Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

282 SANS
not only certain that the Bharata legend must have been
current in his time (U. 400 b.c.), but most probable that it
existed already in poetical form, as undoubtedly it did at
the time of Patanjali, the author of the “ great comment¬
ary” on Panini (c. 150 b.c.). The great epic is also
mentioned, both as Bhdrata and Mahdbhdrata, in the
Grihya-sutra of Asvalayana, whom Lassen supposes to
have lived about 350 b.c. Nevertheless it must remain
uncertain whether the poem was then already in the form
in which we now have it, at least as far as the leading
story and perhaps some of the episodes are concerned, a
large portion of the episodical matter being clearly of
later origin. It cannot, however, be doubted, for many
reasons, that long before that time heroic song had been
diligently cultivated in India at the courts of princes and
among Kshatriyas, the knightly order, generally. In the
Mahdbhdrata itself the transmission of epic legend is in
some way connected with the Shtas, a social class which,
in the caste-system, is defined as resulting from the union
of Kshatriya men with Brahmana women, and which
supplied the office of charioteers and heralds, as well as
(along with the Magadhas) that of professional minstrels.
Be this as it may, there is reason to believe that, as Hellas
had her dotSot who sang the kAcci dvSpwv, and Iceland her
skalds who recited favourite sagas, so India had from
olden times her professional bards, who delighted to sing
the praises of kings and inspire the knights with warlike
feelings. But if in this way a stock of heroic poetry had
gradually accumulated which reflected an earlier state
of society and manners, we can well understand why,
after the Br&hmanical order of things had been definitely
established, the priests should have deemed it desirable to
subject these traditional memorials of Kshatriya chivalry
and prestige to their own censorship, and adapt them to
their own canons of religious and civil law. Such a
revision would doubtless require considerable skill and
tact; and if in the present version of the work much
remains that seems contrary to the Brahmanical code
and pretensions—e.g., the polyandric union of Draupadi
and the Pandu princes—the reason probably is that such
legendary, or it may be historical, events were too firmly
rooted in the minds of the people to be tampered with ;
and all the clerical revisers could do was to explain them
away as best they could. Thus the special point alluded
to was represented as an act of duty and filial obedience,
in this way, that, when Arjuna brings home his fair prize,
and announces it to his mother, she, before seeing what it
is, bids him share it with his brothers. Nay, it has even
been suggested, with some plausibility, that the Brah¬
manical editors have completely changed the traditional
relations of the leading characters of the story. For,
although the Pandavas and their cousin Krishna are con¬
stantly extolled as models of virtue and goodness, while
the Kauravas and their friend Kama—a son of the sun-
god, born by Kunti before her marriage with P&ndu, and
brought up secretly as the son of a Shta—are decried as
monsters of depravity, these estimates of the heroes’
characters are not unfrequently belied by their actions,—
especially the honest Kama and the brave Duryodhana
contrasting not unfavourably with the wily Krishna and
the cautious and somewhat effeminate Yudhishthira.
These considerations, coupled with certain peculiarities on
the part of the Kauravas, suggestive of an original con¬
nexion of the latter with Buddhist institutions, have led
Dr Holtzmann to devise an ingenious theory, viz., that
the traditional stock of legends was first worked up into
its present shape by some Buddhist poet, and that this
version, showing a decided predilection for the Kuru party,
as the representatives of Buddhist principles, was after¬
wards revised in a contrary sense, at the time of the
K Ja I T [literature.
Brahmanical reaction, by votaries of Vishnu, when the
Buddhist features were generally modified into Saivite
tendencies, and prominence was given to the divine nature
of Krishna, as an incarnation of Vishnu. The chief objec¬
tion to this theory probably is that it would seem to
make such portions as the Bhagavad-gitd (“song of the
holy one ”)—the famous theosophic episode, in which
Krishna, in lofty and highly poetical language, expounds
the doctrine of faith (bhakti) and claims adoration as the
incarnation of the supreme spirit—even more modern
than many scholars may be inclined to admit as at all
necessary, considering that at the time of Patanjali’s
Mahdbhdshya the Krishna worship, as was shown by Prof.
Bhandarkar, had already attained some degree of develop¬
ment. Of the purely legendary matter incorporated
with the leading story not a little, doubtless, is at least as
old as the latter itself. Some of these episodes—especially
the well-known story of Nala and Damayanti, and the
touching legend of Savitri—form themselves little epic
gems, of which any nation might be proud. There can
be no doubt, however, that this great storehouse of
legendary lore has received considerable additions down
to comparatively recent times, and that, while its main
portion is considerably older, it also contains no small
amount of matter which is decidedly more modern than
the Rdmdyana.
As regards the leading narrative of the Rdmdyana,
while it is generally supposed that the chief object which
the poet had in view was to depict the spread of Aryan
civilization towards the south, Mr T. Wheeler has tried
to show that the demons of LanM against whom Rama’s
expedition is directed are intended for the Buddhists of
Ceylon. Prof. Weber, moreover, from a comparison of
R&ma’s story with cognate Buddhist legends in which
the expedition to Lanka, is not even referred to, has
endeavoured to prove that this feature, having been added
by Valmiki to the original legend, was probably derived
by him from some general acquaintance with the Trojan
cycle of legends, the composition of the poem itself being
placed by the same scholar somewhere about the beginning
of the Christian era. Though, in the absence of positive
proof, this theory, however ably supported, can scarcely
be assented to, it will hardly be possible to put the date of
the work farther back than about a century before our
era; while the loose connexion of certain passages in
which the divine character of RUma, as an avatar of
Vishnu, is especially accentuated, raises a strong sus¬
picion of this feature of Rama’s nature having been intro¬
duced at a later time.
A remarkable feature of this poem is the great variation
of its text in different parts of the country, amounting in
fact to several distinct recensions. The so-called Gauda
recension, current in Bengal, which differs most of all, has
been edited, with an Italian translation, by G. Gorresio;
while the version prevalent in western India, and pub¬
lished at Bombay, has been made the basis for a beautiful
poetical translation by Mr R. Griffith. This diversity has
never been explained in a quite satisfactory way; but it
was probably due to the very popularity and wide oral
diffusion of the poem. Yet another version of the same
story, with, however, many important variations of details,
forms an episode of the Mahdbhdrata, the relation of
which to Valmiki’s work is still a matter of uncertainty.
To characterize the Indian epics in a single word:—
though often disfigured by grotesque fancies and wild
exaggerations, they are yet noble works, abounding in
passages of remarkable descriptive power, intense pathos,
and high poetic grace and beauty; and, while, as works of
art, they are far inferior to the Greek epics, in some
respects they appeal far more strongly to the romantic