Sagas from the Far East Part 36

"The seven precious things," are variously stated. Sometimes they are gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, red pearls, diamond and coral. Sometimes gold and silver are left out of the reckoning, and rubies and emeralds subst.i.tuted. See Koppen, i. 540 et seq. The extravagant and incongruous description in the text is not artistic.

2. The month Pushja. Before the time of Vikramaditja astronomy was not studied in India as a science; the course of the heavenly bodies was observed, but only for the sake of determining the times and seasons of feasts and sacrifices. The moon was the chief subject of observation and of the more correct results of the same. Her path was divided into twenty-eight "houses" or "mansions" called naxatra. This division was invented by the Chinese, and India received it from them about 1100 B.C. The naxatravidja or the knowledge of the moon-mansions, is set down in one of the oldest Upanishad as a special kind of knowledge. In the oldest enumeration extant of the moon-mansions only twenty-seven are mentioned, and the first of them is called Krittika, and Abhigit, which is the 20th, according to the latest enumeration, is wanting; other lists have other discrepancies. It is worthy of notice that Kandramas, the earliest name by which the moon is invoked in the Veda, is composed of kandra, "s.h.i.+ning," and mas, "to measure,"

because the moon measured time, and the various names of the moon in all the so-called Indo-European languages are supposed to come from this last word. There were also four moon-divinities invoked, as Kuhu, Sinivali, Raka, and Anumati, in the Rig Veda hymns; these are all feminine deities. Soma, the later moon-divinity, however, was masculine, and had twenty-seven of the fifty daughters of Daxa for his wives. Kandramas was also a male divinity. The wors.h.i.+p of the four G.o.ddesses I have named was afterwards superseded by four (also feminine) deifications of the phases of the moon. There seems a little difficulty, however, about fitting their names to them. Pushja, with which we are more particularly concerned, would properly imply "waxing," but she presided nevertheless over the last quarter; Krita, meaning the "finished" course, over the new moon; the appellations of the others fit better. Drapura (derived from dva, two) designated the second quarter, and Kharva, "the beginning to wane," the full moon. In the list given by Amarasinha of the moon-mansions, Pushja is the name of the eighth, in the Maha Bharata it stands for the sixth.

The month Pauscha answers to our December. (La.s.sen, iii. 819.)

3. We have many early proofs that India possessed an indigenous breed of hunting-dogs of n.o.ble and somewhat fierce character. They were much esteemed as hunting-dogs by the Persians, and formed an important article of commerce. Herodotus (i. 192) mentions their being imported into Babylon; whether the mighty hunter Nimrod had a high opinion of them, there is perhaps no means of ascertaining. Strabo (xv. i. -- 31) says they were not afraid to hunt lions. In the Ramajana, (ii. 70, 21) Ashvapati gives Rama a present of "swift a.s.ses and dogs bred in the palace, large in stature, with the strength of tigers, and teeth meet to fight withal." Alexander found them sufficiently superior to his own to take with him a present of them offered him by Sopeithes. Aristobulos, Megasthenes, and aelia.n.u.s mention their qualities with admiration. Their strength and courage led to the erroneous tradition that they were suckled by tigers (see Pliny, viii. 65, I). Plutarch (De Soc. Anim. x. 4) quotes a pa.s.sage from an earlier Greek writer, saying they were so n.o.ble, that though when they caught a hare they gladly sucked his blood, yet that if one lay down exhausted with the course, they would not kill it, but stood round it in a circle, wagging their tails to show their enjoyment was not in the blood, but in the victory.

The house-dog and herd-dog, however, was rather looked down upon; it and the a.s.s were the only animals the Kandala or lowest caste were allowed to possess (Manu, x. 51), and it is still called Paria-dog (Bp Heber's "Journey," i. 490).

4. A functionary invented by the Mongolian tale-repeater. The idea evidently borrowed from his knowledge of the paramount authority of the Tale Lama of Tibet, leading him to suppose there must exist a corresponding dignity in India.

5. Barin Tschidaktschi Erdekctu, "The mighty one at taking distant aim." (Julg.)

6. Gesser Khan, the great hero of Mongolian tales; called also "The mighty Destroyer of the root of the seven evils in the seven places of the earth." (Julg.)

7. Tschin-tamani, Sanskrit, "Thought-jewel," is a jewel possessing the magic power of producing whatever object the possessor of it sets his heart upon. (Bohtlingk and Roth, Sanskrit Dict.) See infra, note 2, to "The False Friend," and note 8 to "Vikramaditja's Youth."

8. Barss-Irbiss, "leopard-tiger." (Julg.)

HISTORICAL NOTICE OF VIKRAMaDITJA.

