INDIA. PART II. Extraordinary plot of the K ravas to burn their house at Before the Pandavas departed out of the city of Has- HISTORY OF tinápur, their uncle Vidura took them aside, and told them that when they arrived at the city of Váranávata they should beware of fire; and he repeated a verse to the brethren, and said:"Should a man come to you, and repeat this the Pandavas in verse, put your trust in him, and receive him as a man sent Váranávata. by me for your deliverance." After many days the five Pándavas, and their mother Kuntí, reached the city of Váranávata; and very speedily their eyes were opened to a wicked plot which had been devised by Duryodhana and his friends. That jealous Chieftain, ever bent upon the destruction of his kinsmen, had sent on a trusty retainer, named Purochana, to prepare a handsome house in the city of Váranávata for the reception of the sons of Pándu; and Purochana had been secretly commanded to fill the house with hemp and resin, and to plaster the walls with a mortar of grease and pitch; so that some night, when the Pandavas and their mother were fast asleep, the doors might be closely fastened on the outside, and the house set on fire, and all within it be consumed in the flames. Accordingly Purochana welcomed the Pándavas with every sign of re- Details of the joicing; and he conducted them first to the College of holy ception of the men, where they paid every respect and reverence to the ranávata. devotees, and received their blessings and good wishes in return; and next he led them to the house prepared for their reception, and presented each of them with a collation and fruit, together with gold and jewels, silks and cloths, as is customary among the Rajas. Yudhishthira was amazed suspicions of at the splendour of the habitation, but he began to smell the mortar, and told his suspicions to his brother Bhíma. After this a man came from Vidura, and repeated the verse which had been agreed upon, and said :-" Vidura has sent me to dig an under-ground passage from your house, to deliver you from it should it be set on fire." So after much Digging of a subdiscourse together, they secretly employed the man to dig sage. a passage under-ground, by which they could escape out of the house, should the dwelling be set on fire and the doors be locked on the outside. When the under-ground passage magnificent re Pandavas at Vá Yudhishthira. terranean pas INDIA. PART II. Bhima antici burning the house of Puro chana. Kunti gives a feast to the poor. HISTORY OF was all complete, Bhíma resolved that he would work upon Purochana, who was living in a house close by, all the mischief that Purochana was meditating against himself and pates the plot by brethren. Now it so happened that one day Kuntí invited all the poor people of the city, and gave them a feast; and amongst her guests was a Bhíl woman and her five sons, who, according to the practice of their tribe, drank a large quantity of strong liquor, and then lay down and slept heavily. That same night a violent wind arose, and Bhíma stole out through the passage, and strongly barricaded the house of Purochana, and set it on fire; and the flames. speedily destroyed the building and reached the house of the Pándavas; and Bhíma then conducted his mother and brethren through the passage under-ground, and hurried Kunti into the them away into the jungle. Next morning the people of the city saw that both houses were destroyed by fire, and believed that all the inmates had perished; for they discovered the blackened remains of Purochana and his servants, and also those of the Bhíl woman and her five sons, whom they took to be those of Kuntí and the Pandavas. The tidings soon reached the city of Hastinápur, and the Kauravas rejoiced greatly at the supposed death of their row of the elders enemies the Pándavas; but Bhíshma, Drona, and Dhritaráshtra were affected even unto tears. House of the jungle. Joy of the Kau ravas, and sor at the supposed death of the Pandavas. of the Pandavas be referred to Brahmanism. Story of the visit It would be presumptuous perhaps to state to Varanavata positively that there is no foundation whatever the later age of for this story in the original and authentic legend; yet it bears such evident traces of being entirely composed in the later age of Brahmanical revival, that it is impossible to escape the inference. The Burning a sleep- whole story turns upon burning the house of kinsKshatriya ideas, men, whilst those kinsmen are asleep inside; and this idea would be altogether repugnant to the sentiment of honour which undoubtedly prevailed amongst the ancient Kshatriyas, who regarded an ing enemy totally opposed to INDIA. PART II. age when the secuted the tails to be also later age. attack upon a sleeping enemy as a heinous crime.' HISTORY OF But at the same time, this idea would be perfectly familiar to the Brahmanical compilers of the Mahá Familiar to the Bhárata, who had only recently engaged in burning Brahmans perdown the monasteries and temples of the Buddhists Buddhists. with all the deadly hate of religious persecutors. Again, the subordinate details of the fiction refer, Subordinate dein every way, to a later and more luxurious age. ascribed to a The city of Váranávata is said to have been famous for gold and jewels. The College of holy men to which the Pandavas were introduced on their arrival, is either Buddhist or Brahmanical; and so, too, is the feast given by Kuntí to all the poor of the city; whilst the alleged magnificence of the house in which the Pandavas were lodged, and the presents of gold and jewels, silks and cloths, belong altogether to a late period of Hindú civilization. The story of the Bhíl woman and her five sons who were burnt alive in the house, and originated the rumour that the Pandavas and their mother had perished in the flames, is also precisely one of those artificial turns in a narrative which betray the hand of the romancer or novelist. Altogether, it seems most probable The fiction inthat the whole story is a later fiction, introduced for ciate the Panthe sole purpose of associating the Pándavas with the vata. famous city of Váranávata. 