The Harsa-Carita of Bana
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE HABSA-CARITA OF BANA. FEINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PEESS. ORIENTAL TRANSLATION FUND. NEW SERIES. II. THE HABSA-CABITA OF BANA TRANSLATED BY E. B. COWELL, M.A. PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND F. W. THOMAS, M.A. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND SOLD AT 22, ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON 1897 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK, G.C.S.I. this work is dedicated in sincere gratitude for the kindly sympathy and generous help which he has given to the New Series of the Oriental Translation Fund. To that generosity is due the publication of this translation of Bana's old historical romance. PREFACE. book of which an English translation is now for THEthe first time presented to those who are interested in Hindu literature and antiquities, appears to have been almost forgotten in India. One writer on rhetoric mentions it by name in his Sahityadarpana as an example of the kind of prose composition called Akhyayika, and a verse passage is quoted from it in the older treatise on rhetoric, the few native scholars had seen it for Kavyaprakaga ; yet many years, although rare copies did linger unknown in some native libraries. Professor FitzEdward Hall first introduced it to the knowledge of European Orientalists in the Introduction to his edition of Subandhu's Vasavadatta, published at Cal- cutta in the Bibliotheca Indica in 1859 ; he discovered three MSS. more or less complete. An edition with an excellent Commentary was published at Jatnmu in Kashmir in 1879 (Samvat 1936), and this was reprinted with some variations in Bombay A. D. 1892 (Qaka 1814), and an independent edition of the text appeared in Calcutta in 1883, prepared by Pandit Vidyasagar. Professor Fiihrer has promised a new edition of the text from a careful collation of all the MSS. available in India, but his numerous engagements in connection with the Lucknow Museum have hitherto hindered him in carrying his undertaking to completion. We have had to do our best with the imperfect materials at our command, and we shall mention at the close of this preface Vlll PREFACE. the additional help which we have received in our task from other quarters. The great merit of the Harsa-carita consists in the fact that it is a very early attempt at an historical romance. 1 Bana's other work, the Kadambarl , and Subandhu's Vasa- vadatta deal with mythological fiction, and everything is viewed through a highly poetical atmosphere; and the Dac,a-kumara-carita is equally based on pure imagination, although its characters, as in the picaresco literature of modern Europe, are the exaggerated pictures of the vulgar rogues and ruffians of every great city. But the author of the Harsa-carita has taken his own sovereign as his hero and has woven the story out of the actual events of his reign. The narrative can be often illustrated by contemporary inscriptions, in fact it is as much based on real events as Scott's Quentin Durward or Waverley. This gives to it a peculiar character which distinguishes it from all other works of Sanskrit literature. In studying any other classical San- skrit writing we are generally obliged to infer the date of its composition by a careful examination of the accidental allusions or the peculiar words and phrases which it may contain, or by tracing the earliest quotations from it in authors it is the interest of the Harsa- subsequent ; special carita that it treats of a period, which happens to be almost as familiar to the student of Indian history as the reign of any of the early Muhammadan monarchs of Northern India. Qri-harsa, who gives his name to the story, was the ruler at whose court the Chinese Buddhist traveller Hiuen Thsang for a time resided, who has left us such a precious description of India as he actually saw it in the early part of the seventh century (A.D. 630 644); and, fortunately for us, Qri-harsa was a well king who deserved to have this strong light thrown ' ' upon his reign. He was the Akbar of the Hindu period of Indian and history ; under his wise toleration the adherents of < 1 Translated by Miss Ridding in the present series. PREFACE. IX the contending religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, seemed to forget their rivalries in a common feeling of loyalty, just as Rajputs and Muhammadans served Akbar with equal devotion. The one great difference is that Akbar's reign is presented to us in broad daylight by such full contemporary narratives as those of Abu'l Fazl and 'Abd-ul-Kadir Badaum, which give us a detailed account of every great