerated, and are succinctly described from real properties: thus the Gandac, which the Greeks knew by a similar name, abounds, according to Giorgi, with crocodiles of enormous magnitude; and the Mahanadi runs by the plain of Gaura, once a populous district with a magnificent capital, from which the Bengalese were probably called Gangaridae, but now the seat of desolation, and the haunt of wild beasts. From Prayaga she hastens to Casì, or as the Muslimans name it, Benares; and here occasion is taken to condemn the cruel and intolerant spirit of the crafty tyrant AURANGZIB, whom the Hindus of Cashmir call Aurangasur, or the Demon, not the Ornament, of the Throne. She next bathes the skirts of Pataliputra, changed into Patna, which, both in situation and name, agrees better on the whole with the ancient Palibothra, than either Prayaga, or Canyacuvja: if Megasthenes and the ambassadors of Seleucus visited the last-named city, and called it Palibothra, they were palpably mistaken. After this are introduced the beautiful hill of Muctigiri, or Mengir, and the wonderful pool of Síta, which takes its name from the wife of Rama, whose conquest of Sinhaldwip, or Silan, and victory over the giant Rawan, are celebrated by the immortal Valmici, and by other epick poets of India.

The pleasant hills of Caligram and Ganga-presad are then introduced, and give occasion to deplore and extol the late excellent AUGUSTUS CLEVLAND, Esq. who nearly completed by lenity the glorious work, which severity could not have accomplished, of civilizing a ferocious race of Indians, whose mountains were formerly, perhaps, a rocky island, or washed at least by that sea, from which the fertile champaign of Bengal has been gained in a course of ages. The western arm of the Ganges is called Bhagirathi, from a poetical fable of a demigod or holy man, named Bhagiratha, whose devotion had obtained from Siva the privilege of leading after him a great part of the heavenly water, and who drew it accordingly in two branches; which embrace the fine island, now denominated from Kasimbazar, and famed for the defeat of the monster Sirajuddaulah, and, having met near the venerable Hindu seminary of Nawadwip or Nediya, flow in a copious stream by the several European settlements, and reach the Bay at an island which assumes the name of Sagar, either from the Sea or from an ancient Raja of distinguished piety. The Sundarabans or Beautiful Woods, an appellation to which they are justly entitled, are incidentally mentioned, as lying between the Bhagira'hi and the Great River, or Eastern arm, which, by its junction with the Brahmaputra, forms many considerable islands; one of which, as well as a town near the conflux, derives its name from Lacshmi, the Goddess of Abundance.

It will soon be perceived, that the form of the stanza, which is partly borrowed from Gray, and to which he was probably partial, as he uses it six times in nine, is enlarged in the following Hymn by a line of fourteen syllables, expressing the long and solemn march of the great Asiatick rivers.

THE HYMN.

HOW sweetly GANGA smiles, and glides
Luxuriant o'er her broad autumnal bed!
Her waves perpetual verdure spread,
Whilst health and plenty deck her golden sides;
As when an eagle, child of light,
On Cambala's unmeasur'd height,
By Potala, the pontiff's throne rever'd,
O'er her eyry proudly rear'd
Sits brooding, and her plumage vast expands,
Thus GANGA o'er her cherish'd lands,
To Brahma's grateful race endear'd,
Throws wide her fost'ring arms, and on her banks divine
Sees temples, groves, and glitt'ring tow'rs, that in her crystal shine.

Above the stretch of mortal ken,
On bless'd Cailasa's top, where ev'ry stem
Glow'd with a vegetable gem,
MAHESA stood, the dread and joy of men;
While Parvati, to gain a boon,
Fix'd on his locks a beamy moon,
And hid his frontal eye, in jocund play,
With reluctant sweet delay:
All nature straight was lock'd in dim eclipse
Till Brahmans pure, with hallow'd lips
And warbled pray’rs restor'd the day;
When GANGA' from his brow by heav'nly fingers press’d
Sprang radiant, and descending grac’d the caverns of the west.

The sun's car blaz'd, and laugh'd the morn;
What time near proud Cantesa's eastern bow'rs,
(While Devata's rain'd living flow'rs)
A river-god, so Brahma will’d, was born,
And roll’d mature his vivid stream
Impetuous with celestial gleam;
The charms of GANGA, through all worlds proclaim'd,
Soon his youthful breast inflam'd,
But destiny the bridal hour delay'd;
Then, distant from the west'ring maid,
He flow'd, now blissful Sanpo nam'd,
By Palte crown’d with hills, bold Rimbu's tow'ring state,
And where sage Trashilhumbo hails her Lama's form renate.

But she, whose mind, at Siva's nod,
The picture of that sov’reign youth had seen,
With graceful port and warlike mien,
In arms and vesture like his parent God,
Smit with the bright idea rush'd,
And from her sacred mansion gush'd,
Yet ah! with erring step -- The western hills
Pride, not pious ardour, fills:
In fierce confed'racy the giant bands
Advance with venom-darting hands,
Fed by their own malignant rills;
Nor could her placid grace their savage fury quell:
The madding rifts and should'ring crags her foamy flood repell.

"Confusion wild and anxious wo
"Haunt your waste brow, she said, unholy rocks,
"Far from these nectar-dropping locks!
"But thou, lov'd Father, teach my waves to flow."
Loud thunder her high birth confess'd;
Then from th' inhospitable west
She turn'd, and, gliding o'er a lovelier plain,
Cheer'd the pearled East again:
Through groves of nard she roll'd, o'er spicy reeds,
Through golden vales and em'rald meads;
Till, pleas'd with Indra's fair domain,
She won through yielding marl her heav'n-directed way:
With lengthen'd notes her eddies curl'd, and pour'd a blaze of day.

Smoothly by Sambal's flaunting bow'rs,
Smoothly she flows, where Calinadi brings
To Canyacuvja, seat of kings,
On prostrate waves her tributary flow'rs;
Whilst Yamuna, whose waters clear
Fam'd Indraprestha's vallies cheer,
With Sereswatí knit in mystick chain,
Gurgles o'er the vocal plain
Of Mathura, by sweet Brindavan's grove,
Where Gopa's love-lorn daughters rovę,
And hurls her azure stream amain,
Till blest Prayaga's point beholds three mingling tides,
Where pilgrims on the far-sought bank drink nectar, as it glides.

From Himola's perennial snow,
And southern Palamau's less daring steep,
Sonorous rivers, bright though deep,
O'er thirsty deserts youth and freshness throw,
'A goddess comes,' cried Gumti chaste,
And roll'd her flood with zealous haste:
Her follow'd Sona with pellucid wave
Dancing from her diamond cave,
Broad Gogra, rushing swift from northern hills,
Red Gandac, drawn by crocodiles,
(Herds, drink not there, nor, herdsmen, lave!)
Cosa, whose bounteous hand Nepalian odour flings,
And Mahanadi laughing wild at cities, thrones, and kings.

Thy temples, Casi, next she sought,
And verd’rous plains by tepid breezes fann'd,
Where health extends her pinions bland,
Thy groves, where pious Valmic sat and thought,
Where Vyasa pour'd the strain sublime,
That laughs at all-consuming time,
And Brahmans rapt the lofty Veda sing.
Cease, oh! cease — a ruffian king,
The demon of his empire, not the grace,
His ruthless bandits bids deface
The shrines, whence gifts ethereal spring:
So shall his frantick sons with discord rend his throne,
And his fair-smiling realms be sway'd by nations yet unknown.

Less hallow'd scenes her course prolong;
But Cama, restless pow'r, forbids delay:
To Love all virtues homage pay,
E'en stern religion yields. How full, how strong
Her trembling panting surges run,
Where Patali's immortal son
To domes and turrets gives his awful name
Fragrant in the gales of fame!
Nor stop, where Rama, bright from dire alarms,
Sinks in chaste Síta's constant arms,
While bards his wars and truth proclaim:
There from a fiery cave the bubbling crystal flows,
And Muctigir, delightful hill, with mirth and beauty glows.

Oh! rising bow'rs, great Cali's boast,
And thou, from Ganga nam'd, enchanting mount,
What voice your wailings can recount
Borne by shrill echoes o’er each howling coast,
When He, who bade your forests bloom,
Shall seal his eyes iron gloom?
Exalted youth! The godless mountaineer,
Roaming round his thickets drear,
Whom rigour fir’d, nor legions could appall,
I see before thy mildness fall,
Thy wisdom love, thy justice fear:
A race, whom rapine nurs’d, whom gory murder stains,
Thy fair example wins to peace, to gentle virtue trains.

But mark, where old Bhagírath leads
(This boon his pray’rs of Mahadev obtain:
Grace more distinguish'd who could gain?)
Her calmer current o'er his western meads,
Which trips the fertile plains along,
Where vengeance waits th' oppressor's wrong;
Then girds, fair Nawadwip, thy shaded cells,
Where the Pendit musing dwells;
Thence by th' abode of arts and commerce glides,
Till Sagar breasts the bitter tides:
While She, whom struggling passion swells,
Beyond the labyrinth green, where pards by moonlight prowl,
With rapture seeks her destin'd lord, and pours her mighty soul.

Meanwhile o'er Potyid's musky dales,
Gay Rangamar, where sweetest spikenard blooms,
And Siret, fam'd for strong perfumes,
That, flung from shining tresses, lull the gales,
Wild Brahmaputra winding flows,
And murmurs hoarse his am'rous woes;
Then, charming GANGA seen, the heav'nly boy
Rushes with tumultuous joy:
(Can aught but Love to men or Gods be sweet?)
When she, the long-lost youth to greet,
Darts, not as earth-born lovers toy,
But blending her fierce waves, and teeming verdant isles;
While buxom Lacshmi crowns their bed, and sounding ocean smiles.

What name, sweet bride, will best allure
Thy sacred ear, and give thee honour due?
Vishnupedì? Mild Bhishmasu?
Smooth Suranimnaga? Trisrota pure?
By that I call? Its pow'r confess;
With growing gifts thy suppliants bless,
Who with full sails in many a light-oar'd boat
On thy jasper bosom float;
Nor frown, dread Goddess, on a peerless race
With lib'ral heart and martial grace,
Wafted from colder isles remote:
As they preserve our laws, and bid our terror cease,
So be their darling laws preserv'd in wealth, in joy, in peace!
 
-- The Works of Sir William Jones, With the Life of the Author, by Lord Teignmouth, in Thirteen Volumes, Volume XIII, 1807, p. 321-333
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Wed Feb 02, 2022 5:32 am

Part 2 of 3

Despite the supposed decadence of feudal Muslim rule in northern India which Halhed had excoriated, Jones's experience in Bengal had confirmed that its economy was neither feudal nor stagnant, and that Calcutta had been a dynamic centre of commercialism long before the rise of Company power. 'Since', as C.A. Bayly has reminded us, 'Indians controlled the bulk of the means of production, commerce and capital [...] syncretism was the only possible course' (pp. 370-7). Like Halhed (see ll. 31-32 and 53-54), Jones stresses the reality of the commerce/liberal arts nexus in the subcontinent, but without indicting the Mughal empire for the decline of each. In the East as in the West Jones locates the intersection of sophisticated culture and mercantile trade as the Ganges which 'by th' abode of arts and commerce glides' (l. 139), and 'A Hymn to Ganga' underscores the centrality of water in culture, communications, and transport. Jones utilizes the sacrality of Ganga Mata (Mother Ganga), the fluid embodiment of sakti,21 [Dynamic divine energy personified as female.] whose waters nourish like mother's milk, and he appropriates her centrality as a symbol of all India to sanctify both commerce and the British colonial endeavour:

Nor frown dread goddess on a peerless race
With lib'ral heart and martial grace,
Wafted from colder isles remote:
As they preserve our laws, and bid our terror cease,
So be their darling laws preserv'd in wealth, in joy, in peace!

('A Hymn to Ganga', 1. 165)


Such an Orientalist conception of mutual respect, shared commercial interests, and reciprocal acknowledgement of traditional ethical codes naturally reflects a civilized and civilizing context for Jones's professional commitments as a jurist and Supreme Court judge.22 [There is a certain naivete, if not a departure from the principle of historical contingency, in some recent 'exposures' of the political dimension to Jones's translation of Hindu culture. Nigel Leask cites the preface to 'A Hymn to Narayena' as an instance of Jones 'show[ing] his hand': 'The fact that Jones -- a political liberal in England -- undoubtedly "respected" Sanskrit language and literature [...] should not blind us to the ultimate rationale of his labours' (Romantic Writers and the East. Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 98). Kate Teltscher is similarly eager to expose Jones's research as serving colonial administration and 'a tradition of mastery', (India Inscribed. European and British Writing on India 1600-1800 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 223). Jones was never anxious to conceal 'the rationale of his labours', finding no difficulty in reconciling his admiration for Hindu culture with his desire to participate in efficient government and sympathetic legislation. Neither this reconciliation nor Hastings's projected reconciliation between the British and the Indians is necessarily complicit with Eurocentric cultural hegemony.] It is not difficult, however, to trace an underlying concern with legality and legitimizing of British rule, and this is perhaps the closest Jones gets to the postcolonial concept of the anxiety of empire.23 [An early reference to colonial guilt appears in Thomas Campbell as he addresses the 'Children of Brahma': 'The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you! / She the bold route of Europe's guilt began / And, in the march of nations, led the van!' (The Pleasures of Hope (Edinburgh: Mundell, 1799), p. 26).]

Whereas Halhed, looking back to a pristine, monotheistic, and classical Hinduism, had subscribed to the contemporary prejudice against popular Hinduism, Jones appreciated that this theory of historical deterioration was somewhat simplistic. Nor did he support a caste-based dichotomy. Jones did not simply reinforce the distinction between a rational ethical Brahman elite and the repulsive superstitions of the masses. He viewed Bengal as a crucial site in the evolution of Hinduism reflecting a vigorous continuity between a classical devotional text such as Jayadeva's Gitagovinda and the practices of contemporary Bengali devotees. He appreciated how the doctrine of bhakti (loving devotion) could in some respects link popular fetishism and learned Vedantism.

Another unpublished poem sent by Halhed to Hastings in 1784 (ten years after 'The Bramin and the Ganges')24 [Halhed was in India from 1772 to 1778 and from 1784 to 1785; Jones from 1783 until his death in 1794.] provides a representative example of the contemptuous reaction to popular Hinduism.25 [The poem is preserved in British Library Add. MS 39,899, ff. 6-8.] Its very dedication, 'To Brahm or Kreeshna: An Ode on Leaving Benares', establishes Halhed's monotheistic programme and limited understanding of Hinduism, for these are not alternative names for a primordial Creator. Halhed laments a profound falling away; the 'proud turrets' of the holy city of Benares are mocked by the puppetry of priestcraft; the purity of 'the mental gaze' has been polluted by the manipulation of 'doting superstition'. Halhed has here radically altered the focus of his religious attack; in 'The Bramin and the River Ganges' the 'bigot zeal' of 'Mohammed's race' was responsible for Hindu degeneration, but in 'To Brahm or Kreeshna' it is the 'bramins' themselves who are viewed as the polluting enemies of monotheism. It is not the external conqueror that has proved the unmaking of India; India was self-conquered by caste and Brahmanism. Here the 'bramin' is not merely 'careworn', torpid, and ungrateful for the benefits of Company control, he is the very source of 'the priest-rid mis'ry of the blinded throng' (l. 50), the author of a deluded polytheism:

Behold, on Caushee's yet religious plain,* [Halhed's note: * 'Benaras'] 
(Haunts where pure saints, enlighten'd seers have rang'd)
The hood-wink'd Hindu drag delusion's chain.
What boots it, that in groves of fadeless green
He treads where truth's best champions erst have trod?
Now in each mould'ring stump, and bust obscene,
The lie-fraught bramin bids him know a god. (l. 18)


Although by Hastings's protege, this is hardly the Hastings line. In the covering letter sent to Hastings with the poem, Halhed attempts to account for the violence of his animus against modern Brahmans:

In excuse for it I can only say, that I really intended to speak of the learning, the integrity, the virtue, the philosophy and the disinterestedness of Bramins. But that when I came to 'sweep the sounding lyre,' the devil of one of them could I find -- and Mrs. Melpomene or whoever is the proper officer on these occasions obliged me to say what I have said. As a poet I might plead the privilege of fiction. But alas it is all sober fact! And therefore I cannot possibly have hit the sublime.26 [See John Grant, 'Warren Hastings in Slippers: Unpublished Letters of Warren Hastings', Calcutta Review, 26.51 (March 1856), 59-141, 80. Eight years earlier, in 1776, Halhed had found the Brahman pandits who helped him 'truly elevated above the mean and selfish principles of priestcraft', adding, 'Few Christians would have expressed themselves with a more becoming reverence for the grand and impartial designs of providence in all its works, or with a more extensive charity towards all their fellow creatures of every profession', (preface to A Code of Gentoo Laws (1776), repr. in Representing India, iv, xxi).]


Halhed here in the Benares of 1784 appears as a contemptuous philosophe, effectively anticipating Volney and revolutionary French polemic against insidious priestcraft and tyrannical despotism. In some respects Halhed's position seems close to that of Charles Grant, who served in India throughout the Hastings era, and later promulgated a firmly evangelical and deeply unsympathetic version of Hinduism. Appointed in 1787 to a commanding position on the Board of Trade in Calcutta, a friend and near neighbour of Jones, Grant became on his return the most powerful figure in the East India Company administration, and used Halhed's A Code of Gentoo Laws and Jones's translation of Manu to demonstrate in his influential 'Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain' (1792) that the 'whole fabric' of Hinduism was 'the work of a crafty and imperious priesthood'.27 [Written to provide ammunition for the unsuccessful 1793 attempt to insert a 'pious clause' (to sanction missionary activity in India) into the Company's Charter, it was circulated in manuscript form in Leadenhall Street and Westminster. Its publication in Parliamentary Papers, 1812-13, 10, Paper 282, pp. 44-45, aided the success of such a clause in 1813. Ironically, Burke had used Halhed's Code for an opposite purpose (to show that Asiatic governments were not despotic) during the impeachment of its initiator, Hastings, while Halhed himself, in a series of pamphlets and letters to the newspapers signed 'Detector', sought to defend Hastings's policies. See Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium, pp. 101-13.] 

There is a striking irony in the fact that the views of a path-breaking Orientalist, trained under the aegis of Hastings, and in the very year of the foundation of the Asiatick Society, should coincide with those of James Mill, whose History of British India (1817) reveals an Anglicist and utilitarian bias against the Brahmans who 'artfully clothe themselves with the terrors of religion' in their endorsement of a traditional caste-ridden, superstition- ridden India.28 [James Mill, The History of British India, 5th edn with notes by H. H. Wilson, 10 vols (London: Madden, I858), I, 128-40. Compare Southey's portrayal of Brahmans and the 'monstrous mythology' (Peacock's phrase) of Hinduism in The Curse of Kehama, in Poetical Works, 10 vols (London: Longman, 1838), viii. Shelley's equally pro-evangelical view that the Hindus need emancipation from Brahmanism, see 'A Philosophical View of Reform' (1819) in Shelley's Prose, ed. by David Lee Clark (London: Fourth Estate, 1988), p. 238. Francis Wrangham appears to confound Brahma with the Brahmans; seeing patriarchal truth that God is All and One obscured by a 'learned darkness' proceeding from 'selfish Brahma', who 'for his Caste it's proud distinction claim'd', The Restoration of Learning in the East, p. 434.] The hegemony of Mill's text was ultimately to result in aggressively Westernizing policies in the subcontinent of the 1830s when the very concept of Indian civilization was judged oxymoronic. Unlike Mill, however, Halhed desires a return to the 'intellectual fire' of the Gita, which he saw as 'containing the most ancient and pure religious principles of the Hindoos'.29 [ For his enthusiastic poetic response to reading Charles Wilkins's translation of the Bhagavadgita, Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium, p. 124.]

The greater ritual purity of the Brahmans was generally associated with a metaphysical speculation of a higher order by those Westerners intent upon discovering in Hinduism either a species of monotheism or something approximating to deism. Jones's 'Hymn to Narayena' (1785) presents just such an inherently deist conception of the immortal invisible which elides any distinction between the Vedantic and the Mosaic:

Wrapt in eternally solitary shade,
Th' impenetrable gloom of light intense,
Impervious, inaccessible, immense,
Ere spirits were infus'd or forms display'd,
BREHM his own Mind survey'd, (l. 19)30 [Selected Works, p. 108. This ode, together with Jones's preceding prose argument illustrating the thesis 'that the whole Creation was rather an energy than a work', is a fascinating locus for Romanticism. Halhed is mentioned in the argument for his work on Vasishtha's commentary on the Rig Veda.]


A Hymn to Narayena

THE ARGUMENT.


A COMPLETE introduction to the following Ode would be no less than a full comment on the Vayds and Pura'ns of the Hindus, the remains of Egyptian and Persian Theology, and the tenets of the Ionick and Italick Schools; but this is not the place for so vast a disquisition. It will be sufficient here to premise, that the inextricable difficulties attending the vulgar notion of material substances, concerning which
“We know this only, that we nothing know,”

Induced many of the wisest among the Ancients, and some of the most enlightened among the Moderns, to believe, that the whole Creation was rather an energy than a work, by which the Infinite Being, who is present at all times in all places, exhibits to the minds of his creatures a set of perceptions, like a wonderful picture or piece of musick, always varied, yet always uniform; so that all bodies and their qualities exist, indeed, to every wise and useful purpose, but exist only as far they are perceived; a theory no less pious than sublime, and as different from any principle of Atheism, as the brightest sunshine differs from the blackest midnight. This illusive operation of the Deity the Hindu philosophers call. Maya, or Deception; and the word occurs in this sense more than once in the commentary on the Rig Vayd, by the great Vasishtha, of which Mr. Halhed has given us an admirable specimen.

The first stanza of the Hymn represents the sublimest attributes of the Supreme Being, and the three forms, in which they most clearly appear to us, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, or, in the language of Orpheus and his disciples, Love: the second comprises the Indian and Egyptian doctrine of the Divine Essence and Archetypal Ideas; for a distinct account of which the reader must be referred to a noble description in the sixth book of Plato’s Republick; and the fine explanation of that passage in an elegant discourse by the author of Cyrus, from whose learned work a hint has been borrowed for the conclusion of this piece. The, third and fourth are taken from the Institutes of Menu, and the eighteenth Puran of Vyasa, entitled Srey Bhagawat, part of which has been translated into Persian, not without elegance, but rather too paraphrastically. From Brehme, or the Great Being, in the neuter gender, is formed Brehma, in the masculine; and the second word is appropriated to the creative power of the Divinity.

The spirit of God, call’d Narayena, or moving on the water, has a multiplicity of other epithets in Sanscrit, the principal of which are introduced, expressly or by allusion, in the fifth stanza; and two of them contain the names of the evil bengs who are feigned to have sprung from the ears of Vishnu; for thus the divine spirit is entitled, when considered as the preserving power: the sixth ascribes the perception of secondary qualities by our senses to the immediate influence of Maya; and the seventh imputes to her operation the primary qualities of extension and solidity.

THE HYMN.

SPIRIT of Spirits, who, through ev’ry part
Of space expanded and of endless time.
Beyond the stretch of lab’ring thought sublime,
Badst uproar into beauteous order start,
Before Heav’n was, Thou art:
Ere spheres beneath us roll’d or spheres above,
Ere earth in firmamental ether hung,
Thou satst alone; till, through thy mystick Love,
Things unexisting to existence sprung.
And grateful descant sung.

What first impell’d thee to exert thy might?
Goodness unlimited. What glorious light
Thy pow’r directed? Wisdom without bound.
What prov’d it first? Oh! guide my fancy right;
Oh! raise from cumbrous ground
My soul in rapture drown’d.
That fearless it may soar on wings of fire;
For Thou, who only knowst, Thou only canst inspire.

Wrapt in eternal solitary shade,
Th’ impenetrable gloom of light intense,
Impervious, inaccessible, immense,
Ere spirits were infus’d or forms display’d,
Brehm his own Mind survey’d,
As mortal eyes (thus finite we compare
With infinite) in smoothest mirrors gaze:
Swift, at his look, a shape supremely fair
Leap'd into being with a boundless blaze.
That fifty suns might daze.
Primeval Maya was the Goddess nam’d.
Who to her sire, with Love divine inflam'd,
A casket gave with rich Ideas fill’d,
From which this gorgeous Universe he fram’d;
For, when th’ Almighty will’d,
Unnumber’d worlds to build.
From Unity diversified he sprang,
While gay Creation laugh’d, and procreant Nature rang.

First an all-potent all-pervading sound
Bade flow the waters -- and the waters flow’d,
Exulting in their measureless abode,
Diffusive, multitudinous, profound,
Above, beneath, around;
Then o’er the vast expanse primordial wind
Breath’d gently, till a lucid bubble rose,
Which grew in perfect shape an Egg refin’d:
Created substance no such lustre shows,
Earth no such beauty knows.
Above the warring waves it danc'd elate,
Till from its bursting shell with lovely state
A form cerulean flutter’d o’er the deep,
Brightest of beings, greatest of the great;
Who, not as mortals steep,
Their eyes in dewy sleep,
But heav’nly-pensive on the Lotos lay,
That blossom’d at his touch and shed a golden ray.

Hail, primal blossom! hail empyreal gem!
Kemel, or Pedma, or whatever high name
Delight thee, say, what four-form’d Godhead came,
With graceful stole and beamy diadem,
Forth from thy verdant stem?
Full-gifted Brehma! Rapt in solemn thought
He stood, and round his eyes fire-darting threw;
But, whilst his viewless origin he sought,
One plain he saw of living waters blue,
Their spring nor saw nor knew.
Then, in his parent stalk again retir’d,
With restless pain for ages he inquir’d
What were his pow’rs, by whom, and why conferr'd:
With doubts perplex’d, with keen impatience fir’d
He rose, and rising heard
Th’ unknown all-knowing Word,
"Brehma! no more in vain research persist:
My veil thou canst not move — Go; bid all worlds exist."

Hail, self-existent, in celestial speech
Narayen, from thy watry cradle, nam'd;
Or VENAMALY may I sing unblam’d,
With flow’ry braids, that to thy sandals reach,
Whose beauties, who can teach?
Or high Peitamber clad in yellow robes
Than sunbeams brighter in meridian glow,
That weave their heav’n-spun light o’er circling globes?
Unwearied, lotos-eyed, with dreadful bow,
Dire Evil’s constant foe!
Great Pedmanabha, o’er thy cherish’d world
The pointed Checra, by thy fingers whirl’d,
Fierce Kytabh shall destroy and Medhu grim
To black despair and deep destruction hurl’d.
Such views my senses dim,
My eyes in darkness swim:
What eye can bear thy blaze, what utt'rance tell
Thy deeds with silver trump or many-wreathed shell?

Omniscient Spirit, whose all-ruling pow’r
Bids from each sense bright emanations beam;
Glows in the rainbow, sparkles in the stream,
Smiles in the bud, and glistens in the flower
That crowns each vernal bow’r;
Sighs in the gale, and warbles in the throat
Of ev’ry bird, that hails the bloomy spring,
Or tells his love in many a liquid note.
Whilst envious artists touch the rival string,
Till rocks and forests ring;
Breathes in rich fragrance from the sandal grove,
Or where the precious musk-deer playful rove;
In dulcet juice from clustering fruit distills,
And burns salubrious in the tasteful clove:
Soft banks and verd’rous hills
Thy present influence fills;
In air, in floods, in caverns, woods, and plains;
Thy will inspirits all, thy sov'reign Maya reigns.

Blue crystal vault, and elemental fires,  
That in th’ ethereal fluid blaze and breathe;
Thou, tossing main, whose snaky branches wreathe
This pensile orb with intertwisted gyres;
Mountains, whose radiant spires
Presumptuous rear their summits to the skies,
And blend their em'rald hue with sapphire light;
Smooth meads and lawns, that glow with varying dyes
Of dew-bespangled leaves and blossoms bright,
Hence! vanish from my sight:  
Delusive Pictures! unsubstantial shows!
My soul absorb’d One only Being knows,
Of all perceptions One abundant source,
Whence ev’ry object ev’ry moment flows:
Suns hence derive their force,
Hence planets learn their course;
But suns and fading worlds I view no more:
God only I perceive; God only I adore.
 
-- The Works of Sir William Jones, With the Life of the Author, by Lord Teignmouth, in Thirteen Volumes, Volume XIII, 1807, p. 302-309


Jones appears both more sensitive and more cautiously discriminating concerning the priestly caste; for example in a letter of 1790 to Jonathan Duncan, the Resident and Superintendent at Benares: 'With all my admiration of the truly learned Brahmens, I abhor the sordid priestcraft of Durga's ministers, but such fraud no more affects the sound religion of the Hindus, than the lady of Loretto and the Romish impositions affect our own rational faith.'31 [The Letters of Sir William Jones, ed. by Garland Cannon, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), II, 856. Henceforth abbreviated to Letters.] This is not to claim, however, that there were not lapses of consistency in Jones's position. In 'A Hymn to Lacshmi' (1788) he moves from a pious invocation of the goddess in the tones of a bhakta (devotee): 'Thee, Goddess, I salute; thy gifts I sing', to a condemnation of Brahmanical wiles:

Oh! bid the patient Hindu rise and live.
His erring mind, that wizard lore beguiles
Clouded by priestly wiles,
To senseless nature bows for nature's GOD.
Now, stretch'd o'er ocean's vast from happier isles,
He sees the wand of empire, not the rod:32 [Compare Halhed's 'The Bramin and the Ganges', l. 20, see above p. 2.]
Ah, may those beams, that western skies illume,
Disperse th' unholy gloom!
Meanwhile may laws, by myriads long rever'd,
Their strife appease, their gentler claims decide;

(Selected Works, pp. 162-63, l. 238)


A Hymn to Lacshmi

THE ARGUMENT.


MOST of the allusions to Indian Geography and Mythology, which, occur in the following Ode to the Goddess of Abundance, have been explained on former occasions; and the rest are sufficiently clear. Lacshmi, or Sri, the Ceres of India, is the preserving power of nature, or, in the language of allegory, the consort of Vishnu or Heri, a personification of the divine goodness; and her origin is variously deduced in the several Puranas, as we might expect from a system wholly figurative and emblematical. Some represent her as the daughter of Bhrigu, a son of Brahma; but, in the Marcandeya Puran, the Indian Isis, or Nature, is said to have assumed three transcendent forms, according to her three gunas or qualities, and, in each of them, to have produced a pair of divinities, Brahma and Lacshmi, Mahesa and Sereswati, Vishnu and Cali; after whose intermarriage, Brahma and Sereswati formed the mundane Egg, which Mahesa and Cali divided into halves; and Vishnu together with Laschmi preserved it from destruction; a third story supposes her to have sprung from the Sea of milk, when it was churned on the second incarnation of Heri, who is often painted reclining on the serpent Ananta, the emblem of eternity; and this fable, whatever may be the meaning of it, has been chosen as the most poetical. The other names of Sri, or Prosperity, are Heripriya, Pedmalaya, or Pedma, and Camala; the first implying the wife of Vishnu, and the rest derived from the names of the Lotos. As to the tale of Sudaman, whose wealth is proverbial among the Hindus, it is related at considerable length in the Bhagavat, or great Puran on the Achievements of Crishna; the Brahmen, who read it with me, was frequently stopped by his tears. We may be inclined perhaps to think, that the wild fables of idolaters are not worth knowing, and that we may be satisfied with mispending our time in learning the Pagan Theology of old Greece and Rome; but we must consider, that the allegories contained in the Hymn to Lacshmi constitute at this moment the prevailing religion of a most extensive and celebrated Empire, and are devoutly believed by many millions, whose industry adds to the revenue of Britain, and whose manners, which are interwoven with their religious opinions, nearly affect all Europeans, who reside among them.

THE HYMN

DAUGHTER of Ocean and primeval Night,
Who, fed with moonbeams dropping silver dew,
And cradled in a wild wave dancing light,
Saw’st with a smile new shores and creatures new,
Thee, Goddess, I salute; thy gifts I sing,
And, not with idle wing,
Soar from this fragrant bow’r through tepid skies,
Ere yet the steeds of noon’s effulgent king
Shake their green manes and blaze with rubied eyes:
Hence, floating o’er the smooth expanse of day,
Thy bounties I survey,
See through man’s oval realm thy charms display’d,
See clouds, air, earth, performing thy behest,
Plains by soft show’rs, thy tripping handmaids, dress’d,
And fruitful woods, in gold and gems array’d,
Spangling the mingled shade;
While autumn boon his yellow ensign rears,
And stores the world’s true wealth in rip’ning ears.

But most that central tract thy smile adorns,
Which old Himala clips with fost’ring arms,
As with a wexing moon’s half-circling horns,
And shields from bandits fell, or worse alarms
Of Tatar horse from Yunan late subdued,
Or Bactrian bowmen rude;
Snow-crown’d Himala, whence, with wavy wings
Far spread, as falcons o’er their nestlings brood,
Fam’d Brahmaputra joy and verdure brings,
And Sindhu's five-arm’d flood from Cashghar hastes,
To cheer the rocky wastes,
Through western this and that through orient plains;
While bluish Yamuna between them streams,
And Ganga pure with sunny radiance gleams,
Till Vani, whom a russet ochre stains,
Their destin’d confluence gains:
Then flows in mazy knot the triple pow’r
O’er laughing Magadh and the vales of Gour.

Not long inswath’d the sacred infant lay
(Celestial forms full soon their prime attain):
Her eyes, oft darted o’er the liquid way,
With golden light emblaz’d the darkling main;
And those firm breasts, whence all our comforts well,
Rose with enchanting swell;
Her loose hair with the bounding billows play’d,
And caught in charming toils each pearly shell,
That idling through the surgy forest stray’d;
When ocean suffer’d a portentous change,
Toss’d with convulsion strange;
For lofty Mandar from his base was torn,
With streams, rocks, woods, by God and Demons whirl’d,
While round his craggy sides the mad spray curl’d,
Huge mountain, by the passive Tortoise borne;
Then sole, but not forlorn,
Shipp’d in a flow’r, that balmy sweets exhal’d,
O’er waves of dulcet cream Pedmala sail’d.

So name the Goddess from her Lotos blue,
Or Camala, if more auspicious deem’d:
With many-petal’d wings the blossom flew,
And from the mount a flutt’ring sea-bird seem’d,

Till on the shore it stopp’d, the heav'n-lov’d shore,
Bright with unvalued store
Of gems marine by mirthful Indra won;
But she, (what brighter gem had shone before?)
No bride for old Maricha’s frolick son,
On azure Heri fix’d her prosp’ring eyes:
Love bade the bridegroom rise;
Straight o’er the deep, then dimpling smooth, he rush’d;
And tow’rd th’ unmeasur’d snake, stupendous bed,
The world’s great mother, not reluctant, led:
All nature glow’d, whene’er she smil’d or blush’d;
The king of serpents hush’d
His thousand heads, where diamond mirrors blaz’d,
That multiplied her image, as he gaz’d.

Thus multiplied, thus wedded, they pervade,
In varying myriads of ethereal forms,
This pendent Egg by dovelike Maya laid,
And quell Mahesa’s ire, when most it storms;
Ride on keen lightning and disarm its flash,
Or bid loud surges lash
Th’ impassive rock, and leave the rolling barque
With oars unshatter’d milder seas to dash;
And oft, as man’s unnumber’d woes they mark,
They spring to birth in some high-favour’d line,
Half human, half divine,
And tread life’s maze transfigur’d, unimpair’d:
As when, through blest Vrindavan's od’rous grove,
They deign’d with hinds and village girls to rove,
And myrth or toil in field or dairy shar’d,
As lowly rusticks far’d:
Blythe Radha she, with speaking eyes, was nam’d,
He Crishna, lov’d in youth, in manhood fam’d.

Though long in Mathura with milkmaids bred,
Each bush attuning with his past'ral flute,
Ananda’s holy steers the Herdsman fed,
His nobler mind aspir’d to nobler fruit:
The fiercest monsters of each brake or wood
His youthful arm withstood,
And from the rank mire of the stagnant lake
Drew the crush’d serpent with ensanguin’d hood;
Then, worse than rav’ning beast or fenny snake,
A ruthless king his ponderous mace laid low,
And heav’n approv’d the blow;
No more in bow’r or wattled cabin pent,
By rills he scorn’d and flow’ry banks to dwell;
His pipe lay tuneless, and his wreathy shell

With martial clangor hills and forests rent;
On crimson wars intent
He sway'd high Dwaraca, that fronts the mouth
Of gulfy Sindhu from the burning south.

A Brahmen young, who, when the heav’nly boy
In Vraja green and scented Gocul play’d,
Partook each transient care, each flitting joy,
And hand in hand through dale or thicket stray’d,
By fortune sever’d from the blissful seat,
Had sought a lone retreat;
Where in a costless hut sad hours he pass’d,
Its mean thatch pervious to the daystar’s heat,
And fenceless from night’s dew or pinching blast:
Firm virtue he possess’d and vig'rous health,
But they were all his wealth.
Sudaman was he nam’d; and many a year
(If glowing song can life and honour give)
From sun to sun his honour’d name shall live:
Oft strove his consort wise their gloom to cheer,
And hide the stealing tear;
But all her thrift could scarce each eve afford
The needful sprinkling of their scanty board.

Now Fame, who rides on sunbeams, and conveys
To woods and antres deep her spreading gleam,
Illumin’d earth and heav’n with Crishna’s praise:
Each forest echoed loud the joyous theme,
But keener joy Sudaman’s bosom thrill’d,
And tears ecstatick rill’d:
"My friend, he cried, is monarch of the skies!”
Then counsell’d she, who nought unseemly will’d:
"Oh! haste; oh! seek the God with lotos eyes;
"The pow’r, that stoops to soften human pain,
"None e’er implor’d in vain.
To Dwaraca's rich tow’rs the pilgrim sped,
Though bashful penury his hope depress’d;
A tatter’d cincture was his only vest,
And o’er his weaker shoulder loosely spread
Floated the mystick thread:
Secure from scorn the crowded paths he trode
Through yielding ranks, and hail’d the Shepherd God.

