Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

the next epithet, the Shakspearean expression Heaven-kissing hill," appeared more seemly in English than the literal translation" whose extended horn or peak licks the path of Heaven."

XXXV. This and the six following verses are again in the heroic measure of the Puránas.

A Naisthika is one who abides perpetually in the duties of the first order of brahmanical life, that of a Brahmachárí or religious student, as they are laid down in the 2nd book of MANU's Institutes, without proceeding to either of the other three orders, that of the married householder, the eremite or the mendicant. The second chapter of the Dig-Vijaya-Sanwepa above-mentioned, written by SANKARA's eminent disciple MA'DHAVAA'CHA RYA, Contains a friendly altercation between SANKARA's father SIVAGURU when a student, and his religious preceptor, in which, while the latter urges the propriety of his accomplished pupil's marriage, the other declares his wish to remain attached to his spiritual father.

श्रीनैष्ठिकाश्रममहं परिग्टद्य यागज्
जीवं वसामि तव पार्श्व गतविरायुः ।
दण्डाजिनेा सविनयेो बुध जुकदग्नी

वेदं पठम्पठित विस्मृतिहानिमिच्छन् ।। १६ ।।

“I, O sage, embracing the blessed order of a Naisthika,—dwell as long as I live, attached to thy side perpetually,-with my pupil's staff, and my pallet of deer-skin, ever meekly submissive, sacrificing with the sacred fire, perusing the Veda, anxiously desirous to cut off the possibility of forgetting what I have perused already.”

In the second half of this verse (of which the first syllable is somewhat obscure on the stone), a great Vedantic doctrine is contained, which the Uttara Mimánsa and Pátanjala schools practically inculcate, viz. that by the practice of austere meditation on the One all-pervading Essence, and abstraction of the mind from all surrounding objects, to which conclusion self-torture (Tapas), is one introductory step, union is obtained with the eternal Divinity in his (or rather its) transcendental primary form, existing independently of that triad of qualities which was emitted for the creation, preservation and destruction of the world. The liberated man (Mukta) who is thus absorbed into the essence of deity, and freed from all future transmigration, or recompense of works, whether for weal or woe, is freed at the same time from all respect whatever to the three qualities above-mentioned; i. e. freed from the purity (सत् or पुएां ) which preserves, as well as from the passion (रजस् or अपुण्यं which creates, and the defilement ( तमस् or मस्लं) which destroys. This character of the Hindu perfect man (as all the Vedantic writers teach, after the Upanishads or mystical parts of the Vedas), is distinctly contained in the single epithet of our inscription चजातपुष्या पुष्यम लचयः

"one in whom the threefold quality* of holiness, unholiness and defilement is unborn or non-existent:" and surely nothing more is required to shew how remote from morality, as well as pure theism, is that pantheistic speculation to which some persons would point as a restitution of the pure religion of ancient India: (though the elementary and heroic polytheism of the other part of the Vedas appears certainly to be much older.)

XXXIX.—प्रपाहरणन्तथा for प्रपाहरणं तथा This is the only instance in the whole incription of a final Anusvára being converted to the nasal letter answering to the following initial consonant, whether dental, as here, or guttural, palatine, cerebral or labial; according to the constant custom of Bengal, (observed also in the Mahratta copies of the Vedas, and perhaps some other instances,) which has been scrupulously followed in Col. HaughTON's valuable edition of the Institutes of MANU. In every other instance the inscription follows the rule of the best Devanagari MSS. in retaining the Anusvára: only, (with many of these, as well as with all Bengal MSS.) always changing the Anusvára to at the end of a verse or a hemistich. In the middle of words the inscription is inconsistent in this respect, like most Devanagari MSS., sometimes giving the Anusvara, sometimes the special nasal letter, (e. g. or, &c. &c.) but more frequently the former. In all these instances, the writing on the stone has been exactly copied by me into modern Devanagari.

XLII. This verse is in a measure of 15 syllables, called Mánini, which is distributed thus.

Νέα τάδε κακὰ μοι νῦν ἦλθε μοιρᾳ μαλ ̓ ὄικτρᾳ.

The subject of this verse, as of verse XXXVIII., might probably be illustrated by closer inspection of the ruins and their site.

XLIII. XLIV.-The former of these verses is like the II, in heroic measure, the latter is like ver. I., in the hendecasyllable measure Rathaudgatá. The name of GAVA is perpetuated by the beautiful place in Bahar, that is called after him (only a few miles from the birth-place of the head of the rival religion, GAUTAMA BUDDHA), to which all India resorts for the performance of offerings to deceased ancestors. But why this sainted Asura is particularly introduced here, does not appear.

