HISTORY OF led to the great war from which the Mahá Bhárata INDIA. derives its name.1 PART II. Legends of the Dhritarashtra. The traditionary history of the royal house of from Bharata to Bhárata, from the great Rája Bhárata himself down to the commencement of the reign of Dhritarashtra, when this rivalry first began, comprises a few legends which are worthy of notice; inasmuch as by removing the supernatural matter, which may be regarded as a mythical husk added by the later bards, it is possible to arrive at the authentic tradition which forms the kernel of the legend. The Four legends. narratives in question are four in number, and may be thus indicated: 1st, Legend of Raja Bharata. 1st, Legend of Raja Bhárata, who played with lions in his childhood, and afterwards founded the great Raj of Bhárata. 2nd, Legend of Raja Sántanu, who married a young wife in his old age. 3rd, Legend of Raja Vichitra-vírya, who died childless, and had sons begotten to him by Vyása, the sage. 4th, Legend of Rajas Pándu and Dhritarashtra, and their sons the Pándavas and Kauravas. The legend of Raja Bhárata may now be related, as follows: 1 The Maha Bhárata really opens with a so-called sacrifice of snakes, in which vast numbers of snakes, who are confounded with an ancient race of serpent wor shippers known as Nágas, are said to have been forced by certain Brahmanical incantations to enter the fire of a great sacrifice which was being performed by a Raja named Janamejaya, in revenge for the death of his father, who had been bitten by a snake. The origin of this confusion of snakes and Nágas will be explained hereafter. It will be sufficient to say that according to the myth Janamejaya subsequently killed a Bráhman, and that in order to expiate this dreadful crime, he listened to a recitation of the whole of the Mahá Bharata, which was performed by Vaisampayana, the pupil of Vyasa, the sage. Accordingly the Maha Bharata, which is said to have been originally composed by Vyása, is supposed to be written exactly as it was recited by Vaisampayana. Once upon a time the valiant Raja Dushyanta was hunt- HISTORY OF ing in the forest, when he beheld the beautiful Sakuntalá, INDIA. PART II. kuntala in the of a Raja by the daughter of a sas the sage. the daughter of Kanwa the sage; and he prevailed on the Amour of Dushdamsel to become his wife by a Gandharva marriage, and yanta and Sagave her his ring as the pledge of his troth. Then Dush- jungle. yanta returned to his own city, whilst Sakuntalá remained in Bharata, the son the hermitage of her father. After this Durvásas the sage Brahman. visited the hermitage of Kanwa, but the thoughts of Sakun- Curse of Durvátalá were fixed upon her husband, and she heard not the approach of the sage. And Durvásas cursed the damsel, that she should be forgotten by the man she loved; but after a while he relented, and promised that the curse should be removed as soon as Dushyanta saw the ring. And Sakun- The lost ring. talá found that she was with child, and she set off for the palace of her husband; but on her way she bathed in a sacred pool, and the ring dropped from her finger and was lost beneath the waters. When she reached the palace of the Raja, his memory had departed from him, and he would not own her to be his wife; and her mother came and carried her away to the jungle, and there she gave birth to a son, who was named Bhárata. And it so happened that a large The ring found. fish was caught by a fisherman, and the ring of Dushyanta was found in the belly of the fish, and carried to the Raja; and Dushyanta saw the ring, and he remembered the beautiful Sakuntala, who had become his wife by a Gandharva marriage. And the Raja went into the jungle and saw the Raja Dushyanta boy Bhárata sporting with young lions, and setting at nought Bharata playing the lioness that gave them suck; and his heart burned towards the lad; and presently he beheld the sorrowing Sakuntala, and he knew that Sakuntala was his wife, and that Bhárata was his son. So Raja Dushyanta took Sakuntala Dushyanta and Bhárata to his own city; and he made Sakuntala his to wife, and acknowledges chief Rání, and appointed Bhárata to succeed him in the Raj. Now when Bharata was grown, he became a mighty warrior, and conquered all the regions of Hindustan and called them by his own name; and he was the most renowned of all the Lunar race, who boasted that they were the children of the Moon. And Bhárata begot Hastin, who built the city sees his son with lions. takes Sakuntalá his son. Bharata to be Bharata by Raja INDIA. 2 HISTORY OF Of Hastinapur; and Hastin begot Kuru, and Kuru begot Sántanu; and Santanu was the great-grandfather of the men who fought in the war of Bhárata. PART II. Review of the foregoing story Bharata. The foregoing legend of the birth of Raja Bháof the birth of rata is very prominent in Hindú story, and forms the groundwork of Kálidása's charming drama of Significance of "Sakuntalá, or the Lost Ring." Its historical sigrendered per- nificance, however, can only be apprehended by a minating the su- consideration of the suspicious incident in the legend, of Durvásas. namely, the curse of Durvásas. This incident is su the tradition ceptible by eli dent of the curse 3 pernatural, and may be eliminated from the legend on two grounds; first, it is incredible that the curse of a Bráhman should possess the efficacy ascribed to it in the story; and, secondly, if the efficacy of the Bráhman's curse could be admitted, it is incredible that a holy sage should have inflicted such a curse upon a maiden for so trifling a provocation. By excluding the curse, the legend assumes a natural Historical form and historical form. A Kshatriya, whilst hunting in the forest, falls in love with the daughter of a Bráhman, and prevails upon her to accept him as her husband by what is called a Gandharva marriage. This Gandharva marriage is an anomaly. It is simply a union prompted by mutual desire, and of the tradition. Gandharva marriage, a union without marriage ceremonies. 