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 » Mon Feb 07, 2022 8:12 am

Rev. William Ward: Chronology
by wmcarey.edu
Accessed: 2/6/22

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.

-- 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


1769 | 20th October | William Ward was born in Derby.

1774 | 24th August | The Quaker Abiah Derby takes an evangelical meeting at Derby Town Hall at which William's mother is present.

1782 | Thursday, 28th November | An advertisement appears in the 'Derby Mercury' advertising for an apprentice.

1789 | 31st May | The first General Baptist sermon in Derby was delivered in the open air, on Willow Row, by Rev. Dan Taylor.

1792 | Wednesday, 30th May, at 10.30am | William Carey preached the Missionary Sermon that founded the Baptist Missionary Society at Friar Lane Baptist Church, Nottingham. "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."

1793 | 31st March | William Ward met William Carey for the first time in London.

1795 | 3rd January | The first issue of the 'Staffordshire Advertiser'.

1796 | 2nd January | An article appears in the 'Hull Advertiser' announcing the appointment of a new editor.

1796 | 28th August | William Ward was baptised at George Street Baptist Church, Hull.

1797 | August | Ward was sent by Mr. Fishwick, to Ewood Hall, Mytholmroyd, near Halifax, Yorkshire.

1798 | Autumn | A member of the Baptist Mission Committee visits Ewood Hall.

1798 | 20th September | Ward's letter of application is considered by the Committee in Northampton.

1798 | 19th December | Ward leaves Ewood Hall for Cannon Street, Birmingham.

1799 | March | Ward Stays at Cannon Street until March.

1799 | 7th May | Together with Mr. Brunsdon, Ward is 'set apart to the work of a Christian missionary'.

1799 | 24th May | Ward embarks on the American sailing ship 'Criterion'.

1799 | 27th May | The 'Criterion' sails from Gravesend for India.

1799 | 13th October | Ward arrives at Serampore

1799 | 14th October | The missionaries visit the Governor of Serampore, Colonel Bie.

1799 | 3rd November | A letter arrives from Carey saying he is unwilling to abandon Kidderpore.

1799 | 1st December | Ward meets Carey at Kidderpore.

1800 | 10th January | Carey arrives at Serampore.

1800 | 11th January | Carey waits on the Governor.

1800 | Within a week a house and premises were found for the Mission.

1800 | 18th March | The first proof sheets of the Bengali New Testament came off the presses of the Printing Office.

1800 | 24th April | The missionaries celebrate a day of thanksgiving.

1800 | 20th August | Mr. Fountain dies.

1800 | 21st October | Ward preached in Bengali for the first time.

1800 | 12th December | Krishna-Pal and Gakool ate tiffin with the missionaries and thus renounced caste.

1800 | 28th December | Krishna-Pal, the first Hindu convert is baptised.

1801 | Early | Joyminee, the first female Hindu convert is baptised.

1801 | 7th February | The last proofs of the Bengali New Testament came off the press at the Printing Office

1801 | 7th February | Carey was appointed Professor of Bengali at Fort William College.

1801 | 8th May | A detachment of British troops sequestre Serampore.

1801 | 3rd July | Mr. Brunsdon dies.

1801 | 13th October | Mr. Thomas dies at Dinagepore

1802 | The first Sunday | Petumber Singh, the first convert from a tract produced by the Printing Office was baptised.

1803 | The start of | The first Brahmin was baptised.

1803 | The beginning of | The Deva Nagree alphabet, with its 700 characters, was set in type for the first time.

1803 | 23rd January | The missionaries hired a room in Calcutta and held their first service there.

1803 | 10th May | William Ward and Mrs. Fountain (formerly Miss. Tidd and widow of Mr. Fountain) were married at the Mission House.

1803 | April | Mr. Brown, the senior Calcutta chaplain, purchased a house at Serampore called 'Alldeen'.

1803 | 4th May | The first Bengali Christian marriage was celebrated.

1803 | The end of | Ward visits Dinagepore for the sake of his health. He preached and delivered tracts, returning to Serampore on 16th December.

1804 | 1st January | Ward drew up a prospectus for the Bow Bazaar Chapel.

1804 | The close of | The first Sanskrit work ever printed, the 'Heetopadesh', was published by the Printing Office.

1805 | November | Ward went to Jessore to procure land for a missionary settlement.

1806 | March | The grounds for the Bow Bazaar chapel were purchased at a cost of 7,250 rupees.

1806 | 1st June | Ward preached the first sermon in a mat house, or shed in the centre of the site.

1806 | 23rd August | Captain Wickes in the 'Criterion' anchored off Calcutta with two new missionaries.

1807 | 25th January | Ward opened the little chapel on the Chitpore Road.

1807 | June | The first sheet of the Sanskrit New Testament came off the press at Serampore.

1807 | 2nd September | Carey was required to attend the office of the Chief Secretary regarding a pamphlet containing strictures on Mohammedanism and its founder.

1807 | 6th September | Mr. Blacquiere sent his spy to watch the proceedings of the missionaries at the little chapel on the Chitpore Road.

1807 | 11th September | An order was received in Serampore from Lord Minto to remove the Printing Office to Calcutta.

1807 | 1st October | The Serampore missionaries sent a memorial to Lord Minto.

1808 | 4th January | Serampore is occupied again by the British.

1809 | 1st January | The chapel in Bow Bazaar was opened by Carey.

1810 | Towards the close of | Ward published the first edition of his work on the 'History, Literature and Mythology of the Hindoos, include a minute description of their manners and customs, and translations from their principle works'. (John Clark Marshman previously mentioned that the first volume was 'put to press' in 1807. Stennett puts the date of first publication at 1806.)

1812 | 11th March | The printing office was totally consumed by fire

1812 | March | Ward's 'dear, dear child Mary' dies.

1812 | 17th June | Dr. Judson and his companion Mr. Newell, arrived in Calcutta from America.

1812 | 6th September | William Ward baptised Adoniram Judson and his wife Ann (known as Nancy) at Serampore.

1812 | 29th September | The Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society sanctioned the modification of their constitution.

1812 | 1st November | William Ward baptised Luther Rice at Serampore.

1813 | 22nd June | William Wilberforce made his magnificent speech in the House of Commons during the debate on the Charter Act.



1813 | April | The missionaries received official information of the modification of the constitution of the Baptist Missionary Society.

1813 | 3rd July | The Charter Act passed the third reading and became law.

1814 | 1st August | Eustace Carey, William Carey's nephew, arrived in Calcutta.

1814 | December | Ward wrote of his wife's illness and that his daughter Amelia had lost the sight in one eye.

1815 | Ward published a second edition of 'History, Literature and Mythology of the Hindoos'. Abridged, improved, and in one volume.



1815 | Summer | Mrs. Ward embarked for England, with her eldest daughter, on account of her health.

1815 | September | Eustace Carey and Mr. Lawson remove to Calcutta and they were appointed pastors at The Bow Bazaar chapel.

1815 | 27th November | The Governor-General, Lord Hastings, visited the missionary establishment at Serampore.

1815 | Within 3 weeks of Lord Hastings visit | Serampore was restored to the Danish authorities.

1816 | Joshua Marshman drew up a pamphlet called 'Hints relative to native schools, together with an outline for an institution for their extension and management'.

1816 | 31st December | A Special Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society resolved that the property at Serampore should be vested in 8 trustees in India.

1817 | 24th June | The birth of the General Baptist Missionary Society, at Castle Donington, Leicestershire.

1817 | 25th August | Mrs. Ward arrived back in Serampore in renovated health. With her was Mr. William H. Pearce with the proposals of the Special Committee.

1817 | 15th September | The Serampore missionaries send a letter repudiating the demands of the Special Committee.

1818 | At the beginning of | Ward advised to to take a river trip on account of his health and visits Chittagong, Dacca, and Nuddea.

1818 | April | The missionaries commenced an English monthly magazine to which Marshman gave the title 'Friend of India'.

1818 | May | Ward landed in England.

1818 | 31st May | The first newspaper printed in any oriental language was issued from the Serampore press. It was called the 'Samachar Durpun', or the 'Mirror of News'.

1818 | 15th July | The Serampore missionaries issued the prospectus of a 'College for the instruction for the Asiatic, Christian, and other youth, in Eastern literature and European science'.

1818 | August | The Serampore missionaries issue the first report on the preliminary arrangements for the administration of students and the regulation of the classes.

1818 | August | Ward visits the sanatorium at Cheltenham on account of his health.

1818 | November | Mr. Nathaniel Ward accompanies Sir Stamford Raffles to Bencoolen.

1818 | 13th December | Ward embarked for England and Joshua Marshman took his place at the Printing Office.

1818| At the close of the year | The missionaries in Calcutta retired from the church over which Carey and his colleagues presided and formed a separate church and congregation.

1819 | At the end of | After reviewing all the correspondence between Fuller and the Serampore missionaries, the Baptist Missionary Society embody their conclusions in a series of resolutions.

1820 | 27th March | The first steam engine ever erected in India begins operation at Serampore.

1820 | July | A meeting is held in Calcutta between the Senior and Junior Brethren.

Ward visits Holland for 3 weeks.

1820 | Ward travels to America and travels the country for three months.

1821 | May | Ward embarks for India with John Mack and Hannah Marshman.

1821 | 20th October | Ward returns to Serampore.

1823 | Wednesday, 5th March | Ward preaches his last sermon in the Mission Chapel at Serampore.

1823 | Friday, 7th March | William Ward dies of cholera at Serampore.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:31 am

Part 1 of 4

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
Translated [Google translate] from the French original
[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]

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


PRELIMINARY NOTE.

The program proposed in 1849 by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres for the restitution of the ancient geography of India according to the sources, from primitive times to the time of the Muselman invasion, has occasion of the current study on the Geography of the Veda.

This study embraces only a part of the vast subject pointed out by the Academy; but it is its fundamental basis. The precious collection of Vedic hymns, since the works, still so recent, of Rosen, Langlois, Max Muller and Wilson, gave us access to it, has become the necessary starting point for all research relating to ancient India, as much for history and geography as for social and religious development.

Leaving aside philological exegesis, a task for which M. Max Muller, the learned editor of the text, is appointed above all others, there are in the Veda two great subjects of study.

One can seek there the picture of society itself and of its religious ideas, as well as the relations of these primitive beliefs with those of the other peoples of the great Indo-European family.

Or can focus more specifically on the geography and ethnographic indications contained in the hymns.

The subject which was given to us touched, to tell the truth, neither worship nor social development. We have not had to approach this great side of Vedic studies, of which M. Guigniaut has just given such a fine exposition in his course at the College de France. A book that the learned German will envy us will, we hope, come out of these learned lessons, and it is up to the eminent professor to endow science with it.

Restricted to geography and ethnography, the double object of our researches did not fail, in its less extended horizon, to have great importance. On the one hand, it is the determination of the geographical synonymes which fixes in a certain way the limits of what one can call the Vedic territory, that is to say the country where the Arian tribes lived during the long period to which the composition of the hymns relates; on the other hand, synonymes and ethnological filiations lead to results of great consequence for the history of India. Their light is projected not only on the heroic centuries which the great poems celebrate, but also on all the sequence of later times up to the present time.

We know how important ethnological studies are for clarifying the origins and migrations of peoples, and for giving their true meaning to certain historical events; for India especially, which has no written history in the strict sense of the word, this importance is greater than anywhere else. In several essential respects, they are history itself. Combined with the indications that scholarly criticism can draw from the old monuments of Sanskrit literature, they make it possible to reconstruct, in the absence of details of events, at least some major phases of social history. We believe that the current memoir will already be able to give an idea of the historical scope of this type of research; but it is in a special work that we propose later to embrace the detail and bring out all the consequences.

If the study of the various races of a great country such as India is the essential basis of history, ethnological research must itself be based on geography. So it was to Sanskrit geography that our first work had to be devoted. It was a truly immense field of investigation, which we found almost uncultivated. Ten years of almost uninterrupted application have barely sufficed to explore all its parts. We nevertheless dare to believe that historical and archaeological researches will find a solid point of support in the very extensive work which we have devoted to the ancient geography of India. Of the four memoirs of which this work is composed, two have just been printed in one of the Collections of the Academy of Inscriptions, and we hope that the printing of the other two will follow shortly. Our Memoir on the route of Hiouen-Thsang, in the seventh-sixth century of our era, forms the natural complement of these four pieces of ancient geography, as well as the Study on Vedic geography, which we are now delivering to the impression, is its starting point and introduction.

Except for a few retouches and a few additions of no importance, we give the present memoir absolutely as it was submitted, in 1855, to the judgment of the Academy.

July 1859

Introduction.

General view of the History and Geography of India up to the end of the Muslim period, preceded by an outline of the present state of studies on ancient India.

The conquest of India by the Muslims marks the time when, for the first time, native place names underwent profound alterations; these alterations have been perpetuated to the present day, worsening from century to century under foreign influences, and they have ended by erasing and rendering almost entirely unrecognizable the Sanskrit nomenclature of the peninsula, that is to say the true national geography, the only one which gives an understanding of the ancient monuments of Indian literature. To restore, according to the sources, the geography of India prior to the Muslim conquest1 [These are the terms of the program proposed as a prize subject, in 1849, by the Academy of Inscriptions, and extended in 1851.] it is a problem which opens to geographical science one of the vastest fields of investigation that it can propose today.

And we can also say one of the most useful. After having remained, until the end of the last century, almost completely outside the studies which had for their object the antiquities of Asia, India has since then taken a large part in it, which acquires more and more importance every day, and more scope. Very slow at first and much disputed, the progress of this new branch of Oriental studies has become, for twenty-five years, both more rapid and more sure. Already, in this still quite recent career, great scientific notabilities have occurred, and they have marked their passage through it by vast and fine works. The names of William Jones, of Wilkins, of CoIebrooke and of Thomas Prinsep in Calcutta, of Wilson in England, of Gorresio in Italy, of Eugène Burnouf, of Langlois and of Adolphe Régnier in France, of Schlegel, of Benfey, of Lassen, of Max Muller, of Kuhn, of Albrecht Weber in Germany, to cite only the most illustrious, throw on this new school a brilliance which is due no less to the importance of the results acquired than to the eminent qualities of erudition and sagacity which these names recall.

Works relating to India have, moreover, followed, in their course and in their successive developments, the order which emerged from the subject itself, and which was imposed by the more or less easy access to documents and sources. The Sanskrit language, whose very name was unknown barely a century ago, must have been its first object, then literature, then finally antiquities and scholarly research. As we have been able to penetrate further into the immense domain of Brahmanic literature, as new texts have been acquired and published, we have seen the horizon expand and unexpected perspectives open up. Currently a great work of reconstitution takes place. Of literature properly so called, we possess almost all the important monuments. Buddhist India was revealed to us by the work of Eugène Burnouf, which was interrupted too soon, alas! by premature death; Colebrooke and the scholars who have followed in his footsteps have made us penetrate into the intimate knowledge of the philosophical doctrines which developed very anciently in this land of abstract contemplation; the Vedas and the ancient literature related to them are now the object of similar studies, of which we already have important results: in a word, we see rising for us from his secular sepulchre, under the powerful evocation of our European scholars, the entire old Hindu society, with its religious, philosophical and moral doctrines. Efforts are now turning to history.

Here the materials are fewer and the difficulties greater. At no time did Brahmanic India have a proper history. The memory of ancient things has only been preserved among the Indians in the vast Puranic compilations, where legend and real facts are often mixed and difficult to separate. To bring together the versions, often very numerous, of the same story, in order to go back to the primitive text, which is, in general, the simplest and the purest; compare all the legends, in order to extract from their alloy the real facts which were the starting point; to collect all the lists of princes, all the genealogies contained in the great poems, in the Puranas and in other sources; to examine and discuss this infinite detail of more or less altered facts and uncertain names, while enlightening oneself with external help furnished by the peoples with whom India found itself in contact from the fourth century before our era; to finally reconstruct, at the cost of this laborious amount of discussion and research, a regular set where the facts are re-established at least in their general relationships: this is a task that cannot be accomplished either in a single day or by a single man. We are, moreover, still very far, in spite of the activity of research and the publication of texts, from possessing in Europe all the materials necessary for this great reconstruction. When one thinks that ten generations of scholars have worn themselves out on the much less abundant texts from which, since the time of the Renaissance, the historical and literary antiquity of the Greek and Roman world has been unearthed, one is less impatient of what remains to be done for India than amazed at what has already been done. The great work on which Mr. Lassen has been working for twenty years, and of which he has so far given three volumes, independently of several particular memoirs, is in itself a veritable monument of Indian erudition. The Antiquities of India (Indische Alterthumskunde) by the famous Bonn professor is perhaps not the last word in the reconstruction of ancient India; but the work will always remain as one of the finest titles of the Indianist school, and it will surely be for a long time to come the most complete repertoire of historical notions that can be drawn from Hindu sources.

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.

In the first forty years of the present century, the comparative geography of Brahmanic India has therefore made only very slight progress. There has been, as I have already said, good work of detail, and useful research on particular points; the publications of Mr. Wilson especially contain excellent material and precious indications, in particular the explanations which he joined to his elegant translation of the Megha Dhoûta of Kalidâsa (1813), his precious Introduction to the Catalog of the Mackenzie collection (1828), and especially the notes of his translation of the Vishnu Pourâna (1840), a veritable encyclopedia of Hindu antiquity. They are good material for some parts of the national geography of India; but, on the whole, nothing has been done or undertaken. The most considerable advance is in the publication of Sanskrit texts, as much in Calcutta as in London, in Paris, in Germany and in Petersburg, and in the already numerous translations of the original works. The impulse is given and does not slow down. As for the general state of Sanskrit geography before the labors of Mr. Lassen, if we wish to have an idea of the quite rudimentary condition in which it was still reduced barely twenty years ago, we must go through the sketch drawn by Mr. Carl Ritter of the geography of the Hindu peninsula prior to the Muslim conquest1 [Erdkunds, t. V, 1835, p. 434 to 529.]: the learned geographer of Berlin, who, for this portion of his book as for all the others, has read everything, consulted everything, quoted everything, barely registers here and there an ancient Sanskrit name related to the current names, after Wilford, Franklin, William Jones or Wilson. Walter Hamilton's Description of India (1820), the fullest that England still possesses, is no richer in this respect, although the author, from a just sense of the vice of the European nomenclature, has everywhere sought to bring back to their Sanskrit form the horribly corrupt names of our maps and our books.

The great work of M. Lassen1 [Indische Alterthumskunmde, t. I-III, 1847-1857, gr. in-8.], and the particular memoirs which were the preparation2 [De Pentapotamia indica, 1827, in-4; From Taprobane insula, 1842, in-4; Beitrage zur Kunde des indischen Alterthums aus dem Mahabharata, in the Zeitscrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlands, t. I a V, 1837-1844, etc.], mark an immense progress in the study of ancient Sanskrit geography, or, to put it better, they are the true starting point of this study; It must, however, be recognized that it is only very incidental in the work of the famous professor. M. Lassen is incessantly brought back to it in the course of his historical researches, because the ground where they place it is, in this respect, almost absolutely uncultivated, and because the knowledge of the localities is indispensable to the clarification of the facts. But he did not address the subject as a whole. He did not attempt to trace its historical development; and it is even true to say that, however numerous the geographical explanations contained in his notes, they scarcely touch more than the principal points and historical localities, thus leaving out a multitude of ancient names given by the texts and by inscriptions. These detailed identifications would have led the author into a series of discussions that his plan did not include. The map drawn up for the Antiquities of India, by M. Henri Kiepert (1853), has precisely the same character. This map has the great merit of being, in this genre, the first serious attempt; but, as the geographer has included only the data furnished by the work of M. Lassen, it presents, on the whole, only a very incomplete and very sparse nomenclature. It is a canvas in which one recognizes the hand of the master, but it is only a canvas; Mr. Lassen was doubtless better than anyone in a position to undertake thoroughly the complete study of the ancient geography of India. If his researches had turned especially in this direction, I would not have had the presumption to approach after him a subject so vast and so difficult.

At least I will not have neglected anything so as not to remain too below this crushing task. I did not hide the extent of it from myself, nor do I think that I am accused of having exaggerated it. The number of sources to consult is immense; I have endeavored not to omit any of them. For discussions of comparative geography and historical ethnology, there is no too careful research; and it often happens that we come across, in the accounts of the least scientific character, facts and indications which we have sought in vain in the more special sources. As the task of the geographer is to see the country through the eyes of others, the witnesses who serve as his intermediaries cannot be too numerous nor too diverse in disposition, so that all together complement and control each other. Good topographical maps are also an indispensable element, and, in this respect, the great atlas of the Compagnie des Indes, which is in the process of being executed, has often been of precious help in spite of its recognized imperfections. It would be useless to dwell any longer here on the sources of all the periods that I had to draw on, having taken care to cite them exactly throughout the course of my research, and my intention being to give later a complete bibliography of the peninsula, of which I gathered all the elements a long time ago. Anyone who has been involved in research of this nature will not find the care I have given to this part of the subject, indicated by the program of the Academy, too scrupulous.

It is now appropriate to take a general look at ancient India, in order to recognize the great epochs between which its geographical history is divided. This distinction by era is all the more necessary since they each have their own, well-defined character, and since their study is generally based on a series of quite distinct documents. There are necessary relations between them and a reciprocal dependence, as between the parts of the same body, and it would be impossible to study one of them in depth if we isolated it completely from the others; but they nevertheless form so many natural sections, which can only be deepened by approaching them separately. It is in the aftermath of these great epochs that we also see the history of ancient Hindu society and the successive phases of its development unfold.

What may be called the primitive times of India are those to which the Veda belongs. We know that the Veda is the religious book of the Arian race of India, that is, of the people whose language was Sanskrit; the principal part of this sacred collection, the Rig-Veda, is composed of hymns sung by the priests during the offerings made to the protective gods of the Aryas. These hymns, all except the last in the collection, belong to a time when the Aryas, divided into tribes, still led pastoral life in the plains of Punjab (the Vedic Sapta-Sindhu, or the region of the Seven Rivers); they are, consequently, prior to the establishment of the Arian nation in the plains of the Yamounâ and the Ganges, and to the beginning of the great monarchies which were founded there under the two contemporary races of Tchandra and Sourya (the Lunar race and the Solar race). The period of Vedic times, during which the hymns were composed, certainly embraces a space of several centuries; and, without claiming to assign its precise limits, one can at least admit as extremely probable that it pivots around the fifteenth century before the Christian era. The Veda is by no means a historical book, although there are found in it, in considerable number, facts and traditions which are the oldest memories of the race, and which later became the basis of a host of legends contained in the great poems and in the Puranas; but, from this particular point of view of the history of the Aryas, it is above all because of its geographical indications that the collection of hymns is important. One can even say, without exaggerating anything, that it is the geography of the hymns which gives them a real historical value; for it is by this alone that one fixes with certainty the residence of the Arian tribes at that time, and that one can recognize their progressive market from Sindhou to the Ganges. There are only two or three names of territories in the Veda; but the names of the tribes, Arian or non-Arian, are quite numerous there. The clarification of this part of the Vedic indications is of great importance; it is the starting point of the ethnology of northern India, and a solid basis for its heroic history.

It is to this double object, the clarification of the geography and ethnography of the Veda, that the present work is devoted.

With the establishment of the great Arian monarchies in the basin of the Ganges begins a second period, which may be called that of the heroic times. The initial epoch of this second period must most probably be placed from the fourteenth to the twelfth century, before our era. It embraces, like the Vedic period, a space of at least five or six centuries; but the events which fill it have a much greater character, and they have also had quite a different repercussion in Brahmanical literature. These ancient times, during which two great parallel dynasties shared the empire of the Gangetic countries, lived in traditions as the glorious era of national history. If India had had its Herodotus or its Livy, this period in the history of the Aryas would have provided some beautiful pages in the annals of humanity. A nation which is transformed and begins a new life, which abandons the pastoral life for the better regulated habits of agricultural life, and which receives from its Sages a political, civil and religious organization, strong enough to have gone through three thousand years of fortunes diverse, and not having allowed itself to be undermined either by schisms, or by revolutions, or by conquest, such a nation, at the time of its youthful energy, would have been a noble and grand spectacle for history. But, instead of history, India has only legends. These legends of heroic times were originally deposited in sacerdotal chronicles designated under the name of Purânas, or collections of Ancient Things (the Book of Manu mentions them in several places), common source of the eighteen present-day Purânas, the composition of which is very more modern.

The Mahâbhârata has as its subject the struggle of two branches of the Lunar family, disputing the empire of India; the main subject of the Ramayana is the conquest of the island of Lanka (Ceylon) by a prince of the Solar race. But what above all makes the importance of these two vast compositions for history and geography is less the main theme than the episodes attached to it. These episodes (itihâsas), especially in the Mahâbhârata, are a real mine of geographical information, where most of the tribes of northern India pass before our eyes, with their cities, their rivers and their mountains, whose situation is generally indicated in such a way as to direct at least, if not to fix, the researches of the geographer. In both poems there are veritable itineraries, which have all the value and sometimes all the precision of those of a modern traveller. It suffices to cite here, in the Ramâyana, the march of the envoys of Ayôdhyâ towards the royal city of the prince of the Kêkayas, and that of Bharata in search of his brother Rama, retired in the forests of Tchitrakouta. It is especially these itineraries which are invaluable in restoring the map of this ancient geography; they provide so many bases and assured points, to which they can be attached step by step
, and with the help of other means of comparison provided by all the documents that we have on India, the other indications less contained in the poems, such, for example, as the lists of peoples, rivers and mountains, which are given, in the VIth book of the Mahâbhârata and in the IVth book of the Râmâyana, as descriptions of the world. Historically, these lists are far from having the value of itineraries and other local indications included in the very contexture of the poems, because of the facility they offer for interpolations [the insertion of something of a different nature into something else.], and also of the errors of copyists who slip more easily than elsewhere in an arid accumulation of proper names. We can judge of this by the faults of this kind with which the analogous lists of Pliny and the Tables of Ptolemy are filled.

The Ramayana exercised the activity of translators. We currently possess the complete Italian translation by M. Gorresio, one of the eminent pupils of our illustrious and excellent Eugène Burnouf, a translation which had preceded the elegant Latin version of Wilhelm Schlegel, which stops at the second book, and the English translation by Carey and Marshman, which does not go much further, in addition to a French translation published since Mr. Gorresio's version. It would have been very much to be desired that that of Guillaume Schlegel, interrupted by the death of this eminent Indianist, had been continued, as M. Lassen had given hope; that one, at least, would not have duplicated work, the translator having followed a redaction of the poem different from that chosen by Mr. Gorresio, and the variants of the two redactions always offering useful comparisons. It is regrettable that this superabundance of effort expended on Valmiki's work did not extend to the Mahabharata. We possess a fairly large number of more or less extensive fragments, translated into English, French, German or Latin; but, up to the present, no complete translation of the poem has been attempted, although Dr. Goldstücker, of Berlin, has long held out hopes of one. This is a gap that the publication of the text, in Calcutta, cannot compensate for. A work such as this did not really enter scientific circulation until the day when, by a good translation into a European language, it was handed over to the critical study of the antiquarian and the geographer, rid of all purely philological concern. It is thus that, by his French translation of the Rig-Veda, M. Langlois has rendered an invaluable service to the historical and philosophical sciences.

The Mahâbhârata and the Râmâyana, these are the two great geographical sources of the heroic period of India; but there are still others, and very important ones. At the head of all, and even before the great poems, we must place the documents of what has been called the oupavedic literature, that is to say the writings which are attached to the Vedic literature, although from a period very posterior to the very composition of hymns. The editing of these writings, as well as the assembly of the hymns themselves in a single body of work, is certainly contemporary with the two great parallel dynasties of Tchandra and Sourya. These are the Brâhmanas, or liturgical part of the four Vedas, and the Upanishads or dogmatic and theological treatises. The Upanishads, of which Anquetii-Duperron has translated a Persian version into Latin, do not appear to be useful for historical studies; but it will not be the same with the Brahmanas, to judge by two important specimens which the extracts of Colebrooke and of Doctor Albrecht Weber have made known of them. Nevertheless, the capital piece of this first period of Brahmanic literature is the Mânava-Dharma-Çâstra, or Book of the Law, attributed to Manu, where there is a complete table of the great geographical divisions of the land of the Aryas (the Aryavarta), without which the frequent mention of the same countries in later documents would have had only an ill-defined meaning for us. The Book of Manu also contains very valuable indications for the ethnology of ancient India, notably an extensive list of impure or degraded tribes.

The hymns of the Veda placed the abode of the Arian tribes in the basin of the five great tributaries of Sindh; in the following epoch, that of the Pavavedic or heroic times, there took place a complete displacement of the habitation of the Aryas. Their territory is now in the basin of the Ganges, between the Himalayas and the Vindhyâ mountains. It is on the banks of the Sarasvati, to the west of the Upper Yamouna, that the great social reform and the definitive organization of the Brahmanic people took place; it is not far from there, on the right of the Ganges, at a short distance from its exit from the mountains, that Hastinapoura, one of the royal cities of the Lunar dynasty, was founded. A little farther to the east, in the middle of the plains of Koçala, rose the capital of the kings of the Solar race, the superb Ayôdhyâ. This fertile region, watered by the Ganges and its great tributaries, was quickly covered with numerous towns and flourishing towns. This is the terrain where we place all the documents which date from this remote period or which refer us to it, the Brahmanas, the Book of Manon, the Mahabharata and even the Ramayana; for, geographically, the part of this last poem which has for its theater the region south of the Vindhya mountains is of very secondary importance. It is the geography of the Odyssey compared to that of the Iliad. The useful side of this second part of the Ramayana is to show us what was, at the time of the greatest power of the Gangetic Aryas, the sum of their acquired notions on the southern regions up to Lanka; nothing more. As for the countries of the north-west, the first abode of the Vedic tribes, the reading of the poems and the Pavedic documents gives rise to a curious remark. These great plains cut by rivers, which extend from Sarasvatl to Sindh, still remain for a time in a close religious and political community, as well as in an intimate alliance of families or tribes, with the Gangetic Aryas; but little by little the bonds loosen; the relations weaken, and there is finally a complete separation between the Pantchanada and the Aryavarta. This split is clearly noted by an episode of great ethnological interest found in the Mabâbhârata, where the Brahmans of the south anathematize the peoples of Panchanada because of their licentious and corrupt life, and the contempt into which they have fallen. among them the prescriptions of religious law.

When one examines the fundamental conditions of the various regions of India, one easily recognizes the real causes of this separation.

The northwestern region, or Pantchanada, had been occupied for several centuries by the Vedic Aryans, but it was not their native land: they came from further beyond Sindh. The Pantchanada, which is designated in the hymns by the appellation of Sapta-Sindhu, or the Seven Rivers, had been for them only a country of conquest and passage. This country was occupied before them by a semi-barbarous aboriginal population, which had to be subjugated or driven back to the mountains; the hymns are full of the memory, or rather of the daily mention of these continual battles. We also see from numerous passages in the Rig-Veda that these relations between the Aryas and the Dasyous (this is the Vedic name of the aborigines) had gradually become less exclusively hostile in character. Many of the tribes of the country had yielded, it seems, to the double ascendancy of strength and intelligence; they had accepted the cult of the Aryas, and thus they themselves had become Aryas through adoption and religious consecration. But this religious transformation of their nationality had never been able, one can imagine, to be complete enough to efface the original diversity; and, when the pure Aryas, leaving behind them the country of the Seven Rivers, had settled definitively in the plains of the Ganges, where a new life began for them, the tribes of Panchanada, returned in full possession of their native plains, had to return soon to the customs and life of their own race. Hence, in them, this relaxation of Brahmanic law for which the bard of the Mahabharata reproaches them. The distinction of race, political life and religious creed has, moreover, been perpetuated to our day in the country of the Vedic Dasyous; the present-day Punjab differs no less today, in this triple respect, from Brahmanic Hindustan than the Panchanada of antiquity differed from Aryavarta.

This point, on which I insist, is of capital importance for the understanding of Indian antiquity; it is through lack of having perceived it or of having realized it, that the scholars who have written recently on ancient India have left very obscure many facts indicated in the legends, which otherwise would have been illuminated for them sudden clarity. This fundamental distinction between the Aryas by race and the Aryas by adoption, the former forming the pure nucleus of the Brahmanic nation, the latter only being attached to it by often vague and doubtful links, this distinction, I say, is not special to Pantchanada: it applies to the whole of India, and it is especially of great historical significance for all of ancient Aryavarta, that is to say for the region which extends from from sea to sea between the Vindhya Mountains and the Himalayas.

If the view whose historical importance I have just pointed out were derived only from a few ancient texts, which might always appear more or less questionable, its own value might also seem very doubtful; but it rests on an infinitely wider and firmer basis, on the profound study of the ethnology of India from ancient times to the present time. This study had not yet been made in its entirety, or at least no attempt had been made to relate it to ancient Sanskrit documents. The nomenclature of the tribes, so extensive in the poems and other Sanskrit documents, enters necessarily into the studies relative to ancient India; it forms there what M. Burnouf, in one of his last speeches within the Academy, very aptly called the ethnological geography of India. And here it was not enough to determine the territory that the texts assign to the ancient tribes: a far more important point was to seek out and establish their identity, that is to say to follow their history, or at least their mention, from time to time, through the documents of all the centuries, and, thus descending to modern times, to verify whether the tribe does not still exist today, in order, in this case, to supplement by the current study, taken on the spot, to what the documents of past times may have of vagueness or incompleteness. This idea is so simple and springs so naturally from the subject, that it is surprising that it has not hitherto occurred to any of the investigators of ancient India. The materials are, moreover, extremely abundant, thanks to the number of excellent contacts and local studies that we have had on India for half a century. This research therefore offered no serious difficulty other than its very scope, which was a stimulus rather than an obstacle.

I dare say that I was amply rewarded for undertaking it. An unexpected light gradually issued from this long work carried out separately on each tribe, and this light, growing ever stronger and spreading, was soon projected over the whole extent of the ancient times of India down to their last depths. I use this expression deliberately, in which there is nothing exaggerated. The hymns of the Veda are themselves enlightened by the reflections of this powerful focus; but it is above all the epic sources which have received an entirely new light. There are very few of the tribes which are mentioned there whose displacements and historical destinies I have not been able to follow down to our time; and, as all these tribes still exist, except a very few, it has been easy to ascertain to which of the two great divisions of the population of India they belong, either to the Arya race (pure or mixed), or to the aboriginal or non-Arian race. In the great poems, these tribes are all indistinctly qualified as Aryas: they were so by worship, but not by blood. This fundamental distinction cannot be overemphasized. I do not believe that I am advancing anything excessive in asserting that the most considerable aspect of the restitution of ancient times in India is in this certain and precise determination of the respective nationality of the two great classes of peoples who figure in the legendary traditions, and which are there confused under the common denomination of Aryas.

A special investigation of Indian ethnology thus became a distinct and very important branch of the studies which have for their object the reconstruction of ancient India.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:33 am

Part 2 of 4

The foregoing has brought us to the limit of what can be called, at least in a relative way, the historical times of India. This new period begins with the Buddhist era in the middle of the sixth century before the Christian era, in the year 543. For the first time we have a fixed date in the long sequence of centuries which starts from Vedic times. The reform of Sakyamuni Buddha produced in India a historical school for which the measurement of time has finally become one of the elements of human affairs; it is from this period that we find, in different parts of the peninsula, several special eras to which we refer public or private facts and the reigns of princes, such as the era of Vikramâditya or Çâka (57 BC -Christ), that of Çâlivâhana (78 of Jesus Christ), the era of Vallabhi or the Guptas of Surâchtra (318 of Jesus Christ), and others less generally used. The exact determination of epochs and that of synchronisms are no less useful, in many cases, to geography than to history.