XLV. This verse is in a more ancient description of measure than any of the lyrical ones above described, being independent of the number of syllables, and regarding only their aggregate quantity, like the Dactylic and Anapæstic measures of the Greeks. It is called A'ryá, and is composed of two unequal hemistichs: the former consisting of seven Spondaic feet, (i. e. each equivalent to two long syllables or four short ones,) and a redundant syllable; with no farther restriction on those feet, except that the first, -third, fifth, and seventh, must not be an Amphibrachys -; while the sixth, on the other hand, must be either an Amphibrachys or a Proceleusmaticus The latter hemistich resembles the former in every * Not" quantity," as erroneously printed in the translation, p. 379.

་་

respect, except that instead of the Amphibrachys or Proceleusmaticus above-mentioned in the sixth place, a single short syllable is there inserted : and both hemistichs are divided into púdas or quarters at the end of the third foot, (the last syllable of which is not accounted common as in the other measures.)

[ocr errors]

धोरनागेन The reading on the stone most resembles धीरनाशेन, to which no good meaning can be assigned-unless by a violent ellipsis we understand it to denote one whose superior merit annihilates all rival learned men." The letters and being nearly alike in this ancient "the character, I have little hesitation in reading it as I have done, chief of learned men." The use of "serpent," as of

सिंह

"tiger,”

"lion," &c. &c. to denote pre-eminence, is a known idiom in Sanscrit. XLVI. The allusions in this elaborate and not inelegant verse, which is in the Srag-dhará measure, may be found explained in any treatise of Hindu Mythology. The sign of which there is to be "no-removal (ET) even when the sun is bereft of its splendor (as)" should seem to be the lunar emblem of verse XVIII. from which this mountain is called gjafaat: in the second of the records of gift that follow; may be the emblem of DURGA', whatever that may have been, which obtained for the same hill the like-sounding epithet of in verse XXXIV. The mark by which the mountain is now distinguished from the distance of nearly 50 miles round is, as Sergeant DEAN informs us, of modern structure; but it has probably succeeded to the place of some equally conspicuous sign erected 750 years before by SINHA RAJA.

or it

XLVII. This verse, which is merely introductory to the first prosaic passage in the inscription, describing the date at which the temple was begun, is the last of the 23 Anustubh stanzas.

In the date that immediately follows, the well known abbreviation f su-di (for aaf) "the day of the former half," i. e. from the change to full moon, indicates that we are to follow here the astronomical year of the Hindús, in which the moons are adjusted to the solar year (like the ancient Attic system, but in a manner much more complex and artificial), not the ordinary civil or solar year with its calendar months. According to the latter, since the Samvat or Vicramáditya year 1018 (coinciding with 4062 of the Káli-Yuga or 883 of Saliváhana), began on Saturday, the 23rd of March, O. S. A. D. 961, the 13th of its third calendar month Ashádha would fall on Wednesday the 5th of June, O. S. in that year. But the commencement of the first moon, which we are now to regard, when computed according to the rules laid down by Colonel WARREN in his elaborate work, and followed by Mr. JAMES PRINSEP in his useful compendium, is found to precede by three days on that year the commencement of the civil month called by the same name Vaisákha; it fell on Wednesday the 20th of March before 7h. P. M. ; and as no intercalation of moons takes place until the beginning of two fall on the same calendar month, the 13th Tithi or lunar day of the third moon Ashádha would thus fall within the 7th of the civil month so called, i. e. Thursday the 30th of May, Q. Şe

A. D. 961 [or if corrected according to the right astronomical position with respect to the equinoxes, as fixed afterwards by the Gregorian calendar, Thursday the 4th of June, 961.] To the other abbreviations beside wf, some of which are worn and indistinct, I am unable to assign any meaning. XLVIII. This verse, the last of the 15 Srag-dhará stanzas, (which constitute about half of the poetical part of the inscription,) is extremely valuable for fixing by a definite circumlocution the number of the year, 1018, and thus securing from all suspicion of mistake the somewhat worn numbers of the figured date that preceded. But here its close coincidence ceases: for while the prose date is the thirteenth of the former half of Ashádha, which must have been either the Thursday aforesaid, or the Friday next following, that of the verse is Monday, the third Tithi or lunar day in the former half of some month not named: (for though the greater part of the word water is erased, it were impossible to read arent or any other ordinal numeral in its stead.) Now, though one condition stated in the verse appears incompatible with this lunar month being Ashádha, viz. the Sun's having entered or at least approached the sign Leo, which it could not enter till long after the fourth quarter of that moon,—I still think that the 3rd of the 1st quarter of the A'shádha moon, which fell on a Monday, is the date here intended; for by placing it later we should not only fall on a different day of the week, but admit the absurdity of making the commencement of the work, as stated in the prose and in verse XLVII., prior to the divine command for undertaking it whereas now the alleged command precedes the commencement of the work by the probable interval of ten days, viz. from the 3rd to the 13th of Ashádha, or from Monday the 20th of May O. S. A. D. 961, to the Thursday week following.

is very

[It should be remarked that the word л, on which the above difficulty turns, indistinct on the stone, and indeed more resembles à or чà which are unintelligible: though the compound word fetiè sign of Leo," is not to be mistaken.]