"Friend of my childhood, lov’d in riper age,
“A dearer guest these mansions never graced:
"O meek in social hours, in council sage!”
So spake the Warriour, and his neck embrac’d;
And e’en the Goddess left her golden seat
Her lord’s compeer to greet:
He charm’d, but prostrate on the hallow’d floor,
Their purfled vestment kiss’d and radiant feet;
Then from a small fresh leaf, a borrow’d store

(Such off’rings e’en to mortal kings are due)
Of modest rice he drew.
Some proffer’d grains the soft-ey’d Hero ate,
And more had eaten, but, with placid mien,
Bright Rucmini (thus name th’ all-bounteous Queen)
Exclaim’d: "Ah, hold! enough for mortal state!"
Then grave on themes elate
Discoursing, or on past adventures gay,
They clos’d with converse mild the rapt’rous day.

At smile of dawn dismiss’d, ungifted, home
The hermit plodded, till sublimely rais’d
On granite columns many a sumptuous dome
He view’d, and many a spire, that richly blaz’d,
And seem’d, impurpled by the blush of morn,
The lowlier plains to scorn
Imperious: they, with conscious worth serene,
Laugh’d at vain pride, and bade new gems adorn
Each rising shrub, that clad them. Lovely scene
And more than human! His astonish’d sight
Drank deep the strange delight:
He saw brisk fountains dance, crisp riv’lets wind
O’er borders trim, and round inwoven bow’rs,
Where sportive creepers, threading ruby flow’rs
On em’rald stalks, each vernal arch intwin’d,
Luxuriant though confin’d;
And heard sweet-breathing gales in whispers tell
from what young bloom they sipp’d their spicy smell.

Soon from the palace-gate in broad array
A maiden legion, touching tuneful strings,
Descending strow’d with flow’rs the brighten’d way,
And straight, their jocund van in equal wings
Unfolding, in their vacant centre show’d
Their chief, whose vesture glow’d
With carbuncles and smiling pearls atween;
And o’er her head a veil translucent flow’d,
Which, dropping light, disclos’d a beauteous queen.
Who, breathing love, and swift with timid grace,
Sprang to her lord’s embrace
With ardent greeting and sweet blandishment;
His were the marble tow’rs, th’ officious train,
The gems unequal’d and the large domain:
When bursting joy its rapid stream had spent,
The stores, which heav’n had lent,
He spread unsparing, unattach’d employ’d,
With meekness view’d, with temp’rate bliss enjoy’d.

Such were thy gifts, Pedmala, such thy pow’r!
For, when thy smile irradiates yon blue fields,
Observant Indra sheds the genial show’r,
And pregnant earth her springing tribute yields
Of spiry blades, that clothe the champaign dank,
Or skirt the verd’rous bank,
That in th’ o’erflowing rill allays his thirst:
Then, rising gay in many a waving rank,
The stalks redundant into laughter burst;
The rivers broad, like busy should’ring bands,
Clap their applauding hands;
The marish dances and the forest sings;
The vaunting trees their bloomy banners rear;
And shouting hills proclaim th’ abundant year,
That food to herds, to herdsmen plenty brings,
And wealth to guardian kings.
Shall man unthankful riot on thy stores?
Ah, no! he bends, he blesses, he adores.

But, when his vices rank thy frown excite,
Excessive show’rs the plains and valleys drench,
Or warping insects heath and coppice blight,
Or drought unceasing, which no streams can quench,
The germin shrivels or contracts the shoot,
Or burns the wasted root;
Then fade the groves with gather'd crust imbrown'd,
The hills lie gasping, and the woods are mute,
Low sink the riv’lets from the yawning ground;
Till Famine gaunt her screaming pack lets slip,
And shakes her scorpion whip;
Dire forms of death spread havock, as she flies,
Pain at her skirts and Mis’ry by her side,
And jabb’ring spectres o’er her traces glide;
The mother clasps her babe, with livid eyes.
Then, faintly shrieking, dies:
He drops expiring, or but lives to feel
The vultures bick’ring for their horrid meal.

From ills, that, painted, harrow up the breast,
(What agonies, if real, must they give!)
Preserve thy vot’ries: be their labours blest!
Oh! bid the patient Hindu rise and live.
His erring mind, that wizard lore beguiles
Clouded by priestly wiles,
To senseless nature bows for nature’s God.
Now, stretch’d o’er ocean’s vast from happier isles,
He sees the wand of empire, not the rod;
Ah, may those beams, that western skies illume,
Disperse th’ unholy gloom!
Meanwhile may laws, by myriads long rever’d,
Their strife appease, their gentler claims decide;
So shall their victors, mild with virtuous pride,
To many a cherish’d grateful race endear’d,
With temper’d love be fear’d:
Though mists profane obscure their narrow ken,
They err, yet feel; though pagans, they are men.

-- The Works of Sir William Jones, With the Life of the Author, by Lord Teignmouth, in Thirteen Volumes, Volume XIII, 1807, p. 302-309


Jones's appeal to Lakshmi to enlighten the erring Hindu sits ill with the evangelical Serampore note struck by the subsequent hope that enlightenment should issue from 'western skies'. The 'wizard lore' of the Brahmans (as opposed to Hindu law codified by the British) will be dispelled by the more potent Prospero-like imperial magic as symbolized by 'the wand of (British) empire'. The final couplet of the ode: 'Though mists profane obscure their narrow ken, / They err, yet feel; though pagans, they are men' (ll. 251-52), provides an unconvincing conclusion for a hymn to a Hindu divinity, revealing an uncharacteristically Eurocentric condescension.

Although the Brahmans had at first refused to initiate Jones into the mysteries of their sacred Sanskrit, (he turned to the Vaidya [the medical caste] Pandit Ramalocana for aid in mastering the language) his increasing friendship with Brahman scholars at Krishnanagar,33 [Krishnanagar was the capital of Nadiya under Raja Krsnacandra (1728-1782), and the most celebrated centre of Hindu learning and culture in Bengal. Rocher has argued that Jones's association with the non-Brahman Ramalocana 'for a language that was primarily a brahmanical preserve fostered an antibrahmanical stance', but as she points out, after meeting the pandit Radhakanta he was won over to the Bengali Brahmans ('Weaving Knowledge: Sir William Jones and Indian Pandits', in Objects Enquiry: The Life, Contributions, and Influences of Sir William Jones (1746-1794), ed. by Garland Cannon Kevin R. Brine (New York: New York University Press, 1994), pp. 51-79, 58-60).] and his close collaboration with his team of legal pandits, many of whom were Brahmans, led to a real and reciprocated respect.34 [Jones seems proud of the Brahmans' favourable verdict on his compositions in Sanskrit: 'This verse has given me a place among the Hindu poets: [...] they call me a Hindu of the Military tribe, which is next in rank to the Brahmanical.' He writes of the 'exquisite pleasure' gained from conversing with Brahman informants, 'that class of men who conversed with Pythagoras, Thales, and Solon' (Letters, II, 47-48; 756).]

In his writings Jones no longer accused the Brahmans of intellectual pride and, although his researches into Sanskrit literature confirmed the frequency of the topos of the Brahman's curse as a controlling plot device revealing the traditional obeisance accorded to the priestly caste, he attempted to mitigate this representation. His mock-epic version of one such narrative from the Mahabharata, features the story of Arjuna's (one of the five princely Pandava brothers) unknowing sin in separating with his arrow an ambrosial (and Brahman-owned) fruit from its 'parent stalk'.35 [Symbolically, he might well have thought of Sanskrit as the Brahman-owned enchanted fruit appropriated but ultimately restored by the Ksatriya (the military or governing caste); see the preceding note.] Jones's 'The Enchanted Fruit; or, The Hindu Wife' (1784) uses a playful comparativist stance to reflect upon the contrasting significance of Hindu fruit and Judaic apple. This is no irrevocable original sin, but 'Crishna' himself advises that the holy fruit may be restored to its branch only if each of the Pandavas and their polyandrous wife Draupadi confesses his/her innermost sins. Such shrift will avoid the dire prospect of a Brahman's curse. Jones's poem, however, also provides a less severe representation of the priestly caste. It highlights Draupadi's confession of a youthful romantic attachment to her handsome Brahman pandit as he related the divine eroticism of Krishna's dance with the milkmaids:

'While this gay tale my spirits cheer'd,
'So keen the Pendit's eyes appear'd,
 'So sweet his voice -- a blameless fire
'This bosom could not but inspire.
'Bright as a God he seem'd to stand:
'The reverend volume left his hand,
'With mine he press'd' --

(Selected Works, p. 95, l. 473)
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Wed Feb 02, 2022 5:35 am

Part 3 of 3

Although the culmination of Draupadl's confession, 'The Brahmen ONLY KISS'D MY CHEEK', seems playfully innocent, it is sufficient to return the eponymous holy fruit (the property of a 'pious Muny' or inspired Brahman) to its native bough.36 [In the recension Jones consulted, Draupadi's confession is not of youthful indiscretion but of a certain sexual rapaciousness: 'Although I have five husbands I would like to have one other man for my great husband'; see Alf Hiltebeitel, The Cult of Draupadi (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), p. 288.] Such a representation, particularly within the context evoked in the poem of a Hindu golden age, with its relaxed and accommodating morality, epitomized in the significantly capitalized rule, 'WHAT PLEASETH, HATH NO LAW FORBIDDEN' (l. 2), and the fact that Draupadi has received special dispensation to marry all five of the heroic Pandava brothers, effectively humanizes the austere stereotype of the Brahman.37 [In his playful botanical description of Draupadi as 'Polyandrian Monogynian', Jones orientalizes the Swedish botanist Linnaeus as a 'learned northern Brahmen' (l. 67).]

The Enchanted Fruit; or The Hindu Wife: An Antediluvian Tale, Written in the Province of Bahar.

THE ENCHANTED FRUIT; OR, THE HINDU WIFE.


'O LOVELY age* [A parody on the Ode in Tasso’s Aminta, beginning, O bella eta dell’ oro!]. by Brahmens fam'd
' Pure Setye Yug† [The Golden Age of the Hindus.] in Samcrit nam’d!
'Delightful! Not for cups of gold,
'Or wives a thousand centuries old;
'Or men, degenerate now and small,
'Then one and twenty cubits tall:
'Not that plump cows full udders bore,
'And bowls with holy curd‡ [Called Jogbrat, the food of Crishna in his infancy and youth.] ran o’er;
'Not that, by Deities defended
'Fish, Boar, Snake, Lion§ [The four first Avatars, or Incarnations of the Divine Spirit.], heav’n-descended,
‘Learn’d Pendits, now grown sticks and clods,
'Redde fast the Nagry of the Gods|| [The Sanscrit, or Sengscrit, U written in letters so named.]

'And laymen, faithful to Narayn* [Narayn or Narayan, the spirit of God.]
'Believ'd in Brahma's mystick strain† [The Vayds, or Sacred Writings of Brahma, called Rig. Sam, and Yejar: doubts have been raised concerning the authority of the fourth. or Atherven, Vayd.];
'Not that all Subjects spoke plain truth,
'While Rajas cherish’d eld and youth,
'No— yet delightful times! because
‘Nature then reign’d, and Nature's Laws;
'When females of the softest kind
'Were unaffected, unconfin’d;
'And this grand rule from none was hidden‡ [Se piace, ei lice.” Tasso.];
‘WHAT PLEASETH, HATH NO LAW FORBIDDEN.'

Thus, with a lyre in India strung,
Aminta's poet would have sung;
And thus too, in a modest way.
All virtuous males will sing or say:
But swarthy nymphs of Hindustan
Look deeper than short-sighted man,
And thus, in some poetick chime,
Would speak with reason, as with rhyme:
‘O lovelier age, by Brahmens fam’d,
'Gay Dwapar Yug§ [The Brazen Age, or that in which Vice and Virtue were in equal proportion.] in Sanscrit nam'd!
‘Delightful! though impure with brass
'In many a green ill-scented mass;
'Though husbands, but sev'n cubits high,
'Must in a thousand summers die;
‘Though, in the lives of dwindled men,
‘Ten parts were Sin; Religion, ten;

'Though cows would rarely fill the pail,
'But made th’ expected creambowl fail;
'Though lazy Pendits ill could read
‘(No care of ours) their Yejar Veid;
'Though Rajas look’d a little proud,
‘And Ranies rather spoke too loud;
‘Though Gods, display’d to mortal view,
'In mortal forms, were only two;
‘(Yet Crishna* [The Apollo of India.], sweetest youth, was one,
'Crishna, whose cheeks outblaz’d the sun)
'Delightful, ne’ertheless! because
'Not bound by vile unnatural laws,
‘Which curse this age from Caley† [The Earthen Age, or that of Caly or Impurity: this verse alludes to Caley, the Hecate of the Indians.] nam’d,
'By some base woman-hater fram’d.
'Prepost’rous! that one biped vain
‘Should drag ten house-wives in his train,
'And stuff them in a gaudy cage,
‘Slaves to weak lust or potent rage!
'Not such the Dwaper Yug! oh then
'ONE BUXOM DAME MIGHT WED FIVE MEN.'

True History, in solemn terms,
This Philosophick lore confirms;
For India once, as now cold Tibet‡ [See the accounts published in the Philosophical Transactions From the papers of Mr. Bogle.],
A groupe unusual might exhibit,
Of sev’ral husbands, free from strife,
Link’d fairly to a single wife!
Thus Botanists, with eyes acute
To see prolifick dust minute,
Taught by their learned northern Brahmen§ [Linnaeus.]
To class by pistil and by stamen,
Produce from nature's rich dominion
Flow'rs Polyandrian Monogynian,
Where embryon blossoms, fruits, and leaves
Twenty prepare, and one receives.

But, lest my word should nought avail,
Ye Fair, to no unholy tale
Attend.* [The story is told by the Jesuit Bouchet, in his Letter to Huet, Bishop of Avranches.] Five thousand years† [A round number is chosen; but the Caly Yug, a little before which Crishna disappeared from this world, began four thousand, eight hundred, and eighty four years ago, that is, according to our Chronologists, seven hundred and forty-seven before the flood; and by the calculation of M. Bailly, but four hundred and fifty four after the foundation of the Indian empire.] ago,
As annals in Benares show,
When Pandu chiefs with Curus fought‡ [This war, which Crishna fomented in favour of the Pandu Prince, Yudhishtir, supplied Vyas with the subject of his noble Epick Poem, Mahabharat.],
And each the throne imperial sought,
Five brothers of the regal line
Blaz'd high with qualities divine.
The first a prince without his peer,
Just, pious, lib'ral Yudhtshteir§ [This word is commonly pronounced with a strong accent on the last letter, but the preceding vowel is short in Sengscrit. The prince is called on the Coast Dherme Raj, or Chief Magistrate.];
Then Erjun, to the base a rod,
An Hero favour’d by a God|| [The Geita, containing Instructions to Erjun, was composed by Crishna, who peculiarly distinguished him.];
Bheima, like mountain-leopard strong,
Unrival'd in th’ embattled throng,
Bold Nacul, fir’d by noble shame
To emulate fraternal fame;
And Sehdeo, flush'd with manly grace,
Bright virtue dawning in his face:
To these a dame devoid of care,
Blythe Draupady, the debonair,
Renown'd for beauty, and for wit,
In wedlock’s pleasing chain was knit* [Yudhishtir and Draupady, called Drobada by M. Sonnerat, are deified on the Coast; and their feast, of which that writer exhibits an engraving, is named the Procession of Fire, because she passed every year from one of her five husbands to another, after a solemn purification by that element. In the Bhasha language, her name is written, Dropty.].

It fortun’d, at an idle hour,
This five-mal’d single-femal’d flow’r
One balmy morn of fruitful May
Through vales and meadows took its way.
A low thatch’d mansion met their eye
In trees umbrageous bosom’d high;
Near it (no sight, young maids, for you)
A temple rose to Mahadew† [The Indian Jupiter.].
A thorny hedge and reedy gate
Enclos’d the garden’s homely state;
Plain in its neatness: thither wend
The princes and their lovely friend.
Light-pinion’d gales, to charm the sense,
Their odorif'rous breath dispense;
From Belas‡ [The varieties of Bela, and the three flowers next mentioned, are beautiful species of Jasmin.] pearl’d, or pointed, bloom,
And Malty rich, they steal perfume:
There honey-scented Singarhar,
And Juhy, like a rising star.

Strong Chempa, darted by Camdew,
And Mulsery of paler hue,
Cayora* [The Indian Spikenard.], which the Ranies wear
In tangles of their silken hair,
Round† The Mimosa, or true Acacia, that produces the Arabian Gum.] Babul-flow'rs, and Gulachein
Dyed like the shell of Beauty^s Queen,
Sweet Mindy‡ [Called Albbinna by the Arabs.] press'd for crimson stains,
And sacred Tulsy§ [Of the kind called Ocymum.] pride of plains,
With Sewty small unblushing rose,
Their odours mix, their tints disclose,
And, as a gemm'd tiara, bright,
Paint the fresh branches with delight.

One tree above all others tower'd
With shrubs and saplings close imbower’d,
For every blooming child of Spring
Paid homage to the verdant King;
Aloft a solitary fruit,
Full sixty cubits from the root,
Kiss'd by the breeze, luxuriant hung,
Soft chrysolite with emeralds strung.

'Try we, said Erjun indiscreet,
'If yon proud fruit be sharp or sweet;

'My shaft its parent stalk shall wound:
'Receive it, ere it reach the ground.'

Swift as his word, an arrow flew:
The dropping prize besprent with dew
The brothers, in contention gay,
Catch, and on gathered herbage lay.
That instant scarlet lightnings flash,
And Jemna's waves her borders lash,
Crishna from Swerga's* [The heaven of Indra, or the Empyreum.] height descends,
Observant of his mortal friends:
Not such, as in his earliest years,
Among his wanton cowherd peers.
In Gocul or Brindaben's† [In the district of Mathura, not far from Agra.] glades,
He sported with the dairy-maids;
Or, having pip'd and danc’d enough,
Clos’d the brisk night with blindman's buff‡ [This is told in the Bhagawat.];
(List, antiquaries, and record
This pastime of the Gopia's Lord§ [Gopy Nath, a title of Crishna, corresponding with Nymphagetes, an epithet of Neptune.])
But radiant with ethereal fire:
Nared alone could bards inspire
In lofty Slokes|| [Tetrasticks without rhyme.] his mien to trace,
And unimaginable grace.
With human voice, in human form,
He mildly spake, and hush’d the storm:
‘O mortals, ever prone to ill!
‘Too rashly Erjun prov'd his skill.
‘Yon fruit a pious Muny** [An inspired Writer; twenty are so called.] owns,
‘Assistant of our heav’nly thrones.
‘The golden pulp, each month renew’d,
‘Supplies him with ambrosial food.
‘Should he the daring archer curse,
‘Not Mentra†† [Incantation.] deep, nor magick verse,
'Your gorgeous palaces could save
'From flames, your embers, from the wave* [This will receive illustration from a passage in the Ramayen: 'Even he, who cannot be slain by the ponderous arms of Indra, nor by those of Caly, nor by the terrible Checra (or Discus), of Vishnu, shall be destroyed, if a Brahmen execrate him, as if he were consumed by fire.'].'

The princes, whom th' immoderate blaze
Forbids their sightless eyes to raise,
With doubled hands his aid implore,
And vow submission to his lore.
'One remedy, and simply one,
'Or take, said he, or be undone:
'Let each his crimes or faults confess,
'The greatest name, omit the less;
'Your actions, words, e’en thoughts reveal;
'No part must Draupady conceal:
'So shall the fruit, as each applies
'The faithful charm, ten cubits rise;
'Till, if the dame be frank and true,
'It join the branch, where late it grew.'
He smil’d, and shed a transient gleam;
Then vanish’d, like a morning dream.

Now, long entranc’d, each waking brother
Star’d with amazement on another,
Their consort’s cheek forgot its glow,
And pearly tears began to flow;
When Yudishteir, high-gifted man,
His plain confession thus began.

‘Inconstant fortune’s wreathed smiles,
'Duryodhen's rage, Duryodhen' wiles,
‘Fires rais’d for this devoted head,
‘E’en poison for my brethren spread,
'My wanderings through wild scenes of wo,
'And persecuted life, you know.
'Rude wassailers defil'd my halls,
'And riot shook my palace-walls,
'My treasures wasted. This and more
'With resignation calm I bore;
'But, when the late-descending god
'Gave all I wish’d with soothing nod,
'When, by his counsel and his aid,
'Our banners danced, our clarions bray’d
'(Be this my greatest crime confess’d),
'Revenge sate ruler in my breast:
'I panted for the tug of arms,
'For skirmish hot, for fierce alarms;
‘Then had my shaft Duryodhen rent,
'This heart had glow’d with sweet content.'

He ceas’d: the living gold upsprung,
And from the bank ten cubits hung.

Embolden’d by this fair success,
Next Erjun hasten’d to confess:
'When I with Aswatthama fought;
'My noose the fell assassin caught;
'My spear transfix’d him to the ground:
'His giant limbs firm cordage bound:
'His holy thread extorted awe
‘Spar’d by religion and by law;
'But, when his murd’rous hands I view’d
'In blameless kindred gore imbued,
‘Fury my boiling bosom sway’d,
‘And Rage unsheath’d my willing blade;
'Then, had not Crishna's arm divine
'With gentle touch suspended mine,
'This hand a Brahmen had destroy’d,
'And vultures with his blood been cloy’d.’
The fruit, forgiving Erjun's dart,
Ten cubits rose with eager start.

Flushed with some tints of honest shame,
Bheima to his confession came:
''Twas at a feast for battles won
‘From Dhriterastra's guileful son,
'High on the board in vases pil’d
'All vegetable nature smil’d:
‘Proud Anaras* [Ananas.] his beauties told,
'His verdant crown and studs of gold,
'To Dallim† [Pomegranate.], whose soft rubies laugh’d
'Bursting with juice, that gods have quaff’d;
'Ripe Kellas‡ [Plantains.] here in heaps were seen,
‘Kellas, the golden and the green,
'With Ambas§ [Mangos.] priz’d on distant coasts,
'Whose birth the fertile Ganga boasts:
'(Some gleam like silver, some outshine
'Wrought ingots from Besoara's mine):
'Corindas there, too sharp alone,
'With honey mix’d, impurpled shone;
'Talsans|| [Palmyra-fruit.] his liquid crystal spread
'Pluck’d from high Tara's tufted head;
'Round Jamas** [Rose-apples.] delicate as fair,
‘Like rose-water perfum’d the air;
'Bright salvers high-rais’d Comlas†† [Oranges.] held
'Like topazes, which Amrit‡‡ [The Hindu Nectar.] swell’d;
'While some delicious Attas§§ [Custard-apples.] bore,
'And Catels|| || [Jaik-fruit.] warm, a sugar’d store;
‘Others with grains were heap’d,
'And mild Papayas honey-steep’d;
'Or sweet Ajeirs* [Guayavas.] the red and pale,
‘Sweet to the taste and in the gale.
'Here mark’d we purest basons fraught
'With sacred cream and fam’d Joghrat;
'Nor saw we not rich bowls contain
‘The Chawla's† [Rice.] light nutritious grain,
'Some vlrgin-like in native pride,
'And some with strong Haldea‡ [Turmerick.] dyed,
'Some tasteful to dull palates made
‘If Merich§ [Indian Pepper.] lend his fervent aid,
'Or Langa|| [Cloves.] shap’d like od’rous nails,
'Whose scent o’er groves of spice prevails,
'Or Adda** [Ginger.]. breathing gentle heat,
'Or Joutery†† [Mace.] both warm and sweet.
'Supiary‡‡ [Areca-nut.] next (in Pana§§ [Betel-leaf.] chew’d,
‘And Catha|| || [What we call Japan-earth.] with strong pow’rs endued,
'Mix’d with Elachy's*** [Cardamums.] glowing seeds,
'Which some remoter climate breeds),
'Near Jeifel††† [Nutmeg.] sate, like Jeifel fram’d
'Though not for equal fragrance nam’d:
'Last, Naryal‡‡‡ [Coconut.], whom all ranks esteem,
'Pour’d in full cups his dulcet stream:
'Long I survey’d the doubtful board
'With each high delicacy stor’d;
'Then freely gratified my soul,
‘From many a dish, and many a bowl,
'Till health was lavish’d, as my time;
'Intemp' rance was my fatal crime.’

Uprose the fruit; and now mif-way
Suspended shone like blazing day.
'Nacal then spoke: (a blush o'erspread
His cheeks, and conscious droop’d his head):
'Before Duryodhen, ruthless king,
'Taught his fierce darts in air to sing,
‘With bright-arm'd ranks, by Crishna sent,
'Elate from Indraprest* [Dehly.] I went
'Through Eastern realms; and vanquish’d all
'From rough Almora to Nipal.
'Where ev’ry mansion, new or old,
'Flam’d with Barbarick gems and gold.
'Here shone with pride the regal stores
'On iv’ry roofs, and cedrine floors;
'There diadems of price unknown
'Blaz’d with each all-attracting stone;
'Firm diamonds, like fix’d honour true,
'Some pink, and some of yellow hue,
'Some black, yet not the less esteem’d;
'The rest like tranquil Jemna gleam’d,
'When in her bed the Gopia lave
'Betray’d by the pellucid wave.
'Like raging fire the ruby glow’d,
'Or soft, but radiant, water show’d;
'Pure amethysts, in richest ore
'Oft found, a purple vesture wore;
'Sapphirs, like yon etherial plain;
'Em’ralds, like Peipel† [A sacred tree like an Aspix.] fresh with rain;
'Gay topazes, translucent gold;
'Pale chrysolites of softer mould;
'Fam’d beryls, like the surge marine,
'Light-azure mix’d with modest green;
‘Refracted ev’ry varying dye,
'Bright as yon bow, that girds the sky.
'Here opals, which all hues unite,
‘Display’d their many-tinctur’d light,
'With turcoises divinely blue
'(Though doubts arise, where first they grew,
'Whether chaste elephantine bone
'By minerals ting’d, or native. stone),
'And pearls unblemish’d, such as deck
'Bhavany's* [The Indian Venus.] wrist or Lecshmy's† [The Indian Ceres.] neck.
'Each castle ras’d, each city storm’d,
‘Vast loads of pillag’d wealth I form’d,
'Not for my coffers; though they bore,
'As you decreed, my lot and more.
'Too pleas’d the brilliant heap I stor’d,
'Too charming seem'd the guarded hoard:
‘An odious vice this heart assail’d;
'Base Av'rice for a time prevail’d.

Th’ enchanted orb ten cubits flew,
Strait as the shaft, which Erjun drew.

Sehdio, with youthful ardour bold,
Thus, penitent, his failings told:
'From clouds, by folly rais’d, these eyes
'Experience clear’d, and made me wise;
‘For, when the crash of battle roar’d,
‘When death rain’d blood from spear and sword,
'When, in the tempest of alarms,
‘Horse roll’d on horse, arms clash’d with arms,
'Such acts I saw by others done,
‘Such perils brav’d, such trophies won,
'That, while my patriot bosom glow’d,
'Though some faint skill, some strength I show’d,
'And, no dull gazer on the field,
'This hero slew, that forc’d to yield,
'Yet, meek humility, to thee,
'When Erjun fought, low sank my knee:
'But, ere the din of war began,
'When black’ning cheeks just mark’d the man,
'Myself invincible I deem’d,
'And great, without a rival, seem’d.
'Whene’er I sought the sportful plain,
‘No youth of all the martial train
'With arm so strong or eye so true
'The Checra's* [A radiated metalline ring, used as a missile weapon.] pointed circle threw;
‘None, when the polish’d cane we bent,
'So far the light-wing’d arrow sent;
'None from the broad elastick reed,
'Like me, gave Agnyastra† [Fire-arms, or rockets, early known in India.] speed,
'Or spread its flames with nicer art
'In many an unextinguish’d dart;
'Or, when in imitated fight
'We sported till departing light,
'None saw me to the ring advance
'With falchion keen or quiv’ring lance,
'Whose force my rooted seat could shake,
'Or on my steed impression make:
'No charioteer, no racer fleet
'O’ertook my wheels or rapid feet.
'Next, when the woody heights we sought,
'With madd’ning elephants I fought:
'In vain their high-priz’d tusks they gnash’d;
'Their trunked heads my Geda‡ [A mace, or club.] mash’d.
'No buffalo, with phrensy strong,
'Could bear my clatt’ring thunder long:
‘No pard or tiger, from the wood
'Reluctant brought, this arm withstood.
'Pride in my heart his mansion fix’d,
'And with pure drops black poison mix’d.

Swift rose the fruit, exalted now
Ten cubits from his natal bough.

Fair Draupady, with soft delay,
Then spake: ‘Heav’n’s mandate I obey;
'Though nought, essential to be known,
'Has heav’n to learn, or I to own.
'When scarce a damsel, scarce a child,
'In early bloom your handmaid smil’d,
'Love of the World her fancy mov’d,
'Vain pageantry her heart approv’d:
‘Her form, she thought, and lovely mien,
'All must admire, when all had seen:
'A thirst of pleasure and of praise
'(With shame I speak) engross’d my days;
'Nor were my night-thoughts, I confess,
'Free from solicitude for dress;
'How best to bind my flowing hair
‘With art, yet with an artless air
‘(My hair, like musk in scent and hue;
'Oh! blacker far and sweeter too);
‘In what nice braid or glossy curl
‘To fix a diamond or a pearl,
‘And where to smooth the love-spread toils
‘With nard or jasmin’s fragrant oils;
‘How to adjust the golden Teic* [Properly Teica, an ornament of gold, placed above the nose.],
‘And most adorn my forehead sleek;
'What Condals* [Pendents.] should emblaze my ears,
'Like Seita's waves† [Seita Cund, or the Pool of Seita, the wife of Ram, is the name given to the wonderful spring at Mengeir, with boiling water of exquisite clearness and purity.] or Seita's tears‡ [Her tears, when she was made captive by the giant Rawan.];
'How elegantly to dispose
'Bright circlets for my well-form’d nose;
'With springs of rubies how to deck,
'Or em'rald rows, my stately neck,
‘While some that ebon tow'r embrac’d,
'Some pendent sought my slender waist;
'How next my purfled veil to chuse
'From silken stores of varied hues;
'Which would attract the roving view,
'Pink, violet, purple, orange, blue;
'The loveliest mantle to select,
'Or unembellish’d or bedeck’d;
'And how my twisted scarf to place
'With most inimitable grace;
'(Too thin its warp, too fine its woof,
'For eyes of males not beauty-proof);

'What skirts the mantle best would suit,
'Ornate with stars or tissued fruit,
'The flow’r-embroider’d or the plain
'With silver or with golden vein;
'The Chury§ [A small mirror worn in a ring.] bright, which gayly shows
'Fair objects, aptly to compose;
'How each smooth arm and each soft wrist
'By richest Cosecs|| [Bracelets.] might be kiss’d;
'While some, my taper ankles round,
‘With sunny radiance ting’d the ground.
'O waste of many a precious hour!
‘O Vanity, how vast thy pow'r!’

Cubits twice four th’ ambrosial flew,
Still from its branch disjoin’d by two.

Each husband now, with wild surprise.
His compeers and his consort eyes;
When Yudishteir: 'Thy female breast
‘Some faults, perfidious, hath suppress’d,
'Oh! give the close-lock'd secret room,
'Unfold its bud, expand its bloom;
‘Lest, sinking with our crumbled halls,
'We see red flames devour their walls.'
Abash’d, yet with a decent pride,
Firm Draupady the fact denied;
Till, through an arched alley green,
The limit of that sacred scene,
She saw the dreaded Muny go
With steps majestically slow;
Then said: (a stifled sigh she stole,
And show’d the conflict of her soul
By broken speech and flutt’ring heart)
'One trifle more I must impart:
'A Brahmen learn’d, of pure intent
'And look demure, one morn you sent,
‘With me, from Sanscrit old, to read
‘Each high Puran* [A Mythological and Historical Poem.] each holy Veid.
‘His thread, which Brehma's lineage show'd,
'O’er his left shoulder graceful flow’d;
'Of Crishna and his nymphs he redde,
'How with nine maids the dance he led;
'How they ador’d, and he repaid
‘Their homage in the sylvan shade.
‘While this gay tale my spirits cheer'd,
‘So keen the Pendit's eyes appear’d,
'So sweet his voice— a blameless fire
'This bosom could not but inspire.
'Bright as a God he seem’d to stand:
'The rev’rend volume left his hand,
‘With mine he press’d’ — With deep despair
Brothers on brothers wildly stare:
From Erjun flew a wrathful glance;
Tow’rd them they saw their dread advance;
Then, trembling, breathless, pale with fear,
‘Hear, said the matron, calmly hear!
‘By Tulsy's leaf the truth I speak —
‘The Brahmen ONLY KISS'D MY CHEEK.'

Strait its full height the wonder rose,
Glad with its native branch to close.

Now to the walk approach’d the Sage
Exulting in his verdant age:
His hands, that touch’d his front, express’d
Due rev’rence to each princely guest,
Whom to his rural board he led
In simple delicacy spread,
With curds their palates to regale,
And cream-cups from the Gopia's pail.

Could you, ye Fair, like this black wife,
Restore us to primeval life,
And bid that apple, pluck’d for Eve
By him, who might all wives deceive,
Hang from its parent bough once more
Divine and perfect, as before,  
Would you confess your little faults?
(Great ones were never in your thoughts);
Would you the secret wish unfold,
Or in your heart's full casket hold?
Would you disclose your inmost mind,
And speak plain truth, to bless mankind?

‘What! said the Guardian of our realm.
With waving crest and fiery helm,
‘What! are the fair, whose heav'nly smiles
'Rain glory through my cherish’d isles,
‘Are they less virtuous or less true
'Than Indian dames of sooty hue?
'No, by these arms. The cold surmise
'And doubt injurious vainly rise.
‘Yet dares a bard, who better knows,
‘This point distrustfully propose;
‘Vain fabler now! though oft before
‘His harp has cheer’d my sounding shore.’

With brow austere the martial maid
Spoke, and majestick trod the glade:
To that fell cave her course she held,
Where Scandal, bane of mortals, dwell’d.
Outstretch’d on filth the pest she found,
Black fetid venom streaming round;
A gloomy light just serv’d to show
The darkness of the den below.
Britannia with resistless might
Soon dragg’d him from his darling night;
The snakes, that o’er his body curl’d,
And flung his poison through the world,
Confounded with the flash of day,
Hiss’d horribly a hellish lay.
His eyes with flames and blood suffus’d,
Long to th’ ethereal beam unus’d,
Fierce in their gory sockets roll’d;
And desperation made him bold:
Pleas’d with the thought of human woes,
On scaly dragon feet he rose.
Thus, when Asurs with impious rage,
Durst horrid war with Devtas wage,
And darted many a burning mass
E’en on the brow of gemm’d Cailas,
High o’er the rest, on serpents rear’d,
The grisly king of Deits appear’d.

The nymph beheld the fiend advance,
And couch’d her far-extending lance:
Dire drops he threw; th’ infernal tide
Her helm and silver hauberk dyed:
Her moonlike shield before her hung;
The monster struck, the monster stung:
Her spear with many a griding wound
Fast nail’d him to the groaning ground.
The wretch, from juster vengeance free,
Immortal born by heav’n’s decree,
With chains of adamant secur’d,
Deep in cold gloom she left immur’d.

Now reign at will, victorious Fair,
In British, or in Indian, air!
Still with each envying flow’r adorn
Your tresses radiant as the morn;
Still let each Asiatick dye
Rich tints for your gay robes supply;
Still through the dance’s labyrinth float,
And swell the sweetly lengthen’d note;
Still, on proud steeds or glitt’ring cars,
Rise on the course like beamy stars;
And, when charmed circles round you close
Of rhyming bards and smiling beaux,
Whilst all with eager looks contend
Their wit or worth to recommend,
Still let your mild, yet piercing, eyes
Impartially adjudge the prize.

-- The Works of Sir William Jones, With the Life of the Author, by Lord Teignmouth, in Thirteen Volumes, Volume XIII, 1807, p.


Similarly, in Phebe Gibbes's Hartly House, Calcutta (1789), perhaps the earliest novel set in India and written from first-hand knowledge, the Rousseauistic heroine Sophia Goldsborne and her handsome young Brahman tutor are depicted as falling in love.38 [Hartly House, Calcutta (London: Dodsley, 1789). Although many Company servants, including Jones's friend, Colonel William Palmer, took Indian wives, such an alliance as this text suggests would become unthinkable in the later days of the Raj.] Sophia's sympathetic reaction to Hinduism is intensified by her boredom with the suits of male compatriots to the extent that only the author's apparent belief that Brahmans are necessarily celibate, and more conclusively the Brahman's death of a fever, save metropolitan sensibilities from the spectre of miscegenation.