The Buddhist literature of India, both that of the north, which M. Burnouf has made known to us in his Introduction and in the Lotus, to which we must add the Lalitavistara translated by M. Foucaux, as well as that of the south or of Ceylon, whose M. Turnour has partly translated the principal monument, the Mahavanso or Grande Chronique, this literature, I say, also brings to geography a series of documents which usefully complete, on many points, the materials of the Brahmanic literature. Among these Buddhist documents, I can cite as one of the most useful the nomenclature of the sixteen kingdoms between which Gangetic India was divided, in the sixth century before our era; in addition to numerous topographical information on the contiguous provinces where Çâkyamuni personally spread the preaching of his doctrine, Magadha, Mithila and Koçala. The Buddhist books of Ceylon are written in the Pali dialect of Maghada; but the Sanskrit form of the names is easy to restore according to known laws.

Another class of documents from the same period, of great geographical importance, consists of the accounts of various Chinese Buddhists who traveled through India at various times, between the third and tenth centuries of our era. Two of these relations, the most important, have been translated into French, that of Fa-Hian (400-414) by Abel Rémusat, Klaproth and Landresse, and that of Hiouen-Thsang (639-654) by M. Stanislas Julien. This one above all can be ranked among the most precious geographical documents that we possess on ancient India, not only because of the value of the work, but also of the numerous appendices that the learned translator has attached to it, and of the rigorous laws of transcription which M. Stanislas Julien, the first, established to bring back the Chinese words to their Sanskrit form.

The Mahavanso and the other Sinhalese documents are very rich in topographical information on Ceylon, and enable us to reestablish in particular detail the ancient topography of this island.

Another class of documents still belongs to the period of Buddhist times, although of an entirely different nature and relating to other regions of India: these are the writings of Greek and Roman authors. The space of time which they embrace is about nine hundred years, from the appearance of Alexander in the countries of the Indus, in the fourth century before our era, until the middle of the sixth century of Jesus Christ, who provides us with the curious account of Cosmas: the notions that Herodotus and Ctesias, before the expedition of Alexander, had already collected among the Persians on some parts of north-west India, are of little valuable for geography, though interesting in several respects.

In the middle of the series of our ancient Western authors relating to India, there is one who dominates them all, either by the extent or by the connection of the notions that he brought together on this great country of the East: it is Ptolemy. The long chapter that Ptolemy devoted to India in his Geography is like a natural center around which are grouped the partial information furnished by the other authors; also the Alexandrian geographer becomes the main theme of any in-depth work on classical India, the other sources of Greek or Latin origin successively bringing their share of indications on the regions to which each of them more specifically belongs: Arrîan and the other abbreviators from the original memoirs of the expedition of Alexander, on the basin of the Kophes, the Pantchanada and the lower valley of the Indus; Megasthenes, over the countries of the Ganges; the Periplus, on the west coast and the southern end of the peninsula; Cosmas, on the Taprobane. Mr. Lassen devoted half of the third volume of his great work (1856-57) to the clarification of the Greco-Roman geography of India, and precisely at the same time I was reading myself, within the Academie des inscriptions, the first parts of an extensive work on the same subject, which have just been printed in the fifth volume of the Memoirs of foreign scholars. The method of M. Lassen and that which I followed in this great work of elucidation are completely different; it is for the competent judges to decide which will have led to the most fruitful results.

It would be leaving an immense gap in the restitution of the ancient geography of India and in the ethnographic studies connected with it, to limit oneself to purely Sanskrit sources. There are other very numerous and widespread documents which are, for large regions of India, almost exclusive sources of information provincial. The documents of this class (we are dealing here only with those of northern India) are written in the different dialects of the provinces, which all belong, moreover, to the Sanskrit family. Only one has been written in Sanskrit on the model of the ancient poems: it is the Chronique du Kachmîr or Râdjataranghini, of which M. Troyer has given a French translation. Many other provinces have similar chronicles, mostly unpublished; Mr. Stirling has made known those of Orissa, Mr. James Long that of Tripura, Major Tod those of Radjasthan. There is also in India, particularly in the temples, a multitude of local chronicles (Sthala Pouranas), sometimes limited to a city, a pagoda, a place consecrated by legendary traditions, and which would be a precious mine of information, detailed indications for the ancient Sanskrit geography, free of Moslem or European alterations. The Dekhan is no less rich than northern India in documents of this nature; and although these southern documents are generally written in Tamil, which is the literary language of the Dekhan, they are none the less indispensable to consult, as far as access to them is possible, not only because they give the only means of completing, for a whole half of the peninsula, the restitution of the native geography and ethnology, but also because it is there that one can still find the Sanskrit elements carried formerly by the Aryas of the north in the southern countries. An immense quantity of local chronicles and Tamil and other documents of the same nature were collected at the beginning of the present century by Colonel Mackenzie, and are preserved in the library of the East India Company. Mr. Wilson, whose name is represented each time it is a question of useful works on Indian literature, has made this collection known by an ample catalog filled with numerous extracts, and we possess, in addition, the analyzes detailed accounts of some of the most important pieces of the collection, given in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of London either by Mr. Wilson himself, or by Mr. Taylor or by Mr. Walter Elliot. 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.

Of all the provincial sources which India still reserves for the investigation of its present masters, the most precious, in several essential respects, are those of the Rajput states of the west; these are the ones which relate most directly to ancient documents such as to the ancient history of Sanskrit India. We see, from the epic legends and from the Puranas, that, from the earliest times, there has been a continual displacement and a great flow of populations from north to south and south-west, in the region between the Yamounâ and Lower Sindh, from Pantchanada to the Vindhya Mountains and Narmada. A crowd of tribes coming out of the region of the five rivers, either at the time of the great Arian migration, or in the times that followed, descended into the beautiful and rich country (Mâlava) which waters the Tcharmanvatl (the current Tchambal) and its many tributaries, some directly, others after a more or less long stay in the plains of the Ganges or the Yamounâ. An essential remark is that all these tribes belonged to the numerous family of the Yadava; now the Yâdava are the most considerable group of this mixed population annexed to the Aryas by the religious bond and having taken the name from it, but belonging in reality to the aboriginal race, except for a more or less considerable intrusion of the ârya blood brought by the contact and alliances. From the most ancient times of the heroic period, there was a natural separation and like a double current of migrations, the pure Aryas, the Brahmanic tribes, spreading to the south and south-east in the basin of the Ganges, the Yadava or Mixed Aryas going to the south-west as far as the great peninsula of Surachtra, which was later named Gudjerat. The ethnological study of ancient India fully confirms, by a set of positive and current facts, the data provided by ancient traditions. The region formerly occupied by the Yadava' who came out of Pantchanada formed what is now called the country of the Rajputs. (Ràjavâr, Rajasthân, Rajpoutana), the background of the population is already. Rajputana is the country of the bards (bhats, tcharans); there is no chief who does not maintain one or more official poets charged with celebrating in their songs the high deeds of the tribe, and perpetuating the memory of ancient genealogies. This usage was formerly universal among the Aryas, and we see from the hymns that it already existed in Vedic times; it is among the Rajput tribes that it is most generally preserved. Apart from these living chronicles, the principal states of Rajasthan have written chronicles which are usually kept in the temples, and where the old traditions are deposited. The Radjpouts have, moreover, a great poem, written at the beginning of the thirteenth century, by Tchand, the most celebrated of their bards; this poem, which has for its subject the struggle sustained for four centuries against the Mussulman invaders, is the national title and the pride of the tribes.

This set of documents of the Rajput literature is the main, or, to put it better, almost the only source, from which one can draw the native geography and the ethnography of the North-West of India. Until now, we know of these documents only through the analyzes and extracts of Major Tod1 [Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 1829-32; Travels in Western India, 1839; and several memoirs in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of London.]; although several chronicles and the poem of Tchand were brought to Europe by this active explorer and are deposited in the library of the Asiatic Society of London, neither the poem nor the chronicles have so far found a translator, and no Indianist has yet taken them for the subject of a special study. The extracts from Major Tod can only compensate to a limited extent for the regrettable omission.
--Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan or The Central and Western Rajput States of India, by Lieut.-Col. James Tod, Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States, edited with an introduction and notes by William Crooke, C.I.E., Hon. D.SC. OXON., B.A., F.R.A.I., Late of the Indian Civil Service, in Three Volumes, Vol. I, 1920

-- Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan or The Central and Western Rajput States of India, by Lieut.-Col. James Tod, Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States, edited with an introduction and notes by William Crooke, C.I.E., Hon. D.SC. OXON., B.A., F.R.A.I., Late of the Indian Civil Service, in Three Volumes, Vol. II, 1920

-- Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan or The Central and Western Rajput States of India, by Lieut.-Col. James Tod, Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States, edited with an introduction and notes by William Crooke, C.I.E., Hon. D.SC. OXON., B.A., F.R.A.I., Late of the Indian Civil Service, in Three Volumes, Vol. III, 1920

-- Travels in Western India, Embracing a Visit to The Sacred Mounts of the Jains, and the Most Celebrated Shrines of Hindu Faith Between Rajpootana and the Indus; With an Account of the Ancient City of Nehrwalla, by The Late Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, Author of "Annals of Rajasthan", 1839

Image

In 1822 Colonel James Todd [James Tod] stumbled upon an important piece of Indian history on the foothills of the mount it was found in the Girnar Rock Edict.

He described it as: “a huge hemispherical mass of dark granite, which like a wart upon the body has protruded through the crust of mother earth, without fissure or inequality, and which by the aid of ‘iron pen’, has been converted into a book.”

Todd had the writing on the edicts faithfully copied and sent to the great scholar James Princep [James Prinsep] in 1837.

Princep decoded the Brahmi script in which they were written with an iron implement/pen. He also discovered and established that the Orissa rock edict and the Girnar edict were basically identical and helped establish Ashoka as a genuine historical figure.

The rock bearing an important Ashoka edict was found beside the path leading up to Mount Girnar.

-- Girnar Rock Edict, Junagadh, by Rana Safvi

Let us add that a Sanskrit poem which is considered as an appendix to the Mahâbhârata, Ie Harivança, is also a literary monument of the Kchatryas of the west, probably composed in the first centuries of our era. The Harîvança celebrates the exploits of Krishna, the national god and the hero of the yâdava race, and recounts the general migration of the tribes at the time of the great war, when, forced to abandon the banks of the Yamounâ, they came to found Dvaraka on the shores of the western sea; the poem thus forms a link and a connecting point between the Mahâbhârata and the Rajput chronicles.

By the natural division which arises from the very basis of things, as well as by the special nature of the sources of information, the western region therefore forms a distinct section in the study of ancient India, from the double point of view of the ethnology and geography, as well as from the point of view of history.

The successive epochs which we have hitherto passed in review, and the various classes of sources of study relating to them, have brought us down to the first centuries of the Christian era. Here begins a new series of documents of capital use for the restitution of Sanskrit topography: these are the inscriptions. Already earlier times furnish some monuments of this nature, but in small numbers. In various parts of India, from the banks of the Mahanadi to the foot of the Himalayas, west of Sindh, inscriptions engraved on the rock by the orders of King Açôka [King Ashoka], famous in the splendor of Buddhist; these inscriptions therefore date from the middle of the third century BC, less than a century after the time of Alexander. There are also several inscriptions of the kings of the Goupta dynasty, later than the second and third centuries of our era. These monuments are valuable for history, and also bring some useful data to ancient geography; but the inscriptions which, from the fifth and sixth centuries onwards, become more and more common in all parts of the peninsula, both north and south of the Vindhya mountains, belong to a different category and are of a completely different character. We still find here and there, mainly in the temples of the south, royal inscriptions where princes exalt their victories and give the details of their conquests; but the great mass of inscriptions of this last period of Indian antiquity is of a private and entirely local nature. These are, in general, grants of land made by princes to Brahmins or religious establishments; they are sometimes engraved on stone plates, but more commonly on sheets of copper. The usefulness of these documents for geography comes from the fact that each grant describes in the most minute manner the lands granted, names the villages which are comprised therein and indicates those which form the district thereof, as well as the rivers and streams which bound them or cross them. We can imagine how much detail such documents bring to the ancient topography of India, when we consider that their number is infinite, that they are found in all parts of the territory, and that, although we are far from knowing them all, those that we already have number in the thousands. The Mackenzie collection alone contains more than eight thousand, all of which belong to the Dekhan. Most of them are not only useful for topographical reconstruction, they are also of invaluable help for history. Each inscription usually begins with the genealogy of the granting prince, and these genealogies, where historical facts are noted here and there, often contain a long series of names. The comparative study of these documents will provide the means of reestablishing the dynasties, great and small, which reigned in all parts of India, successively or simultaneously. Some good works of this kind already make it possible to prejudge what a more general study will be able to give later.

But, before drawing from this innumerable quantity of epigraphic documents all the usefulness that one can expect from them, a first work would be essential: it would be to bring together in the same collection all those that we already have or that new research will be able to discover, and to form a Corpus similar to our large collections of Greek and Latin epigraphy. The inscriptions, distributed according to their nature and the language in which they are written, would be arranged, moreover, by periods and by provinces; the text would be carefully reviewed, and would be accompanied by a translation, with the necessary clarifications. Such a publication, the most useful that can be undertaken today in the state of Indian studies, will be worthy of the enlightened munificence of a great government. A definitive work on India, prior to the Muslim domination, will only be possible after this preliminary elaboration of the epigraphic monuments of the peninsula.

We have arrived here at the extreme limit of India's antiquity. The Moslem conquest, at the same time as it brought the government of most of the states of the peninsula under the domination of a foreign race for the first time, was also the starting point of the modern history of the country. India has since ceased to belong to itself, and its geography, as well as its political government, has lost its stamp of indigeneity. The period of the Muslim conquest of India embraces a space of more than six hundred years, from the first irruption of the Arabs of the caliphate in the valley of Sindh in 664, until the expeditions of the Dekhan at the end of the thirteenth century; but the conquest of the kingdoms of Dehli and Kanyâkoubdja or Kanoge by the Ghourides, from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the thirteenth, marks the culminating point and the real limit of the period.

The study of the Arab and Persian sources which report the events is doubly useful, by numerous topographical indications, and especially by the notions which one draws from it on the political state of India at the time of the arrival of the Muslims, and on the different States which existed there both north and south of Vindhya. It is an element of political and geographical study which it is important to bring closer to the parallel indications provided by the inscriptions.

The most general source is still the story of Ferichta, translated by Colonel Briggs. M. Reinaud has pointed out others even more important for the first times of the appearance of the Arabs in Sindh, in particular Béladori and Albirouni, and he has translated extensive sections of them, both in his Fragments arabe et persans inédits relative à India (1845) than in his Memoir on India prior to the eleventh century (1849). These fragments furnished me, on several points of the ancient geography of northern India, with excellent indications which I would not have found elsewhere. M.H. EIIot, whom an untimely death has just snatched from Oriental letters, had begun in India, under the title of Index to the Mahomedan historians of India (1849), a collection which promised to bring to this part of the studies Indians an immense quantity of unpublished material, but which the death of the author unfortunately stopped. The impetus is given, however, and the course of these great publications can only be temporarily suspended.

If now we summarize what precedes, we see that from the point of view of historical studies in general, of which geography and ethnography are here the two principal branches, the antiquity of India is divided into eight periods, or rather forms eight great divisions based either on great historical epochs or on the special nature of the sources of study.

I. The Vedic period, which is for India that of primitive times. This first period, the study of which is contained entirely in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, has for its geographical theater the region of the Five Rivers, or Punjab; its extent, necessarily indeterminate, is several centuries, and the twelfth or thirteenth century BC very probably marks its lower limit.

II. The period of the heroic times, which immediately succeeds the Vedic times, and extends for us until the period of the Buddhist era, in the middle of the sixth century before our era. This second period transports us from the Pantchanada into the basin of the Ganges; it comprises the legendary history of the two great national dynasties of India, the Lunar race and the Solar race, contained chiefly in the great poems and in the Puranas.

III. The ethnology of ancient India, studied as a whole and in its general relations, in order to ascertain to what native race, Arian or non-Arian, belonged the different tribes which appear in the old historical legends of India, by following the trace of these tribes through the centuries down to the present time, most of them still existing and having preserved the names by which the Sanskrit sources designate them. This important division of the study of ancient India is limited by the subject itself, not by time; it embraces the whole duration of the centuries from Vedic times, that is to say at least three thousand four hundred years.

IV. The Buddhist period, which begins with the era of Śākyamuni in the middle of the sixth century BC, and which is, for India, the point of departure of historical times properly so called. This period provides the geographical study of ancient India with three classes of material: the Buddhist books of the north or of Nepal, whose notions apply above all to Magadha and the other provinces of Gangetic India; the Buddhist books of sod, abundant in topographical information on the island of Ceylon, and finally the reports of Chinese Buddhists, which provide valuable itineraries, particularly that of Hiouen-Thsang.

V. The division which we may call the classical period, in relation to the nature of the materials which it furnishes to the study of the ancient geography of India. These materials are the writings of Greek and Latin authors. Although Herodotus and Ctesias preceded it and are attached to it, the period dates, to tell the truth, only from the expedition of Alexander of Macedonia in the provinces of the Indus, and it extends to the middle of the sixth century, thus embracing a space of almost a thousand years. Ptolemy is like the center around which all the sources of this Greco-Latin period are grouped.

VI. Alongside the purely Sanskrit sources, we find another class of very numerous and very important documents for the study of ancient India: these are the provincial sources, written in dialects or in languages of India other than Sanskrit, and referring to provinces or special localities. For many parts of India, for the Dekhan in particular, these sources are almost the only ones to consult, tribes of the Yadava race whose legendary origins are found in the Mahàbhàrata and the Harivança. The Râdjataranghini, or Great Chronicle of Kachmir, although written in Sanskrit, also falls into this class.

VII. From the times close to our era, begins for India a historical period hitherto very obscure and very confused, for lack of written documents; this period, up to the time of the Moslem domination, is, in many respects, comparable to the Middle Ages of our Western world. It is nevertheless likely to receive great light from a class of monuments hardly attacked until now: these are the inscriptions, intended most usually to record grants of land made by the reigning prince to individuals or corporations. From the fifth and sixth centuries, literally all the provinces of the peninsula are covered with these documents, which will provide detailed geography with innumerable indications.

VIII. The period of the Muslim conquest forms both the crowning moment of ancient India (both from the point of view of geography and from the point of view of history) and the starting point of modern times. The Arabic and Persian documents of this period contain ample information, which it is useful to compare with that provided by the inscriptions, both on the topography and on the general geography of India from the 11th to the 13th century. There are already some considerable works belonging to this category, notably the History of Ferishta, although the greater part of the documents contained in the libraries of India are still unpublished.

This rapid review that we have passed of the ancient times of India and of the historical or ethnographic divisions between which this great chapter of Eastern antiquity is divided, has shown us still many gaps and great voids to be filled in the sources study of the various periods, but also already very rich and very important documents, the number of which is increasing day by day by new publications of texts, translations and critical works. It is no longer today that one could say what was so often repeated until the end of the last century, and sometimes since, that India's past has left behind neither memories nor remains. It is above all for geography, from which ethnology cannot separate, that the materials are already abundant enough to reconstruct, in its general features and in a large part of its details, the map of ancient India.

One of the difficulties of this work of restitution is in the very abundance of the notions of detail which must regain their place in the whole. When, in order to respond to the Program of the Academy, I attached myself to this difficult study, I soon felt the need to find a plan of work which could reconcile the elucidation of the points of detail, the number of which is immense and which all have their interest either for history and archaeology, or for pure geography from the point of view of the restitution of the old map, with the clarity of the overall views, which only attaches to broad results and general facts.

I will be forgiven for going into this somewhat personal detail. The ethnographic and geographical reconstruction of ancient India, as I have understood it, is an immense task; I don't know if I will be able to fill it. Man's life is short and his necessities are often painful; rarely the number of days that is counted to us is enough to accomplish the projects that our spirit has nurtured, with the most love. I wanted, if I must leave this one unfinished, that those who could take it up after me know the course I will have followed; in research of this nature, one likes to elucidate one's experience from that of one's predecessors.

Here, then, in order to reconcile the various requirements of the subject, is the plan on which I have settled after a thorough examination.

To study, according to the order of times and in all accessible sources, the eight successive periods between which the geographical antiquity of India is divided.

Summarize, for each period, the general results of this study in an overall presentation which presents only the dominant aspect and the characteristic features.

Refer to a particular section the topographical nomenclature and the multitude of detailed facts, where they will be classified in alphabetical order, more favorable than any other to the promptness of research.

This is the general idea; let's try to make it more precise.

I give the name of discourse to the ensemble pieces relating to each era, wishing to indicate by this what character the composition should have. These are lectures, not dissertations. The discussions of detail, which could have been multiplied to infinity there, are referred to each particular article of the alphabetical section; here we have only to consider the results. To bring out clearly the specific character of each period, to appreciate and classify the sources and the means of study which belong to it, to show what each period brings of new elements to the ethnographic or geographical knowledge of ancient India, and to follow in its gradual developments the geographical history of the peninsula: such are the objects of every discourse.

These discourses, following the order of the great divisions of study to which they relate and of some essential subdivisions which are found there, are brought to the number of twelve.

1. Discourse on the Geography of Vedic Hymns.

2. Discourse on the geography of orpavedic sources. The Aryavarta in the early days of the heroic centuries.

3. Discourse on the geography of the Mahâbhârata, with an appendix for the Harivança.

4. Discourse on the geography of the Ràmâyana.

5. Discourse on the ethnology of ancient India.

6. Discourse on the geography of Buddhist sources, with an appendix on the geography of the island of Sinhala, or Ceylan, in the Mahâvamsa and the other Sinhalese chronicles.

7. Discourse on the Greek sources and remains of the ancient geography of India, and in particular on the India of Ptolemy.

8. Discourse on the Geography of the Ràdjataranghini, or Great Kashmiri Chronicle.

9. Discourse on the geography of Rajput sources.

10. Discourse on the geography of the native documents of the Dekhan.

11. Discourse on the epigraphic geography of India, from the first centuries of our era.

12. Discourse on the geography of India in Muslim sources.

Each of these speeches must be accompanied by one or more maps, on a sufficient scale to place there not only the main indications of the general statement, but also all the detailed positions mentioned in the sources, and whose nomenclature is returned to the alphabetical directory. The series of these maps, sixteen to eighteen in number, will form a complete historical atlas of ancient India. A large map, intended to represent the political divisions and the indigenous nomenclature of India from the tenth to the twelfth century of the Christian era, leaving to each of the special maps the indications specific to each period and to certain categories of sources, will reproduce from each of them only the permanent indications which constitute the very body of Sanskrit geography, and in particular those given by the epigraphic sources.

The continuation of these discourses on the various periods of the geographical history of ancient India, with the maps which are attached to them and summarize them, form the first part of our research; the second part is formed by the Alphabetical Directory.

It is easy to see, with some reflection, that this form of Alphabetical Directory is not only the most suitable, but the only suitable and the only one which could be adopted, having regard to the nature, the object and the conditions of the job.

When, for the first time, the ancient Sanskrit geography is approached as a whole and in all its details, each name provided by the sources requires special elaboration. For a very large number of names, this elaboration inevitably takes on extended proportions, and gives rise to veritable dissertations; It was obviously impossible to reconcile this continuity of critical discussions with the forms and proportions required in a methodical composition. Alphabetical order alone gave a frame large enough and elastic enough to lend itself to the demands of the subject.

It must be remembered, moreover, that however considerable our work may be, it is only the first draft of an entirely new science. There remains to be published a large number of original documents belonging to the ancient times of India, and each new publication will necessarily bring new facts to the ancient Sanskrit geography. With the alphabetical form of our Directory the frame remains open, always ready to admit, without disturbing the whole, the additions and rectifications that will be provided by new materials.

Finally, a work of complete restitution of the ancient geography of India must become; and this will be its greatest utility, the auxiliary of all historical or archaeological research which will have Andean India for its object. The alphabetical order is the most favorable to prompt research.

This form is the one chosen by d'Anville for the supporting work of his map of ancient Gaul, as the articles of our Alphabetical Directory will be the supporting documents for the detailed maps and the general map of Sanskrit India.

It is also the form which before d'Anville Ortelius had adopted for his Thesaurus of Classical Geography, an excellent work which no one has since replaced, and which, even today, after three hundred years, has largely retained part so utility first. Only Ortelius, at the time when he wrote, could not bring comparative geography within the framework of his researches, and this comparative part, which follows a name of locality or tribe through the centuries, to arrive, if he still exists, in its current identification, is, on the contrary, the considerable side of my work. For the old sources, I endeavored to note exactly the passages of all the authors, or to indicate the inscriptions or a name is mentioned, so that one can always go back to the original sources. I have, moreover, carefully indicated all the modern works, relations, dissertations, memoirs, &c. where the point in question is mentioned or discussed.

I have set out in its entirety the plan of a complete work on the native geography and on the ethnography of ancient India; I must now say what parts of it I have been able to fill up to now.

The study of the Vedic period was the first that presented itself in the order of time. Here the material was as new as possible, for the fundamental basis, the Rig-Veda, was not completely published until the end of 1851.1 [In the French translation of M. Langlois, 4 vol, in-8. Since then, Mr. Wilson has undertaken an English version, which goes hand in hand with the publication of the Sanskrit text by Mr. Max Muller, and which has reached its third volume.] This first study is entirely completed; it is the one that the Academy of Inscriptions judged worthy of the prize it had offered, and that I am putting today before the eyes of the learned public. The geography of Sapta-Sindhou is now, I dare to believe, completely clarified, as well as the ethnological indications of the hymns. Several consequences of great historical significance emerge from this work. It is a first and solid base for the ethnological history of the following centuries, that is to say for the essential part of the history of ancient India, such as our documents allow us to reconstruct it.

The six years which have elapsed since the time when the program of the Academy was published would not have sufficed by any means to treat thoroughly each of the eight periods of the ancient history of India, such as we have them distinguished; our original sources, in the current state of Sanskrit publications, would not have allowed it for all of them. Several important brahmanas, the Aîtarèya and the Çatapatha in particular, which we know, until now, only through extracts, and of which we have reason to hope for the soon publication, are essential to trace the geographical table of the first time of the great monarchies of the Aryavarta, and to submit the geographical nomenclature of this ancient period to a complete work of elucidation. It is likewise impossible to undertake a comprehensive work on the geography of the Mahabharata before the complete translation of this gigantic epic, of which we still only have detached fragments. We have every reason to hope that a year will not pass before we possess, completely finished, the Ramayana of M. Gorresio; but, at this moment, the last book is still missing from this beautiful publication1 [last book has been published since the time when these lines were written]. The same applies to the geography and ethnology of the Rajput sources, which, through the Harivança, are intimately connected with the old legends of the Mahabharata; the extracts that Major Tod has given, if they already allow us to glimpse the character and scope of this category of indigenous sources, are not sufficient to trace a sufficiently reasoned appreciation, and to bring out the general data. We have to wait for the publication of one or two of the great provincial chronicles brought back to Europe by Major Tod, and the translation of the poem by Tchand, which for so long has solicited the labor of an Orientalist. As for the geography of the inscriptions, it would also be premature to want to expose in a substantial way the character and the general design before the Indian epigraphy was the object of new publications, more extensive and more regular than what we have it now. Within the limits of the different periods that I have just mentioned, one could no doubt already approach a host of questions and facts of detail, either geographical or ethnological; but only insufficient, more or less superficial, and necessarily provisional appreciations of them would have been given. In any case, those had to be adjourned.

Others could end now.

For the complete and thorough study of Greek and Latin documents, for the geography of Buddhist times and that of the Kashmirian chronicle, for the geography of the Râmâyana, finally for the ethnological study of ancient India, we are now in full possession of sufficient materials. Most of the facts of detail of these five great divisions have been attacked in the course of my first work, and several, by the developments which they have received, have become veritable dissertations. Over six hundred such papers have been submitted for consideration by the Academy along with the current dissertation on Vedic geography.

By awarding the prize to a work which only partially met the conditions of its program, the Academy no doubt wished to give a high mark of encouragement to research of which it was aware of the extent and the difficulties. I feel keenly how honorable such a high favor is, but I also understand what obligations it imposes. I have not ceased to work to fulfill them to the extent of my strength. The first three parts of an extensive memoir on the Greco-Roman geography of the Hindu peninsula, compared with the Sanskrit geography, have since been read within the Academy, and the first two are already printed in the fifth volume of the foreign scholars. As soon as the last part of this memoir is finished, I propose to complete a no less considerable work on the ethnology of India; work for which I have gathered for a long time and partly elaborated the materials. It would be rash to extend my predictions for the future any further.

***
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:35 am

Part 3 of 4

French Original:

NOTE PRÉLIMINAIRE.

Le programme proposé en 1849 par I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres pour la restitution de l'ancienne geographie de l'Inde d'apres les sources, depuis les temps primitifs jusqu'à l'époque de l'invasion musulmane, a été l'occasion de l'étude actuelle sur la Géographie du Véda.

Cette étude n'embrasse qu'une partie du vaste sujet signalé par l'Académie; mais elle en est la base fondamentale. Le précieux Recueil des hymnes védiques, depuis que les travaux, si récents encore, de Rosen, de Langlois, de Max Muller et de Wilson, nous en ont ouvert l'accès, est devenu le point de départ nécessaire de toutes les recherches relatives à l'Inde ancienne, aussi bien pour l'histoire et la géographie que pour le développement social et religieux.

En laîssant à part l'exégèse philologique, tâche pour laquelle M. Max Muller, le savant éditeur du texte, est désigné entre tous, îl y a dans le Véda deux grands sujets d'étude.

On y peut chercher le tableau de la société même et de ses idées religieuses, ainsi que les rapports de ces croyances primitives avec celles des autres peuples de la grande famille indo-européenne.

Ou peut s'attacher plus spécialemeut à la geographie et aux indications ethnographiques contenues dans les hymnes.

Le sujet qui nous était donné ne touchait, à vrai dire, ni au culte, ni au dëveloppement social. Nous n'avons pas dû aborder ce grand côté des études védiques, dont M. Guigniaut vient de faire un si bel exposé dans son cours du Collège de France. Un livre que nous enviera l'erudite Allemagne sortira, nouns l'espérons, de ces doctes leçons, et c'est à l'éminent professeur qu'il appartient d'en doter la science.

Borné à la géographie et à l'ethaographîe, le double objet de nos recherches ne laissait pas, dans son horizon moins étendu, d'avoir une grande importance. D'une part, c'est la détermination des synonymies gëographiques qui fixe d'une manière certaine les limites de ce qu'on peut nommer le territoire védique, c'est-à-dire le pays où demeuraient les tribus âriennes durant la longue période à laquélle se rapporte la composition des hymnes; d'une autre part, les synonymies et les filiations ethnologiques conduisent à des resultats d'une grande conséquence pour l'histoire de l'Inde. Leur lumière se projette non-seulement sur les siècles héroïques que cèlebrent les grands poèmes, mais aussi sur toute la suite des temps postérieurs jusqu'à l'époque actuelle.

On sait de quelle importance sont les études ethnologiques pour éclaircir lea origines et les migrations des peuples, et pour donner leur véritable signification à certains événements de l'histoire; pour l'Inde surtout, qui n'a pas d'histoire écrite dans la rigoureuse acception du mot, cette importance est plus grande que nulle part ailleurs. Sous plusieurs rapports essentiels, elles y sont l'histoire meme. Rapprochées des indications qu'une crîtique savante peut tirer des vieux monuments de la littérature sanscrite, elles permettent de restituer, à défaut du détail des événements, au moins quelques grandes phases de l'histoire sociale. Nous croyons que le mémoire actuel pourra déjà faire pressentir la portée historique de cet ordre de recherches; mais c'est dans un travail spécial que nous nous proposons d'en embrasser plus tard le détail et d'en faire ressortir toutes les conséquences.

Si l'étude des races diverses d'une grande contrée telle que l'Inde est la base essentielle de l'histoire, les recherches ethnologiques doivent elles-mêmes s'appuyer sur la géographie. Aussi est-ce à la géographie sanscrite qu'a du se consacrer notre premier labeur. C'était un champ d'investigations véritablement immense, et que nous avons trouvé à peu près inculte. Dix années d'application presque ininterrompue ont a peine suffi pour en explorer toutes les parties. Nous osons croire néanmoins que les recherches historiques et archéologiques trouveront dormais un point d'appui solide dans le travail très-étendu que nous avons consacré à l'ancienne géographie de l'Inde. Des quatre mémoires dont ce travail se compose, deux viennent d'être imprimés dans l'un des Recueils de l'Académie des inscriptions, et nous espérons que l'impression des deux autres suivra prochainement. Notre Mémoire sur l'itinéraire de Hiouen-Thsang, au vii-e siècle de notre ère, forme le complement naturel de ces quatre morceaux de geographie ancîenne, de méme que l'Étude sur la géographie védique, que nous livrons maintenant a l'impression, en est le point de départ et l'introduction.

Sauf quelques relouches et quelques additions sans importance, nous donnons le mémoire actuel absolument tel qu'il a été soumis, en 1855, au jugement de l'Académie.

Juillet 1859

Introduction.

Vue generale de l'Histoire et de la Géographie de l'Inde jusqu'à la fin de la période musulmane, précédée d'un aperçu de l'état actuel des études sur l'Inde ancienne.

La conquête de l'Inde par les musulmans marque l'époque où, pour la première fois, les noms de lieux indigènes subirent de profondes altérations; ces altérations se sont perpétuées jusqu'à nos jours, en s'aggravant de siècle en siècle sous les influences étrangères, et elles ont fini par effacer et rendre presque entièrement méconnaissable la nomenclature sanscrite de la péninsule, c'est-à-dire la véritable géographie nationale, la seule qui donne l'intelligence des anciens monuments de la littérature indienne. Restituer, d'après les sources, la géographie de l'Inde antérieurement à la conquête musulmane1 [Ce sont les termes do programme proposé comme sujet de prix, en 1849, par l'Académie des inscriptions, et prorogé en 1851.], c'est un problème qui ouvre à la science géographique un des plus vastes champs d'investigation qu'elle puisse aujourd'hui se proposer.

Et nous pouvons dire aussi un des plus utiles. Après être demeurée, jusqu'à la fin du dernier siècle, presque complètement en dehors des études qui avaient pour objet les antiquités de l'Asie, l'Inde y a pris depuis lors une large part, qui acquiert chaque jour plus d'importance et plus d'étendue. Très-lents d'abord et très-contestés, les progrès de cette nouvelle branche des études orientales sont devenus, depuis vingt-cinq ans, tout à la fois plus rapides et plus surs. Deja, dans-cette carrière encore ù récente, de grandes notabilités scientifiques se sont produites, et elles y ont marqué leur passage par de vastes et beaux travaux. Les noms de William Jones, de Wilkins, de CoIebrooke et de Thomas Prinsep à Calcutta, de Wilson en Angleterre, de Gorresio Italie, d'Eugène Burnouf, de Langlois et d'Adolphe Régnier en France, de Schlegel, de Benfey, de Lassen, de Max Muller, de Kuhn, d'Albrecht Weber en Allemagne, pour ne citer que les plus illustres, jettent sur cette nouvelle école un éclat qui ne tient pas moins à l'importance des résultats acquis qu'aux qualités éminentes d'érudition et de sagacité que ces noms rappellent.

