صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

the great number of copies, to have been most extensively known. The first section of the same, the Srautasútra, consists of two parts of 6 adhyaya each, the second part, the Grihyasútra, is divided into four adhyaya. We have a commentary to this by Nárayana, of which the East India House possesses at least the division for the first 6 sections of the Srauta, and for the Grihyasútras. Aswaláyana's Sútras also refer to more ancient works, for instance to the Aitareya Brahmana, from which at several places pretty extensive extracts are given (even without mentioning the source) further to the Kausitaka and to ancient teachers, for instance Kautsa, Gautama, Gánagári, Taulvali, Sádyáyana, Saunaka, etc.

6. In a similar way we shall be able on the other side to arrive at a determination of the mutual relation of the Vedic and Epic writings in respect of age and origin.

I confess that I have not yet been able to convince myself that the Mahabharata even in respect of its fundamental component parts reached back into the Anti-Buddhist period. I have the same doubt in regard to the Rámáyana. Before the founding of Buddhism, and contemporaneously with it, must be placed the era of Vedic authorship, in which

-so to express myself,-the practical consequences were drawn from that treasure of the oldest theology, which is laid up in the hymns. This is the liturgical period to which the books belong which under the names of Bráhmana and the like have come down to us. The priests fashioned the worship (Cultus) and the worship fashioned the priests. At that time the proper Veda, i. e. the hymns, were not indeed historically comprehended, but yet exactly known; people tried to understand them by the help of grammars and exegesis. One portion of the latter is the construction of legends (itihása, ákhyána,) from the text of the hymns, and it must be confessed of these relations, that with the exception of those turns which have a liturgical aim, the most of them are confined within the limits of historical possibility, so far as this point can naturally come into question with the Indian.

But in both the Epic poems quite another aspect of things begins. The Veda is only imperfectly known; the ritual no longer struggles after development, it is complete; the Vedic legends have entirely detached themselves from their root; and quite a different worship has taken the place of the religion of Agni, Indra, Mitra and Varuna. The

last named fact specifically should most of all have demonstrative force. There runs through the whole of the Indian religious-life an historical sunderance,* from the time of the Rámáyana down to the present day. The worship is Vedic, and indeed exclusively Vedic, while the religious view is turned to quite different forms. This second structure, the religion of Vishnu and Bráhmá, begins with the Epopees, and is thenceforth the only one which has retained vitality, but it has not had the strength to break down the walls of the Vedic institution, and form itself into a ritual in its room. Similar appearances, though less abrupt, will be shown by a scrupulous historical investigation in all the more important religious systems; the Grecian mysteries, e. g. will be seen to have their root in no other relation than that of the original and old, to the transformed and new; that in Egypt such new formations, and the simultaneous existence of various systems have occurred, is still less doubtful; and religious history might propose to itself for its theme, sunderance and separation far more than combination. Finally, there rules in the Puránas-I am not afraid to say it,—a complete misunderstanding of Vedic antiquity, and all that is connected therewith, a fundamental ignorance of the Vedic writings, on the origin and division of which so much is fabled. And for the explanation of that foretime they (the Puránas) will be useful far less immediately, than mediately, on this account that we accidentally meet again in the later tales, with results found elsewhere and independent of them, and are able gradually to form a standard to try the historical value of these legends.

Research into the historical relation of the Veda and the Epopees must keep these circumstances in view. The following appears to me to be a practicable mode of determining more nearly the interval of time which lies between the two. It is well known that the Anukramaniká very frequently gives short legends, solely with the object of illustrating the origin of the hymns. This happens more amply, and with the same view, in the Vrihaddevatá ascribed to Saunaka, a book composed in metre, of which I have been unable to discover any copy in England, but which in all probability will yet be found in India. The commentator of the Anukramaniká to the Rik, Shadgurusishya, knows this writing and cites it frequently, and Sáyana often gives longer

* Zwiespalt; splitting into twain.

extracts from it in his commentary. More valuable still than these notices are indisputably those representations of the old tales, which we find in the Brahmanas. The Aitareya Brahmana gives a considerable number of them, and among these most amply the history of Súnahsepha (VII. 13 to 18).* Not less rich is the Taittiriya Sanhitá, and to judge by citations,-the Kaushtaka, Tándya, and other writings

of this kind.

After this would come the task of following the progressive formation or even declension of the legends from their origin onward through all these branches and transformations, to determine from what source they have flowed into the Epopees, or-if no written source could be assumed for them-at what stage of development, the tale stood, when it passed into these poems. From the richness and variety of these narrations and the great number of writings which lie open to us for comparison, it should be possible to arrive at an approximative result. The chronological sequence of the preceding writings, of the discovery of which we certainly may not doubt, would then transmit to us downward from above the relative date for the origin of the epic books.

7. As a proof, that the authors of the Brahmana were acquainted with grammar as a science, may be considered the greater number of the derivations of words, belonging equally to etymology and grammar, by which those writings are corroborating their doctrines.

It may here suffice to quote one passage, in which a technical term of grammar is met with. It is taken from the Aitareya Brahmana, VII. 30.