It is clear from internal evidence (Letters xxiv-xxv describe in some detail Hastings's departure from India in February 1785) that the events described in Hartly House, Calcutta take place at exactly the time of Halhed's trip to Benares and the composition of his 'To Brahm or Kreeshna: An Ode on Leaving Benares', written before he followed Hastings to England. [Halhed, “An Ode on Leaving Banaras”, as quoted in R. Rocher, “Alien and Empathetic: The Indian Poems of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed” in Blair B. Kling and M. N. Pearson, eds., The Age of Partnership, Europeans in Asia before Dominion, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979), pp 215-35, pp. 224-25.] According to Halhed, what condemns India to centuries of decline and stagnation is the greed for power of the priestly caste, preventing ordinary Hindus from being agents of their own destiny. The masses of devotees, the close proximity of the living, the dying, and the dead, the stench of the funeral pyres, the excesses of asceticism -- this was not the exalted enlightenment of the Bhagavadgita; Benares it seems was all too much for Halhed:

Streets choak'd with temples -- Gods at ev'ry door --
But canst thou, Kreeshna! not incens'd behold
Thy bramins grind the faces of the poor?
Thy bramins, did I say? -- degen'rated herd,
Offspring of Narak,* [Halhed's note: * 'Hell'] lucre-loving race, (l. 62)


To Brahm or Kreeshna

Who shall, O Brahm, thy mystic paths pervade?
Who shall unblam'd the sacred scenes disclose,
Where ancient wisdom's godlike sons are laid
Immortal sharers of divine repose?
Om! Veeshnu! Brahm![a] or by whatever name
Primeval Resbees [ b] have thy power ador'd:
They worshipp'd thee, they knew thee still the same,
One great eternal, undivided lord!
Tho' now, in these worn days, obscur'd thy light,
(Worn days, alas, and crazy wane of time!)
Tho' priest-crafts' puppets cheat man's bigot sight
With hell-born mockeries of things sublime,
Ages have been, when thy refulgent beam
Shone with full vigour on the mental gaze:
When doting superstition dar'd not dream,
And folly's phantoms perish'd in thy rays.
Yes, they have been, but ah! how fallen, how chang'd
Behold, on Caushee's [c] yet religious plain,
(Haunts where pure saints, enlighten'd seers have rang'd)
The hood-wink'd Hindu drag delusion's chain.
What boots it, that in groves of fadeless green
He tread where truth's best champions erst have trod?
Now in each mould'ring stump, and bust obscene,
The lie-fraught bramin bids him know a god.
What boots it, that on Gunga's hallow'd shore
He sees Dwypayan's [d] earliest scroll unfurl'd,
Where the proud turrets of Benaras soar,
And boast acquaintance with a former world?
For him, misguided wretch! nor ear nor eye
Perceives in hearing, nor beholds in sight:
Else might he still at Kreeshna's [e] camp supply
His blunted organs with caelestial light.
He rather glories at some flow'r-strew'd fane
Of Hanuman, baboon [f] obscene, to bow:
Or blind his blank existence in the train
Of gaping suppliants to a pamper'd cow!
'T is night -- from yon low door, in hallow din,
Bell, drum, and voice th' affrighted ear assault.
Hush -- 't is a temple -- Doorgah's rites begin:
What pious Hindu hails not Doorgha's vault?
Nich't in an angle of the seven-foot space
Stands a gaunt semblance of th' ill favour'd hag:
Her drizzling carcase and unseemly base
Veil'd in a squalid yard of scanty rag.
A silver'd convex marks each garish eye,
Her hideous visage shines imbrued with ink:
And as the bramin waves his lamp on high
The satisfied adorer sees her wink.
Here, as in silent horror we survey
The priest-rid mis'ry of the blinded throng,
A lip-learn'd yogee opes the choral lay,
And writhes and labours in a Sanscrit song.
Not far, a wretch with arms erect and shrunk
Full thrice-ten-years god's image hath defac'd:
Till like some age-worn Peepul's [g] leafless trunk
His very vegetation is a waste.
Here, in one spot, the dying and the dead
For rites funereal wait their sev'ral turn:
While the yet-gasping victim, from his shed,
Smells the parch'd bones, and sees his brother burn.
Where'er we tread 't is consecrated mould.
Streets choak'd with temples -- God's at ev'ry door --
But canst thou, Kreeshna! not inceas'd behold
Thy bramins grind the faces of the poor?
Thy bramins, did I say? -- degen'rated herd,
Offspring of Narak, [h] lucre-loving race,
Who crush thy Geeta's [ i] more than human word
T'exalt some pagan pootee35 in its place.
Accurst Benaras, wherefore are endus' d
Such foul misdeeds to taint pure Gunga's stream:
Wherefore have idols, heifers, apes, obscur'd
The simple science of the one supreme?
God of all good! yet once events controul!
Snatch yet thy volume from the night of time!
Let not this precious balsam of the soul
Waste all its virtues in a thankless clime!
E' en yet there is, whose spirit soars above
This finite mansion of distemper'd clay: [j]
Who leaves to groveling minds the wealth they
love,
Nor stifles conscience in the lust of sway.
Him in thine essence late absorb! and here
lllumine, worthy, with thy truths divine!
So shall thy sastra see-girt nations chear:
So Kreeshna's light in northern darkness shine.

-- Alien and Empathic: The Indian Poems of N. B. Halhed, by Rosane Rocher, The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia Before Dominion, by Blair B. Kling, Michael Naylor Pearson, 1979


It was not as a 'degen'rated herd' that German Romanticism, entranced by the translations of Wilkins and Jones, was to view the Brahmans. Alert to the cultural and racial ramifications of Jones's ground-breaking formulation of the Indo-European thesis in his 'Third Anniversary Discourse' (1786), the Germans saw in the Brahman the very essence of Hindu culture in the fragrant garden of Europe's childhood. Referring to Sakuntala, Herder hymns India as a holy land and identifies himself with the Brahman Kanna, the keeper of the sacred grove and guardian of hermetic wisdom.39 [The European embracing of Sakuntala as a representational icon of Hindu civilization is far from an 'Orientalist' distortion; it reflects the judgement of the Indian poetic tradition. See Edwin Gerow, 'Plot Structure and the Development of Rasa in the Sakuntala', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Part I, 99 (I979), 559-72; Part ii, 100 (1980), 267-82 (Part I, p. 564).] Goethe, August and Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Majer, von Dalberg, Hegel all fell under the spell of 'the beautifully wrought one' (a phrase which effectively embraced both the refinement of Sanskrit and the sexuality of Sakuntala); moreover they were united in their admiration for the Brahman. Jones had helped provide a role-model to rival the Bard and the Druid: the Brahman as poet-priest and philosopher-theologian, at once ascetic and erotic.40 [Occidental and sentimental identification with the Brahman occurred earlier in the century with Eliza Draper who, during a visit to England from Bombay in 1767 to recover her health, addressed Laurence Sterne as 'her Bramin'. Sterne, apparently flattered to be regarded as a spiritual teacher, adopted the persona and feminized a reciprocal appellation, calling her 'my Bramine'. The Journal to Eliza was rediscovered only in 1851 and not published until 1904, but in A Sentimental Journey (1768) Sterne compares an other-worldly Franciscan with a Brahman; see 'A Sentimental Journey' with 'The Journal to Eliza' and 'A Political Romance', ed. by Ian Jack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 6; pp. 30-88.]

Here we can begin to appreciate Jones's contribution to establishing the speculative philosophical and aesthetic thought of his age. He prefigures and anticipates the romantic idealists in his emphasis upon subjectivity, and the high value he placed on myths and symbolic forms the utilitarians were to denigrate or ignore. Both the romantics and the utilitarian Anglicists can be seen to have a vested interest in preserving the Otherness of India; the romantics fascinated with those very features of Indian civilization, spiritual, mysterious, medieval, exotic, that the utilitarians condemn as worthless and ripe for Westernization.

As we have seen, the iambics of Halhed's ode construct a contrast between the elevated 'monotheism' of pristine Hinduism, with its 'primeval Reshees' worshipping, 'One great eternal, undivided Lord' (l.8) and what he judges to be the debased and debauched ritual of the cults he had witnessed at Benares:

What pious Hindu hails not Doorgha's vault?
Nich'd in an angle of the seven-foot space
Stands a gaunt semblance of th' ill favour'd hag:
 Her grizzled carcase and unseemly base
Veil'd in a squalid yard of scanty rag.
A silver'd convex marks each garish eye,
Her hideous visage shines imbrued with ink:
And as the bramin waves his lamp on high
The satisfied adorer sees her wink. (l. 40)


Halhed's hostility towards the worship of Kali/Durga was doubtless a reaction to enormous explosion of interest in this sakta goddess and her worship in late eighteenth-century Bengal. Rachel McDermott has examined how the celebration of Durga Puja (a nine-day autumn festival to celebrate the fertilizing effects of the goddess's fiery prowess) reflects the shifting power configurations between the Muslim nawabs, the Hindu zamindars, and the East India Company.41 [Rachel McDermott, 'Unanswered Questions on the Relationship between Politics, Economics, and Religion: The Case of Durga Puja in Late Eighteenth-Century Bengal', paper read at the University of Chicago 'Bengal Studies Conference', 28-30 April 1995, published at http://www.libuchicago.edu/LibInfo/Sour ... hel.l.html.] She points to debate amongst historians concerning the reasons for this increased attention to Durga and her festival; some scholars argue that it reflects increase of Hindu wealth under the nawabs' lenient rule prior to the Battle of Plassey (1757), whereas others see it as the product of a new climate of stability and opportunity under the British after the transfer of power in 1765 to the East India Company, which itself patronized Durga Puja.42 ['The most amazing act of worship was performed by the East India Company itself: in 1765 it offered a thanksgiving Puja, no doubt as a politic act to appease its Hindu subjects, on obtaining the Diwani of Bengal (including Bihar and Orissa). The sum spent is cited variously as having been between Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 30,000' (Calcutta, the Living City, Vol. 1: The Past, ed. by Sukanta Chaudhuri (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 25).]

Claims concerning festival patronage are overlaid with sectarian polemic or political rhetoric asserting the relative value of Muslim and secular Company rule, but what clearly emerges is European attendance and even involvement in the festivals. John Scott, relying upon largely sympathetic sources in Holwell and Dow, represents the Puja in his 'Serim; or, The Artificial Famine' (1782) as a virtually vegetarian affair; the 'Grief and Terror' are the product of famine created by harsh Company policies:

Bring Joy, bring Sport, the song, the dance prepare!
'Tis Drugah's Feast, and all our friends must share!
The year revolves -- nor fruits nor flowers are seen;
Nor festive board in bowers of holy green;
Nor Joy, nor Sport, nor dance, nor tuneful strain:
'Tis Drugah's feast -- but Grief and Terror reign.
Yet there, ingrate! oft welcome guests ye came,
And talk'd of Honour's laws and Friendship's flame.43 [Scott's note reads: 'Drugah; a Hindoo Goddess. "Drugah Poojah is the grand general feast of the Gentoos, usually visited by all Europeans (by invitation), who are treated by the proprietors of the feast with the fruits and flowers in season, and are entertained every evening with bands of singers and dancers." Vide Holwell's Indostan, vol. ii' (Poetical Works, p. 144).]


William Ward, however, writing from Serampore mission with a very different religious and political agenda, precisely noted that the blood of 65,535 goats was shed by Raja Isvarcandra to propitiate Durga during the course of one Puja.44 [William Ward, Account of the Writings, Religion and Manners of the Hindoos, 4 vols, (Serampore: Mission Press, 1811), 111, 116.] Josiah Conder, disgusted with how 'at Doorga feasts, the Christian fair / Did graceful homage to the mis-shaped gods, / And pledged the cup of demons', waxed positively nostalgic for the 'righteous sword of Mahomed, which gave / The shaven crowns of those infernal priests / To their own goddess, a meet sacrifice, -- / Fresh beads for Kali's necklace'.45 [The Star in the East, ll. 113-15; 126-29. Emma Roberts mentions the scandal caused by eminent English performers playing Handel at a Durga Puja, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan, 2 vols (London: Allen, 1837), II, 360.]

Having illustrated these 'hell born mockeries of things sublime', Halhed's poem concludes with a prayer for an enlightened return to 'the simple science of the one supreme', illuminated by the soaring spirit of unadulterate Hinduism: 'So shall thy sastra sea-girt nations cheer: / So Kreeshna's light in northern darkness shine (ll. 83-84).

In many ways Jones would have underscored Halhed's concluding sentiments, but not his poetic approach; 'Kreeshna's light' would never shine in Europe if Orientalists focused on the 'garish eye' of Kali. Halhed lacked Jones's subtle syncretic approach. Jones's own 'Ode to Durga' avoids the grim iconography of a hideous four-armed naked and emaciated black woman who delights in severed heads and wears necklaces of skulls. Determined not to submerge his readers in a blood bath, Jones represents the goddess in her Parvati aspect as a tender deity of devout intellect, a beautiful neophyte, 'Smooth-footed, lotus-handed', braiding wreathes of sacred blossoms for the ascetic Siva.46 [Although Teltscher concedes that he 'assessed his audience's standards of propriety with considerable accuracy', she takes Jones to task in that his Hymns 'convey a sense that Hindu culture cannot be transmitted directly, but must be mediated or europeanized', (India Inscribed, pp. 215, 219). Margery Sabin's response is salutary: 'One does not need to engage in what she calls "hagiography" of Jones to wonder what "direct" transmission of Hindu or any foreign culture could mean in the eighteenth century or even now' (review of Teltscher, Essays in Criticism, 47 (1997), 177).]

Jones is as fascinated as Halhed with the concept of the energy of the Eternal Mind, but Jones's interpretations of Vedic thought are better tailored to achieve Occidental acceptabilility.47 [Jones's study of 'the Vayds and Purans of the Hindus', had confirmed the identification of the Vedantic school of Indian philosophy with Platonic thought, and it is with a certain deist bias that he traces in poems such as 'A Hymn to Narayena' or 'A Hymn to Surya' the metaphysical relationship between the beautiful and variegated veil of nature and the Supreme Mind which continuously creates it.] Jones was not at all unsympathetic to the devoted fervour of popular cults, and found no difficulty in accepting the apparent eroticism of temple imagery which was to appall Goethe's sensibilities, writing in his ground-breaking 'On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India' (1784): 'It never seems to have entered the heads of the legislators or people that anything natural could be offensively obscene; a singularity, which pervades all their writing and conversation, but is no proof of the depravity of their morals' (Works, III, 367). Although anxious to airbrush elements of popular Hinduism likely to confirm Europeans in their prejudices concerning Indian savagery, Jones was appreciative of the continuity between ancient Sanskrit devotional texts and contemporary popular cults.48 [Jones was faithful to the spirit of contemporary Bengali Hinduism both in his attention to the cult of sakti and in his representation of the cult of Vaishnavism (devotion to Vishnu). See my 'Accessing India: Orientalism, Anti-"Indianism", and the Rhetoric of Jones and Burke', in Romanticism and Colonialism ed. by Tim Fulford and Peter Kitson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 48-66, 60-61.] Jones's Orientalism did not simply impose a colonialist discourse upon India, facilitating British administration. It also fostered Indian nationalism by helping to liberate Sanskrit writings from exclusive Brahman control, enabling the still vital Sanskrit tradition to be accessed by Indians themselves, and thereby allowing the values of the Indian past to nourish its future.49 [Instructive in this regard is the early-nineteenth-century example of an eager European collector of Sanskrit manuscripts whose efforts were frustrated by an Indian merchant who 'bought up the manuscripts and presented them "to poor Brahmans sooner than they should fall into the hands of Europeans"', which Bayly cites as evidence that 'some Hindus already regarded Sanskrit learning as a precious resource of national civilization' (Empire and Information, p. 255).] Jones was concerned, in Inden's prescriptive terms, 'to present Indian ideas and institutions as human products every bit as rational (or irrational) as those of the modern West' (p. 446).

Ultimately the contrast between Jones and Halhed underlines the complexity of cultural pressures upon those men actually involved with the governing of India not only in their encounter with the alien and the exotic, but in their attempted translation and transmission of those foreign cultures. Where Jones used his classical training to discover similitude both in terms of Indian continuity and a syncretic East/West synthesis, Halhed's classicism betrayed a distrust of the vernacular (this despite his work on Bengali) and a refusal to tolerate a developing and dynamic Indian society. Halhed's early intellectual promise was never fulfilled; in England without Sanskrit or recourse to informants he was a returned Nabob progressively possessed by a fixation with deciphering hidden allegories in translated Hindu texts, increasingly embittered by the Hastings impeachment, and finally obsessed with the millenarianism of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott. Jones in Calcutta remained determined to demonstrate that the acknowledged legislator could be both moral agent and servant of power. His millennial vision involved extending the empire of reason, fully aware that the creation of colonial knowledge was a dialogic process where native informants, whether Brahman pandits or Muslim maulavis, were not seen as subaltern.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Thu Feb 03, 2022 3:10 am

Justin (historian)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/26/21

The two years, 325 B.C. 323 B.C., ... were busy years for those who were planning India's freedom. What was then happening may be gathered from the following words of Justin [XV. 4], our only source of evidence for this fateful episode in India's history: ""India, after the death of Alexander, had shaken, as it were, the yoke of servitude from its neck and put his governors to death. The author of this liberation was Sandrocottus. This man was of humble origin but was stimulated to aspire to regal power by supernatural encouragement; for, having offended Alexander (Alexandrum which some scholars replace by the name Nandrum or Nanda) by his boldness of speech, and orders being given to kill him, he saved himself by swiftness of foot; and, while he was lying asleep, after his fatigue, a lion of great size, having come up to him, licked off with his tongue the sweat that was running from him, and after gently waking him, left him. Being first prompted by this prodigy to conceive hopes of royal dignity, he drew together a band of robbers and instigated the Indians to overthrow the existing (Greek) government. Sometimes after, as he was going to war with the generals of Alexander, a wild elephant of great bulk presented itself before him of its own accord and, as tamed down to gentleness, took him on his back and became his guide in the war and conspicuous in fields of battle. Sandrocottus, having thus acquired a throne, was in possession of India when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness".

-- Mookerji, Radha Kumud (1988) [first published in 1966], Chandragupta Maurya and his times (4th ed.), Motilal Banarsidass, p. 32.


As an illustration of the grounds on which I suggest that there is no such glaring disparity in extravagance between the mythology and legends of the East and of the West, as should necessarily prescribe the condemnation and rejection of the former, I extract two passages, the one from Herodotus, and the other from Justinus....

JUSTINUS L. XV. C. 4.

Previous to the actual commencement of the war between Ptolemy and his allies against Antigonus, there was added a new enemy to the latter in the person of Seleucus, who made a sudden descent from Asia proper; whose origin was as remarkable as his valour was illustrious. His mother Laodice who had been married to Antiochus, a distinguished Officer among the generals of Philip, dreamed that she had been compressed in the embraces of Apollo, that she had become pregnant, had received from the God as the price of her favors, a ring set with a gem, upon which an anchor was engraven, and that she had been ordered to bestow the gift upon the son whom she should bring forth. What rendered this dream remarkable was that on the following day, there was found on the bed a ring with the aforesaid impression, and that there was the figure of an anchor upon the thigh of Seleucus from the very birth of the infant. Wherefore when Seleucus was proceeding with Alexander the great upon the Persian expedition, Laodice, having made him acquainted with his origin, presented the ring to him.

And he, after Alexander's death, having become sovereign of the east, founded a city, and perpetuated therein the memory of his double procession,—for he not only called the city Antiochia after the name of his father Antiochus, but also dedicated to Apollo the plains which were in its vicinity.

An evidence of his extraordinary nativity remained even to posterity, his sons and grand children having the figure of an anchor upon their thighs, as a natural mark of the source from which they sprung.

After the subdivision of the Macedonian empire Seleucus engaged in many wars in the east.

He first took Babylon, and then his force being augmented by victory, he conquered the Bactriani; subsequently he passed on into India, whose inhabitants, as if the yoke of slavery had been flung from their necks upon the death of Alexander, had put to death the præfects whom he had nominated.

One Sandracottus was the author of that freedom; but as soon as he had become victorious he converted the name of liberty into slavery; for seizing the throne, he oppressed by his individual sway the nation whose freedom from external domination he had achieved. He was descended of an humble stock, but it was by the all powerful influence of the Deity he had been propelled to supremacy. For having been ordered by Alexander to be put to death for his insolence to that monarch, he sought to secure his safety by a precipitate flight. When overtaken by weariness and sleep he had lain down to repose himself, a lion of immense size came up to him as he slept, and licked away with his tongue the sweat that was dripping from him, and then fawningly left him completely awake. Being by this omen first led to entertain the hope of reigning, he drew together a band of robbers, and courted the support of the Indians to a change of dynasty.

At a later period, as he was projecting hostilities against the præfects of Alexander's, a wild elephant of prodigious bulk presented itself of its own accord before him, and with the most subdued docility received him upon its back, and he became the leader and a very distinguished combatant in the war. By such a tenure of rule it was that Sandracottus acquired India, at the time when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness; and the latter, having concluded a league with him, and settled his affairs in the east, came down and joined the war against Antigonus.

-- The Mahawanso [Mahavamsa] in Roman Characters With the Translation Subjoined And an Introductory Essay on Pali Buddhistical Literature, In Two Volumes, Volume I, Containing the First Thirty Eight Chapters, by the Hon. George Turnour, Esq., Ceylon Civil Service, 1837

Justinus (XV. 4) says of Seleukos Nikator,...

"He carried on many wars in the East after the division of the Makedonian kingdom between himself and the other successors of Alexander, first seizing Babylonia, and then reducing Baktriane, his power being increased by the first success. Thereafter he passed into India, which had, since Alexander's death, killed its governors, thinking thereby to shake off from its neck the yoke of slavery. Sandrokottos had made it free: but when victory was gained he changed the name of freedom to that of bondage, for he himself oppressed with servitude the very people which he had rescued from foreign dominion. Sandrokottos, having thus gained the crown, held India at the time when Seleukos was laying the foundations of his future greatness. Seleukos came to an agreement with him, and, after settling affairs in the East, engaged in the war against Antigonos (302 B.C.).'-- Justinus (XV. 4)

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., Principal of the Government College, Patna, Member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh, Fellow of the University of Calcutta, With Introduction, Notes and Map of Ancient India, Reprinted (with additions) from the "Indian Antiquary," 1876-77

Before the war with Antigonus was commenced by Ptolemy and his allies, Seleucus, on a sudden, leaving the Greater Asia,10 [In opposition to Asia Minor.] came forward as a fresh enemy to Antigonus. The merit of Seleucus was well known, and his birth had been attended with extraordinary circumstances. His mother Laodice, being married to Antiochus, a man of eminence among Philip’s generals, seemed to herself, in a dream, to have conceived from a union with Apollo, and, after becoming pregnant, to have received from him, as a reward for her compliance, a ring, on the stone of which was engraved an anchor and which she was desired to give to the child that she should bring forth. A ring similarly engraved, which was found the next day in the bed, and the figure of an anchor, which was visible on the thigh of Seleucus when he was born, made this dream extremely remarkable. This ring Laodice gave to Seleucus, when he was going with Alexander to the Persian war, informing him, at the same time, of his paternity. After the death of Alexander, having secured dominion in the east, he built a city, where he established a memorial of his two-fold origin; for he called the city Antioch from the name of his father Antiochus, and consecrated the plains near the city to Apollo. This mark of his paternity continued also among his descendants; for his sons and grandsons had an anchor on their thigh, as a natural proof of their extraction.

After the division of the Macedonian empire among the followers of Alexander, he carried on several wars in the east. He first took Babylon, and then, his strength being increased by this success, subdued the Bactrians. He next made an expedition into India, which, after the death of Alexander, had shaken, as it were, the yoke of servitude from its neck, and put his governors to death. The author of this liberation was Sandrocottus, who afterwards, however, turned their semblance of liberty into slavery; for, making himself king, he oppressed the people whom he had delivered from a foreign power, with a cruel tyranny. This man was of mean origin, but was stimulated to aspire to regal power by supernatural encouragement; for, having offended Alexander by his boldness of speech, and orders being given to kill him, he saved himself by swiftness of foot; and while he was lying asleep, after his fatigue, a lion of great size having come up to him, licked off with his tongue the sweat that was running from him, and after gently waking him, left him. Being first prompted by this prodigy to conceive hopes of royal dignity, he drew together a band of robbers, and solicited the Indians to support his new sovereignty. Some time after, as he was going to war with the generals of Alexander, a wild elephant of great bulk presented itself before him of its own accord, and, as if tamed down to gentleness,11 [Veluti domita mansuetudine (As if tamed by meekness) stands in Wetzel’s text, and I believe in all others. Scheffer asks whether there is mansuetudo (meekness) not domita (tamed). Dübner, the editor of a small edition with French notes (Par. 18mo. 1847), says that Cuper, de Elephantis, p. 47, proposes to read domitus ad mansuetudinem (tamed with gentleness.).] took him on its back, and became his guide in the war, and conspicuous in fields of battle. Sandrocottus, having thus acquired a throne, was in possession of India, when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness; who, after making a league with him, and settling his affairs in the east, proceeded to join in the war against Antigonus. As soon as the forces, therefore, of all the confederates were united, a battle was fought,12 [At Ipsus in Phrygia.] in which Antigonus was slain, and his son Demetrius put to flight.

But the allied generals, after thus terminating the war with the enemy, turned their arms again upon each other, and, as they could not agree about the spoil, were divided into two parties. Seleucus joined Demetrius, and Ptolemy Lysimachus. Cassander dying, Philip, his son, succeeded him. Thus new wars arose, as it were, from a fresh source, for Macedonia.

-- Justinus (XV. 4)


Justin (Latin: Marcus Junianus Justinus Frontinus;[n 1] c. second century) was a Latin writer who lived under the Roman Empire.

Life

Almost nothing is known of Justin's personal history, his name appearing only in the title of his work. He must have lived after Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, whose work he excerpted, and his references to the Romans and Parthians' having divided the world between themselves would have been anachronistic after the rise of the Sassanians in the third century. His Latin appears to be consistent with the style of the second century. Ronald Syme, however, argues for a date around AD 390, immediately before the compilation of the Augustan History, and dismisses anachronisms and the archaic style as unimportant, as he asserts readers would have understood Justin's phrasing to represent Trogus' time, and not his own.[1]

Works

Justin was the author of an epitome of Trogus' expansive Liber Historiarum Philippicarum, or Philippic Histories, a history of the kings of Macedonia, compiled in the time of Augustus. Due to its numerous digressions, this work was retitled by one of its editors, Historia Philippicae et Totius Mundi Origines et Terrae Situs, or Philippic History and Origins of the Entire World and All of its Lands. Justin's preface explains that he aimed to collect the most important and interesting passages of that work, which has since been lost. Some of Trogus' original arguments (prologi) are preserved in various other authors, such as Pliny the Elder. Trogus' main theme was the rise and history of the Macedonian Empire, and like him, Justin permitted himself considerable freedom of digression, producing an idiosyncratic anthology rather than a strict epitome.

Legacy

Justin's history was much used in the Middle Ages, when its author was sometimes mistakenly conflated with Justin Martyr.[2]

Notes

1. Justin's name is given only in manuscripts of his own history, the majority of which simply identify him as Justinus. One manuscript identifies him as Justinus Frontinus, the other as Marcus Junianus Justinus. The accuracy of these names is uncertain.

References

1. Syme (1988).
2. EB (1911).

Bibliography

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Justin". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Borgna, Alice (2018), "Ripensare la storia universale. Giustino e l'Epitome delle Storie Filippiche di Pompeo Trogo", Spudasmata.
• Syme, Ronald (1988), "The Date of Justin and the Discovery of Trogus", Historia, vol. No. 37, pp. 358–371.
External links[edit]
• An early edition (Milan, 1476) of the Epitome from the Bavarian State Library
• Justin's Epitome at The Latin Library, Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum, & Itinera Electronica (in Latin)
• Watson's 1853 translation at CSL, the Tertullian Project, & Attalus (in English)
• Arnaud-Lindet's 2003 translation at CSL (in French)
• Correa's 2003 partial translation at CSL (in Spanish)
• Prologi of Pompeius Trogus's work at the Tertullian Project
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Thu Feb 03, 2022 11:37 pm

Abracadabra
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/3/22

... I shall endeavour, from the Vishnu and Bhagavata-Puranas, from a popular version of the narrative as it runs in the south of India, from the Vrihat-Katha, [For the gratification of those who may wish to see the story as it occurs in these original sources, translations are subjoined; and it is rather important to add, that in no other Purana has the story been found, although most of the principal works of this class have been carefully examined.] and from the play, to give what appear to be the genuine circumstances of Chandragupta's elevation to the throne of Palibothra.

A race of kings denominated Saisunagas, from Sisunaga the first of the dynasty, reigned in Magadha, or Behar: their capital was Pataliputra, and the last of them was named Nanda or Mahapadma Nanda. He was the son of a woman of the Sudra caste, and was hence, agreeably to Hindu law, regarded as a Sudra himself. He was a powerful and ambitious prince, but cruel and avaricious, by which defects, as well as by his inferiority of birth, he probably provoked the animosity of the Brahmans. He had by one wife eight sons, who with their father were known as the nine Nandas; and, according to the popular tradition, he had by a wife of low extraction, called Mura, another son named Chandragupta. This last circumstance is not stated in the Puranas nor Vrihat Katha, and rests therefore on rather questionable authority; at the same time it is very generally asserted, and is corroborated by the name Maurya, one of Chandragupta’s denominations, which is explained by the commentator on the Vishnu Purana to be a patronymic formative, signifying the son of Mura.

It also appears from the play, that Chandragupta was a member of the same family as Nanda, although it is not there stated that he was Nanda’s son.

But whatever might have been the origin of this prince, it is very likely that he was made the instrument of the insubordination of the Brahmans, who having effected the destruction of Nanda and his sons, raised Chandragupta, whilst yet a youth, to the throne. In this they were aided by a prince from the north of India, to whom they promised an accession of territory as the price of his alliance. The execution of the treaty was evaded, very possibly by his assassination, and to revenge his father’s murder, his son led a mingled host against Magadha, containing amongst other troops, Yavanas, whom we may be permitted to consider as Greeks. The storm was averted, however, by jealousies and quarrels amongst the confederates. The army dispersed, and Malayaketu, the invader, returned baffled and humbled to his own country. Chandragupta reigned twenty-four years, and left the kingdom to his son. We have now to see how far the classical writers agree with these details.  

The name is an obvious coincidence. Sandrocottus and Chandragupta can scarcely be considered different appellations.[!!!] But the similarity is no doubt still closer. Athenaeus, as first noticed by Wilford (As. Res. vol. v. p. 262.) and subsequently by Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek), writes the name, Sandrakoptus, ...

Chandra-Gupta, or he who was saved by the interposition of Lunus or the Moon, is called also Chandra in a poem quoted by Sir William Jones. The Greeks call him Sandracuptos, Sandracottos, and Androcottos. Sandrocottos is generally used by the historians of Alexander; and Sandracuptos is found in the works of Athenaeas. Sir William Jones, from a poem written by Somadeva, and a tragedy called the coronation of Chandra or Chandra-Gupta* [Asiatick Researches, vol. IV. p. 6. 11.], discovered that he really was the Indian king mentioned by the historians of Alexander, under the name of Sandracottos. These two poems I have not been able to procure; but, I have found another dramatic piece, intitled Mudra-Racshasa, or the seal of Racshasa, which is divided into two parts: the first may be called the coronation of Chandra-Gupta, and the second the reconciliation of Chandra-Gupta with Mantri-Racshasa, the prime minister of his father.

-- XVIII. On the Chronology of the Hindus, by Captain Francis Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Vol. V, P. 262, 1799

... and its other form, although more common, is very possibly a mere error of the transcriber. As to the Andracottus of Plutarch, the difference is more apparent than real, the initial sibilant being often dropped in Greek proper names.

This name is however not the only coincidence in denomination that may be traced. We find in the play that Chandragupta is often called Chandra simply, or the moon, of which Chandramas is a synonime; and accordingly we find in Diodorus Siculus, the king of the Gangaridae, whose power alarms the Macedonian, is there named Xandrames. The Aggramen of Quintus Curtius is merely a blundering perversion of this appellation.

There are other names of the prince, the sense of which, though not their sound, may be discovered in classical writers. These are Vrishala, and perhaps Maurya. The first unquestionably implies a man of the fourth or servile caste; the latter is said by Wilford to be explained in the Jati Viveka [Jutiviveca] the offspring of a barber and a Sudra woman, or of a barber and a female slave. (As. Res. vol. v. p. 285.)

In the Mudra Racshasa it is said, that king Nanda, after a severe fit of illness, fell into a state of imbecility, which betrayed itself in his discourse and actions; and that his wicked minister, Sacatara, ruled with despotic sway in his name. Diodorus Siculas and Curtius relate, that Chandram was of a low tribe, his father being a barber. That he, and his father Nanda too, were of a low tribe, is declared in the Vishnu purana and in the Bhagavat Chandram, as well as his brothers, was called Maurya from his mother Mura; and as that word* [See the Jutiviveca, where it is said, the offspring of a barber, begot by stealth, of a female of the Sudra tribe, is called Maurya: the offspring of a barber and a slave woman is called Maurya.] in Sanscrit signifies a barber, it furnished occasion to his enemies to asperse him as the spurious offspring of one. The Greek historians say, the king of the Prasu was assassinated by his wife’s paramour, the mother of Chandra; and that the murderer got possession of the sovereign authority, under the specious title of regent and guardian to his mother’s children, but with a view to destroy them. The puranas and other Hindu books, agree in the same facts, except as to the amours of Sacatara with Mura, the mother of Chandra-Gupta, on which head they are silent. Diodorus and Curtius are mistaken in saying, that Chandram reigned over the Prasu, at the time of Alexander's invasion: he was contemporary with Sileucus Nicator.

-- XVIII. On the Chronology of the Hindus, by Captain Francis Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Vol. V, P. 285, 1799

It is most usually stated, however, to mean the offspring of Muni, as already observed, and the word does not occur in any of the vocabularies in the sense attached to it by Col. Wilford.* [Colonel Tod considers Maurya a probable interpolation for Mori, a branch of the Pramara tribe of Rajputs, who in the eighth century occupied Chitore. He observes also, that Chandragupta in the Puranas is made a descendant of Sehesnag of the Takshah tribe, of which last no other mention has been found, whilst instead of Sehesnag the word is Sisunaga; and with respect to the fact of the princes belonging to the Pramara tribe no authority is cited. Colonel Tod, like the late Col. Wilford, is sparing of those specific references, which in all debateable points are indispensable. See Transactions Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 211. Also, Account of Rajasthan, p. 53.]
The first kings of the Dynasty of the Barhadrathas being omitted in the table, are given here from the Harivansa. The famous Uparichara was the sixth in lineal descent from Curu; and his son was

Vrihadratha
Cushagra
Vrishabha
Pushpavan
Satyasahita
Urja
Sambhava
Jara-Sandha.

Jara-Sandha, literally old Sandha or Sandhas, was the lord paramount of India or Maha Raja, and in the spoken dialects Ma-Raj. This word was pronounced Morieis by the Greeks; for Hesychius says, that Morieis signifies king in India, and in another place, that Mai in the language of that country, signified great. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs, calls the lord paramount of India, Morrheus, and says that his name was Sandes, with the title of Hercules. Old Sandha is considered as a hero to this day in India, and pilgrimages, I am told, are yearly performed to the place of his abode, to the cast of Gaya, in south Bahar, It is called Raja-Griha, or the royal mansion, in the low hills of Raja-giri, or the royal mountains; though their name I suspect to be derived from Raja-Griha The Dionysiacs of Nonnus are really the history of the Maha Bharata, or great war, as we shall see hereafter.

-- Essay III. Of the Kings of Magadha; their Chronology, by Captain Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Volume 9, 1809.

It is sufficient, however, to observe, that the term Vrishala, and frequent expressions in the drama, establish the inferior origin of Chandragupta, a circumstance which is stated of the king of the Gangaridae at the time of Alexander’s invasion by Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius, and Plutarch.[!!!]

According to the two former of these writers, Xandrames or Chandramas was contemporary with Alexander. They add, that he was the son of the queen by an intrigue with a barber, and that his father being raised to honour and the king’s favour, compassed his benefactor’s death, by which he paved the way for the sovereignty of his own son, the ruling prince. We have no indication of these events in the Hindu writers, and Chandragupta, as has been noticed, is usually regarded as the son of Nanda, or at least a relative. It may be observed that his predecessors were Sudras, and the character given to Mahapadma Nanda in the Vishnu Purana, agrees well enough with the general tenour of the classical accounts, as to his being of low origin and estimation, although an active and powerful prince. If Nanda be the monarch alluded to, there has been some error in the name; but, in either case, we have a general coincidence in the private history of the monarch of the Gangaridae, as related by the writers of the east or west.
The Greek scholars recorded the names of kings of India as Xandrames, and Sandrocottus. Western historians deliberately identified these names with those of Mahapadmananda or Dhanananda and Chandragupta Maurya. Xandrames was said to be the father of Sandrocottus. According to John W. McCrindle, Diodorus distorted the name "Sandrocottus" into Xandrames and this again is distorted by Curtius into Agrammes...

-- Who was Sandrocottus: Samudragupta or Chandragupta Maurya?, The Chronology of Ancient India, Victim of Concoctions and Distortions, by Vedveer Arya

If the monarch of Behar at the time of Alexander’s invasion was Nanda, it is then possible that Chandragupta, whilst seeking, as the Hindus declare, the support of foreign powers to the north and north-west of India, may have visited Alexander, as asserted by Plutarch and Justin. We cannot, however, attach any credit to the marvellous part of the story as told by the latter, nor can we conceive that a mere adventurer, as he makes Sandrocoptus to have been, should have rendered himself master of a mighty kingdom, in so brief an interval as that between Seleucus and Alexander, or by the aid of vagabonds and banditti alone.

Although, therefore, the classical writers had gleaned some knowledge of Chandragupta’s early history, it is very evident that their information was but partially correct, and that they have confounded names, whilst they have exaggerated some circumstances and misrepresented others. These defects, however, are very venial [a sin that is not regarded as depriving the soul of divine grace], considering the imperfect communication that must have subsisted between the Greeks and Hindus, even at the period of Alexander’s invasion, and the interval that elapsed before the accounts we now possess were written. These considerations rather enhance the value of both sets of our materials. It is more wonderful that so much of what appears to be the truth should have been preserved, than that the stories should not conform in every particular.[!!!]