Les travaux relatifs à l'Inde ont, d'ailleurs, suivi, dans leur marche et dans leurs développements succesiff, l'ordre qui ressortait du sujet même, et qu'imposait l'accès plus ou moins facile des documents et des sources. La langue sanscrite, dont on ignorait jusqu'au nom il y a un siècle à peine, en a du être le premier objet, puis la littérature, puis enfin les antiquités et les recherches d'érudition. A mesure qu'on a pu pénétrer plus avant dans le domaine immense de la littérature brahmanique, à mesure que de nouveaux textes ont été acquis et publiés, on a vu s'étendre l'horizon et s'ouvrir des perspectives inattendues. Actuellement un grand travail de reconstitution s'opère. De la littérature proprement dite nous possédons a peu près tous les monuments importants. L'Inde bouddhique nous a été révélée par les travaux d'Eugène Burnouf, trop tot interrompus, hélas! par une mort prématurée; Colebrooke et les savants qui ont marché sur ses traces nous ont fait pénétrer dans la connaissance intime des doctrines philosophiques qui se développèrent très-anciennement sur cette terre de la contemplation abstraite; les Védas et la littérature antique qui s'y rattache sont maintenant l'objet d'études analogues, dont on possède déjà des résultats importants: en un mot, nous voyons se relever pour nous de son sépulcre séculaire, sous la puissante évocation de nos savants européens, la vieille société hindoue tout entière, avec ses doctrines religieuses, philosophiques et morales. C'est maintenant vers l'histoire que les efforts se tournent.

Ici les matériaux sont moins nombreux et les difficultés plus grandes. A aucune époque l'Inde brahmanique n'a eu d'histoire proprement dite. Le souvenir des choses anciennes ne s'est conservé, chez les Indiens, que dans les vastes compilations pouraniques, où la légende et les faits réels sont souvent melés et d'une séparation difficile. Rapprocher les versions, souvent très-nombreuses, d'un même récit, afin de remonter jusqu'au texte primitif, qui est, en général, le plus simple et le plus pur; comparer toutes les légendes, afin de dégager de leur alliage les faits réels qui en ont été le point de départ; réunir toutes les listes de princes, toutes les généaiogies contenues dans les grands poëmes, dans les Pourânas et dans d'autres sources; examiner et discuter ce détail infini de faits plus ou moins altérés et de noms incertains, en s'éclairant des secours extérieurs fournis par les peuples avec lesquels l'Inde s'est trouvée en rapport à partir du iv-e siècle avant notre ère; reconstruire enfin, au prix de cette somme laborieause de discussions et de recherches, un ensemble régulier où les faits soient rétablis au moins dans leurs rapports généraux: c'est là une tâche qui ne peut être accomplie ni en un seul jour ni par un seul homme. On est, d'ailleurs, bien loin encore, malgré l'activité des recherches et des publications de textes, de posséder en Europe tous les matériaux nécessaires à cette grande reconstruction. Quand on songe que dix générations d'érudits se sont usées sur les textes bien moins abondants d'où l'on a exhumé, depuis l'époque de la Renaissance, l'antiquité historique et littéraire du monde grec et romain, on est moins impatient de ce qui reste à faire pour l'Inde qu'étonné de ce qu'on a déjà fait. Le grand ouvrage auquel M. Lassen travaille depuis vingt ans, et dont il a donné jusqu'à présent trois volumes, indépendamment de plusieurs mémoires particuliers, est à lui seul un véritable monument d'érudition indienne. Les Antiquités de l'Inde (Indische Alterthumskunde) du célèbre professeur de Bonn ne sont peut-être pas le dernier mot de la reconstitution de l'Inde ancienne; mais l'ouvrage restera toujours comme un des plus beaux titres de l'école indianiste, et il sera sûrement longtemps encore le répertoire le plus complet des notions historiques qui se peuvent tirer des sources hindoues.

Dans cet ensemble de publications récentes sur l'Inde brahmanique, la géographie était restée fort en arrière. Bien des points particuliers ont été touchés dans quelques-uns des grands ouvrages que l'Europe a vus paraitre depuis vingt ans, surtout dans ceux de M. Wilson et de M.Lassen; on y trouve des indications de détail et d'heureux rapprochements; un grand nombre de faits et d'identifications se peuvent aussi tirer des innombrables mémoires répandas dans les journaux speciaux et dans les collections académiques de l'Inde et de l'Europe: mais, jusqu'à présent, le sujet n'avait pas été abordé dans un travail d'ensemble. Ce travail, qui peut seul reconstituer en un corps régulier la géographie sanscrite de l'Inde, devenait cependant chaque jour d'une nécessité plus urgente; il n'est pas une question d'histoire ou d'archéologie où cette nécessité ne se fasse vivement sentir. La première condition dans toute recherche de cette nature, c'est d'être bien fixé sur le théâtre des événements; sans quoi les textes n'apportent à l'esprit qu'une image flottante et confuse.

Les études sur la géographie de l'Inde ancienne ont du longtemps se borner aux notions fournies par les écrivains grecs et latins. Jusqu'à la fin du dernier siècle, l'Inde sanscrite n'existait pas encore. On ne connaissait du passé de cette grande péninsule que ce que nous en ont transmis nos propres auteurs classiques, d'après les historiens originaux d'Alexandre le Grand et de ses successeurs immédiats, et aussi d'après les relations dont les rapports commerciaux de l'Egypte romaine avec l'Orient devinrent l'occasion. Les recherches de d'Anville (1783 et 1775), le premier qui ait essayé sérieusement de rapprocher les indications classiques des notions modernes; celles de Rennell (1783 à 1793), de Mannert (1797), de Wahl (1805), du Dr Vincent (1807) et de M. Gossellin (1789 a 1813), ne sont pas sorties de ce cerde. Déjà cepedant, dansses discours sur les sciences et la littérature des naticnis asiatiques, William Jones, le célèbre fondateur de la Société du Bengale, avait fait pressentir les ressources ignorées que la littérature brahmanique pourrait fournir pour l'étude de l'Inde ancienne, et il s'était efforcé, non sans succès, de porter les orientalistes anglais dans cette direction. En 1801, dans le sixième volume des Àsiatic Researches1 [Introd. p. iv.], la Société asiatique de Calcutta signalait parmi les desiderata des études indiennes "un Catalogue des noms devilles, de pays, de provinces, de rivières et de montagnes tirées des Castras et des Pourânas, avec la correspondance des noms modernes" Elle demandait aussi des recherches sur cette question à la fois historique et géographique: "Quelles étaient les divisions géographiques et politiques du pays avant l'invasion musulmane?" Ce que dés lors demandait la Société, ce n'était rien moins que la restitution complète de la géographie sanscrite de l'Inde. Mais cette tâche, si elle n'était pas audessus des forces-de ceux qui se trouvaient à même de l'entreprendre, dépassait les ressources dont une pareille entreprise pouvait alors s'entourer; car les études de géographie comparée doivent s'appuyer avant tout sur la connaissance complète du local, et le relèvement topographique de la péninsule était à peine entamé à cette époque.

Le colonel Wilford fut malheureusement le seul des membres de la Société de Calcutta qui entra dans cette direction de recherches géographiques signalée par William Jones. Wilford avait de la lecture et du zèle; et, s'il eût été doué du sens critique, qui lui faisait entièrement défaut, il aurait pu rendre aux études indiennes de véritables services. Mais les incroyables abérrations auxquelles il se laisse emporter si souvent (sans parler des impostures littéraires de ses pandits, dont il fut la première victime), enlèvent toute valeur sérieuse à ses travaux, et ne permettent de recevoir qu'avec une extrême réserve les faits et les rapprochements, qui n'ont pas été contrôlés par d'autres autorités. Il faut cependant reconnaître que, dans le dernier de ses mémoires, qui est aussi le moins imparfait (je ne parle pas de la publication posthume, dans les nos. 220 et 223, 1851; du Journal de la Société de Calcutta, d'un essai de géographie comparée qui est un travail des plus mauvais temps de Wilford), il faut reconnaître, dis-je, que, dans le dernier de ses mémoires, inséré au tome XIV des Asiatic Researches (1822), et qui a pour titre On the ancient Geography of India, il y a çà et là d'utiles indications qui lui ont été principalement fournies par des traités de géographie sanscrite d'une date très-moderne, à la vérité, mais qui n'en contiennent pas moins, sur la nomenclature indigène, des notions plus circonstanciées que celles des investigateurs européens.

Dans les quarante premières années du siècle actuel, la géographie comparée de l'Inde brahmanique n'a donc fait que de bien faibles progrès. Il y a eu, je l'ai déjà dit, de bons travaux de détail, et des recherches utiles sur des points particuliers; les publications de M. Wilson surtout renferment d'excellents matériaux et de précieuses indications, notamment les éclaircissements qu'il a joints à son élégante traduction du Mégha Dhoûta de Kalidâsa (1813), sa précieuse Introduction au Catalogue de la collection Mackenzie (1828), et surtout les notes de sa traduction du Vichnou Pourâna (2840), véritable encyclopédie de l'antiquité hindoue. Ce sont de bons matériaux pour quelques parties de la géographie nationale de l'Inde; mais, sur l'ensemble, rien n'a été fait ni entrepris. L'avance la plus considérable est dans la publication de textes sanscrits, tant à Calcutta qu'à Londres, a Paris, en Allemagne et à Pétersbourg, et dans les traductions déjà nombreuses des ouvrages originaux. L'impulsion est donnée et ne se ralentit pas. Quant à l'état général de la géographie sanscrite avant les travaux de M. Lassen, si l'on veut avoir une idée de la condition tout à fait rudimentaire où elle était encore réduite il y a vingt ans à peine, il faut parcourir l'esquisse tracée par M. Carl Ritter de la géographie de la péninsule hindoue antérieurement à la conquête musulmane1 [Erdkunds, t. V, 1835, p. 434 a 529.]: le savant géographe de Beriin, qui, pour cette portion de son livre comme pour toutes les autres, a tout lu, tout compulsé, tout cité, enregistre à peine çà et là une dénomination sanscrite ancienne rapportée aux noms actuels, d'après Wilford, Franklin, William Jones ou Wilson. La Description de l'Inde de Walter Hamilton (1820), la plus ample que l'Angleterre possède encore jusqu'à présent, n'est pas plus riche sous ce rapport, quoique l'auteur, par un juste sentiment du vice de la nomenclature européenne, ait partout cherché à ramener à leur forme sanscrite les noms affreusement corrompus de nos cartes et de nos livres.

Le grand ouvrage de M. Lassen1 [Indische Alterthumskunmde, t. I-III, 1847-1857, gr. in-8.], et les mémoires particuliers qui en ont été la préparation2 [De Pentapotamia indica, 1827, in-4; De Taprobane insula, 1842, in-4; Beitrage zur Kunde des indischen Alterthums aus dem Mahabharata, dans le Zeitscrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlands, t. I a V, 1837-1844, etc.¬], marquent un progrès immense dans l'étude de l'ancienne géographie sanscrite, ou, pour mieux dire, ils sont le véritable point de départ de cette étude; Il faut cependant reconnaître qu'elle n'est que très-accessoire dans l'ouvrage du celèbre professeur. M. Lassen y est incessamment ramené dans le cours de ses recherches historiques, parce que le terrain où elles le placent est, sous ce rapport, presque absolument inculte, et que la connaissance des localités est indispensable à l'éclaircissement des faits. Mais il n'a pas abordé le sujet dans son ensemble. Il n'a pas essayé d'en retracer le développement historique; et il est même vrai de dire que, si nombreux que soient les éclaircissements géographiques contenus dans ses notes, elles ne touchent guère qu'aux points principaux et aux localités historiques, laissant ainsi en dehors une multitude de noms anciens donnés par les textes et par les inscriptions. Ces identifications de detail auraient entraîné l'auteur dans une série de discussions que son plan ne comportait pas. La carte dressée pour les Antiquités de l'Inde, par M. Henri Kiepert (1853), a précisément le même caractère. Cette carte a le grand mérite d'être, en ce genre, le premier essai sérieux; mais, comme le géographe n'y a fait entrer que les données fournies par l'ouvrage de M. Lassen, elle ne présente, au total, qu'une nomenclature très-incomplète et très-clair-semée. C'est un canevas où l'on reconnaît la main du maître, mais ce n'est qu'un canevas; M. Lasseii était sans doute, mieux que personne, en état de prendre à fond l'étude complète de l'ancienne géographie de l'Inde. Si ses recherches s'étaient spécialement tournées de ce côté, je n'aurais pas eu la présomption d'aborder après lui un sujet si vaste et si difficile.

Du moins n'aurai-je rien négligé pour ne pas rester trop au-dessous de cette tâche écrasante. Je ne m'en suis pas dissimulé l'étendue, et je ne pense pas non plus qu'on m'accuse de l'avoir exagérée. Le nembre des sources à consulter est immense; je me suis efforcé de n'en omettre aucune. Pour des discussions de géographie comparée et d'ethnologie historique, il n'y a pas de recherche trop minutieuse; et il arrive souvent qu'on rencontre, dans les relations du caractère le moins scientifique, des faits et des indications qu'on avait cherchés en vain dans les sources plus spéciales. Comme la tâche du géographe est de voir le pays par les yeux d'autrui, les témoins qui lui servent d'intermédiaires ne sauraient être trop nombreux ni de dispositions trop diverses, afin que tous ensemble se complètent et se contrôlent. De bonnes cartes topographiques sont aussi un élément indispensable, et, sous ce rapport, le grand atlas de la Compagnie des Indes, qui est en cours d'exécution, a été d'un secours souvent précieux malgré ses imperfections reconnues. Il serait inutile de m'étendre plus longtemps ici sur les sources de toutes les époques que j'ai dû mettre à contribution, ayant eu soin de les citer exactement dans tout le cours de mes recherches, et mon intention étant de donner plus tard une bibliographie complète de la péninsule, dont j'ai réuni depuis longtemps tous les éléments. Quiconque s'est occupé de recherches de cette nature ne trouvera pas trop scrupuleux le soin que j'aurai apporté à cette partie du sujet, indiqué par le programme de l'Académie.

Il convient maintenant de jeter un regard d'ensemble sur l'Inde ancienne, pour y reconnaître les grandes époques entre lesquelles son histoire géographique se divise. Cette distinction par époques est d'autant plus nécessaire, qu'elles ont chacune leur caractère propre et bien tranché, et qu'en général leur étude repose sur une série de documents tout à fait distincts. Il y a entre elles des rapports nécessaires et une dépendance réciproque, comme entre les parties d'un même corps, et il serait impossible d'en approfondir une, si on l'isolait complètement des autres; mais elles n'en forment pas moins autant de sections naturelles, qui ne peuvent être approfondies qu'en les abordant séparément. C'est dans la suite de ces grandes époques qu'on voit aussi se dérouler l'histoire de l'ancienne société hindoue et les phases successives de son développement.

Ce qu'on peut appeler les temps primitifs de l'Inde sont ceux auxquels appartient le Véda. On sait que le Véda est le livre religieux de la race arienne de l'Inde, c'est-à-dire du peuple dont la langue était le sanscrit; la partie principale de ce recueil sacré, le Rig-Véda, se compose d'hymnes chantés parles sacrificateurs pendant les offrandes faites aux dieux protecteurs des Âryas. Ces hymnes appartiennent tous, sauf les derniers du recueil, à une époque où les Aryas, partagés en tribus, menaient encore la vie pastorale dans les plaines da Pendjab (le Sapta-Sindhou védique, on la région des Sept Fleuves); ils sont, par conséquent, antérieurs à l'établissement de la nation arienne dans les plaines de la Yamounâ et du Gange, et au commencement des grandes monarchies qui s'y fondèrent sous les deux races contemporaines de Tchandra et de Soùrya (la race Lunaire et la race Solaire). La période des temps védiques, durant laquelle furent composés les hymnes, embrasse certainement un espace de plusieurs siècles; et, sans prétendre en assigner les limites précises, on peut admettre au moins comme extrêmement probable qu'elle pivote autour du xv-e siècle avant l'ère chrétienne. Le Véda n'est nullement un livre historique, quoiqu'on y trouve, en assez grand nombre, des faits et des traditions qui sont les plus vieux souvenirs de la race, et qui devinrent plus tard la base d'une foule de légendes contenues dans les grands pôëmes et dans les Pourânas; mais, à ce point dé vue particulier de l'histoire des Âryas, c'est surtout par ses indications géographiques que le recueil des hymnes est important. On peut même dire, sans rien exagérer, que c'est la géographie des hymnes qui leur donne une valeur historique réelle; car c'est par là seulement qu'on fixe avec certitude la demeure des tribus ariennes à cette époque, et qu'on peut reconnaître leur marché progressive depuis le Sindhou jusqu'au Gange. Il n'y a dans le Véda que deux ou trois noms de territoires; mais les noms des tribus, ariennes ou non ariennes, y sont assez nombreux. L'éclaircissement de cette partie des indications védiques est d'une grande importance; c'est le point de départ de l'ethnologie du nord de l'Inde, et une base solide pour son histoire héroïque.

C'est à ce double objet, l'éclaircissement de la géographie et de l'ethnographie du Véda, qu'est consacré le travail actuel.

Avec l'établissement des grandes monarchies ariennes dans le bassin du Gange commence une seconde période, qu'on peut nommer celle des temps héroïques. L'époque initiale de cette seconde période doit se placer très-probablement du xiv-e au xii-e siècle, avant notre ère. Elle embrasse, comme la période védique, un espace de cinq ou six siècles au moins; mais les événements qui la remplissent ont un bien plus grand caractère, et ils ont eu aussi un tout autre retentissement dans la littérature brahmanique. Ces temps anciens, durant lesquels deux grandes dynasties parallèles se partagèrent l'empire des pays gangétiques, ont vécu dans les traditions comme l'époque glorieuse de l'histoire nationale. Si l'Inde avait eu son Hérodote ou son TiteLive, cette période de l'histoire des Aryas aurait fourni quelques belles pages aux annales de l'humanité. Une nation qui se transforme et commence une vie nouvelle, qui abandonne la vie pastorale pour les habitudes mieux réglées de la vie agricole, et qui reçoit de ses Sages une organisation politique, civile et religieuse, assez forte pour avoir traversé trois mille ans de fortunes diverses, et ne s'être laissé entamer ni par les schismes, ni par les révolutions, ni par la conquête, une telle nation, à l'époque de son énergie, juvénile, aurait été pour l'histoire un noble et grand spectacle. Mais, au lieu d'histoire, l'Inde n'a que des légendes. Ces légendes des temps héroïques furent primitivement déposées dans des chroniques sacerdotales désignées sous le nom de Pourânas, ou recueils des Choses anciennes (le Livre de Manou les mentionne en plusieurs endroits), source commune des dix-huit Pourânas actuels, dont la rédaction est beaucoup plus moderne. Revêtues des formes splendides de la poésie, elles ont donné naissance aux deux grandes épopées de la littérature brahmanique, le Mahabhârata et le Ramâyama.

Le Mahâbhârata a pour sujet la lutte de deux branches de la famille Lunaire, se disputant l'empire de l'Inde; le sujet principal du Râmâyana est la conquête de l'île de Lanka (Ceylan) par un prince de la race Solaire. Mais ce qui fait surtout l'importance de ces deux vastes compositions pour l'histoire et pour la géographie, c'est moins encore le thème principal que les episodes qui s'y rattachent. Ces épisodes (itihâsas), surtout dans le Mahâbhârata, sont une véritable mine de renseignements géographiques, où la plupart des tribus du nord de l'Inde passent sous nos yeux, avec leurs villes, leurs rivières et leurs montagnes, dont la situation est généralement indiquée de manière à diriger au moins, sinon à fixer, les rechercbes du géographe. Il y a dans les deux poèmes de véritables itinéraires, qui ont toute la valeur et parfois toute la précision de ceux d'un voyageur moderne. Il suffit de citer ici, dans le Ramâyana, la marche des envoyés d'Ayôdhyâ vers la ville royale du prince des Kêkaya, et celle de Bharata à la recherche de son frère Râma, retiré dans les forêts du Tchitrakouta. Ce sont surtout ces itinéraires qui sont précieux pour rétablir la carte de cette antique géographie; ils fournissent autant de bases et de points assurés, auxquels se peuvent rattacher de proche en proche, et en s'aidant des autres moyens de comparaison que fournit l'ensemble des documents que l'on a sur l'Inde, les autres indications moins précises contenues dans les poëmès, telles, par exemple, que les listes de peuples, de rivières et de montagnes, qui sont données, au Vl-6 livre du Mahâbhârata et au IV-e livre du Râmâyana, comme des descriptions du monde. Historiquement, ces listes sont bien loin d'avoir la valeur des itinéraires et des autres indications locales comprises dans la contexture même des poèmes, à cause de la facilité qu'elles offrent aux interpolations, et aussi des fautes de copistes qui se glissent plus aisément qu'ailleurs dans une aride accumulation de noms propres. Nous en pouvons juger par les fautes de ce genre dont sont remplies les listes analogues de Pline et les Tables de Ptolémée.

Le Râmâyana a exercé l'activité des traducteurs. Nous possédons actuellement la traduction italienne complète de M. Gorresio, un des élèves éininents de notre illustre et excellent Eugène Burnouf, traduction qu'avait précédée l'élégante version latine de Wilhelm Schlegel, qui s'arrête au second livre, et la traduction anglaise de Carey et Marshman, qui ne va guère plus loin, outre une traduction française publiée depuis la version de M. Gorresio. Il eût été fort à désirer que celle de Guillaume Schlegel, interrompue par la mort de cet éminent indianiste, eût été continuée, ainsi que M. Lassen en avait donné l'espoir; cèlle-Ià, du moins, n'aurait pas fait double emploi, le traducteur ayant suivi une rédaction du poème différente de celle qu'a choisie M. Gorresio, et les variantes des deux rédactions ofirant toujours d'utiles rapprochements. Il est regrettable que cette surabondance d'efforts dépensés sur l'œuvre de Valmiki ne se soit pas portée vers le Mahâbhârata. Nous en possédons un assez grand nombre de fragments plus ou moins étendus, traduits en anglais, en français, en allemand ou en latin; mais, jusqu'à présent, aucune traduction complète du poëme n'a été tentée, bien que, depuis longtemps, le docteur Goldstùcker, de Berlin, en ait fait espérer une. C'est une lacune que la publication du texte, à Calcutta, ne saurait compenser. Une œuvre telle que celle-ci n'est véritablement entrée dans la circulation scientifique que du jour ou, par une bonne traduction en une lingue européenne, elle a été livrée à l'étude critique de l'antiquaire et du géographe, débarrassés de toute préoccupation purement philologique. C'est ainsi que, par sa traduction française du Rig-Véda, M. Langlois a rendu un service inappréciable aux sciences historiques et philosophiques.

Le Mahâbhârata et le Râmâyana, ce sont là les deux grandes sources géographiques de l'époque héroïque de l'Inde; mais il en est d'autres encore, et de très-importantes. En tête de toutes, et même avant les grands poèmes, il faut placer les documents de ce qu'on a nommé la littérature oupavédique, c'est-à-dire les écrits qui se rattachent à la littérature védique, quoique d'une époque très-postérieùre à la composition même des hymnes. La rédaction de ces écrits, de même que la réunion en un seul corps d'ouvrage des hymnes eux-mêmes, est certainement contemporaine des deux grandes dynasties parallèles de Tchandra et de Sourya. Ce sont les Brâhmanas, ou partie liturgique des quatre Védas, et les Oupanichads ou traités dogmatiques et théologiques. Les Oupanichads, dont Anquetii-Duperron a traduit en latin une version persane, ne paraissent pas devoir être utiles aux études historiques; mais il n'en sera pas de même des Brâhmanas, à en juger par deux spécimens importants que les extraits de Colebrooke et du docteur Albrecht Weber en ont fait connaître. Néanmoins, le morceau capital de cette première époque de la littérature brahmanique est le Mânava-Dharma-Çâstra, ou Livre de la Loi, attribué à Manou, où se trouve un tableau complet des grandes divisions géographiques de la terre des Aryas (l'Aryavarta), sans lequel la mention fréquente des mêmes contrées dans les documents postérieurs n'aurait eu pour nous qu'une acception mal définie. Le Livre de Manou renferme aussi des indications très précieuses pour l'ethnologie de l'Inde ancienne, notamment une liste étendue des tribus impures ou degradees.

Les hymnes du Véda plaçaient la demeure des tribus ariennes dans le bassin des cinq grands tributaires du Sindh; à l'époque suivante, celle des temps oupavédiques ou héroïques, il s'est opéré un déplacement complet de l'habitation des Âryas. Leur territoire est maintenant dans le bassin du Gange, entre l'Himalaya et les monts Vindhyâ. C'est-sur les bords de la Sarasvatî, à l'ouest de la Yamounâ Ssupérieure, que s'est accomplie la grande réforme sociale et l'organisation définitive du peuple brahmanique; c'est non loin de là, sur la droite du Gange, à peu de distance de sa sortie des montagnes, que fut fondée Hastinapoura, une des cités royales de la dynastie Lunaire. Un peu plus loin à l'orient, au milieu des plaines du Koçâla, s'éleva la capitale des rois de la race Solaire, la superbe Ayôdhyâ. Cette région fertile, qu'arrosent le Gange et ses grands affluents, se couvrit promptement de bourgs nombreux et de villes florissantes. C'est là le terrain où nous placent tons les documents qui datent de cette époque reculée ou qui nous y reportent, les Brâhmanas, le Livre de Manon, le Mahâbhârata et même !e Râmâyana; car, géographiquement, la partie de ce dernier poëme qui a pour théâtre la région au sud des monts Vindhyâ est d'une importance très-secondaire. C'est la géographie de l'Odyssée par rapport à celle de l'lliade. Le côté utile de cette seconde partie du Râmayana est de nous montrer quelle était, au temps de la plus grande puissance des Aryas gangétîques, la somme de leurs notions acquises sur les régions du sud jusqu'à Lanka; rien dé plus. Quant aux contrées du nordouest, demeure première des tribus védiques, la lecture des poèmes et des documents oupavédiques donne lieu à une remarque curieuse. Ces grandes plaines coupées de rivières, qui s'étendent de la Sarasvatl au Sindh, restent encore pendant un temps dans une étroite communauté religieuse et politique, aussi bien que dans une alliance intime de familles ou de tribus, avec les Aryas gangétiques; mais peu à peu les liens se relâchent; les rapports s'affaiblissent, et il se fait enfin une séparation complète entre le Pantchanada et l'Âryavarta. Cette scission est clairement constatée par un épisode d'un grand intérêt ethnologique qu'on trouve dans le Mabâbhârata, où les Brahmanes du sud frappent d'anathème les peuples du Pantchanada à cause de leur vie licencieuse et corrompue, et du mépris où sont tombées chez eux les prescriptions de la loi religieuse.

Quand on approfondit les conditions fondamentales des diverses régions de l'Inde, on reconnaît aisément les causes réelles de cette séparation.

La région du nord-ouest, ou Pantchanada, avait été occupée, durant plusieurs siècles, par les Aryas védiques, mais ce n'était pas leur contrée native: ils venaient de plus loin au delà du Sindh. Le Pantchanada, qui est désigné dans les hymnes par l'appellation de Sapta-Sindhou, ou les Sept Fleuves, n'avait été pour eux qu'un pays de conquête et dé passage. Ce pays était occupé avant eux par une population aborigène à demi barbare, qu'il fallut soumettre ou refouler vers la montagne; les hymnes sont pleins du souvenir, ou plutôt de la mention journalière de ces combats continuels. On voit aussi par de nombreux passages du Rig-Véda que ces rapports entre les Aryasetles Dasyous (c'est la dénomination védique des aborigènes) étaient devenus peu à peu d'un caractère moins exclusivement hostile. Beaucoup de tribus du pays avaient cédé, à ce qu'il parait, au double ascendant de la force et de l'intelligence; elles avaient accepté le culte des Aryas, et elles étaient ainsi devenues elles-mêmes des Âryas par l'adoplion et la consécration religieuse. Mais cette transformation religieuse de leur nationalité n'avait jamais pu, on le conçoit, être assez complète pour effacer la diversité originaire; et, quand les purs Âryas, laissant derrière eux la contrée des Sept Fleuves, se furent établis définitivement dans les plaines du Gange, où une vie nouvelle commença pour eux, les tribus du Pantchanada, rentrées en pleine possession de leurs plaines natales, durent revenir bientôt aux usages et à la vie de leur propre race. De là, chez elles, ce relâchement de la loi brahmanique que le barde du Mahâbhârata leur reproche. La distinction de race, de vie politique et de croyance religieuse s'est, d'ailleurs, perpétuée jusqu'à nos jours dans la contrée des Dasyous védiques; le Pendjab actuel ne diffère pas moins aujourd'hui, sous ce triple rapport, de l'Hindoustan brahmanique, que le Pantchanada de l'antiquité ne différait de l'Aryavarta.

Ce point, sur lequei j'insiste, est d'une importance capitale pour l'intelligence de l'antiquité indienne; c'est faute de l'avoir aperçu ou de s'en être rendu compte, que les savants qui ont écrit récemment sur l'Inde ancienne ont laissé fort obscurs beaucoup de faits indiqués dans les légendes, qui autrement se seraient illuminés pour eux d'une clarté soudaine. Cette distinction fondamentale entre les Aryas de race et les Âryas d'adoption, les premiers formant le pur noyau de la nation brahmanique, les seconds ne s'y rattachant que par des liens souvent flottants et douteux, cette distinction, dis-je, n'est pas spéciale au Pantchanada: elle s'applique à l'Inde entière, et elle est sartout d'une grande portée historique pour tout l'ancien Aryavarta, c'est-à-dire pour la région qui s'étend d'une mer à l'autre entre les monts Vindhyâ et l'Himalaya.

Si la vue dont je viens de signaler l'importance historique ne dérivait que de quelques textes anciens, qui pourraient toujours paraître plus ou moins contestables, sa propre valeur pourrait également sembler très-douteuse; mais elle s'appuie sur une base infiniment plus large et plus ferme, sur l'étude approfondie de l'ethnologie de l'Inde depuis les temps anciens jusqu'à l'époque actuelle. Cette étude n'avait pas encore été faite dans son ensemble, ou, du moins, on n'avait pas essayé de la rattacher aux anciens documents sanscrits. La nomenclature des tribus, si étendue dans les poëme- et les autres documents sanscrits, entre nécessairement dans les études relatives à l'Inde ancienne; elle y forme ce que M. Burnouf, dans une de ses dernières allocutions au sein de l'Académie, nompiaît trèsjustement la géographie ethnologique de l'Inde. Et ici ce n'était pas assez de déterminer le territoire que les textes assignent aux anciennes tribus: un point bien autrement important était de rechercher et de constater leur identité, c'est-à-dire de suivre leur histoire, ou tout au moins leur mention, d'époque en époque, à travers les documents de tous les siècles, et, descendant ainsi jusqu'aux teinps modernes, de vérifier si la tribu n'existerait pas encore aujourd'hui, afin, dans ce cas, de suppléer par l'étude actuelle, prise sur le vif, à ce que les documents des temps passés peuvent avoir de vague ou d'incomplet. Cette idée est si simple et sort si naturellement du sujet, qu'il y a lieu de s'étonner qu'elle ne soit venue, jusqu'à présent, à aucun des investigateurs de l'Inde ancienne. Les matériaux sont, d'ailleurs, extrêmement abondants, grâce au nombre d'excellentes relations et d'études locales que nous avons sur l'Inde depuis un demi-siècle. Cette recherche n'offrait donc pas de difficulté sérieuse autre que son étendue même, qui était un stimulant plutos qu'un obstacle.

J'ose dire que j'ai été largement récompensé de l'avoir entreprise. Une lumière inattendue est sortie graduellement de ce long travail suivi séparément sur chaque tribu, et cette lumière, se fortifant et s'étendant toujours davantage, s'est projetée bientôt sur toute l'étendue des anciens temps de l'Inde jusqu'à leurs dernières profondeuras. J'emploie à dessein cette expression, où il n'y a rien d'exagéré. Les hymnes du Véda se sont eux-mêmes éclairés des reflets de ce puissant foyer; mais ce sont surtout les sources épiques qui en ont reçu un jour tout nouveau. Il est très-peu des tribus qui s'y trouvent mentionnées dont je n'aie pu suivre Ies déplacements et les destinées historiques jusqu'à notre époque; et, comme toutes ces tribus existent encore, sauf un très-petit nombre, il a été facile de reconnaître à laquelle des deux grandes divisions de la population de l'Inde elles appartiennent, soit à la race àrya (pure ou mélangée), soit à la race aborigène ou non arienne. Dans les grands poèmes, ces tribus sont toutes indistinctement qualifiées d'Âryas: elles l'étaient par le culte, mais non par le sang. On ne saurait trop appuyer sur cette distinction fondamentale. Je ne crois rien avancer d'excessif en assurant que le côté le plus considérable de la restitution des temps anciens de l'Inde est dans cette détermination certaine et précise de la nationalité respective des deux grandes classes de peuples qui figurent dans les traditions légendaires, et qui s'y trouvent confondues sous la commune dénomination d'Âryas.

Une investigation spéciale de l'ethnologie indienne devenait donc une branche distincte, et très-importante, des études qui ont pour objet la restitution de l'Inde ancienne.

Ce qui précède nous a conduits jusqu'à la limite de ce qu'on peut nommer, au moins d'une manière relative, les temps historiques de l'Inde. Cette nouvelle période commence avec l'ère bouddhique au milieu du vi-e siècle avant l'ère chrétienne, en l'année 543. Pour la première fois nous avons une date fixe dans la longue suite de siècles qui part des temps védiques. La réforme du Bouddha Çâkyamouni a produit dans l'Inde une école historique pour laquelle la mesure du temps est enfin devenue un des éléments des choses humaines; c'est à partir de cette époque que nouas trouvons, en différentes parties de la péninsule, plusieurs ères spéciales auxquelles on rapporte les faits publics ou particuliers et les règnes des princes, telles que l'ère de Vikramâditya ou de Çâka (57 avant Jésus-Christ), celle de Çâlivâhana (78 de Jésus-Christ), l'ère de Vallabhi ou des Goupta du Sourâchtra (318 de Jésus-Christ), et d'autres moins généraiement usitées. La détermination exacte des époques et celle des synchronismes ne sont pas moins utiles, en beaucoup de cas, à la géographie qu'à l'histoire.

