The Ramayana Part 198

Page 174. The Praise Of Kings

"Compare this magnificent eulogium of kings and kingly government with what Samuel says of the king and his authority: And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.

And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his hors.e.m.e.n: and some shall run before his chariots.

And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to work his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instrument of war, and instruments of his chariots.

And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

And he will take your fields, and your vineyards and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your a.s.ses, and put them to his work.

He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you. I. _Samuel_, VIII.

In India kingly government was ancient and consecrated by tradition: whence to change it seemed disorderly and revolutionary: in Judaea theocracy was ancient and consecrated by tradition, and therefore the innovation which would subst.i.tute a king was represented as full of dangers." GORRESIO.

Page 176. Salmali.

According to the Bengal recension Salmali appears to have been another name of the Vipasa. Salmali may be an epithet signifying rich in Bombax heptaphyllon. The commentator makes another river out of the word.

Page 178. Bharat's Return.

"Two routes from Ayodhya to Rajagriha or Girivraja are described. That taken by the envoys appears to have been the shorter one, and we are not told why Bharat returned by a different road. The capital of the Kekayas lay to the west of the Vipasa. Between it and the Satadru stretched the country of the Bahikas. Upon the remaining portion of the road the two recensions differ. According to that of Bengal there follow towards the east the river Indamati, then the town Ajakala belonging to the Bodhi, then Bhulinga, then the river Sarada??a. According to the other instead of the first river comes the Ikshumati ... instead of the first town Abhikala, instead of the second Kulinga, then the second river. According to the direction of the route both the above-mentioned rivers must be tributaries of the Satadru.... The road then crossed the Yamuna (Jumna), led beyond that river through the country of the Panchalas, and reached the Ganges at Hastinapura, where the ferry was. Thence it led over the Ramaganga and its eastern tributaries, then over the Gomati, and then in a southern direction along the Malini, beyond which it reached Ayodhya. In Bharat's journey the following rivers are pa.s.sed from west to east: _Kutikosh?ika_, _Uttanika_, _Ku?ika_, _Kapivati_, _Gomati_ according to Schlegel, and _Hira?yavati_, _Uttarika_, _Ku?ila_, _Kapivati_, _Gomati_ according to Gorresio. As these rivers are to be looked for on the east of the Ganges, the first must be the modern _Koh_, a small affluent of the Ramaganga, over which the highway cannot have gone as it bends too far to the north.

The Uttanika or Uttarika must be the Ramaganga, the Ku?ika or Ku?ila its eastern tributary, Kosila, the Kapivati the next tributary which on the maps has different names, _Gurra_ or above Kailas, lower down _Bhaigu_.

The Gomati (Goomtee) retains its old name. The Malini, mentioned only in the envoys' journey, must have been the western tributary of the Sarayu now called Chuka." La.s.sEN'S _Indische Alterthumskunde_, Vol. II. P. 524.

Page 183.

_What worlds await thee, Queen, for this?_

"Indian belief divided the universe into several worlds (_lokah_). The three princ.i.p.al worlds were heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l. But according to another division there were seven: Bhurloka or the earth, Bhuvarloka or the s.p.a.ce between the earth and the sun, the seat of the Munis, Siddhas, &c., Svarloka or the heaven of Indra between the sun and the polar star, and the seventh Brahmaloka or the world of Brahma. Spirits which reached the last were exempt from being born again." GORRESIO.

Page 203.

_When from a million herbs a blaze_ _Of their own luminous glory plays._

This mention of lambent flames emitted by herbs at night may be compared with Lucan's description of a similar phenomenon in the Druidical forest near Ma.r.s.eilles, (_Pharsalia_, III. 420.).

_Non ardentis_ fulgere incendia silvae.

Seneca, speaking of Argolis, (Thyestes, Act IV), says:-

Tota solet

Micare flamma silva, et excelsae trabes _Ardent sine igni_.

Thus also the bush at h.o.r.eb (Exod. II.) flamed, but was not consumed.

The Indian explanation of the phenomenon is, that the sun before he sets deposits his rays for the night with the deciduous plants. See _Journal of R. As. S. Bengal_, Vol. II. p. 339.

Page 219.

_We rank the Buddhist with the thief._

Schlegel says in his Preface: "Lubrico vestigio insist.i.t V. Cl.

_Heerenius, prof. Gottingensis_, in libro suo de commerciis veterum populorum (OPP. Vol. HIST. XII, pag. 129,) dum putat, ex mentione sectatorum Buddhae secundo libro Rameidos iniecta de tempore, quo totum carmen sit conditum, quicquam legitime concludi posse.... Sunt versus spurii, reiecti a Bengalis in sola commentatorum recensione leguntur.