2 serted to asso davas with the city of Váraná of the Pandavas Having made their escape from the city of Vá- Alleged escape ranávata, the Pándavas are said to have disguised 1 Compare the story of the terrible revenge of Aswatthama, in the night of the last day of the great war; where it will be seen that Aswattháma, even whilst bent upon being revenged on the murderer of his father, awoke his sleeping enemy before slaying him. An extraordinary well, or under-ground passage, still exists in the Fort at Allahabad, and is pointed out as the veritable passage through which the Pandavas made their way out of the burning house between thirty and forty centuries ago. from the city of Váranávata into the great jungle. INDIA. PART II. Pandavas to be regarded as the of the Aryan race. Aryan invasion to Allahabad. HISTORY OF themselves as Bráhmans, and to have proceeded with all haste into the great jungle. Now if the Pandavas may be accepted as the representatives representatives of the Aryan race, it would appear from the story that they had advanced far away to the eastward of the Aryan outpost at Hastinápur, and had almost reached the centre of the land of aborigines. This Progress of the direction was undoubtedly the very one which was from the Punjab eventually taken by the Aryan invaders; that is, they pushed their way from the Punjab towards the south-east, along the fertile valleys of the Ganges and Jumná, until they arrived at the junction of the two rivers at Alláhabád. Probably, as already indicated, this migration occupied a vast period of unrecorded time, and the Aryans may not have reached Alláhabád until ages after the Kauravas and Pándavas had fought their famous battle for the little Raj at Later legends of Hastinápur. But when the story of the war of the Aryans against Mahá Bhárata had been converted into a national story of the great tradition, it seems not unlikely that the legends of the later wars waged by the Aryans against the aborigines during their progress towards the southeast, would be tacked on to the original narrative. This process appears to have been carried out by the compilers of the Mahá Bhárata; and although, as will be seen hereafter, the adventures of the Pandavas in the jungle, and their encounters with Asuras and Rákshasas, are all palpable fictions, still they are valuable as traces which have been left in the minds of the people of the primitive wars of the Aryans against the aborigines. the wars of the the aborigines, tacked on to the war. Ancient wars to be found The adventures of a band of warlike emigrants amongst the ear whilst seeking for new homes amongst an aboriginal liest traditions of every people. population have been generally found amongst the INDIA. PART II. tions preserved national re ligion. changes in the earliest events in the history of a people. These HISTORY OF wars, however, have rarely been recorded with truthful simplicity by a prose annalist, but have generally fallen into the hands of bards, whose object was rather to gratify their audience than to instruct them in authentic history. Sometimes when the national National tradilegends have corresponded to the national religion, when corre the narrative has assumed a historic form, as in the conquests of Joshua, and to some extent in the lives of Samson, of Gideon, and of Jephthah. But when Remodelled by the national religion has undergone modifications, as religion. in the case of Greece and Rome, the legends have been remodelled by poets and dramatists, and converted into religious myths. Still further, when Converted into the old religion has been driven out altogether, and a new and radically foreign religion like Christianity has taken its place, the traditions of forgotten wars have been left in the hands of ballad singers and beldames, and consequently have been converted into barbarous nursery stories of giants and ogres. This latter fate has certainly befallen the traditions of forgotten wars in Europe; and a similar fate has befallen the Hindú traditions of the wars between the Aryans and aborigines. nursery stories when the old re ligion has been driven out by a new one. ity between Hindu and Eu ropean traditions of forgot of Hindú fiction. It is somewhat remarkable that the general simi- Striking similar. larity of circumstances under which Hindú and European traditions of primitive wars have been ten wars. exaggerated and modified, has resulted in a striking similarity in the fictions themselves. They are cha- Characteristics racterized by the same rude vigour of imagination; and consequently present the same extravagant pictures of the horrible combined with a broad sense of wars of Bhima humour, which are precisely fitted to the tastes of uncultivated people. In the Hindú fictions an as the repre sentative of the Aryan settlers against the abo the rigines. |