La littérature bouddhique de l'Inde, tant celle du nord, que M. Burnouf nous a fait connaître dans son Introduction et dans le Lotus, auxquels il faut joindre le Lalitavistara traduit par M. Foucaux, que celle du sud ou de Ceylan, dont M. Turnour a traduit en partie le monument principal, le Mahavanso ou Grande Chronique, cette littérature, dis-je, apporte aussi a là géographie une série de documents qui complètent utilement, sur beaucoup de points, les matériaux de la littérature brahmanique. Parmi ces documents bouddhiques, je puis citer comme un des plus utiles la nomenclature des seîze royaumes entre lesquels se partageait l'Inde gangétique, au vi-e siecle avant notre ère; outre fe nombreux renseignements topographiques sur les provinces contiguëd ou Çâkyamouni répandit personnellement la prédication de sa doctrine, le Magadha, le Mithilâ et le Koçâla. Les livres bouddhiques de Ceylan sont écrits dans le dialecte pâli du Maghada; mais la forme sanscrite des noms est facile à restituer d'après des lois connues.

Une autre classe de documents de la même période, d'une grande importance géographique, se compose des relations de différents bouddhistes chinois qui ont parcouru l'Indè à diverses époques, entre le III-e et le x-e siècle de notre ère. Deux de ces relations, les plus importantes, ont été traduites en français, celle de Fa-Hian (400-414) par Abel Rémusat, Klaproth et Landresse, et celle de Hiouen-Thsang (639-654) par M. Stanislas Julien. Celle-ci surtout peut etre rangée parmi les plus précieux documents géographiques que nous possédons sur l'Inde ancienne, nonseulement à cause de la valeur de l'ouvrage, mais aussi des nombreux appendices que le savant traducteur y a joints, et des lois rigoureuses de transcription que M. Stanislas JuIien, le premier, a établies pour ramener les mots chinois à leur forme sanscrite.

Le Mahavanso et les autres documents singhalais sont très-riches en indications topographiques sur Ceylan, et pertnettent de rétablir avec un détail particulier l'ancienne topographie de cette ile.

Une autre classe de documents appartient encore à la période des temps bouddhiques, quoique d'une tout autre nature et se rapportant à d'autres régions de l'Inde: ce sont les écrits des auteurs grecs et romains. L'espace de temps qu'ils embraissent est de neuf cents ans environ, depuis l'apparition d'Alexandre dans les pays de l'Indus, au iv-e siècle avant notre ère, jusqu'au milieu du vi-e siècle de Jésus-Christ, qui nous fournit la curieuse relation de Cosmas: les notions qu'Hérodote et Ctésias, avant l'expédition d'Alexandre, avaient déjà recueillies chez les Perses sur quelques parties du nord-ouest de l'Inde, sont de peu de valeur pour la géographie, quoique intéressantes à plusieurs égards.

Au milieu de la série de nos anciens auteurs occidentaux relatifs à l'Inde il en est un qui les domine tous, soit par l'étendue, soit par la liaison des notions qu'il a réunies sur cette grande contrée de l'Orient: c'est Ptolémée. Le long chapitre que Ptolémée a consacré à l'Inde dans sa Géographie est comme un centre naturel, autour duquel viennent se grouper les informations partielles, fournies par les autres auteurs; aussi le géographe alexandrin devient-il le thème principal de tout travail approfondi sur i'Inde classique, les autres sources d'origine grecque ou latine apportant successivemen- leur quote-part d'indications sur les régions auxquelles chacune d'elles appartient plus spécialement: Arrîen et les autres âbrévieteurs des mémoires originaux de l'expédition d'Alexandre, sur le bassin du Kophès, le Pantchanada et la vallée inférieure de l'Indus; Mégasthène, sur les pays du Gange; le Périple, sur la cote occidentale et l'extrémité sud de la péninsule; Cosmas, sur la Taprobane. M. Lassen a consacré la moitié du troisieme volume de son grand ouvrage (1856-57) à l'éclaircissement de la géographie gréco-romaine de l'Inde, et précisément dans le même temps je lisais moi-même, au sein de l'Académie des inscriptions, lés premières parties d'un travail étendu sur le même sujet, qui viennent d'être imprimées au cinquième volume des Mémoires des savants étrangers. La méthode de M. Lassen et celle que j'ai suivie dans ce grand travail d'élucidation sont complètement différentes; c'est aux juges compétents à décider laquelle aura conduit aux plus fructueux résultats.

Ce serait laisser une lacune immense dans la restitution de l'ancienne géographie de l'Inde et dans les études ethnographiques qui s'y rattachent, que de se borner aux sources purement sanscrites. Il est d'autres documents très-nombreux, très-répandus, et qui sont, pour de grandes régions de l'Inde, les sources d'informations à peu près exclusives: ce sont ceux qu'on peut désigner sous ie nom de sources provinciales. Les documents de cette classe (il n'est question ici que de ceux de l'Inde du nord) sont écrits dans les différents dialectes des provinces, qui appartiennent tous, du reste, à la famille sanscrite. Un seul a été rédigé en sanscrit sur le modèle des anciens poëmes: c'est la Chronique du Kachmîr ou Râdjataranghinî, dont M. Troyer a donné une traduction française. Beaucoup d'autres provinces ont des chroniques analogues, inédites pour la plupart; M. Stirling a fait connaître celles de l'Orissa, M. James Long celle du Tripoura, le major Tod celles du Radjasthân. Il y a aussi dans l'Inde, particulierement dans les temples, une multitude de chroniques locales (Sthala Pouranas), bornées quelquefois à une ville, a une pagode, à un lieu consacré par des traditions légendaires, et qui seraient une mine précieuse d'indications de détail pour l'ancienne géographie sanscrite, pure des altérations musulmanes ou européennes. Le Dékhan n'est pas moins riche que le nord de l'Inde en documents de cette nature; et, quoique généralement ces documents du sud soient écrits en tamoul, qui est la langue littéraire du Dékhan, ils n'en sont pas moins indispensables à consulter, autant que l'accès en est possible, non-seulement parce qu'ils donnent les seuls moyens de compléter, pour toute une moitié de la péninsule, la restitution de la géographie et de l'ethnologie indigènes, mais aussi parce que c'est là que se peuvent encore retrouver les éléments sanscrits portes autrefois par les Âryas du nord dans les contrées méridionales. Une immense quantité de chroniques locales et de documents tamouls et autres de la même nature a été réunie, au commencement du siècle actuel, par le colonel Mackenzie, et se conserve dans la bibliothèque de la Compagnie des Indes. M. Wildon, dont le nom se représente chaque fois qu'il s'agit de travaux utiles sur la littérature indienne, a fait connaître cette collection par un ample catalogue rempli de nombreux extraits, et l'on possède, en outre, les analyses détaillées de quelques-uns des morceaux les plus importants de la collection, données dans le Journal de la Société asiatique de Londres soit par M. Wilson lui-même, soit par M. Taylor ou par M. Walter Elliot. Il serait utile aussi de se procurer quelques-uns des traités modernes de géographie qui existent, assure-t-on, en plusieurs contrées de l'Inde, notamment parmi les Djaînas du Malvah et du Goudjérât; on sait que Wilford a eu entre les mains plusieurs ouvrages de cette sorte, et qu'il a surtout fait un grand usage, pour ses derniers travaux, du Samâasa-Kchetra (Collection des Pays), traité prâcrit de géographie rédigé au xvii-e siècle. Si modernes que soient ces ouvrages, et si mêlés qu'ils puissent être de fables et d'erreurs, on y doit trouver de bonnes indications, dont la critique européenne saura tirer parti. Wilford parle aussi de deux anciens traités de géographie sanscrite, l'un du v-6 siècle de notre ère, l'autre du x-6 siècle; la découverte de l'un ou de l'autre de ces ouvrages serait sûrement une acquisition bien utile.

De toutes les sources provinciales que l'Inde réserve encore à l'investigation de ses maîtres actuels, les plus précieuses, sous plusieurs rapports essentiels, sont celles des Etats radjpouts de l'ouest; ce sont celles-là qui se rattachent lé plus directement aux anciens documents comme à i'ancienne histoire de l'Inde sanscrite. On voit, par les légendes épiques et par les Pourànas, que, dès les plus anciens temps, il y a eu un déplacement continuel et un grand flux de populations du nord au sud et au sud-ouest, dans la région comprise entre la Yamounâ et le Sindh inférieur, depuis le Pantchanada jusqu'aux monts Vindhyâ et à la Narmadâ. Une foule de tribus sorties de la région des cinq fleuves, soit au temps de la grande migration arienne, soit dans les temps qui suivirent, descendirent dans la belle et riche contrée (le Mâlava) qu'arrosent la Tcharmanvatl (la Tchambal actuelle) et ses nombreux affluents, les unes directement, les autres après un séjour plus ou moins long dans les plaines du Gange ou de la Yamounâ. Une remarque essentielle, c'est que toutes ces tribus appartenaient à la nombreuse famille des Yâdava; or les Yâddva sont le groupe le plus considérable de cette population mixte annexée aux Aryas par le lien religieux et en ayant pris le nom, mais appartenant en réalité à la race aborigène, sauf une immixtion plus ou moins considérable du sang ârya amenée par le contact et les alliances. Dès les plus anciens temps de la période héroïque, il se fit une séparation naturelle et comme un double courant de migrations, les purs Aryas, les tribus brahmaniques, se répandant au sud et au sud-est dans le bassin da Gange, les Yadava ou Aryas mêlés se portant au sud-ouest jusqu'à la grande presqu'ile du Sourâchtra, qu'on a nommée plus tard le Goudjérât. L'étude ethnologique de l'Inde ancienne confirme pleinement, par un ensemble de faits positifs et actuels, les données fournies par les traditions antiques. La région autrefois occupée par les Yâdava' sortis du Pantchanada forma ce que l'on nomme aujourd'hui le pays des Radjpouts. (Ràdjavâr, Radjasthân, Radjpoutana), eu le fond de la population est djât. Le Radjpoutana est le pays des bardes (bhats, tcharâns); il n'est pas de chef qui n'entretienne un ou plusieurs poëtes officiels chargés de célébrer dans leurs chants les hauts faits de la tribu, et de perpétuer le souvenir des anciennes généalogies. Cet usage était autrefois universel chez les Aryas, et on voit, par les hymnes, qu'il existait déjà dans les temps védiques; c'est au sein des tribus radjpoutes qu'il s'est le plus généralement conservé. lndépendamment de ces chroniques vivantes, les principaux États du Radjasthân ont des chroniques écrites qui se gardent habituellement dans les temples, et où les vieilles traditions sont déposées. Les Radjpouts ont, en outre, un grand poëme, écrit au commencement du xiii-e siècle, par Tchand, le plus célèbre de leurs bardes; ce poëme, qui a pour sujet la lutte soutenue pendant quatre siècles contre les envahisseurs musulmans, est le titre national et l'orgueil des tribus.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:35 am

Part 4 of 4

Cet ensemble de documents de la littérature radjpoute est la source principale, ou, pour mieux dire, à peu près unique, d'où l'on peut tirer la géographie indigène et l'ethnographie du nord-ouest de l'Inde. On ne connaît, jusqu'à présent, ces documents que par les analyses et les extraits du major Tod1 [Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 1829-32; Travels in Western India, 1839; el plusieurs memoires dans les Transactions de la Societe asiatique de Londres.]; quoique plusieurs chroniques et le poëme de Tchand aient été apportés en Europe par cet actif explorateur et soient déposés dans la bibliothèque de la Société asiatique de Londres, ni le poëme, ni les chroniques, n'ont, jusqu'à présent, trouvé de traducteur, et aucun indianiste ne les a pris encore pour sujet d'une étude spéciale. Les extraits du major Tod ne peuvent suppléer que dans une mesure restreinte à ce que cet oubli a de regrettable. Ajoutons qu'un poëme sanscrit que l'on regarde comme un appendice du Mahâbhârata, Ie Harivança, est aussi un monument littéraire des Kchatryas de l'ouest, probablement composé dans les premiers siècles de notre ère. Le Harîvança célèbre les exploits de Krichna, le dieu national et le héros de la race yâdava, et raconte la migration générale des tribus à l'époque de la grande guerre, alors que, forcées d'abandonner les rives de la Yamounâ, elles vinrent fonder Dvarakâ sur les bords de la mer de l'ouest; le poëme forme ainsi comme un chainon et un point de raccord entre le Mahâbhârata et les chroniques radjpoutes.

Par la division naturelle qui ressort du fond même des choses, aussi bien que par la nature spéciale des sources d'informations, la région occidentale forme donc une section distincte dans l'étude de l'Inde ancienne, au double point de vue de l'ethnologie et de la géographie, aussi bien qu'au point de vue de l'histoire.

Les époques successives que nous avons passées en revue jusqu'à présent, et les diverses classes de sources d'étude qui s'y rapportent, nous ont amenés jusqu'aux premiers siècles de l'ère chrétienne. Ici commence une nouvelle série de documents d'une utilité capitale pour là restitution de la topographie sanscrite: ce sont les inscriptions. Déjà les temps antérieurs fournissent quelques monuments de cette nature, mais en petit nombre. On a trouvé en diverses parties de l'Inde, depuis les bords de la Mahanadî jusqu'au pied de l'Himalaya, à l'ouest du Sindh, des inscriptions gravées sur le rocher par les ordres du roi Açôka, célèbre dans les fastes bouddhiques; ces inscriptions datent conséquemment du milieu du m-e siècle avant Jésus-Christ, moins d'un siècle après l'époque d'Alexandre. On a aussi plusieurs inscriptions des rois de la dynastie des Goupta, postérieurs au ii-e et au III-e siècle de notre ère. Ces monuments sont précieux pour l'histoire, et apportent aussi quelques données utiles à l'ancienne géographie; mais les inscriptions qui, à partir du v-e et du vi-e siècle, deviennent de plus en plus communes dans toutes les parties de la péninsule, tant au nord qu'au sud des monts Vindhyâ, appartiennent à une catégorie différente et sont d'un tout autre caractère. On trouve bien encore çà et là, principalement dans les temples du sud, des inscriptions royales où des princes exaltent leurs victoires et donnent le détail de leurs conquêtes; mais la grande masse des inscriptions de cette dernière période de l'antiquité indienne est d'une nature privée et toute locale. Ce sont, en général, des concessions déterres faites par les princes à des brahmanes ou à des établissements religieux; elles sont gravées parfois sur des plaques de pierre, mais plus communément sur des feuilles de cuivre. L'utilité de ces documents pour la géographie provient de ce que chaque concession décrit de la manière la plus minutieuse les terres concédées, nomme les villages qui y sont compris et indique ceux qui en forment la circonscription, ainsi que les rivières et les ruisseaux qui les bornent ou les traversent. On conçoit ce que de tels documents apportent de détails à l'ancienne topographie de l'Inde, quand on songe que le nombre en est infini, qu'ils se trouvent dans toutes les parties du territoire, et que, bien qu'on soit loin de les connaître tous, ceux que l'on possède déjà se comptent par milliers. La collection Mackenzie seule en cenferme plus de huit mille, qui appartiennent tous au Dékhan. La plupart ne sont pas seulement utiles à la restitution topographique, ils sont aussi d'un inappréciable secours pour l'histoire. Chaque inscription débute ordinairement par la généalogie du prince concédant, et ces généalogies, où se trouvent notés çà et là des faits historiques, contiennent souvent une longue série de noms. L'étude comparée de ces documents donnera le moyen de rétablir les dynastiés, grandes et petites, qui ont régné dans toutes les parties de l'Inde, successivement ou simultanément. Quelques bons travaux de ce genre permettent déjà de préjuger ce que pourra donner par la suite une étude plus générale.

Mais, avant de tirer de cette innombrable quantité de documents epigrâphiques toute l'utilité qu'on en peut attendre, un premier travail serait indispensable: ce serait de réunir dans une même collection tous ceux que l'on possède déjà ou que de nouvelles recherches pourront faire découvrir, et d'en former un Corpus analogue à nos. grandes collections, d'épîgraphie grecque et latine. Les inscriptions, distribuées selon leur nature et la langue dans laquelle elles sont écrites, seraient rangées, en outre, par époques et par provinces; le texte en serait revu avec soin, et serait accompagné d'une traduction, avec les éclaircissements nécessaires. Une telle publication, la plus utile qui se puisse entreprendre aujourd'hui dans l'état des études indiennes, sera digne de la munificence éclairée d'un grand gouvernement. Un travail définitif sur l'Inde, antérieurement à la domination musulmane, ne sera possible qu'après cette élaboration préalable des monuments épigraphiques de la péninsule.

Nous sommes arrivés ici à la limite eitrème de l'antiquité de l'Inde. La conquête musulmane, en même temps qu'elle fait passer pour la première fois le gouvernement de la plupart des États de la péninsule sous la domination d'une race étrangère, est aussi le point de départ de l'histoire moderne du pays. L'lndea, depuis lors, cessé de s'appartenir à elle-même, et sa géographie, de même que son gouvernement politique, à perdu son cachet d'indigénéité. La période de la conquête musulmane de l'Inde embrasse un espace de plus de six cents ans, depuis la première irruption des Arabes du califat dans la vallée du Sindh en 664, jusqu'aux expéditions du Dékhan à la fin du xiii-e siècle; mais la conquête des royaumes de Dehli et de Kanyâkoubdja ou Kanoge par les Ghourides, de la fin du xii-e siècle au commencement du xiii-e, marque le point culminant et ia véritable limite de la période.

L'étude des sources arabes et persanes qui en rapportent les événements est doublement utile, par de nombreuses indications topographiques, et surtout par les notions que l'on en tire sur l'état politique de l'Inde lors de l'arrivée des musulmans, et sur les différents. Etats qui y existaient tant au nord qu'au sud du Vindhyâ. C'est un élément d'étude politique et géographique qu'il est important de rapprocher des indications parallèles fournies par les ïnscriptions.

La source la plus générale est encore l'histoire de Férichta, traduite par le colonel Briggs. M. Reinaud en a signalé d'autres encore plus importantes pour les premiers temps de l'apparition des Arabes sur le Sindh, notamment Béladori et Albirouni, et il en a traduit des morceaux étendus, tant dans ses Fragments arabes et persans inédits relatifs à l'Inde (1845) que dans son Mémoire sur l'Inde antérieurement au xi-e siècle (1849). Ces fragments m'ont fourni, sur plusieurs points de l'ancienne géographie du nord de L'Inde, des indications excellentes que je n'aurais pas trouvées ailleurs. M. H. EIIiot, qu'une mort prématurée vient de ravir aux lettres orientales, avait commencé dans l'Inde, sous le titre d'Index to the Mahomedan historians of India (1849), une collection qui promettait d'apporter à cette partie des études indiennes une immense quantité de matériaux inédits, mais que la mort de l'auteur a malheureusement arrêtée. L'impulsion est donnée, cependant, et le cours de ces grandes publications ne saurait être que momentanément suspendu.

Si maintenant nous résumons ce qui précède, nous voyons qu'au point de vue des études historiques en général, dont ia géographie et l'ethnographie sont ici les deux branches principales, l'antiquité de l'Inde se partage en huit périodes, ou plutot forme huit grandes divisions fondées soit sur dé grandes époques historiques, soit sur la nature spéciale des sources d'étude.

I. La période védique, qui est pour l'Inde celle des temps primitifs. Cette première période, dont l'étude est renfermée tout entière dans les hymnes du Rig-Véda, a pour théâtre géographique la région des Cinq Fleuves, ou Pendjab; son étendue, nécessairement indétermmée, est de plusieurs siècles, et le xii-e ou xiii-e siècle avant Jésus-Christ en marque, très-probablement la limite inférieure.

II. La période des temps heroiques, qui succède immédiatement aux temps védiques, et s'étend pour nous jusqu'à l'époque de l'ère bouddhique, au milieu du vi-e siècle avant notre ère. Cette seconde période nous transporte du Pantchanada dans le bassin du Gange; elle comprend l'histoire légendaire des deux grandes dynasties nationales dr l'Inde, la race Lunairé et la race Solaire, contenue principalement dans les grand, poemes et dans les Pourânas.

III. L'ethnologie de l'Inde ancienne, étudiée dans son ensemble et dans ses rapports géneraux, afin de constater à quelle race native, arienne ou non àrienne, appartenaient les différentes tribus qui figurent dans les vieilles légendes historiques de l'Inde, en suivant la trace de ces tribus à travers les siècles jusqu'à l'époque actuelle, la plupart d'entre elles existant encore et ayant conservé les noms sous lesquels les sources sanscrites les désignent. Cette division importante de l'étude de l'Inde ancienne est limitée par le sujet même, et non par le temps; elle embrasse toute la durée des siècles à partir des temps védiques, c'est-à-dire au moins itrois mille quatre cents ans.

IV. La periode bouddhique, qui commence avec l'ère de Çâkyamounî au milieu du vi-e siècle avant Jésus-Christ, et qui est, pour l'Inde, le point de départ des temps historiques proprement dits. Cette période fournit à l'étude géographique de l'Inde ancienne trois classes de matériaux: les livres bouddhiques du nord ou du Népal, dont les notions s'appliquent surtout au Magadha et aux autres provinces de l'Inde gangétique; les livres bouddhiques du sod, abondants en renseignemênts topographiques sur l'ile de Ceylan, et enfin les relations des bouddhistes chinois, qui fournissent de précieux itinéraires, particulièrement celle de Hiouen-Thsang.

V. La division que nous pouvons appeler la période classique, par rapport à la nature des matériaux qu'elle fournit à l'étude de l'ancienne géographie de l'Inde. Ces matériaux sont les écrits des auteurs grecs et latins. Quoique Hérodote et Ctésias l'aient devancée et s'y rattachent, la période ne date, à vrai dire, que de l'expédition d'Alexandre de Macédoine' dans les provinces de l'Indus, et elle s'étend jusqu'au milieu du vi-e siècle, embrassant ainsi un espace de près de mille ans. Ptolémée est comme le centre autour duquel se groupent toutes les sources de cette période gréco-latine.

VI. A côté des sources purement sanscrites on trouve une autre classe de documents très-nombreux et très-importants pour l'étude de l'Inde ancienne: ce sont les sources provinciales, écrites dans des dialectes ou dans des langues de l'Inde autres que le sanscrit, et se rapportant à des provinces ou à des localités spéciales. Pour beau-coup de parties de l'Inde, pour le Dékhan notamment, ces sources sont à peu près les seules à consulter, La série principale des matériaux de cette classe est celle des chroniques radjpoutes du nord-ouest, qui continue l'histoire des tribus de race yâdava dont les origines légendaires se trouvent dans le Mahàbhàrata et dans le Harivança. Le Râdjataranghini, ou Grande Chronique du Kachmîr, quoique écrite en sanscrit, rentre aussi dans cette classe.

VII. A partir des temps voisins de notre ère, commence pour l'Inde une période historique jusqu'à présent très-obscure et très-confuse, faute de documents écrits; cette période, jusqu'à l'époque de la domination musulmane, est, à beaucoup d'égards, comparable au moyen âge de notre monde occidental. Elle est néanmoins susceptible de recevoir une grande lumière d'une classe de monuments à peine attaquée jusqu'à présent: ce sont les inscriptions, destinées le plus habituellement à enregistrer des concessions de terres faites par le prince régnant à des particuliers ou à des corporations. A partir du v-e et du vi-e siècle, toutes les provinces de la péninsule sont littéralement couvertes de ces documents, qui fourniront à la géographie de détail d'innombrables indications.

VIII. La période de la conquête musulmane forme à la fois le couronnement de l'Inde ancienne (aussi bien au point de vue de la géographie qu'au point de vue de l'histoire) et le point de départ des temps modernes. Les documents arabes et persans de cette époque contiennent d'amples renseignements, qu'il est utile de rapprocher de ceux que fournissent les inscriptions, tant sur la topographie que sur la géographie générale de l'Inde du XI-e au xiii-e siècle. On possède déjà quelques ouvrages considérables appartenant à cette catégorie, notamment l'Histoire de Férichta, quoique la plus grande partie des documents que renferment les bibliothèques de l'Inde soient encore inédits.

Cette revue rapide que nous avons passée des anciens temps de l'Inde et des divisîons historiques ou ethnographiques entre lesquelles se partage ce grand chapitre de l'antiquité orientale, nous a montré des lacunes encore bien nombreuses et de grands vides à combler dans les sources d'étude des diverses périodes, mais aussi des documents déjà très-riches et très-importants, dont le nombre s'augmente de jour en jour par de nouvelles publications de textes, de traductions et de travaux critiques. Ce n'est plus aujourd'hui qu'on pourrait dire ce qu'on a si souvent répété jusqu'à la fin du dernier siècle, et quelquefois depuis, que le passé de l'Inde n'a laissé après lui ni souvenirs ni vestiges. C'est surtout pour la géographie, dont l'ethnologie ne peut se séparer, que les matériaux sont déjà assez abondants pour reconstituer, dans ses traits généraux et dans une grande partie de ses détails, la carte de l'Inde ancienne.

Une des difficultés de cette œuvre de restitution est dans l'abondance même des notions de détail qui doivent reprendre leur place dans l'ensemble. Lorsque, pour répondre au Programme de l'Académie, je m'attachai avec suite à cette difficile étude, je sentis bientôt la nécessité de trouver un plan de travail qui pût concilier l'elucidation des points de détail, — dont le nombre est immense et qui ont tous leur intérêt soit pour l'histoire et l'archéologie, soit pour la géographie pure au point de vue de la restitution de la carte ancienne, — avec la clarté des vues d'ensemble, qui ne s'attache qu'aux grands résultats et aux faits généraux.

On me pardonnera d'entrer dans ce détail en quelque sorte personnel. La reconstîtution ethnographique et géographique de l'Inde ancienne, telle que je l'ai comprise, est une tâche immense; j'ignore s'il me sera donné de la remplir. La vie de l'homme est courte et ses nécessités sont souvent douloureuses; rarement le nombre de jours qui nous est compté suffit à l'accomplissement des projets que notre esprit a nourris, avec le plus d'amour. J'ai voulu, si je dois laisser celui-ci inachevé, que ceux qui pourraient le reprendre après moi connussent la marche que j'y aurai suivie; dans des recherches de cette nature, on aime à éclairer son expérience de celle de ses devanciers.

Voici donc, pour concilier les exigences diverses du sujet, le plan auquel je me suis arrêté après un mâr examen.

Étudier, selon l'ordre des temps et dans toutes les sources accessibles, les huit périodes successives entre lesquelles l'antiquité géographique de l'Inde se partage.

Résumer, pour chaque période, les résultats généraux de cette étude dans un exposé d'ensemble qui n'en présente que l'aspect dominant et les traits caractéristiques.

Renvoyer à une section particulière la nomenclature topographique et la multitude des faits de détail, où ils seront classés dans l'ordre alphabétique, plus favorable qu'aucun autre à la promptitude des recherches.

Telle est l'idée générale; tâchons de la preciser davantage.

Je donne le nom de discours aux morceaux d'ensemble relatifs à chaque époque, voulant indiquer par là quel caractère la rédaction en doit avoir. Ce sont des exposés, non des dissertations. Les discussions de détail, qui auraient pu s'y multiplier à l'infini, sont renvoyées à chaque article particulier de la section alphabétique; ici nous n'avons à considérer que les résultats. Faire bien ressortir le caractère propre de chaque période, apprécier et classer les sources et les moyens d'étude qui lui appartiennent, montrer ce que chaque époque apporte d'éléments nouveaux à la connaissance ethnographique ou géographique de l'Inde ancienne, et suivre dans ses développements graduels l'histoire géographique de la péninsule: tels sont fles objets de chaque discours.

Ces discours, suivant Fordre des grandes divisions d'étude auxquelles ils se rapportent et de quelques subdivisions essentielles qui s'y rencontrent, se trouvent portés au nombre de douze.

1. Discours sur la géographie des hymnes védiques.

2. Discours sur la géographie des sources oupavédiques. L'Aryavarta aux premiers temps des siècles héroïques.

3. Discours sur la géographie du Mahâbhârata, avec un appendice pour le Harivança.

4. Discours sur la géographie du Ràmâyana.

5. Discours sur l'ethnologie de l'Inde ancienne.

6. Discours sur la géographie des sources bouddhiques, avec un appendice sur la géographie de l'ile de Sinhala, ou Ceyian, dans le Mahâvança et les autres chroniques singhalaises.

7. Discourse sur ies sources grecques et remaines de l'ancienne géographie de l'Inde, et en particulier sur l'Inde de Ptolémée.

8. Discours sur la géographie du Ràdjataranghini, ou Grande Chronique kachamirïenne.

9. Discours sur la géographie des sources radjpoutes.

10. Discours sur la géographie des documents indigènes du Dékhan.

11. Discours sur la géographie épigraphique de l'Inde, à partir des premiers siècles de notre ère.

12. Discours sur lâ géographie de l'Inde dans les sources musulmanes.

Chacun de ces discours doit être accompagné d'une ou plusieurs cartes, à une échelle suffisante pour y placer non-seulement les grandes indications de l'exposé général, mais aussi toutes les positions de détail mentionnées dans les sources, et dont la nomenclature est renvoyée au répertoire alphabétique. La série de ces cartes, au nombre de seize à dix-huit, formera un atlas historique complet de l'Inde ancienne. Une grande carte, destinée à représenter les divisions politiques et la nomenclature indigène de l'Inde du X-e au xii-e siècle de l'ère chrétienne, laissant à chacune des cartes spéciales les indications propres à chaque époque et à certaines catégories de sources, ne reproduira de chacune d'elles que les indications permanentes qui constituent le corps même de la géographie sanscrite, et en particulier celles que donnent les sources épigraphiques.

La suite de ces discours sur les diverses périodes de l'histoire géographique de l'Inde ancienne, avec les cartes qui s'y rattachent et les résument, forme la première partie de nos recherches; la seconde partie est formée par le Repertoire alphabétique.

Il est aisé de voir, avec quelque réflexion, que cette forme de Répertoire alphabétique est non-seulement la plus convenable, mais la seule convenable et la seule qui pût être adoptée, eu égard à la nature, à l'objet et aux conditions du travail.

Quand, pour la première fois, l'ancienne géographie sanscrite est abordée dans son ensemble et dans tous ses détails, chaque nom fourni par les sources nécessite une élaboration spéciale. Pour un très-grand nombre de noms, cette élaboration prend inévitablement des proportions étendues, et donne lieu à de véritables dissertations; Il était évidemment impossible de concilier cette continuité de discussions critiques avec les formes et les proportions exigées dans une composition méthodique. L'ordre alphabétique seul donnait un cadre assez large et assez élastique poor se prêter aus exigences du sujet.

Il faut songer, en outre, que, si considérable que soit notre travail, ce n'est que le premier jet d'une science toute neuve encore. Il reste à publier un grand nombre de documents originaux appartenant aux temps anciens de l'Inde, et chaque nouvelle publication apportera nécessairement de nouveaux faits à l'ancienne géographie sanscrite. Avec la forme alphabétique de notre Répertoire le cadre reste ouvert, toujours prêt à admettre, sans déranger l'ensemble, les additions et les rectifications qui seront fournies par de nouveaux matériaux.

Enfîn, un travail de restitution complet de l'ancienne géographie e l'Inde doit devenir; et ce sera là sa plus grande utilité, l'auxiliaire de toutes les reherches historiques ou archéologiques qui auront l'Inde andcienne pour objet. L'ordre alpbabétique est le plus favorable à la promptitude des recherches.

Cette forme est celle que choisit d'Anville pour le travail justificatif de sa carte de l'ancienne Gaule, comme les articles de notre Répertoire alphabétique seront les pièces justificatives des cartes de détail et de la carte générale de l'Inde sanscrite.

C'est aussi la forme qu avant d'AnvilIe Ortelius avait adoptée pour son Thésaurus de la géographie classique, travail excellent qu'aucun n'a remplacé depuis, et qui, aujourd'hui encore, après trois cents ans, a gardé en grande partie so utilité première. Seulement Ortelius, à l'époque où il écrivait, ne pouvait faire entrer la géographie comparée dans le cadre de ses recherches, et cette partie comparée, qui suit un nom de localité ou de tribu à travers les siècles, pour arriver, s'il existe encore, à son identification actuelle, est, au contraire, le côté considérable de mon travail. Pour les sources anciennes, je me suis attaché à noter exactement les passages de tous les auteurs, ou à indiquer les inscriptions ou un nom se trouve mentionné, afin qu'on puisse toujours remonter aux sources originales. J'ai, de plus, indiqué avec soin tous lestravaux modernes, relations, dissertations, mémoires, etc. ou le point en question se trouve mentionné ou discuté.

J'ai exposé dans son ensemble le plan d'un travail complet sur la géographie indigène et sur l'ethnographie de l'Inde ancienne; je dois dire maintenant quelles parties j'en ai pu remplir jusqu'à présent.

L'étude de la période védique était la première qui se présentât dans l'ordre des temps. Ici la matiere était aussi neuve que possible, car la base fondamentale, le Rig-Véda, n'a été complètement publiée qu'à la fin de 1851.1 [Dans la traduction francaise de M. Langlois, 4 vol, in-8. Depuis lors, M. Wilson a entrepris une version anglaise, qui marche de concert avec la publication du texte sanscrit par M. Max Muller, et qui est arrivee a son troisieme volume.] Cette première étude est entièrement achevée; c'est celle que l'Académie des inscriptions a jugée digne du prix qu'elle avait proposé, et que je mets aujourd'hui sous les yeux du public savant. La géographie du Sapta-Sindhou est maintenant, j'ose le croire, complètement éclaircie, ainsi que les indications ethnologiques des hymnes. Plusieurs conséquences d'une grande importance historique ressortent de ce travail. C'est une première et solide assise pour l'histoire ethnologique des siècles-suivants, c'est-à-dire pour la partie capitale de l'histoire de l'Inde ancienne, telle que nos documents nous permettent de la reconstruire.

Les six aimées écoulées depuis l'époque où fut pubié le programme de l'Académie n'auraient pas suffi, à beaucoup près, pour traiter à fond chacune des huit périodes de l'ancienne histoire de l'Inde, telles que nous les avons distinguées; nos sources originales, dans l'état actuel des publications sanscrites, ne l'auraient pas, d'ailleurs, permis pour toutes. Plusieurs brahmanas importants, l'Aîtarèya et le Çatapatha notamment, que l'on ne connaît, jusqu'à présent, que par des extraits, et dont on a lieu d'espérer la publication prochaine, sont indispensables pour tracer le tableau géographique des premiers temps des grandes monarchies de l'Âryavarta, et pour soumettre la nomenclature géographique de cette antique période à un travail complet d'élucidation. Il est pareillement impossible d'entreprendre un travail d'ensemble sur la géographie du Mahâbhârata avant la traduction complète de cette épopée gigantesque, dont on ne possède encore que des fragments détachés. Nous avons tout lien d'espérer qu'une année ne s'écoulera pas avant que nous ne possédions, entièrement achevé, le Râmâyana de M. Gorresio; mais, en ce moment, le dernier livre manque encore à cette belle publication1 [dernier livre a été publié depuis l'époque où ces lignes ont eté ecrites.]. De même pour la géographie et l'ethnologie des sources radjpoutes, qui, par le Harivança, se rattachent d'une manière intime aux vieilles légendes du Mahâbhârata; les extraits que le major Tod en a donnes, s'ils permettent déjà d'entrevoir le caractère et la portée de cette catégorie des sources indigènes, ne suffisent pas pour en tracer une appréciation suffisamment motivée, et pour en faire ressortir les données générales. Il nous faut attendre la publication d'une ou deux des grandes chroniques provinciales rapportées en Europe par le major Tod, et la traduction du poëme de Tchand, qui sollicite depuis si longtemps le labeur d'un orientaliste. Quant à la géographie des inscriptions, il serait également prématuré d'en vouloir exposer d'une manière substantielle le caractère et le dessin général avant que l'épigraphie indienne ait été l'objet de nouvelles publications, plus étendues et plus régulières que ce que nous en possédons maintenant. Dans la limite des différentes périodes que je viens de rappeler, on pouvait sans doute aborder déjà une foule de questions et de faits de détail, soit géographiques, soit ethnologiques; mais on n'aurait donné de leur ensemble que des appréciations insuffisantes, plus ou moins superficielles, et nécessairement provisoires. En tout état de cause, celles-là devaient être ajournées.