1. Professor Wilson.

2. Reinaud, Fragments relatifs a l'Inde.

3. See a most extraordinary instance of this noticed in note 11 of the Tale in this volume ent.i.tled "Vikramaditja makes the Silent Speak."

4. Thus Reinaud (Memoire Geographique sur l'Inde, p. 80) speaks of a king of this name who governed Cashmere A.D. 517, as if he were the original Vikramaditja.

5. The honour of being the first to work this mine of information belongs to H. Todd; see his "Account of Indian Medals," in Trans. of As. Soc.

6. The art of coining at all was, in all probability, introduced by the Greeks.--Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 403; also Prinsep, in Journ. of As. Soc. i. 394.

7. In the list of kings given by La.s.sen, iv. 969, 970, there are eight kings called Vikramaditja, either as a name or a surname, between A.D. 500 and 1000.

8. The kingdom of Malava answers to the present province of Malwa, comprising the table-land enclosed between the Vindhja and Haravati ranges. The amenity of its climate made it the favourite residence of the rulers of this part of India, and we find in it a number of former capitals of great empires. It lay near the commercial coast of Guzerat, and through it were highways from Northern India over the Vindhja range into the Dekhan. It is also well watered; its chief river, the Kharmanvati (now k.u.mbal), rises in the Vindhja mountains, and falls into the Jumna. At its confluence with the Sipra, a little tributary, was situated Uggajini = "the Victorious," now called Uggeni, Ozene, and Oojein, and still the first meridian of Indian astronomers. It also bore the name of Avanti = "the Protecting," from the circ.u.mstance of its having given refuge to this Vikramaditja in his infancy.

9. This length of reign is actually ascribed to him in the Chronological Table out of the Kalijuga-Ragakaritra, given in Journ. of the As. Soc. p. 496.

10. This resolution was quite in conformity with the prevailing religious teaching. In the collection of laws and precepts called the Manu, many rules are laid down for this kind of life, and were followed to a prodigious extent both by solitaries and communities; e.g. "When the grihastha = 'father of the house,' finds wrinkles and grey hairs coming, and when children's children are begotten to him, then it is time for him to forsake inhabited places for the jungle." It is further prescribed that he should expose himself there to all kinds of perils, privations, and hards.h.i.+ps. He is not to shrink from encounters with inimical tribes; he is to live on wild fruits, roots, and water. In summer he is to expose himself to the heat of fierce fires, and in the rainy season to the wet, without seeking shelter; in the coldest winter he is to go clothed in damp raiment. By these, and such means, he was to acquire indifference to all corporeal considerations, and reach after union with the Highest Being. Manu, v. 29; vii. 1-30; viii. 28; x. 5; xi. 48, 53; xvii. 5, 7, 24; xviii. 3-5, &c., &c. It is impossible not to be struck, in studying such pa.s.sages as these, with a reflection of the inferiority which every other religious system, even in its sublimest aims, presents to Christianity. If, indeed, there were a first uniform limit appointed to the hand of death at the age of threescore years and ten, then it might be a clever rule to fix the appearance of wrinkles, grey hairs, and children's children as the period for beginning to contemplate what is to come after it; but, as the number of those who are summoned to actual acquaintance with that futurity before that age is pretty nearly as great as that of those who surpa.s.s it, the maxim carries on the face of it that it is dictated by a very fallible, however well-intentioned, guide. Christianity knows no such limit, but opens its perfect teaching to the contemplation of "babes;" while, practically, experience shows that those who are called early to a life of religion are far more numerous than those in advanced years.

11. Given in W. Taylor's Orient. Hist. MSS., i. 199.

12. "The Indians have no actual history written by themselves." (La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 357, note 1.)

13. Klaproth, Wurdigung der Asiatischen Geschichtschreiber.

14. Indien, p. 17.

15. Examen Critique, p. 347.

16. But only committed to memory. See supra, p. 333.

17. Burnouf, Introduction a l'Hist. du Buddh., vol i.

18. Concerning the late introduction of this idea, see supra, pp. 337-8.

19. Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 839.

20. La.s.sen, iii., p. 44.

21. Mommsen (History of Rome, book iv., ch. viii.), writing of Mithridates Eupator, who died within a few years of the date ascribed to Vikramaditja's birth, says, "Although our accounts regarding him are, in substance, traceable to written records of contemporaries, yet the legendary tradition, which is generated with lightning expedition in the East, early adorned the mighty king with many superhuman traits. These traits, however, belong to his character just as the crown of clouds belongs to the character of the highest mountain peaks; the outline of the figure appears in both cases, only more coloured and fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered."