" in the

Here begins the enumeration of donors and benefactors to the temple; preceded by a date which marks the conclusion of the work, as the former marked its commencement. Pursuing the computation, it is found that the first moon of the Samvat year 1030 preceded the civil year by nearly half a month, commencing on Friday the 7th of March, O. S., A. D. 973, while its full moon (the Paschal full moon of the Christian year) fell very early on Saturday the 22nd of March: and that of the third moon Ashádha, which is the close of its 15th lunar day here specified, falling consequently just 59 days after, that lunar day itself will coincide with Monday the 19th of May, O. S. (or May 24th according to the Gregorian calendar) the same year*.

To give a notion of this, which is the date of the inscription itself, from contempo. rary events in the West,-it may not be without interest to observe, that it is later by 12 days than the death of the Emperor ОTHо I., the greatest man on the continent of Europe since CHARLEMAGNE, and in SISMONDI's judgment, his superior in many re spects; whose memorable conquest of Italy occurred at the former date, viz. A. D. 961.

The first benefaction has its date assigned to the beginning of October, without naming any year; it may be A. D. 961 or some later year of the reign of Sinha RaʼJA. That the word means the sign of Libra, though not to be found in that sense in any lexicon, is shews in the following A'ryá verse of the Sat-kritya-muktávali of RAGHUNATHA, well known to the astrological students of India,

क्रियताबुरिजितुम कुस्तीर ले यपाथेययूक का प्रया

ताचिक या करे। हृद्रोगथान्त्यभं चेत्यं ॥

on which the scholiast writes इति मेषादीनां विशेषसंज्ञाः “ such are the special names of Aries and the rest of the Zodiacal signs,” i. e. Kriya is for Mesha r; Táburi is Vrisha 8; Jituma is Mithuna ; Kulíra is Karkata; Leya is Sinha 8; Pátheya is Karyá m; Yúka is Tula ~; Kaurpa is Vrischika m; Taurika (as if from Togov) is Dhanus ; A'kokera is Makara v; Hridroga is Kumbha ; and Antyabha is Mína X.

66

In the 2nd grant, I cannot be sure that I have rightly divided the names of the villages, or even in every instance that I have exactly discriminat.. ed proper names, (e. g. Uru-saras which means a wide tank,") while the topography of the country and even the names of its Vishayas (districts or pergunnahs, as they are called since the Mahometan conquest,) are unknown to us. But from this general uncertainty of the proper names in this paragraph, we must of course except the still celebrated resort of pilgrims, Pushkara, or Pokar, situated about 150 miles S. W. from this mountain, and four miles west of Ajmeer, on a beautiful lake go from which its name is derived.

The 3rd grant, made by VATSA was undoubtedly during the reign of his brother Sinha Raʼja, as appears by its being placed before the gift of the two villages, Chhatradhára and Sankaránaka, by the new king VIGRAHA, repeated here as the 4th grant, after having been recorded in the metrical part of the inscription. This proves what has been before remarked, that the 5th grant by the two sons of SINHA RA'JA was subsequent to the accession by conquest of their protector VIGRAHA Ra'ja. The word, enumeration, in this record, means the specification of year, month, half-month, day, caste, family, and parentage, as prescribed in the text of YAJNAVALKYA.

समामासतदद्बीनीमजाती खगेाचकैः ।
मब्रह्मचारिकात्मीयपित्टनामादिचिह्नितम् ॥

See Mitúxara, sl. 87-where, in the commentary, the above-enumeration is called संख्या.

Of the decease of OTHо the Great, which took place in 973, some remarkable particulars are given by cardinal BARONIUS, from an author of that age, named WITICHIND, who states the event to have been "nonis Maii, quartâ feria ante Pentecosten,” i. e. “ on the nones or 7th of May, the 4th day (Wednesday) of the week before Whitsuntide," (Annales, tom. x. p. 812.) I quote these words because they minutely confirm the lunar calculation given above: for the Whitsunday of May 11 implies an Easter Sunday of March 23, agreeably to the time deduced above for the Paschal full moon of that year, (Samvat 1030.)

« PreviousContinue »