D'autres pouvaient se terminer dès à présent.

Pour l'étude complète et approfondie des documents grecs et latins, pour ia géographie des temps bouddhiques et celle de la chronique kachmirienne, pour la géographie du Râmâyana, enfin pour l'étude ethnologique de l'Inde ancienne, on est dès à présent en pleine possession de matériaux suffisants. La plupart des faits de détail de ces cinq grandes divisions ont été attaqués dans le cours de mon premier travail, et plusieurs, par les développements qu'ils ont reçus, sont devenus de véritables dissertations. Plus de six cents articles de ce genre ont pu être soumis à l'appréciation de l'Académie en même temps que le mémoire actuel sur la géographie védique.

En décernant le prix à un ouvrage qui ne répondait qu'en partie aux conditions de son programme, l'Académie a voulu sans doute donner une haute marque d'encouragement à des recherches dont elle connaissait l'étendue et les difficultés. Je sens vivement ce qu'une si haute faveur a d'honorable, mais je comprends aussi ce qu'elle impose d'obligations. Je n'ai pas cessé de travailler à les remplir dans la mesure de mes forcés. Les trois premières parties d'un mémoire étendu sur la géographie gréco-romaine de la péninsule hindoue, comparée a la géographie sanscrite, ont été lues depuis lors au sein de l'Académie, et les deux premières sont déjà imprimées dan le cinquième volume des Savants étrangers. Dès que la dernière partie de ce mémoire sera terminée, je me propose d'achever un travail non moins considérable sur l'ethnologîe de l'Inde; travail dont j'ai réuni depuis longtemps et en partie élaboré les matériaux. Il serait téméraire d'étendre plus loin, quant à présent, mes prévisions d'avenir.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Wed Feb 09, 2022 4:54 am

Amarakosha
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/8/22

The Prinas and the Cainas (a tributary of the Ganges) are both navigable rivers. The tribes which dwell by the Ganges are the Calingae, nearest the sea, and higher up the Mandei, also the Malli, among whom is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that region being the Ganges. Some have asserted that this river, like the Nile, rises from unknown sources, and in a similar way waters the country it flows through, while others trace its source to the Skythian mountains. Nineteen rivers are said to flow into it, of which, besides those already mentioned, the Condochates, Erannoboas, Cosoagus, and Sonus are navigable....

It is farther said that the Indians do not rear monuments to the dead, but consider the virtues which men have displayed in life, and the songs in which their praises are celebrated, sufficient to preserve their memory after death. But of their cities it is said that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision, but that such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers or on the sea-coast are built of wood instead of brick, being meant to last only for a time,— so destructive are the heavy rains which pour down, and the rivers also when they overflow their banks and inundate the plains, — while those cities which stand on commanding situations and lofty eminences are built of brick and mud; that the greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite, — the Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers elsewhere; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it. Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570 towers and had four-and-sixty gates.

-- 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 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 [Son/Sone: Wiki].

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 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.

-- VII. On the ancient Geography of India, by Lieut. Col. F. Wilford

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 [Son/Sone: Wiki] 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, As. Res. vol. iv. p. 11, 1799


The City of Pataliputra: Its Location and Boundaries.

The geographical position of the city is fixed, by the foregoing data, at a point somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the modern town of Patna. The old city stood on the south bank of the Ganges at the confluence of the latter river with another, called by the Greeks "Erannoboas," a name apparently intended for the river Hiranyabahu or Son,1 [Strabo does not name this river, but Arrian, writing apparently from the same sources (Megasthenes), calls it "Erranoboas," which is usually considered to be intended for the Indian "Hiranya-baha" or "The Golden Armed," a title which Sir W. Jones showed (Asiatic Researches, IV, 10 (1795)) was an ancient name of the river Son, and Colonel Wilford (idem, XIV, 380) quotes Patanjali as writing "Pataliputra on the Son" (anu Sonam Pataliputra) also Ind. Antiquary, 1872, p. 201). But Arrian and Pliny enumerate both the "Erranoboas" and "Son" as distinct rivers. It might also be intended for the Hiranyavati or The "Golden One," which was a title of the Gandak or one of its branches at the time and place where Buddha died; and the Gandak joins the Ganges opposite Patna at the present day.] which formerly joined the Ganges here, and in the accompanying map I have indicated in green the present traces of the old channel of the Son, which seems to be the river in question.

-- Report on the Excavations At Pataliputra (Patna): The Palibothra of the Greeks, by L.A. Waddell, M.B., LL.D., Lieut.-Colonel, Indian Medical Service, 1903

This article has multiple issues. This article needs additional citations for verification. Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable.

The Amarakosha (Devanagari: अमरकोशः, IAST: Amarakośaḥ , ISO: Amarakōśaḥ) is the popular name for Namalinganushasanam (Devanagari: नामलिङ्गानुशासनम्, IAST: Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam, ISO: Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam) a thesaurus in Sanskrit written by the ancient Indian scholar Amarasimha. It may be one of the oldest extant koshas. The author himself mentions 18 prior works, but they have all been lost.

Amarasimha (c. CE 375) was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet from ancient India, of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said to have been "one of the nine gems that adorned the throne of Vikramaditya," and according to the evidence of Xuanzang, this is the Chandragupta Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) who flourished about CE 375. Other sources describe him as belonging to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century. Most of Amarasiṃha's works were lost, with the exception of the celebrated Amara-Kosha (IAST: Amarakośa) (Treasury of Amara). The first reliable mention of the Amarakosha is in the Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867CE)

The Amarakosha is a lexicon of Sanskrit words in three books, and hence is sometimes called the Trikāṇḍī or the "Tripartite". It is also known as "Namalinganushasana". The Amarakosha contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory.

The first chapter of the Kosha was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by HT Colebrooke appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by ALA Loiseleur-Deslongchamps was published at Paris in 1839. B. L. Rice compiled the text in Kannada script with meanings in English and Kannada in 1927.

-- Amarasimha, by Wikipedia

Its form of presentation is of the strangest: a miracle of ingenuity, but of perverse and wasted ingenuity. The only object aimed at in it is brevity, at the sacrifice of everything else — of order, of clearness, of even intelligibility except by the aid of keys and commentaries and lists of words, which then are furnished in profusion. To determine a grammatical point out of it is something like constructing a passage of text out of an index verborum [An index of words.]: if you are sure that you have gathered up every word that belongs in the passage, and have put them all in the right order, you have got the right reading; but only then. If you have mastered Panini sufficiently to bring to bear upon the given point every rule that relates to it, and in due succession, you have settled the case; but that is no easy task. For example, it takes nine mutually limitative rules, from all parts of the text-book, to determine whether a certain aorist shall be ajgarisam or ajagarisam (the case is reported in the preface to Muller's grammar): there is lacking only a tenth rule, to tell us that the whole word is a false and never-used formation....

The main thing which makes of the grammarians' Sanskrit a special and peculiar language is its list of roots. Of these there are reported to us about two thousand, with no intimation of any difference in character among them, or warning that a part of them may and that another part may not be drawn upon for forms to be actually used; all stand upon the same plane. But more than half — actually more than half — of them never have been met with, and never will be met with, in the Sanskrit literature of any age. When this fact began to come to light, it was long fondly hoped, or believed, that the missing elements would yet turn up in some corner of the literature not hitherto ransacked; but all expectation of that has now been abandoned. One or another does appear from time to time; but what are they among so many? The last notable case was that of the root stigh, discovered in the Maitrayani-Sanhita, a text of the Brahmana period; but the new roots found in such texts are apt to turn out wanting in the lists of the grammarians. Beyond all question, a certain number of cases are to be allowed for, of real roots, proved such by the occurrence of their evident cognates in other related languages, and chancing not to appear in the known literature; but they can go only a very small way indeed toward accounting for the eleven hundred unauthenticated roots. Others may have been assumed as underlying certain derivatives or bodies of derivatives — within due limits, a perfectly legitimate proceeding; but the cases thus explainable do not prove to be numerous. There remain then the great mass, whose presence in the lists no ingenuity has yet proved sufficient to account for. And in no small part, they bear their falsity and artificiality on the surface, in their phonetic form and in the meanings ascribed to them; we can confidently say that the Sanskrit language, known to us through a long period of development, neither had nor could have any such roots. How the grammarians came to concoct their list, rejected in practice by themselves and their own pupils, is hitherto an unexplained mystery. No special student of the native grammar, to my knowledge, has attempted to cast any light upon it; and it was left for Dr. Edgren, no partisan of the grammarians, to group and set forth the facts for the first time, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society (Vol. XI, 1882 [but the article printed in 1879], pp. 1-55), adding a list of the real roots, with brief particulars as to their occurrence.1 [I have myself now in press a much fuller account of the quotable roots of the language, with all their quotable tense-stems and primary derivatives — everything accompanied by a definition of the period of its known occurrence in the history of the language.] It is quite clear, with reference to this fundamental and most important item, of what character the grammarians' Sanskrit is.

-- The Study of Hindu Grammar and the Study of Sanskrit, by William Dwight Whitney

There have been more than 40 commentaries on the Amarakosha.

Etymology

The word "Amarakosha" derives from the Sanskrit words amara ("immortal") and kosha ("treasure, casket, pail, collection, dictionary"). The actual name of the book "Namalinganushasanam" means "instruction concerning nouns and gender".[citation needed]

Author

Main article: Amara Sinha

Narasimha [Amarasimha] is said to have been one of the Navaratnas ("nine gems") at the court of Vikramaditya, the legendary king inspired by Chandragupta II, a Gupta king who reigned around AD 400.

Navaratnas (transl. Nine gems) or Nauratan was a term applied to a group of nine extraordinary people in an emperor's court in India. The well-known Nauratnas include the ones in the courts of the Hindu emperor Vikramaditya, the Mughal emperor Akbar, and the feudal lord Raja Krishnachandra.

Vikramaditya was a legendary emperor, who ruled from Ujjain; he is generally identified with the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II. According to folk tradition, his court had 9 famous scholars.

The earliest source that mentions this legend is Jyotirvidabharana (22.10), a treatise attributed to Kalidasa. According to this text, the following 9 scholars (including Kalidasa himself) attended Vikramaditya's court:

1. Amarasimha
2. Dhanvantari
3. Ghatkharpar
4. Kalidasa
5. Kshapanaka
6. Shanku
7. Varahamihira
8. Vararuchi
9. Vetala-Bhatta

However, Jyotirvidabharana is considered a literary forgery of a date later than Kalidasa by multiple scholars. V. V. Mirashi dates the work to 12th century, and points out that it could not have been composed by Kalidasa, because it contains grammatical faults. There is no mention of such "Navaratnas" in earlier literature. D. C. Sircar calls this tradition "absolutely worthless for historical purposes".

There is no historical evidence to show that these nine scholars were contemporary figures or proteges of the same king. Vararuchi is believed to have lived around 3rd or 4th century CE. The period of Kalidasa is debated, but most historians place him around 5th century CE. Varahamihira is known to have lived in 6th century CE. Dhanavantari was the author of a medical glossary (Nighantu); his period is uncertain. Amarasimha cannot be dated with certainty either, but his lexicon utilizes the works of Dhanavantari and Kalidasa; therefore, he cannot be dated to 1st century BCE, when the legendary Vikramaditya is said to have established the Vikrama Samvat in 57 BCE. Not much is known about Shanku, Vetalabhatta, Kshapanaka and Ghatakarpara. Some Jain writers identify Siddhasena Divakara as Kshapanaka, but this claim is not accepted by historians.

-- Navaratnas, by Wikipedia

Some sources indicate that he belonged to the period of Vikramaditya of the 7th century.[1]

Mirashi examines the question of the date of composition of Amarakosha. He finds the first reliable mention in Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867 CE).[2]

Textual organisation

The Amarakośa consists of verses that can be easily memorized. It is divided into three kāṇḍas or chapters. The first, svargādi-kāṇḍa ("heaven and others") has words about heaven and the Gods and celestial beings who reside there. The second, bhūvargādi-kāṇḍa ("earth and others") deals with words about earth, towns, animals, and humans. The third, sāmānyādi-kāṇḍa ("common") has words related to grammar and other miscellaneous words.[citation needed]

Svargādikāṇḍa, the first kāṇḍa of the Amarakośa begins with the verse 'Svar-avyayaṃ-Svarga-Nāka-Tridiva-Tridaśālayāḥ' describing various names of Heaven viz. Svaḥ, Svarga, Nāka, Tridiva, Tridaśālaya, etc. The second verse 'Amarā Nirjarā DevāsTridaśā Vibudhāḥ Surāḥ’ describes various words that are used for the Deva-s (Gods). The fifth and sixth verses give various names of Buddha and Śākyamuni (i.e. Gautam Buddha). The following verses give the different names of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Vasudeva, Balarāma, Kāmadeva, Lakṣmī, Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Indra, etc. All these names are treated with great reverence. While Amarasiṃha is regarded to have been a Bauddha (Buddhist),[3][4] Amarakośa reflects the period before the rise of sectarianism. Commentaries on Amarakosha have been written by Brahmanical, Jain and well as Buddhist scholars.[5]

The second kāṇḍa, Bhuvargādikāṇḍa, of the Amarakosha is divided into ten Vargas or parts. The ten Vargas are Bhuvarga (Earth), Puravarga (Towns or Cities), Shailavarga (Mountains), Vanoshadivarga (Forests and medicines), Simhadivarga (Lions and other animals), Manushyavarga (Mankind), Bramhavarga (Brahmin), Kshatriyavarga (Kshatriyas), Vysyavarga (Vysyas) and Sudravarga (Sudras).[citation needed]

The Third Kanda, Sāmānyādikāṇḍa contains Adjectives, Verbs, words related to prayer, business, etc. The first verse Kshemankaroristatathi Shivathathi Shivamkara gives the Nanarthas of the word Shubakara or propitious as Kshemankara, Aristathathi, Shivathathi, and Shivamkara.[citation needed]

Commentaries

• Amarakoshodghātana by Kṣīrasvāmin (11th century CE, the earliest commentary)
• Tīkāsarvasvam by Vandhyaghatīya Sarvānanda (12th century)
• Rāmāsramī (Vyākhyāsudha) by Bhānuji Dīkshita
• Padachandrikā by Rāyamukuta
• Kāshikavivaranapanjikha by Jinendra Bhudhi
• Pārameśwari by Parameswaran Mōsad in Malayalam
• A Telugu commentary by Linga Bhatta (12th century)

Translations

"Gunaratha" of Ujjain translated it into Chinese in the 7th century.

The Pali thesaurus Abhidhānappadīpikā, composed in the twelfth century by the grammarian Moggallāna Thera, is based on the Amarakosha.

References

1. Amarakosha compiled by B.L.Rice, edited by N.Balasubramanya, 1970, page X
2. Literary and Historical Studies in Indology, Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1975, p. 50-51
3. Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: Devraj to Jyoti, Volume 2, Editor Amaresh Datta, Sahitya Akademi, 1988 p. 1036
4. A History of Indian Literature, Moriz Winternitz, Motilal Banarsidass, 1985, p. 494
5. Anundoram Barooah Makers of Indian literature, Biswanarayan Shastri, Sahitya Akademi, 1984p. 79

Bibliography

• Krsnaji Govinda Oka, Poona City, Law Printing Press, 1913
• Amarakosha at sanskritdocuments.org
• Amarakosha files by Avinash Sathaye
• The Nâmalingânusâsana (Amarakosha) of Amarasimha; with the commentary (Amarakoshodghâtana) of Kshîrasvâmin (1913) at the Internet Archive.
• A web interface to access the knowledge structure in Amarakosha at Department of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad.

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

Kosha or Dictionary of the Sanskrit Language by Umura Singha
With an English Interpretation and Annotations
by H. T. Colebrooke, Esq.
Late of the Bengal Civil Service
Third Edition
1891

PUBLISHER'S NOTICE

The value of Colebrooke's Umura Kosha has never been under-rated and is well known to all Anglo-Sanskrit Scholars. It is a book which appears to be indispensably necessary to the students of the Calcutta University and indeed to all English-knowing students of Sanskrit, as furnishing English synonyms for Sanskrit words and very valuable notes on the text. But as the book has long been out of print and is not now available except at a great cost, it is hoped that the publication of the present edition will bring it within the reach of the general public and the students of the Calcutta University in particular. The publisher sincerely hopes that the undertaking will meet the support of those for whom it is intended.

January, 1891

HARAGOBINDA RAKSHIT
 
PREFACE

THE compilation of a Sanskrit Dictionary having been undertaken early after the institution of the College of Fort William, it was at the same time thought advisable to print, in Sanskrit and English, the work which has been chosen for the basis of that compilation; as well for the sake of exhibiting an original authority to which reference will be frequently necessary, as with the view of furnishing an useful vocabulary which might serve until an ampler dictionary could be prepared and published.

The celebrated Umura Kosha, or Vocabulary of Sanskrit by Umura singha, is, by the unanimous suffrage of the learned, the best guide to the acceptations of nouns in Sanskrit. The work of Panini on etymology is rivalled by other grammars, some of which have even obtained the preference in the opinion of the learned of particular provinces: but Umura's vocabulary has prevailed wherever the Sanskrit language is cultivated; and the numerous other vocabularies, which remain, are consulted only where Umura's is either silent or defective. It has employed the industry of innumerable commentators, while none of the others (with the single exception of Hemachandra's have been interpreted even by one annotator. Such decided preference for the Umura Kosha, and the consequent frequency of quotations from it, determined the selection of this as the basis of an alphabetical dictionary, and suggested the expediency of also publishing the original text with an English interpretation. Like other vocabularies of Sanskrit, that of Umura is in metre; and a considerable degree of knowledge of the language becomes requisite to discriminate the words from their interpretations and to separate them from contiguous terms which affect their initials and finals. On this account, and to adapt the work to the use of the English student, the words, of which the sense is exhibited, are disjoined from their interpretation (which is included between crotchets); and the close of each word is marked by a Italic letter over it indicating the gender of the noun. Where a letter has been permuted according to the Sanskrit system of orthography, a dot is placed under the line to intimate that a letter is there altered or omitted: and a marginal note is added, exhibiting the radical final of the noun, or its initial, in every instance where either of them is so far disguised by permutation as not to be easily recognized upon a slight knowledge of the rudiments of the language, and of its orthography. An explanation in English is given in the margin, and completed when necessary, at the foot of the page. The different interpretations proposed by the several commentators, and the variations in orthography remarked by them, are also specified in the same place.

According to the original plan of the present publication, the variations in the reading of the text (for which a careful collation has been made of several copies and of numerous commentaries) are noticed only where they affect the interpretation of a word or its orthography. It was not at first intended to insert those differences which are remarked by commentators upon other authority, and not upon the ground of any variation in the text itself. However, the utility of indicating such differences was afterwards thought to counterbalance any inconvenience attending it: and after some progress had been made at the press, this* [These additions are incorporated with the text in the present edition.] and other additions to the original design were admitted, which have rendered a supplement necessary to supply omissions in the first chapters and complete the work upon an uniform plan.

To avoid too great an increase of the volume, the various readings and interpretations are rather hinted than fully set forth: it has been judged sufficient to state the result, as the notes would have been too much lengthened, if the ground of disagreement had been everywhere exhibited and explained. For the same reason, authorities have not been cited by name. The mention of the particular commentator in each instance would have enlarged the notes, with very little advantage, as the means of verifying authorities are as effectually furnished by an enumeration of the works which have been employed and consulted. They are as follow: —

I. The text of the Umura Kosha:

This vocabulary comprised in three books, is frequently cited under the title of Trikanda;* [ i e. The three books. But that name properly appertains to a more ancient vocabulary, which is mentioned by the commentaries on the Umura Kosha among the works from which this is supposed to have been compiled.] sometimes under the denomination of Abhidhana (nouns), from its subject; often under that of Umura Kosha, from the name of the author. The commentators are indeed unanimous in ascribing it to Umura Singha. He appears to have belonged to the sect of Buddha, (though this be denied by some of his scholiasts;) and is reputed to have lived in the reign of Vikramaditya; and he is expressly named among the ornaments of the Court of Raja Bhoja,† [In the Bhoja Prabandha.] one of the many princes to whom that title has been assigned. If this mention of him be accurate, he must have lived not more than eight hundred years ago; for a poem entitled Subahshita ratna sandoha, by a Jaina author named Amitakati, is dated in the year 1050 from the death of Vikramaditya, and in the reign of Munja who was uncle and predecessor of Raja Bhoja. It, however, appears inconsistent with the inscription at Buddhagaya  which is dated in the year 1005 of the era of Vikramaditya, and in which mention is made of Umura Deva, probably the same with the author of the vocabulary. From the frequent instances of anachronism both in sacred and profane story as current among the Hindus, more confidence seems due to the inscription, than to any popular tales concerning Raja Bhoja; and the Umura Kosha may be considered as at least nine hundred years old; and possibly more ancient.

It is intimated in the author's own preface that the work was compiled from more ancient vocabularies: his commentators instance the Trikanda,* [See a preceding note.] Utpalini, Rabhasa and Katyayana as furnishing information on the nouns; and Vyadi and Vararuchi on the genders. The last mentioned of these authors is reputed contemporary with Vikramaditya and consequently with Umura Singha himself.

The copies of the original, which have been employed in the correction of the text, in the present publication, are,

1st. A transcript made for my use from an ancient corrected copy in the Tirhutiya character, and collated by me with a copy in Devanagari, which had been carefully examined by Sir William Jones. He had inserted in it an English interpretation; of which also I reserved a copy and have derived great assistance from it in the present publication.

2d. A transcript in Devanagari character, with a commentary and notes in the Kanara dialect. It contains numerous passages, which are unnoticed in the most approved commentaries, and which are accordingly omitted in the present edition.

3rd. Another copy in the Devanagari character, with a brief and imperfect interpretation in Hindi.

4th. A copy in the Bengali character with marginal notes explanatory of the text.

5th. A copy in duplicate, accompanied by a Sanskrit commentary, which will be forthwith mentioned (that of Ramasrama). It contains a few passages not noticed by most of the commentators. They have been, however, retained on the authority of this scholiast. A like remark is applicable to certain other passages expounded in some commentaries but not in others. All such have been retained, where the authority itself has been deemed good.

6th. Recourse has been occasionally had to other copies of the text in the possession of natives, whenever it has been thought any ways requisite.

II. Commentaries on the Umura Kosha.

1. At the head of the commentaries which have been used, must be placed that of Rayamukuta, (or Vrihaspati surnamed Rayamukutamani.) This work entitled Padachandrika, was compiled, as the author himself informs us, from sixteen earlier commentaries, to many of which he repeatedly refers: especially those of Kshira Swami, Subhuti, Hadda Chandra, Kalinga, Konkat a, Sarvadhara, and the Vyakhyamrita Tikasarvasva, &c.* [The following names may be selected from Mukuta's quotations, to complete the number of sixteen: Madhavi, Madhumadhavi, Sarvananda, Abhinanda, Rajadeva, Goverdhana, Dravida, Bh'ja Raja. But some of these appear to be separate works, rather than commentaries on the Umura Kosha. Mukuta occasionally cites the most celebrated grammarians as Panini, Jayaditya, Jinendra, Maitreya, Rakshita, Pubushottama, Madhava, &c.]

Its age is ascertained from the incidental mention of a date: viz. 1353 Saka, or 4532 of the Kaliyuga, corresponding to A.D. 1431.

Though the derivations in Mukuta's commentary be often inaccurate, and other errors also have been remarked by later compilers, its authority is in general great; and, accordingly, it has been carefully consulted under every article of the present work.

2. Among the earlier commentaries named by Raya Mukuta, that of Kshira Swami is the only one, which has been examined in the progress of this compilation. It is a work of considerable merit; and is still in general use in some provinces of India, although the interpretations not unfrequently differ from those commonly received.

3. The Vyakhyasudha, a modern commentary by Ramasrama or by Bhanudikshita (for copies differ as to the name of the author) is the work of a grammarian of the school of Benares. He continually refers to Rayamukuta and to Sami; and his work serves to confirm their scholia where accurate, and to correct them where erroneous. It has been consulted at every line.

4. The Vyakhya Pradipa by Achyuta Upadhyaya is a concise and accurate exposition of the text: but adds little to the information furnished by the works above-mentioned. It has been, however, occasionally consulted.

In these four commentaries, the derivations are given according to Panini's system. In others, which are next to be enumerated, various popular grammars are followed for the etymologies. But, as the derivations of the words are not included in the plan of the present work, being reserved for a place in the intended alphabetical dictionary of Sanskrit, those commentaries have not been the less useful in regard to the information which was sought in them.

5. The commentary of Bharata Malla (entitled Mugdhabodhini) has been as regularly consulted as those of Mukuta and Ramasrama. It is indeed a very excellent work; copious and clear, and particularly full upon the variations of orthography according to different readings or different authorities; the etymologies are given conformably with Vopadeva's system of grammar. The author flourished in the middle of last century.

6. The Sara Sundari by Mathuresa has been much used. It is perspicuous and abounds in quotations from other commentaries; and is therefore a copious source of information on the various interpretations and readings of the text. The Supadma is the grammar followed in the derivations stated by this commentator. Mathuresa is author likewise of a vocabulary in verse entitled Sabdaratnavali, arranged in the same order with the Umura Kosha, and which might serve therefore as a commentary on that work. It was compiled under the patronage of a Mussulman Chieftain Murehha Khan, whose name is prefixed to it. The author wrote not more than 150 years ago.* [His work contains the date 1588 Saka or A.D. 1666.]

7. The Padartha Kaumudi by Narayana Chakravarti is another commentary of considerable merit, which has been frequently consulted. The Kalapa is the grammar followed in the etymologies here exhibited.

8. A commentary by Ramanatha Vidyavachaspati entitled Trikandaviveca, is peculiarly copious on the variations of orthography, and is otherwise a work affording much useful information.

9. Another commentary which has been constantly employed, is that by Nilakantha. It is full and satisfactory on most points for which reference is usually made to the expositors of the Umura Kosha.

10. The commentary of Rama Tarkavagisa has been uniformly consulted throughout the work. It was recommended for its accuracy; but has furnished little information; being busied chiefly with etymology. This, like the preceding, follows the grammar entitled Kalapa.

Other commentaries were also collected for occasional reference in the progress of this work; but have not been employed, being found to contain no information which was not also furnished, and that more amply, by the scholiasts above mentioned. The list of them, contained in the subjoined note, may therefore suffice.* [Kaumudi by Nayanananda; Trikanda chintamani by Raghunatha Chakravarti; both according to Panini's system of etymology. Vatihamya kaumudi by Ramaprasada Tarkalankara; Padamanjari by Lokanatha; both following the grammatical system of the Kalapa. Pradipamanjari by Ramasrama, a jejune interpretation of the text. Vrihat Haravali by Rameswara. Also commentaries, by Krishnadasa, Trilochanadasa, Sundarananda, Vanadiyabhatta, Viswanatha, Gopal Chacravarti, Govindananda, Ramanda Bholanatha, &c.]

III. Sanskrit dictionaries and vocabularies by other authors.

Throughout the numerous commentaries on the Umura Kosha, the text itself is corrected or confirmed, and the interpretation and remarks of the Commentators supported, by references to other Sanskrit vocabularies. They are often cited by the scholiasts for the emendation of the text in regard to the gender of a noun, and not less frequently for a variation of orthography, or for a difference of interpretation. The authority quoted has been in general consulted before any use has been made of the quotations; or, where the original work cannot now be procured, the agreement of commentators has been admitted as authenticating the passage. This has been particularly attended to, in the chapter containing homonymous words; it having been judged useful to introduce into that chapter, the numerous additional acceptations stated in other Dictionaries, and understood to be alluded to in the Umura Kosha.

The dictionaries, which have been consulted, are 1st. The Medini, an alphabetical dictionary of homonymous terms by Medinikara. 2nd. The Viswaprakasa, by Maheswara Vaidya, a similar dictionary, but less accurate and not so well arranged. It is the ground-work of the Medini which is an improved and corrected work of great authority. Both are very frequently cited by the Commentators.  

3. The Haima, a dictionary by Hema Chandra, in two parts; one containing synonymous words arranged in six chapters; the other containing homonymous terms in alphabetical order. Both are works of great excellence.

4. The Abhidana Ratnamala, a vocabulary by Halayudha in five chapters; the last of which relates to words having many acceptations. It is too concise for general use; but is sometimes quoted.

5. The Dharani, a vocabulary of words bearing many senses. It is less copious than the Medini and Haima: but being frequently cited by Commentators, has been necessarily consulted.

6. The Trikandasesha, or supplement to the Umura Kosha by Purushottama Deva.

7. The Haravali of the same author.

The last of these two supplements to Umura, being a collection of uncommon words, has not been much employed for the present publication. The other has been more used. Both are of considerable authority.

The reader will find in the notes a list of other dictionaries quoted by the Commentators, but the quotations of which have not been verified by reference to the originals, as these have not been procurable.* [Umuramala, Umura Datta, Sabdarnava, Saswata, Varnadesana, Dwirupa, Unadikosha, Ratnakosha, Ratnamala, Rantideva, Rudra, Vyadi, Rabhasa, Vopalita, Bhaguri, Ajaya, Vachaspati, Tabapala, Arunadatta.]

Works under the title of Varnadesana Dwirupa and Unadi have indeed been procured: but not the same with the books cited; many different compilations being current under those titles. The first relates to words the orthography of which is likely to be mistaken from a confusion of similar letters; the second exhibits words which are spelt in more than one way; the third relates to a certain class of derivatives, separately noticed by grammarians.

IV. Grammatical works.

Grammar is so intimately connected with the subject of this publication, that it has been of course necessary to advert to the works of Grammarians. But as they are regularly cited by the commentators, it is needless to name them as authorities, since nothing will be found to have been taken from this source, which is not countenanced by some passage in the commentaries on the Umura Kosha.

V. Treatises on the roots of Sanskrit.

Verbs not being exhibited in the Umura Kosha, which is a vocabulary of nouns only, the treatises of Maitreya, Madhava, and others on Sanskrit roots, though furnishing important materials towards a complete dictionary of the language, have been very little employed in the present work; and a particular reference to them was unnecessary, as authority will be found in the commentaries on Umura, for any thing which may have been taken from those treatises.

VI. The Scholia of classic writings.

Passages from the works of celebrated writers are cited by the commentators on the Umura Kosha; and the scholiasts of classic poems frequently quote dictionaries in support of their interpretation of difficult passages. In the compilation of a copious Sanskrit dictionary an ample use may be made of the Scholia. They have been employed for the present publication so far only as they are expressly cited by the principal commentaries on the Umura Kosha itself.

Should the reader be desirous of verifying the authorities, upon which the interpretation and notes are grounded, he will in general find the information sought by him in some one of the ten commentaries of Umura, which have been before named; and will rarely have occasion to proceed beyond those which have been specified as the works regularly consulted.

In regard to plants and animals and other objects of natural history, noticed in different chapters of this vocabulary, and especially in the 4th, 5th and 9th chapters of the 2nd book, it is proper to observe, that the ascertainment of them generally depends on the correctness of the corresponding vernacular names. The commentators seldom furnish any description or other means of ascertainment besides the current denomination in a provincial language. A view of the animal, or an examination of the plant, known to the vulgar under that denomination, enables a person conversant with natural history to determine its name according to the received nomenclature of European Botany and Zoology: but neither my inquiries, nor those of other Gentlemen, who have liberally communicated the information collected by them,* [Drs. Roxburgh, F. Buchanan, and W. Hunter, and Mr. William Carey.] nor the previous researches of Sir William Jones, have yet discovered all the plants and animals, of which the names are mentioned by the Commentaries on the Umura Kosha; and even in regard to those which have been seen by us, a source of error remains in the inaccuracy of the Commentators themselves, as is proved by the circumstance of their frequent disagreement. It must be, therefore, understood, that the correspondence of the Sanskrit names with the generic and specific names in Natural History is in many instances doubtful. When the uncertainty is great, it has usually been so expressed; but errors may exist where none have been apprehended.

It is necessary likewise to inform the reader that many of the plants, and some animals (especially fish), have not been described in any work yet published. Of such, the names have been taken from the manuscripts of Dr. Roxburgh and Dr. F. Buchanan.

Having explained the plan and design of this edition of the Umura Kosha, I have only further to state, that the delay which has arisen since it was commenced (now more than five years) has been partly occasioned by my distance from the press (the work being printed by Mr. Carey at Serampoor), and partly by avocations which have retarded the progress of collating the different copies of the text and commentaries: a task the labour of which may be judged by those who have been engaged in similar undertakings.

H. T. COLEBROOKE.

Calcutta, Dec. 1807.

