[APRIL 5, 1872.
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
124
quite different from that which is found both in the gri hya-ritual and in the Rāmāyana, namely, as the
daughter of Savit ar, that is, of Prajá pati, and as enamoured of the Moon, who on his part looked
with loving eyes on another of the daughters” S r a d dh á (Faith); by the help of her father, however, she succeeds in winning his love.t. It
sumption is far more probable, namely, that a poeti cal spirit among the Bráhmans connected R 4 in a with the Moon just on account of the gentleness of his characteri ; though by this view a reflex reference by the learned to the Sitá-Saga of the Taitt. Br. is by no means excluded.: (To be continued.)
seems to me that in this Saga, too, we may find an element that has been made use of by Válmiki : in
so far only, however, as the garlandf with which her father decks her browsy (accompanying the action with the recitation of various sentences,) and on account of the virtue of which, as a love-charm, the whole legend has been narrated, may probably have served as a direct model for the angaraga
(philter) which An as ū y á, the wife of A tri, pours out in the form of an ointment, over the limbs of S it 4. A still further parallel is indeed offered here to zealous mythologists. For since R 4 m a is, at a later period, called also R 3 m a
ch a n dra" and indeed is called also by the name
EXCURSUS.
As the version of the
Attanagaluransa by
D'Alwis is rarely to be met with, I subjoin an extract from that work (p. 176 ft.), containing the substance of the Dasaratha-Jätaka. This is evi
dently based, in part at least, on a metrical version of the story; and the verse quoted at the close about the 16,000 years that Rāma reigned after his happy return from exile has an almost exact coun terpart in the Rāmāyana itself (though the number of years there is only 11,000), as well as in several of the Rāma legends in the Mahābhārata. And it is very possible that an acquaintance with the whole
Chan dra itself,” the mildness, which is so prominent a feature in his character may, per haps be explained in this way, that originally he was nothing more than a Moon-genius, and that consequently the Saga found in the Taitt. Br. re garding the love of S it à (that is, the field-furrow) for the Moon actually represents the first germ out of which the Saga of the Rāmāyana has grown— that the angarāga—ointment of the Rāmāy a na, the sthäkara alamkára of the Taitt. Br., is just the fragrant vapour or the dew which rises out of the furrow, and in which the Moonlight is reflected. This would be indeed genuinely poetical, and per haps also quite possible, if it were not that the de signation of R 6 m a as R 4 m a ch a n dra, or simply as Ch a n dra is only found for the first time at so late a date, that rather the converse as
of the Pali text, which is therefore greatly to be
- Of... sºraddhá vai sùryasya duhitá, S'at. XII. 7, 3, 11.
p. 9. n. &c. Although according to the accounts in re
+ This is no doubt only a variation of the older legends, wide, for instance, Sankh. Br. 18, 1. Nir. 12, 8, that S a v i t a r
gave his daughter S i r y á in marriage to the Moon; Cf. also the marriage of S a v any ti, who bears twins (ded mithund) to her husband Viv as v ant (Rik X. 17, 1-2 Nir. XII. 10, 11) just as Sí tºà does to R 4 m a.
i Sthagara alamkará (sthågard nama kas'chit sugan dhadraryanis'eshah, tam pishted tatsambandhinam alum karam mandanavis'esham . . . . schol.)
§ Sthagara-pishtena tasyāh Sītāyāh mukhe tilakā dyalamkaram chakāra, schol. Wide Gobh. 4, 2.20 patni barhishi s'ilám nidhayd sthagaram pinashti; and Cf. the similar use of sthakara as denoting a love charm in the
Kaus'.
35 (Ind. Stud. V,262.)
It cannot be precisely
identical with taqara (Kaus'. 16), seeing that both words occur in the Kaus'; but perhaps the meaning is something similar. In the Karmapradipa II, 8, 5 sthagaram surabhi jneyam candanddi vilepanam, the word sthagara is used quite generally as the name for fragrant ointments, such as sandal-oil and the like (sugandhi vilepanárham chandanádi
dravyam sthagarasamjnakam jnátavyam | #dis'abdād agurv adini, A's' irka).
| Ram. III, 3, 18 anqarāgena diryena raktāngi.. wicha rishyasi, and 19, adyaprabhriti bhadram te mandalam khalu
s'asſ catam anulepam cha suchiram gatran na 'pagamishyati.
- First, so far as we yet know, in Bhavabhuti (for
-
instance, Maharirachar. 111, 18 (Calc. 1857), also in the
Padmapur. Adhyatma-Ram., in the Ramatap., Adbhutot tarakanda, in the title given to Agnives'a's work
desired, might bring to light still further coincidences of a similar nature.
“In aforetimes there was at B a ra n e s a king named
D as a r a tha.
He reigned righteously,
free from the four causes of agati (favour, anger,
fear, and ignorance). His queen-consort, who was at the head of 16,000 wives, became the mother of two sons and a daughter. The eldest was called Ram a p and it (Doctor), the second was named Lakkh an a, and the daughter S it a-d evi. Some time afterwards the queen-consort died. Upon this event the king was afflicted for some time; and being consoled by his ministers he performed what was necessary to be done, and married another queen. She bore him love and affection, and in process of time conceived and bore him a son cent Burmese writings, the names R a m ch and r a and Ram as in h a are found among those of the last princes of S' ri k she tra, which town is said to have been de stroyed in the year 94 A.D., yet Lassen, II. 1037 probably goes somewhat too far when from this circumstance he infers
“with tolerable certainty that subsequent to the beginning of the Christian era, W i s h n u was honoured there under the name of R a m a.” On the contrary, these names, which are evidently understood as having some relation to the R a ma of the Ramayana, may be supposed rather to enter a very emphatic protest against the authenticity of these
Burmese accounts, and especially against their having any validity with regard to the period in question.
- Wide Rāmatiip. p. 333.
+ In Bhavabhuti l.c. he is addressed “apannavatsala jagaijanataikabandho "
- In the Bhagavata Purāna, for instance, it is well known
that many similar learned reminiscences can be point ed out. That the disciples of the Taittiriya-Veda have even to the most recent times bestowed a remarkable amount
of attention on the history of R a ma is, (as we have remark ed in note p. 123 referred to above,) evident enough. And when, as we find it stated in Wheeler, “ the ointment given by A n a sui y á to S i t ti, which was to render her ever beautiful, is supposed by some pandits to mean piety or faith in R a ma, which renders all women beautiful,” it is probable that we are to look here also for a faint reflection
of the Saga in the Taitt, regarding the love of the Moon for Sr a d dha.
