AUGUST 2, 1872.]
WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA.
(Aufrecht, Catal. p. 121b)-the Rāghavavilása of Viš van at ha, author of the Sáhityadar pana (p. 208 ed. Roer)—two works bearing the name Rāmarilāsa, the one composed by R a ma
ch a r a na, (see Aufrecht, 214b); the other (an imitation of the Gitagovinda) by Har in a tha,
(ibid. 132a),—the Raghunathabhyudaya of Sri Rām a b hadr ambá, see (Verz. der Berl. S. H. p. 154), the Abhirámandmakāvya of Sri Ra la má ná tha, (ibid. p. 156), the R makutº hala of G ov in d a, from the middle of the
seventeenth century, (Aufrecht, 198b),—finally, the revision of the Setubandha in the Setusarani, from the beginning of the same century, (see Verz. der Berl. S. H. p. 154-156.) The dramatic literature, too, that has a bear ing on this matter is peculiarly rich." At the head of the list we may name the Prasanna rāghava of Jay a de va, son of Mahādeva ;f at the head, because according to Hall (Preface to the Dasarápa, p. 36), a verse from this drama is quoted in Dh a nika, and it must therefore be placed before the middle of the tenth century. The Mahānātaka ascribed to Hanum a n tº himself, belongs also to this period; for, according to Aufrecht, (Catal. 209a), it is quoted by Bhoja de va, the author of the Sarasvatſkanthābharana which dates pro
- Cf. supra p. 244, the earliest notice of the kind that bears
upon the subject from the Harivatis’a. According to the
Sahityadarpana,S 277 p. 126 the substance of the Rāmā yana forms a particularly suitable subject for nātaka. + Aufrecht 141b. It is certainly doubtful whether this Jayadeva is identical with the author of tho Gita.govinda, as Hall believes ; see my Abh. iiher Hāla's Saptas'ataka, p. 10. According to the account in Bholanath Chandar's Travels of a Hindu, (Lond. 1869) I. 57, the author of the Gitagovinda lived so late as the end of the fourteenth, or rather the beginning of the fifteenth century, and was an adherent of Rāmānanda. Compare also the account in Wilson, Select
Works, 1.65 f. Now, considering the strong bias of the Gfta govinda in favour of Krishna worship, we should not readily infer that its author belonged to the Rāma sect. 1. #. appears also in the Uttarakanda, XL. 18, as a great rammarian. According to the account of the scholiast Kataka, he was the ninth vyākaranakaratā (see Muir, Sanskrit Teacts, IV. 417, 418). It is probable that a grammarian actually bore this name; and that his work was then imputed to the illustrious first bearer of the name (and there is a work ascribed to him, on the ten ava tăras of Vishnu : see Aufrecht, Catalogus, p. 23.2a.).-Quite
analogously, the name of R a vana is quoted as that of a king of Kashmir (vide supra p. 240 m.); and it is told of the Laſikā prince himself (see }.} Stud. W, 161, Ind. Streifen, II. 202), that on one occasion, on the Chitrakūta, he wrote
upon stone the bhāshya of Patañjali, &c., and by that means preserved it from being lost. According to Hall's com munications in M. Müller, Rigvedas. vol. III, p. xiii, there are also ascribed to R a van a , or at least to some one of , that name, a Rigbhāshya and a commentary “on one of the Sákhās of the Yajurveda,” both of which are said still to exist. Similarly a Rāvanabhāshya to the Sámaveda” (Rost in Ind. Stud. IX.176). A parisishta belonging to the Sáma redº, bears the name; Rāranabhait; see Burnell's valuable Catalogue of his Vedic MSS. in Tribner's Record, Jan 1870 P .s651. in
this writing “on the rocks” (see also the preceding
note) we have evidently a testimony to the existence of the
251
bably from the end of the tenth, or it may be from the beginning of the eleventh century:
Šár fig a dhara also (Aufrecht, 125°) quotes it occasionally ; and with this, too, accords exactly the venerable tradition (see Wilson, Hindu Theatre, II. 372-3),
which
ascribes
the composition of the work to the Monkey H a nu m a n thimself.f who first “engraved or wrote it on the rocks”S and then, to please
Välmiki, cast it into the sea, lest his Rāmāy ana should be thrown into the shade; in Bhoja's time, however, some portions came again to the light, and at his request, were arranged by Miśra-Dāmodara; (see further Aufrecht's notices in the Catalogus, 142b, 151a; Tay
or's Catalogue, I. 146). In Taylor (I. 11) men tion is made also of a second drama of this
name, but as having been composed by “Bo
d h a y a n a chari” (vide supra, p. 123 note). The Ch a m pur à ma y an a, by Wid ar bh a rāja, “otherwise Bhoja rāja” in five a fi ka s, also claims (Taylor, I. 175, 455) to date from the time of Bhoja. Similar claims to belong to the middle or the end of the tenth
century are set up by the Băl a rāmāy a na, a somewhat tasteless drama by Raja š e k h a ra, and by two dramas that are also quoted by Dhanika in the scholium to the “rock inscriptions” of Piya das i, and specially the Brahmanical conception of that fact. Compare º, this also the account in the Foe Koue Ki, Chap. 28, regarding the forty-two questions which were addressed by
§§
to
Buddha and written with his finger on a rock. As regards moreover the well-known tradition of Hanumant's being prior to Walmiki, is it not probable that we should look for its origin in the fact that the Rāma legend was chanted in the
dialects of the people before it was clothed in Sanskrit by Valmiki 2.
As a matter of fact the first account that we
have of Rāma is in Pāli, and even then composed in a par
tially metrical form. The statement too in the Adhyitma Rāmāyana (vide supra p. 123n.) that Walmiki was “of low caste” may perhaps be considered as pointing in the same direction.
Compare as analogous with this the statement
that the Brihatkathá was originally composed in Pais'achi, in the language of the bhūtas (Dandin's Kūryādars'a, I. 38 see Ind. Streifen, I. 314).
| See Hall, Preface to the Das'aritpa p. 30, 31. The Balarámayāna has recently been published in Benares (1869) by Govinda Deva S'astri, first in the Pandit news paper, and afterwards in a separate form. It consists of ten acts (pp. 312), and exhibits a remarkable absence of
poetic feeling. There is much that is interesting, however, in the account contained in the opening of the poem re
garding Rājasekhara. From this it appears that Mādhava was quite in error when he described him, in the San kararijaya, as king of Kerala (see Aufrecht Catal. 25.45 ff., Ind. Streifen, I. 314). According to the account given here, he sprang from a Yāyāvarakula (see the St. Peters burg Lexicon, s. v.), and was the guru, or rather upādhyāya
of a king Nirbhaya or M a he n d rap a la, of the Raghu family, who is designated as his pupil. The same verse in laudation of the poet which, according to Aufrecht (vide suprap, 249b, n. t), is found in the opening of his drama Prachandap(indara, and which extols him as a newly arisen Vālmiki, Bhartrimentha and Bhavabhūti, turns up
again here, being put in the mouth of a Daivajna ; and this is immediately followed by another similar laudatory estimate of the poet's talents, which is given as that of a