2 The bare statement that the city of Hastinapur was founded by Hastin, the son of Bharata, is not without value. According to local tradition the original seat of the empire of Bharata was much further to the north-west, namely, at the site now occupied by the ruins of Takh-i-Bahi, in the country of the Yusufzais to the northward of Peshawur. (See Bellew's Report on the Yusufzais, p. 136.) It is therefore easy to infer that the Aryans pushed on from the neighbourhood of Peshawur in a south-easterly direction through the Punjab until they reached the banks of the Ganges, where they erected an outpost at Hastinapur. 3 It may be remarked that Durvásas appears as the most irascible sage in the whole range of Brahmanical tradition. He cursed Indra so that he lost his strength and sovereignty merely because he dropped a flower which had been given him by the sages. The mythical character of Durvásas is well displayed in the fable of the birth of Karna, which will be related further on. to and He INDIA. PART II. the Kshatriya to acknowledge the daughter of a Brahman his win to be consummated without any preliminary ceremonies HISTORY OF whatever. It was legalized by the Brahmanical legislator, Manu, probably to cover the scandal of the lawless amours in which the Kshatriyas indulged; and is entitled Gandharva, because such unions prevailed largely amongst the Gandharvas, or mountain tribes on the western Himálayas. Manu however declares that none but Kshatriyas may contract such marriages; and he denounces them as base marriages, the offspring of which will act cruelly, speak untruthfully, and abhor the Vedas." But to return to the story. The Kshatriya in Reluctance of question prevailed upon the Bráhman's daughter yield to his desires by engaging to marry her, giving her his ring as a pledge of his troth. then abandoned the damsel, and returned to his own city. Subsequently the damsel found that she was about to become a mother, and accordingly proceeded to the house of the Kshatriya to demand the fulfilment of his promise. Unfortunately, she had lost the ring, and in the absence of such evidence the Kshatriya conveniently forgot his engagement to marry the daughter of a priest. Ultimately when the ring was found, and he either saw or heard of the exploits of Bhárata in taming lions, he acknowledged the young hero to be his son, and made the mother his chief Rání. The question of why Inferiority of the the Kshatriya was reluctant to acknowledge the Kshatriya in the daughter of a Bráhman to be his wife, will be solved hereafter, when it will be seen that in the Vedic period the Bráhman held an inferior rank to the Kshatriya. The reason for the interpolation of the VOL. I. 4 Manu, c. III. v. 26, 32, 41. Brahman to the Vedic age. INDIA. PART II. HISTORY OF myth respecting the curse of Durvása will then, in like manner, become apparent; it was intended to explain the reluctance of the Kshatriya, without wounding the pride or lowering the assumption of the later Bráhmans.5 2nd, Legend of Raja Santanu. Desire of old Raja Santanu The second legend, namely, that of Raja Sántanu, turns upon a more natural event. Sántanu was third in descent from Bhárata. The legend is as follows: Now Raja Sántanu, the great-grandson of Bhárata, for a young wife. reigned in much glory in the city of Hastinápur, and he had many sons by the goddess Gangá, but only one lived to be a man, and his name was Sántanava. And it came to pass that when Raja Sántanu was very old, he desired to marry a damsel who should be young and beautiful; and Sántanava found such a damsel as his father desired. But the parents of the girl would not give her to the Raja, saying "If our daughter bear sons to the Raja, they will neither of them succeed to the Raj; for when Sántanu dies Vow of his son his son Sántanava will become Raja.” Then Sántanava was henceforth determined to sacrifice himself in order to gratify his father; and he made a vow to the parents of the damsel, saying :"If you will give your daughter in marriage to my father, I will never accept the Raj, or marry a wife, or become the father of children by any woman; so that, if your daughter Santanava, who known as Bhishma, or “the dreadful." Sakuntala's own birth is lost in a myth, which was probably intended to exalt her origin. She is represented as being not the real but the adopted daughter of Kanwa the sage. Her real father is said to have been Viswamitra, a sage who is celebrated in Brahmanical legend on account of his having been originally a Kshatriya, who subsequently became a Brahman as the reward (?) of his austerities. Her mother was a celestial nymph named Menaka. The myth is of no value, and may be dismissed as a pure fabrication. A tradition has been preserved in Hebrew history which bears a curious resemblance in some points to that of Sakuntala and the ring, excepting that it is free from mythical matter. See the story of Judah and Tamar, Gen. xxxviii. 12 -26. The idea that Santanu had children by the goddess Gangá, who is sometimes regarded as the genius or spirit of the river Ganges, and sometimes as the river itself, is one of those senseless myths by which the Brahmans sought to glorify the ancestry of the later Rajas. |