245
WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA.
AUGUST 2, 1872.]
certain, that it was composed at a time in which
Buddhism was flourishing in full vigour, and Rāma-worship or Krishna-worship had not yet come into existence.—I have not been able to find any similar reference to the Rāmāyana in the dramas of Kālid a sa;* but allusions
to it occur in his Meghadūta (vv. 1. 99) and in the Raghuvans'a, in which latter work direct reference is made to the ‘Präch et a
sopajnam Rāmāy a nam', and even to V al miki (XV. 63, 64). Unfortunately, however, we are met here also by the difficulty that arises partly from the uncertainty that still exists re garding the date we should assign to Kālidasa (third or sixth century of our era: see my Abh. iiber Krishna's Geburtsfest, p. 319; Z. D. M. G. XXII. 726ff), partly with refer ence to the Raghuvais'a, about which there
the latter himself, and that the ambiguous words ‘ahimavarāāraddhā . . metti v.v.a.. nivvodhumi hoi dukkaram kavvakahá’ in v. 9 of the intro
duction refer to this beginning of the work by the “new king,” Pravarasena. § In accordance with this latter statement, Băn a (in all probabi lity at the beginning of the seventh century), in the opening of the Harshacharita, ascribes the
composition of the setu to Praw a r as en a || see (Hall, Vasavadattá, p. 13, 14, 54, and my Ind. Streifen, I. 357.) There is a strong tempta tion to identify this royal author with the re nowned Kashmir king, Pravarasena II, who appears in the Rāja-Tarangin?, III. 109, 123,
293 ff. as a contemporary of two Ujjayini kings, Harsh a surnamed Vikram a ditya and Prat ā p a $il a surnamed Silāditya, and as successor of the poet Mā trig up ta, " whom
exists at least some amount of doubt whether
Harsh a
we are right in ascribing it to the author of the dramas and of the Meghadūta.f We have to mention besides, in this place, still another work which undeniably assumes, as its very groundwork, the existence of a Rāmāyana, and which at least in recent times (see Höfer, Z. für die W. der Spr., II. 500ft., Verz. der Berl. S. H., p. 156, 369) has been ascribed to Kåli dāsa, namely the Setu b and h aft for the
And according to this supposition, if this king
more recent editors and scholiasts have endorsed
existed
placed on the throne in Kashmir.
really reigned, as Lassen (Ind. Alt. II.[402] 770, 910 fſ., xxiv) holds, from 241-266 of our era, the composition of the Setubhanda would in fact
date as far back as the third century | Since, however, Bhàu Dāji has directed attention, in the Journ. Bombay Branch I. A. S. VII. 208 f. (1861 Jan.) 223 ff., VIII. 248-51 (1864 Aug., published in 1868), to the relations that probably between
Pravarasena
and
Hiwen
the statement that Kālidasa composed this work
Thsang, and especially to the contemporaneous
by the command of king Vikramāditya for a king Pravarasena, that it had been begun by
ness of Harshavardhana, Silāditya, and Hiwen
- In the Vikramorras'ſ, the subject of which is also the
carrying off of a beautiful woman by a demon, there would have been an excellent opportunity, especially in Act IV (see LIV. 5, 13; LV. 1) for alluding to the rape of Sitā. The
Thsang,” it certainly seems more reasonable to the foregoing, they cannot be understood as containing the ground-work of Pravarasena's fame.
- Mátrigupta reigned only five years (Rāja-Tiranoint
III. 268), during which Bhartrimentha (placed by Rāja
words Tsamkü via antaråle chittha, Sákuntala XXIX.
s’ekhara between Valmiki
22, ed. Böhtlingk (XLII. 13 ed. Premachandra), refer also indeed to the Saga which is found in the Ramayana, 1. 60, 31 (Schlegel); but the reference is not necessarily just
recht, Catalogus, 140a), composed the Hayagrírabadha, and presented it to the king (ib. 264-268). He abdicat ed the throne on hearing of the death of his patron, Harsha, retired to Vărănasi, and in consistency with the
to this version of it in the Rāmāyana.
+ Compare also Z. D. M. G. XXII. 710; Ind. Streifen, I. 312; II. 373. According to the notices in the Pandit,
ſº uddhist
and Bhavabhūti ; see Auf
of his disposition (see ib. 259-260), became a ascetic (k r it a ka s h a y a samgrahah . .
No. X, p. 141, the work has twenty-six Sargas in the
yatih, ib. 332 : see Lassen, Ind. Alt. II. 907-909. Nothing
Dhardnagaranirāsī-Kálidisavans'ya, not merely nineteen. Is this local difference to be regarded as due to influences that at least date far back, and as favouring the idea
is known regarding Mātrigupta's poetical works (Bhāu
that the work should
be ascribed
to
Kålidasa, who
lived at the court of the Dhārā-king, Bhoja It is greatly to be desired that Shank a r l’an it, whose ºdi tion of the Raghuvans'a (Bombay, 1869, Cantos I–VI : containing, and ofMallinatha's Commentary, 54 pages ofbesides notes the and text 8 pages various readings taken from MSS. and from the Commentaries of Wallabha, and Dinakara) we have to welcome as the first really critical work of this kind for which we are indebted to a native of
the country, would furnish us with some further and ful ler information regarding this point. A b h in a v a rajã rabdhā or abhinavarăgărabdhā. Bhojadeva iti kechit, says the scholiast. At feast it is stated there “that by means of the setu, the fame of Pravarasena had extended to the further shore of the sea.” And as the words:—“or who would not be
charmed with the admirable...language of Kãlidasa, do not immediately follow, but are separated by a verse, from
Dăji's identification of him with Kålidasa does not rest on any reasonable foundation); on the other hand, the scho liasts occasionally quote passages from a rhetorical work in sºlokas bearing his name.
- When Bhàu Daji, in the same essay, connects the Setu
bandha with the building of a bridge of boats which
Pr a v ar a sena, according to the Rāja Tarangin?, III. 356 (Lassen, II. 915), threw across the Vitasta, and accord ingly asserts (p. 223) “that the construction of this very bridge is the subject of the Setu Kārya,” he falls into serious error. That circumstance, however, whether the poem is to be attributed to the king himself (as Bāna has it) or to Kālidasa (as the tradition goes; see also Bhàu
Dăji's reference l. c. to Rāmās"rama's commentary on the Wii, dina, idarpana of Sundara), might well have
'...}.
an opportunity for celebrating by song the correspond ing bridge-building by Rāma, especially as the Rājata rangini expressly mentions (III. 358) that the king had direct relations with Ceylon.—From inscriptions, unfortunately undated, which have been found in Seoni