-- The Mudra Rakshasa, or The Signet of the Minister. A Drama, Translated from the Original Sanscrit, Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, Translated from Original Sanskrit, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, by Horace Hayman Wilson, 1835

Image
A silver talisman from the 6th or 7th century, inscribed with words similar to abracadabra

Abracadabra is a magic word used in stage magic tricks. Historically was believed to be an incantation having healing powers when inscribed on an amulet.

Etymology

Abracadabra is of unknown origin, and its first occurrence is in the second century works of Serenus Sammonicus, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.[1] Several folk etymologies are associated with the word:[2] from phrases in Hebrew that mean "I will create as I speak",[3] or Aramaic "I create like the word" (אברא כדברא),[4] to folk etymologies that point to similar words in Latin and Greek such as abraxas[5]...

God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction. Effectiveness is common to both. Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness.

This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name Abraxas. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.

That god may be distinguished from it, we name god Helios or Sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself. The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is the effective itself, not any particular effect, but effect in general.

It is unreal reality, because it hath no definite effect.


It is also creatura, because it is distinct from the pleroma.

The sun hath a definite effect, and so hath the devil. Wherefore do they appear to us more effective than indefinite Abraxas.

It is force, duration, change.

-- Seven Sermons to the Dead Written by Basilides in Alexandria, the City Where the East Toucheth the West, by C.G. Jung, 1916


GENTLEMEN,

Before our entrance into the Disquisition promised at the close of my Ninth Annual Discourse, on the particular Advantages which may be derived from our concurrent Researches in Asia, it seems necessary to fix with precision the sense in which we mean to speak of advantage or utility....nor should we wholly exclude even the trivial and worldly sense of utility, which too many consider as merely synonymous with lucre, but should reckon among useful objects those practical, and by no means illiberal arts, which may eventually conduce both to national and to private emolument. With a view then to advantages thus explained, let us examine every point in the whole circle of arts and sciences...

[C]onsistently with our chief object already mentioned, we may properly begin with the Civil History of the Five Asiatic Nations, which necessarily comprises their geography, or a description of the places where they have acted, and their astronomy, which may enable us to fix with some accuracy the time of their actions...

The numerous Puranas and Itihasas, or poems mythological and heroic, are completely in our powers and from them we may recover some disfigured but valuable pictures of ancient manners and governments; while the popular tales of the Hindus, in prose and in verse, contain fragments of history; and even in their dramas we may find as many real characters and events as a future age might find in our own plays, if all histories of England were, like those of India, to be irrecoverably lost. For example: A most beautiful poem by Somadeva, comprising a very long chain of instinctive and agreeable stories, begins with the famed revolution at Pataliputra, by the murder of king Nanda with his eight sons, and the usurpation of Chandragupta, and the same revolution is the subject of a tragedy in Sanscrit [Sanskrit], entitled, the Coronation of Chandra, the abbreviated name of that able and adventurous usurper. From these once concealed, but now accessible, compositions, we are enabled to exhibit a more accurate sketch of old Indian history than the world has yet seen, especially with the aid of well attested observations on the places of the colures.

-- Discourse X. Delivered February 28, 1793, by Sir William Jones, As. Res. vol. iv. p. 11, 1799

...or to its similarity to the first four letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha-beta-gamma-delta or ΑΒΓΔ).[6] According to the OED Online, "no documentation has been found to support any of the various conjectures."[5]

History

Image
Abracadabra written in a triangular form as represented in Encyclopædia Britannica

The first known mention of the word was in the second century AD in a book called Liber Medicinalis (sometimes known as De Medicina Praecepta Saluberrima) by Serenus Sammonicus,[7] physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla, who in chapter 51 prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of a triangle.[8][9]

The power of the amulet, he claimed, makes lethal diseases go away. Other Roman emperors, including Geta and Severus Alexander, were followers of the medical teachings of Serenus Sammonicus and may have used the incantation as well.[7]

It was used as a magical formula by the Gnostics of the sect of Basilides in invoking the aid of beneficent spirits against disease and misfortune.[10] It is found on Abraxas stones, which were worn as amulets. Subsequently, its use spread beyond the Gnostics.

The Puritan minister Increase Mather dismissed the word as bereft of power. Daniel Defoe also wrote dismissively about Londoners who posted the word on their doorways to ward off sickness during the Great Plague of London.[11]

The word is now more commonly used as a magic word in the performance of stage magic. The word is one of a limited set of words that can be typed in its entirety using the left-handed side of a QWERTY keyboard.

See also

• Abrahadabra
• Barbarous name
• Hocus pocus (magic)
• Open Sesame (phrase)
• Sator Square

References

1. "abracadabra", Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2009
2. Elyse Graham (December 30, 2016), "Magic words: performative utterance in fact and fantasy", Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press
3. Kushner, Lawrence (1998). The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk. Jewish Lights Publishing. p. 11. ISBN 1580230202.
4. Lew, Alan (August 2003). This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780759528215. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
5. "abracadabra", Oxford English Dictionary Online, retrieved September 1, 2017
6. Flanders, Judith (2020). A Place for Everything:The Curious History of Alphabetical Order. Basic Books. p. xxv. ISBN 9781541675070.
7. Sammonicus, Quintus Serenus (1786). Quinti Sereni Samonici De medicina praecepta salvberrima. In bibliopolio I.G. Mülleriano. p. 4.
8. Shah, Sonia (10 July 2010). "The Tenacious Buzz of Malaria". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
9. Bartleby Archived November 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
10. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abracadabra" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
11. Daniel Defoe. A Journal of the Plague Year. London, Dent, 1911 (1722)

External links

• Abracadabra Robert Todd Carroll, Skeptic's Dictionary
• Texts on Wikisource:
o "Abracadabra". The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
o "Abracadabra". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
o "Abracadabra". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (9th ed.). 1878.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:38 am

Part 1 of 4

VII. On the ancient Geography of India.
by Lieut. Col. F. Wilford
Asiatick Researches; or Transactions of the Society, Instituted in Bengal, For Enquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia, Volume the Fourteenth
1822
Pgs. 373-470

Finally; the classical authors concur in making Palibothra a city on the Ganges, the capital of Sandrocoptus. Strabo, on the authority of Megasthenes, states that Palibothra is situated at the confluence of the Ganges and another river, the name of which he does not mention. Arrian, possibly on the same authority, calls that river the Erranoboas, which is a synonime of the Sone. In the drama, one of the characters describes the trampling down of the banks of the Sone, as the army approaches to Pataliputra; and Putaliputra, also called Kusumapura, is the capital of Chandragupta. There is little question that Pataliputra and Palibothra are the same, and in the uniform estimation of the Hindus, the former is the same with Patna. The alterations in the course of the rivers of India, and the small comparative extent to which the city has shrunk in modern times, will sufficiently explain why Patna is not at the confluence of the Ganges and the Sone, and the only argument, then, against the identity of the position, is the enumeration of the Erranoboas and the Sone as distinct rivers by Arrian and Pliny: but their nomenclature is unaccompanied by any description, and it was very easy to mistake synonimes for distinct appellations. Rajamahal, as proposed by Wilford, and Bhagalpur, as maintained by Franklin, are both utterly untenable, and the further inquiries of the former had satisfied him of the error of his hypothesis. His death prevented the publication of an interesting paper by him on the site of Palibothra, in which he had come over to the prevailing opinion, and shewn it to have been situated in the vicinity of Patna.* [Asiatic Researches, vol. xiv. p. 380.]

-- The Mudra Rakshasa, or The Signet of the Minister. A Drama, Translated from the Original Sanscrit, Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, Translated from Original Sanskrit, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, by Horace Hayman Wilson, 1835

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

A FEW years after my arrival in India, I began to study the ancient history, and geography of that country; and of course, endeavoured to procure some regular works on the subject: the attempt proved vain, though I spared neither trouble, nor money, and I had given up every hope, when, most unexpectedly, and through mere chance, several geographical tracts in Sanscrit, fell into my hands. I very much regret, that they did not make their appearance somewhat earlier; for time passes away heedless of our favourite pursuits.

In some of the Puranas, there is a section called the Bhuvana-cosa, a magazine, or Collection of mansions: but these are entirely mythological, and beneath our notice.
Bhuchanda, or Bhuvana Cosa, a section of the Puranas on geography, VIII. 268, 287.

-- Index to the First Eighteen Volumes of the Asiatic Researches, Or, Transactions of the Society
Instituted in Bengal for Enquiring Into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences and Literature of Asia, by Asia Society, 1835

Besides those in the Puranas, there are other geographical tracts, to several of which is given the title of Cshetra-samasa, or collection of countries; one is entirely mythological, and is highly esteemed by the Jainas; another in my possession, is entirely geographical, and is a most valuable work.

VI. The cross, though not an object of worship among the Bauddhas, is a favourite emblem and device with them. It is exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a mount Calvary, as among the Roman Catholics. They represent it various ways; but the shaft with the cross bar, and the Calvary remain the same. The tree of life and knowledge, or the Jambu tree, in their maps of the world, is always represented in the shape of a Manichean cross, eighty-four Yojanas (answering to the eighty-four years of the life of him who was exalted upon the cross), or 423 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary.
Calvary, or Golgotha was, according to the canonical Gospels, a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was crucified.

The Gospels use the Koine term Kraníon or Kraniou topos when testifying to the place outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. E.g., Mark 15:22 (NRSV), "Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means: 'the place of a skull')." 'Kraníon is often translated as 'skull' in English, but more accurately means cranium, the part of the skull enclosing the brain. In Latin, it is rendered Calvariae Locus, from which the English term Calvary derives.

Its traditional site, identified by Queen Mother Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, in 325, is at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A 19th-century suggestion places it at the site now known as 'The Garden Tomb' on Skull Hill, some 500 m (1,600 ft) to the north, and 200 m (660 ft) north of the Damascus Gate.

-- Calvary, by Wikipedia

This cross, putting forth leaves and flowers, (and fruit also, as I am told) is called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree of life and knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in the terrestrial Paradise. Agapius, according to Photius,* [Phot. Biblioth. p. 403.] maintained, that this divine tree in Paradise, was Christ himself. In their delineations of the heavens, the globe of the earth is filled up with this cross and its Calvary. The divines of Tibet place it to the S.W. of Meru, towards the source of the Ganges. The Manicheans always represented Christ crucified upon a tree among the foliage. The Christians of India, and of St. Thomas, though they did not admit of images, still entertained the greatest veneration for the cross. They placed it on a Calvary, in public places, and at the meeting of cross roads; and it is said, that even the heathen Hindus in these parts paid also great regard to it. I have annexed the drawings of two crosses, from a book entitled the Cshetra-samasa, lately given to me by a learned Bauddha, who is visiting the holy places in the countries bordering upon the Ganges.* [Plate 2] There are various representations of this mystical symbol, which my friend the Jati could not explain to me; but says, that the shaft and the two arms of the cross remain invariably the same, and that the Calvary is sometimes omitted. It becomes then a cross, with four points, sometimes altered into a cross cramponne, as used in heraldry.

In the second figure there are two instruments depicted, the meaning of which my learned friend, the Jati, could not explain. Neither did he know what they were intended to represent; but, says he, they look like two spears : and indeed they look very much like the spear and reed, often represented with the cross. The third figure represents the same tree, but somewhat nearer to its natural shape. When it is represented as a trunk without branches, as in Japan, it is then said to be the seat of the supreme ONE. When two arms are added, as in our cross, the Trimurti is said to be seated there. When with five branches, the five Sugats, or grand forms of Buddha, are said to reside upon there. Be this as it may, 1 cannot believe the resemblance of this cross and Calvary, with the sign of our redemption, to be merely accidental. I have written this account of the progress of the Christian religion in India, with the impartiality of an historian, fully persuaded that our holy religion cannot possibly receive any additional lustre from it.

Image
Image
Volume 10, Plate 2. The Calpa-Vricsha of the Bauddhas which is the same with the cross of the Manicheans.

-- II. An Essay on the Sacred Isles in the West, with other Essays connected with that Work, by Captain F. Wilford. Essay V. Origin and Decline of the Christian Religion in India, Asiatic Researches, Volume 10, 1811

It would also be useful to obtain some of the modern treatises on geography which exist, it is said, in several countries of India, notably among the Djaïnas of Malvah and Gudjérat; we know that Wilford had several works of this kind in his hands, and that he especially made great use, for his last works, of the Samâsa-Kchetra (Collection of Countries), a prescriptive [relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method.] treatise on geography written in the seventeenth century. However modern these works may be, and however mixed they may be with fables and errors, one should find in them good indications, from which European criticism will be able to turn to good account. Wilford also speaks of two ancient treatises on Sanskrit geography, one of the fifth-sixth century of our era, the other of the tenth-sixth century; the discovery of one or the other of these works would surely be a very useful acquisition.

-- Etuden Sur La Geographie Et Les Populations Primitives Du Nord-Ouest De L'Inde D'Apres Les Hymnes Vediques Precedee D'Un Apercu De L'Etat Actuel Des Etudes Sur L'Inde Ancienne, by Par M. Vivien De Saint-Martin, 1855 (Study on the Geography and the Primitive Populations of North-West India According to the Vedic Hymns Preceded by an Overview of the Current State of Studies on Ancient India, by M. Vivien De Saint-Martin, 1855)

There is also the Trai-locya-derpana, or mirror of the three worlds: but it is wholly mythological, and written in the spoken dialects of the countries about Muttra. St. Patrick is supposed to have written such a book, which is entitled de tribus Habitaculis, and this was also entirely mythological.

There are also lists of countries, rivers and mountains, in several Puranas, and other books; but they are of little or no use, being mere lists of names, without any explanation whatever. They are very incorrectly written, and the context can be of no service, in correcting the bad spelling of proper names. These in general are called Desamala, or garlands of countries; and are of great antiquity: they appear to have been known to Megasthenes, and afterwards to Pliny.*


Of the Manners of the Indians.

The Indians all live frugally, especially when in camp. They dislike a great undisciplined multitude, and consequently they observe good order. Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenes says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachmae, and this among a people who have no written laws, but are ignorant of writing, and must therefore in all the business of life trust to memory.

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., Principal of the Government College, Patna, Member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh, Fellow of the University of Calcutta, With Introduction, Notes and Map of Ancient India, Reprinted (with additions) from the "Indian Antiquary," 1876-77


[Consult the 20th Chapter of the 6th Book, in which the account of so many countries all over India, cannot be the result of the travels of several individuals, but must be extracted from such lists. In the 17th Chapter of the same book, Pliny says that Seneca, in his attempt towards a description of India, had mentioned no less than sixty rivers, one hundred and twenty nations or countries, besides mountains, and in the latter part of the said chapter, out of this account of Seneca, he gives us the names of several mountains, nations and rivers. It is my opinion that in the times of Pliny and Ptolemy, they had a more full and copious geographical account of India, than we had forty years ago. Unluckily through the want of regular itineraries end astronomical observations, their longitudes and latitudes were only inferred; and this alone was sufficient to throw the whole of their geographical information, into a shapeless and inextricable mass of confusion.

Real geographical treatises do exist: but they are very scarce, and the owners unwilling, either to part with them, or to allow any copy to be made, particularly for strangers. For they say, that it is highly improper, to impart any knowledge of the state of their country, to foreigners; and they consider these geographical works as copies of the archives of the government of their country. Seven of them have come to my knowledge, three of which are in my possession. The two oldest are the Munja-prati-desa-vyavastha, or an account of various countries, written by Raja Munja, in the latter end of the ninth century: it was revised and improved by Raja Bhoja his nephew, in the beginning of the tenth, it is supposed; and this new edition was published under the name of Bhoja-prati-desa-vyavastha. These two treatises, which are voluminous, particularly the latter, are still to be found, in Gujarat, as I was repeatedly assured, by a most respectable Pandit, a native of that country, who died some years ago, in my service. I then applied to the late Mr. Duncan, Governor of Bombay, to procure those two geographical tracts, but in vain: his enquiries however confirmed their existence. These two are not mentioned in any Sanscrit book, that I ever saw. The next geographical treatise, is that written by order of the famous Buccaraya or Bucca-sinha, who ruled in the peninsula in the year of Vicramaditya, 1341, answering to the year 1285 of our era.

Bukka Raya I (reigned 1356–1377 CE) was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire from the Sangama Dynasty. He was a son of Bhavana Sangama, the chieftain of a pastoralist community Shepard lineage.

The early life of Bukka as well as his brother Hakka (also known as Harihara I) are relatively unknown and most accounts of their early life are based on various theories.

Bukka [Raya I], by Wikipedia

It is mentioned in the commentary on the geography of the Maha-bharata, and it is said, that he wrote an account of the 310 Rajaships of India, and Palibothra is mentioned in it. I suspect that this is the geographical treatise called Bhuvana-sagara, or sea of mansions, in the Dekhin.


A passage from it, is cited by professor Sig. Bayer, in which is mentioned the town of Nisadaburam, in the Tamul dialect,* [In which da is the mark of the possessive case.] but in Sanscrit Nuhushapur, or Naushapur, from an ancient and famous king of that name more generally called Deva-nahusha, and Deo-naush, in the spoken dialects. He appears to be the Dionysius, of our ancient mythologists, and reigned near mount Meru, now Mar-coh, to the S. E. of Cabul.

The fourth is a commentary on the geography of the Maha-bharat, written by order of the Raja of Paulastya in the peninsula, by a Pandit, who resided in Bengal, in the time of Hussein-shah, who began his reign in the year 1489[???]. It is a voluminous work, most curious, and interesting. It is in my possession, except a small portion towards the end, and which I hope to be able to procure. Palibothra is mentioned in it.
In Hindu mythology, Pulastya was one of the ten Prajapati or mind-born sons of Brahma, (Manas Putra) and one of the Saptarishis (Seven Great Sages Rishi) in the first Manvantara.

-- Pulastya, by Wikipedia

Ala-ud-din Husain Shah r. 1494–1519) was an independent late medieval Sultan of Bengal, who founded the Hussain Shahi dynasty. He became the ruler of Bengal after assassinating the Abyssinian Sultan, Shams-ud-Din Muzaffar Shah, whom he had served under as wazir. After his death in 1519, his son Nusrat Shah succeeded him. The reigns of Husain Shah and Nusrat Shah are generally regarded as the "golden age" of the Bengal sultanate...

The reign of Husain Shah witnessed a remarkable development of Bengali literature. Under the patronage of Paragal Khan, Husain Shah's governor of Chittagong, Kabindra Parameshvar wrote his Pandabbijay, a Bengali adaptation of the Mahabharata. Similarly, under the patronage of Paragal's son Chhuti Khan, who succeeded his father as governor of Chittagong, Shrikar Nandi wrote another Bengali adaptation of the Mahabharata.

-- Alauddin Husain Shah, by Wikipedia

There are also a few WORKS professing to DEAL WITH GEOGRAPHY. Mr. Wilford has long ago pointed out (Asiatick Researches, XIV. pp. 374-380), the existence of the following:— (1) Munja-pratidesa [x]-vyavastha, (2) Bhoja-pratidesa-vyavastha (a revised edition of 1), (3) Bhuvana-Sagara, (4) A Geography written at the command of Bukkaraya, (5) A commentary on the Geography of the Mahabharata written by order of the Raja of Paulastya (?Paurastya?) by a Pandit in the time of Hussein Shah (1489) — a voluminous work. A MS. acquired by Mr. Wilford once formed a part of the Library of Fort William College: it is now in the Government Sanskrit College Library, Calcutta. A detailed description,* [Gazetteer literature in Sanskrit.] of this MS. has been given by M.M.H.P. Sastri in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society (1919). Prof. Pulle has mentioned (in pp 13-15 in his Studi Italiani di Filologia Indo-lranica, vol IV.) the existence of the following geographical works in the Library of the Nazionale centrale di Firenze (Florence, in Italy):— (5) Lokapraksa ([x]) of Kshemendra (the celebrated Kasmirian writer): the MS. consists of 782 pages and it is profusely illustrated. Prof Pulle has reproduced two of its figures in his Studi. (6) Three MSS. of Kshetra Samasa, a Jaina work — with two different commentaries, (7) A MS. of Kshetra Samasa Prakarana, (8) Four MSS. of Samgha- yani of Chandrasuri with two commentaries: one of the MSS. is illustrated, (9) A Laghu-Samghayani. He has also pointed out the mention of Kshetra Samasa of Jina Bhadra (1457-1517) in Kielhorn's Report (1880-1), of (10) Loghu Kshetra Samasa of Ratnasekhara in Weber's Cat. (No. 1942), of (11) Trailokya dipika and (12) Trailokya Darpana quoted by Wilford. Besides the above, (13) a Jama Tittha Kappa, and (14) Tristhaliactu dealing with the topography of Prayaga are also known.

St Martin [de Louis vivien de Saint-Martin] [Etat actuel des etudes sur l'Inde ancienne, p. xiii. (Google translate: Current state of studies on ancient India)] characterized the works mentioned by Wilford to be "imposture literature" without sufficiently examining them. Be they "imposture" or not, they have not yet been sufficiently examined.[!!!]

-- Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, Edited With Introduction and Notes by Surendranath Majumdar Shastri, M.A., Premchand Raychand Scholar, Reader, Patna University, 1924

In this set of recent publications on Brahmanic India, geography had lagged far behind. Many particular points have been touched upon in some of the great works which Europe has seen appear for twenty years, especially in those of M. Wilson and M. Lassen; there are indications of detail and happy comparisons; a great number of facts and identifications can also be drawn from the innumerable memoirs scattered in the special journals and in the academic collections of India and Europe: but, until now, the subject had not been approached in a work together. This work, which alone can reconstitute in a regular body the Sanskrit geography of India, became however each day of a more urgent necessity; there is not a question of history or archaeology where this necessity does not make itself keenly felt. The first condition in any research of this nature is to be firmly fixed on the theater of events; otherwise the texts bring to mind only a floating and confused image.

Studies on the geography of ancient India have long been limited to the notions provided by Greek and Latin writers. Until the end of the last century, Sanskrit India did not yet exist. We knew of the past of this great peninsula only what our own classical authors have transmitted to us, according to the original historians of Alexander the Great and his immediate successors, and also according to the relations of which the commercial relations of Roman Egypt with the East became the occasion. The researches of d'Anville (1783 and 1775), the first who seriously attempted to bring together classical indications with modern notions; those of Rennell (1783 to 1793), of Mannert (1797), of Wahl (1805), of Dr. Vincent (1807) and of M. Gossellin (1789 to 1813), did not come out of this circle. Already, however, in his discourses on the sciences and literature of the Asiatic nationalities, William Jones, the famous founder of the Bengal Society, had hinted at the unknown resources which Brahmanical literature could furnish for the study of ancient India, and he had endeavored, not without success, to carry the English Orientalists in this direction. In 1801, in the sixth volume of Asiatic Researches1 [Introd. p. iv.], the Asiatic Society of Calcutta reported among the desiderata of Indian studies "a Catalog of the names of towns, countries, provinces, rivers and mountains taken from the Castras and the Puranas, with the correspondence of modern names." It asked also research on this question both historical and geographical: "What were the geographical and political divisions of the country before the Muslim invasion?" What the Society demanded from then on was nothing less than the complete restitution of the Sanskrit geography of India. But this task, if it was not beyond the strength of those who found themselves in a position to undertake it, exceeded the resources with which such an enterprise could then surround itself; for studies of comparative geography must be based above all on complete knowledge of the locality, and the topographical survey of the peninsula was barely begun at that time.

Colonel Wilford was unfortunately the only member of the Calcutta Society who entered into this direction of geographical research pointed out by William Jones. Wilford was read and zealous; and, if he had been endowed with a critical sense, which he entirely lacked, he could have rendered real service to Indian studies. But the incredible aberrations to which he so often lets himself be carried away (not to mention the literary impostures of his pundits, of which he was the first victim), remove all serious value from his works, and only allow the facts to be received with extreme reserve, and reconciliations, which have not been audited by other authorities.

A far more promising approach to the problem, indeed a short cut, seemed to be heralded in a letter to Jones from Lieutenant Francis Wilford, a surveyor and an enthusiastic student of all things oriental, who was based at Benares. Jones had been sent copies of inscriptions found at Ellora and written in Ashoka Brahmi, the still undeciphered pin-men. He had probably sent them to Wilford because Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, was the most likely place to find a Brahmin who might be able to read them. In 1793 Wilford announced that he had found just such a man:

"I have the honour to return to you the facsimile of several inscriptions with an explanation of them. I despaired at first of ever being able to decipher them... However, after many fruitless attempts on our part, we were so fortunate as to find at last an ancient sage, who gave us the key, and produced a book in Sanskrit, containing a great many ancient alphabets formerly in use in different parts of India. This was really a fortunate discovery, which hereafter may be of great service to us."

According to the ancient sage, most of Wilford's inscriptions related to the wanderings of the five heroic Pandava brothers from the Mahabharata. At the unspecified time in question they were under an obligation not to converse with the rest of mankind; so their friends devised a method of communicating with them by "writing short and obscure sentences on rocks and stones in the wilderness and in characters previously agreed upon betwixt them." The sage happened to have the key to these characters in his code book; obligingly he transcribed them into Devanagari Sanskrit and then translated them.

To be fair to Wilford, he was a bit suspicious about this ingenious explanation of how the inscriptions got there. But he had no doubts that the deciphering and translation were genuine. "Our having been able to decipher them is a great point in my opinion, as it may hereafter lead to further discoveries, that may ultimately crown our labours with success." Above all, he had now located the code book, "a most fortunate circumstance."

Poor Wilford was the laughing stock of the Benares Brahmins for a whole decade. They had already fobbed him off with Sanskrit texts, later proved spurious, on the source of the Nile and the origin of Mecca. After the code book there was a geographical treatise on The Sacred Isles of the West, which included early Hindu reference to the British Isles. The Brahmins, to whom Sanskrit had so long remained a sacred prerogative, were getting their own back. One wonders how much Wilford paid his "ancient sage."

Jones was already a little suspicious of Wilford's sources, but on the code book, which was as much a fabrication as the translations supposedly based on it, he reserved judgment until he might see it. He never did. In fact it was never heard of again. But in spite of these disappointments Jones continued to believe that in time this oldest script would be deciphered. He had been sent a copy of the writings on the Delhi pillar and told a correspondent that they "drive me to despair; you are right, I doubt not, in thinking them foreign; I believe them to be Ethiopian and to have been imported a thousand years before Christ." It was not one of his more inspired guesses and at the time of his death the mystery of the inscriptions and of the monoliths was as dark as ever.


-- India Discovered, by John Keay

It must, however, be recognized that in the last of his memoirs, which is also the least imperfect (I am not speaking of the posthumous publication, in nos. 220 and 223, 1851; of the Journal of the Society of Calcutta, of a essay in comparative geography which is a work of the worst times of Wilford), it must be recognized, I say, that, in the last of his memoirs, inserted in volume XIV of the Asiatic Researches (1822), and which has for its title On the ancient Geography of India, there are here and there useful indications which have been furnished him principally by treatises on Sanskrit geography of a very modern date, in truth, but which contain none the less, on indigenous nomenclature, more detailed notions than those of European investigators....

It would also be useful to obtain some of the modern treatises on geography which exist, it is said, in several countries of India, notably among the Djaïnas of Malvah and Gudjérat; we know that Wilford had several works of this kind in his hands, and that he especially made great use, for his last works, of the Samâsa-Kchetra (Collection of Countries), a prescriptive [relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method.] treatise on geography written in the seventeenth century. However modern these works may be, and however mixed they may be with fables and errors, one should find in them good indications, from which European criticism will be able to turn to good account. Wilford also speaks of two ancient treatises on Sanskrit geography, one of the fifth-sixth century of our era, the other of the tenth-sixth century; the discovery of one or the other of these works would surely be a very useful acquisition.

-- Etuden Sur La Geographie Et Les Populations Primitives Du Nord-Ouest De L'Inde D'Apres Les Hymnes Vediques Precedee D'Un Apercu De L'Etat Actuel Des Etudes Sur L'Inde Ancienne, by Par M. Vivien De Saint-Martin, 1855 (Study on the Geography and the Primitive Populations of North-West India According to the Vedic Hymns Preceded by an Overview of the Current State of Studies on Ancient India, by M. Vivien De Saint-Martin, 1855)

The fifth is the Vicrama-sagara: the author of it is unknown here: however it is often mentioned in the Cshetra-samasa, which, according to the author himself, is chiefly taken from the Vicrama-sagara. It is said to exist still in the peninsula, and it existed in Bengal, in the year 1648. It is considered as a very valuable work, and Palibothra is particularly mentioned in it, according to the author of the Cshetra-samasa. I have only seventeen leaves of this work, and they are certainly interesting. Some suppose that it is as old as the time of Bucca-raya, that it was written by his order, and that the author was a native of the Dekhin.

But the author could not be a native of that country, otherwise, he would have given a better description of it; for his account of the country about the Sahyadri mountains, of which an extract is to be found in the Cshetra-samasa, is quite unsatisfactory, and obviously erroneous even in the general outlines.
The account he gives of Trichina-vali is much better, and their he takes notice of an ancient city, which proves to be the Bata of Ptolemy, the metropolis of the Bata. Its Sanscrit name is Vata or Bata, so called because it was situated in the Bataranya, or forest of the Vat tree or Ficus Indica. Our author says that it is two Cos from Cuttalam, called Curtalam in Major Rennell’s map of India, and to the west of Tranquebar: it was a famous place formerly; but it is hardly known in the Caliyug, says our author. Close to it is Trimbalingali-grama. Two Cos to the west of Vataranya, is Madhyarjuna, a considerable place, and five Cos from this is Cumbhacolam, a large place also, inhabited chiefly by pot-makers; hence its name, and it is the Combaconum of the maps. The distance between Cuttalam and Cumbhacolam is nine Cos, and according to Major Rennell’s maps, it is about sixteen B. miles, which is sufficiently accurate.

The sixth is called the Bhuvana-cosa, and is declared to be a section of the Bhavishya-purana. If so, it has been revised, and many additions have been made to it, and very properly, for in its original state, it was a most contemptible performance. As the author mentions the emperor Selim-Shah, who died in the year 1552, he is of course posterior to him. It is a valuable work. Additions are always incorporated into the context in India, most generally without reference to any authority; and it was formerly so with us; but this is no disparagement in a geographical treatise: for towns, and countries do not disappear, like historical facts, without leaving some vestiges behind. I have only the fourth part of it, which contains the Gangetick provinces. The first copy that I saw, contained only the half of what is now in my possession; but it is exactly the same with it, only that some Pandit, a native of Benares, has introduced a very inaccurate account of the rebellion of Chaityan-Sinha, commonly called Cheyt-Sing, in the year, I believe 1781: but the style is different.

The seventh is the Cshetra-samasa already mentioned, and which was written by order of Bijjala, the last Raja of Patna, who died in the year 1648. Though a modern work, yet it is nevertheless a valuable and interesting performance. It contains only the Gangetick provinces and some parts of the peninsula, such as Trichina-vali, &c. The death of the Raja prevented his Pandit Jagganmohun from finishing it
, as it was intended, for the information of his children.

The last chapter, which was originally a detached work, is an account of Patali-putra, and of Pali-bhata as it is called there, and it consists of forty-seven leaves. This was written previously to the geographical treatise, and it gives an account, geographical, historical, and also mythological of these two cities, which were contiguous to each other. It gives also a short history of the Raja's family, and of his ancestors, and on that account only was this small tract originally undertaken. We may of course reasonably suppose that it was written at least 170 years ago.

What Does Megasthenes Say About The Kings Who Ruled?

1. He calls Sandracottus the king of the Prassi and he mentions the names of Xandramus as predecessor and Sandrocyptus as successor to Sandracottus. There is absolutely no resemblance in these names to Bindusara (the successor to Chandragupta Maurya) and Mahapadma Nanda, the predecessor.

2. He makes absolutely no mention of Chanakya or Vishnugupta, the Acharya who helped Chandragupta ascend the throne.

3. He makes no mention of the widespread presence of the Baudhik or Sramana tradition [Rishi tradition] during the time of the Maurya empire.

4. He claims the capital is Palimbothra or Palibothra, and that the city exists near the confluence of the Ganga and the Eranaboas (Hiranyabahu). But the Puranas are clear that all the 8 dynasties after the Mahabharata war had their capital at Girivraja (Rajagriha), located in the foothills of the Himalayas. There is no mention of Pataliputra in the Puranas. So, the assumption made by Sir William that Palimbothra is Pataliputra has no basis in fact and is not attested by any piece of evidence. If the Greeks could pronounce the first P in (Patali) they could certainly have pronounced the second p in Putra, instead of bastardising it as Palimbothra. Granted the Greeks were incapable of pronouncing any Indian names, but there is no reason why they should not be consistent in their phonetics.

5. The empire of Chandragupta was known as Magadha Empire. It had a long history even at the time of Chandragupta Maurya. In Indian literature, this powerful empire is amply described by its name but the same is absent in Greek accounts. It is difficult to understand as to why Megasthenes did not use this name “Magadha” and instead used the word Prassi, which has no equivalent or counterpart in Indian accounts.


-- Historical Dates From Puranic Sources, by Prof. Narayan Rao


The writer informs us that, long after the death of Raja Bijjala or Baijjala, he was earnestly requested by his friends, to complete the work, or at least to arrange the materials he had already collected in some order, and to publish it, even in that state. He complied with their request; but it must have been long after the death of the king, for he mentions Pondichery; saying, that it was inhabited by Firangs, and had three pretty temples dedicated to the God of the Firanga, Feringies or French, who did not, I believe, settle there before the year 1674. He takes notice also of Mandarajya, or Madras.

The author acts with the utmost candour, and modesty, saying, as I have written the Prabhoda-chandrica after the "Pracriya-caumudi (that is to say from, and after the manner of that book) so I have written this work after the Vicrama-sagara, and also from enquiries, from respectable well informed people, and from what, I may have seen myself."

In the Cshetra-samasa, two other geographical tracts are mentioned; the first is the Dacsha-chandaca, and the other is called Desa-vali, which, according to the author’s account, seem to be valuable works. There is also a small geographical treatise called Crita-dhara-vali, by Rameswara, about 200 years old, it is supposed. I have only eighty leaves of it, and it contains some very interesting particulars. In the peninsula, there is a list of fifty-six countries, in high estimation among the natives. It is generally called, in the spoken dialects of India, Chhapana-desa or the fifty-six countries. It was mentioned first by Mr. Bailly, who calls it Chapanna de Chalou. Two copies were possessed by Dr. Buchanan, and I have also procured a few others. All these are most contemptible lists of names, badly spelt, without any explanation whatever, and they differ materially the one from the other. However there is really a valuable copy of it, in the Tara-tantra, and published lately by the Rev. Mr. Ward [William Ward, b. 1769 Derby][???]. I have also another list of countries with proper remarks, from the Galava-tantra[???], in which there are several most valuable hints. However these two lists must be used cautiously, for there are also several mistakes.

SECTION XXX.

Tara
* [The Deliverer.]

THIS is the image of a black woman, with four arms, standing on the breast of Shivu: in one hand she holds a sword, in another a giant's head, with the others she is bestowing a blessing, and forbidding fear.

The worship of Tara is performed in the night, in different months, at the total wane of the moon, before the image of Siddheshwuree, when bloody sacrifices are offered, and it is reported, that even human beings were formerly immolated in secret to this ferocious deity, who is considered by the Hindoos as soon incensed, and not unfrequently inflicting on an importunate worshipper the most shocking diseases, as a vomiting of blood, or some other dreadful complaint which soon puts an end to his life.


Almost all the disciples of this goddess are from among the heterodox; many of them, however, are learned men, Tara being considered as the patroness of learnings. Some Hindoos are supposed to have made great advances in knowledge through the favour of this goddess; and many a stupid boy, after reading some incantations containing the name of Tara, has become a learned man....

About seven years ago, at the village of Serampore, near Kutwa, before the temple of the goddess Tara, a human body was found without a head, and in the inside of the temple different offerings, as ornaments, food, flowers, spirituous liquors, &c. All who saw it know, that a human victim had been slaughtered in the night, and search was made after the murderers, but in vain.

-- A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of The Hindoos: Including a Minute Description of Their Manners and Customs, and Translations from Their Principal Works, by the Rev. W. Ward, One of the Baptist Missionaries at Serampore, Second Edition, Carefully Abridged, and Greatly Improved, Serampore, 1815


P. 380.

This essay on the ancient geography of the Gangetick provinces, will consist of three sections. The first will treat of the boundaries, mountains, and rivers. In the second will be described the various districts, with some account of them, as far as procurable. The third section will be a comparative essay, between the geographical accounts of these countries by Ptolemy, and other ancient geographers in the west, with those of the Pauranics. Then occasionally, and collaterally will appear accounts, both historical and geographical of some of the principal towns, such as Palibothra and Patali-putra now Patna, for these two towns were close to each other, exactly like London and Westminister.

The former was once the metropolis of India; but at a very early period it was destroyed by the Ganges: an account of it is in great forwardness, and is nearly ready for the press. Its name in Sanscrit was Pali-bhatta, to be pronounced Pali-bhothra, or nearly so. Bali-gram near Bhagalpur, never was the metropolis of India; yet it was a very ancient city, and its history is very interesting. It was also destroyed by the Ganges. Chattrapur or Chattra-gram, was the metropolis of a district in Bengal called Ganga-Riddha. It is now Chitpur, near Calcutta, and it was the Ganga or Gange-Regia of Ptolemy. Dhacca, or rather Firingi-Bazar, is the Tugma of Ptolemy, the Taukhe of Ei-Edrissi, and the Antomela of Pliny, &c.

Accurate copies of these Sanscrit treatises on geography, will be deposited with the Asiatick Society, and ultimately the originals themselves.

SECTION I. Boundaries of Anu-Gangam. Its Forests, Mountains and Rivers.