event and biographical notices of all the leading personages of the time while we learn the events of ; Qrl-harsa's reign only by the passing allusions of the Chinese visitor or the brief records of some inscription. Now here our romance comes in to supply a living and contemporary picture, wherein we can see something of the India of that time, just as we see in Arrian and Plutarch something of the India of Alexander's time but we in vain for some chronicler who would ; long have filled in the imperfect sketch with a thousand details now for ever lost. Bana's style resembles the estilo culto of Spanish litera- ture it abounds with double in the words and ; meanings veiled allusions in the sentences, so that the reader is apt to be bewildered by the dazzling coruscations which keep 1 flashing across his path . Most of these puns and under- meanings refer to mythological stories, or well-known poetical superstitions like the parted ruddy-geese on the opposite banks of a river, or the cakora's red eyes at the sight of poison; but some of them undoubtedly refer also to the events of his time and can only be unriddled now by patient research and critical insight. Thus Hofrath Prof. Biihler has shewn that in p. 76 the words at first sight might " seem to mean only that the supreme Lord (Qiva) took 1 We have tried to preserve this characteristic feature of our author's the in our style by continually explaining puns notes ; but we have often omitted them out of consideration to the English reader. Many of these will be found in the ' Additional Notes and Corrections ' in Appendix B. Appendix A. also contains two long descriptions omitted from the text. X PREFACE. the hand of Durga the daughter of the snowy mountain"; but under this mythological allusion is concealed a reference to a contemporary conquest, since the words may be also translated, "in our monarch a supreme lord has taken " tribute from an inaccessible land of mountains and snowy ; there are several similar allusions to the king's exploits in the same passage. Prof. Biihler remarks that the inscriptions of Amc,uvarman (three of which are dated Samvat 34 and 39) prove that the Qrl-harsa era was introduced into Nepal during the lifetime of the great King of Thanesar and Kanoj, who held the whole of Northern India from 606 to 648 A. D. " If an Indian prince adopts a new foreign era, especially one founded by a contemporary, that may be considered as almost a certain proof that the borrower had to submit to the 1 Qaka-kartri or establisher. of the era ." Similarly in p. 57 where we have a description of Harsa's reluctance to become king, till the Goddess of the Royal prosperity herself forced him to mount the throne, in spite of his previous vow of are at once of austerity, we reminded Hiuen Thsang's . story that Harsa at the advice of a Bodhisattva, refrained " from mounting the simhasana. So too in p. 168 where the rising clear-flecked moon (ga^diika) shone like the pointed of hump (Diva's tame bull, when blotted by mud scattered by his broad horn?," the 'commentator himself supplies us with the allusion, as he tells us in his note on the opening verses of chap, vi., that Qa9anka was the name of the dishonoured Gauda king against whom Harsa was marching. Hiuen Thsang states that Rajyavardhana was treacherously killed by Qasamka (Che-chang-kia), the ruler of Karnasuvarna in Eastern India. But beside these veiled historical allusions, the work has another interest from the vivid picture which it offers of the condition of Indian society and the manners and customs of the Bana is not a mere rhetorician his period. ; descriptions 1 Iiid. Ant. xix. 40. PREFACE. XI . of court and village life abound with masterly touches which hold up the mirror to the time. Not even the Pali Jatakas introduce us more directly into the very heart of the period or give us a more life-like picture. The court, the camp, the quiet villages, which then, as now, contained the great mass of the population, and the still more quiet monasteries and retreats, whether of Brahmans or Buddhists, are all painted with and his narrative illustrates and singular power ; sup- plements the Chinese traveller's journal at every turn. The first chapter gives the mythological history of Bana's family, the Brahmanical Vatsyayanas, until we come to his own birth and education, and his spending some years in travel partly for pleasure and partly to acquire learning. At length he returns to his home Prltikuta on the Sone, where after a while he receives (ch. 2) a summons from King Harsa's half-brother, that he should repair to the court and renew an intimacy which had been interrupted by some former acts of indiscretion.