earth, that they may search for the lost Sit à,
the various regions are briefly described in their order, and the description is accompanied
by an enumeration of the inhabitants. Regard ing the west, for instance, we are told that the Monkeys are to search through the cities of the Yavana, the dwelling place of the Pahlava, and, in the neighbourhood of the same, the whole Pań
chanada (Panjāb), Kashmir, (the Parada, C.), Takshasilā, Sākala, Pushkalāvati, the Salva, and the mountain Manimant (Aratta, Kapiša, Vålhi, in AC.), the country of the Gandhāra &c.;
and with regard to the north they are similarly directed to explore among the Gândhara and the Yavana, the
Šaka, Odra and Pärada (G.,
China, Paundra, Málava AC.), the Valhika, Rishika, Paurava, Kitſikara (Rāmatha A.C.),
China, Apara-China (Parama-China A.C.), Tuk hāra, Varvara, Kāmboja, (and Khasa º C.), also the Darada, and Himavant.” Here also the texts to which I have had access harmonise in the
main ; f and it is obvious that such notices f could
belong only to a time in which the Yavana (that is, the Greeks), the Pahlava, Parada, Saka, &c. were settled in the north-west of India, and were
consequently
neighbours, as specified, of the
Kâmboja, Bălhika, Darada, Gândhāra, &c. In another passage, in the second book, § the Ya vana at least appear in the immediate neigh bourhood of the Saka ; this occurs, however, in addition to Gorresio, only in A., while the other texts show a variety of readings.
A second point that calls for examination here is one that has already been largely discussed,
179
WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA,
JUNE 7, 1872.]
namely, the horoscope of the birth of R a.m a and his brothers: more specifically, the names given to the zodiacal figures, karkata (with kulina) and mina.
It will be remembered that A. W.
von Schlegel looked on the mention of these
names as a proof not only of the high antiquity, but even of the Indian origin of the Zodiac." But since the appearance of Holtzmann's ad mirable memoir Ueber den griechischen Ur sprung des Indischen Thierkreises, (Karlsruhe 1841), it is hardly possible for any one longer to doubt that the truth is quite the other way, and that the converse position is the correct one. The evidence brought forward, to use my own words on a former occasion,” “furnishes only an additional proof of what has been made
sufficiently clear from other sources, namely, the late date of the composition of the Ramayana itself, though certainly only of that recension,” in which the passage in question occurs. For as the Zodiac, in the particular form in which it is found among the people of India, “ was com pleted by the Greeks only in the first century B. C., it could not possibly have found its way into India earlier than this nor, we may be pretty sure, until several decades later ; and a considerable time must have elapsed before this new conception could have so become, as it were, the possession of the people as that the poet could refer to it as something perfectly well known.”f And although the horoscope is cer tainly wanting : in the Bengal recension and also in A, B, C, § yet it is found without any mat erial variations in the Serampur, in Schlegel's, which certainly receives considerable support from the data
IV. 44, 13 ff. Gorr.
that have just been quoted regarding the city Dättamitri,
+ The Bombay edition alone has nothing correspond ing to the first passage (in IV. 42, 18 Gorresio's v. 27 comes immediately after his v. 17); and in the second passage which fully agrees with Gorr, so far as the matter in ques
that a city, in Arachosia however, bore his name (Deme trias), and was probably founded by him, vide Lassen, II.
tion
thus: Kamboja-Yavanāńs'
300. It should be added that inscriptions attest with
chaiva S'akānām pattanani cha anvikshya Varadáns' (Daradáns' ') chaiva Himavantam vichinvatha (!) || [The detailed statements in G A C, taking G as a basis, given by the author, need not be detailed here.—Ed.] In Gorresio, vol. IV. p. 526, we find the following various reading of the verse IV. 43, 20, represented as occur ring in Cod. G.Strilokå(h) Pahlavasthānam Dandāmiträm Arundhatim |
regard to the city Dâttmittri that it numbered Yavanás, i. e. Greeks, among its inhabitants. This has been con firmed by the mention of a Datamitiyaka Yonaka : vide
is concerned, it
reads
Purúns' chaiva vanānām cha vichinudhvam vanaukasah ||
And here perhaps we may find a still further direct trace of the Greek dominion. In case the reading which occurs here, and which is certainly very doubtful [see the Varietas lectionis given by Prof. Weber—Ed.], should need to be con firmed from other sources, we might very fairly cite (vide Ind. Stud. V., 150) the name of the city Dattāmitri, in the Schol. in Pān. IV. 2, 76, which there appears to have
been founded by the Sauvira-king Dattāmitra, who is men tioned
in
the Mahābhārata as the contemporary and the
opponent of Arjuna, but regarding whom Lassen (vide Ind. Alterth. I. 657n.) seems not disinclined, following Tod's example, to believe that we are to find in him a trace of the
Baktrian King Demetrius (the son of Euthydemus), who reigned (according to Lassen, II., 298–308. xxiv.) from about 205 to 165 B. C. With reference to a conjecture,
since there is mention made also of Demetrius—to the effect
Journal Bombay Branch R. As. S. W. 54. Indische Skizzen p. 37, 82. £ A similar use has already been made of these notices by the Abbe Guérin in a note on the Rāmāyana embodied (p. 237–40) in his curious book Astronomie Indienne (Paris. 1847). -
§ II. 2, 10, Gorr. |
I. 19, 2, 8; II. 15, 3, Schlegel.
1,Vide
Z. fur die Kunde des Morgenl. I. 354 f.; III.
369 ft.
Wide Ind. Stud. II. 240, 241.
1852.
+ See my Preface to the translation of Malavika, p. xxxiv.-v. 1856. f Wide Kern, Worrede zu Varahamihira's Brihatsam hita p. 40.
§ All three manuscripts agree here also ; and indeed the first two verses of the chapter in question, quoted in the Catalogue of the Berlin Sanskrit Manuscripts, follow the
closing verse of Chapter 18 in Gorresio.—Conf. the verses following Gorr, 19.8, in MSS. A, B, & C.