***

CONTENTS

• Introduction of the Umura Kosha
• BOOK I.
o CHAPTER I.
 Sect. I. Heaven, Gods, Demons; their arms, ornaments, symbols or vehicles, and other attributes. Fire; Air. Velocity. Eternity. Much.
 Sect. II. Sky; weather; planets; stars.
 Sect. III. Time; its divisions. Phases of the moon; eclipses.
 Sect. IV. Sin; virtue; happiness. Destiny; cause. Nature. Intellect; reasoning knowledge. Senses; tastes; odours; colours
 Sect. V. Speech. Language. Compositions. Modifications and circumstances of speech.
 Sect. VI. Sound
 Sect. VII. Music; notes, tones; instruments. Dancing. Dramatic exhibition; actors, gestures, passions. Indications of passion. Festival.
o CHAPTER II.
 Sect. I. Internal regions; holes; darkness. Serpents; poison
 Sect. II. Hell; departed souls; misery, pain.
 Sect. III. Seas; Water, Islands; shores. Boats, ships. Fish. Lakes; ponds, wells. Rivers. Aquatic plants.
• BOOK II.
o CHAPTER I.
 Earth, soil. Countries. Roads. Measures of distance.
o CHAPTER II.
 Towns; buildings, habitations
o CHAPTER III.
 Mountains, rocks; fountains, caves, mines. Minerals.
o CHAPTER IV.
 Sect. I. Forests. Groves: gardens, avenues. Trees, plants. Trunk; root; wood; leaf; fruit
 Sect. II. Trees of various kinds.
 Sect. III. Plants, mostly medicinal, or with sensible qualities.
 Sect. IV. Useful Plants.
 Sect. V. Drugs and potherbs. Grasses and palms.
o CHAPTER V.
 Lions and other quadrupeds. Insects. Birds. Pairs, flocks, heaps.
o CHAPTER VI.
 Sect. I. Man. Woman. Characters, relations, circumstances of women. Kinsmen, relatives. Person, as thin, fat, &c. Freckles, moles.
 Sect. II. Health. Medicine. Diseases. Diseased. Parts of the body.
 Sect. III. Dress, ornaments, clothes, perfumes, garlands. Furniture.
o CHAPTER VII.
 Race. Tribe. Order. Priest. Characters 'and descriptions of priests; their occupations and observances. Sacrifice; its requisites. Alms; worship; austerity; study. Hypocrisy. Marriage. Human pursuits, and objects.
o CHAPTER VIII.
 Sect. I. Military tribe. Kings; ministers; officers; servants. Enemies; allies. Requisites of government; means of defence; and of success. Revenue. Foresight. Insignia of Royalty.
 Sect. II. Camp; army. Elephants; horses. Chariots. Litters. Warriors. Arms and weapons. War. Slaughter, Funeral. Prison. Life.
o CHAPTER IX.
 Third tribe. Professions, Husbandman. Field. Implements of husbandry. Corn, pulse, oil-seeds, &c. Granary. Kitchen. Vessels. Condiments. Prepared food. Dairy. Cattle. Traffick; weights and measures. Commodities.
o CHAPTER X.
 Fourth tribe. Mixed classes. Artisans. Jugglers. Dancers. Musicians. Hunters. Servants. Barbarians. Dogs. Hogs. Chace. Theft. Nets, snares, ropes. Loom. Pole for burden. Wrought leather. Tools. Art. Images. Wages. Spirituous liquor. Gaming.
• BOOK III.
o CHAPTER I.
 Epithets of persons.
o CHAPTER II.
 Qualities of things
o CHAPTER III.
 Miscellaneous.
o CHAPTER IV.
 Sect. I. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. II. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. III. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. IV. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. V. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. VI. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. VII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. VIII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. IX. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. X. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XI. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XIII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XIV. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XV. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XVI. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XVII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XVIII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XIX. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XX. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXI. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXIII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXIV. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXV. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXVI. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXVII. Homonymous words, Ending in [x].
 Sect. XXVIII. Indeclinables (Homonyma) 371
o CHAPTER V.
 Indeclinables (Synonyma).
o CHAPTER VI.
 Genders.
 Sect. I. Feminine.
 Sect. II. Masculine.
 Sect. III. Neuter.
 Sect. IV. Masculine and Neuter.
 Sect. V. Masculine and Feminine.
 Sect. VI. Feminine and Neuter.
 Sect. VII. Three genders.
 Sect. VIII. Variation of gender.

Search for "Hiranya-bahu" = "O" results

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

Amara's Namalinganusasanam (Text), A Sanskrit Dictionary in Three Chapters Critically Edited with Introduction and English Equivalents for each word and English Word-Index
by Dr. N.G. Sardesai, L.M. & S and D.G. Padhye, Sanskrit Teacher, Modern High School, Poona
1940

Search for "Hiranya-bahu" = "O" results

Image
The Ganges
The Yamuna
The Narmada
The Koratoya
The Bahudd
The Satadru
The Vipasa
The Sona
A Canal.
Various rivers
The mouth of a river


Search for "gold" =

Gold, 88, 110, 120, 121,
129, 131, 132, 135, 153
„ ornament, 88
,, wrought, 88
,, image, 117
Golden age, 120
Gold-smith, 90

One made of gold.
Gold.
Gold for ornament.
A goldsmith.
Gold.
Gold.
Gold.
The golden age.
Gold.
Wrought silver and gold.
Golden necklace.
Pala of gold.
Goldsmith
Throne, golden.
Vase, golden.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Feb 11, 2022 4:29 am

Jangam
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/10/22

The next river is the Pavani 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.


-- VII. On the ancient Geography of India, by Lieut. Col. F. Wilford



[This article has multiple issues, etc.]

The Jangam or Jangama are a Shaiva order of religious monks. They are the priests or gurus of the Hindu Shaiva sect.[1] Jangamas are also gurus of Veerashaiva' sect Jangamas are disciples of Lord Shiva as mentioned in Basava Puranas. A visit of a jangam to a house is treated as the visit of Lord Shiva himself and the jangam shall be given good alms and the jangam blesses the natives. The Jangam is the wandering holy man in Virashaivism. The meaning of word Jangam is 'moving linga' and considered superior to 'sthira linga'. Jangama is one who is endowed with true spirit of Agamic knowledge, and has sacrificed his life for giving Samskara or good character building practices in all sections of the society including all Sudra castes without any discrimination.

Jangama is a community which has people who are engaged in professions like priestly hood
, religious preachings and some in various kings courts as advisors and some designated positions in various parts of India, mostly in southern India. Priests who make poojas to lord mallikarjuna in srisailam & Varanasi belong to verrashaiva Jangam community.

History

According to the Hindu history of India, Goddess Parvati had claimed that she had given birth to Lord Ganesh (elephant-headed Deity) when she died as Sati (previous incarnation who died by self-immolation). She told Lord Shiva that he too should also create a similar lord. Lord Shiva proceeded to cut his thigh and his blood spilled on the lifeless statue known as Kusha which immediately came alive and was thereafter referred to as Jangam. The term 'Jangam' (or) 'Jangam Sages' in Himalayas, Kashi and Kumbh mela (or) 'Jangam Sadhu' in Hindu Temples (or) Jangam in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat (or)'Jangam Ayya (Acharya, full form of Ayya is Acharya)' Swamy, Tata, in Karnataka Priestly Section (or) 'Jangam Veerashaiva Pandaram' is Tamil Nadu Priestly Section and Kerala Priestly Section (or) Jangam Jogi in Haryana (or) 'Jangam Baba' in North India (or) Jangam Deva in Andhra Pradesh (or) Jangam Guru in Nepal are the different names given to the wandering Shivite (Hindu worshippers of Shiva) mendicants who are believed to be descendants of the original 'Jangam'. They function as priests or Guru for all those Lingayaths who follow the Shivite cult. In most of Shiva temples the Jangams perform the Pooja (prayer and worship of Shiva) as per Parameswar Agama. The Jangam priests may preside over all rituals; however special regard is given to marriage rites in Lingayatism and Shaivism section of Hinduism.

Veerashaiva jangam worship is centred on the Hindu god Shiva as the universal god in the iconographic form of Ishtalinga.[2][3] The jangam always wear the Ishtalinga held with a necklace.[4] The Istalinga is made up of small blue-black stone coated with fine durable thick black paste of cow dung ashes mixed with some suitable oil to withstand wear and tear. The Ishtalinga is a symbolism for Lord Shiva.[5] It is viewed as a "living, moving" divinity with the devotee. Every day, the devotee removes this personal linga from its box, places it in left palm, offers puja and then meditates about becoming one with the linga, in his or her journey towards the atma-linga.[6]

Ishtalinga is an indispensable means for the practice of Shiva-yoga. It is made of light grey slate stone which contains and generates electricity. To be kept intact, it is coated all over with a fine durable paste made of certain ingredients. The colour of the paste is indigo or blue-black. The colour of bhrumadhya chakra (i.e., agneya chakra or brow chakra) is also indigo. Ishtalinga is placed on the palm of the left hand so raised as to come in line with the centre of the eye-brows. Behind the back and just above the left shoulder an oil-fed lamp or candle should be placed so that the light of the lamp is reflected in the coating of Ishtalinga. With half-closed eyes and without blinking one should fix his attention upon the Linga, the coating of which is blue-black or indigo serving to widen and deepen concentration. The colour of the paste and the colour of Agneya Chakra, being akin in nature, they act and react upon each other thus generating electromagnetic waves which dash against the pineal gland situated in the third ventricle of the brain. The pineal gland is present in everybody and although it is dormant it can be stirred into action by the process of Shiva-yoga.

Image
Ishtalingas placed at Gurudeva’s altar before distributing to Sadhakas for ‘Shiva-yoga Initiation’

The Pineal gland, known to be the relic of the third eye, is embroynical which means that it can evolve but its evolution is very slow. It is possible to quicken its evolution into a condition in which it can perform a function of apprehending events comprehensively. The full development of the pineal gland confers clairvoyance and helps a yogi to transcend mathematical time which is merely an illusion. Really speaking, there is no such thing as past, present and future. Time is an eternal duration. The human intellect is unable to comprehend it so we insert gaps and we say this is the past, this is the present, this is the future. For a yogi who has opened the third eye, the future and the past rolls into the ever present. For him there is neither past nor future and he can say:
All time is now, all distance here
All problems solved, solution clear
No selfish aim, no tie, no bond
To him doth each and all respond.

Image
Pictures artifically developed to show “Divine Light” seen in Ishtalinga during Shiva-yoga practice [Photos by – Pierre Schintone, France]

It is possible through Shiva-yoga. Crystal gazing is as old as the hills. The belief that it generates magnetism is equally old. It was only in 1850 that Sir John Reichenback discovered this magnetic force and he called this magnetism odylic force. Since then the odylic force has been photographed and there are reasons to believe that crystals on human bodies can send forth emanations which surround the human body. Those emanations can be seen and felt by those persons who are sensitive. Ishtalinga which is a stone with a shiny covering is, therefore, a crystal magnet used in the process of Shiva-yoga to open the invisible or the third eye. Shiva-yoga, which aims at the awakening of the dormant pineal gland, is unique in the sense that it has an easy technique which is simple and scientific and yet powerful enough to transform the lower nature of man into the divine nature.

This article on ‘Ishtalinga’ is taken from H.H.Mahatapasvi Shri Kumarswamiji’s various works.

-- What is Ishta-Linga?, by shivayoga.net


Jangama Acharya (Ayya) in Telangana State

Jangams hold intellectual history refers to the historiography of ideas and thinkers. The history cannot be considered without the knowledge of humans who created, discussed and wrote about in and other ways which were concerned with ideas. Jangam community were traditional religious mendicant class were considered auspicious in early time but during the colonial period were reduced to poverty. Most Jangama Devaras (Devullu) falls under priestly class of Agamic practices and understand difficult ideas, subjects and use knowledge to expand services as government advisors and political advisors.

[7] Jangama is one who is endowed with true spirit of Agamic knowledge, and has sacrificed his life for giving Samskaras (good character building practices in all sections of the society including all Sudra castes without any discrimination).

Telangana officially formed on 2 June 2014. Average Population in Telangana would be 35,003,674 and Jangama population is less than 1% that is of 318,775. The beauty of Jangama and its community; they hold sthirathvam in 33 Districts of the entire Telangana state. And out of priestly culture they work as doctors, engineers and software professionals. Origin of Telugu states are dotted with Shiva temples, each with its own deep rich history. The ancient name of Telugu state is Trilinga Desa, meaning The Land of Three Lingas Borders of Telugu State Kaleshwaram (Telangana), Bhimeshwaram (Coastal Andhra) and Srisailam (Rayalseema).

In Telangana, Jangam Ayya stands in Backward Class category BC A, S.NO:6 and they also stands out to be in OBC List included year 2016.

OBC means Other Backward Class collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are Educationally or Socially Disadvantaged. At present, there are 112 castes in the OBC category in Telangana and they were divided into four groups – A, B, C and D depending on their backwardness with a total of 25 per cent reservations in education and employment.

Jangam Lingayat or Jangam Thambiran or Jangam in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala
The Veerashaiva Jangam called as Jangam caste is composed of respectable people.
Pandaram or Thambiran is surname(Title) of Jangam people. The name pandaram is from Tamil word meaning storing place of valuable jewels, navarathna. They are generally stored in the Lord Shiva temples. In ancient days jangamas were placed to maintain the jewels of Lord Shiva temples and palaces in Tamil Nadu. Jangam Lingayath Pandaram (True Lingayat) in Tamil Nadu are Land holders, Traders, Sanyasis or Monk in (Arunachalesvara Temple) or Priests or Guru and Managers of richly endowed Lord Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu. Many Jangam live in Tamil Nadu, specifically, and in Vellore, Cuddalore, Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Aruppukkottai, Dindigul, Pattukkottai, Theni, Dharmapuri, Madurai, Krishnagiri, Namakkal, Erode, Tirupur, Villupuram, Arni and Coimbatore, Pudukottai, Salem, Kanchipuram, Thiruvellore, Trichy and Chennai (Madras) districts. In Kerala, specifically Palakkad, Kollam, Kottayam districts.[8] The Jangam is the holy man in Virashaivism. The divinity of the Jangam is reflected in many narrative stories in the Purana's and other collections, and in which the Jangamas are actually depicted as Shiva.

Historically (in Tamil Nadu), Jangam Lingayath pandaram were known as "Virashaiva Jangam" and also called as ardent worshippers of Shiva. "Linga Pooja/ Lingadharanam" and "Kula Deiva Pongal" (at Bramma Mugurtha Time) are the main (must) ceremony in the marriage among Jangam Lingayats Pandarams. Most of Hindus cremate the dead, but in Jangam Lingayat Pandaram, the dead are buried. "Mootcha Deepam" and "Linga Pooja" are important rituals in funeral. The dead are buried (must be) with their Ishta linga in their hand in a simple sitting cross-legged dhyana position. Unlike other Hindus, whose functions are presided by Brahmins, in jangam lingyat pandaram tradition 'Jangam Bhandari' (Jangama purohit) a Head priest specifically for jangams will preside the marriage and also funeral. Jangam lingayat Pandaram have faith on "Kuladeiva kovil" and Lord Veerabhadra and believe they are "Shivanneen Kulanthaikal".

Jangam or Jangama or Jangam Ayya (Acharya) (the priest hood section of Veerashaiva Lingayathism) in Karnataka

Veerashaivism contains two sections, one the ancient race of Veerashaiva jangam (the priests at Srisailam and Kedarnath since the times of Adi Shankaracharya) and the Lingayat which constitutes all different working classes who later joined the society after they changed their way of life as lingayatism, a sect of Hinduism. Jangamas wear Ishtalinga on their chest hanging through a thread in Karnataka. After death they are buried in Dhyana-Mudra with Linga in hand or they have given Samadhi or called Lingaekya or merger in god Linga. They believe in formless god in form of Ista-Linga and no other idol. The Jangam Lingayat or Jangam are known as Lingayath or True Shivavatari or Movable Lingam or Jangam Sage or Jangama or Lingayat Priest or Jangam Guru or Guru/ Jangam Ayya (Acharya) in Lord Basava Period of Veerashaiva[Lingayath ]Religion] and Lord Shiva temples in Karnataka. The lingayata movement and vachanas form an integral part of Karnataka lingayata community. The main names related to the movement are Basavanna, Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi, Dohara Kakkaiyya, Haralayya, Aaydakki Lakkamma, Madara Chennayya and many others. This movement had many philosophies attached to it, example: work is worship 'kayakave kailasa', dignity of labour, gender equality, no caste discrimination, considering one's body as temple, importance to transition, change, movement (bodily worn linga) in contrast to something that is stationary (temple)- 'sthavarakkalivuntu, jangamakkalivilla'. Vachana chaluvali or movement was similar to bhakti movement in vaishanava community where sharanas or jangamas wrote and sang philosophical songs in local language Kannada. This is considered an important stage in Kannada literature.

Jangam Jogi or Jangam: From the Region of Haryana

Jangam Jogi are folk musicians associated with region of Haryana. Jangam is a style of devotional music dedicated to Lord Shiva by Jangam community from Haryana. Their instruments are small and portable (being travellers) like dafli, khanjari, khartal. Jangam Gāyan: Devotional Music and Folk Music of India: Jangam Gāyan is a narrative sung by the Jangam and is performed in the temple courtyards of Lord Shiva temples to huge gatherings. Sometimes, there are public performances in village squares. The members of this community are wandering mendicants and earn their living mainly by performing the element in Lord Shiva temples. The Jangams are also live in Shiva the state of Haryana in India. The community is concentrated in and around Kurukshetra, the great battle field of the epic of Mahabharata and in the historical town of Thaneswar which has been a strong centre of the Pasupati (Lord Shiva) tradition of Shaivism. Besides, they also move as itinerant religious mendicants in the adjoining states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir in north India.

Historical background of Jangam Math in Nepal

In the 9th century, the king Narendra Dev of Lichhivi dynasty has described the Jangam Pratishthan, which is available in stone inscription in Anantlingeshwor temple, in which he has addressed the name of the Chancellor of Jangam Pratisthan and explained rights and duties performed by the Pratisthan. With this evidence, we can say that Jangam community was present in Nepal before the 9th century. The king of Karnatvansh Shri Nanya Dev became ruler of Mithila state (Northern Bihar) by expanding his dynasty in the 11th century. During the period Veerashaiva Jangam were the Rajaguru of the King Nanya Dev. After ruling the Mithila dynasty for 240 years, King Harisingh Dev Mall became the king of Nepal Mandal and established the capital at Bhaktapur City. Devi Tula Bhavani was the deity they worshiped and they started spreading the religion of veerashaivism in the region. When Malla Vansh (dynasty) was established in Nepal Mandal Veerashaiva religion had started. The veerashaiva philosophy was being popularized by the disciples. It establishes that Veerashaiva religion section of Hinduism had its roots since the 9th century. There is a Jangam math in Bhaktapur. There is a stone inscription belonging to Nepali Year 692, which explains the role of Hari Singh Dev Mall of mallavansa, who renovated the Jangam math in Bhaktapur. With this, we can say that Veerashiava Religion was established in Nepal in the 13th century. There are many stone writings and Tamrapatra available in jangam math in Nepal.

Jangamwadi Math, Jangambari, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

Jangamwadi Math is the oldest Math among all the maths of Kashi, Kashi Vishwanath Temple Uttar Pradesh, India and is also known as Jnana Simhasana or Jnana Peetha. Jangam means knower of Shiva, wadi means living place. One among the five of the holiest shrines for the Veerashaivism Lingayath religion. It is one of the oldest Mutts in Varanasi. Literature dates it back to Satya Yuga – first of the four Yugas in Hindu timeframe. The documented historical records date it back to 8th CE, however, it is hard to verify the exact date. It is said that Raja Jaichand donated land for this Mutt that has seen an unbroken lineage of 86 Jagatgurus. Present Peethadhipati or the guru of the Peeth is Shri Jagadguru Chandrashekhar Shivacharya Mahaswami. The Mutt has seen women Gurus like Dharma Guru Sharnamma.

Jangamwadi Math and its association with Mughals

1.'Akbar and the Goswamis of Jangam Bari Math of Benaras1


The Goswamis of Jangam Bari Math of Benaras belonged to the Shaivite sect of south India. This sect had various Shiva Temples at benaras, Arial, Piryag and Gaya. Since its foundation during sixth century A.D., this ancient Math has been enjoying imperial grants and favours. The oldest document of land grant to this math was made by a Hindu Raja, Jainanad Deo, ruler of Kashi in V.S. 631/574 A.D. of 800 paces of land in favour of its head priest Malik Arjun Jangam. Malik Arjun Jangam was the title of the head priest of this Math. This Math attracted the attention of emperor Akbar during 1566 A.D. Akbar issued a farman dated 973 A.H./1565-66 A.D. granting 480 bighas of land in the name of Arjun Jangam the head priest.

2.Jahangir's Relations with Goswami's of Jangambari Math of Benaras2

Jahangir came into contact with Jangamas, when he was in revolt against his father during 45th regnal year of Akbar i.e in 1600 A.D. at Allahabad. He made Allahabad his imperial seat and acted as an independent ruler. During this period he issued a farman to Malik Arjunmal Jangam with the seal of Sultan Salim. The farman dated Mihr Ilahi 45 R.Y/September, October 1600 A.D. It was addressed to the āmils, jagirdars and karosis of pargana Haveli Banaras, confirming 178 bighas of land as grant in favour of Malik Arjunmal Jangam. It was also ordered to the officials that the grant was exempt from all types of taxes. It bears the seal of sultan Salim on the top. It also appears from a document that the property rights of the Jangamas were also protected by the Mughal government.

3. Aurangzeb's Relations with Goswami's of Jangambari Math of Benaras3

Aurangzeb carried on the traditions of his forefathers in granting favours to Hindu religious communities, a continuity underscored by his dealings with the Jangam, a Shaivite group. The Jangam benefited from Mughal orders beginning under Akbar, who confirmed their legal rights to land in 1564. The same Jangam received several farmans from Aurangzeb that restored land that had been unfairly confiscated (1667), protected them from a disruptive local Muslim (1672), and returned illegally charged rent (1674).

Jangam or Jangam Deva or Jangam Ayya (Acharya) in Andhra Pradesh

At present, Jangam follows the Hindu history of Jangam i.e., according to Hindu history of Shiva they would live by Religious priestly performance (by priest, religious prayer, prayer for healing, and Guru). Jangam or Jangama is one who is endowed with the true knowledge, sacrificed his life for the society, and avoided all the worldly happiness and attained the divine happiness. Jangam, a Sanskrit word, etymologically means that which moves. When this word applied to a person, in the context of Lingayath religion, it symbolizes a man who moves from place to place preaching moral and religious values in Shaivism, Veerashaivism and Jangama dhyana section of Hinduism.

True Jangam

Jangams are factually considered as movable lingas. Jangam is considered a human linga shrine. Jangams are divided into Virakhtas or celibates, Samanyas or common Jangams, Ganachans or managers, and Mathapatis or Beadles. Pancha peethadhishas represent five faces of Shiva and Pacha ganadhishas are the highest class of Jangams, dedicate themselves to celibacy. They are not allowed to celebrate marriages. They are comparatively a small body and move about the country accompanied by their disciples. The Samanya Jangam is the ordinary Jangam who had the initiation performed on him. He is a married man, who conducts marriages, begs, serves in a temple or lives by agriculture. When a Jangam goes begging, he wears a garter of bells called Jang below his right knee, and carries a cobra cane. Mathapatis or beadles and Ganachans or managers are Jangams who hold rent-free lands. They are considered rather inferior to the regular or Samanya Jangams.

The two main categories of Jangam are 1) Sthira 2) Chara. Sthira Jangama is a person who, staying in math (mutt) i.e., has to carry on mass education, preaching to the local people, and giving them the necessary guidance to achieve spiritual progress called Jangama dhyana, and to perform certain rites and rituals concerned with birth, marriage, death, holy communication on special occasions etc. Chara Jangama is one who constantly moves around, preaching as he goes, without settling himself at any particular place and without accumulating any property of his own.

Demographic distribution

The community is distributed throughout India and also in Nepal. However, they form a significant proportion of population in the southern states of India mainly Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, PUNJAB and Gujarat.

Ancient Jangam Tradition

In Jangam community, the male child after the initiation (Ayyachar) will be handed over to the custody of Jangam (Guru). The child will be brought up under the shelter of Jangam (in mutt/math) and by his blessings he, too, can become a Jangam (Guru) of any of the maths. Jangam priests live in ‘maths’ and guide their followers in Hindu religious and spiritual matters.

Main Tenets of Jangam

The Linga is tied to the womb in the 8th or 9th month of mother's pregnancy for the prospective child. Linga wearing ceremony to the child is thus performed before the child takes birth.

Lingayath or veerashaiva jangam worship is centred on the Hindu god Shiva as the universal god in the iconographic form of Ishtalinga.[9][10] The jangam always wear the Ishtalinga held with a necklace.[11] The Istalinga is made up of small blue-black stone coated with fine durable thick black paste of cow dung ashes mixed with some suitable oil to withstand wear and tear. The Ishtalinga is a symbolism for Lord Shiva.[12] It is viewed as a "living, moving" divinity with the devotee. Every day, the devotee removes this personal linga from its box, places it in left palm, offers puja and then meditates about becoming one with the linga, in his or her journey towards the atma-linga.[13]
According to legend, the Atmalinga was perforce placed at Gokarna, in the temple precincts where it is now deified. It was Ravana, the demon King of Lanka, known from the epic, Ravana had carried it there from Mount Kailash in the Himalayas.

-- Mahabaleshwar Temple, Gokarna, by Wikipedia

Veershaiva Jangams celebrate a Hindu festivals, namely, Deepavali, Shivrathi, Ugadi, Nagarpanchmai, Kollipaki Adi Jagadguru Renukàcharya jayanti etc. Among these festivals Shivratri is an important one. On this day all elderly people observe fast and they perform Bhajanas (Prayer) in praise of 'Lord Shiva'.

Jangam Theology

Jangams are Hindus by religion, they follow the tenets of Veershaiva Lingayat section. They wear, Linga on their body, the Linga is always cased in a silver box called 'karadige', ‘Gundagi’or 'chouka' or 'Sajai' which is tied round the neck by a thread called ‘Shivdhara' They worship the Linga daily after taking bath, smear their forehead with ‘Vibhuti' and do not touch food without offering 'Niyvedya' to the 'Istalinga’.

The Lingas are divided into two types called "Jangam Linga" called as chara or movable Lingas and "Sthavaraa Linga" called as sthavara or immovable Lingas. Further, Lingas are known as Jangama and Sthavara. Jangam or chara Lingas are those that appear on the neck of the Jangam Lingayats who tie a Linga to their neck to their life of Jangam. The Lingas housed in Garbhagrhas and carved on walls of temples belong to Sthvaraa Lingas as mentioned Agama shastra of Veera Saiva Theology.

Burra katha

Ancient Jangam Burra katha or "Jangam Katha": Religious Folk Dance in ancient Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: Jangam Katha is a special folk dance of the Andhra Pradesh state. Jangam Katha, is a special Dance of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Jangam or Jangam Deva or Jangam Ayya (Achraya) and it observes tales from the Indian Hindu history. In the performance, the main artist (Jangam or Jangam Deva or Jangam Achraya) narrates a religious Hindu story, plays music and dance on the tunes. The co-artists beat drums and speak to him, enriching certain events in the story. Currently, Jangam Katha is called as Burra katha, Tamboora Katha and Saradha Katha Jangamayyala kathaalu

Veeragase Dance

Jangam Verragase Dance dance is to be mainly performed by the Jangams also called as Maheshwaras. The performers of Veeragase Dance are also called "Lingadevaru". Veeragase gets its term from the Hindu lord – Veerabhadra. It is performed in Hindu shrines in South India at important gatherings by Jangams.

“Ancient Jangam Veeragase Dance" or Veeragase Dance is performed by (minimum) two or more artists and usually Veeragase Dance has to be an even number. The person who narrates the story take turns in the performance, progressively these stories have included the story of Veerabhadra who is the other avatar of Lord Shiva. Jangam Verragase Dance is a real religious vigorous dance based on Hindu lord veerabhadra stories.

Jangama dhyana

Jangama dhyana is a meditation technique, which has been practiced by various Jangam sages over the centuries. Jangama means 'eternal existence' and dhyana means meditation. Hence Jangama dhyana is Meditation on the Eternal Existence of the Self. Jangama dhyana is an ancient Jangam meditation technique which involves concentrating the mind and sight between the eyebrows.

Jangam Dance, Indian Folk Dance

Jangam Dance is an Indian folk dance performed in the honour of Shiva in Hindu Temples. Those who perform this traditional dance are called Jangam dancers. The term Jangam has been derived from the movable emblem of Shiva. Jangam is a sub-caste of the Veerashaiva community called [Veerashaivism religion] under Hinduism. The Jangams Acharaya migrated from Karnataka and Andra Pradesh Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu states of India to disseminate the Shaivaite cult and to act as priests for performing religious rites in Lord Shiva and Hindu temples. While performing Jangam dance, the dancers recite verses of Girija kalyana on the mythological marriage of Siva and Parvati. The recitation is done in a ritualistic hypnotic monotone. As performers, they entertain Hindu people during religious and social festivals. Their dramatic presence is heightened by their headgear, a brass band with the image of a snake and peacock feathers flashing in the air. Their narrative and rhythmic movement is embellished by bells, gongs, manjim or cymbals, and chhenna or percussion sticks, weaving the most incredible musical patterns.

Jangam history

Jangam: Born out of Lord Shiva's Thigh and Religious priestly (by priest, religious prayer, prayer for healing, and Guru): Jangam sages, who claim they originated from a part (thigh) of Lord Shiva's body. Jangam claims that he is born out of the thigh of Shiva. Hindu history has it, Shiva wanted to give some donation to Brahma and Vishnu but when they refused he became so angry that it led to his creating the Jangam Sages. Jangam or Jangama over the generations have been able to maintain a distinct identity over generations. What sets them apart is their attire and the rituals that they follow. The Jangam sages go from one place to another and explain the different saints the story of the holy union of Lord Shiva and Parvati. With the Shivpuran (Lord Shiva) on the tip of their hand, enacting the epic tale for them is nothing but a piece of cake. Hindu history has it, Lord Shiva had blessed them with immortality but declared that they would live by religious begging in Lord Shiva temples (by priest, religious prayer, prayer for healing, and Guru ). Another version is that Lord Shiva at his wedding created two recipients of his alms, one Jangam, from the sweat of his brow, the other Lingam, from his thigh. These Jangams accept alms from devout. The jangams meanwhile suggest, they don't earn more money, a month. They do so by religious Prayer (The chanting of mantras) begging (by priest, religious prayer, prayer for healing, and Guru) in Prayer in Hinduism. At present, The 21st Century, Still now they (some Jangam) follows the Hindu history of Jangam i.e., according to Hindu history Shiva had blessed them (Jangam) with immortality (i.e., entire world is destroyed by nature or some other factors to destroyed the nature, Jangam will Live) but declared that they would live by Religious Begging in Lord Shiva temples (by priest, religious prayer, prayer for healing, and Guru) (The Lord's Prayer) after some religious event completed by them in Prayer in Hinduism.

See also

• Lingayatism
• Jangama dhyana
• Burra katha
• Shaivism
• Veeragase

References

1. Russell, R. V.; Lal, Hira (1995). The tribes and castes of the central provinces of India, Volume 1. Asian Educational Services. p. 222. ISBN 81-206-0833-X.
2. Lingayat: Hindu sect, Encyclopedia Britannica (2015)[verification needed]
3. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
4. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
5. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
6. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]

7. "Jangama". Lingayat Religion. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
8. Reddy, S. S. (2004). "Jangam". In Singh, Kumar Suresh; Bhanu, B. V.; Anthropological Survey of India (eds.). People of India: Maharashtra. Popular Prakashan. pp. 830–838. ISBN 81-7991-101-2.
9. Lingayat: Hindu sect, Encyclopedia Britannica (2015)[verification needed]
10. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
11. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
12. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]
13. Citation error. See inline comment how to fix.[verification needed]


External links

Lingayat's Unique Symbol for Alimighty, Supreme GOD – Lingam and Jangam Guru
• Jangam in Tamil Nadu (Madras Census Report, 1901)
• Jangam Katha as art
• Overview Of World Religions (http://www.philtar.ac.uk)
• UNESCO -Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO- Jangam (https://ich.unesco.org/en/state/india-IN)
• Jangama dhyana
• Ancient Jangam Burra Katha
• Ancient Jangam Verragase Dance
• Jangam Katha
• Intangible Cultural Heritage – Jangam Gayan (http://ignca.nic.in)
• Jangam Nepal
• Jangam Devotional Music
• Intangible Cultural Heritage – Jangam (http://sangeetnatak.gov.in)
• Vira Saivism: Jangam or Jangama (http://www.saivism.net)
• Jangam in Andhra Pradesh
• Jangam in Haryana
• Jangam in Kerala
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Feb 11, 2022 8:23 am

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
in Three Volumes
Vol. 1, Behar (Patna City) and Shahabad
1838

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.


Chapter II. History of the Province of Behar

The remains of antiquity are exceedingly numerous in this district, but the traditions on the spot concerning them are very often altogether irreconcilable with appearances or with credibility, and still oftener contradict the few historical hints to be found in Hindu legend, while very often the people* [Dr. Buchanan says, "the people here are perhaps still less interested on this subject than in Bhagalpur, and even the Moslems seem to have abandoned all care of their history. At Behar, where several persons of good family and excellent manners reside, although one of them is called a Moulavi or Doctor of Laws, I could not procure from them any account of the Muhammedan governors of that city, nor did they possess any one historical book."] have no sort of tradition concerning the antiquities of their vicinity. The reason of this would appear to be, that in this district from a very remote period down to almost the very Muhammedan conquest, although now completely extinct, the doctrine of the Buddhists seems to have prevailed, and would appear to have been in general the doctrine professed by the governing powers.

The whole of these districts is universally allowed to be in the old Hindu territory called Magadha
, and respecting this in the account of Bhagalpur, several circumstance are stated. I now however suspect, that this is a name considerably more modern than the government of Jarasandha or of his family, princes descended from Budha first king of India. Jarasandha, like many old kings of India, is called an Asur [Asura?], which is usually interpreted to imply an enemy of God; but many of these Asurs appear to have been uncommonly religious, and I am inclined to think, that the term Asur implies in reality an Assyrian, and there are many traces to show, that the worship of the Assyrian queen, and its concomitant doctrines, had been introduced at the capital of Jarasandha, although there are also many traces of the worship of the Buddhas, which had probably arisen in the interval between the arrival of Budha, the ancestor of Jarasandha from Assyria, and the extinction of the family of the Brihadrathas, descended from that ancient prince. Jarasandha, according to legend, being of a monstrous size, was wont to stand upon two hills of this district, having a foot on each, and to look at the 1000 wives of his kinsman Krishna, who lived near Gujjarat, as they bathed in the sea. Not contented with this indecency, which might perhaps have been overlooked, he pelted the naked beauties with bricks, on which they complained to Krishna, who sent Bhim, the supposed son of Pandu, to punish Jarasandha, and this prince was killed in a valley near his own house. This happened towards the end of the third age (Dwapar Yug) of the world; and, according to the valuable system of Indian chronology given by Mr. Bently (Asiatick Researches, vol. 8), the 4th age commenced in the 11th century (1004) before the birth of Christ.

The monarchy of India, according to common opinion, was after a short dispute transferred to Yudhishthir, the brother of Bhim; but, if Major Wilford is right in supposing that the Gangetic provinces continued to be governed by the Brihadrathas, or descendants of Jarasandha, for 700 years, the power of the great king must have been much circumscribed.

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
, who probably came from Egypt, the only country I know where the doctrine of caste prevailed, and prevailed as described in the books of the Brahmans, and in a manner quite different from what they have been able to establish in India. If the Brahmans actually came from Egypt, we should naturally have expected that they would have preferred the worship of Isis and Osiris to that of the sun, especially as on their arrival they would find prevalent the very analogous doctrine of Belus and Semiramis, that is of Mahadeva and Parwati. By Brahmans I mean the highest or sacred order of the present Hindus, although I am sensible that the term has been applied to several distinguished persons, such as Vyas, who lived in India before the doctrine of caste became prevalent.