ANU-GANGAM signifies that country which extends along the banks of the Ganges. The Gangetick provinces are called to this day Anonkhenk, or Anonkhek in Tibet, and Enacac, by the Tartars; and they have extended this appellation even to all India. The Ganges is called Kankh, or Kankhis in Tibet, and Kengkia, or Hengho by the Chinese.* [See Alph. Tibet, p. 344, and Des Guignes, &c. &c.]

Anu-Gangam has to the north the Himalaya mountains and to the south those of Vindhya, with the bay of Bengal: the southern boundary of Aracan is also the limit of Anu-gangam towards the south in that part of the country. To the west it has the river Drishadvati, now the Caggar.

Of the eastern boundary, we can at present ascertain only a few points, which however will give us the grand outlines. The Raghu-nandana mountains to the east of Aracan, and of Chatta-gram, are the boundary in the south-east: from thence it trends towards the N.E. to a place called Mairam, eight Yojanas or sixty miles to the east of Manipur, which last is upon a river called Brahmo-tarir. Mairam's true Sanscrit name is Maya-rama, and is amongst hills on the river Subhadra, which goes into the country of Barama according to the Cshetra-samasa. The Subhadra is the Kayndwayn mentioned in the account of the embassy to Ava, and it falls into the Airavati in the Burman empire. From Mairan, the boundary goes to a place called Manatara, near the mountains of Prabhucuthara, which join the snowy mountains in some place unknown. The Prabhu mountains are the eastern boundary of Asam, and through them is a tremendous chasm made by Parasu-rama, and which gives entrance to the Brahma-putra into India.

Beyond these are the famous Udaya, or Unnati mountains or range, beyond which the sun rises.

The Vindhyan hills extend from the bay of Bengal to the gulf of Cambay, and they are divided into three parts. The first or eastern part extends from the bay of Bengal to the source of the Narmada and Sona rivers inclusively, and this part contains the Ricsha, or bear mountains. To the west of this, as far as the gulf of Cambay, is the second or western part, the southern part of which is called Pariyatra, or Paripatra, and the northern part, which extends from the gates of Dilli to the gulf of Cambay is called Raivata.

Now the third or southern portion of these hills is simply called Vindhya, and is to the south of the source of the rivers Narmada and Sona: the rivers Tapi or Tapti, and the Vaitarani near Cuttac, rise from the hills of Vindhya, simply so called. All the Puranas agree in their description of the hills and rivers of India, except that the Raivat hills are always omitted in this account: but they make a conspicuous figure in the history of Crishna.

The inferior mountains in this extensive region are first, the Rajamehal hills, called in Sanscrit Sishuni: they are well described in the commentary on the Maha-bharat: they are also called Cacshivat, from a tribe of Brahmens of that name, settled there, and well known to the Puranas.

Then come the Chadgadri, or the rhinoceros hill, from Chadga, to be pronounced Charga, or nearly so, the Sanscrit name of that animal; and which still remains in the names of the two districts of Carruckpur, and Carrucdea. They are mentioned in the Cshetra-samasa. Elian observes, that in India, they gave the name of Carcason, to an animal with a single horn. This word comes from Charga, and in the possessive case, and in a derivative form Chargasya. In Persian, this word is pronounced Kharrack and Khark.

To the S.W. of these, according to the Galava-tantra[???], is the Gridhracuta, or the vulture peak; the hills called Ghiddore in the maps.

Between these and the Sona are the famous hills of Raja-griha, because there was the royal mansion of Jarasandha. They are called also Giri-vraja, because he had there numberless cow-pens. Between the Sona and the Ganges at Benares and Chunar are the Maui hills, called also Rohita, or the red hills, and after them the fort of Rohtas is denominated.

Between the Sona, and the Tamasa, or Tonsa, is the extensive range of Caimur, in Sanscrit Cimmrityu, so called because it is fortunate to die* [G. Commentary, p. 695 of my MS.] amongst them. The hills of Calanjara, and Chitra-cuta, or Chitra-sanu in Bandela-chand, are often mentioned in the Puranas, and also in some poetical works. Beyond the Chambala are the famous hills of Raivata, which stretch from the Yamuna, down to Gurjarat, and in a N.W. direction along the Yamuna, as far as Dilli. That part of them which lies to the west of Mathura, as far north as Dilli, is called the Deva-giri hills, in the Scanda-purana, and Maya-giri, in the Bhagavat.† [Scanda-purana, section of Reva. Bhagavat, section the 10th.] They were the abode of the famous Maya, the chief engineer of the Daityas. He makes a most conspicuous figure in the Puranas, and particularly in the Maha-bharata. The scene of his many achievements, and performances was about Dilli. The inhabitants of these hills calls themselves Mayas or Meyos, to this day: but by their neighbours they are denominated Meyovati, or Mevatis.

The inferior mountains in the east, are the Gara hills, in the spoken dialects Garo, between the Brahma-putra and Silhet, along the southern boundary of Asama. They form a very extensive range, the western parts of which are called Doranga-giri or Deran-giri, from the country they are in; in the eastern parts they are denominated Numrupai from the country likewise.* [Namrupa is different from Camrupa, which is toward the N.W. in Asama, and the former toward the S.E. Camrupa is to the north of the Brahma-putra, and Namrupa to the south of it.] To the south of Gada or Garganh, are the Sarada hills, mentioned in the Calici-purana[???]: the natives call them Saraida, and there are the tombs of the kings of Asama.
The Kalika Purana, also called the Kali Purana, Sati Purana or Kalika Tantra, is one of the eighteen minor Puranas (Upapurana) in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. The text ... is attributed to the sage Markandeya [an ancient rishi born in the clan of Bhrigu Rishi [mentioned in] the Bhagavata Purana ...[and] the Mahabharata]. It exists in many versions, variously organized in 90 to 93 chapters. The surviving versions of the text are unusual in that they start abruptly and follow a format not found in either the major or minor Purana-genre mythical texts of Hinduism....

According to Rocher, the mention of king Dharmapala of Kamarupa has led to proposals of Kalika Purana being an 11th or 12th-century text...

The earliest printed edition of this text was published by the Venkateshvara Press, Bombay in 1907.


-- Kalika Purana, by Wikipedia

The Kalki Purana is a Vaishnavism-tradition Hindu text about the tenth avatar of Vishnu named Kalki. The Sanskrit text was likely composed in Bengal during an era when the region was being ruled by the Bengal Sultanate or the Mughal Empire. Wendy Doniger dates it to sometime between 1500 CE and 1700 CE. It has a floruit of 1726 CE based on a manuscript discovered in Dacca, Bangladesh.

-- Kalki Purana, by Wikipedia

There is another range of mountains to the east of Tiperah, and which forming a curve towards the N.E. passes a little to the eastward of the country of an ancient king called Hedamba, or Heramba. The name of the country is Casur, and its metropolis is Chaspur, the Cachara and Cuspoor of the maps. These hills are called Tiladri, or mountains of Tila, in the Cshetra-samasa. In them and to eastward of Casara is Tiladri-mala-gram, or the village of Mala, in the hills of Tila. It is called in the spoken dialects Tilandrira-mala, and the author of the above tract]???] says that it is a pretty place.

To the north of India are three ranges of mountains. Hima or snowy, is to the north of Nipala or Naya-pala; Hema or the golden mountain, is beyond Tibet, and Nishadha is still further north. Nay-pala is between the Padapa or foot of the mountains and Hima. Our ancient geographers were acquainted with the two first: Hima or Imaus; and Hema, Hemada, Hemoda, or Emodus. Their information was no doubt very defective, and their ideas concerning them were of course very indistinct and confused, as appears from Ptolemy’s map. That author has added an inferior range, which he calls Bepyrrhus. This range, with Imam and Emodus, he has disposed in the shape of the letter Y. Imaus is the shaft, and the others make the two branches; Emodus is to the left or north, and Bepyrrhns to the right or south. Emodus beyond Tibet is entirely out of its place here, and of course must be rejected. Bepyrrhus is derived from the Sanscrit Bhima-pada, or Bhaya-pada, or the tremendous pass up and down the mountains; literally the tremendous footings, rests for the foot, or steps. These words are pronounced by the Nay-palese Bhim-phed, or Bhim-pher, and Bhay-phed, or Bhay-pher: but in Hindee they say Bhim-paid, Bhay-pair and Bhim-pairi, Bhay-paid, or Bhay-pairi.

The Pauranics admit it is true, this etymological derivation of these words, and of Bhima-pur or Bhaya-pur, the dreary mansion: but they have transferred the sensation of terror from strangers and travellers to the inhabitants themselves, and have framed several legends accordingly. When Parasurama undertook to destroy the Cshettris, the Chasas, who then lived below in the plains, fled to the mountains, where they concealed themselves in the greatest dismay and consternation. A vast body of them went to Jalpesa, or the place of the lord of speech, at the foot of the hills, and a little to the eastward of the Tista, to consult him and claim his protection. They then ascended the tremendous Ghats, according to the Cshetra-samasa. In the same treatise, it is said, another body of them to the north of Asama ascended the hills and settled at a place called also Bhima-vati-puri, or the town replete with fear and terror, more commonly Bhim-puri and Bhim-pairi, which implies that the town pur, the valleys and passes, pair or paer, at the foot of these hills, were filled with alarm, and the inhabitants still tremble at the name of Parasu-rama. In the commentary on the Maha-bharat, the name of this place* [Page 538 of my MS.] is written Bhima-spharddha, or rather Bhima-sparddha, because Bhima, having defeated, in these passes, the army of Banasura, laughed and rejoined in consequence of his victory. The first etymology, I think, is by far preferable. This appears to be the mount Bepyrrhus of Ptolemy, and its erroneous direction in his map may be rectified: Bepyrrhus, and Ottorocorrha are parts of the Padapa, or foot of mount Himalaya, and ought to be connected as such, Bepyrrhus to the west, and Ottorocorrha to the east and to the north of Asama: for the latter is only a prolongation of the former.

The country of Gada, or Gada-grama, is pronounced by the natives Gorganh, or Guer-ganh, that is to say the town of Gor, whatever be its meaning, and through the rest of India it is called Gor, and also by our writers of the 17th century. Even Ptolemy writes it Corrha as in Ottoro-corrha. This country is generally called Asama, and is divided into two parts, Uttara or Uttara-gora, and Dacshina-gora, in the spoken dialects Uttar-gol and Dekhin-gol, that is to say, north and south Gora. In the spoken dialects these two divisions are also called Uttar-pada and Dekhin-pada, that is to say the N. and S. division.

The Damasi of Ptolemy imply the southern mountains, from the Sanscrit Yamya, and Yamasya, which signify the south; because Yama rules there. These words, in the spoken dialects, are pronounced Jamya, and Jamasya, from which last the Greeks made Damasoi, as Diamuna for Jamuna; and when Pliny says, that the Hindus called the southern parts of the world Dramasa, we should read Diamasa or Damasa. Besides Jama, or Pluto, is supposed to reside particularly there also, hence these mountains or part of them are called Jama-dhara, which imply either the southern mountains, or the mountains of Jama, the ruler of the south, in Sanscrit. In the spoken dialects, they say Jamdhera, from which Bernier made Chamdara.* [Account of Asama, Asiatick Researches, Vol. 2d p. 175.]

Beyond Asama are the Prabhu-cuthara mountains, beyond which are those called Udaya, or from behind which the sun makes his appearance.

Immediately after the mountains of Asama, according to Ptolemy are those called Semanthini, which appear to be the Udaya mountains of the Pauranics, and the Unnati of lexicons. These are declared to be the Samanta, or the very limit of the world, from which Ptolemy made Semanthini. We may also say Samunnati the very place of the rising of the sun; for the particle Sam is used here intensively. Samanta is found in lexicons; the other never to the best of my knowledge; still it is admissible, for it is correct and grammatical.

Let us pass to the mountains to the east of Bengal. Between that country, and Traipura, there is a range of hills, which passes close to Comillah, then all along the sea shore, and ends near Chatganh. This range is called Raghu-nandana in the Cshetra-samasa, and in the district of Chatganh there are two portions of it, one is called Chandra-sechara or Chandra-giri; in this is Sita-cunda, or the pool of Sita, and the burning well. The other portion is called Virupacshya.

The mountains to the eastward of Traipura, and of Chatganh, are mentioned in the above geographical treatise: in the northern parts they are called the Tiladri or Tailadri mountains, with several places of that name as we have seen before. The Peguers are called also Tatians, and it is possible that the Tailadri or the mountain of Tila or Taila may have been so called from that circumstance: for they constitute, at least in the lower parts of that range, the natural boundary between Indi, and the Talian country, or Pegu. Between Aracan and Ava is the famous pass of Talla or Tallaki.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:39 am

Part 2 of 4

In the Cshetra-samasa the Carna-phulli [Karnaphuli/ Karnafuli/ Khawthlanguipui: Wiki] or Chatganh [Chittagong: Wiki] river, is said to come from the Jayadri or mountains of victory, and the Nabhi or Naf [Naf: Wiki] river from the Suvarda, or golden mountains; but these are portions only of the above range. The mountains, as well as the country to the eastward of Trai-pura, are often called Reang by the natives. When we read in Major Dow’s history of Hindoostan that Sultan Sujah fled from Dhacca to Aracan through the almost impervious forests and mountains of Rangamati, it is a mistake, and it should be the forests and mountains of Reang. It is not likely that that unfortunate prince should fly from Dhacca to Rangamati on the borders of Asama, a great way towards the north; but it is more natural to suppose that he darted at once into the wilds of Trai-pura and Reang.

Ptolemy has bestowed the name of Maiandrus on this range
, but which is now unknown. It is probably derived from Mayun, a tribe between Chatganh, and Aracan* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 6th, p. 228.] according to Dr. Buchanan. In this case Mayunadri signifies the Mayun mountains, and the Peguers are also called Moan.† [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 5th, p. 225.]

By a strange fatality, the northern extremity of mount Maiandrus in Ptolemy's maps is brought close to the town of Alosanga, now Ellasing on the Lojung river, to the N.W. of Dhacca. This mistake is entirely owing to his tables of longitude and latitude, which were originally erroneous, and probably have been made worse and worse by transcribers: but this may be easily rectified, by adverting to the interesting particulars, which he mentions concerning mount Maiandrus. In the upper parts of it, says he, are the Tilaidai, or the inhabitants of the Tiladri or Tila mountains mentioned before; these are also called Basadoe. In the Vamana-purana, section of the earth, the Bhasada tribes are mentioned, as living in the easternmost parts of India. Ptolemy says that the Basadoes had a short nose as if clipped, and were very hairy, with a broad chest, and a broad forehead. They were of a white colour, and I suppose like that of the Peguers, called by Persian writers, a wheat colour, and in Sanscrit Capisa.

On one side of mount Maiandrus, according to our author[???}, are the Nanga-logoe, which, he says, signifies naked people, and this is to this day the true meaning of Nanga-loga in Hindi: their country is repeatedly called Nagna-desa, or country of the naked in the Puranas, and they call themselves Nanctas or the naked, but this word they generally pronounce Lancta.* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 7th, p. 183.] They are called also Cuci, and in the Cshetra-samasa it is said, that the original name is Cemu, and Cemuca, which are pronounced in the dialect of that country Ceu, Ceuca or Ceuci; and Portuguese writers mention the country of Cu, to the eastward of Bengal.

The Vindhyan mountains are in general covered with forests called in Sanscrit Aranya, or Atavi, and this last implies an impervious wood, or nearly so. The Vindhyatavis are often mentioned in the Puranas, and poetical works. They are divided into forest-cantons, mentioned in the lists of countries in the Puranas; and in geographical works among these forest-cantons, ten are of more renown than the others: these are to the east of the river Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], and are called in the above lists Dasarna, and in geographical tracts Dasaranya, or the ten forests, and in every one of them is a stronghold, or fort Rina, and Dasarna signifies the ten forts. Another name for these forts is Uttamarna, which implies their pre-eminence, and superiority of power above the others. These ten strongholds are probably the Dasapur, or decapolis of the last section but one of the Padma-purana, and of Cosas[???] also. There resided ten chiefs, who availing themselves of the supineness of their neighbours below, became hill robbers, and obtained at various periods much might and honor. They were like the savage tribes of Rajamehat, only they acted upon a larger, and of course upon a more honorable scale.[???!!!]

These forests are in general called Jhati-chanda, always pronounced Jhari-chand in the spoken dialects, which signifies a country abounding with Jhari, or places overgrown with thickets and underwood. However there are many extensive forests of large and tall trees of various sorts, but under these there is no grass, and very seldom any underwood: therefore the copses are most valuable, being fit for the grazing of cattle.

These ten cantons included all the woods, hills and wilds of south Bahar, with the two districts of Surugunja, and Gangapur in the south. We have also the Dwadasaranya, or twelve forest-cantons, including the ten before mentioned with the addition of Bandela-chand and Baghela-chand. Another name for such woods and thickets is Jhanci and Jhancar; which the natives of these forests generally pronounce Dangi and Dangar, according to the Cshetra-samasa, and to the natives also, who call themselves Dangayas from Bandela-chand, all the way to the bay of Bengal, and their country Dangaya. The other Hindus however call the whole Jhar-chand, and it is noticed in Dow's history of India, and in that of Bengal by Major Stewart,* [History of Bengal, p. 123, 265. 371.] and also either by Tavernier or Bernier, but supposed by them to be a town in the vicinity of Berhampur, instead of an extensive forest. They call it Geharcunda, and suppose it to mean a cold place. In Bengal they call it often Jangal-teri and in the Cshetra-samasa, Jangal-cshetra and Jar-chandi, all implying the woody country. In the Company’s Registers, they are called the Junglemehals or forest-cantons.

According to Major Dow’s history, when the emperor Firose III, in the year 1358, was returning from Bengal, he passed through the Padmavati forest, which is one of the old names of Patna, once the metropolis of that country. These forests abounded with elephants, and the emperor caught many.
I have not been able to learn, on what authority Major Wilford calls Patna by the name of Padmavati, the residence of Nanda, king of India in the 4th century before Christ, and this denomination for Patna is not known to such, as I have consulted...

-- Chapter II. History of the Province of Behar, by Montgomery Martin, 1838

For a similar reason, the mountains and forests of Jhar-chand are called, in the Peutingerian tables, the Lymodus mountains, abounding with elephants, and placed there to the south of the Ganges.
Tabula Peutingeriana (Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated itinerarium (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the cursus publicus, the road network of the Roman Empire.

The map is a 13th-century parchment copy of a possible Roman original. It covers Europe (without the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles), North Africa, and parts of Asia, including the Middle East, Persia, and India. According to one hypothesis, the existing map is based on a document of the 4th or 5th century that contained a copy of the world map originally prepared by Agrippa during the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). However, Emily Albu has suggested that the existing map could instead be based on an original from the Carolingian period.

Named after the 16th-century German antiquarian Konrad Peutinger, the map is now conserved at the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

-- Tabula Peutingeriana, by Wikipedia

They really were in the country of Magadh or Magd, as generally pronounced, and which was also the name of Patna and of south Bahar.
4. He claims the capital is Palimbothra or Palibothra, and that the city exists near the confluence of the Ganga and the Eranaboas (Hiranyabahu). But the Puranas are clear that all the 8 dynasties after the Mahabharata war had their capital at Girivraja (Rajagriha), located in the foothills of the Himalayas. There is no mention of Pataliputra in the Puranas. So, the assumption made by Sir William that Palimbothra is Pataliputra has no basis in fact and is not attested by any piece of evidence. If the Greeks could pronounce the first P in (Patali) they could certainly have pronounced the second p in Putra, instead of bastardising it as Palimbothra. Granted the Greeks were incapable of pronouncing any Indian names, but there is no reason why they should not be consistent in their phonetics.

-- Historical Dates From Puranic Sources, by Prof. Narayan Rao

Much information concerning India was derived from Arabian merchants and sailors, by whom the Greek and Roman fleets were chiefly manned. These to the names of countries prefixed the Arabic article Al, as in Al-tibet, Al-sin, &c.: thus they said Al-mogd for Magadh, Al-murica and Al-aryyaca, for Mura or Murica and Aryyaca, from which the Greeks made Limyrica and Lariaca. El-maied or Patna is placed, in the above tables, 250 Roman miles to the eastward of the confluence of the Jumna with the Ganges, and its name is written there Elymaide. These forests are called Ricshavan, or bear forests, and the inhabitants Bhallata or Bhallatha, bear hunters or bear killers.* [Maha-bharat, Bhishma, section and commentary.] These are the Phyllitoe of Ptolemy, and the Bulloits of Captain Robert Covert. There were also the Dryllo-phyllitoe, probably from some place called Derowly: the Condali now the Gonds (as Bengala, from Banga) were part of the Phyllitoe. This shews that these bear hunters were spread over a most extensive region.

As these extensive forests abound with snakes, the country is called in Sanscrit, Ahi-cshetra, or snake country, and Ahi-chhatra, from the snakes spreading there their umbrellas or hoods. In the spoken dialects, they say Aic-het and Aic-shet. The country and mountains of Aic-shet are well known all over the peninsula, according to Pr. F. Buchanan in his account of Mysore, Ptolemy gives to the mountains of south Bahar and in the western parts of Bengal the name of Uxentus, obviously from Aic-shet. In the southern parts, or in Burra-nagpur, and adjacent countries, he calls them Adisathrus from Ahichhatra. The country about the Vindhyan hills, from Rajamehal to Chunar, is divided into Antara-giri, or within the hills, and Bahira-giri, or without the hills, and this last is applied to the country to the south of Patna along the Ganges.
Image
India River Map

Now let us pass to the rivers, and l shall describe first, those on the right of the Ganges, then the rivers on the left of it; and I shall conclude this section with an account of the Ganges itself. This I believe is the best way, as it will obviate many repetitions.

The first river of note below Hurdwar, and on the right side of the Ganges, is the Calindi, or Calini, for both are used indifferently by the natives, and which falls into the Ganges near Canoge. She is considered as the younger sister of the Yamuna: hence it is called the lesser Yamuna, or Calindi. This accounts for Ptolemy mistaking it for the elder or greater Yamuna, and making but one river of the two; Don Joan de Barros did the same when he says that Canoge was at the confluence of the Jamuna with the Ganges. Mr. D'Anville, better informed, removed the greater Jumna to its proper place; but carried along with it Canoge, which accordingly he placed near Allahabad, at least in his first maps.

The royal road from the Indus[???] to Palibothra crossed this river at a place called Calini-pacsha [Kalinipaxa], according to Megasthenes, and now probably Khoda-gunge; Calini-pacsha in Sanscrit signifies a place near the Calini.
The other journeys made thence (from the Hyphasis) for Seleukos Nikator are as follows: — 168 miles to the Hesidrus, and to the river Jomanes as many (some copies add 5 miles); from thence to the Ganges 112 miles. 119 miles to Rhodopha (others give 325 miles for this distance). To the town Kalinipaxa 167— 500. Others give 265 miles. Thence to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges 625 miles (many add 13 miles), and to the town Palimbothra 425. To the mouth of the Ganges 738 miles.*

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., 1877

The next is the blue Yamuna [Yamuna/Jamuna: Wiki] or Calindi [Kalindi/"Yamuna {Kalindi} is one of the ashtabharya {8 wives} Lord Krishna": Wiki], the daughter of the sun, the sister of the last Manu, and also of Yama or Samana, our Pluto or Summanus. Her relationship with the lesser Calindi, or Calini, is not noticed by the Pauranics, though otherwise well known. In the spoken dialects it is called Jamuna, Jumna, and Jubuna particularly in Bengal. It is called Diamuna by Ptolemy, Jomanes by Pliny, and Jobares by Arrian, probably for Jobanes or Jubuna. It is called Calindi because it has its source in the hilly country of Calinda, called Culinda in the Geographical Commentaries on the Maha-bharata.[???] It is the Culindrine of Ptolemy from Culindan, a derivative from Culinda.

The confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna at Prayaga is called Triveni by the Pauranics; because three rivers are supposed to meet there; but the third is by no means obvious to the sight. It is the famous Sarasvati, which comes out of the hills to the west of the Yamuna, passes close to Thaneser, loses itself in the great sandy desert, and re-appears at Prayag, humbly oozing from under one of the towers of the fort, as if ashamed of herself. Indeed she may blush at her own imprudence: for she is the goddess of learning and knowledge, and was then coming down the country with a book in her hand, when she entered the sandy desart, and unexpectedly was assailed by numerous demons, with frightful countenances, making a dreadful noise. Ashamed of her own want of foresight she sank into the ground, and re-appeared at Prayaga or Allahabad, for as justly observed, learning alone is insufficient.

Formerly she was in the region of the height, in the thirteenth æon.... It came to pass, when Pistis Sophia was in the thirteenth æon, in the region of all her brethren the invisibles, that is the four-and-twenty emanations of the great Invisible, -- it came to pass then by command of the First Mystery that Pistis Sophia gazed into the height. She saw the light of the veil of the Treasury of the Light, and she longed to reach to that region, and she could not reach to that region. But she ceased to perform the mystery of the thirteenth æon, and sang praises to the light of the height, which she had seen in the light of the veil of the Treasury of the Light.

It came to pass then, when she sang praises to the region of the height, that all the rulers in the twelve æons, who are below, hated her, because she had ceased from their mysteries, and because she had desired to go into the height and be above them all. For this cause then they were enraged against her and hated her, [as did] the great triple-powered Self-willed, that is the third triple-power, who is in the thirteenth æon, he who had become disobedient, in as much as he had not emanated the whole purification of his power in him, and had not given the purification of his light at the time when the rulers gave their purification, in that he desired to rule over the whole thirteenth æon and those who are below it.... [the great triple-powered Self-willed] emanated out of himself a great lion-faced power, and out of his matter in him he emanated a host of other very violent material emanations, and sent them into the regions below, to the parts of the chaos, in order that they might there lie in wait for Pistis Sophia and take away her power out of her.

-- Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Miscellany, Translated by G.R.S. Mead, 1921

These three rivers flow then together, as far as the southern Triveni in Bengal, forming the Triveni, or the three plaited locks: for their waters do not mix, but keep distinct all the way. The waters of the Yamuna are blue, those of the Sarasvati white, and the Ganges is of a muddy yellowish colour. These appearances are owing partly to the nature of the soil below, and above to the reflexion of light from the clouds.

The Tamasa, or dark river, from its being skirted, at least formerly, with gloomy forests, is called Tonsa or Tonso in the spoken dialects and by Ptolemy Touso or Tousoa.

It is not to be confounded with the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki]; for the Touso, according to him falls into the Ganges, above Cindia now Canti or Mirzapur. It is occasionally called Parnasa, as in the Vayu and* [Section of the earth.] Matsya-puranas; and at its confluence with the Ganges, there is a very ancient place, and fort called to this day Parnasa.

The next river is the hateful Carmmanasa, so called, because, by the contact alone of its waters, we lose at once the fruit of all our good works. Its source is in that part of the Vindhya hills called in the Puranas Vindhya-maulica, which implies the heads, peaks or summits of the original mountains of Vindhya.

This mountain presumed once to rear his head above that of Himalaya, and thus consigned it and the intermediate country to total darkness. One day Vindhya, perceiving the sage Agastya his spiritual guide, prostrated himself to the ground before him as usual, when the sage as a punishment for his insolence, ordered him to remain in that posture. We had such mountains formerly in the west, which kept the greatest part of Europe in constant darkness, and which must have met with a similar fate, though not recorded. All the ground he covers with his huge frame is denominated Mauli, or the heads or peaks of Vindhya, and is declared to be the original Vindhya, which gives its name to the whole range, from sea to sea, and is supposed to extend from the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki] to the Tonsa. As the Carmmanasa comes from the country of Mauli, there is then a strong presumption, that it is the river Omalis of Megasthenes: thus the great river, which he calls Commenasis, is the Sarayu, and is so called, because it comes from the country of Comanh, or Almora. The river Cacuthis of the same author is the Puna-puna, [Punpun: Wiki], and is so called because it flows through the country of Cicata. It is also called Magadhi by the Pauranics, for a similar reason. In this manner the Yamuna is also called Calindi, because it comes from the hilly country of Calinda, as I observed before.

The waters of the river Mauli were originally as pure, and beneficial to mankind, as those of any river in the country. However they were long after infected and spoiled through a most strange and unheard of circumstance, in consequence of which its present name was bestowed upon it.

Tri-sancu was a famous and powerful king, who lived at a very early period, and through religious austerities, and spells, presumed to ascend to heaven with his family. The gods, enraged at his insolence, opposed him, and he remains suspended half way with his head downwards. From his mouth issues a bloody saliva, of a most baneful nature. It falls on Vindhya, and gives to these mountains a reddish hue: hence they are called Rohita or Lohita, the red and bloody hills in the vicinity of Rotas. It is unnecessary to remark, that this infectious saliva, mixing with the waters of the river Mauli, would naturally infect, and render them most inimical to religious purposes. This legend is well known; but the best account I ever saw is in the Maha-Ramayana, in a dialogue between Agastya and Hanuman.

The next is the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], or red river: in the Puranas it is constantly called Sona, and I believe never otherwise. In the Amara cosa, and other tracts, I am told, it is called Hiranya-bahu, implying the golden arm, or branch of a river, or the golden canal or channel. These expressions imply an arm or branch of the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], which really forms two branches before it falls into the Ganges. The easternmost, through the accumulation of sand, is now nearly filled up, and probably will soon disappear.

The epithet of golden does by no means imply that gold was found in its sands. It was so called, probably, on account of the influx of gold and wealth arising from the extensive trade carried on through it; for it was certainly a place of shelter for all the large trading boats during the stormy weather and the rainy season.

In the extracts from Megasthenes by Pliny and Arrian, the Sonus and Erannoboas appear either as two distinct rivers, or as two arms of the same river. Be this as it may, Arrian says that the Erannoboas was the third river in India, which is not true. But I suppose that Megasthenes meant only the Gangetick provinces: for he says that the Ganges was the first and largest. He mentions next the Commenasis or Sarayu, from the country of Commanh, as a very large river. The third large river is then the Erannoboas or river Sona[???].

Ptolemy, finding himself peculiarly embarrassed with regard to this river, and the metropolis of India situated on its banks, thought proper to suppress it entirely. Others have done the same under similar distressful circumstances. It is however well known to this day, under the denomination of Hiranya-baha, even to every school boy, in the Gangetick provinces, and in them there is no other river of that name.[???!!!]


The origin of the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], and of the Narmada, is thus described by F. Tieffenthatler, on the authority of an English officer, who surveyed it about the year 1771* [Beschreibung von Hindoostan, &c. p. 298. Some account of it is given also, from native authorities by Captain Blunt, Asiatick Researches, Vol. 7th p. 100.]

according to an English Engineer, who went from Allahabad to the source of the Narmada, there are three rivers, which have their origin from a pool eight yards long and six broad, and surrounded by a border of brick. This pool is in the middle of the village of Amarcantaca. Above it is a rising ground about fifty yards high, on which Brahmens have built houses. The Narmada flows from the said pool, a mile and half towards the east, then falls with violence down a declivity of about twenty-six yards, and then runs with velocity towards a village called Capildara, and from this place through an extensive forest, and then turning towards the west it goes to Garamandel, and thence into the sea. In coming out of the above pool it is one yard broad.

The Sone makes its first appearance about half a mile from the pool, and then runs through a very narrow bed, down a declivity of about twenty-five yards. Five miles thence it is lost in the sands; then collecting itself again into one body, it becomes a considerable stream, and goes to Rhotas. The Juhala (Johila) is first seen about three miles from the pool, and is but an insignificant stream.


Tieffenthaler has omitted the name of the officer, but it was William Bruce, a Major in the Company’s service, and mentioned by Major Rennel.† [See Memoir of a map, &c. p. 234.]

The next river is the Puna-puna, [Punpun: Wiki], which signifies again and again, in a mystical sense[???]; for it removes sins again and again. It is a most holy stream, and is called also Magadha, because it flows through the country of Magadha or Cicata. Hence this river might be called also Cicati, and it is the Cacuthis of Megasthenes. Then comes the Phalgu, the Fulgo of the maps. I thought formerly, that it was the anonymous river of Ptolemy, which he derives from the mountainous regions of Uxentos, in Hindi, Aicshet, from the Sanscrit Ahicshetra. Our author has pretty well pointed out its confluence with the Ganges near Mudgir, where it receives another river from the south, called the Kewle in the maps, and which is really the anonymous stream of that author, as it appears from several towns on its banks: but Ptolemy has lengthened its course beyond measure; as I shall show hereafter.

Let us now proceed to the Sulacshni, or Chandravati, according to the Cshetra-samasa. It is now called the river Chandan, because it flows through the Van or groves of Chandra, in the spoken dialects Chandwan, or Chandan. In the maps it is called Goga, which should be written Cauca, because according to the above tract, it falls into the Ganges, at a place called Cucu, and in a derivative form Caucava, Caucwa, or Cauca. It flows a little to the eastward of Bhagalpur: but the place, originally so called, has been long ago swallowed up by the Ganges, along with the town of Bali-gram. In the Jina-vilas[???], it is called Aranya-baha[!!!], or the torrent from the wilderness, being really nothing more.
The next is the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], or red river: in the Puranas it is constantly called Sona, and I believe never otherwise. In the Amara cosa, and other tracts, I am told, it is called Hiranya-bahu, implying the golden arm, or branch of a river, or the golden canal or channel. These expressions imply an arm or branch of the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], which really forms two branches before it falls into the Ganges.

The other rivers, as far as Tamlook, are from the Cshetra-samasa. The Rada, now the Bansli [Bansloi: Wiki], falls into the Ganges near Jungypur [Jangipur: Wiki]. I believe it should be written Radha, because it flows through the country of that name.

The Dwaraca [Dwarka: Wiki] is next: then, the Mayuracshi [Mayurakshi: Wiki], or with the eyes of a Mayura, or peacock [Peacock eyes: Wiki]; this is the river More. To the N.E. of Jemuyacandi are the following small rivers, the Gocarni, and beyond this the Chila, and the Grivamotica, in the spoken dialects Garmora. Their path towards the Ganges is winding and intricate.

The next river is the Bacreswari [Bakreshwar: Wiki], which comes from the hot wells of Bacreswara-mahadeva, or with the crooked Linga. These hot wells are of course a most famous and holy place of worship. It falls into the Ganges above Catwa, and it is called in the maps Babla.

The Aji, or resplendent river, is the next: its name at full length is Ajavati or Ajamati, full of resplendence. The Ajmati, as it is pronounced, is the Amystis of Megasthenes, instead of Asmytis. It fell into the Ganges, according to Arrian, near a town called Catadupa, the present, and real name of which is Cata-dwipa; but it is more generally called Catwa. The Aji is called also Ajaya, Ajayi and Ajasa, in the Galava-Tantra.[???] As Ajaya may be supposed to signify invincible, it is declared, that whatever man bathes in its waters, thereby becomes unconquerable.

The next river is the Damodara [Damodar: Wiki], one of the sacred names of Vishnu, and according to the Cshetra-samasa, it is the Vedasmriti, or Vedavati of the Puranas. Another name for it is Devanad, especially in the upper parts of its course. In the spoken dialects it is called Damoda or Damodi. It is the Andomatis of Arrian, who says that it comes, as well as the Cacuthis, now the Puna-puna [Punpun: Wiki], from the country of the Mandiadini, in Sanscrit Manda-bhagya or Manda-dhanya.

The Dariceswari, or Daricesi, is called Dwaracesi in the Gatava-Tantra.[???] It is the Dalkisor of the maps, near Bishenpur. It is so called from Dariceswara-mahadeva.[???]

Then comes the Silavati, Sailavati, or Sailamati* [In Sanscrit the words va, vati, or mati, man, and mant originally signify, in composition, likeness; but in many instances they imply fullness, abundance. In Latin we knew Farcimen, farcimentum likewise, &c.] called simply Sailaya by the natives, and Selai in the maps. It is the subject of several pretty legends, and a damsel born on its banks, and called also Sailamati from that circumstance, makes a most conspicuous figure in the Vrihatcatha. It is the Solomatis of Megasthenes.

The next river is the Cansavati, called Cansaya by the natives, and Cassai in the maps. The three last rivers joining together form the Rupa-Narayana, or with the countenance of him, whose abode is in the waters, and who is Vishnu.

Then comes the Suvarna-recha [Subarnarekha/Swarnarekha: Wiki], or Hiranya-recha, that is to say the golden streak [Subarnarekha, meaning "streak of gold" found in the riverbed: Wiki]. It is called also in the Puranas, in the list of rivers, Suctimati, flowing from the Ricsha, or bear mountains. Its name signifies abounding with shells, in Sanscrit Sucti, Sancha, or Cambu.

From Cambu, or Cambuja, in a derivative form, comes the Cambuson mouth of Ptolemy and which, he thought, as well as many others till lately, communicated with the Ganges, of even was a branch of it.

The Suvarna-recha, it is true, does not fall into the Ganges any more than the four rivers, which I am going to mention; but they are so situated, that it is necessary to give some account of them, for the better understanding of this Geographical Essay. Of these four rivers the first is the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], which flows by Balasore, and is not noticed, as far as I know, in the Puranas.

The next is the Vaitarani, which runs by Yajapur, the Jaugepoor of the maps. In the upper part of its course it is called Cocila, and in the spoken dialects Coil.

There are two rivers of that name, the greater and the lesser; this last is I believe the Salundy of the maps. The greater Vaitarani is generally called Chittrotpala in the Puranas. The third is the Brahmani, called Sancha in the upper part of its course. This and the Vaitarani come from the district of Chuta-Nagpur.

The fourth river is the Maha-nada or Maha-nadi [Mahanadi/Hirakud Dam: Wiki], that is to say the great river. It is mentioned in the lists of rivers in the Puranas, but otherwise it is seldom noticed. It passes by Cataca.

