History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c89.217

v7.c89.217

All ancient countries and peoples believed in dreams and satisfied their curiosity to know the future by interpreting them. The Chaldean astrologers and dream-interpreters were in high favour at Babylonian and Assyrian courts The Book of Daniel (chap 2) tells us how Nebuchadnezzar, a great king of Babylon, asked the Chaldeans not only to interpret dreams but commanded them on threat of death to make known to him the dream which he had forgotten and then to interpret it. Plato, the greatest of the Greek philosophers, regards dreams as important physical and psychic symptoms while certain dreams are conceded as of supernatural origin and explains in his Timaeus (chap. 46 and 47) that dreams are prophetic visions received by the lower appetitive soul (through the liver). In JRAS (old series) vol. 16 pp. 118-171 N. Bland contributes a long and interesting article on 'the Mahomedan science of Tābir or interpretation of dreams'. There are striking parallels between the rules to be observed by the dreamer and by the interpreter and the principles of interpretation (of dreams) by contraries and by dependence upon the religion, country and bodily conditions (such as total fast or full stomach) of the dreamer. On p. 141 of JRAS there is an interesting account of a dream of Nushirwan, a Sassanian king (531-579 A. D.), who saw a dream that he drank from a golden goblet and that a black hog put its head in the goblet and drank from it. Then we are told 'Buzurmihr, his minister, whom he consulted, told him it signified that his favourite princess had a black slave who was her lover and suggested that the women of his harem should be ordered to dance undressed in the presence of the king. One of them showing some hesitation in complying and being protected by the others was discovered to be a Hindu male slave and the Vazir’s interpretation was verified.’ The name of the Vazir remarkably agrees in sound with the name Varāhamihira and it is not very fantastic to suppose that Varāhamihira, probably the most famous astrologer and astronomer of early times in India, had been patronized by Nushirvan and held a high position in his court Chronology is quite in favour of this identification since Varāhamihira takes Śaka 427 (505 A D.) as the starting point for finding out the *ahaṇgana*.