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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
last Maurya king, and usurped the throne after having killed his master.” The ten Mauryas are said to have ruled the kingdom for 137 years.f The accession of Chandragupta, the first of these ten, has been fixed about 315 B.C. Pushpamitra, therefore, must have raised him self to the throne about 178 B.C. The Mātsya
Purāma assigns him a reign of 36 years, f i.e.
[Oct. 4, 1872.
Ayodhyā, and Pushpamitra was reigning a Pātaliputra; and if we adhere to Lassen's chro
nology these two things could have happened only between 144 B.C. and 142 B.C.; for there
is, I think, no reason to distrust the chronology of the Purānas here, since the date arrived at from the statements contained in them coincide
Patanjali wrote his comments on Pán. III. 2, 123
in a remarkable degree with that determined from the evidence of coins. And even supposing that Prof. Lassen's date is not quite accurate, it
some time between
must be admitted that it cannot be very far
from 178 B.C. to 142 B.C.
It follows then that
these limits.
The limits
assigned by Dr. Goldstücker, reasoning from
wrong.
the one example he considers, are 140 and 120 B.C. But there is apparently no reason why he should not take into account the earlier years of Menandros's reign. For, according to
We thus see that Patanjali lived in the reign of Pushpamitra, and that he probably wrote the third chapter of his Bhāshya between 144 B.C.
Prof. Lassen, Menandros must have become king
about 144 B.C. § The passage in the Mahā bhāshya, on which I base my conclusion, is not far from the one noticed by Dr. Goldstücker. The latter occurs in the comments on III. 2, 111, while the former in those on III. 2, 123. We
thus see that when this portion of the Bhāshya was written, a Yavana king (who must have been Menandros) had laid siege to Sãketa or
-
and 142 B.C. And this agrees with the conclusion
drawn by Prof. Goldstücker from a statement in another part of the work that the author of the Mahābhāshya flourished after the Maurya dynasty was extinct.
Since all the passages then, and
the different historical events they point to, lead us to about the same period, the date of Patan
jali so derived must be regarded as trustworthy, and in the History of Sanskrit Literature it is of great importance.
ON THE VRIHATKATHA OF KSHEMENDRA. By DR. G. BühleR. AMoNgst the numerous Indian collections of
the first place. With its 24,000 stanzas, it
fables, were it not that peculiar difficulties con nected with questions regarding the origin of the “Ocean of fable-streams,' obliged Sanskritists
surpasses the Hitopadeśa, the Panchatantra, the Vetálapanchayimsati, the Siñhãsanadyātriñsati
to use it with great caution. Somadeva, who according to his own state
and the
Sukasaptati not only in bulk, but it actually includes abstracts or versions of several
ment, composed his work about the beginning of
of these works, as well as of other romances.
consolation of Queen Süryavati or Sūryamati,
This latter circumstance would make the Katha
the mother of King Harsha of Kashmir declares
saritsägara, one of the most important tests for
determining the age and development of Indian
that it contains the essence of the Vrihatkatha, written by one Gunādhya in the Paisàchi Prakrit
- The Buddhist work Asoka Acadana erroneously makes
him the successor of Pushvadharman, and the last of the Mauryas.-See Burnouf, Introd, a la Hist, du Bud. I. p. 432; Lassen, Ind. Alt. II. pp. 271, 272, 345, 346.-E.D. f Vish. Pur. VI. 24, or Wilson's translation. f Wilson's Vish. P. 1st Edn. p. 471. The Brahmānda Pu râna a 'rees with the Matsya. (See Dr. Hall's note in his
taken twenty years or more. He could not have said “the Mauryas did such and such a thing, but in these days it is not so," if he wrote only five or six years after they were displaced. Patanjali therefore may have written the pas sage as early as B.C. 158. Now in order that about this time Pushpamitra and Menandros should be contemporaries, it is necessary that the date of the accession of the latter should not be pushed higher than about 175 B.C. nor lower than
fables the Kathasaritsägara of Somadeva takes
the 12th century A. D. for the amusement or
edition.) § Various dates have been assigned to the accession of
142 B.C. for Menandros reigned for about 20 years accord ing to all the writers ; and the only two dates that fall
Menandros from B.C. 200 to B.C. 126.
within these limits are those assigned by Geni. Cunningham, (B.C. 160) and Prof. Lassen. If we take that of the former,
But the facts here
brought forward may be used as a corrective. The manner in which Patanjali (in the passage alluded to in the next
para of the text) contrasts the times in which the Mauryas
the limit- between which the third chapter of the Mahā bhāshya was written will be about 158 and 142 B.C.
lived with his own shews that when he wrote, the new
But I have adopted Prof. Lassen's date as it agrees suffi
oolity had completely superseded the old. This may have
ciently with all the facts.
