The History of Indian Literature c9.51

c9.51

∗ See my Catalogue of these MSS., p. 119. [Two complete editions of the text, with Ráma's Commentary, have since appeared in India, the one at Calcutta in 1859–60, the other at Bombay in 1859; respecting the latter, see my notice in *I. Str.*, ii. 235-245. Gorresio's edition was completed by the appearance in 1867 of the text, and in 1870 of the translation, of the *Uttara-káṇḍa*. Hippolyte Fauche's French translation follows Gorresio's text, whereas Griffith's metrical English version (Benares, 1870-74, in 5 vols.) follows the Bombay edition. In my Essay, *Ueber das Rámáyaṇam*, 1870 (an English translation of which appeared in the *Indian Antiquary* for 1872, also separately at Bombay in 1873), I have attempted to show that the modifications which the story of Ráma, as known to us in its earliest shape in Buddhist legends, underwent in the hands of Válmíki, rest upon an acquaintance with the conceptions of the Trojan cycle of legend; and I have likewise endeavoured to determine more accurately the position of the work in literary history. The conclusion there arrived at is, that the date of its composition is to be placed towards the commencement of the Christian era, and at all events in an epoch when the operation of Greek influence upon India had already set in. This elicited a rejoinder from Kashinath Trimbak Telang (1873), entitled, *Was the Rámáyaṇa copied from Homer; as to which see Ind. Ant.*, ii. 209, *I. St.*, xiii. 336, 480. *The same writer afterwards, in the Ind. Ant.*, iii. 124, 267, pointed out a half *śloka* which occurs in the *Yuddha-káṇḍa*, and also twice in Pataṁjali’s Mahábháshya. But the verse contains a mere general reflection (*eti jívantam ánando naraṁ varshaśatád api*), and need not therefore have been derived from the Rámáyaṇa. In itself, consequently, it proves nothing as to the priority of the poem to Pataṁjali, and this all the less, as it is expressly cited by Válmíki himself merely as a quotation. On this and some other kindred points see my letter in the *Ind. Ant.*, iv. 247 ff. (1875).]