Buddhas quidem mille fere annis ante Christum natun vixit: sed post multa demumsecula, odiointernecivo inter Brachmanos et Buddhae sectatores orto, his denique ex India pulsis, fingi potuit iniquissima criminatio, eos animi immortalitatem poenasque et praemia in vita futura negare. Praeterea metrum, quo concinnati sunt hi versus, de quo metro mox disseram, recentiorem aetatem arguit.... Poenitet me nunc mei consilii, quod non statim ab initio, ... eiecerim cuncta disticha diversis a sloco vulgari metris composita. Metra sunt duo: pariter ambo constant quatuor hemistichiis inter se aequalibus, alterum undenarum syllabarum, alterum duodenarum, hunc in modum:

Cuius generis versus in primo et secundo Rameidos libro nusquam nisi ad finem capitum apposita inveniuntur, et huic loco unice sunt accommodata, quasi peroratio, lyricis numeris a.s.surgens, quo magis canorae cadant clausulae: sicut musici in concentibus extremis omnium voc.u.m instrumentorumque ictu fortiore aures percellere amant. Igitur disticha illa non ante divisionem per capita illatam addi potuerunt: hanc autem grammaticis deberi argumento est ipse recensionum dissensus, manifesto inde ortus, quod singuli editores in ea const.i.tuenda suo quisque iudicio usi sunt; praeterquam quod non credibile est, poetam artis suae peritum narrationem continuam in membra tam minuta dissecuisse. Porro discolor est dictio: magniloquentia affectatur, sed nimis turgida illa atque effusa, nec sententiarum pondere satis suffulta. Denique nihil fere novi affertur: ampli ficantur prius dicta, rarius aliquid ex capite sequente antic.i.p.atur.

Si quis appendices hosce legendo transiliat, sentiet sloc.u.m ultimum c.u.m primo capitis proximi apte coagmentatum, nec sine vi quadam inde avulsum.

Eiusmodi versus exhibet utraque recensio, sed modo haec modo illa plures paucioresve numero, et lectio interdum magnopere variat."

"The narrative of Rama's exile in the jungle is one of the most obscure portions of the Ramayana, inasmuch as it is difficult to discover any trace of the original tradition, or any ill.u.s.tration of actual life and manners, beyond the artificial life of self-mortification and selfdenial said to have been led by the Brahman sages of olden time. At the same time, however, the story throws some light upon the significance of the poem, and upon the character in which the Brahmanical author desired to represent Rama; and consequently it deserves more serious consideration than the nature of the subject-matter would otherwise seem to imply.

"According to the Ramayana, the hero Rama spent more than thirteen years of his exile in wandering amongst the different Brahmanical settlements, which appear to have been scattered over the country between the Ganges and the G.o.daveri; his wanderings extending from the hill of Chitra-ku?a in Bundelkund, to the modern town of Nasik on the western side of India, near the source of the G.o.daveri river, and about seventy-five miles to the north-west of Bombay. The appearance of these Brahmanical hermitages in the country far away to the south of the Raj of Kasala, seems to call for critical inquiry. Each hermitage is said to have belonged to some particular sage, who is famous in Brahmanical tradition. But whether the sages named were really contemporaries of Rama, or whether they could possibly have flourished at one and the same period, is open to serious question. It is of course impossible to fix with any degree of certainty the relative chronology of the several sages, who are said to have been visited by Rama; but still it seems tolerably clear that some belonged to an age far anterior to that in which the Ramayana was composed, and probably to an age anterior to that in which Rama existed as a real and living personage; whilst, at least, one sage is to be found who could only have existed in the age during which the Ramayana was produced in its present form. The main proofs of these inferences are as follows. An interval of many centuries seems to have elapsed between the composition of the Rig-Veda and that of the Ramayana: a conclusion which has long been proved by the evidence of language, and is generally accepted by Sanskrit scholars. But three of the sages, said to have been contemporary with Rama, namely, Visvamitra, Atri and Agastya, are frequently mentioned in the hymns of the Rig-Veda; whilst Valmiki, the sage dwelling at Chitra-ku?a, is said to have been himself the composer of the Ramayana.

Again, the sage Atri, whom Rama visited immediately after his departure from Chitra-ku?a, appears in the genealogical list preserved in the Maha Bharata, as the progenitor of the Moon, and consequently as the first ancestor of the Lunar race: whilst his grandson Buddha [Budha] is said to have married Ila, the daughter of Ikhsvaku who was himself the remote ancestor of the Solar race of Ayodhya, from whom Rama was removed by many generations. These conclusions are not perhaps based upon absolute proof, because they are drawn from untrustworthy authorities; but still the chronological difficulties have been fully apprehended by the Pundits, and an attempt has been made to reconcile all contradictions by representing the sages to have lived thousands of years, and to have often re-appeared upon earth in different ages widely removed from each other. Modern science refuses to accept such explanations; and consequently it is impossible to escape the conclusion that if Valmiki composed the Ramayana in the form of Sanskrit in which it has been preserved, he could not have flourished in the same age as the sages who are named in the Rig-Veda."

WHEELER'S _History of India, Vol._ II, 229.