Ptolemy considers the Cocila and Brahmani rivers as one, which he calls Adamas, or diamond river, and to the Maha-nadi he gives the name of Dosaron. He is however mistaken: the Maha-nadi is the diamond river, and his Dosaron consists of the united streams of the Brahmani and the Cocila, and is so called because they come from the Dasaranya, also Dasarna, or the ten forest-cantons. He might indeed have been led into this mistake very easily, for the Brahmani and Cocila come from a diamond country in Chuta-Nagpur, and in Major Rennell’s general map of India, these diamond mines towards the source of these two rivers are mentioned, and seem to extend over a large tract of ground.

Before we pass over to the other side of the Ganges, let us consider the rivers which fall into the Yamuna. The first river is the Goghas, to be pronounced Goghus, which passes close to Amara, or Amere near Jaypur. It comes from the east, and is first noticed at a place called Ichrowle, as it passes to the north of it, at some distance. It winds then towards the S.W. and goes towards Amere and Jaypur, thence close to Bagroo, when it turns to the south, and soon after to the S.E. The village of Ichrowle, being near the Goghus, is also called Goghus after it, or Cookus, as it is written in Arrowsmith's map: but it is considered by that famous geographer, as a different place from Ichrowle.[!!!] This river is called Damiadee[???], by some of our writers of the seventeenth century, and is supposed by them to come from the mountainous district of Hindoon, and then to flow close to that city towards the west, and to fall into the Indus at Bacar, according to Captain R. Covert, who was there I believe in the year 1609 or 1610. This is by no means a new idea, for this is the river without a name mentioned by Ptolemy, who places, near its source, a town called Gagasmira, in which the names of the Goghas, and of the town of Amere, are sufficiently obvious. Some respectable travellers, who have occasionally visited that country, are of the same opinion, being deceived by seeing that river flowing towards the west a considerable way.

The town of Hindoon still exists, and the inhabitants of the adjacent country who were formerly great robbers, trusting to their fastnesses among the hills, are still so, whenever they can plunder with safety. It is most erroneously called Hindour in Arrowsmith’s map, and I am sorry to observe that otherwise admirable work disfigured by bad orthography, the result of too much hurry and carelessness, and the errors are equally gross and numerous, and sometimes truly ludicrous. As to the Damiadee[???],* [See Andrew Brice's Dictionary ad vocem and others.] this appellation is now absolutely unknown. The first notice I had of the Goghas was from a native surveyor, whom I sent to survey the Panjab, and who accidentally passed through Jaypur, but remained there several days.

The Damiadee[???] was first noticed by the Sansons in France, but was omitted since by every geographer, I believe, such as the Sieur Robert, the famous D’Anville, &c; but it was revived by Major Rennell, under the name of Dummody. I think its real name was Dhumyati, from a thin mist like smoke, arising from its bed. Several rivers in India are so named: thus the Hiranya-baha, or eastern branch of the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], is called Cujjhati, or Cuhi† [Commentary on the Geog. of the M. Bh.] from Cuha, a mist hovering occasionally over its bed. As this branch of the Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki] has disappeared, or nearly so, this fog is no longer to be seen. I think, this has been also the fate of the Dhumyati, which is now absorbed by the sands. This Dhumyati, seen at Baccar by Capt. Covert, did not come from Hendown, but from some place in the desert, still unknown, but I suspect that it is the river, without name, placed, in Arrowsmith's map, to the E. N. E. of Jaysulmere. It passes near a village called Lauty or Latyanh, which village is said to be twenty Cos to the east of Jaysulmere, by the late Major D. Falvey, who travelled twice that way, in the years 1787 and 1780: according to him there is no river, nor branch of the Indus between Jaysulmere, and Baccar. He was a well informed man, who understood the country languages, and in his route he always took particular notice of the rivers which he crossed. The Damiadee is now called by the natives, Lohree[???] or Rohree[???], from a town of that name, near its confluence with the Indus. I am assured that, during the rains, the backwater from the Indus runs up the dry bed of a river for a space of three days. This dry bed is supposed to have been formerly the bed of a river formed by the united streams of the rivers Caggar, and Chitangh from the plains of Curu-cshetra, but this I think highly improbable.

The next is the Charmmanwati [Charmanwati: Wiki], or abounding with hides. It is often mentioned in the Puranas, and is called also Charmmabala, and Sivanada, in the spoken dialects Chambal and Seonad. It is sometimes represented as reddened with the bloody hides put to steep in its water.* [In the Megha Data[???] this river is said to have originated in the blood shed by Ranti Deva at the Gomedhas, or offerings of kine.]

The hides, under the name of Chembelis, were formerly an article of trade.* [See Dictionnaire de Commerce.] The country about its source is called Charmma-dwipa, which is certainly between waters or rivers, which abound in that country. There is a town called Sibnagara, or more generally Seonah, the town of Siva, after whom this river is denominated.

The Sipra, Sipra, Cshipra, called also the Avanti river, falls into the Chambal.

The Sindhu[???] or Sind[???], is occasionally mentioned in the Puranas, as well as the little river Para, commonly called Parvati, which, after winding to the north of Narwar, falls into the Sindhu near Vijayagar. It is famous for its noisy falls, and romantic scenes on its banks, and the numerous flocks of cranes and wild geese to be seen there, particularly at Buraicha west of Narwar. The next is the little river Pauja, which falls into the Yamuna, and is called in the spoken dialects Pauja, and in the maps Puhuj.

The Vetrarati [Betwa/Shuktimati, "In Sanskrit 'Betwa" is Vetravati": Wiki], or abounding with withies [a tough, flexible branch of an osier or other willow, used for tying, binding, or basketry.], is a most sacred river. Vetra or Betra is a withy, and so is Vithr in the old Saxon. In the spoken dialects and in English, the letter R is omitted; in Hindi they say Beit and in English With or withy. In the spoken dialects, it is called Betwa and Betwanti.

The river Dussaun,
which falls into the Vetravati is probably the Dasarna of the Pauranics.

The next river is that which we call the Cane: but its true name is Ceyan, and the author of the Cshetra-samasa says that it is the Criya, or Criyana of the Puranas, and called Ceyan in the spoken dialects. Another name for it is Crishna-ganga, which, according to the Varaha-purana flows by Calanjara.

Let us now pass to the rivers to the north of the Ganges, or on the left of it. The first is the Saravati, or full of reeds [mythical river: D.C. Sircar, 1971]: another name of the same import is Bana-ganga, this is used by natives: in the Maha-bharata, it is called Su-Vama, or most beautiful: its present name, and of the same import is Rama-ganga, or Ramya-ganga. In the Saravan, or Saraban, that is to say the thickets of reeds on its banks, Carticeya was born. This name is sometimes applied to the river itself, though improperly, and from Saraban, Ptolemy made Sarabon and Sarabos. It is called Sushoma, in the Bhagavat, or the most beautiful. It may be also translated the beautiful Shoma or Soma.

In the Amara-cosa, and commentary, it is called Sausami in a derivative form from Su-sami. It is declared there to be in the famous and extensive country of Usinara. The reason for its being introduced into that work is because there is in it a city called Cantha and Sau-sami-cant'ha. This word is of the neuter gender, provided the compound term be the name of a town in Usinara, else it is feminine. Example: Sau-sami-cantha, and Dacshina-cantha, names of towns; the first in Usinara, the other out of that country.* [Amara-cosa, and translation by Mr. Colebrooke, p. 385.] These two towns still exist: the first, in the late surveys made by order of Government, is placed on the western bank of the Rama-ganga, in 29° 7" of latitude: the other, or south Cantha, is in the district of Budayoon, and is the head place of the Purgunah of Kant according to the Ayin Acberi.* [Ayin Acberi, Vol. 2d Tucseem Jumma, p. 84.] There is little doubt but that the Soma or Sami is the Isamus of Strabo, the boundary of Menander's kingdom.† [Strabo Lib. 11, p. 516.]

The beautiful Vama was mentioned by Megasthenes, as a river falling into the Ganges, according to Pliny. This river consists of two branches, the Western is called Gangan, according to the late surveys made by order of Government; the eastern branch is the Ram-ganga, and they unite about twenty miles to the south of Rampoor. On the banks of the former lived the Gangani of Ptolemy[???] called Tangani in some copies.

The next river is the Gaura[???], Gauri[???], or Gaurani[???]. There are many rivers so called, but it is doubtful whether this was meant by the Pauranics. The inhabitants of the country call it so, this is sufficient authority, and it is probably the Agoranis of Megasthenes.
But I am unable to give with assurance of being accurate any information regarding the regions beyond the Hyphasis, since the progress of Alexander was arrested by that river. But to recur to the two greatest rivers, the Ganges and the Indus, Megasthenes states that of the two the Ganges is much the larger, and other writers who mention the Ganges agree with him; for, besides being of ample volume even where it issues from its springs, it receives as tributaries the river Kainas, and the Erannoboas, and the Kossoanos, which are all navigable. It receives, besides, the river Sonos and the Sittokatis, and the Solomatis, which are also navigable, and also the Kondochates, and the Sambos, and the Magon, and the Agoranis, and the Omalis. Moreover there fall into it the Kommenases, a great river, and the Kakouthis, and the Andomatis, which flows from the dominions of the Madyandinoi, an Indian tribe. In addition to all these, the Amystis, which flows past the city Katadupa, and the Oxymagis from the dominions of a tribe called the Pinzalai, and the Errenysis from the Mathai, an Indian tribe, unite with the Ganges.

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., 1877

The Gomati [Gumti/Gomti/Gumati/Gomati in Gangladesh: Wiki], or Vasishti[???] river, is called in the spoken dialects Gumti. About fifty miles above Lucknow it divides into two branches, which unite again below Jounpoor. The eastern branch retains the name of Gumti; the western branch is called Sambu and Sucti, and in the spoken dialects Sye, because it abounds with small shells. This is really the case, as I have repeatedly observed, whilst surveying, or travelling along its banks. They are all fossile, small and imbedded in its banks, and appear here and there when laid bare by the encroachments of the river. They consist chiefly of small cockles and periwinkles. Many of them look fresh, the rest are more or less decayed, and they are all empty. I know several other rivers so called, and for the same reason. In the spoken dialects, their name is pronounced Sye as here, Soy and Sui, at other places, from the Sanscrit Sucti. This river is not mentioned in any Sanscrit book that I ever saw, but I take it to be the Sambus of Megasthenes.

The next river is the Sarayu, called also Devica and Gharghara; in the spoken dialects Sarju, Deva, Deha and Ghaghra. The Pauranics consider these three denominations as belonging to the same river. The natives here are of a different opinion; they say that Dewa and Ghaghra are the names of the main stream, and the Sarju a different river as represented in Major Rennell’s maps. The Sarju comes from the mountains to the eastward of the Dewa, passes by Baraich, and joins the Dewa above Ayodhya or Oude, and then separating from it below that town it crosses over to the other side, that is to say to the westward of it, and falls into the Ganges at Bhrigurasrama, in the spoken dialects Bagrasan. In the Cshetra-samasa it is declared that the Gharghara is the true and real Sarayu, and that it is called Maha-sarayu or great Sarayu, and the other is the little Sarayu. According to the above Geographical Treatise[???], the Sarayu is also called Prema-bahini, or the friendly stream. Towards the west it sends a branch called in the Puranas Tamasi, and in the spoken dialectics and in the maps Tonsa: it is a most holy stream, and joins the lesser Saraya in the lower parts of its course.

It is omitted by Ptolemy, but it is the large river called by Megasthenes Commenases, or the Comaunish river, because it comes from the country of Comaunh, called also Almorah. It is called Ocdanes by Artemidorus as cited by Strabo, because it flows by the town and through the country of Oude, called Oeta by the poet Nonnus.

The Gharghara is called Gorgoris by the Anonymous of Ravenna: for thus I read, instead of Torgoris, as the original documents were in the Greek language, in which there is very little difference between the letters T and Greek [x].
The Ravenna Cosmography (Latin: Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia, lit. "The Cosmography of the Unknown Ravennese") is a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland, compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around 700 AD. Textual evidence indicates that the author frequently used maps as his source.

There are three known copies of the Cosmography in existence. The Vatican Library holds a 14th-century copy, there is a 13th-century copy in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the library at Basle University has another 14th-century copy. The Vatican copy was used as the source for the first publication of the manuscript in 1688 by Porcheron...

The naming of places in Roman Britain has traditionally relied on Ptolemy’s Geography, the Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table [The layout of the road network of the Roman Empire. The map is a 13th-century parchment copy of a possible Roman original. It covers Europe (without the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles), North Africa, and parts of Asia, including the Middle East, Persia, and India.], as the Cosmography was seen as full of corruptions, with the ordering of the lists of placenames being haphazard. However, there are more entries in the Cosmography than in the other documents, and so it has been studied more recently...

Part of the difficulty with the text is its corruption, which probably results from the author failing to understand his sources, or not appreciating the purpose for which they were written. His original sources may have been of poor quality, resulting in many curious-looking names appearing in the lists. Equally, there are some obvious omissions, although the author was not attempting to produce a complete list of places, as his introduction states: "In that Britain we read that there were many civitates and forts, of which we wish to name a few." The suggestion that he was using maps is bolstered by phrases such as "next to" which occur frequently, and at one point he states: "where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from Ocean to Ocean." Richmond and Crawford were the first to argue that rather than being random, the named places are often clustered around a central point, or spread out along a single road. For most of England, the order seems to follow a series of zig-zags, but this arrangement is less obvious for the south-west and for Scotland.

-- Ravenna Cosmography, by Wikipedia

The Rava, or noisy river, is mentioned in the lists of countries in the Puranas, otherwise it is but little known. In a derivative form it becomes Ravati, and in the spoken dialects Rabti and Rapti.

The Gandaci, or Gandacavati, is called Gandac in the spoken dialects, and it is the Condochates of Megasthenes. This river is left out by Ptolemy; but it is obvious, at least to me, that he had documents about it and the Sarayu, which either he did not well understand, or were very defective.
B.C. 325... B.C. 315... At this period the capital of India was Pataliputra or Palibrotha, which was situated on the Ganges, at the junction of the Erranaboas or Alaos river. The former name has been identified with the Sanskrit Hiranyabahu, an epithet which has been applied both to the Gandak [Gandaki] and to the Sone. The latter name can only refer to the Hi-le-an of the Chinese travellers, which was to the north of the Ganges, and was there undoubtedly the Gandak [Gandaki].

-- The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, by Surgeon General Edward Balfour, 1885

All rivers to the north of the Ganges flow in general towards the south, declining more or less toward the east. Here Ptolemy has a river, which, according to him, flows directly towards the south-west, and he has very properly bestowed no name upon it. What is remarkable is that the source of this imaginary river is really that of the Gandaci, and its confluence [junction] with the Ganges is that of the Dewa. On its banks he has a town called Cassida, the Sanscrit name of which is Cushadha, or Cusadya, the same with Oude; and, as it were to complete the sum of blunders, he has placed Canogiza, or Canoge on its banks. According to Ptolemy, the source of this river is in the northern hills, at a place which he calls Selampura, (as it is written and accentuated in the Greek original), at the foot of mount Bepyrrhus, so called from numerous passes through it and called to this day Bhimpheri, synonymous with Bhay-pheri or the tremendous passes, as we have seen before. Selampoor is really a Sanscrit name of a place, Sailapura, or Sailampur, for both are grammatical, and are synonymous with Sailagram, and the obvious meaning, and we may say the only one of both, is the town of Saila, which signifies a rocky hill.

Enthusiasts, have endeavoured to frame etymologies suitable to the rank, and dignity of this stone, which is a deity, and is god in its own right, for it is Vishnu: but they are rejected by sober and dispassionate Pandits, as too far fetched, and sometimes ridiculous. The name of this stone is written Salagram, Sailagram, Saila-chacra, and Gandaci-Sila. People who go in search of the Salagram, travel as far as a place called Thacca-cote, at the entrance nearly of the snowy mountains. To the south of it is a village where they stop and procure provisions. This village was probably called Sailapur or Sailagram from its situation near a Saila or rocky hill, and from it this famous stone was denominated Sailagram, as well as the river. Thacca is mentioned in Arrowsmith’s map.

The origin of this rocky hill is connected with a most strange legend, which I shall give in the abstract.
Vishnu, unwilling to subject himself to the dreaded power and influence of the ruler of the planet Saturn, and having no time to lose, was obliged to have recourse to his Maya, or illusive powers, which are very great, and he suddenly became a rocky mountain. This is called Saila-maya, of a rocky mountain the illusive form: but Saturn soon found him out, and in the shape of a worm forced himself through, gnawing every part of this illusive body. For one year of Saturn was Vishnu thus tormented, and through pain and vexation he sweated most profusely, as may be supposed, particularly about the temples, from which issued two copious streams, the Crishna or black, and the Sweta-Gandaci, or white Gandaci; the one to the east, and the other to the west. After one revolution of Saturn, Vishnu resumed his own shape, and ordered this stone to be worshipped, which of course derives its divine right from itself, without any previous consecration, as usual in all countries in which images are worshipped.

There are four stones, which are styled Saila-maya, and are accordingly worshipped whenever they are found. The first is the Saila, or stone just mentioned; the second, which is found abundantly in the river Sona [Son/Sone: Wiki], is a figured stone, of a reddish colour, with a supposed figure of Ganesa in the shape of an elephant, and commonly called Ganesa-ca-pathar: the third is found in the Narmmada; and the fourth is a single stone or rock which is the Saila-maya, of the third part of the bow of Parasu-Rama, after it had been broken by Rama-chandra. It is still to be seen, about seven Cos to the N.E. of Janaca-pura in Taira-bhucta, at a place called Dhanuca-grama, or the village of the bow, occasionally called Saila-maya-pur, or grama, according to the Bhuvana-cosa.

The river Gandaca is so called because it proceeds from a mountain of that name. The people of Naypala call it Cundaci because it proceeds from the Cunda-sthala, or the two cavities, or depressions of the temples of Vishnu, in the shape of a mountain as I observed before.

It is also called Sala-grama, because of the stone of that name round in its bed. Another name for it is Narayani, because Vishnu or Narayana abides in its waters, in the shape of the above stone.


There is a place, near Janaca-pura, which as I observed before, it called Saila-maya-pura or Saila-maya-grama, and which becomes Saila-pura, or Saila-grama, in the spoken dialects.* [In the original MS. these words are written Sala-maya, Sati-pura and Sali-grama, that is to say, they have adopted the pronunciation of these words such as it is in the spoken dialects. This is occasionally the case in geographical books in the Sanscrit language.]

Some believe the Saila-gram to be the eagle stone: if so it is not a new idea; for Matthiolus, who lived I believe towards the latter end of the fifteenth century, says that eagles do keep most carefully such a stone by them, and that for this purpose they travel to India in order to procure it. For without it the eggs in their nests would infallibly rot and be spoiled.

The next river is the Bagmati [Bagmati/Kareh: Wiki] or Bangmati, that is to say, full of noises and sounds. According to the Himavat-chanda, a section of the Scanda-purana, it comes from two springs in the skirts of the peak of Siva. The eastern spring is the Bagmati, and the western is called after Harineswara or Harinesa, or the lord in the shape of an antelope. We read in the above section that Siva once thought proper to withdraw from the busy scenes of the world, and to live incognito in the shape of an ugly and deformed male antelope, that he might not be recognised by his wife, and by the gods, who he knew would immediately go in search of him, as he was one of the three grand agents of the world. He was not mistaken; for 10,000 years of the gods they searched for him all over the world but in vain. His lubricity at last led to the discovery, for some of the gods took particular notice of the behaviour of an ugly male antelope, and they wisely concluded that it was Siva himself in that shape. Since that time Siva is worshipped along the banks of the Bagmati under the title of Harineswara, or Harinesa. The peak we mentioned before is called to this day, according to Colonel Kirkpatrick, Sheopoory, the place or abode of Siva, or Seo. The pool, where he and his female friends used to allay their thirst, is called in the above Purana Mrigasringodaca, or Harinasringodaca, or the water of the peak of the antelope, meaning Siva in that shape. The western branch again flows into the Bagmati, and I believe that it once communicated its name Harinesi to that river; and similar instances occur occasionally in India. Hence I suppose that it is the Erineses of Megasthenes who besides says that it ran into the Ganges through the country of the Mathae. This country is that of Tirhut, called also in Sanscrit Maitha, and Maithila from a Raja whose father was called Mitha, and from him the son was called, in a derivative form, Maitha and Maithila.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:40 am

Part 3 of 4

The next river is the Camala [Kamala: Wiki], which retains its ancient name. The town of Dwara-bhanga was originally on its banks, according to the Bhuvana-cosa. It was formerly a very extensive town with a fort built at a very early period. What was its original name is unknown: for Dwara-bhanga signifies that the gate, either of the fort or of the palace of the Raja, had been destroyed, probably by a sudden overflowing of the river Camala. It was repeatedly destroyed during the wars of the natives with the Muselmans. It is now a small town, and the palace of the Rajas is no longer on the banks of the Camala but on the Bacaya, called in the maps Buckiah, a little to the westward of the old site of the town. It appears to me that the river Camala was from the town being on its banks called the Dwara-bhanga river, and synonymous with Dwara-baha[???]. It is then the river Tiberoboas and Taberuncus, for Tabero-bancus, mentioned in an account of the Brahmens by a certain Palladius who wrote in the latter end of the fourth century. The name of this town is written Dwara-bhanja and Dwara-bhanga, and also Dara-bhanga, and it is the Durbungah of the maps, and they all signify that the gate, or door, had been broken down or carried away. In scripture likewise the gate of a town or of a palace was no insignificant building: there were held public meetings, and it was also a court of justice. On the banks of the Camala was the native country of Calanus; for it is obvious from the above account that with regard to persons travelling from the west, this river was to the eastward of the Ganges. It appears also that the country on its banks was chiefly inhabited by Brahmens, or at least that they were in great numbers there; and this is very true of Tirhut. On the Divya-nadi or divine river, but more generally called the little Gandaci, is Pusha-gram, or the town of the sun in his character of the nourisher. It is called also Pusha-ghatt; and the founder was a worshipper of the sun. The inhabitants are Bhumiharas or husbandmen, and are very fond of horses. On the seventh of the month of Agrahayana, they worship their horses. This place was, it appears, famous at an early period for the breeding of horses, and there is now one of the Company’s studs: the place is generally called Poossah. To the S.W. of it is the river Nuna, which, having incurred the sun’s displeasure, was cursed by him, and its waters became poisonous.

The Causici [Kosi/Koshi, called Kausika in Rigveda and Kausiki in Mahabharata, formerly known as Kausiki after the sage Visvamatra who was a descendant of the sage Kusika, and had his hermitage on the banks of the Kosi: Wiki] comes next and is a large and famous river commonly called Cusa and Cusi. It is formed by the junction of seven large streams, between the two first ranges. They are all called Cusi, with an epithet peculiar to every one of them. The main branch is said to come from the hermitage of the sage Causica or Viswamitra, which place with a village in its vicinity is called Cusagrama, or Cusaganh, and this river Cusa or Causa is the Cosoagus or Cosoagon, in the objective case, mentioned by Megasthenes.

The next is the Bahuda [Bahuda River originates from Horsely Hills in Chittoor District, flows through Vayalpad, and enters Cuddapah District, where it joins with Pennar River: India9.com.], called also Mahoda in the Matsya-purana. In the list of rivers in the Maha-Bharata, we read Bahuda Maha-nadi. These denominations imply many waters, great waters, or the great river.

In the Tricanda-cosa[???] it is said to be called also Saita-Vahini, or the white river. Its present name is Dhabala or Dhabali, which is also a Sanscrit denomination of the same import. Another name for it is Arjjuni, synonymous with Dhabali. It consists of two branches, the greater, and the lesser. The greater is simply called the Maha-nada, and the lesser the Dhabali river. This I suppose to be the Sito-catis of Megasthenes[???], from the Sanscrit Sita-canti, to be pronounced Sito-canti or nearly so, and which signifies the river with a white resplendence, or shining white. This river, and its western branch, are mentioned in the Cshetra-samasa, where the author describing the country of Asama, and Cama-rupa, proceeds westward as far as the Tista, and says that the next river is the Sita-prabha [Seetha/Sita/Sitha: Wiki], brought from Himalaya by Saha-deva, and the next is the Sita brought from the hills by Brahma. Sita-prabha signifies shining white, and is the same with Sita-canti, or Maha-nadi. The Sita or white river, is obviously the Dhabali. This last was probably the original name, as it is still current among the natives.

Ptolemy mentions this river, but without any name; otherwise its course is tolerably well delineated. He makes it fall into the western branch of the Ganges, because he was unacquainted with the eastern one, or the Padma. He places its confluence between Tondota, and Celydna. Tondota is from the Sanscrit Tanda-hatt, or market place of Tanda, which still exists.
Celydna is from Ciritna or Cilitna-devi, worshipped at Cirit-cona, near Moorshedabad.* [Erroneously written Terete-coonah by Major Rennell, in his beautiful map of the island of Cossim-bazar.]

Through an obvious mistake in the longitude of the confluence, he [Ptolemy?] makes it protrude a great way to the westward of the two last places.

The next river is the Icshumati [Ichamati/Ichhamati: Wiki] so called, because the adjacent country abounds with Icshu or sugar-cane. It is also called in the Puranas Tritiya, because it divides into three branches or streams, in Sanscrit Tri-srota, as it is repeatedly called in the Cshetra-samasa. In the spoken dialects the letter R is invariably left out in the two word, which form this compound. We must say of course Tisota, from which comes Tista its present name.

The first or western branch is called Puruna-baha, or the old stream, and in the maps Purnabaha. The middle branch is named Atreyi, in the maps Atri: the third or easternmost is still called the Tista. It springs from the main body, a little above Sahib-gunge, passes to the north of Rung-poor, and falls into the Brahma-putra.

Ptolemy has noticed this river, and with a considerable degree of accuracy he has delineated the relative situation of what he supposed to be its source with regard to that of the Maha-nadi, as may be seen by comparing it with that part of Major Rennell’s atlas in which these two rivers are represented as coming out of the hills with a ridge between them, as in Ptolemy’s map.

Our author has left out the first and second branches, and has carried the whole body of the river at once, through the third branch into the Brahma-putra, which he calls Daonas, and this name he has also bestowed on the Tista.

The Icshumati is the Oxymatis of Megasthenes, for thus we should read instead of Oxymagis; the same substitution of [x] for T having taken place, that was noticed in a former instance.
In addition to all these, the Amystis, which flows past the city Katadupa, and the Oxymagis from the dominions of a tribe called the Pinzalai, and the Errenysis from the Mathai, an Indian tribe, unite with the Ganges.

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., 1877

It is also the Hypobarus of Ctesias who says that it is a river in India about two furlongs broad, and that its name in Hindi signifies producing every thing that is good, and that during thirty days it produces amber. A few lines after he says that this amber proceeds from trees called Sipachora. This word is variously written in different MSS. Some read Siptachora, and Pliny has Aphytacora* [Pliny Lib. 37. Cap. 2.] which, says he, signifies great sweetness, or very sweet. This last is the true reading, for it is obviously derived from the Sanscrit Mishtucara, to be pronounced in the spoken dialects Mitacora, and which signifies very sweet; from Mishta sweet, and Acara, which implies excellence, excellently sweet. This amber is the common sugar, of a light amber colour, transparent, and in crystals before it is thoroughly refined.

The river Hyparchos[???], called Hypobarus by Pliny, ferens omnia bona [Google translate: carrying all the good things], producing every thing that is good, is from the Sanscrit Sarva-vara, every thing good, to be pronounced Sabobara, for they say Sab or Sub for Sarva, all. There is a small river of that name mentioned in the Scanda-purana,† [Section of the Himavat-chanda.] which falls into the Bagmati. It is called Sarvarica from Sarva-vara, and in a derivative form Sarvarica or Sarbarica, producing every thing that is good. Hypobarus and Hyparchos are obviously corruptions from Subbara and Subharica, for the letter H is often substituted to the letter S; thus in Sanscrit we have Septa seven, Septem in Latin, Hepta in Greek and Heft in Persian.[???] Another name for this river is Guda[???], because the country on its banks produces abundantly Guda, or raw sugar.

Caratoya [Karatoya: Wiki] [is] a sacred stream in the north of Bengal. At the wedding of Siva and Parvati the water, which was poured upon their hands, fell to the ground and became a river called Cara-toya from Cara the hand, and Toya water. It is the Curratya of the maps.

Let us now pass to the Brahma-putra, [Brahmaputra: Wiki] or Brahmi-tanaya, that is to say the son of Brahma, or rather his efflux. The account of this river, and of its various names, is somewhat intricate, but above all its strange origin which cannot well be passed unnoticed. It is to be found in several Puranas, but the Calica is the most explicit on the subject; and I shall give it here in the abstract.

Brahma, in the course of his travels, riding upon a goose, passed by the hermitage of the sage Santanu, who was gone into the adjacent groves, and his wife, the beautiful and virtuous Amogha, was alone. Struck with her beauty he made proposals, which were rejected with indignation, and Amogha threatened to curse him.

Brahma, who was disguised like a holy mendicant, began to tremble and went away: however, before he turned round, his efflux fell to the ground at the door of the hermitage. The efflux is describe, as Hataca, like gold, Cara-hataca, radiant and shining like gold, which is the colour of Brahma; it is always in motion like quicksilver. On Santanu’s return Amogha did not fail to acquaint him with Brahma’s behaviour: he gave due praise to her virtue and resolution, but observed at the same time that with regard to a person of such a high rank as Brahma, who is the first of beings in the world, she might have complied with his wishes without any impropriety. This is no new idea; however Amogha reprobated this doctrine with indignation. I shall pass over how this efflux was conveyed into her womb by her husband. The Nile was also the efflux of Osiris, and probably the legend about it was equally obscene and filthy. In due time she was delivered of a fine boy amidst a vast quantity of water, and who was really the son of Brahma, and exactly like him. Then Santanu made a Cunda, or hole like a cup, and put the child and waters into it. The waters soon worked their way below to the depth of five Yojans, or forty miles nearly, and as far as Patal, or the infernal regions. This Cunda, or small circular pond, or lake, is called Brahmacunda, and the river issuing from it Brahma-putra, the son of Brahma. The water in it is in a constant motion, always violently agitated, as may be supposed; and wonders are related of this place.

From this pool issues a stream which forces its way through the famous chasm and pass of Prabhu-cuthara, and rushes through the valley of Asama. It receives from the north the Lohita, which flows through the country of Tibet, then through Asama and Bengal.

This pool is occasionally mentioned in the Puranas, and always placed at the extremities of the east, near the Udaya, or mountains of the rising sun.

In the Ambica-chanda it is said that the sun performs there his ablutions before he appears above the horizon.
It is called Sadya-hrada, or the deep pool where the sun gets rid of his weariness, Sad or Sadi, after his fatiguing task. For this reason the Brahma-putra, which comes out of this pool, is called Gabhasti, or the river of the sun.

In the Cshetra-samasa, it is said, that this pass is sixteen Yojans
, or sixty-four Cos, to the eastward of Godagram, or Gorganh: and the natives of Asama, with several pilgrims whom I have consulted, reckon the distance to be about seventy Cos; the difference in the present case is trifling, and the whole distance may be about 125 British miles.

From the above pass to the Cunda, the journey is always performed in eight days, because travellers must keep together on account of the inhabitants, who are savages, great thieves, and very cruel. There are fixed and regular stages, with several huts of the natives. The kings of Asama are sometimes obliged to chastise them; but in general they contrive  to secure the friendship and protection of their chiefs by trifling presents. The country is covered with extensive forests, with a few spots cleared up with very little industry and skill. Tygers are very numerous, and very bold.
On December 13th we reached Labrang Trova, a “settlement” consisting of a single house.... The Ponpo was away, but his brother acted for him. The latter began to ask us questions...For the first time we admitted that we wished to go to Lhasa, for at this point we were at a safe distance from the caravan route. Our man shook his head in horror and tried to make us understand that the quickest and best way to Lhasa was by way of Shigatse....

He said we had two alternatives. The first was to follow a route which was very difficult. It would take us over many passes and tracts of uninhabited country. The second was easier but it meant going through the middle of the Khampas’ country. There it was again, the name “Khampa,” spoken in a mysterious tone, which we had already heard from so many nomads. “Khampa” must mean an inhabitant of the eastern province of Tibet, which is called Kham. But you never heard the name mentioned without an undertone of fear and warning. At last we realised that the word was synonymous with “robber.”

We, unfortunately... chose the easier route.

We had been some time on the way when a man came towards us wearing clothes which struck us as unusual. He spoke a dialect different from that of the local nomads. He asked us curiously whence? and whither? and we told him our pilgrimage story. He left us unmolested and went on his way. It was clear to us that we had made the acquaintance of our first Khampa.

A few hours later we saw in the distance two men on small ponies, wearing the same sort of clothes... Long after dark we came across a tent. Here we were lucky as it was inhabited by a pleasant nomad family, who hospitably invited us to come in and gave us a special fireplace for ourselves.

In the evening we got talking about the robbers. They were, it seems, a regular plague. Our host had lived long enough in the district to make an epic about them. He proudly showed us a Mannlicher rifle for which he had paid a fortune to a Khampa — five hundred sheep, no less! But the robber bands in the neighbourhood considered this payment as a sort of tribute and had left him in peace ever since.

He told us something about the life of the robbers. They lived in groups in three or four tents which serve as headquarters for their campaigns. These are conducted as follows: heavily armed with rifles and swords they force their way into a nomad’s tent and insist on hospitable entertainment on the most lavish scale available. The nomad in terror brings out everything he has. The Khampas fill their bellies and their pockets and taking a few cattle with them, for good measure, disappear into the wide-open spaces. They repeat the performance at another tent every day till the whole region has been skinned. Then they move their headquarters and begin again somewhere else. The nomads, who have no arms, resign themselves to their fate, and the Government is powerless to protect them in these remote regions. However, if once in a way a district officer gets the better of these footpads in a skirmish, he is not the loser by it for he has a right to all the booty. Savage punishment is meted out to the evildoers, who normally have their arms hacked off. But this does not cure the Khampas of their lawlessness. Stories were told of the cruelty with which they sometimes put their victims to death. They go so far as to slaughter pilgrims and wandering monks and nuns. A disturbing conversation for us! What would we not have given to be able to buy our host’s Mannlicher!...

Next morning we went on our way, not without misgivings, which increased when we saw a man with a gun, who seemed to be stalking us from the hillside... the man eventually disappeared. In the evening we found more tents — first a single one and then a cluster of others.

We called to the people in the first tent. A family of nomads came out. They refused with expressions of horror to admit us and pointed distractedly to the other tents. There was nothing for it but to go on. We were no little surprised to receive a friendly welcome at the next tent. Everyone came out. They fingered our things and helped us to unload — a thing which no nomads had ever done — and suddenly it dawned on us that they were Khampas. We had walked like mice into the trap...

We had hardly sat down by the fire when the tent began to fill with visitors from the neighbouring tents, come to see the strangers. We had our hands full trying to keep our baggage together. The people were as pressing and inquisitive as gipsies. When they had heard that we were pilgrims they urgently recommended us to take one of the men, a particularly good guide, with us on our journey to Lhasa. He wanted us to go by a road somewhat to the south of our route and, according to him, much easier to travel. We exchanged glances. The man was short and powerful and carried a long sword in his belt. Not a type to inspire confidence. However, we accepted his offer and agreed on his pay. There was nothing else to do, for if we got on the wrong side of them they might butcher us out of hand.

The visitors from the other tents gradually drifted away and we prepared to go to bed. One of our two hosts insisted on using my rucksack as a pillow and I had the utmost difficulty in keeping it by me. They probably thought that it contained a pistol. If they did, that suited our book and I hoped to increase their suspicion by my behaviour. At last he stopped bothering me. We remained awake and on our guard all through the night. That was not very difficult, though we were very weary, because the woman muttered prayers without ceasing. It occurred to me that she was praying in advance for forgiveness for the crime her husband intended to commit against us the next day. We were glad when day broke.... Our hosts followed our movements with glowering faces and looked like attacking me when I handed our packs out of the tent to Aufschnaiter. However, we shook them off and loaded our yak. We looked out for our guide but to our relief he was nowhere to be seen. The Khampa family advised us urgently to keep to the southern road, as the nomads from that region were making up a pilgrim caravan to Lhasa. We promised to do so and started off in all haste.

We had gone a few hundred yards when I noticed that my dog was not there. He usually came running after us without being called. As we looked round we saw three men coming after us. They soon caught us up and told us that they too were on the way to the tents of the nomad pilgrims and pointed to a distant pillar of smoke. That looked to us very suspicious as we had never seen such smoke-pillars over the nomad tents. When we asked about the dog they said that he had stayed behind in the tent. One of us could go and fetch him. Now we saw their plan. Our lives were at stake. They had kept the dog back in order to have a chance of separating Aufschnaiter and me, as they lacked the courage to attack us both at the same time....

As though we suspected nothing we went on a short way in the same direction, talking rapidly to one another. The two men were now on either side of us while the boy walked behind. Stealing a glance to right and left we estimated our chances, if it came to a fight. The two men wore double sheepskin cloaks, as the robbers do, to protect them against knife-thrusts, and long swords were stuck in their belts...

Something had to happen. Aufschnaiter thought we ought first to change our direction, so as not to walk blindly into a trap. No sooner said than done. Still speaking, we abruptly turned away.

The Khampas stopped for a moment in surprise; but in a moment rejoined us and barred our way, asking us, in none too friendly tones, where we were going. “To fetch the dog,” we answered curtly. Our manner of speaking seemed to intimidate them...

When we got near the tents, the woman came to meet us leading the dog on a leash. After a friendly greeting we went on, but this time we followed the road by which we had come to the robber camp. There was now no question of going forward — we had to retrace our steps. Unarmed as we were, to continue would have meant certain death. After a forced march we arrived in the evening at the home of the friendly family with whom we had stayed two nights before....