The introduction of these deities and priests by no means destroyed the religion of the Buddhas. Gautama considered as the lawgiver of Ava and Ceylon, and son of Maya, it is alleged was born in this district, and resided at Buddha-Gaya, under the protection of a Dharma-Asoka, who I presume is the same with the Ajaka [Ajaca] mentioned among the kings of Magadha by Major Wilford (As. Res. vol. 9) [-- Essay III. Of the Kings of Magadha; their Chronology, by Captain Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Volume 9, 1809. pgs. 94-100.], as contemporary (A.D. 542) with Gautama.]
Image
Image

A Table of the Kings of Magadha, Emperors of India
Dynasty of the Barhadrathas

1370 / Vrimadrala
-- / Vrihateshetra
1300 / Gurucshepa
-- / Vatsayupa
-- / Prativyoma
-- Bhanu
1200 / Devaca
-- / Sahadeva
-- / Vira
-- / Vribadasva
1100 / Bhanuratha
-- / Praticasva
-- / Supratica
-- / Marudeva
1000 / Sunarshetra
-- / Siddhartha, or Sujana
-- Jina dies 950 B.C.
900 / Cinnara
-- / Antaricsha
-- / Suverna
-- / Vribadieja
800 / Dharmmi
-- / Critanjaya
-- / Suvrata
-- / Rathanjava

Sunacas

-- / Sanjaya / Ripunjaya
-- / Suddhodana / --
600 / Gautama or Sacya, born 542 B.C.
-- / -- / Cshema-dharma

Sisunacas

500 / --
400 / --

Mauryas / Bali-Putras

300 / --
200 / --

Sungas

100 / --
0 / --

Canwas

Dynasty of the genuine Andhras omitted

100 / --
200 / --
300 / --

Spurious

400 / --

Andhras

500 / --
600 / --
700 / --

Jarasandha

1370 / Sahadeva. Paricsrita is born, Conclusion of the Great War. The Caliyuga begins.
-- / Somadhi / 58 - 98 - 58
1300 / Srutasrava / 67 - 67 - 67
-- Ajutayu / 54 - 36 - 31
-- Niramitra / 50 - 63 - 50
1200 / Sucshetra / 50 - 50 - 50
-- / Vrihatearma / 23 - 23 - 23
-- Sonajit or Manishi / 50 - 50 - 50
1100 / Srutanjaya / 35 - 40 - 35

Dynasties in the western parts of India, toward the Frontiers of Persia.

-- / Maha-bahu / 28 - 35 - 28
-- / Suchi / 58 - 58 - 58
1000 / Cshema / 28 - 28 - 23
-- / Suvrate / 61 - 64 - 64
-- / Dharmaeshetra / 5 - 5 - 5
900 / Nribhrata / 58 - 58 - 58
-- / Sultuta / 38 - 38 - 38
-- / Vrihadsena / 48 - 48 - 48
-- / Sumati / 33 - 33 - 33

X. Abhiras, or Shepherd Kings, toward the upper parts of the Indus about Atuc-Varanesa

800 / Suddhanwa / 32 - 32 - 32
-- / Sunetra / 40 - 40 - 40
-- / Saptajit / 30 - 30 - 30
700 / Visvajit / 35 - 35 - 35
-- / Pradyota / 23 - 23 - 23
-- / Palaca / 21 - 21 - 24

Inferior Dynasties in various parts of India generally in a state of independence.

600 / Vishnchayupa / 100 - 50 - 50
-- / Ajaca / 21 - 31 - 21
-- / Nandivarddhana / 20 - 20 - 20
X. Sacas, or Persians

1 / Ieshwacavas in Cachha-Bhoja and the lower parts of the Indus / 24 Kings
2 / Panchalas in the western parts of Oude / 25
3 / Cashayas Benares / 24
4 / Halhayas Narmada / 24
5 / Canravas / 25
6 / Calingas Deccan / 32
7 / Maithilas Tirhoot / 28
8 / Surasenas Muttra / 23
9 / Viti-hotras / 20
10 / Coshalas / 9
11 / Mecalas Narmada / 13
12 / Asmacas / 20
13 / Meghas / --
14 / Comalyas / --
15 / Nalavansas / --
16 / Naishadhas / 9
17 / Manidhanyajas / --
18 / Canacavayas, in Gurjerat, it is supposed / --
19 / Pundracas, or Tamiradiptas=Tumlook / --
20 / Maheshacas / --
21 / Mehindras / --
22 / Baumas / --
23 / Naimishicas / --
24 / Caulateyas / --
25 / Stri-rajyas / --
26 / Mushicas, Mushek Malabar coast / --
27 / Aryvas, Christian Kings in the Deccan / --
28 / Adriyas, among the mountains in the western parts of the Deccan / --
29 / Calacas, &c. / --

500 / Cshetranja / 40 - 40 - 10
 -- / Vidhisara / 28 - 28 - 28
-- / Ajata-Satru / 35 - 25 - 25
400 / Dasaca / 35 - 25 - 25
-- / Udasi / 23 - 33 - 23
-- / Nandi-vardubana / 42 - 42 - 42
-- / Maha-Nandi / 43 - 43 - 43
355 B.C. / Maha Bali, or Maha-Nanda / 28 - 88 - 28
-- / The Nine Nandas / 12 - 12 - __
315 B.C. / Chandra-Gupta / 24 - 24 - __

VIII. Yavanas, or Grecian Kings of Bactria.

XIV. Tusharas, or Parthians


300 / Varisara / 25 - 25 - 25
-- / Asaca / 36 - 36 - 36
-- / Culata, or Culala / 8 - 8 - 8
-- / Bandu-pahta, or Sammati / 9 - 9 - 9
-- / Indra-patita, or Salisuca / 13 - 14 - 13
-- / Deva-dharma / 7 - 7 - 7
-- / Suma-Sarma / 7 - 7 - 7
200 / Satadhanwa / 8 - 8 - 8
-- / Vrihadratha / 87 - 7 - 7
-- / Pushpamitra / 36 - 60 - 36
-- / Agnimitra / 81 - 2 - 2
-- / Sujyashta / 7 - 7 - 7
-- / Vasumitra / 13 - 10 - 10
100 / Bhadraca / 2 - 2 - 2
-- / Pubudaca / 3 - 3 - 3
-- / Chosha-raja / 3 - 3 - 3
-- / Vicramitra / 14 - 14 - 14
-- / Bhagavata / 32 - 32 - 32
-- / Devabhuti / 10 - 10 - 10

XIII. Maurundas, or Hunas, a branch of the Indo-Scythians; the Morundie of Ptolemy.

0 / Vasudeva / 10 - 10 - 10
-- / Bhumitra / 14 - 24 - 14
-- / Narayana / 12 - 12 - 12
-- / Susharma / 10 - 10 - 10
100 / --
190 / Sri Carna Deva, or Sipraen / 23 - 13 - __
200 / Crishna, his brother Sri / 16 - 17 - __
-- / Purportsanga Sri Carna / 56 - 55 - __
-- / Lambodara / 18 - __ - __
-- / Apilaca / 12 - __ - __

XI. Maunas unknown; probably a branch of the hunas.

300 / Sanduva, or Megha-swati / 18 - __ - __
-- / Atainan, or Putuman / 21 - 12 - __
-- / Hala, or Haleya / 25 - 28 - __
-- / Pulaca / 5 - 5 - __
-- / Pravillasena / 21 - 12 - __
400 / Sundara Sri Carna / 1 - __ - __
-- / Chacora Sri Carna, 6 months / __ - 6 - __
-- / Mehendra Sri Carna / __ - 3 - __
-- / Cuntala Sri Carna / __ - 8 - __
-- / Siva-Swami / 28 - 1 - __

Pauras, Pawaras or Punwaras, Punawarut, near country called the Kingdom of Boutou, by early Musulman writers.

500 / Gautami-Putra / 21 - 3 - __
-- / Madasim / __ - 4 - __
-- / Siva Scanda Sri Carni / __ - 3 - __
-- / Yajnasri Sri Carni / 29 / 19 (60)
600 / Vijava / __ - __ - __

From this list is descended the Vindhya Sacti, or the Might and Glory of the Vindhyan hills, the family of the Rajas of Uduya-pura and Chartor.

-- / Chandrasri / 3 - 3 - __
648 A.C. / Puliman dies / 7 - 7 - __

-- Essay III. Of the Kings of Magadha; their Chronology, by Captain Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Volume 9, 1809. pgs. 94-100.

This personage did not found the sect of the Buddhas, nor is the great temple of Dharma-Asoka dedicated to the lawgiver of Ava. It is, however, held in the highest veneration by the people of that country, as being the place where their lawgiver worshipped Mahamuni, the real founder of the sect. Gautama, the son of Maya, is not only claimed by the people of Ava as their lawgiver, but is worshipped by the Jain as the favourite disciple of Mahavira, who flourished about 582 years before Christ, and according to this sect, several petty princes of their persuasion governed in this country for 400 years before that period, and these have left behind some monuments, although none of any magnitude, nor to be compared with those of the Buddhists, who are acknowledged by the Jain to have retained the chief authority in Magadha in all times of antiquity. A Gautama is also claimed by the Brahmans as one of their most distinguished saints, and I have no doubt is the same personage whom the heretical sects worship. He seems to have been a person of very eminent science and reputation, who perhaps belonged to none of the three sects by whom he is now claimed. As this person is mentioned in the Vedas, these works must have been composed long after the time of Vyas, who was contemporary with Jarasandha, although he is usually considered as their compiler; but he is also universally given out by the Brahmans as the author of the Purans, some of which at least are evidently composed since the commencement of the Hijri; so that the opinions of the Brahmans on this subject cannot be implicitly received. In this district are very numerous monuments, which I refer to the period of Gautama, or of the Sunaka dynasty, of whom Ajaka or Dharma-Asoka was one. These monuments are attributed to a people called Kol and Chero, and some allege that these were different tribes, but in general they are considered as the same people, and I am persuaded that this is the case; for I am informed by Ramsundar Mitra, a very intelligent Bengalese, who long managed the revenue of Ramgar, where both people are still numerous, that they are in fact the same tribe; but that like the Bhungiyas of Bhagalpur, the Kol adhere to their old impurity of life; while the Chero, like the Suryabangsis of the same district, adhere to the rules of Hindu purity, and call themselves Kshatriyas or Rajputs; and among the fastnesses of Ramgar several chiefs of that tribe still retain considerable property. From the districts, of which I am now giving an account, both Kols and Cheros have been entirely eradicated, but the honour of this achievement is disputed. In general, quite contrary to my supposition, it is alleged that this tribe was expelled by the Muhammedans, led by a saint named Ebrahim Mulek Bayo; but for several reasons I do not hold this opinion tenable. These conquerors by no means expelled the Bandawats, who seem to have been possessed of the greater part of these districts at the time of the conquest, and the whole actions attributed to Ebrahim Mulek Bayo are exceedingly apocryphal, no such person, so far as I can find, being mentioned by historians. Farther, we are told by Major Wilford (As. Res. vol. 9, p. 91), that Yayati, an ancestor of Jarasandha, divided his empire among his five sons, and that Turvasu obtained the south, and in the 10th generation from Turvasu four brothers, Pandya, Kerala, Kola and Chola, divided the country between them. Kola lived in the northern parts of the Peninsula, and his descendants are called Koles to this day. That a whole nation should be descended from one prince, I confess, appears to me very improbable; but that a nation may have derived its name from a prince, may be believed. The Kols of this district may therefore have been the same with these Koles of the northern part of the Peninsula, now called Telingana, and on the failure of the direct line of Jarasandha, their prince, as a collateral branch of the same family, may have succeeded to the government of the Gangetic provinces, and may be the same with the Sunakas of Major Wilford, among whom Ajaca or Asoka was the fourth prince. This, I think, will be confirmed by the appearances which now remain. Kabar, the chief ruin attributed to the Kols or Cheros, is in the immediate vicinity of Buddha-Gaya, where the palace of Asoka stood, and has evidently been the work of a powerful prince, and strongly fortified, while the palace at Buddha-Gaya seems to have had very slight defences. I therefore presume that Kabar was the stronghold of the prince, who lived at Buddha-Gaya. But farther, these works are vastly too great for the supposition, that they belonged to petty chiefs, who at the time of the Muhammedan conquest occupied the small territory intervening between the country of the Bandawats on the east, and of the Raja of Kanoj and Banaras on the west. I therefore consider as much more probable, though less common, the tradition, which states that the Kol and Chero were expelled by the military Brahmans, who still possess the country, although these have been since subject to several other tribes. In the account of Bhagalpur* [Bhagalpur will be contained in the next volume.-[ED.]] I have described the present condition of these wretched people, and given a specimen of their language, which seems to be one of the original dialects of India, very little intermixed with the Sangskrita, and probably one of the barbarous dialects called Magadhi by the Sangskrita grammarians; for I have no doubt that the Pali, or sacred language of Ceylon and Ava, though introduced from Magadha, is merely a form of the Sangskrita language, and in Magadha was always a dead or learned language; having been introduced from Iran by the conquerors, who first civilized the Hindus. It is especially to be remarked that the priests of Ceylon, according to Captain Mahony, allege, that in Madda desa (Madhyadesa), when Gautama was born, the art of writing was not known; and the Kols, that is the dregs of the people, seem to have entirely rejected his doctrine, as they still do that of the Brahmans. The chief people or Chero, if Asoka was one of them, no doubt adopted the worship of the Buddhas, but have since been converted to the orthodox faith. It is also to be remarked, that this unfortunate tribe has not only been expelled from their new acquisitions on the Ganges, but has been driven into the barren recesses of their original territory in the north of the Peninsula by the Andhras, who seem originally to have come from the west of India, and have communicated their name to the original country of the Kols, which is also called Telingana from the warlike habits of its modern occupants. The vocabulary of the Kols has been examined by a Brahman of Telingana, who declares that it has no kind of affinity with the language now spoken in his native country, or to what in Madras is usually called the Gentoo language.

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; nor could I hear of any remains of antiquity at the Mawbellypoor of Major Rennell on the Son river, which is said to have been the abode of Mahabali, another name for the same prince. I therefore suspect, that this great king never resided in this district.
It seems to me however to have been about this period, that the Brahmans descended of the Magas arose into great distinction, and communicated to this district the name of their ancestors.
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.

-- VII. On the ancient Geography of India, by Lieut. Col. F. Wilford

I have found in this district no traditions concerning Chandragupta nor his descendants the Baliputras, although Palibothra his capital, is by Major Rennell supposed to be the same with Pataliputra, or Patna. This city is indeed allowed by all the Pandits to be called Pataliputra, but Pataliputra has no great resemblance to Palibothra, nor can Patali be rationally considered as a word of the same origin with Pali, said to be an ancient name of this country, and of its people and language. In the vicinity of Patna few traces of antiquity remain as a guide to conjecture; but, with all due deference for the opinion of Major Rennell, I doubt very much of its having been the Palibothra of the Greeks. The conjecture of Major Wilford, in the fifth volume of the Asiatick Researches, placing Palibothra at the old junction of the Kosi with the Ganges near Rajmahal, seems better founded, although all traces of the city have been swept away by numerous changes in the river; and although, when in that vicinity, I heard no traditions concerning the great personages who resided at Palibothra. But the Pali are still the most numerous tribe in Matsyadesa, the country immediately north and east from the situation, which Major Wilford assigns. Although this country no doubt belonged to the kings of the Gangarides, it was so far removed from their capital, that no traces of them are now to be discovered. That Patali however, has been a place of great consequence, from its being now universally called Patana, or the city by way of excellence, there can be no doubt, and this seems to have been during the reigns of the earlier princes of the dynasty of the spurious Andhras of Major Wilford, (As. Res. vol. 9, p. 43,) who governed until the year 640 after the birth of Christ; but between this period, and the government of the Baliputras ending about 160 years before the birth of Christ, Behar seems to have risen into great note, as capital of the Magas and of their country Magadha.
Image
Bhagalpur & Rajmahal

At one time (before Christ, 800) this city, according to a learned priest of the Jain who resides there, belonged to a petty chief of that sect; but was afterwards fortified by a Maga Raja, who seems to have been a very powerful prince, and the ruins of buildings, attributed by all to this Maga, at Baragang, in the vicinity of Behar, are of an astonishing magnitude, as will be afterwards described. The persons, by whom they have been erected, have evidently been Buddhists, and were probably either the Andhra kings, or the princes who intervened between them and the descendants of Chandragupta; but they are abhorred as infidels, nor have I been able to learn any tradition concerning their names.
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 [Wilford] 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

To return to the spurious Andhra princes, who began to govern the Gangetic provinces from the year A.D. 200, I have said, that the first of them the Karnas probably resided in the Bhagalpur district; but some considerable monuments in Behar may be traced to this family. I must here correct an error in my account of Bhagalpur. I there have stated, that these princes were probably of the sect of Jain; but a learned priest of that sect, who resides at Behar, informed me, that the Karna Rajas were heretics. They were probably Buddhists, as Major Wilford states, on the authority of the Chinese annals, that the king of the Gangarides in the year 408 of the Christian era was of that sect, and this opinion is confirmed by the monuments, which these princes have left in Behar. It must be however observed, that Sudraka the first of the spurious Andhras is said by Major Wilford to have governed at Pataliputra (As. Res. vol. 9, p. 146;) but of this I can learn nothing on the spot, while at Bhagalpur, and in the interior of this district, the Karnas have left numerous traces and traditions. At Patna it is alleged, that Patali the daughter of Sudarsan Raja founded that city, and I suspect that Major Wilford may have considered Sudarsan and Sudraka as the same name, an error into which I was at one time led. There was a Raja Sudarsan, a prince of the family of the sun, and the 18th in lineal descent from Mama; but whether or not the father of Patali was the same person, I do not pretend to conjecture. The latter princes of the dynasty of the spurious Andhras lived probably at Patna, and according to Major Wilford had palaces at Phulwari and Sambalpur in the vicinity; but, very few remains of antiquity are to be found in that vicinity, which may perhaps be owing to changes occasioned by the river.

I have not discovered any remains of considerable works being attributed to the Pala Rajas, or other princes of note, who governed the Gangetic provinces after the overthrow of the dynasty of the spurious Andhras. The Palas, I believe, resided usually at Chandalgar or Chunar, so far distant, that none of their great works extended to this district; but several inscriptions acknowledging their power remain at Gaya; and one of them perhaps had a house at Narawat. This dynasty is well known to have been of the sect of the Buddhas. In fact, so far as relates to Magadha, until the approach of the Muhammedans, the Brahman priests, although this probably was one of their most ancient abodes in India, if not their original seat, do not seem to have made much progress in converting the people. There is even reason to suspect, that by far the greater part of even these Magas became infected with the heresy of the Buddhas, for the term Maga is by many Brahmans in this country considered as synonymous with kirat, or infidel; and it is supposed by all the orthodox Hindus, that whoever dies in Magadha, will in a future life be born an ass, the emblem of his obstinacy; while, from what I have above narrated, it will appear, that most of the dynasties which have governed Magadha, have professed the doctrine of the Buddhas. It is to this period which intervened between the overthrow of the spurious Andhras and the Muhammedan conquest, that we may with the greatest probability refer the government of Basu Raja, of whom an account is given in the Vayu-Puran. He resided at Rajagriha in Behar, the ancient seat of Jarasandha; and, although perhaps tributary to the Palas, seems to have been a prince of considerable power. He was undoubtedly orthodox; and, being desirous of establishing an orthodox priesthood for the sacred places near his residence, seems to have been under the necessity of bringing persons of the sacred order from the south of India, as the Brahmans of Magadha were then probably infected with the doctrine of the Buddhas. It must however be observed, that one of the ancestors of Jarasandha was named Basu, and probably resided in the Rajagriha. It may therefore be supposed, that this was the Basu, who introduced the Brahmans of that place; but as the Vayu-puran, in giving an account of Basu and his colony, alludes to the usual division of Brahmans into ten nations, and as that division appears very modern, it is by far most probable that he was of a late date, when compared with Basu the ancestor of Jarasandha.

In 1192, according to Dow's translation of Ferishta, Cuttab, who was the first Muhammedan king of Delhi, (then in the service of Mahommed Ghori,) defeated Rai Joy, probably the last of the Pala family, who was king of Kanoj and Banaras; after which he took possession of the country as far as Bengal without opposition. It seems however very doubtful, whether any part of this district belonged then to the Raja of Benaras, as Indradawan, a Bandawat Rajput, had possession of the adjacent parts of Bhagalpur, and he no doubt possessed also the whole eastern parts of this district, where many traces remain of him and his tribe. I consider him as of the Andhras nation, and founder of the great city of Warankol. The adjacent country had probably belonged to his ancestors for several generations; as the ancestors of Pratapa Rudra, the last king of Warankol, are said to have possessed the regal power for eighteen generations; and the time between the retreat of Indradawan, and the destruction of Warankol will not admit of so many princes. Indradawan therefore, probably relinquished his Gangetic territory without a struggle, contented to preserve what was defended from the ferocious Moslems, by the fastnesses of the Vindhyan mountains.

In 1225 Yeas-ul-din was appointed governor of Behar by Altumsh king of Delhi, who had then reduced Bengal to his authority; but so careless were the Muhammedan princes, that the two viceroys of these kingdoms entered into a regular war, in which the governor of Behar was killed. In the year 1266, the inhabitants of Patna (Pattiali) joining those of Bhojpur stopt all intercourse between Delhi and Bengal, were severely punished by Balin, and forts were ordered to be built. It is therefore probable, that the governor of Behar then resided at the city of that name, and that this is the date of the present fort of Patna at the east end of the city, although it may have been since repaired or enlarged.

In the weakness of the reign of Mahmood the 3d. (A.D. 1393,) the Hindus rebelled, particularly those of the eastern provinces, and in an inscription at Gaya mention is made of a Naha Raja Prija Ral, in the year 1372, (Samvat, 1429,) so that the rebellion must have lasted a. least 20 years. The Vizier on this occasion assumed the title of king of the east; and, proceeding with a great army to Behar, soon reduced that country to obedience, and took up his residence at Jionpoor, where he seems to have remained undisturbed until after the retreat of Timur, from Delhi in the year 1397. In 1400 he died; but Behar seems to have continued subject to a king of the east, residing at Jionpoor until 1478, when Beloli overthrew that dynasty, and made Barbek his son viceroy; but he seems to have had little authority, and the Hindu Zemindars raised to the dignity of king of the east a sultan Hassen, who appears to have been in possession of Behar in the year 1491, and then advanced almost to Benares to dispute the whole empire with Sekunder the 1st. He was defeated by that prince, and retired to Behar by the way of Betiya, the Raja of which was one of his chief supporters. Sekunder advancing to Behar, Hassen fled to Alla the king or Bengal; when the king appointed a certain Mohabut to govern Behar; and, having reduced Tirahut, and performed his devotions at the shrine of Shuh Sherrif at Behar, advanced towards Bengal, with the king of which he concluded a peace (A.D. 1494). Soon after the government of Behar was given to Deria the son of Mobarik. In 1516 it was again attempted to establish a separate kingdom of Jionpur in the person of Jelal-ul-din; but Dirai Lohani the governor of Behar adhered to Ibrahim king of Delhi, and was a principal means of quashing that rebellion. He himself however soon after rebelled, and in 1519 Muhammed the son of Dirai of the tribe of Lodi suba of Beria (I presume Behar), that is. I suppose, the same Dirai formerly called Lohani, took the title of king. This introduced an anarchy which brought into Hindustan the Mogul Baber.

About this time Shere Khan the son of a Patan who had obtained a grant of Saseram rose into considerable notice, became a principal person in the court of this Muhammed or Mahmud of Behar, and was afterwards sole manager of the affairs of his son Jelal. At this time Behar was a very pretty principality, Hajipur opposite to Patna, and Mungger belonging to the king of Bengal, while Chandalgar (Chunar), formed the government of an independent chief named Taji. Shere Khan soon expelled his master, and seizing on Behar acquired much wealth by an attack on the Bengalese, and by a marriage with the widow of Taji, which put him in possession of the important fortress that had belonged to her husband. In 1528, the Patan chiefs of Behar assembled at Patna, deprived Shere of its government, and created king Mahmud the son of Sekunder king of Delhi. This prince apparently reconciled Shere to his interest, but in an action with the Mogols soon after was betrayed by that perfidious chief. Shere however soon quarrelled with the Mogol Humayun, seized on Behar and invaded Bengal, which he had in a great measure reduced when the Mogol attacked Chandalgar, and having taken it followed Shere into Bengal (1539). The Afghan unable to resist retired to Jharkhanda, that is the hilly region between Virbhum and Benaras, but not without having secured most of the treasure of Bengal; and soon after he had the address to seize on Rotas by surprise. The Mogol by the sickness of his army was soon compelled to leave Bengal, and having been lulled into security by Shere was defeated. Another victory in 1540 gave Shere the possession of India.

In 1553 the empire was divided between two persons of the family of Shere, and Behar with the eastern provinces fell to the share of Mahummed, who took up his abode at Chandalgar, and his government was overthrown by Akbur. In 1564 Sekunder, governor of Behar, joining with several other Usbek chiefs, rebelled against that prince, and they do not seem to have been finally reduced until 1567. In 1574, on the invasion of Bengal by Akbur, a certain Momin, who had been very useful in that transaction, was made governor of Patna and its dependencies, and at that time probably it was that this city became the capital of Behar. In 1575 Momin, proceeding in the reduction of Bengal, repaired Gaur; but dying immediately after was succeeded by a Hoseyn, who was appointed governor of Bengal and Behar, and in the same year completed the conquest of the former. Hoseyn died in 1578, and the people of Bengal immediately revolted. In 1587 Man Singha, a noble Hindu, was appointed governor of Behar, and in 1592 advanced to Bengal, where he reduced Cullulu, the Afghan chief who had seized on that country, annexed Orissa to the empire, and by the monstrous marriage of his sister with Jehanggir acquired great power; but his nephew Khusero rebelling in 1606, he was involved in suspicion. In 1606 Islam Khan was governor of Behar. In 1611 a person pretending to be Khusero, the son of Jahanggir, raised a mob, seized on Patna, then the capital of Behar, and taking possession of the palace, women and wealth of the Subah, gave up the town to plunder. Soon after he was defeated and killed. The Subah's palace would then appear to have been within a fortified city, although the present fortifications are usually attributed to a later date. In 1624 Shah Jehan having rebelled against his father, and conquered Bengal, advanced to Behar. Muchlis Khan, the governor, retired without resistance, and Shah Jehan took up his abode in the palace of the Subah in Patna. He then, having been joined by Mobarek governor of Rotas, removed his family to that impregnable fortress, and appointed Nazir Khan to the government of Behar. Soon after, on his advance towards the capital he was defeated, and retired to Patna; but on the approach of his brother Parviz fled through Bengal to the south. In 1625 he delivered himself and family to his father and was pardoned.

In 1638 Abdalla, governor of Behar, was accused of oppression, and Shaista was appointed in his stead. In 1658 the government of Behar was conferred on Kisser Sheko, son of the Prince Dara; and, during the whole reign of Shah Jehan, this district seems to have been tolerably quiet; nor did the disturbances in Bengal, which happened in the reign of Aurungzebe, extend this length. Owing to these disturbances Azim, the grandson of Aurungzebe, for some time held both governments; but after a time he was deprived of Bengal and came to reside at Patna, when his name was conferred on the city still called Azimabad, and the Moslems adhere to this denomination with more than usual care, owing probably to the prince having been an uncommon zealot. In the reign of Shah Alum I the prince Azim went to Delhi, leaving Sirbullend Khan as his deputy. The prince was soon after killed in a contest for the empire. Soon after the prince Feroksere was proclaimed emperor in Behar.

The king Muhammed Shah appointed Fukered Dowlah Subah of Behar, but displaced him to bestow the appointment on Shuja Khan, the Subah of Bengal, who sent Aliverdi Khan as his deputy to Behar, then in the utmost confusion, and especially suffering from the violence of Namdah Khan the Mayi, and of Rajah Sunder Singha of Tikari. Aliverdi quashed this anarchy, and having as usual fleeced the rebels, acquired the title of Mohabutjung. In 1740 Sirafraz, who had succeeded his father Shuja as Subah of Bengal and Behar, coined money in the name of Nadir Shah then at Delhi, on which Aliverdi and his kindred, men of low birth, extreme meanness, and the most unprincipled hearts, and who owed everything to Shuga and his son, killed their master in a very treacherous manner, and Aliverdi obtained both governments. The government of Behar was conferred by him on Zeineddin Ahmed Khan his nephew. In 1742 the Mahrattas under Balla Row invaded this district, and for some years committed horrible devastations, in which it must be observed that they were chiefly abetted by the principal Muhammedan family in the district, called the Mayis, while they were opposed by the chief Hindu landholder, the Raja of Tikari. Zeineddin in a few years was murdered by some Patans in the palace of Patna; and these ruffians afterwards killed his father and plundered the city. On Aliverdi's approach to punish the scoundrels he was joined by Rajah Sundar Singha of Tikari, and having defeated the Patans, appointed his grand nephew Surrajid Dowlah to the government of Behar. This prince succeeded his grand-uncle in 1756, and soon after by oppressing the English brought about his overthrow and the conquest of his country.

In the beginning of the government of Shah Alum, that weak, hypocritical, and cruel prince, attempted to recover Behar and Bengal. In the attempt he was joined by Camgar Khan of the Mayi family, one of the principal Foujdars of Behar. When he failed he surrendered himself to the British at Gaya, and hearing then of his father's death was proclaimed king at Patna. Another attempt of his in conjunction with Casim Ali to recover Bengal from the "infidels" ended in a similar disgrace, since which the province has enjoyed a quiet formerly totally unknown.* [This historical sketch would appear to have been furnished to Dr. Buchanan by the natives, and as the early history of the East is involved in so much doubt and legendary tradition, its publication may either strengthen or refute other statements, so that we may at length be enabled to have a clear and accurate account of the history of a people who have undergone, and suffered from, numerous revolutions.-[ED.]]  
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sat Feb 12, 2022 2:03 am

Some people in a cheering crowd called for her to be raped. Many were women.
by Esha Mitra
CNN
Published: Sunday, 6 February 2022 11:48 AM AEDT

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.


WARNING: Distressing content

Her hair was cut off and her face painted black before she was paraded into the street where some people in a cheering crowd called for her to be raped [and WAS RAPED BY THREE MEN].

But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the attack in a Delhi neighborhood last month is that video shared on social media shows that most of the baying mob were women.

At least 12 people have been arrested by the Delhi police, eight of whom are women. Two are minors.

Police have not brought charges over the incident, but they say the 20-year-old victim of the January 26 attack was abducted and physically and sexually assaulted.

The alleged involvement of women has touched a nerve in a country that has long struggled to address gender violence.

Image
Indian women hold placards during a demonstration to protest against sexual violence. Credit: Aijaz Rahi/AP

Activists say the case demonstrates the scale of internalised misogyny in India, where women are taught to uphold patriarchal structures.

They fear violence against women will worsen as support grows for right-wing extremist political groups that foster traditional, patriarchal values.

Swati Maliwal, the chairperson of the Delhi Commission of Women, said the woman told her she’d been raped by three men.


Image
The Shahdra district of Delhi where the alleged attack occurred on January 26. Credit: CNN

“There were women present (in the room). .. instigating the men to be more brutal with her,” Maliwal told CNN, recounting what the victim had told her.

“When I saw that video and I saw these women attacking this girl ... it just makes you feel so angry and sad that you have such women who can do something like that.”

It is unclear if any of the people captured on video in the crowd are involved in the alleged assault or have been booked by police.

The victim’s sister watched part of the attack unfold but was powerless to stop it.

Image
Christian nuns pray as they hold a candle light vigil to condemn sexual violence in the country. Credit: Saurabh Das/AP

“I was thinking of shouting, of telling someone, but the (accused) women grabbed me, saying they would beat me up,” said the 18-year-old, who CNN is calling Aarti to protect her sister’s identity as Indian law prohibits revealing the identity of rape victims.

Aarti told CNN her sister - who is married - was attacked by the relatives of a teenage boy, who they say killed himself after her sister spurned his advances.

CNN attempted to contact representatives for the alleged offenders though it is not clear if they have lawyers.

“They (alleged perpetrators) blamed her, but she didn’t do anything,” Aarti said.

“I never thought they would go this far.”

Image
An Indian protester with a slogan painted on his face participates in a demonstration to protest against sexual violence against women and girls. Credit: Aijaz Rahi/AP

The attack

On the morning of January 26, Aarti told CNN she delivered a bag of wheat to her sister’s house in the eastern Delhi’s Shahdara district.

But when her sister came downstairs to collect it, an angry mob rushed in.

“They started hitting and beating my sister. This was happening in front of me, but I just stood there, I didn’t know what to do ... I was frozen with fear,” Aarti said.

The teenager does not remember how many people there were, only that there were “a lot of them” and they included men and women from another local family.


Image
A woman holds a candle and placard seeking an end to sexual violence against women. Credit: Aijaz Rahi/AP

Aarti said the group tried to snatch her sister’s two-and-a-half-year-old son, but Aarti “somehow fought them off” and held onto him as the group bundled her sister in an autorickshaw.

Clutching her nephew, she followed them in another rickshaw, accompanied by two of the alleged perpetrators to the residential Kasturba Nagar area of Delhi less than two miles away - where the alleged perpetrators live near the house Aarti shares with her father.


Kasturba Nagar is a low to middle-income neighbourhood in Delhi where women sit and chat outside brightly painted homes and men cluster around local tea shops.

On the day of the attack people were off work to mark Republic Day, the anniversary of the day India’s constitution was adopted - but the day has taken on new significance for Aarti and her family.

The rickshaw stopped at the alleged perpetrators’ house, but as Aarti couldn’t see her sister, she went inside her own home and latched the door.

Soon after, she heard commotion outside, and from behind a wall watched her sister being led through the street as women hit her with rods.

Her hair had been cut off, her face blackened, and she had a garland of slippers around her neck -- all actions meant to mark her as perhaps deserving of public shame.


Image
A woman holds a placard at the Delhi "SlutWalk" in New Delhi, India. Credit: Mustafa Quraishi/AP

Aarti said the women took her sister around the neighbourhood, shoving, slapping and beating her sister for at least half an hour.

“I couldn’t believe no one in the neighbourhood spoke up or tried to help, they only cheered,” said Aarti.

Aarti said she called police on a borrowed cellphone and they arrived 15 minutes later.

At the police station, Aarti’s sister told her she had been locked in a room where a “wrong was done to her” - a colloquial phrase in India referring to sexual assault - before being paraded in the street.


R Sathiyasundaram, the deputy police commissioner of Shahdara district, said the investigation is still underway and would not say which laws the alleged perpetrators had been arrested under.

He declined to confirm the nature of the sexual assault, or confirm details of the incident.

“We cannot reveal all that, it’s a matter of investigation,” he said.

Internalised misogyny

Though many Indians were shocked that women would allegedly incite rape, others say it’s not surprising in a country with strong patriarchal values.

Ten years ago, lawyer Seema Kushwaha represented “Nirbhaya,” a 23-year-old student who died after being gang-raped on a Delhi bus in 2012.

Outrage led to stronger rape laws, but activists say those have had little impact in stemming the level of sexual violence in India, which was ranked the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman in a 2018 Thompson Reuters Foundation survey of experts on women’s issues.


Kushwaha says the problem persists because of societal issues - and those are harder to change.

She says in patriarchal societies women are taught that they’re ultimately to blame for any wrongdoing - and last month, those deep beliefs played out on the streets of Delhi, when women allegedly ganged up on one of their own.

“If fighting crimes against women is a fight of the female gender, women should have supported the girl ... but they did not do that, they instead beat her up because it has been ingrained in them that whatever men do, it is women who are responsible,” she said.

In families, mothers-in-law often curtail the freedoms of a new bride. In public, it is often women who police other women’s actions or way of dressing.

Image
Students of different universities stage a protest rally against recent gang rape of a girl in New Delhi, in Kolkata, India, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022. Credit: Bikas Das/AP

The attack in Shahdara is an extreme iteration of that, Kushwaha said, where women allegedly resorted to cruelty against another woman to avenge the alleged suicide of a teenage boy.

According to data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau, crimes against women were 20 per cent higher in 2020 compared to 2013 - the last year before the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) came to power - and the latest figures from 2020.