22. The legend from which the following is gathered has been given by Wilford, in a paper ent.i.tled "Vikramaditja and Salivahana, their respective eras."

23. See La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 49-56.

24. Wilson, in Mackenzie Collection, p. 343.

25. A vetala is a kind of sprite, not always bad-natured, usually carrying on a kind of weird existence in burial-places. "They can possess themselves of the forms of those who die by the hand of justice, and a.s.sume them. By the power of magic men can make them obedient, and use them for all manner of difficult tasks above their own strength and sufficiency." Brockhaus' Report of the R. Saxon Scientific Soc. Philologico-historical Cla.s.s, 1863, p. 181. "The Vetalas were a late introduction among the G.o.ds of popular veneration." (La.s.sen, iv. 570.) "They came also to be regarded as incarnations of both Vishnu and s.h.i.+va." (La.s.sen, iv. 159.)

26. Two interesting instances of the way in which traditionary legends become attached to various persons as they float along the current of time, have been brought to my notice while preparing these sheets for the press. I cannot now recall where I picked up the story of "The Balladmaker and the Bootmaker," which I have given in "Patranas,"

but I am sure it was told of a wandering minstrel, and as occurring on Spanish soil, as I have given it. I have since met it in "The Hundred Novels" of Sacchetti (written little after the time of Boccacio) as an episode in a no less celebrated life than that of Dante, thus: "... Going out and pa.s.sing by Porta S. Piero (Florence), he (Dante) heard a blacksmith beating on his anvil, and singing 'Dante' just as one sings a common ballad; mutilating here, and mixing in verses of his own there; by which means Dante perceived that he sustained great injury. He said nothing, however, but went into the workshop, to where were laid ready many tools for use in the trade. Dante first took up the hammer and flung it into the road; took up the pincers and flung them into the road; took up the scales and flung them out into the road. When he had thus flung many tools into the road, the blacksmith turned round with a brutal air, crying out, 'Che diavol'

fate voi? Are you mad?' But Dante said, 'And thou; what hast thou done?' 'I am busied about my craft,' said the blacksmith; 'and you are spoiling my gear, throwing it out into the road like that.' Said Dante, 'If you don't want me to spoil your things, don't you spoil mine.' Said the smith. 'What have I spoilt of yours?' Said Dante, 'You sing my book, and you say it not as I made it; poem-making is my trade, and you have spoilt it.' Then the blacksmith was full of fury, but he had nothing to say; so he went out and picked up his tools, and went on with his work, And the next time he felt inclined to sing, he sang Tristano and Lancellotte, and left Dante alone." "... Another day Dante was walking along, wearing the gorget and the bracciaiuola, according to the custom of the time, when he met a man driving an a.s.s having a load of street sweepings, who, as he walked behind his a.s.s, ever and anon sang Dante's book, and when he had sung a line or two, gave the donkey a hit, and cried 'Arrri!' Dante, coming up with him, gave him a blow on his shoulder with his armlet ('con la bracciaiuola gli diede una grande batacchiata,' literally 'bastonnade:' bracciaiuola stands for both the armour covering the arm, and for the tolerably formidable wooden instrument, fixed to the arm, with which pallone-players strike the ball), saying, as he did so, 'That "arrri" was never put in by me.' As soon as the a.s.s-driver had got out of his way, he turned and made faces at Dante, saying, 'Take that!' But Dante, without suffering himself to be led into an altercation with such a man, replied, amid the applause of all, 'I would not give one of mine for a hundred of thine!'" (2.) It was lately mentioned to me that there is a narrow mountain-pa.s.s in the Lechthal, in Tirol, which is sometimes called Mangtritt (or St. Magnus' step), and sometimes Jusalte (Saltus Julii, the leap of Julius), because one tradition says Julius Caesar leapt through it on horseback, and another that it opened to let St. Magnus pa.s.s through when escaping from a heathen horde.

27. Quoted by W. Taylor, in Journ. of As. Soc. vii. p. 391.

28. Quoted by Wilford, as above.

29. Quoted in Wilford's "Sacred Isles of the West."

30. La.s.sen.

31. Roth, Extrait du Vikrama-Charitram, p. 279.

32. La.s.sen, ii. p. 1154.

33. La.s.sen, ii. 1122-1129.

34. Abbe Huc narrates how enthusiastically the young Mongol toolholos, or bard, sang to him the Invocation of Timour, of which he gives the refrain as follows:--"We have burned the sweet-smelling wood at the feet of the divine Timour. Our foreheads bent to the earth, we have offered to him the green leaf of tea, and the milk of our herds. We are ready: the Mongols are on foot, O Timour!

"O Divine Timour, when will thy great soul revive?

Return! Return! We await thee, O Timour!"