Next morning we worked out our new travel-plan. There was nothing for it but to take the hard road which led through uninhabited country. We bought more meat from the nomads, as we should probably be a week before seeing a soul.

To avoid going back to Labrang Trova we took a short cut entailing a laborious and steep ascent but leading, as we hoped, to the route we meant to follow. Halfway up the steep slope we turned to look at the view and saw, to our horror, two men following us in the distance. No doubt they were Khampas. They had probably visited the nomads and been told which direction we had taken.

What were we to do? We said nothing, but later confessed to one another that we had silently made up our minds to sell our lives as dearly as possible. We tried at first to speed up our pace, but we could not go faster than our yak, who seemed to us to be moving at a snail’s pace. We kept on looking back, but could not be sure whether our pursuers were coming up on us or not. We fully realised how heavily handicapped we were by our lack of arms. We had only tent-poles and stones to defend ourselves with against their sharp swords. To have a chance we must depend on our wits. ... So we marched on for an hour which seemed endless, panting with exertion and constantly turning round. Then we saw that the two men had sat down. We hurried on towards the top of the ridge, looking as we went for a place which would, if need be, serve as good fighting ground. The two men got up, seemed to be taking counsel together and then we saw them turn round and go back....

When we reached the crest of the ridge we understood why our two pursuers had preferred to turn back. Before us lay the loneliest landscape I had ever seen. A sea of snowy mountain heights stretched onwards endlessly. In the far distance were the Transhimalayas and like a gap in a row of teeth was the pass which we calculated would lead us to the road we aimed at... we went on marching even after nightfall. Luckily the moon was high and, with the snow, gave us plenty of light. We could even see the distant ranges.

I shall never forget that night march...

-- Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer


The stages are very long, and every day’s march is reckoned between nine and ten Cos, and as there is, I believe, a resting day, the whole distance may amount to about sixty-five Cos, or 120 British miles.

There are in Asama [Assam: Wiki] two rivers called Lohita [mythological river, actually part of the Brahmaputra: IndiaZone.com], and both are mentioned in the Matsya-purana, in the list of rivers; the Chacra-Lohita or greater Lohita, and the Cshudra-Lohita, or the lesser one. This last falls into the Brahma-putra near Yogi-gopa, and is noticed in the Bengal Atlas. The original name of the greater Lohita is Sama or Sam, and this is conformable to a passage in the Varaha-mihira-sanhita. There is a long list of countries, and among those situated in the easternmost parts of India, there is a Sama-tata, or country situated on the banks of the river Sama. This country of Sam is probably the country of Sym of Haitho the Armenian, and it is part of Tibet, called Tsan by the Chinese.

The Sama was afterward called the red river, from the following circumstance. The famous Rama, with the title of Parasu or Parsu, having been ordered by his father to cut off his own mother’s head, through fear of the paternal curse was obliged to obey. With his bloody Parasu, or Parsu, or cimetar in one hand, and the bleeding head of his mother in the other, he appeared before his father who was surrounded by holy men, who were petrified with horror at this abominable sight. He then went to the Brahma-cunda to be expiated, his cimetar sticking fast to his hand all the way; he then washed it in the waters of the Sama, which became red and bloody, or Lohita. The cimetar then fell to the ground, and with it he cleft the adjacent mountains, and opened a passage for himself to the Cunda, and also for the waters of the Brahma-putra; he then flung the fatal instrument into the Cunda. The cleft is called to this day Prabhu-Cuthara, because it was made with a mighty Cuthara, or cimetar. This is obviously the legend of Perseus, and the Gorgon’s head.

The Brahma-putra, is also called Hradini
, as I observed in a former Essay on the Geography of the Puranas. This word, sometimes pronounced Hladni, signifies in Sanscrit a deep and large river, from Hrida, to be pronounced Hrada or nearly so, and from which comes Hradana and Hradini. In the list of rivers in the Padma-purana, it is called Hradya or Hradyan, and its mouth is called by Ptolemy the Airradon Ostium, or the mouth of the river Hradan: and according to him, another name for it was Antiboli, from a town of that name, called also by Pliny Antomela, in Sanscrit, Hasti-malla, in the spoken dialects Hatti-malla, now Feringy-bazar to the S.E. of Dhacca.

El Edrissi says, that in the Khamdan[???], which joins the Ganges,
* [P. 69 & 70.] there was a Trisula, or trident, firmly fixed in the bed of the river. It was of iron, had three sharp prongs, and rose about ten cubits above the surface of the water, and says our author, its name, in the language of India, was Barsciul, or in Sanscrit Vara or Bara-sula, the most excellent trident. Near this iron tree was a man reading the praise of this river, and saying, "O thou, who abundantly bestowest blessings; thou art the path leading to paradise; thou flowest from sources in heaven, the road to which thou pointest out to mankind: happy the man who ascends this tree, and throws himself into the river;” when some one of the hearers, moved by these words, ascends the tree and jumps into the river and is drowned, whilst the spectators wish him the eternal joys of paradise. This is really in the style of the Pauranics; and though suicide is forbidden in general, yet there are privileged places where it is meritorious to kill one self.

According to Rameswara
,* [In his Commentary on the Maha-Bharat.] this place is in Asama [Assam: Wiki], and its name is Visva-natha, the place of the lord of the world, or Maha-deva: I find it is well known to natives of the eastern parts of this country, and is said by them to be eight days to the east of Goda-grama, and about two east of Cali-vara, in the spoken dialects Calya-bara, a strong place on the river. It is a small rock at the confluence of another river with the Brahma-putra, with the Linga, or Sul, of Maha-deva upon it, and a small temple erected there by a Raja above 300 years ago. According to Rameswara, this place of worship is not mentioned in the Puranas, but only in some Tantras, and more particularly in the Yogini-Tantra.
Parasurama Kalpasutra, is a Shakta Agama, Hindu text on Shri Vidya practices as per Kaula tradition and is said to be authored by Parasurama, the fifth avatar of Lord Vishnu and a disciple of Guru Dattatreya. It is a sacred text for the Shri Vidya worshippers of Goddess Lalita Devi, who is considered to be a manifestation of the Divine Mother (Shakti), and the text is therefore used in the worship of Ganesha, Bala Tripurasundari, Raja Shyamala, Varahi as well. This text has its origins in the Dattatreya Samhita and is compiled by Sumedha, a disciple of Guru Dattatreya.

-- Parasurama Kalpasutra, by Wikipedia

Rameswara writes in Parasurama-Kalpasutra-vritti: "Those who exploit the opportunities of drinking wine without scriptural restrictions, suffer severely after death in hells."( Ibid page 598).

-- Is there a curse associated with misuse of Tantra?, by Stack Exchange

Portions of a copy of Ramesvara Vrtti were got from the Benares Government Sanskrit College Library for collation. But by the side of the others this copy was found superfluous and it did not offer correct readings where there were any doubts....

Laksmana then proceeds to show the necessity for his own work:
“Finding this Sutra too deep in its meaning for ordinary students to understand, Umanandmatha, a disciple of the Blessed Bhaskararaya, comprised in 1775 A.D. the work Nityotsava laying down clearly and methodically the system of worship taught in the Sutra. A later scholar, Ramesvara Sastri, a disciple of a disciple (prasisya) of Sri Bhaskararaya, thought that Nityotsava failed to represent the Sutra’s true meaning and wrote in 1831 A.D. a succinct gloss (Vrtti) of the Sutra, by name Saubhagya-Sudhodhya. This latter work too failing to bring out the true meaning of the Sutra, I proceed to write this commentary, Sutra-tattva-vimarsini, to explain the true meaning of the Sutra.”

Of course these commentators try to show, by applying exegetic rules to the interpretation of the texts, that their own conclusions are correct. It is, however, of little practical use to enter into the merits of these contentions, especially in these matters of transcendental nature, in which tradition, as handed down from masters to pupils, should govern the actual practice. The same texts may be easily interpreted so as to support conflicting views.

-- Tantra-Sangraha, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. XXII, 1950

It appears from the above author’s account, that some people visited this place with a view to put an end to their own lives there, and others out of religious motives only, to obtain certain benefits. But even this last was attended with much danger, for it was necessary, it seems, to swim or wade in going and coming back from the rock, and in the meantime there were Jala-manushas ready to devour the pilgrims whom they could catch. Jala-manusha literally signifies watermen; however it is never used in that sense; but it implies people, who in a compound shape of men, and of sea or river monsters, devour men and all living creatures that come within their reach.

1. An individual of a fabulous race of men dwelling in water, a mer-man or mer-maid. Hence used of fishermen or watermen. 2 . Applied to a dwarfish and meagre person.

-- Jalamanusa, by Wisdom Library

Maya-batu was a king who went to worship at Visva-nath, and having entered the water he saw three alligators who wanted to devour him. They were then tearing the body of the Raja of Gaja-pur in Mohura-banja. Maya-batu dived into the water and effected his escape to the shore. There was then the Raja of Rasanga or Aracan who was going to perform his ablutions and who informed him that these three alligators were originally three notorious gamblers and cheats, living in the town of Codaru near Raja-mahendra.* [Probably the Codura of Ptolemy.] They were obliged to leave the country and to take refuge on board of a ship that was just ready to sail to distant countries. A sudden storm from the Malayan mountains in the peninsula drove them northward (it should be S.E.) to the country of Cirata, which is near Parindra, or the lion’s country, or Sinhapur, not far from the lesser China. The ship was wrecked upon the magnet rocks near the mouth of the Chart river. The three gamblers were devoured by alligators and were born again of them in that odious shape, and they remain still in the Brahma-putra, round a hill in the middle of it. According to the natives, on the day of the Asocashtami, in the month of Chaitra, they sacrifice men, buffaloes, goats, and all sorts of animals in great numbers, when these alligators spring up to receive the blood into their mouths and devour the flesh which is abandoned to them. Great rejoicings are made to celebrate the entrance of the Brahma-putra into their country on that day, when Parasu-Rama with his cimetar cut a passage for its waters through the eastern mountains. It is said however that human sacrifices are no longer allowed at that place. The magnet, or loadstone, is emphatically called Mani, or the jewel, besides which it has in Sanscrit many other names more scientific, and which will appear when I pass to the countries and islands in the Indian ocean. In this manner Aristotle styles the magnet [x], the Mani or jewel: for such is the meaning of [x], when of the feminine gender.

In the Chatur-varga-chintamani it is declared that the Daityas [a race of Asura, half-brothers to the Devas.] having been once worsted by the gods, fled from before them, but finding no place of shelter their counsellor, Sucracharyya, created an immense magnet like a mountain which attracted the arrows of the gods that were pointed with iron. Indra, perceiving this, strode the mountain with his thunder and divided it into numberless splinters: some fell upon the land, some into the sea. One fell into the sea to the south-east of Chattala or Chattganh, and this is the reason that it is so difficult to get over that sea. We are acquainted with two splinters of that mountain: one near the mouth of the river of Negrais, and called by the natives Mani, and by us Diamond Island, which denominations are implicitly synonymous; for this jewel was known formerly in Europe under the name of Adamant which originally signified a diamond. The French say to this day Aimant, not surely on account of its love of iron. These magnetic rocks of which we are now speaking are mentioned in the Arabian Nights, and in the English translations they are called the rocks of adamant. The other splinter is near Parindra, or the lion’s place in the lion's mouth, or strait of Sincapur.

This magnetic rock, or rather rocks, constitute the Maniolae islands of Ptolemy, which, he says, attracted the iron nails of every ship that passed that way. There were ten of them, and among the islands of Sincapur there are about ten larger than the rest. Their name Maniolae is obviously from Mani in a derivative form Mani-yala, which is admissible in the present case.

El Edrissi, has placed such another splinter, or rock, at the entrance of the red sea, and calls it Mandeb, which I take to be from the Sanscrit Mani-dwip, and in the spoken dialects Mani-dib.

RAMESWARA has confounded these two splinters into one
, by placing the latter close to the shores of the country of Cirat, which does not extend beyond Cape Negrais. The trident of the lord of the world is certainly Vara-sula, Pra-sula, and Sri-sula, which are denominations implying excellence and power. The rock on which it stood was of course Vara-sila, Para-sila, and Sri-sila, or the most excellent, and blessed rock, and the river in which it stood was once so called probably, at first by favourite poets who sang the praises of Maha-deva and of his linga, not forgetting the rock on which it stood, nor the river in which it was situated, for we find the Brahma-putra called by European writers of the seventeenth century Persilis, and Sersilis, in the easternmost parts of Hindustan, and it is connected by them with the river Lacsha, or Lakya.* [Modern Univers. History, Vol. 5th. p. 279. See also Edward Terry and others.]

In the long lists of rivers in the Maha-bharat and Padma-purana, the Brahma-putra is called Anta-sila, or the river of the rock of our latter end; alluding to the above rock.

With regard to these Jala-manushas it is to be observed that in general the Hindus believe that all living beings originate from an atomlike germ endued virtually with life, but inert till placed in a proper medium when it becomes actually a punctum saliens, or an embryo. It is indivisible, and cannot be destroyed by any means whatever; but will remain till the end of the world. When a man dies, his body restores to the earth, and to the other elements, all that augmentation of substance which it had received from them; but the atomlike germ remains the same. The three gamblers, whom we mentioned before, having been devoured by three alligators, their germ of course remained undigested and unhurt, and soon after they were naturally conveyed into the wombs of females.

This atomlike germ is called in Sanscrit Atibahica, and is mentioned in the Garuda-purana.† [Section of the Preta-chanda.] It is called also Vayaviyam, because it goes faster than the wind [A thing or substance, which is subtle in its essence, and is dry, rough, light, cold and non-slimy, increases tactual sensation and is endued with a largely astringent taste marked by a shade of bitter, is called a substance of the dominant principle of air (Vayaviyam). -- Vayaviyam Drugs, by Wisdom Library], and I am assured that it is mentioned in the Vedanta:‡ [Vedanta-Darsana, and in the Atma-tatwanu-sandhana.] they say that it is exactly the sixth part of these atoms which we see moving in the rays of the sun when admitted into a dark room through a small aperture. Its situation is above the nose inwardly, and between the eyebrows. However, some place it either in the right thumb or in the right toe. Muselmans in Arabia suppose this germ to be the sesamoid bone of the first phalanx of the great toe.* [See French Encyclopedia, v. Albadara, a magical term in that country.]

Yama cannot inflict any punishment on the Atibahica, unless when united to the Pinda-deha, for otherwise it is susceptible neither of pain nor pleasure. I am told that in the Bhagavata it is considered as the same with the LINGA-SARIRA: and others assert that it is really the Yoga-deha of the Lamas in Thibet. Some schools either reject entirely these idle notions, or substitute others of their own.
Immediately after death, the soul is not clothed in a physical body but in a vaporous thumb-sized structure (linga ṡarīra). This is immediately seized by two servants of Yama, the god of death, who carry it to their master for a preliminary identity check. Afterward, the soul is promptly returned to the abode of the deceased, where it hovers around the doorstep. It is important that the cremation be completed by the time of the soul’s return, to prevent it from reentering the body. By the 10th day, the near relatives have purged some of the defilement (mṛitaka sutaka) they incurred from the death, and the chief mourner and a priest are ready to carry out the first śrāddha (ritual of respect). This is a step toward the reconstitution of a more substantial physical body (yatana ṡarīra) around the disembodied soul (preta) of the deceased. A tiny trench is dug in a ritually purified piece of land by a river, and the presence of Vishnu is invoked. Ten balls of barley flour mixed with sugar, honey, milk, curds, ghee, and sesame seeds are then placed, one by one, in the soil. As the first ball is offered, the priest says (and the son repeats after him), “May this create a head”; with the second ball, “May this create neck and shoulders”; with the third, “May this create heart and chest”; and so on. The 10th request is for the ball to create the capacity to digest, thereby satisfying the hunger and thirst of the newly created body. Bungled ceremonies can have catastrophic effects. Prayers are offered to Vishnu to help deliver the new entity (now perceived as some 18 inches [46 centimetres] long) into the power of Yama. The balls of barley are picked up from the trench and thrown into the river. Further śrāddhas are performed at prescribed times, varying according to caste; one of these rituals makes the soul an ancestral spirit, or pitṛi. With the completion of these rituals, the soul of the deceased leaves this world for its yearlong and perilous journey to Yama’s kingdom. The family is now formally cleansed. The men shave their heads, and the women wash their hair. The family’s tutelary god (removed by a friend at the time of the death) can be returned to its home. A feast is offered to Brahmans, neighbours, and beggars—even the local cows are given fresh grass. There is a sense of general relief: if the śrāddhas had not been performed, the preta could have become a bhūta (malignant spirit), repeatedly turning up to frighten the living. For the deceased, things would have been worse: the preta would have been left errant. (A similar fate befalls the soul of a person who commits suicide.) The horror of dying unshriven that haunted people in medieval Europe resembles the despair of the devout Hindu at the prospect of having no son to perform the śrāddhas.

-- The fate of the Soul, by Britannica

Ctesias mentions wild men living in the waters of the river Gaita in India in some part of its course, and from the context this was in the easternmost parts of that country. Gaita is perhaps for Khatai, another name, for the Brahma-putra, because it was supposed to come from the immense country of Khatai.† [Ayin Acberi, Vol. 2d. p. 8, &c.] Palladius, in his account of the Brahmens says, that there were in the Ganges dragons seventy cubits long, besides an animal called Odonto who could swallow a whole elephant and was so much dreaded that no body durst cross that river, only at the time of the year when the Brahmens visited their wives who lived on the other side, for during that season the monster was never seen. Palladius supposes this river to be the Ganges, which seems to have been the limit of his geographical knowledge towards the east, but it was more probably the Brahma-putra. The denominations of Par-silis or Ser-silis are now unknown in India, as well as that of Khamdan mentioned by El Edrissi, who says that it is a large river which comes from China and falls into the Ganges. There is no doubt however that at an early period it was current in India, for it is the Cainas of Pliny, and the Doanas or Daonas of Ptolemy. These two words being joined together make Cain-Doanas. In Sanscrit Cayan-dhu, and in a derivative form Cayan-dhava, or Cayan-dhau, Cayan-dhauni, or dhauna and Cayan-dhuni, would signify the river of Caya or Brahma, and of course it is another name for the Brahma-putra, implying exactly the same thing. Now Dr. F. Buchanan says that the western branch of the Airavati is called Kiayn-dwayn, which in the language of the Burman empire, signifies the fountain of Kiayn, which comes nearly to the same thing.* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 5. p. 231.] The case obviously, at least to me, is that these two rivers come from a country called Kiayn or Cayan, and the same with that called Cahang in the Alphab. Tibetanam. It is described as an immense country between China, Tibet, India, Pegu, &c. It is annexed to Tibet, and is to be pronounced Cahanh or Ca-anh.

Edward Terry, and others I believe, say that the Sersilis comes from the borders of Canduana, the capital of which is Carha-tanka. Canduana is unknown now, and is never mentioned in any book that I ever saw; but it goes by the name of its supposed capital Cara-hataca. It is mentioned twice in the Maha-bharata, where it is called in the list of countries Hataca and Cara-hataca. In several lists of countries from the peninsula, and published by Dr. F. Buchanan, and in another from that country also given to me by Colonel Mackenzie, the country of Cara-hataca is mentioned. However it is absolutely unknown in this part of India; but I do not think that it was the name of [a] city, but of the pool of Brahma, the water of which is declared, as we have seen before, to be Hataca, and Cara-hataca.

In the list from Ava published by Dr. F. Buchanan* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 6. p. 227.] [VIII. On the Religion and Literature of the Burmas, by Francis Buchanan, M.D., p. 163-308.] there is a country called Kian-dan, and that gentleman declares that the Kiayn-duan comes from the country of the Kiayn tribe[???].
P. 226: For the sake of the curious I shall here transcribe the list of the one hundred and one nations with which the Burmas are acquainted, using the mode hereafter to be explained of expressing the Burma writing by Roman characters, and adding a short explanation. From this I think it will appear, that the list is formed from a real knowledge of the nations, and not from the idle fables brought from Hindustan, and explained by the missionary. It is true, that of many of these names I can give no account; but that will by no means imply, that no such nation exists; for who would think that Tarout meant a Chinese, or Kula an European?...

P. 227: 97. Kiayn, a numerous tribe in the mountains separating Ava from Avakan.

-- VIII. On the Religion and Literature of the Burmas, by Francis Buchanan, M.D., p. 163-308.

According to the journal of the four Chinese merchants, in their way back from Siam to their native country, and inserted in [Jean-Baptiste] Du Halde’s China, the river of Siam comes from the mountain or mountainous region of Kyang-daw.
-- The General History of China, Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet, Including an Exact and Particular Account of their Customs, Manners, Ceremonies, Religion, Arts and Sciences, The Whole Adorn'd with Curious Maps, and Variety of Copper Plates, Done from the French of P. DuHalde, Volume 1, Third Edition Corrected, 1741

-- The General History of China, Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet, Including an Exact and Particular Account of their Customs, Manners, Ceremonies, Religion, Arts and Sciences, The Whole Adorn'd with Curious Maps, and Variety of Copper Plates, Done from the French of P. DuHalde, Volume 2, Third Edition Corrected, 1741

-- The General History of China, Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet, Including an Exact and Particular Account of their Customs, Manners, Ceremonies, Religion, Arts and Sciences, The Whole Adorn'd with Curious Maps, and Variety of Copper Plates, Done from the French of P. DuHalde, Volume 3, Third Edition Corrected, 1741

Haji-Khalifa mentions in that very country a river called also Khamdan, but he meant by it, it seems, the river of Cambodia, for he says that the town of Khancu was situated upon it. This is not true of the town, but may be of the country of that name. For Al Bergendi says that it was rather the name of the country, and that the town was called Khatha, and is probably the same place with a fine harbour called at present Catanh, with an island in front and of the same name.† [Dherbelot ad voc. Khancon.] This harbour is no longer frequented, and even hardly known. However it is probably the Cattigara of Ptolemy, and the Caitaghora of El Edrissi, the fort and town of Catanh.

This country of Cayan or Cayan-dhu is mentioned by M. Polo, with a river called Brius, which is the Brahma-putra. This region, says he, is to the west of Carayan, and an extensive country. As M. Polo speaks of these countries from report only he is generally inaccurate, and it is a difficult task to recognise the countries he speaks of and to arrange them properly. Be this as it may, he says that Carayan is eighteen days from the city of Mien, which is Ava, and that the three first days you descend through frightful precipices. Mr. De Guignes shews that it was part of Yunnan,* [Histoire des Huns. Vol. 4. p. 176.] and I beg leave to add that it extended a great way towards the west, as far as the country of Cayan-dhu, on the eastern banks of the Brahma-putra. It extends along the northern frontiers of Mani-pur, from which it is separated by a ridge of mountains called Carrun to this day, according to Colonel [Michael] Symes.† [Embassy to Ava, Vol. 1st. p. 181.]

To the west of Carayan and of the Corrun hills was the country called Cayndu by M. Polo, and which was bounded towards the west by the river Brius. This is the Brahma-putra, which is often styled, if not called, the river Biryya, because it is the efflux of Brahma, and this word is always pronounced in the east Birjja. The country to the north of Asama on its banks is called Bramasong in the Alphab. Tibet, and in the Puranas Brahma-tunga in the list of countries. It is called also Bregiong because it is on the banks of the river Birjj or Birjyam, in a derivative form. The Capucins, who had a small convent in Tacpu to the north of it, had some correspondence with the petty king of Bregiong.* [Rappresentazia de Padre Cappuc. Mission. della stata presente della mission delgran. Thibet, Roma, 1738; also Alphab. Tibet. p. 422 & 423.]

This Brahma-cunda, from which issues the Brahma-putra, is the same which is called Chiamay by De Barros, and other Portuguese writers. De Barros calls the Brahma-putra the Caor river, and says, that it comes from the lake Chiamay, and from thence it goes to the town of Caor after which it was denominated, thence to Sirote, to Camotay, and afterwards into the sea. Caor is the famous town of Goda, or Gaur generally, called Gorganh, that is to say the town of Goda. Sirote is probably Sarada, a famous place of worship mentioned in the Calica-purana, and Camotay is the place of Camacshya-devi, called also Cama-pitha, or the seat of Cama-devi. The whole country is also called Cama-pitham, pronounced formerly Campta and Camta.† [Ayin Acberi, Vol. 2d. p. 5.]

This is the country called Pitan by some of our writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which was separated from Candwanah by the river Persilis, according to Edward Terry, who says that this river (which is the Brahma-putra) comes from the country of Gor: and this is in some measure true for it passes through it in its way into Bengal. The Chiamay lake was said to be 180 miles in circumference, which may be true of the country of Sayammay or Chiamay noticed by Dr. Buchanan.* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 6, p. 226.]

Ortelius, in his map of Asia in 1580, calls this lake cayamay, with two dots on the letter Y, and with the cedilla, or dash, under the letter C, and to be pronounced Sayamay, as it is written by Dr. Buchanan; but in his map of India he spells it Chyamai, which sounds exactly like Chyamay in English. He mentions also the country of Camotay, the towns of Chirote, and Caor.

Four rivers are supposed to spring from this lake, but except [for] the Brahma-putra, the others must issue from it through subterraneous channels. The Pauranics delight in such mystical communications, and they are really very numerous in India. But this sort of paradise with four rivers issuing from it is obviously taken from our sacred books. With the Jews we have one, the Hindus another: the people of Tibet have one of their own, and the nations beyond the Brahma-putra claim very properly the same privilege.

The Brahma, or Brahmi river, another name for the Brahma-putra, is called Caya, one of the names of Brahma; hence the river of Ava, supposed to spring from the above lake, is called Cay-pumo, or the Burman Brahma-putra; for the Burman country is also called Pummay according to Dr. Buchanan, and Puma-hang by the four Chinese merchants mentioned by Du Halde. The two heads of the Doanas, and those of the two next rivers, the Dorias and the Serus, or river of Ava in Ptolemy's maps, do not correspond with the mouths he has assigned to them on the sea shore. This mistake originates from the imperfect notions which he had of the geography of so remote a country, which he fashioned into a map according to some pre-conceived opinions and an erroneous system of his own. The mouth of the Brahma-putra, for instance, does not appear on the sea shore even in our most modern maps, and the Pauranics, in their geographical diagrams, make the Hradini, or Brahma-putra, with the Pavani or Ava river, to flow toward the S.E. The source of the eastern branch of the Doanas, or Brahma-putra, is really at the Brahma-cunda, and thus far Ptolemy was right. To the upper part of this river through Tibet, he properly gives the name of Bautes or Bautisus. Bhotisu, in the language of Tibet, signifies the water or river of Bhota, the Sanscrit name of that country. He did not know, however, what became of it beyond Thogara or Tonker. The next river is the Meghanad, or Megha-vahana, in the spoken dialects Meghwan and Meghna. It is a well known river, and the general drain of the waters of Silhet, and adjacent countries. It begins, I believe, to be so called near Azmarigunge, below the junction of two considerable rivers, the great Bacra, and the Baleswari from Silhet, and commonly called Bowlee. The original stream is the great Bacra, which according to the Cshetra-samasa, comes from the country of Hedamba, now Cachar or Cuspoor to the eastward of Silhet. It is remarkable that the Brahma-putra, on being joined by this inferior river, and of obscure origin, being from Megha, or the clouds, loses its name at once. The Megna, now an immense river, goes into the ocean, but properly speaking without joining the Ganges, though they approach very near to each other. But the mouths of the Ganges and of the Brahmaputra are so masked by large and numerous islands of various sizes, that they are by no means obvious from the sea, like that of the western branch of the Ganges. Yet there is no doubt that formerly they united their streams, and that they will again at some future period.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Mon Feb 07, 2022 3:15 am

Part 4 of 4

The Meghwan [Meghna: Wiki] is the Magone [Magon] of Megasthenes, as cited by Arrian, as one of the rivers that fell into the Ganges.

The next river is the Damura[???] or Dumbura[???], for the letter M easily admits B and P after it. In the lower part of its course it is called the Carmaphulli [Karnaphuli/Khawthlanguipui: Wiki], and falls into the sea at Chatganh; but Ptolemy has carried its mouth, and that of the Doanas, into the gulf of Siam. According to the Cshetra-samasa, it is
the eastern boundary of Traipura or Tippera, and fourteen Yojanas, or about 105 British miles from Agratola, now Nur-nagar, and formerly the capital of that country. Dumura is a very common name in India, and in the spoken dialects generally pronounced Dumri, Dumriya, Dumroy, &c. It is the river Dorias of Ptolemy, for Domrias. He has placed its source in some country to the south of Salhala or Silhet, and he mentions two towns on its banks: Pandassa in the upper part of its course but unknown; in the lower part Rangiberi, now Rangamati near Chatganh, and Reang is the name of the country on its banks. On the lesser Dumura, the river Chingree of the Bengal atlas, and near its source is a town called there Reang. Rangamati and Ranga-bati, to be pronounced Ranghari, imply nearly the same thing.

The next river is the Pavani [Mythical: the united stream of the Sarasvati and the Ghaggar, which is called by the name of Sarasvati, the most sacred river in ancient India: The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient & Medieval India, by Nundo Lal Dey] from Pavana, which in lexicons, as in the Amara-cosa, becomes in a derivative form Pavaman or Pauman. I believe it is so called because it flows through the country of Pama-hang* [Du Halde's China, Vol. 1st. p. 63.[???]] or Burma, which according to Dr. F. Buchanan is also called Pummay. Hence it is that the first Portuguese writers called one of the supposed branches of the Cayan river, flowing through the Burman country, Cay-pumo, and by Pliny it is called Pumas, or Puman. The Pauranics, as usual, searched for a Sanscrit origin for it, and derived it from Pavana, which signifies wind. In the Cshetra-samasa it is called Su-bhadra, or the beautiful and great river. The river Brahmotari, says the author, flows by Mani-pura, and going toward the east it falls into the Su-bhadra. The Pavani, or Pauman, called also Su-bhadra, is the Airavati, which flows by Amara-pura. It forms the upper or northern part of the river, which Ptolemy calls Serus, the lower part of which is the Menan which flows by Siam. The true spelling of the name of this river, and its Sanscrit origin, if derived from that language, are rather obscure, as it is not mentioned in any book that I have seen. I suspect, however, that it is hinted in the Garuda-purana, in a curious route performed by the souls of all those who die, at least in this part of the world. These souls, having assumed a pygmy form no bigger than the thumb, which is completed in twelve days after the decease, on the thirteenth, are seized by the servants of Yama and carried through the air to Yama-puri, or Yama-cota, on the high grounds in the center of the Malayan peninsula, and called Giam-cout (Jama-cota) by Muselman writers. There they remain one month, and thence go by land to Dharma-puri in the N.W. quarter of the world, on the shores of the western ocean, there to be judged by Yama with the countenance of the Dharma-Raja, or king of justice; for he has two countenances: one remains at Dharma-puri, and the other at Yama-puri. There are two roads: one for good men called Saumya, or beautiful, the other Cashtamarga, or the painful road: for now they travel on foot.

In fifteen days they reach Sauri-pur where rules Jangama with the dreadful countenance. When they see the town and its ruler they are much afraid, and there they eat the funeral repast of the third pacsha, or of the first month and half, offered by their sons.

Thence they proceed through dreadful forests to Varendra-nagara
, where they eat the funeral oblation of the second month and receive some clothes, and then they set off for the next stage. The district of Varendra in Bengal, between Gauda and Dhacca, is well known.

Of the kingdom of Jangama we have some knowledge, and it is about half way between the Malayan peninsula and Varendra.[!!!]
Its name is written Jangoma or Jangomay by European writers, and it is a great way to the north of Siam. It has the Laos to the east, and the country of Ava, or the Burman empire to the west. Its capital, Sauri, still unknown to us, is upon a river called I suppose after its name, Saura, or Sauri [???!!!].

Ptolemy has delineated tolerably well the two branches of the river of Ava, and the relative situation of two towns upon them which still retain their ancient names, only they are transposed.
These two towns are Urathena and Nardos, or Nardon; Urathena is Radhana, the ancient name of Amara-pur, and Nardon is Nartenh, on the Kayn-dween.* [Embassy to Ava, Vol. 1st, p. 180.] For Nardon is a town according to Ptolemy, and by no means the name of a well known plant, and which I believe does not grow in that country. He says that it was situated in the country of Rhandamar-cota, literally, the fort of Randamar, after which the whole country was denominated: but of the town itself he takes no notice whatever.

The Sanscrit name of this country is Casara, and Hedamba or Hidamba, the king of which was killed by Bhim, who fell in love with his sister Hidamba, and remained with her a whole year. From this union are descended the present Rajas of that country who come occasionally to Benares to worship. Hidamba and his subjects were cannibals, and he and his sister wanted very much to eat Bhima as he was fat and plump. Hidamba was also called† [Commentary on the Maha-bharata, section the third.] Runda-munda, because whenever he could catch any unfortunate traveller, he made his body Runda, or headless; and also he made his head Munda, that is to say, he cut it off and separated it from the body, for it is customary with men-eaters to cut off the head immediately and to throw it away. It was enough to call him Runda, or the Runda-raja, because this necessarily implies the other; but Runda-munda is an alliteration, highly delightful in the ears of Hindus, who are great admirers of such a jingle of words. However, a field of battle, though strewed both with Runda and Munda, is simply called Rundica, instead of Runda-mundica, because the beauty of the alliteration is entirely lost by this compound assuming a derivative form. Runda was the name of every Raja of Hedamba to the last who was killed by Bhima, who for that reason was, I believe, surnamed Runda-mara, or he who killed Runda: thus the famous king Dhundha-mara was so called, because he killed the Daitya Dhundhu. Runda-mara-cota signifies the fort of him who killed Runda. Runda was a Daitya [Asura], and a native of Sonit-pura, near Gwal-para, on the borders of Asama, and that place was the metropolis of the Daityas or devils, whilst the gods or followers of Brahma, lived to the westward of the Brahma-putra.[!!!] The country of the Daityas extended from that river eastward, to the banks of the Iravati, and was parcelled out amongst several chiefs; but he of Hedamba conquered them all, and Hillola and Vatapi, two Daityas, who resided at Sonitpura, were so much afraid of him that they left their country and fled to distant places; for he was remarkably fierce and cruel. His kingdom was very extensive, and was three months in extent from north to south.* [Cshetra-samasa, section of Hedamba.] Pliny calls the river of Ava, Pumas or Puman, in the objective case; and says that many nations in that part of the country were called in general Brachmanoe, it should be Barmanoe. One is particularly noticed by him, "the Maccocalingoe, with two rivers called Pumas, and Cainas; both navigable, but the Cainas alone, says he, fall into the Ganges." It is therefore the Cayana, or Brahma-putra. The Maga-calingas are the Magas or Mugs, living near the sea shore in Chat'ganh, and Aracan.

Having thus described the heads of such rivers toward the east as were known to the Pauranics, let us now proceed to the sea shores.

Ptolemy says that the easternmost branch of the Ganges was called Antibole[???] at Airradon. This last is from the Sanscrit Hradana, and is the name of the Brahma-putra. Antibole was the name of a town situated at the confluence of several large rivers to the S.E. of Dhacca, and now called Fringy-bazar. It is the Antomela of Pliny, and its Sanscrit name is Hasti-malla, in the spoken dialects Hathi-malla. In the Swarodaya-mahatmya[???], Hasti-malla, as well as the country about it, is called Hastibandh, because the elephants of the Raja were picketted there or in its vicinity. It was, says Pliny, situated at the confluence of five rivers, and on that account it is called Panchanada-nagara in the Harivansa.

Shiva Swarodaya is an ancient Sanskrit tantric text. A comment and translation termed as swara yoga has been made by Satyananda Saraswati in 1983. It is also termed "Phonetical astrology": the "sound of one's own breath" and is written as a conversation between Shiva and Parvati. This ancient scripture has 395 sutras.

-- Shiva Swarodaya, by Wikipedia

The next is the Phani [Feni/Pheni Nadi: Wiki] or serpent river: it is mentioned in the Maha-bharat under the name of Airavat, a large sort of serpent. On its banks lived the famous Ulupi, daughter of Airavat, or Pannaga, or the serpent king: from her and Arjuna, the Pandwan[???], are descended the present Rajas of Trai-pura or Camillah. This river is the Fenny of the maps.

Let us now pass to the Carma-phalli, or Chatganh river. It is mentioned in the Scanda-purana, in several Tantras, and Geographical Tracts. In the Bhuvana-cosa it is declared that it is so called because there Carma, or good works, do blossom and flourish most luxuriantly, so as to produce fruit most abundantly. In short, every thing on its bank flourishes in that manner, such as Dharma, or religious doctrine; Carma, religious deeds; Punya, or righteousness; even the very spot, or grama, flowers in that wonderful manner; for Chatgram [Chattagram/Karnaphuli River] is called in the Purunas Phulla-grama. Chatta is a royal mat spread under a tree in those times of simplicity of manners: Patta, or Pitha, any seat, with the addition of Phulli, implies a blessing to the royal mat, to the royal seat. This explanation of the meaning of Carma-phulli and Chatta-grama is in the Bhuvana-cosa.

In the Scanda-purana,
* [Section of the bridge of Rama.] the words Patta and Chatta are acknowledged as the names of Chatganh, but with another meaning. Devi, having destroyed there, the Daitya Mahishasura; his bones, the flesh being rotten, appeared upon the ground like immense flag stones, or Pattana in Sanscrit, and Chattana in Hindi. The right, or southern point at the mouth of the river, is called Pengui because it is towards Pengu, or Pegu; the left, or northern point, on the side on which the town is situated, is called to this day Pattanh. There can hardly be any doubt, in my humble opinion, but that this town is the Pente-polis of Ptolemy, for Patta, or Pattan-phulli, the flourishing seat.

