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The Tālavanas: Another key to the Age of a Part of the Mahābhārata
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Professor Edgerton exclaimed in 1944: “I have been so fortunate as to discover one datum of prime importance for its bearing on the date of this ‘original’ text of the Mbh…. In 2.28.49 occurs, in my opinion as a certain part of the original, the name of the city of Rome … It justifies the inference that our text cannot have been composed at any time before this city name came to the ears of the Indians. This means surely not before the first century b.c., and very likely not until a century or two later.” Upon the soundness of this inference it will suffice here to observe that the textual material upon which it is based leaves something to be desired. But when my attention was drawn for the first time to this passage of the Mahābhārata by Sir Walter Gurner's article in a recent issue of this Journal it at once struck me that, whatever may be the value of the reference to the Yavanas, the passage betrays the date of that portion of the epic by a reference of a much more concrete character.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1957
References
page 215 note 1 Introduction to the Sabhāparvan, Mahābhārata, ii, 1944, fasc. 14, p. xxvii.
page 215 note 2 1956, JRAS., 201.
page 215 note 3 I am obliged to Dr. A. L. Basham, for the information that there are grounds for supposing that our Mahābhārata was worked over at comparatively late periods and brought up to date in respect of such matters as janapada names; and for encouragement to publish this note.
page 215 note 4 Mahābhārata, ii, 28, 48. This passage should be read together with ii, 31, and (Bhīṣmaparvan), vi, 10.
page 215 note 5 See Mahābhārata, vi, 10, 56, 58.
page 215 note 6 Cf. variant read ings given, and Manu, x, 44 with the variant readings noted by Buehler in SBE., xxv, 412, n.
page 216 note 1 It first appears in Indian Antiquary, viii, 212, at 213, 11. 11–12 in the form Taḷa-; one may also refer to Epigraphia Carnatica, iii Malavalli 31 (a.d. 1117), and vi Kadur 69 (a.d. 1160).
page 216 note 2 Appearing e.g. in Epigraphia Carnatica, iv Chamarajnagar 181 (a.d. 1173); Yelandur 56 (a.d. 1290).
page 216 note 3 Cf. the legend of Talakāḍ's origin given in the Sthala-purāṇam of the place (for which see Wilson, H. H., The Mackenzie Collection, a descriptive catalogue, Calcutta, 1882Google Scholar; also Narasimhacar, L., A guide to Talkad, Mysore, 1950)Google Scholar. In the last-referred work at p. 3 we are told that “Talkāḍ” means “jungle”.
page 217 note 1 Talakāḍ is called “the frontier of the Gaṅgavāḍi-nāḍ” in Epi. Carn., ii, 240 (ca. 1178).
page 217 note 2 See Rao, M. V. Krishna, The Gangas of Talkad, Madras, 19363Google Scholar; Rao, N. Lakshminarayan and Panchamukhi, R. S., Karṇāṭahada Arasumanetanagaḷu, Dharwar, 1946 (pp. 110 and ff.)Google Scholar ; and Sastri, S. Srikantha, Early Gangas of Talakad, Bangalore, 1952Google Scholar (reviewed in this Journal).
page 217 note 3 Indian Antiquary, viii, 212, and Lakshminarayan Rao and Panchamukhi, 125–7.
page 218 note 1 The pioneer of Ganga territorial expansion appears to have been Avinīta, (ca. 494–555).
page 218 note 2 It appears, however, in the rather differently-designed vi, 10, 64, and ii, 31, 11, and was therefore a well-known term at the period in question.