Athásyaisha swa bhaksho, nyagrodhasyávarodháns cha phaláni chaudumbarány, áswattháni, plákshány abhishunuyát. táni bhakshayét, so ashya swo bhaksho. yato vá adhidévá yajnénéshtwá swargan lokam áyans tatraitáns chamasán nyubjans, té nyagrodhá abhavan, nyubjan iti hápy énán étarhy áchakshaté Kuru kshétré téha prathamajan nyagrodhánán, tébhyo hánya 'dhijátas. te yan nyancho 'rohans, tasmán (nyán rohati nyagroha) nyagroho vai náma. tan nyagrohan santan nyagrodhan ity áchakshate parokshéna, paroksha-priyá iva hi dévá: 1

This remarkable legend bears, in the representation in the Brahmana, a peculiar stamp of antiquity. As the same tale is treated diffusely in the Rámáyana, is doubtless also related in the Mahábhárata, is found in the Puránas, and is also mentioned elsewhere, e. g. in Manu, it might supply a fit example to exhibit the mode in which legends are developed.

"The food proper for the Kishatriya, is the following. Let him extract out the produce of what is growing downward from the Nyagrodha, (i. e. of the stems which rise from the branches of the Banyan tree,) fixed in the ground, and the fruits of the Udumbara (Ficus racemosa) of the Aswattha (Ficus Indica,) of the Plaksha (Ficus infectoria). All such let him eat; it is his proper food; for when the supreme gods after the performance of the sacrifice went to heaven, they upset their sacrificial vessels. Hence arose the Nyagrodha-trees. For this reason those trees are called upset (bent) in Kurukshetra (where the sacrifice took place) these were the primitive stems of the Nyagrodha, from these others were produced, which were called nyagrodha (growing downwards) because they were bent downward. The nyagrodha is called nyagrodha after the mysterious (etymology) for the gods like mystery.”

The last remark is repeated in the following chapter of the Bráhmana, and frequently at other places. What is meant by the mysterious formation of a word, the paraksha formation, I will illustrate by a passage of the commentary to the Nirukta (ad. I. 1.) Durga says trividhá hi sabda-vyavasthá, prathyaksha-vrittaya: paroksha vrittaya atiparoksha-vrittayascha. tatroktakriya: pratyaksha-vrittaya: antalína-kriya: paroksha-vrittaya: atiparoksha-vrittishu sabdéshu nirvachanabhyapayas, tasmát paroksha-vrittitám ápadya pratyakshavri tiná sabdéna nirvaktavyás. The example which was the occasion of Durga's remark, is the word nighantu, nighanţavas, where he says, atiparoksha-vritti, nigantavas is parokshavritti, and nigamayitáras is pratyaksha-vritti. One sees without difficulty, that the word paroksha in the meaning it has in the Brahmana, necessarily refers to the existence. of that grammatical terminology which is explained by Durga.

8. Dévarája in the commentary to the Naighantuka (pro. 1134, E. I. H. pol. I.) mentions the following names of persons to whom commentaries of the. Védas (véda bháshyáni) are ascribed: Skandaswámi (who after the same authority wrote a gloss to the Nirukta) Bhavaswami, Guhadéva, Srinivása, Mádhavadéva Uvaṭṭa (otherwise Uvata, of whom Colebrooke, Ess. I. 99, compare also p. 54, note, pos. sessed fragments and who made commentaries to two Prátisakhya sútras, of which afterwards) Bhatta Bháskara Misra, Bharataswámi.

Note to accompany a Chart of the Bay of Bengal, with the average courses of its Hurricanes from A. D. 1800 to 1846.-BY HENRY PIDDINGTON.

This Chart is the third of a series now printing for a new work on Storms, which it is hoped will be for the Mariner in all parts of the world, what the "Horn Book of Storms" is for the Eastern Seas, from the Cape to China, and I have thought this chart of sufficient general scientific interest to offer copies of it to the Editors of the Journal.

It may be regarded both in a meteorological and a nautical point of view, and further as a contribution to general science, for to advert first to this last named view, it will not be thought trifling that we are now enabled to say by the researches of Mr. Redfield and Col. Reid for the Atlantic Ocean for 66 years (1780 to 1846) those of Col. Reid, Mr. Thom and my own for the Southern Indian Ocean for 35 years (1809 to 1846), my researches for the Bay of Bengal for 46 years, 1800 to 1846, and in the China Sea for 66 years, 1780 to 1846, and my researches over all the other portions of the globe wherever I could obtain documents, as the Pacific Ocean, coasts of Australia, &c. no contradiction to the great laws which Redfield and Reid have announced has been discovered, and this though every apparent anomaly has been subjected to the closest scrutiny! The researches too have been carried out to an extent which few are aware of, as both to the various sources referred to and their number. Hence we may look upon this Chart as part of the results of a series of registries of independent experiments recorded without the least concurrence on the part of the registrars,* and this evidence of the clearest and highest order to the truth of a great physical law.

And this relates to the rotation of Storms. What we have now to pursue for separate seas and oceans, and what is in this chart accomplished is, the slow and gradual mapping of their various tracks as completely as it has been done in the West Indies and for the coasts of North America by Redfield and Reid, and for the Bay of Bengal and

The experiment, i. e. the storm, is made for us, but the seaman varies it by the different manoeuvres he executes to get through it. On shore we sit still in our houses and register nothing more.

« السابقةمتابعة »