Note 108 — LECTURE III.

Professor Müller rejects the theory of the Samvat era and the Renaissance of Sanskrit literature in the first century. Instead, he acknowledges the existence of a Saka era, bearing date with the coronation of Kanishka, 78 a.d. Although this monarch was a patron of the Buddhists, and the third collection of their sacred books was made under his auspices, our author considers the period of Saka or Yuen-chi domination from 24 b.c. till 178 a.d. as a literary interregnum. He is not willing to suggest any date for the Mahâbhârata or Râmâyana, which appear to have been then extant. He exonerates Indian epic poetry, however, from any imputation of Greek influence. Not so with astronomy. Âryabhata, the elder, who described the motion of the earth very accurately, he considers to have had no predecessors; and also cites other Indian authors who described the twelve signs of the zodiac with Greek names or their equivalents, and assigned each to a region in the body of the Creator, as we now see it marked out in our almanacs. In this matter he is certainly plausible.

The period of the Renaissance and the reign and proper era of Vikramâditya are set down at about 550 a.d. He follows Dr. Bhao Daji, and is sustained by Mr. Fergusson, author of "Tree and Serpent Worship," and other works on religious architecture. It was the period of learned and literary men, as well as of active religious controversy. "Believers in Buddha and believers in the Veda lived together at this time," he remarks, "very much as Protestants and Roman Catholics do at the present day—fighting when there is an opportunity or necessity for it, but otherwise sharing the same air as fellow-creatures." Among a crowd of others we may instance Dignâga, a Buddhist, Kâlidâsa, a Siva worshipper, and Mânatunga, a Gaina, as frequenting the royal court. Vasubandhu, to whom the revival of Buddhist literature was largely due, was the son of a Brahman and a student of the Nyâya philosophy; as, indeed, Hiouen-thsang, the Chinese traveller, also studied logic under a Brahmana teacher.

Vikramâditya oscillated between all parties. Having quarrelled with the King of Kasmira and Manorhita, the great Buddhist teacher at the convent near Peshawer, he called an assembly of Sâstrikas and Sramanas, at which the latter were denounced. He also placed Matrigupta (Kalidasa?) over that country. At his death, however, the regal authority was surrendered to the legitimate king, who in his turn reinstated Sîlâditya, the successor of Vikrama, on the throne. This king also called an assembly of divines, and the Buddhists were restored to their former position. As they seem to have constituted the principal men of learning, I am disposed to believe that they were the actual restorers of the golden period to India. The "Nine Gems," Professor Müller is very confident, belong to this period. He declares that the philosophical Sûtras have no ascertained date prior to 300 a.d.

According to him, we need not refer many famous authors to a period anterior to the fifth century. Kalidasa, from being the contemporary of Augustus, becomes the contemporary of Justinian, and the very books which were most admired by Sanskrit students as specimens of ancient Indian poetry and wisdom find their rightful place in the period of literary renaissance, coinciding with an age of renewed literary activity in Persia, soon to be followed there, as later in India, by the great Mohammedan conquests. It appears to me that he is altogether too iconoclastic. It is more than probable that the apparent lateness of date is due to the destruction of books when the Buddhists were driven out of India. It would be as logical, it seems to me, to assign a post-Christian date to the Vendidad and Yasna because they had been lost and were collected anew under the auspices of a Sassanid king. We are told in the second book of the Maccabees that Antiochus Epiphanes burned the Hebrew Scriptures, and that Judas Makkabæus made a new collection; yet nobody pretends that they ought to be assigned to the second century b.c. In fact, we must in due sincerity give some room to faith.

Astronomy was also studied. Âryabhatta the elder had described the earth as making a revolution which produced the daily rising and setting of the sun. Professor Müller thinks he had no predecessors. Varâhamihira wrote during the reign of Vikramâditya, and employs the Yuga in opposition to the Saka era. It is apparent, however, that the Greek zodiac was employed. Bâdarâyana describes the pictorial representations of the Twelve Signs and their relation to the body of Brahman or the Creator:

"The Ram is the head; the face of the Creator is the Bull; the breast would be the Man-pair; the heart, the Crab; the Lion, the stomach; the Maid, the hip; the Balance-bearer, the belly; the eighth (Scorpion), the membrum; the Archer, his pair of thighs; the Makara, his pair of knees; the Pot, his pair of legs; the Fish-pair, his two feet." Another writer gives them in like series as the members of Kala or Time. Other evidence seems even more conclusive; Varâhamihira giving the actual Greek names in a Sanskrit dress.—A. W.