However, those statistics likely don’t capture the whole picture - as in other countries, rape is often underreported, and an increase in reported rapes could reflect a growing awareness about reporting sexual violence.

Kushwaha - who has recently been appointed the spokesperson of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which was formed to represent caste minorities - says that while no government can be singularly blamed for the violence against women in India, the rise of right-wing ideologies in the country threatens women’s safety and security.

CNN has reached out to the Indian government’s Ministry of Women and Child Development for comment about the rising number of attacks on women but has not received a response.

In a statement to the upper house of parliament last February, the Ministry of Women and Child development said a number of initiatives had been taken by the central government to address women’s safety, such as strengthening legislation.

But it added that state governments are responsible for law and order and safety of citizens.

However, police in the national capital territory of Delhi reports to the central government.

Aarti said this was not the first time the alleged perpetrators had targeted her sister.

They had been harassing them for weeks, showing up to their homes and hurling abuse off and on since the boy’s suicide in November, she said.


Image
Some people in a cheering crowd called for her to be raped. Many were women. Credit: CNN

A week before the attack Aarti said she filed a police complaint against the alleged perpetrators after they allegedly set fire to her father’s autorickshaw, which he rented out for income because he is paralysed.

When asked to comment on the complaint, deputy police commissioner Sathiyasundaram did not respond.

Sathiyasundaram also declined to share any information on the alleged perpetrators’ motive for committing the crime, saying that it was “under investigation.”

Pragya Lodha, a clinical psychologist with MINDS Foundation, a mental health non-profit, said if it was true that the woman was attacked because of the teenage boy’s suicide, it reflects the lack of awareness about mental health in India.

“There is no direct cause and effect when it comes to suicide...it is rare that mere rejection has led to suicide,” she said.

While Lodha said attitudes around mental health are shifting in India, especially over the last two years of the pandemic, there is still a vast gap between the privileged classes of society that have access to mental health and the vast rural and semi-urban masses that do not.

Lodha said even in major cities like Delhi access to mental health services can seem unaffordable, and a stigma remains around mental health issues.

The way forward

Delhi authorities have indicated they want the case resolved quickly.

Delhi police have set up a 10-member special investigative team and Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the government will hire the victim a “good lawyer” and fast-track the case.

“That’s a start but a lot more needs to be done ... I’m going to be keeping a tab on this case because I want that the investigation to be completed in a very short span of time,” Delhi Commission of Women’s Maliwal said.

She said a prompt investigation would spare the victim more pain.

A fast resolution would be a stark contrast to the majority of rape case in India.

According to Kushwaha, the lawyer, it often takes a year or more for rape complaints to be registered and investigated, despite Indian law requiring rape case investigations to be completed within two months.

Cases can take years to go through court, and many alleged perpetrators are out on bail while they wait for the result - sending the message that the law can’t do anything to stop them, according to Kushwaha.

And even after all that, fewer than half of rape complaints that make it to trial lead to a conviction.

For example, in 2020 only four in 10 cases ended in a guilty verdict, according to the latest statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau.

“Even when convictions happen, they happen in 10 to 15 years,” said Kushwaha, the lawyer.

Maliwal, from the Delhi Commission of Women, says part of the problem is the lack of fast-track courts to deal with rape cases.

In 2019, the central government approved a plan to open 1,023 fast track courts across India to help clear a backlog of rape cases and sexual offences against minors.

However, according to data submitted by the minister of Law and Justice in the upper house of parliament in December 2021, only 681 such courts had been established.

Apart from law, there also needs to be a focus on education, with children in all schools having access to sex education and gender studies, said Kushwaha.

Violence against women will only abate if India’s patriarchal culture changes to create a more equal society, she added.
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... 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 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...

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...

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....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....

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...


-- VII. On the ancient Geography of India, by Lieut. Col. F. WILFORD


For more than a week, police have been guarding both ends of the street where the attack took place.

People slow down as they pass and attempt to peer in.

Aarti is still living at her family home, yards from the house where her sister was attacked, on the same street where she was paraded and mocked.

“I’m not going anywhere; I can’t afford to,” said Aarti.

“I’m 18, I don’t have a job, and I need to take care of my father,” she said.

“I’m glad my sister is home ... I gave her son back; he was happy to see her.”
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:01 am

Mudrarakshasa [Mudraraksa] [Mudra-Rachasa] [Mudra-Racshasa]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/22/22

The Mudra Rakshasa is a drama of a very different description from either of the preceding, being wholly of a political character, and representing a series of Machiavelian stratagems, influencing public events of considerable importance. Those events relate to the history of Chandragupta, who is very probably identifiable with the Sandrocottus of the Greeks, and the drama therefore, both as a picture of manners and as a historical record, possesses no ordinary claims upon our attention....

The author of the play is called in the prelude Visakhadatta
, the son of Prithu, entitled Maharaja, and grandson of the Samanta or chief Vateswara Datta. We are not much the wiser for this information...

The late Major Wilford has called the author of the Mudra Rakshasa, Ananta, and quotes him as declaring that he lived on the banks of the Godaveri (As. Res. vol. v. p. 280.) This however must be an error, as three copies, one of them a Dekhini manuscript in the Telugu character, have been consulted on the present occasion, and they all agree in the statement above given.

There is a commentary on the drama by Vateswara Misra, a Maithila Brahman, the son of Gauripati Misra, who has laboured with more pains than success to give a double interpretation to the composition, and to present it as a system of policy as well as a play.

Another commentary by Guhasena is said to exist, but it has not been met with; and the one referred to, owing to the commentator’s mystification of obvious meanings, and the exceedingly incorrect state of the manuscript, has proved of no advantage.

It may not here be out of place to offer a few observations on the identification of Chandragupta and Sandrocottus. It is the only point on which we can rest with any thing like confidence in the history of the Hindus, and is therefore of vital importance in all our attempts to reduce the reigns of their kings to a rational and consistent chronology. It is well worthy therefore of careful examination, and it is the more deserving of scrutiny, as it has been discredited by rather hasty verification and very erroneous details.

In the fifth volume of the Researches the subject was resumed by the late Colonel Wilford, and the story of Chandragupta is there told at considerable length, and with some accessions which can scarcely be considered authentic. He states also that the Mudra-Rakshasa consists of two parts, of which one may be called the coronation of Chandragupta, and the second his reconciliation with Rakshasa, the minister of his father. The latter is accurately enough described, but it may be doubted whether the former exists.

Colonel Wilford was right also in observing that the story is briefly related in the Vishnu-Purana and Bhagavata, and in the Vrihat-Katha; but when he adds, that it is told also in a lexicon called the Kamandaki he has been led into error. The Kamandaki is a work on Niti, or Polity, and does not contain the story of Nanda and Chandragupta. The author merely alludes to it in an honorific verse, which he addresses to Chanakya as the founder of political science, the Machiavel of India.

The birth of Nanda and of Chandragupta, and the circumstances of Nanda’s death, as given in Colonel Wilford’s account, are not alluded to in the play, the Mudra-Rakshasa, from which the whole is professedly taken, but they agree generally with the Vrihat-Katha and with popular versions of the story. From some of these, perhaps, the king of Vikatpalli, Chandra-Dasa, may have been derived, but he looks very like an amplification of Justin's account of the youthful adventures of Sandrocottus. The proceedings of Chandragupta and Chanakya upon Nanda's death correspond tolerably well with what we learn from the drama, but the manner in which the catastrophe is brought about (p. 268), is strangely misrepresented. The account was no doubt compiled for the translator by his pandit, and it is, therefore, but indifferent authority.

It does not appear that Colonel Wilford had investigated the drama himself, even when he published his second account of the story of Chandragupta (As. Res. vol. ix. p. 93 [p. 94-100]), for he continues to quote the Mudra-Rakshasa for various matters which it does not contain. Of these, the adventures of the king of Vikatpalli, and the employment of the Greek troops, are alone of any consequence, as they would mislead us into a supposition, that a much greater resemblance exists between the Grecian and Hindu histories than is actually the case.


Discarding, therefore, these accounts, and laying aside the marvellous part of the story, 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.

Sir William Jones first discovered the resemblance of the names, and concluded Chandragupta to be one with Sandrocottus (As. Res. vol. iv. p. 11). He was, however, imperfectly acquainted with his authorities, as he cites "a beautiful poem” by Somadeva, and a tragedy called the coronation of Chandra, for the history of this prince. By the first is no doubt intended the large collection of tales by Somabhatta, the Vrihat-Katha [Kathasaritsagara], in which the story of Nanda's murder occurs: the second is, in all probability, the play that follows
, and which begins after Chandragupta’s elevation to the throne.

-- 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

Patali-putra was certainly the capital, and the residence of the kings of Magadha or south Behar. In the Mudra Racshasa, of which I have related the argument, the capital city of Chandra-Gupta is called Cusumapoor throughout the piece, except in one passage, where it seems to be confounded with Patali-putra, as if they were different names for the same place. In the passage alluded to, Racshasa asks one of his messengers, “If he had been at Cusumapoor?” the man replies, “Yes, I have been at Patali-putra.” But Sumapon, or Phulwaree, to call it by its modern name, was, as the word imports, a pleasure or flower garden, belonging to the kings of Patna, and situate, indeed, about ten miles W.S.W, from that city, but, certainly, never surrounded with fortifications, which Annanta, the author of the Mudra Racshasa says, the abode of Chandra-Gupta was. It may be offered in excuse, for such blunders as these, that the authors of this, and the other poems and plays I have mentioned, written on the subject of Chandra-Gupta, which are certainly modern productions, were foreigners; inhabitants, if not natives, of the Deccan; at least Annanta was, for he declares that he lived on the banks of the Godaveri.

But though the foregoing considerations must place the authority of these writers far below the ancients, whom I have cited for the purpose of determining the situation of Palibothra; yet, if we consider the scene of action, in connexion with the incidents of the story, in the Mudra Racshasa, it will afford us clear evidence, that the city of Chandra-Gupta could not have stood on the site of Patna; and, a pretty strong presumption also, that its real situation was where I have placed it, that is to say, at no great distance from where Raje-mehal now stands. For, first, the city was in the neighbourhood of some hills which lay to the southward of it. Their situation is expressly mentioned; and for their contiguity, it may be inferred, though the precise distance be not set down from hence, that king Nanda's going out to hunt, his retiring to the reservoir, among the hills near Patalcandara, to quench his thirst, his murder there, and the subsequent return of the assassin to the city with his master's horse, are all occurrences related, as having happened on the same day. The messengers also who were sent by the young king after the discovery of the murder to fetch the body, executed their commission and returned to the city the same day. These events are natural and probable, if the city of Chandra-gupta was on the site of Raje-mehal, or in the neighbourhood of that place, but are utterly incredible, if applied to the situation of Patna, from which the hills recede at least thirty miles in any direction.

Again, Patalcandara in Sanscrit, signifies the crater of a volcano; and in fact, the hills that form the glen, in which is situated the place now called Mootijarna, or the pearl dropping spring, agreeing perfectly in the circumstances of distance and direction from Raje-mehal with the reservoir of Patalcandara, as described in the poem, have very much the appearance of a crater of an old volcano. I cannot say I have ever been on the very spot, but I have observed in the neighbourhood, substances that bore undoubted marks of their being volcanic productions; no such appearances are to be seen at Patna, nor any trace of there having ever been a volcano there, or near it. Mr. Davis has given a curious description of Mootijarna, illustrated with elegant drawings. He informs us there is a tradition, that the reservoir was built by Sultan Suja: perhaps he only repaired it.

The confusion Ananta and the other authors above alluded to, have made in the names of Patali-putra and Bali-putra, appears to me not difficult to be accounted for. While the sovereignty of the kings of Maghadha, or south Bahar, was exercised within the limits of their hereditary dominions, the seat of their government was Patali-putra, or Patya: but Janasandha, one of the ancestors of Chandra-Gupta, having subdued the whole of Prachi, as we read in the puranas, fixed his residence at Bali-putra, and there he suffered a most cruel death from Crishna and Bala Rama, who caused him to be split asunder. Bala restored the son, Sahadeva, to his hereditary dominions; and from that time the kings of Maghadha, for twenty-four generations, reigned peaceably at Patna, until Nanda ascended the throne, who, proving an active and enterprising prince, subdued the whole of Prachi; and having thus recovered the conquests, that had been wrested from his ancestor, probably re-established the seat of empire at Bali-putra; the historians of Alexander positively assert, that he did.[???]

Thus while the kings of Palibothra, as Diodorus tells us, sunk into oblivion, through their sloth and inactivity, (a reproach which seems warranted by the utter absence observed of the posterity of Bala Rama in the puranas, not even their names being mentioned;) the princes of Patali-putra, by a contrary conduct, acquired a reputation that spread over all India: it was, therefore, natural for foreign authors, (for such, at lead, Ananta was,) especially in competitions of the dramatic kind, where the effect is oftentimes best produced by a neglect of historical precision, of two titles, to which their hero had an equal right to distinguish him by the most illustrious. The author of Sacontala has committed as great a mistake, in making Hastinapoor the residence of Dushmanta, which was not then in existence, having been built by Hasti, the fifth in descent from Dushmanta; before his time there was, indeed, a place of worship on the same spot, but no town. The same author has fallen into another error, in assigning a situation of this city not far from the river Malini, (he should rather have said the rivulet that takes its name from a village now called Malyani, to the westward of Lahore: it is joined by a new channel to the Ravy;) but this is a mistake; Hastinapoor lies on the banks of the old channel of the Ganges. The descendants of Peru resided at Sangala, whose extensive ruins are to be seen about fifty miles to the westward of Lahore, in a part of the country uninhabited. I will take occasion to observe here, that Arrian has confounded Sangala with Salgada, or Salgana, or the mistake has been made by his copyists. Frontinus and Polyaenus have preserved the true name of this place, now called Calanore; and close to it is a deserted village, to this day called Salgheda; its situation answers exactly to the description given of it by Alexander's historians. The kings of Sangala are known in the Persian history by the name of Schangal, one of them assisted Asrasiab against the famous Caicosru; but to return from this digression to Patali-putra.

The true name of this famous place is, Patali-pura, which means the town of Patali, a form of Devi worshipped there. It was the residence of an adopted son of the goddess Patali, hence called Patali-putra, or the son of Patali. Patali-putra and Bali-putra are absolutely inadmissable, as Sanscrit names of towns and places; they are used in that sense, only in the spoken dialects; and this, of itself, is a proof, that the poems in question are modern productions. Patali-pura, or the town of Patali, was called simply Patali, or corruptly Pattiali, on the invasion of the Musulmans: it is mentioned under that name in Mr. Dow's translation of Ferishta's history.

-- XVIII. On the Chronology of the Hindus, by Captain Francis Wilford

Highlights:

[Diodor. Sic. lib. XVII. c. 91. Arrian also, &c.] In 328 B.C., Porus's No Name nephew fled to Nanda, the king of the Gangaridae.

[Mudra-rachasa] Chandra-dasa, a petty king of Vicatpalli, disguised himself as a monk, took the name Suvidha, and fled to the country of Nanda. Is he supposed to be the same as Chandragupta? We hear nothing more of him.

[Mudra-rachasa] Nanda's body is taken over by "an unfortunate dethroned king" with No Name, whose practically lifeless body is tracked down and killed by unknown persons [Nanda's Minister?].

[Mudra-rachasa] Nanda's No Name Minister assassinated Nanda's body that had been taken over by the "unfortunate dethroned king" who is now "dead" for the second time, and places one of Nanda's sons on the throne. But when Nanda's No Name son finds out that the Minister killed his father, whose body had been taken over by the "unfortunate dethroned king", he had the Minister killed. The No Name Son of Nanda ruled the kingdom with seven brothers, but excluded his brother Chandragupta because he was born of a base woman from a tribe called "Mura". Chandragupta was also called "Mura/Maurya", because his mother. Chandragupta was at the same time the son of Nanda, and also the son of a barber. His brothers offered him an allowance instead of joint-kingship, and when he refused, they decided to kill him, or not. Chandragupta fled, then returned, and was in or near the palace when Porus's No Name nephew fled to Palibothra in 328 B.C., the year that Nanda was assassinated. In 327 B.C. Alexander camped on the Hyphasis, and it was then that Chandragupta visited his camp and said something that made Alexander want to kill him, after which Chandragupta fled home again. The eight Nanda brothers ruled for 12 years, until 315 B.C., when Chanacya put the brothers to death and made Chandragupta king. But Arabian writers, "according to the Nubian geographer," say that Chandragupta was defeated and killed by Alexander after Alexander crossed the Ganges.

[The Cumarica-chanda] Chanacya was disturbed after he killed the eight Nanda brothers, andwent to the Sucla-Thirta on the bank of the Narmada to be purified. There he was told to sail on a river in a boat with white sails, which if they turned black, would relieve him of his sins. This happened, so he set the boat adrift along with his sins into the sea. This happened 3,310 years after the Cali-yuga which is 210 A.D. "After three thousand and one hundred years of the Cali-yuga are elapsed (or in 3101) will appear king Saca (or Salivahana) to remove wretchedness from the world. The first year of Christ answers to 3101 of the Cali-yuga, and we may thus correct the above passage: Of the Caliyuga, 3100 save 300 and 10 years being elapsed (or 2790), then will Chanacya go to the Suclatirtha."

[The Agni-Purana] The Agni-Purana tells the same story a little differently. At an assembly of gods Indra said a Crashagni was the only thing that would get rid of Chanacya's sins. A Carshagni is when you cover the body with cowdung and set it on fire. A friendly crow overhead the gods talking, and flew to Chanacya to tell him. Chanacya then performed the ceremony, and "went to heaven." The gods then punished the crow for her "indiscretion." The Agni-Purana confirmed that this happened 312 years before the first year of the reign of Saca or Salivahana, which is 310 or 312 years before Christ, either 3 or 5 years after the murders of the Nanda brothers.

[Source Unknown] Soon after, Chandragupta made himself master of India and drove the Greeks out of the Punjab. "Tradition" says he built a city in the Deccan called "Chandragupta". Major Mackenzie "found" this city below Sri-Salam, or Purwutum, on the bank of the Crishna, even though there's nothing there but ruins. Why is why the inhabitants of the Deccan are so acquainted with the history of Chandragupta, because there's nothing left there to tell them anything. The author of the Mudra-Rakshasa was from the Deccan. Seleucus entered India at the head of an army, but found Chandragupta there, and being worried about the power of Antigonus, he made peace with Chandragupta, who gave him 50 elephants, and "a marriage took place to cement their relationship." Chandragupta is said to have been "very young" when he visited Alexander, and thus could have no marriageable daughter at the time of his treaty with Seleucus. This treaty happened in 302 B.C., which is 25 years after he visited Alexander; therefore the daughter must have been Seleucus's own daughter. It is supposed that Chandragupta had a large body of Greek troops in his service after that.

The accession of Chandragupta to the throne, and more particularly the famous expiation of Chanacya, after the massacre of the Sumalyas, is a famous era in the Chronology of the Hindus; and both may be easily ascertained from the Puranas, and also from the historians of Alexander. In the year 328 B.C. that conqueror defeated Porus; and as he advanced* [Diodor. Sic. lib. XVII. c. 91. Arrian also, &c.] the son of the brother of that prince, a petty king in the eastern parts of the Panjab, fled at his approach, and went to the king of the Gangaridae, who was at that time king Nanda of the Puranas. In the Mudra-rachasa, a dramatic poem, and by no means a rare book, notice is taken of this circumstance. There was, says the author, a petty king of Vicatpalli, beyond the Vindhyan mountains, called Chandra-dasa, who, having been deprived of his kingdom by the Yavanas, or Greeks, left his native country, and assuming the garb of a penitent, with the name of Suvidha, came to the metropolis of the emperor Nanda, who had been dangerously ill for some time. He seemingly recovered; but his mind and intellects were strangely affected. It was supposed that he was really dead, but that his body was re-animated by the soul of some enchanter, who had left his own body in the charge of a trusty friend. Search was made immediately, and they found the body of the unfortunate dethroned king, lying as if dead, and watched by two disciples, on the banks of the Ganges. They concluded that he was the enchanter, burned his body, and flung his two guardians into the Ganges. Perhaps the unfortunate man was sick, and in a state of lethargy, or otherwise intoxicated. Then the prince's minister assassinated the old king soon after, and placed one of his sons upon the throne, but retained the whole power in his own hands. This, however, did not last long; for the young king, disliking his own situation, and having been informed that the minister was the murderer of his royal father, had him apprehended, and put to a most cruel death. After this, the young king shared the imperial power with seven of his brothers; but Chandragupta was excluded, being born of a base woman. They agreed, however, to give him a handsome allowance, which he refused with indignation; and from that moment his eight brothers resolved upon his destruction. Chandragupta fled to distant countries, but was at last seemingly reconciled to them and lived in the metropolis; at least it appears that he did so, for he is represented as being in, or near, the imperial palace at the time of the revolution, which took place twelve years after Porus's relation made his escape to Palibothra in the year 328 B.C. and in the latter end of it. Nanda was then assassinated in that year; and in the following, or 327 B.C., Alexander encamped on the banks of the Hyphasis. It was then that Chandragupta visited that conqueror's camp; and, by his loquacity and freedom of speech, so much offended him, that he would have put Chandragupta to death if he had not made a precipitate retreat, according to Justin* [Lib. xv. c, 4.]. The eight brothers ruled conjointly twelve years, or till 315 years B.C., when Chandragupta was raised to the throne by the intrigues of a wicked and revengeful priest called Chanacya. It was Chandragupta and Chanacy, who put the imperial family to death; and it was Chandragupta who was said to be the spurious offspring of a barber, because his mother, who was certainly of a low tribe, was called Mura, and her son, of course, Maurya in a derivative from, which last signifies also the offspring of a barber; and it seems that Chandragupta went by that name, particularly in the west; for he is known to Arabian writers by the name of Mur, according to the Nubian geographer, who says that he was defeated and killed by Alexander; for these authors supposed that this conqueror crossed the Ganges; and it is also the opinion of some ancient historians in the west.

In the Cumarica-chanda, it is said, that it was the wicked Chanacya who caused the eight royal brothers to be murdered; and it is added, that Chanacya, after his paroxism of revengeful rage was over, was exceedingly troubled in his mind, and so much stung with remorse for his crime, and the effusion of human blood, which took place in consequence of it, that he withdrew to the Sucla-Tirtha, a famous place of worship near the sea on the bank of the Narmada, and seven coss to the west of Baroche, to get himself purified. There, having gone through a most severe course of religious austerities and expiatory ceremonies, he was directed to sail upon the river in a boat with white sails, which, if they turned black, would be to him a sure sign of the remission of his sins; the blackness of which would attach itself to the sails. It happened so, and he joyfully sent the boat adrift, with his sins, into the sea.

This ceremony, or another very similar to it, (for the expense of a boat would be too great), is performed to this day at the Sucla-Tirtha; but, instead of a boat, they use a common earthen pot, in which they light a lamp, and send it adrift with the accumulated load of their sins.

In the 63d section of the Agni-purana, this expiation is represented in a different manner. One day, says the author, as the gods, with holy men, were assembled in the presence of Indra, the sovereign lord of heaven, and as they were conversing on various subjects, some took notice of the abominable conduct of Chanacya, of the atrocity and heinousness of his crimes. Great was the concern and affliction of the celestial court on the occasion; and the heavenly monarch observed, that it was hardly possible that they should ever be expiated.

One of the assembly took the liberty to ask him, as it was still possible, what mode of expiation was requisite in the present case? and Indra answered, the Carshagni. There was present a crow, who, from her friendly disposition, was surnamed Mitra Caca: she flew immediately to Chanacya, and imparted the welcome news to him. He had applied in vain to the most learned divines; but they uniformly answered him, that his crime was of such a nature, that no mode of expiation for it could be found in the ritual. Chanacya immediately performed the Carshagni, and went to heaven. But the friendly crow was punished for her indiscretion: she was thenceforth, with all her tribe, forbidden to ascend to heaven; and they were doomed on earth to live upon carrion.

The Carshagni consists in covering the whole body with a thick coat of cow-dung, which, when dry, is set on fire. This mode of expiation, in desperate cases, was unknown before; but was occasionally performed afterwards, and particularly by the famous Sancaracharya. It seems that Chandragupta, after he was firmly seated on the imperial throne, accompanied Chanacya to the Suclatirtha, in order to get himself purified also.

This happened, according to the Cumarica-chanda, after 300 and 10 and 3000 years of the Cali-yuga were elapsed, which would place this event 210 years after Christ. The fondness of the Hindus for quaint and obscure expressions, is the cause of many mistakes. But the ruling epocha of this paragraph is the following: "After three thousand and one hundred years of the Cali-yuga are elapsed (or in 3101) will appear king Saca (or Salivahana) to remove wretchedness from the world. The first year of Christ answers to 3101 of the Cali-yuga, and we may thus correct the above passage: "Of the Caliyuga, 3100 save 300 and 10 years being elapsed (or 2790), then will Chanacya go to the Suclatirtha."

This is also confirmed in the 63d and last section of the Agni-purana, in which the expiation of Chanacya is placed 312 years before the first year of the reign of Saca or Salivahana, but not of his era. This places this famous expiation 310, or 312 years before Christ, either three or five years after the massacre of the imperial family.

My Pandit, who is a native of that country, informs me, that Chanacya's crimes, repentance, and atonement, are the subject of many pretty legendary tales, in verse, current in the country; part of some he repeated to me.

Soon after, Chandragupta made himself master of the greatest part of India, and drove the Greeks out of the Punjab. Tradition says, that he built a city in the Deccan, which he called after his own name. It was lately found by the industrious and active Major Mackenzie, who says that it was situated a little below Sri-Salam, or Purwutum, on the bank of the Crishna; but nothing of it remains, except the ruins. This accounts for the inhabitants of the Deccan being so well acquainted with the history of Chandragupta. The authors of the Mudra- Rakshasa, and its commentary, were natives of that country.

In the mean time, Seleucus, ill brooking the loss of his possessions in India, resolved to wage war, in order to recover them, and accordingly entered India at the head of an army; but finding Chandragupta ready to receive him, and being at the same time uneasy at the increasing power of Antigonus and his son, he made peace with the emperor of India, relinquished his conquests, and renounced every claim to them. Chandragupta made him a present of 50 elephants; and, in order to cement their friendship more strongly, an alliance by marriage took place between them, according to Strabo, who does not say in what manner it was effected. It is not likely, however, that Seleucus should marry an Indian princess; besides, Chandragupta, who was very young when he visited Alexander's camp, could have no marriageable daughter at that time. It is more probable, that Seleucus gave him his natural daughter, born in Persia. From that time, I suppose, Chandragupta had constantly a large body of Grecian troops in his service, as mentioned in the Mudra-Racshasa.

It appears, that this affinity between Seleucus and Chandragupta took place in the year 302 B.C. at least the treaty of peace was concluded in that year. Chandragupta reigned four-and-twenty years; and of course died 292 years before our era.

-- Essay III. Of the Kings of Magadha; their Chronology, by Captain Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Volume 9, 1809. pgs. 94-100.

Somadeva was an 11th century CE writer from Kashmir. He was the author of a famous compendium of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales -- the Kathasaritsagara.
The Kathasaritsagara ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold in Sanskrit by the Shaivite Somadeva.

Kathasaritsagara contains multiple layers of story within a story and is said to have been adopted from Gunadhya's Brhatkatha, which was written in a poorly-understood language known as Paisaci.

The work is no longer extant but several later adaptations still exist — the Kathasaritsagara, Bṛhatkathamanjari and Brhatkathaslokasamgraha. However, none of these recensions necessarily derives directly from Gunadhya, and each may have intermediate versions. Scholars compare Gunadhya with Vyasa and Valmiki even though he did not write the now long-lost Bṛhatkatha in Sanskrit. Presently available are its two Sanskrit recensions, the Brhatkathamanjari by Ksemendra and the Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva.

-- Kathasaritsagara, by Wikipedia

Not much is known about him except that his father's name was Rama and he composed his work (probably during the years 1063-81 CE) for the entertainment of the queen Suryamati, a princess of Jalandhara and wife of King Ananta of Kashmir. The queen was quite distraught as it was a time when the political situation in Kashmir was 'one of discontent, intrigue, bloodshed and despair'.

-- Somadeva, by Wikipedia

Our knowledge of Civil Asiatic History (I always except that of the Hebrews) exhibits a short evening twilight in the venerable introduction to the first book of Moses, followed by a gloomy night, in which different watches are faintly discernible, and at length we see a dawn succeeded by a sunrise more or less early, according to the diversity of regions. That no Hindu nation but the Cashmirians, have left us regular histories in their ancient language, we must ever lament; but from the Sanscrit [Sanskrit] literature, which our country has the honour of having unveiled, we may still collect some rays of historical truth, though time and a series of revolutions have obscured that light which we might reasonably have expected from so diligent and ingenious a people. 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....


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

Written by: Vishakhadatta
Characters: Chandragupta Maurya; Chanakya; Rakshasa; Malayketu, son of Parvataka; Parvatak; Vaidhorak; Seleucus I Nicator; Durdhara; Ambhi Kumar; Helena; Bhadraketu; Chandandasa; Jeevsidhhi
Original language: Sanskrit
Genre: Indian classical drama
Setting: Pataliputra, 3rd century BCE
Vishakhadatta was an Indian Sanskrit poet and playwright. Although Vishakhadatta furnishes the names of his father and grandfather as Maharaja Bhaskaradatta and Maharaja Vateshvaradatta in his political drama Mudraraksasa, we know little else about him. Only two of his plays, the Mudraraksasa and the Devichandraguptam are known to us. His period is not certain...

Mudraraksasa ("Rakshasa's Ring") is Vishakhadatta’s only surviving play, although there exist fragments of another work ascribed to him. Vishakhadatta has stressed upon historical facts in the Mudrarakshasa, a play dealing with the time of the Maurya Dynasty....

Stylistically he stands a little apart from other dramatists.
A proper literary education is clearly no way lacking, and in formal terms, he operates within the normal conventions of Sanskrit literature, but one does not feel that he cultivates these conventions very enthusiastically for their own sake.... Vishakhadatta’s prose passages in particular often have a certain stiffness compared to the supple idiom of both Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti ... his style includes towards the principle of “more matter and less art.”... [He was a man] of action ...

The name Vishakhadatta is also given as Vishakhadeva from which Ranajit Pal concludes that his name may have been Devadatta which, according to him, was a name of both Ashoka and Chandragupta.

-- Vishakhadatta, by Wikipedia

Also in the twelfth century, Visakha Datta, son of King Prithou Rai, published the important drama Mudra Rakchasa or the Minister's Ring, in seven acts, one of the best plays in the Indian repertoire; it was commented on by Vateswara Misra, priest of Mithila, and by Govhasena. We see the Brahman Tchanakya, after having assassinated Nanda, tyrant of Pataliputra, give the throne, following a host of complicated incidents, to Prince Tchandragoupta.

-- Critical Essay on Indian Literature and Sanskrit Studies, with bibliographical notes, by Alfred Philibert Soupé

The Mudrarakshasa (मुद्राराक्षस, IAST: Mudrārākṣasa, transl. 'The Signet of the Minister') is a Sanskrit-language play by Vishakhadatta that narrates the ascent of the king Chandragupta Maurya (r. c. 324 – c. 297 BCE) to power in India. The play is an example of creative writing, but not entirely fictional.[1] It is dated variously from the late 4th century[2] to the 8th century CE.[3]

Characters

• Chandragupta Maurya, one of the protagonists
• Chanakya, one of the protagonists
• Rakshasa, the main antagonist
• Malayketu, the son of Parvataka and one of the henchmen
• Parvatak, a greedy king who firstly supported Chandragupta but later changed his preference to Dhana Nanda
• Vaidhorak
• Durdhara, wife of Chandragupta Maurya
• Bhadraketu
• Chandandasa
• Jeevsidhhi

Adaptations

There is a Tamil version based on the Sanskrit play[4] and Keshavlal Dhruv translated the original into Gujarati as Mel ni Mudrika (1889).

The later episodes of the TV series Chanakya were based mostly on the Mudrarakshasa.

Feature film

A film in Sanskrit was made in 2006 by Dr Manish Mokshagundam, using the same plot as the play but in a modern setting.[5]

Editions

• Antonio Marazzi (1871), Teatro scelto indiano tr. dal sanscrito (Italian translation), D. Salvi e c.
• Kashinath Trimbak Telang (1884), Mudrarakshasa With the Commentary of Dhundiraja (written in 1713 CE) edited with Sanskrit text, critical and explanatory notes, introduction and various readings, Tukârâm Javajī. Second edition 1893, Fifth edition 1915. Sixth edition 1918, reprinted 1976 and by Motilal Banarsidass, 2000.
• Ludwig Fritze (1886), Mudrarakschasa: oder, Des kanzlers siegelring (German translation), P. Reclam jun.
• Victor Henry (1888), Le sceau de Râkchasa: (Moudrârâkchasa) drame sanscrit en sept actes et un prologue (French translation), Maisonneuve & C. Leclerc
• Moreshvar Ramchandra Kāle (1900), The Mudrárákshasa: with the commentary of Dhundirája, son of Lakshmana (and a complete English translation)
• Hillebrandt, Alfred (1912). Mudrarakshasa Part-i.
• K. H. Dhruva (1923), Mudrārākshasa or the signet ring: a Sanskrit drama in seven acts by Viśākhadatta (with complete English translation) (2 ed.), Poona Oriental Series (Volume 25), archived from the original on 23 June 2010, retrieved 21 May 2010. Reprint 2004, ISBN 81-8220-009-1 First edition 1900
• Vasudeva Abhyankar Shastri; Kashinath Vasudeva Abhyanker (1916), Mudraraksasam: a complete text; with exhaustive, critical grammatical and explanatory notes, complete translation, and introduction, Ahmedabad
• Ananta Paṇḍita (1945), Dasharatha Sharma (critical introduction) (ed.), Mudrarakshasapurvasamkathanaka of Anantasarman (with an anonymous prose narrative), Bikaner: Anup Sanskrit Library
• P. Lal (1964), Great Sanskrit Plays, in Modern Translation, New Directions Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8112-0079-0
• J. A. B. van Buitenen (1968), Two plays of ancient India: The little clay cart, The minister's seal, Columbia University Press Review
• Sri Nelaturi Ramadasayyangaar (1972), Mudra Rakshasam, Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Academy (In Telugu script, with Telugu introduction and commentary) Another version
• Michael Coulson (2005), Rākṣasa's ring (translation), NYU Press, ISBN 978-0-8147-1661-8. Originally published as part of Three Sanskrit plays (1981, Penguin Classics).

References

Citations


1. Romila Thapar (2013). The Past Before Us. Harvard University Press. p. 403. ISBN 978-0-674-72652-9.
2. Manohar Laxman Varadpande (1 September 2005). History Of Indian Theatre. Abhinav Publications. pp. 223–. ISBN 978-81-7017-430-1. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
3. Upinder Singh (1 September 2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India. pp. 30–. ISBN 978-81-317-1120-0. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
4. Viśākhadatta; S. M. Natesa Sastri (1885), Mudrarakshasam: A tale in Tamil founded on the Sanskrit drama, Madras School Book and Vernacular Literature Society
5. Film promo

Sources

• Mookerji, Radha Kumud (1988) [first published in 1966], Chandragupta Maurya and his times (4th ed.), Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0433-3
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 29 guests