The Carma-phulli is also called, though rarely, Carna-phulli, and it is the Carnabul of the Edrissi, who wrote about the year 1194: but that geographer has bestowed that name rather upon the town of Chatganh, because situated on its banks.

The Carma-phulli, as I observed before, is called in the upper part of its course Dumbura, Dumura, or Dumriya: on its passing through the hills it assumes the name of Carma-phulli: but its original name is Bayuli or Bayula.* [Cshetra-samasa and Bhuvana-cosa.] In the Bhuvana-cosa it is declared that it flows through the country of Ari-rajya, or kingdom of Ari, where it assumes the name of Nabhi, according to the Cshetra-samasa, and is commonly called the Naf, and Teke-naf. This river is called in the Bhuvana-cosa, Hema, or golden river, probably because it comes from the golden mountains, styled Hema, Canchana, Canaca &c., which signify gold. In general all the rivers of this country are considered as branches of the Carma-phulli, some are actually so, others are so only in a mystical sense.
This accounts for the inland communications between the Carma-phulli and the Aracan river, as delineated in former maps. It is not to be traced, as yet, beyond Raneu or Ramu, though it may exist still farther south. In the first map of the Bengal atlas, this inland communication by water is well delineated from Chatganh to Chacoriya; and Mr. BARTHOLEMEW PLAISTED, Marine Surveyor, carries it as far as Ramu.† [See New Directions, &c. by Benjamin Lacam, p. 20. Mr. B. Plaisted, whilst surveying some parts of the Sunderbunds, was carried away by an alligator, which he mistook for the rotten trunk of a tree. This was written at the end of his survey, where he thus left off, in the Surveyor General's Office, where I saw it about 40 years ago.] In the Cshetra-samasa it is asserted that the river to the south of Ramu, about two Yojanas, or eight Cos, is an arm of the Carma-phulli, and the boundary of the Barma country, or Aracan; and the author says that there are in that country five rivers, or branches, of the Carma: the Ichhamati, which flows by Ramuna or Ramu; the Sancha, the Sunkar of the maps; the Srimati; the Swarnachari, called in the spoken dialects, according to our author, Sonachari, but these two are unknown to me. The last is the Cesara, in the spoken dialects Cachhara, and on its banks is Havila-dara-grama, commonly called Ranguna, which is inhabited by Magas, and is situated amongst hills; and from it this river is called Havildara in the maps.

The river we mentioned before, two Yojanas to the south of Ramu, is called Rajju[???], which in Sanscrit signifies both a rope and a bamboo. Rajju is also synonymous with Guna and Dama; which last is the name of several places on that coast. Perhaps these words imply that there was either a cable, or a boom of bamboos lashed together, laid across the river. There the king of Sonitpur, Naraca, placed the Linga, or Phala of Maha-deva, under the name of Adya-natha, or Adi-natha, the primeval lord, Linga and Phallus. In the Bhuvana-cosa, it is said, that this place was laid waste by the Yavanas, or Muselmans. Another name for it was Phalgunagar, or town of Phalguna, having been built by Arjuna, called also Phalguna. In the Cshetra-samasa it is said that it was near a river, and that it was built by a man of that name, and it is, says our author, commonly called Phanguna or Phalgun. Another name for it, he adds, is Pharwagara, and this, in my opinion, is the Baracura of Ptolemy. Phalgun is called Palong in the maps, with the epithet of Burra, or the great, which might have been the case formerly.

To the south of the Rajjoo, about forty miles, is the river Nabhi [Naf: Wiki], vulgarly Naf, because it proceeds from the navel of a certain god, who resides amongst the hills. It is more generally called Teke-naf, and in official reports made to Government I understand that it is generally so called. Teke-naf implies that it flows through the country of Teke, written in some Sanscrit books Tecu, and Teceu, to be pronounced Tecoo and Tekyou.

It is now the boundary of Aracan, and in some maps it is called the Dombac river, from a place of that name situated on its banks. The Sanscrit name of Aracan is Barma, Barman, and Barmanaca proper; by the people of Pegu it is called Takain. Dr. F. Buchanan* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. VI. p. 229.] says that Thoek is the name of a tribe living on the eastern branch of the river Naaf, and who sent a colony to the upper parts of the Carna-fulli; and this circumstance is recorded in the Bhuvana-cosa in these words: "at Carcandaca, in the woods, will come a Tecu-raja, who will abolish all distinctions of casts; but Nagarjuna will destroy him." In the Cshetra-samasa it is called Carcandu, near the Carma-phulli, and its present name is Cacundi, says our author. It is also in the country of Cemuca, commonly called Ceu or Ceunca, and its inhabitants Ceuci or Kookies. A respectable native of Rangoon who came some years ago to Benares with many persons of that country informed me that he had been at Aracan, and that he understood that the bulk of the inhabitants were of a tribe called Tek or Teke, and from it the country was called Tekain or Takain. He suspected that Tecain, Yecain and Recain, might be the same name differently pronounced, and indeed Dr. Buchanan says that indistinct articulation is fashionable through the Burman empire and the adjacent countries.

The next river is the Maha-nadi [Mahanadi: Wiki], or great river, which flows by Aracan. There is Sila or Saila-pattuna, or the stone city, the seat or throne of the Maga Rajas.  
In the account of Bhagalpur I have supposed, that although Jarasandha is usually called king of Magadha, that Madhyadesa was the proper denomination of his empire, and that the term Magadha was not given to the territory of his family until its extent was reduced by his overthrow; but even after that event the kingdom seems to have been more extensive than that to which the term Magadha is ever applied. The most rational derivation of the term Magadha is that given by Major Wilford (As. Res. vol. 9, p. 32). Samba, the son of Krishna, in order to cure himself of a disease, introduced a colony of Magas or Brahmans from a country called Saka. But Krishna being contemporary with Jarasandha, the introduction of the Magas by his son Samba must have been after the death of Jarasandha. Nor can we suppose that a small colony of physicians should at once change the name of a powerful kingdom in which they settled. It is farther worthy of remark, that the term Madhyadesa seems to have been applied to this country so late as the birth of Gautama (542 years before Christ); for in the account of that lawgiver, collected by Captain Mahony in Ceylon, he is said to have been born in Madda Dese, and he was undoubtedly born in the district of Behar.

These Magas are supposed to have introduced the worship of the sun, and there are many traces to show that the worship of this luminary is here of great antiquity; although I suspect that it was rather introduced by the conquests of the Persians under Darius than by the Magas or Brahmans.

-- Chapter II. History of the Province of Behar, From "The History, Antiquities, Topography, and Statistics of Eastern India; Comprising the Districts of Behar, Shahabad, Bhagulpoor, Goruckpoor, Dinajepoor, Puraniya, Rungpoor & Assam, in Relation to their Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, Fine Arts, Population, Religion, Education, Statistics, Etc., Surveyed Under the Orders of the Supreme Government and Collated from the Original Documents at the East India House, With the Permission of the Honourable Court of Directors, by Montgomery Martin, 1838

There in the Maha-nadi is Venu-gartta, or the bamboo fort; but the sea overflowing will destroy it, and leave in many places shoals, and sand banks. This is the second inundation of the sea, which will do so much mischief to the whole country. The first, it appears from our author, affected chiefly the shores of Chatganh. This bamboo fort, I suppose, has been rebuilt more inland, for it still exists and is mentioned in a French map by the Sr. Robert in the year 1751, where it is called Fort de Bamboux. In a sketch of the mouth of the river of Aracan by D’Anville it is inserted, but without a name. It is placed there about sixteen miles to N.E. of the pagoda, at the entrance of the river on the left side.

Venugartta is literally a bamboo pit in Sanscrit, but in Hindi it is either Venu-gar or Venu-gara: the first signifies a bamboo fort; the second a bamboo-pit, which last is hardly admissible. The town of Aracan may be called with great propriety the stone city, being surrounded by steep craggy rocks, cut artificially like fortifications.

The Aracan river, in the Bhuvan-cosa, is called Maha-nadi, or the great river; but its real name among the natives is unknown. Ptolemy calls it Tocosanna, the true pronunciation of which is, I believe Teku-shan or Teke-shan, and we have in that country the Teke-naf: the inhabitants of Aracan are of the Tekeu tribe, and the country is called Takain, and the word shan is certainly obvious in Rau-shan, another name for Aracan, and I believe that Ru or Yu, Rai, Yai, are the names of a tribe in that country, for, says Dr. Buchanan, what is written Roe is pronounced Yoe in that country. The meaning of Shan is unknown; but I take it to be an honorable title. It is, says Captain Symes, a very comprehensive term given to different nations, whether independent or not.* [Embassy to Ava, Vol. 2d. p. 258.] It appears to me that Teku-shan was pronounced by the Portuguese Touascan, for Teke-shan, or Tecwa-shan, in a derivative form from Tecu-shan. Portuguese writers mention also another district called Co-Dowascan, which I suppose to be Cu-Tecwa-shan, and to allude to the invasion of the Cu, or Cuci country, by the Thoeke tribe, as mentioned by Dr. Buchanan. Mr. D’ Anville, in his map of India of the year 1752, mentions four places in the district of Chatganh: three of which belong to Aracan; the fourth, or Cu-Tecwa-shan, belongs to Chatganh, being situated in the upper parts of the Carma-phulli. The three other places are Towascan, or the town of Aracan; Sundar, or the town of the moon in the dialect of that country, and called Vidhu in the Cshetra-samasa synonymous with Chandra, or Sundar, is somewhere near the Teke-naf; the last is Sore, probably the town of Zara mentioned by Portuguese writers as belonging to Aracan; its situation is unknown, but it is probably to the south of Aracan.

With Portuguese writers Towascan is not the name of a river but of a town, which I conceive is no other than Aracan, the metropolis of the Teke-shan tribes. Ptolemy places on the Tocosanna the metropolis of the country, and calls it Tri-lingon, a true Sanscrit appellation. Another name for it, says our author, was Tri-glypton, which is an attempt to render into Greek the meaning of Tri-linga or Trai-linga, the three Lingas of Maha-deva, and of which the Tri-sul, or trident, is the emblem.

It is often represented by three perpendicular cuts parallel to each other, and this, in Greek, is called Tri-glypton. Aracan is part of an extensive district called Tri-pura, or Trai-pura in the Puranas, or the three towns and townships first inhabited by three Daityas, the maternal uncles of Ravana. These three districts were Camilla, Chattala and Barmanaca, or Rasang, to be pronounced Ra-shanh, or nearly so; it is now Aracan. Maha-deva destroyed these three giants and fixed his Tri-sul in Camilla, which alone retains the name of Tripura, the two other districts having been wrested from the head Raja. The kings of Aracan and of Camilla were constantly striving for the mastery, and the former even conquered the greatest part of Bengal, hence, to this day, they assume the title of lords of the twelve Bhuniyas, Bhattis, or principalities of Bengal. At such times Aracan was the metropolis of the Trai-puras, and of course it became the seat or place of the Tri-linga, or three fold energy of Maha-deva, the emblems of which are the Tri-sul, and the three perpendicular cuts. Ptolemy says that in the country of Tri-linga, there were white ravens, white parrots, and bearded cocks.

The white parrot is the Cacatwa; white ravens are to be seen occasionally in India, as well as in Europe, and their appearance is considered in this country as most inauspicious. Some say that this white colour might have been artificial, and the result of a certain liquid preparation, which after the removal of the old feathers is poured upon the new ones. The colour will last, of course, as long as these feathers do, but will disappear with them at the next moulting season. (Muselmans in this country very often dye their beards likewise.) The bearded cocks have, as it were, a collar of ravened feathers round the neck and throat, and there only, which gives it the appearance of a beard. These are found only in the houses of native princes, from whom I procured three or four; and am told that they come originally from the hills in the N.W. parts of India. We have also bearded eagles in Europe.

The Maha-nadi, or river of Aracan, is the last on that coast in our Sanscrit records, and the district of Sandowy, called also Thayndwa or Saindwa by Dr. Buchanan, and declared by him and* [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 6th. 199 and 201.] Captain Symes, to be the southernmost division of Aracan, is also the most southerly district of the empire of the followers of Brahma, or India, along that coast, ending in about eighteen degrees of latitude north. In the Bhuvana-cosa it is called Sandwipa, but I believe it should be Sandwi. In that district is a river and a town, called in modern maps, Sedoa for Saindwa, and in Ptolemy Sadus and Sada. Between this river and Aracan there is another large one, concealed behind the island of Cheduba, and the name of which is Cata-baida, or Cata-baiza. This is the river Catar-beda of Ptolemy, which, it is true, he has placed erroneously to the north of Aracan; but, as it retains its name to this day among the natives, and as it is an uncommon one in that country, we can hardly be mistaken.

As that part of the country is very little frequented by seafaring people, the Cata-baida is not noticed in any map or sea chart whatever. It was first brought to light by the late Mr. Reuben Burrow, an able Astronomer, and who visited that part of the coast by order of government.* [Asiatick Researches Vol. 4. p. 326.] In the language of that county, Cata is a fort, and Byeitza, or Baidza, is the name of a tribe in that country,† [Asiatick Researches, Vol. 5. 224.] Thus Cata-baiza is Fort baidza, and Baidza-Cata is the Baiza-fort.

The island of Cheduba, opposite to this river, is called very properly Bazacata by Ptolemy, and Dr. Buchanan informs us that the letters T, D, Th, and S, Z, are almost used indiscriminately in that country, where even indistinct pronunciation is fashionable.

In the countries of Chattala and Barmanaca, Rama-chandra began his first bridge in his intended expedition against Ravana. The abutment took up the whole of these countries; and then Rama-chandra carried on his works directly towards Subela, or Sumatra, and had nearly reached that island when, by the advice of Vibhishan, king of that country, he left off and began another bridge at Rameswara, in the south of India. Of the former bridge seven piers are still to be seen which form the archipelagos of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, exhibiting vast ruins consisting of all the rocks which surrounded them. The Hindus fancy that all ledges of rocks, and all islands placed in a line, are the remains of bridges made either by the gods or by the devils, for some particular purposes, generally unknown to us at present.


The Portuguese maps exhibit only four rivers on that coast: that of Chatganh; the Chocoria, to be pronounced Khocoria; the river and gulf of Rameu; and the river of Aracan. The gulf of Ramu, now called the bay of Cruzcool, has a considerable river that falls into it called Mushcolley, after which is denominated the opposite island, but called by our seafaring people Mascal, this appellation being more familiar to them; but in the Portuguese maps there is no name affixed to it. The name of the island to the north of this is Cuccura-dwipa, but in the spoken dialects Cuccur-diva, or Cuccur-dia, or the island of dogs. In these dialects a dog is generally called Cuta; and from Cuta-dwip I suspect they have made Cuttub-dea. There is a place in it called Cukera-hansera, which, the pilots say, signifies Dog-swimming Creek. It is called Quoqor-diva by Lindschot in his map of India, and Cuccuri-diva by F. Monserrat.* [In an autograph MS. of the author, in my possession. The Padre wrote about the year 1590 in the prisons of Senna in Arabia.]

The course of the Ganges has not been traced beyond Gangautri, for the stream a little farther is entirely concealed under a glaciere, or iceberg, and is supposed to be inaccessible. Be this as it may, the source of the Ganges is supposed to be in a basin called Cunda, because it is in the shape of a drinking vessel so called in Sanscrit, and Piyala in Hindi. Thus the source of the Nile, and that of the Jordan, was called Phiala, or the cup in Greek, because in that shape, and the water, forcing its way at the bottom, re-appeared at a considerable distance through subterraneous channels.  

This is supposed to be the case with our Cunda, which is said to be deep, and that water is constantly oozing and dripping from its steep and guttered sides, forming many little streams which are called the hundred weepers from the manner in which they fall, and also from the noise they make. These falling to the bottom form a considerable stream, which they say forces its way through channels, either under ground or under the glaciere. This place is said to be inaccessible to mortals, and that the above particulars were revealed to certain Munis.* [They have, however, been revealed to Capt. Hodgson, see page 117 of this volume -- the account here given is so correct that it proves the actual visitation of the spot by the Hindus. -- H.H.W.] This stream re-appears at Gangautri, where is a fall of no great magnitude. Below the fall, in the middle of the river, is a rock styled the head, or top, of the Linga of Maha-deva. The Ganges tumbles over it, hence this stone is called, from that circumstance, Patacni, or Patcani. From thence the river goes to the Awartta of the Ganges, or of Hara, Hari, and Brahma; and thus we have Gangawartta, Brahmawartta, &c.; but it is more generally called Hara-dwara, the gate or pass of Hara. Awartta literally signifies an enclosed place of a circular form, and is more particularly applied to places of worship; but in general these places are circumscribed by an imaginary line only.

The Pauranics declare that the Ganges, issuing from under the feet of Vishnu under the pole, flies through the air, brushing the summits of the highest mountains, and falls into the Cunda of Brahma, which is acknowledged to be the lake of Mana-sarovara, and from thence through the air again it alights upon the head of Maha-deva, and remains entangled in the lock of hair on his head, from which it drops continually into a bason beneath called Bindu-sarovara, or the dripping pool, but this cannot be the same with our dripping Cunda.

This curious account of the origin of the Ganges was not unknown to our ancient writers, for Pliny says that the Ganges, after such fatiguing a journey, brushing the tops of mountains in its way, as Curtius says, rests itself at last in a lake. Mr. James Fraser of the Civil Service, in his survey of the source of the Ganges, saw the peaks which surround this hollow, but the road to this holy Cunda was impracticable, and this holy place remains inaccessible to this day.* [See Asiatick Researches, Vol. XIII.] Below Haradwara the Ganges sends forth several branches, which rejoin the parent stream at various distances. These branches are in general the remains of old beds of the river at different periods.

On the western side they form an almost uninterrupted chain as far as Furruckabad, according to the latest surveys of that country.

These branches have various names, but in general they are called by the country people Buri-Ganga, or the old Ganges. Another name is Ban-ganga, or the reed river, because, whenever the Ganges, or any other river forsakes its old bed, this old bed and its banks are soon overrun with Bana, or reeds, which form numberless thickets, in Sanscrit Saraban; and these two denominations are used by the learned, particularly the latter.

It is by no means an uncommon name in India, as well as Saravati, or abounding with reeds. It has also the name of the Rama-ganga, to the eastward of the Ganges.

The only branch of that name, which can attract our notice, is to the westward, springs out at Hardwar, and rejoins the Ganges at Banghatt. This part is well delineated in the general map of India. It springs out again, according to the late surveys, at Succur-taul, passes to the eastward of the ruins of Hastina-pur, and rejoins the Ganges at Gur-mucteswar. This Ban, or Saraban river, was formerly the bed of the Ganges, and the present bed to the eastward was also once the Ban or Saraban river.

This Ptolemy mistook for the Rama-ganga, called also the Ban, Saraban, and Saravati river. For the four towns, which he places on its banks, are either on the old, or on the new bed of the Ganges. Storna and Sapotus are Hastnaura, or Hastina-nagara on the old bed; and Sabal, now in ruins, on the eastern bank of the new bed, and is commonly called Sabulgur. Hastina-pur is twenty-four miles S.W. of Dara-nagar, and eleven to the west of the present Ganges, and it is called Hastnawer in the Ayin Acberi.* [Vol. 3d. p. 57.] Eorta is the Awartta we mentioned before, or Hardwar. It is called Arate in the Peuting tables, and by the Anonymous of Ravenna.

In the immense plains of Anu-Gangam, or the Gangetic provinces, there are two declivities or descents. One towards the east, and the other from the northern mountains towards the south. This precipitates the waters of the Ganges against its right bank, towards the south, and makes them strike with violence against the Padanta, or Padantica, the foot’s end of the mountains to the south, and which begins at Chunar and ends at Raj-mahl. The soil of the country to the south of the Ganges consists entirely of native earth, stiff, of a reddish colour, and strongly fortified with huge rocks and stones of various sizes. The soil of the country to the north, as far as the mountains, is entirely alluvial, with large tabular concretions of Cancar, or Tophus aquatilis. The depth is unknown, as excavations have been made to the depth of about 108 feet without coming at the bottom or to the native earth. In the upper parts of the course of the Ganges, as far down as the pass of Sancrigali, its aberrations and wanderings are confined within narrow limits, and its encroachments and devastations are comparatively trifling. It is a female deity, and in her watery form is of a most restless disposition, seemingly bent on mischief, and often doing much harm. This unrelenting disposition of hers to encroach is greatly impeded, and checked, by the Padanti, or the foot of the mountains, with its rocky points projecting into the stream such as Chunar, Mudgir, Sultan-gunge, Pattergotta, Pointy, Sancri-gali, and Raj-mahl.

The word Padanti is pronounced Ponty in the spoken dialects, and is spelt Paentee by Dr. Hunter, in his Dictionary. But by Pointy we generally understand now that rocky point, which is near Patter-gotta.

The Sanscrit name of Chunar is Charanadri, or Charana-giri, which is nearly synonymous with Padantica. This last is mentioned in the Ratna-cosa, and in some Puranas, where it is called Padapa.

Between these huge rocky points the Ganges is constantly at work, excavating deep bays and gulfs, which, after long periods, she fills up entirely, and then scoops them out again. Even the huge rocky points I just mentioned, have by no means escaped her unrelenting activity. They are cut down almost perpendicularly from top to bottom; and it is written in the Purunas, that the Ganges has carried away the half of the hills of Chunar, and Mudgir; but there was no occasion for any written authority in the present case.

It is written in the Vayu and Vishnu-puranas, that Hastina-pur was destroyed by the Ganges early in the Cali-yuga. The Vayu places this event in the sixth generation after the great war, and the Vishnu-purana in the eighth; that is between eleven or twelve hundred years before our era; and it is recorded there that the seat of empire was transferred to Causambi near Allahabad. It is well known that the old site of Patali-putra, or Patna, has been entirely carried away by the Ganges, and in its room several sand banks were formed, and which are delineated in Major Rennell's map of the course of the Ganges with his usual accuracy. However Colonel Colebrooke [Robert Hyde Colebrooke], Surveyor General, having made a new survey of the river, found that these several sand banks were consolidated into an island about sixteen miles long, and which masks entirely the mouth of the Gandaci, nay it has forced it in an oblique direction about six miles below Patna, whilst in Major Rennell’s time it was due north from the N.W. corner of that town, and in sight of it.

The most ancient town of Bali-gur, or Balini-gur, close and opposite to Bhagal-pur, was entirely destroyed by the Ganges in the beginning of the thirteenth century, according to the Cshetra-samasa. Its place is wholly filled up with sand and loose earth, many villages are now upon it. This spot at some future period will be scooped out again, and so on alternately.

As the Ganges is a most favourite deity of the Hindus, they have in various shapes applied to it the ineffable and mysterious number THREE, the type of the Hindi triad. It comes down from heaven in a threefold stream, which upon earth forms a Triveni, or three plaited locks. This stream at Prayag, meeting Yamuna and Saraswati, forms here a second Triveni, and the two last rivers near Hoogly, forsaking the Ganges, form a third Triveni. Besides these illustrious streams, the Ganges receives many inferior ones divided into various classes. Seven belong to the first, one hundred to the second, and one thousand to the third. All these having joined the Ganges to pay their respects to her, part from her as they approach the sea. Hence the Ganges is said to rush into the ocean through three, seven, one hundred, and even one thousand mouths. This beautiful arrangement conveys but little geographical information.

The Ganges has also three Gangautris[falls/rapids???]: one in the north, which is well known; the second is at Hardwar; and the third near Patter-gotta.

The two last are certainly falls, but of that kind only called rapids in America. The last was well known in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and a considerable town at the mouth of the Causici with the surrounding district, was from that circumstance called Gangautri.* [History of Bengal, by Major Stewart, p. 52.]

There are several inferior rapids in the Ganges which are called by the natives Patacni, Patcni, and Patcanya. The last Gangautri begins at Patter-gotta, and ends at Sancri-gali, and is certainly a dangerous rapid where many accidents happen. It was formerly much dreaded, not only on account of the violence of the current, of the many rocks and sands in the bed of the river, but also, on account of the thievish and cruel disposition of the natives on both sides.

Hence I am told that poets sometimes called it the reach, stream, or rapid of the blessed or departed, Nirvana-vaha, answering to the American phrase of Rapid des Noyes, or des Trepasses.

There were also three remarkable Charanadris, or Padantis [rocky point]: Chunar, Mudgir and Pointy, each of which had a Gala, Gali, a pass, or Gully. The last is called Sancri-gali, from the Sanscrit Sancirna-gali, or the intricate and narrow pass.

The two other Padantis with their passes or Gullies are Srigala, another name for Chunar, and the Sagala of Ptolemy: the other is Sachala, or Mudgir, and called Sigala by our ancient geographer.

Let us now pass to the lower parts of the Ganges, in its course towards the sea through the Antarvedi, or Delta of the Ganges. Ptolemy reckons five mouths, which luckily he describes with tolerable accuracy.

The first mouth is the Cambuson, now the Suvarna-recha, or Pipley river, which was considered as the westernmost mouth of the Ganges, till the country was surveyed under the inspection of Major Rennell.

The next or second mouth, which is that of the Bhagirathi, is called in Sanscrit Vriddhamanteswara-Samudra, literally the swelling lord Oceanus, alluding to the Bore which makes its appearance in this branch of the river. It begins at Fulta, and reaches sometimes as far as Nadiya. Phulla-gram is the Sanscrit name of Fulta, and is so called because Sumudra swells with joy at the sight of his beloved son Lunus, and his heart, like a flower, opens and expands at the sight of him. Vriddhamanta implies increase, either in bulk, consequence, or wealth, &c. In the spoken dialects it is called the Buddmanteswara, and simply the Manteswari river. It is said in the Cshetra-samasa to consist of three channels: one leads toward Hijjili and was called the old moorish, or western channel formerly, for the present western channel, to the eastward of the former, is very different. The old moorish channel, I believe, is no longer used. The second goes toward Ganga-sagara: this is the eastern channel; and the third, in the middle, is called Ragi-masana. These channels are formed by sand banks, denominated in some places braces, and in others reefs and flats. The Ragi-masana is along that sand, corruptly called by seafaring people the mizen-sand, Ragi signifies lusting after, greediness of prey. Masuna is supposed to be derived from the Sanscrit Masi, which signifies a change of form: but Masan in the spoken dialects, when speaking of the water of the Ganges, implies a particular part of the channel where the stream puts on a new form, and which looks like a gentle boiling of the water with sand rising up and falling down. That part of the Channel is carefully avoided by boatmen, as it shews that there is a quicksand which causes this appearance. I am assured that it is also called Ran-masan, nay some insist that this is the true reading. Rana implies a tumultuous struggling attended with a quick motion and running, and answers here to the English word race, as used by seafaring people.

This mouth is thus called on account of its size, and of the tremendous appearance of the Bore in it, Samudra is Oceanus, Sagara is Pontus, Narayena is Nereus or Nereon, and Varuna, called also Naupati, or Naupatin, or the lord of ships, is Neptune, and perhaps the Nephtyn of the Egyptians. This is the Ostium magnum, the second mouth of the Ganges, according to Ptolemy. The third mouth, called by him Camberikhon, is that of the river Cambaraca, the true Sanscrit name of which is Cumaraca according to the Cshetra-samasa. It is called in the spoken dialects Cambadac, or Cabbadac, and by our early writers Gundruc, probably for Gumbruc; and also Gaudet, which is a mistake, for this is the Godupa called in the spoken dialects Godui and Godavahi, and in the maps Gorroy to the eastward of Bhushna.* [See also Geog. Dict. of And. Brice, of Exeter voce Jesual.]

The Cumaraca and Ichhamati are branches of the Bhairava, or Boyrub in the spoken dialects, and which proceeds from the sweat of Maha-deva.

The fourth is called the false mouth by Ptolemy, probably because it is so broad and extensive, that it was often mistaken for the easternmost branch of the Ganges which lies concealed behind numerous islands. Its Sanscrit name, according to Cavi-Rama’s Commentary[???], is Trina-cachha, on account of its banks being covered with luxuriant grass, and of course abounding with Harina, deers, and antelopes, for which reason it is also called Harina-ghatta from their frequently making their appearance at the landing places, or Ghatts.

Ptolemy’s description of the Delta is by no means a bad one if we reject the longitudes and latitudes, as I always do, and adhere solely to his narrative, which is plain enough.
He begins with the western branch of the Ganges, or Bhagirathi, and say, that it sends one branch to the right, or towards the west, and another towards the east, or to the left. This takes place at Tri-veni, so called from three rivers parting in three different directions, and it is a most sacred place. The branch which goes towards the right is the famous Saraswati, and Ptolemy says that it flows into the Cambusan mouth, or the mouth of the Jellasore river, called in Sanscrit Sactimati, synonimous with Cambu, or Cambuj, or the river of shells. This communication does not exist, but it was believed to exist, till the country was surveyed. This branch sends another arm, says our author, which affords a passage into the great mouth, or that of the Bhagirathi, or Ganges. This supposed branch is the Rupanarayana, which, if the Saraswati ever flowed into the Cambuson mouth, must of course have sprung from it, and it was then natural to suppose that it did so. Mr. D’Anville has brought the Saraswati into the Jellasore river in his maps, and supposed that the communication took place a little above a village called Danton, and if we look into the Bengal Atlas we shall perceive that during the rains at least, it is possible to go by water from Hoogly, through the Saraswati, and many other rivers, to within a few miles of Danton and the Jellasore river.

The river, which according to Ptolemy, branches out towards the east, or to the left, and goes into the Cambarican mouth, is the Jumna, called in Bengal Jubuna. For the Ganges, the Jumna and the Saraswati unite at the northern Triveni, or Allahabad, and part afterwards at this Triveni near Hoogly. It was known to the ancients, for it is called Tropina by Pliny, and by the Portuguese Trippini, and in the spoken dialects they say Terboni. Though the Jumna flows into the Camberican mouth it does by no means form it, for it obviously derives its name from the Cambadaca, or Cambarac river, as I observed before. But let us proceed: Ptolemy says that the Ganges sends an arm toward the east, or to the left, directly to the false mouth or Harinaghatta. From this springs another branch to Antiboli, which of course is the Dhacca branch, called the Padma, or Pudda-ganga. There is a mistake, but of no great consequence, as the outlines remain the same. It is the Padda or Dhacca branch, which sends an arm into the Harina-ghatta. The branching out is near Custee, and Comercolly, and under various appellations it goes into the Harina-ghatta mouth.

It was my intention to have described the western boundary of Anugangam [Ganges: Wiki] in the same manner as I have described the others, but I find it impossible, at least for the present. A description of the country on both sides of the said boundary would certainly prove very interesting, but the chief difficulty is that the natives of these countries insist that the Setlej formerly ran into the Caggar, or Drishadvati, and formed a large river called in Sanscrit Dhutpapa, and by Megasthenes Tutapus. This is also my opinion, but I am not sufficiently prepared at present to lay an account of it before the society.

As the Caggar, or some river falling into it, is supposed by our ancient writers to have been also the boundary of the excursions of the gold making ants toward the east, I shall give an account of them, as possibly I may not have hereafter an opportunity of resuming the subject; the legends are certainly puerile and absurd, but as they occupy a prominent place in the writings of the naturalists and geographers of classical antiquity, they may be regarded as worthy of our attention, and it may at least be considered as a not uninteresting enquiry to endeavour to ascertain their source.

Our ancient authors in the west mention certain ants in India, which were possessed of much gold in desert places amongst mountains, and which they watched constantly with the utmost care. Some even asserted that these ants were of the size of a fox, or of a Hyrcanian dog, and Pliny gives them horns and wings.

These gold making ants are not absolutely unknown in India, but the ant in the shape and of the size of a Hyrcanian dog was known only on the borders of India and in Persia. The gold making ants of the Hindus are truly ants, and of that sort called Termites. To those, however, birds are generally substituted in India; they are mentioned in the institutes of Menu* [P. 353.] and there called Hemacaras, or gold makers. They are represented as of a vast size, living in the mountains to the N.W. of India, and whose dung, mixing with a sort of sand peculiar to that country, the mixture becomes gold. The learned here made the same observation to me as they did to Ctesias formerly, that these birds, having no occasion for gold, did not care for it, and of course did not watch it; but that the people, whose business it was to search for gold, were always in imminent danger from the wild and ferocious animals which infested the country. This was also the opinion of St. Jerome in one of his epistles to Rusticus.

These birds are called Hemacaras, or gold makers; but Garuda, or the eagle, is styled Swarna-chura, or he who steals gold, in common with the tribes of magpies and crows who will carry away gold, silver, and any thing bright and shining.

Garuda is often represented somewhat like a griffin with the head, and wings of an eagle, the body and legs of a man, but with the talons of the eagle. He is often painted upon the walls of houses, and generally about the size of a man. This is really the griffin of the Hindus, but he is never even suspected of purloining the gold of the Hemacara birds.

The large ant of the size of a fox, or of a Hyrcanian dog, is the Yuz of the Persians, in Sanscrit Chittraca-Vyaghra, or spotted tyger in Hindi Chitta, which denomination has some affinity with Cheunta, or Chyonta, a large ant. This has been, in my opinion, the cause of this ridiculous and foolish mistake of some of our ancient writers. The Yuz is thus described in the Ayin Acberi.(3) "This animal, who is remarkable for his provident and circumspect conduct, is an inhabitant of the wilds, and has three different places of resort. They feed in one place, rest in another, and sport in another, which is their most frequent resort. This is generally under the shade of a tree, the circuit of which they keep very clean, and enclose it with their dung. Their dung, in the Hindovee language, is called Akhir.”

Abul-Fazil, it is true, does not say positively that their dung, mixing with sand, becomes gold, and probably he did not believe it. However, when he says that this dung was called Akhir in Hindi, it implies the transmutation of the mixture into gold. Akhir is for Chir in the spoken dialects, from the Sanscrit Cshira; from this are derived the Arabic words Acsir, and El-acsir-Elixir is water, milk also, and a liquid in general. To effect this transmutation of bodies the Hindus have two powerful agents, one liquid called emphatically Cshir, or the water. The other is solid, and is called Mani, or the jewel; and this is our philosopher’s stone, generally called Spars a-mani, the jewel of wealth; Hiranya-mani, the golden jewel. There are really lumps of gold dust, consolidated together by some unknown substance, which was probably supposed to be the indurated dung of large birds.

I cannot help mentioning a discovery which accident threw in my way, though my proofs must be reserved for an essay which I have destined for the fourth volume of your Transactions. To fix the situation of that Palibothra (for there may have been several of the name) which was visited and described by Megasthenes, had always appeared a very difficult problem, for though it could not have been Prayaga, where no ancient metropolis ever stood, nor Canyacubja, which has no epithet at all resembling the word used by the Greeks; nor Gaur, otherwise called Lacshmanavati, which all know to be a town comparatively modern, yet we could not confidently decide that it was Pataliputra, though names and most circumstances nearly correspond, because that renowned capital extended from the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges to the site of Patna, while Palibothra stood at the junction of the Ganges and Erannoboas, which the accurate M. D'Anville had pronounced to be the Yamuna; but this only difficulty was removed, when I found in a classical Sanscrit book, near 2000 years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannoboas, or the river with a lovely murmur, was in fact another name for the Sona itself; though Megasthenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This discovery led to another of greater moment, for Chandragupta, who, from a military adventurer, became like Sandracottus the sovereign of Upper Hindustan, actually fixed the seat of his empire at Pataliputra, where he received ambassadors from foreign princes; and was no other than that very Sandracottus who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator...

-- Discourse X. Delivered February 28, 1793, P. 192, Excerpt from "Discourses Delivered Before the Asiatic Society: And Miscellaneous Papers, on The Religion, Poetry, Literature, Etc. of the Nations of India", by Sir William Jones

These are to be met with in the N.W. of India, where gold dust is to be found. They contain much gold, it is said, and are sold by the weight.

In Sanscrit these lumps are called Swarna-macshicas, because they are supposed to be the work of certain Macshicas, or flies, called by us flying ants, because in the latter end of the rains they spring up from the ground in the evening, flying about in vast numbers, so as to fill up every room in which there are candles lighted, to the great annoyance of the people in them. These flies are one of the three orders of termites, apparently of a very different, though really of the same, species. This third order consists of winged and perfect insects, which alone are capable of propagation. These never work, nor fight, and of course if they can be said to make gold it must be through the agency of their own offspring, the labourers, or working termites, which in countries abounding with gold dust are supposed to swallow some of this dust and to void it, either along with their excrements, or to throw it up again at the mouth. According to the Geographical Comment on the Maha-Bharata, the Suvarna-Macshica mountains are on the banks of the Vitasta. There are also Macshicas producing silver, brass, &c. I never saw any, but Mr. Wilson informs me that they are only pyrites, and indeed, according to Pliny, there were gold and silver and copper pyrites. Alchemists, who see gold everywhere, pretended formerly that there was really gold and silver in them, though not easily extracted. If so, it must have been accidentally. These were called Pyrites auriferi, argentei, and Chalco-pyrites. The pyrites argentei are called, in a more modern language, Marcassita-argentea.

These gold making birds, flies, and spotted tygers, are by the Hindus confined to the N.W. parts of India; and the Yuz, according to the Ayin Acberi, begins to be seen about forty Cos beyond Agra. Elian is of that opinion also, when he says that the gold making ants never went beyond the river Campylis, and Ctesias, I believe, with MEGASTHENES likewise, places them in that part of India. The Campylis,* [AElian-de-animal, Lib. 3. C. 4.] now Cambali, is a considerable stream, four miles to the west of Ambala toward Sirhind, and it falls into the Drishadvati, now the Caggar, which is the common boundary of the east and north-west divisions of India, according to a curious passage from the commentaries on the Vedas, and kindly communicated to me by Mr. Colebrooke, our late President.

Scholar-Shit!


Image
Plate IX  
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

PreviousNext

Return to Articles & Essays

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests