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XXXII. The Child Krishna, Christianity, and the Gujars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The alleged influence of Christianity on the early development of Hinduism has long been a subject of investigation and controversy. Weber summed up in a masterly manner all that had been said for the one side; while with equal acumen Barth criticised and denied his conclusions. The discussion has had the effect of restricting the controversy to two points, both connected in the main with the worship of Kṛishṇa. The first relates to the Hindu doctrine of faith, or bhakti, as an essential condition of salvation, and has been dealt with by Dr. Grierson in a recent number of this Journal. The second refers to the origin of the child Kṛishṇa, his legend, and his cult, and is the subject of the present essay.

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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1907

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References

page 951 note 1 J.R.A.S. 1907, p. 311 ff.Google Scholar

page 952 note 1 Scythian is a convenient designation for all the tribes of Central Asia which invaded India between the second century B.C. and the sixth century A.D., since it is devoid of any racial connotation. The tribes on the northern and eastern frontiers of Persia and along the Hindu Kush were, some of them, akin to the Iranians; others were of Turki stock; others more or less Mongoloid, as they are at present. (J.R.A.S. 1906, p. 181 ff.)Google Scholar

page 952 note 2 Albērūnī, India, tr. Sachau, i, 22.

page 953 note 1 Missionary zeal, pagan and Christian. Sir Alfred Lyall has shown in a famous essay that Hinduism is a great proselytising religion, and the same thing might be shown of many of the pagan religions of antiquity. Isis, Mithras, Cybele, and in fact most of the Thracian, Phrygian, Asiatic, and Egyptian cults which overspread the Roman Empire, are instances in point. Missionary zeal was often dangerous to the proselytiser, and Phryne was tried for her life because she had introduced an orgiastic Thracian worship among the women of Athens.

page 953 note 2 Dio Chrys., Orat. xxxii, quoted in my “Buddhist Gnosticism, the System of Basilides” (J.R.A.S. 1902, p. 377 ff.), where the relation of Basilides to Indian beliefs is discussed.Google Scholar

page 953 note 3 Dio Cassius (lxxvii, 22, 23) expressly mentions the slaughter of foreigners. Caracalla expelled the surviving foreigners who were not merchants. Spartian (Caracalla, c. 6) simply says: “Dato militibus signo ut hospites suos occiderent, magnam cædem Alexandreæ fecit.”

page 954 note 1 In 333 A.D. Æizanes, the ruler of Axum, could boast that he had subdued a large part of Southern Arabia. His Greek inscription, first copied by Salt (Valentia's Travels, iii, 181)Google Scholar, has been the subject of much learned discussion. The conquests of the nameless king, whose inscription at Adule Cosmas copied, date from the latter part of the third century according to Glaser (McCrindle's Cosmas Ind., ii, 59).Google Scholar

page 954 note 2 Sewell, R., “Roman Coins found in India”: J.R.A.S. 1904, p. 591 ff. A few stray coins of Gordian have turned up; in one case they were brought into the country centuries afterwards; the others may possibly be evidence of the trade of Firmus mentioned in the following note.Google Scholar

page 954 note 3 Vopiscus says of Firmus, the rich Alexandrian merchant and pretender to the empire, whom Aurelian slew: “Idem et cum Blemyis societatem maximam tenuit et cum Saracenis. Naves quoque ad Indos negotiatorias saepe misit.” The direct trade to India was therefore still fitfully carried on by paying blackmail to the Blemyes; but I find no other proof of its existence for at least two centuries. (Vopiscus, “Firmus,” c. 3.)

page 955 note 1 Dio Chrys., Orat. xxxv.

page 955 note 2 Hultzsch recognises some words of Kanarese in a fragment of a Greek farce, which represents a Rājah talking an Indian tongue (J.R.A.S. 1904, p. 399 ff.).Google Scholar Pliny distinguishes one of the three Kalingas by a Dravidian numeral. Other examples will be found in Bishop Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar.

page 955 note 3 Jews traded to the mouth of the Indus (Abiria or Ophir). Pantænus found in India Christian Jews from the Persian Gulf, and Letronne gives graffiti of Jews in Eypt engaged in this Indian trade. We also hear of a colony of Jews in Afghanistan in the second century A.D., and the legend of S. Thomas mentions a Jewish slave-girl.

page 955 note 4 D'Alviella, : “Ce que l'Inde doit,” etc., pp. 99 ff. and 136.Google Scholar

page 956 note 1 Damascios in Photii Bibliotheca, ed. Bekker, , ii, p. 340Google Scholar, quoted by D'Alviella, , “Ce que l'Inde doit,” etc., p. 167Google Scholar (Hoeschelius, col. 1041). As the passage is curious, I translate it: “There came Brāhmans down [the river?] to Alexandria to Severus, who entertained them in his own house with befitting hospitality. They lived at his house in a grave and honourable fashion after the manner of their country, neither frequenting the public baths or the sights of the town; rather they shunned to be seen abroad. They lived on dates and rice, and water was their drink. These men neither belonged to the Brāhmans who pass their time in the hills, nor were they of those Indians who live in towns; rather they belonged to both in their manner of life, since they served the hill Brāhmans in whatever was needed from the towns, and were intermediaries for the townsmen in matters which required the assistance of the hill Brāhmans. Concerning these hill Brāhmans they said pretty much what writers always say, that by their prayers they brought rain and cloudless weather, and could bring about or avert famines, and had means of warding off other ills, as many as were irremediable otherwise. They also told us of one-footed men who lived among them, and of seven-headed dragons of a monstrous size; and many other incredible things did they relate.”

page 956 note 2 Pantænus found some Christians who used a Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic) copy of S. Matthew's Gospel; and long afterwards we have Jewish names among the trustees of the church at Cranganore on a copper-plate grant of the ninth century (I.A. iii, 310).Google Scholar Otherwise we hear of Persians.

page 956 note 3 McCrindle, : Cosmas Ind., iii, 119, and xi, 365.Google Scholar

page 957 note 1 Burnell, : I.A. iii, 308 ff.Google Scholar

page 957 note 2 The story is well told in Medlycott, , “India and the Apostle Thomas,” p. 188Google Scholar ff. The original will be found in Migne P.G. and L., vol. lxv. The Bishop is, I think, the first ecclesiastical writer to recognise the perfectly obvious fact that Theophilus was a native of the Maldives—obvious to anyone who remembers that the Greek β represents a Latin v. The sceptical reader may consult Rae, “The Syrian Church in India,” p. 96 ff.; but it is well to warn him that although I agree with Rae against the Bishop in the matter of Pantænus, I consider Rae's account of Theophilus both inaccurate and misleading. For the Indian mission of S. Thomas, see Phillips, , I.A. xxxii (1903), pp. 1 ff, 145 ff.;Google ScholarFleet, , J.R.A.S. 1905, p. 223 ff.Google Scholar I have treated at some length of the history of S. Thomas and of these Persian settlements in the south of India in the S.P.G. Quarterly, The East and the West, April, 1907: “Thomas, S. and his Tomb at Mylapore.”Google Scholar

page 957 note 3 I do not wish to deny all missionary activity to these Malabar and Singhalese Christians. They made a number of converts in their own neighbourhood; and the tomb of S. Thomas at Mylapore on the east coast of India was ‘discovered’ by a Christian hermit, apparently about the beginning of the sixth century. We read of a monastery of S. Thomas in Ceylon in the middle of the fourth century A.D. (Labourt, , “Le Christianisme dans l'Empire Perse,” p. 606)Google Scholar, and the monks wandered far and wide, and were the chief missionaries of the East. About 780 A.D. the Chinese Emperor presented a dress of honour to, and bestowed a title of rank upon, a Nestorian missionary, an Indian, who came, says. Le Quien, “ex regno Pagodum in India” (“Oriens Christianus,” ii, cols. 1267–8). But the chief element in the churches of Malabar and Ceylon was foreign, and if any missions were ever undertaken to Northern India they have been unrecorded.

page 957 note 4 J.R.A.S. 1907, p. 477 ff.Google Scholar

page 957 note 5 (Euseb., Præp. Evang., vi, 10).Google Scholar “Neither do the Christians in Parthia, although Parthians, indulge in polygamy, nor do those in Media expose their dead to the dogs, nor do the Persian Christians marry their daughters, nor do those among the Bactrians and the Gelæ corrupt their marriages.” The Christians were numerous Eusebius ascribes his quotation to Bardaisan the Syrian. Modern scholars generally ascribe the Syriac work “De Fato” (from which the quotation is taken) to his son; but in any case the work dates from the third century, and is quoted with some alterations and dramatic additions in the Clementine Recognitions, ix, 1929.Google Scholar Mr. Phillips, in his admirable synopsis of authorities for the Indian mission of S. Thomas (I.A. xxxii, pp. 1 ff., 145 ff.), has quoted this passage from the Clementine Recognitions, not noticing that the passage itself is a quotation, and that the words “As Thomas, who is preaching the gospel amongst them (i.e. the Parthians), has written to us ” are a dramatic touch added by the author of the Recognitions, and without historical value. The omission is serious, as prominence is given to the extract from the Clementines. I may add that the followers of Bardaisan himself were to be found in Bactria for several centuries, although they did not form communities.Google Scholar

page 958 note 1 “Nondum est prædicatum evangelium regni in toto orbe. Non enim fertur prædicatum esse evangelium—nec apud Seras nec apud Ariacin,” etc. (Origen in Matt. Comment., quoted by Harnack, , “Expansion of Christianity,” ii, p. 159).Google Scholar Origen is defining the countries which Christianity had reached by enumerating the limits beyond which it had not passed. The Seres are, of course, the Chinese of Central Asia. Ariakē follows after Barygaza in the “Periplus,” and, according to Pandit Bhagwanlal Indrīji, it is the equivalent for Aparāntikā, the name of the western coast of the Dekhan. The MS. of Origen is corrupt, and Ariakē is merely an editorial emendation. No stress can be laid upon it.

page 958 note 2 Quoted by Drouin, , “Mémoire sur lea Huns Ephthalites” (Louvain, 1895), p. 31Google Scholar. Drouin says: “Le christianisme pénétrait peu à peu dans l'Iran ou l'on construisait des chapelles et des monastères; de l'Iran jusque dans le pays des Kouchans, les parties méridionales de l'empire, et jusqu'aux Indes.” The Ephthalites adopted a Nestorian alphabet in the fifth century.

page 959 note 1 The original work was probably in Pahlavi. “Barlaam und Joasaph,” von Kuhn, E., p. 39Google Scholar. Sachau has proved the existence of a considerable Christian Pahlavi literature: J.R.A.S. (N.S.), IV, 230 ff. (quoted by Kuhn).Google Scholar

page 959 note 2 McCrindle, : “The Christian Topography of Cosmas,” iii, pp. 119120. Gibbon refers to this passage (“Decline,” etc., c. 47).Google Scholar

page 959 note 3 The Nestorian Patriarch Jesuab (650–660 A.D.) says: “Plenus est orbis terrarum episcopis, sacerdotibus, et fidelibus, qui tanquam stellæ cæli de die in diem augentur.”

page 959 note 4 (Bardaisan in Euseb, ., Præp. Evang., vi, 10).Google Scholar “There are many tens of thousands of those called Brāhmans among the Bactrians and the Indians.” “There are likewise amongst the Bactrians, in the Indian countries, immense multitudes of Brāhmans,” as the Clementine Recog. (ix, 20)Google Scholar put it. The companions of Alexander reckoned Brāhmans among the hill tribes of Kābul; and we have frequent references to the Brāhmans of Kābul and Bactria in subsequent writers.

page 960 note 1 Rawlinson, : “Seventh Oriental Monarchy,” pp. 106 and 141.Google Scholar Kaśmīr is not mentioned by name, but is, I think, clearly indicated if we take both passages into account. Vopiscus (Aurelianus, c. 29) says that this Kaśmīr shawl (“pallium breve purpureum lanestre”) was to be seen in his day in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. “Hoc munus rex Persarum ab Indis interioribus sumptum Aureliano dedisse perhibetur, scribens: Sume purpuram qualis apud nos est.” None of the Roman dyes could approach the Indian at that time, nor could European dyes compete with them until quite recently.

page 960 note 2 Gujarāt Gazetteer, vol. i, pt. 1, p. 142Google Scholar, where Wilson's works, vol. x, pp. 381385Google Scholar, and Vishnu-Puraṇa, Preface, xxxix, are referred to.

page 960 note 3 For the facts relating to the spread of Christianity in the East see Labourt, J., “Le Christianisme dans l'Empire Perse sous la dynastie Sassanide,” Paris, 1904Google Scholar; Harnack, , “Expansion of Christianity,” vol. ii, pp. 292300 (Eng. trans.)Google Scholar; Barthold, W., “Zur Geschichte des Christenthum in Mittel-Asien”; and Le Quien's monumental work, “Oriens Christianus,” Parisiis, 1740, vol. ii. Le Quien belonged to the order of the Preaching Friars.Google Scholar

page 961 note 1 In the days of the early Roman Empire this was carried so far as to reduce all the gods to one. “Some say that Apollo and Helios and Dionysos are the same, and that is your opinion, while many reduce all the gods simply to one single power and might, so that it makes no difference whether a man worships this one or the other“ (Dio Chrys., Orat. xxxi, Rhodiaca).

page 961 note 2 Wilson, : Vishṇu-Purāṇa, translation, p. 481.Google Scholar

page 961 note 3 Mahābhārata, Sabha-Parva, § 14; P. C. Eay's translation, p. 44.

page 962 note 1 Being more successful in this than was Baillie Nicol Jarvie, when he attacked his Highland opponent with the same weapon.

page 962 note 2 I.A., vol. iii (1874), p. 14 ff.Google Scholar

page 962 note 3 Mahābhārata, iii, Vana-Parva, §§ 15–22; P. C. Ray's translation, p. 49 ff.

page 963 note 1 Mahābhārata, iii, Vana-Parva, § 22; Ray, P. C., p. 65Google Scholar.

page 963 note 2 Mahābhārata, iii, Vana-Parra, § 15; Ray, P. C., pp. 4950Google Scholar.

page 963 note 3 Ammianus Marcellinus, xix, 18.Google Scholar

page 964 note 1 Wilson, v., Vishṇu-Purāṇa, Preface, pp. ix, xiii, xx, lxxi; trans., pp. 491, 492, 498.Google Scholar

page 964 note 2 For a long list of identifications between Greek and Egyptian deities see the Greek inscription set up by the officials of Ptolemy Euergetes II at Sehele, near the first cataract. Letronne, “Recueil des Inscriptions, etc., de Egypte,” Inscr. xxxii.

page 965 note 1 Nysa and Mēru seem to have been common names throughout this whole region. The famous horses of the Persian kings came from the Nysæan plains.

page 966 note 1 The chief authorities for the Indian Dionysos and Herakles are Diodorus Siculus, ii, 3839Google Scholar (also more briefly, iii, 63); Arrian's “Indica,” c. 5, 7,8, and 9; Strabo, , xv, 8 and 58.Google Scholar All these authors base their accounts mainly on Megasthenes. Nysa, Aornos, and the revels in Karmania are mentioned by all the historians of Alexander—especially by Quintus Curtius, who lays emphasis on Alexander's attempts to imitate Hercules and Father Bacchus. The Sibi, the Malli, and Oxydracæ are mentioned by all the historians. See more especially Arrian, , Anabasis, v, 414,Google Scholar for the Oxydracæ; for the Sibi, , Strabo, xv, 8Google Scholar (also McCrindle's notes in “Ancient India—its invasion by Alexander, the Great,” pp. 350–1 and 366).Google Scholar For the Brachmanes, Garmānes, Pramnæ, and Gymnetæ as described by Megasthenes, , see Strabo, xv, 59, 70, and 71Google Scholar, and for the worship of Zeus Ombrios and the Ganges, , Strabo, xv, 69.Google Scholar For Prometheus, Arrian, , Anabasis, v, 3,Google Scholar and Strabo, xv, 8.Google Scholar All these passages have been translated by McCrindle.

page 966 note 2 Augustus used a seal with the head of Alexander; and Caracalla carried his imitation of Alexander to the extent of a craze. Among other things he led elephants about with him, (Dio Cassius, lxxvii, c. 7), “so that even in this point he might appear to imitate Alexander or rather Dionysos.”

page 967 note 1 Strabo doubts the existence of an Indian Herakles, on the ground that his dress did not correspond with the ancient Greek but Roscher, Lexicon (s.v. Herakles), says that from the fifth century B.C. the club and the lion's skin were the invariable characteristics of Herakles.

page 967 note 2 “Oksho [properly Oesho] is a standing figure, evidently suggested by that of Herakles.” On some of Huvishka's coins he has three heads and four arms. “With one hand he grasps a club which rests on the ground; the second hand holds a trident; the third a thunderbolt; the fourth a water-vessel.“On other coins of Huvishka he is represented as a naked mendicant. Coins of Vāsudēva represent him with the trident and the moon, and sometimes with, sometimes without the humped bull Nandi. Cunningham enumerates seven different representations of Oksho [Oesho] on the coins of Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasudēva, . Cunningham, “Coins of the Kushāns,” pt. iii, pp. 100101Google Scholar.

page 967 note 3 J.B.B.R.A.S., xxii, pp. 151165Google Scholar; and see Fleet, , in J.R.A.S. 1907, pp. 419426.Google Scholar

page 967 note 4 Periplus, c. 54 and 59. Pliny, , H.N., vi, 105.Google Scholar

page 968 note 1 The “Periplus” mentions the cape and haven of Komar (Cape Comorin). It says that it was a sacred bathing-place frequented both by men and women, especially by persons who intended to devote the rest of their life to celibacy (Periplus, c. 58).

page 968 note 2 SirBirdwood, G. (“The Industrial Arts of India,” p. 147) gives a representation of this patera, and a full description of it.Google Scholar

page 968 note 3 Fergusson supposed that the patera might have formed part of the spoils of Antioch when Chosroes I captured it; but the wheel of the chariot is thoroughly native; the spokes are far too numerous for a Greek or Roman chariot.

page 968 note 4 According to an old tradition mentioned by Dr. Stein another colony of Indians migrated about the same time from Taxila to Khotan; and Lassen mentions various tribes which are said to have fled eastwards from the Panjāb, in consequence of the irruption of the Yavanas.

page 968 note 5 Dāmōdara is a title generally of Kṛishṇa, but it is also applied to Balarāma. Vishṇu-Puraṇa, Wilson's, trans., p. 570.Google Scholar

page 969 note 1 Arria1: Indica, c. 7.

page 969 note 2 J.R.A.S. 1904, pp. 313314.Google ScholarCunningham, (“Coins of Ancient India,” preface, pp. viiviii)Google Scholar identifies Herakles with Śiva, but he makes Dionysos to be Sūryadeva, the Sun-god.

page 969 note 3 Diod. Sic., i, 19. McCrindle translates the concluding sentences of c. 19 and the first words of c. 20 (“Ancient India,” p. 204), but gives a wrong reference.Google Scholar

page 969 note 4 In the Ptolemaic inscription at Sehele, already referred to, Dionysos is identified with Pet-em-p-Amenti, ‘he who is in the Amenti,’ i.e. Osiris. The identification here is based on the fact that Dionysos was a god of the underworld; it was possible for the Greeks to regard Kṛishṇa also as the representative of the Winter sun, the sun of the underworld. But I doubt if Diodorus meant anything more than I have said in the text.

page 969 note 5 Alex, Clemens., Strom., iii, c. 7, p. 194 Syl.Google Scholar

page 970 note 1 Clemens' statement is perhaps confirmed by an inscription at Redēsiye, the second of the three halting-places between Edfu and the seaport of Berenice, the entrepôt of the Egyptian trade with India. It was customary for travellers to record their thanks for a prosperous journey in the ancient temple of Chnemu, or Pan, which stood there, and gave its name to the locality, One of these travellers, an Indian named Sophōn (Subhānu?), expresses his gratitude to “Pan, the protector of my journey, and the hearer of my prayer” (J.R.A.S. 1904, p. 402Google Scholar; Subhānu is Hultzsch's suggestion). The epithets were the standing epithets employed by every traveller in these dedications; even Jews used them. It is doubtful, therefore, whether Sophōn was not merely paying his respects to the local deity; he may not have meant any Indian god at all. A full account of this fortified hydreuma, or caravanserai, and its inscriptions,, will be found in Letronne, , op. cit., vol. ii, Inscr. clxxvii, etc.Google Scholar The two Jewish inscriptions are the most curious.

page 970 note 2 Given by Stobæus in an extract from Bardaisan (either directly or from a passage preserved by Porphyry), and translated by McCrindle, , “Ancient India,” pp. 172174.Google Scholar

page 970 note 3 Strabo, , xv, 59.Google Scholar

page 971 note 1 Strabo, , xv, 58.Google Scholar

page 971 note 2 McCrindle, : “Ancient India: its invasion by Alexander, ,” p. 340.Google Scholar

page 971 note 3 This was true down to Mahomedan times. Albērūnī, who was welī acquainted with this region, knew only the Vaishnavas. He scarcely mentions-Śiva. Albērūnī's India, vol. i, Preface, p. xlvii, tr. Sachau.Google Scholar

page 972 note 1 “Coli Herculem” (Pliny, , H.N., vi, 22).Google Scholar

page 972 note 2 Davids, Rhys' suggestive work, “Buddhist India,” pp. 235–6.Google Scholar

page 972 note 3 He is represented only on the coins of Pañchāla. Cunningham, : “Coins of Ancient India,” p. 84.Google Scholar The legends of these coins are in letters “somewhat later than Asoka's date, but I think earlier than the Christian era ” (p. 80).

page 973 note 1 Buddha is “l'etre existant par lui-mêeme.” “Le dieu an dessus des dieux.” “II est dieu par lui-même.” Vistara, Lalita, trans. Foucaux, tom, i, pp. 85, 90, 107Google Scholar (Musée Guimet, vi).

page 973 note 2 “The incarnations on earth of portions of every deity.” Mahābhārata, Sabhā-Parva, § 36, Ray's, P. C. trans., p. 103Google Scholar.

page 973 note 3 Vishṇu-Purāṇa, Wilson's, trans., p. 399.Google Scholar

page 973 note 4 Barth, : “The Religions of India,” p. 167, note 1.Google Scholar

page 973 note 5 Nārāyana, says an inscription, “is entirely devoted to [the welfare of] the universe.” (Fleet, “Gupta Inscriptions,” (C.I.I., vol. iii), p. 161.)Google Scholar

page 973 note 6 For Avalōkitēśwara, see Cowell, , I.A. viii, p. 249 ff. Also Fergusson and Burgess: “Cave Temples of India,” passim. The so-called Buddhist litany, a frequent subject in the later caves, is best seen in pl. lv, and described on p. 358. Avalōkitēśwara appears from heaven to save his worshippers from the wild elephant, the tiger, and the snake, from shipwreck and the sword, etc. The cult of Avalōkitēśwara seems to me to throw considerable light on the development of the Hindu doctrine of bhakti.Google Scholar

page 974 note 1 Mahābhārata, Śānti-Parva, Ray, P. C., ii, pp. 774–5Google Scholar, where Kṛishṇa is stated to be one of the latest incarnations of the god. The Vishṇu-Purāṇa makes him long posterior to Vishṇu's incarnation as Buddha. Wilson, , V.P., tr., pp. 338341. For a different opinion see Barth, “The Religions of India,” p. 167, note 1.Google Scholar

page 974 note 2 “Vishnu, who is a mighty lily on the water-lily which is the face of Jāmbavatī: “Fleet: “Gupta Inscriptions,” (C.I.I., vol. iii), p. 270.Google Scholar

page 974 note 3 Fleet, : “Gupta Inscriptions,” (C.I.I., vol. iii), p. 65.Google Scholar

page 974 note 4 Fleet: ibid., p. 55.

page 975 note 1 Hopkins, : “Religions of India,” p. 457.Google Scholar “It is certain,” says Mr. Growse, “that Kṛishṇa was celebrated as a gallant warrior prince for many ages before he was metamorphosed into the amatory swain who now, under the title of Kanhaiya, is worshipped throughout India ” (Growse, , “Mathurā,” p. 50). All my references are to the second and much enlarged edition of this work published in 1880.Google Scholar

page 975 note 2 “It is doubtful if Kṛishṇa the boy, and his adventures at Vrindāvan, were not subsequent inventions,” i.e. subsequent to the completion of the Mahābhārata. “There are no allusions to them in the poem of an unsuspicious nature.” (Vishṇu-Purāna, Wilson, trans., p. 492, note 1.)Google Scholar

page 975 note 3 So says Weber, , I.A., vol. xxx (1901), p. 280.Google Scholar

page 975 note 4 I.A., vol. vi (1877), pp. 364–5.Google Scholar

page 976 note 1 Fleet, : “Gupta Inscriptions,” (C.I.I., vol. iii), p. 55.Google Scholar

page 976 note 2 Although the Mahābhārata represents Kṛishṇa as an ascetic who passed long periods of time in penances on the banks of the Jamnā (Vana-Parva, , § cxxv, P. C. Ray, p. 381), Mathurā is nowhere mentioned among the various and conflicting lists of tīrthas, a proof of the lateness of the child legend, and that it was later than the story of the White Island, one of the latest passages in the poem.Google Scholar

page 976 note 4 On the Greeks at Mathurā, Growse, v., pp. 99100.Google Scholar

page 977 note 1 Growse, : “Mathurā,” 2nd ed., p. 155.Google Scholar Mr. Growse discusses the subject very fully. A full account of the Mathurā sculptures is given in his work, and in vol. iii of Sir A. Cunningham's Archæological Reports Mr. Growse also quotes in full the statements of Fa-hian and Hiuen-tsiang regarding the Buddhism of Mathurā; and Mr. Watters devotes twelve pages to a commentary on Hiuen-tsiang's visit to the place (On Yuan Chwang,” vol. i, pp. 301313). He points out that Hiuen-tsiang makes no mention of Buddhist (or other) religious establishments in the district round Mathurā. Braj had not yet become a sacred land, to the Buddhists at any rate—a proof that Buddhism had nothing to do with the invention of the story.Google Scholar

page 977 note 2 The comic and drunken Herakles was a common subject in Greek literature and art after the time of Alexander.

page 977 note 3 Besides the names, some of the details have been taken from Hindu sources. The story of Gōvardhana is imitated from Rāvana carrying off Kailāsa. When Paraśurāma visits the son of Daśaratha at Ayōdhyā, he sees in the body of the youthful hero the Ādityas, Vasus, Rudras, Pitṛis, the seas, the mountains, the Vedas, and Upanishads—in short, the three worlds (Vana-Parva, , § xcix, P.C. Ray, p. 316)Google Scholar, precisely as Yaśōdā afterwards perceived them in the mouth of the infant Kṛishṇa.

page 978 note 1 Weber, : “Indische Streifen,” vol. iii, p. 428.Google Scholar

page 978 note 2 The Apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew supplies, I think, the nearest parallels to the stories in the fifth book of the Vishṇu-Purāṇa. The story of the crooked damsel Kubjā is usually compared with the Gospel story of the woman who had an issue of blood; but the manner in which Kṛishṇa pulls the unguentmaker straight (Vishṇu-Purāṇa, Wilson, tr., p. 550)Google Scholar is exactly the way in which the youthful Christ makes two pieces of wood equal by pulling them out to the same length. (Pseudo-Matthew, c. 37.)

page 978 note 3 Wilson, : Vishṇu-Purāṇa, tr., p. 524.Google Scholar

page 979 note 1 Wilson, : Vishṇu-Purāṇa, tr., p. 525.Google Scholar

page 979 note 2 Dr. Grierson informs me that the epithet Govinda has really nothing to do with cattle, but is equivalent to Upēndra, ‘the little Indra.’

page 979 note 3 “Mahēswara, le fils d'un dieu” (Lalitavistara, , trans. Foucaux, vol. i, p. 102: Annales du Musée Guimet, vii).Google Scholar

page 979 note 4 Vana-Parva, Mahābhārata, § lxxxix; P. C. Ray, p. 293.Google Scholar

page 980 note 1 This assertion requires an essay to itself, but if anyone will compare the miserable infant whom the Hermes of Praxiteles at Olympia holds in his hand with the divine children of the Italian painters, he will be able to realise the vast gulf of feeling that separates the pagan from the Christian school.

page 980 note 2 Wilson, : Vishṇu-Purāṇa, tr., p. 503.Google Scholar

page 981 note 1 Growse, : “Mathurā,” p. 73.Google Scholar Some of the sacred localities are 40 miles distant from Mathurā, and the peramhulation of Braj by the pilgrims is said to embrace a circuit of nearly 150 miles. “To a very recent period, almost the whole of this large area” of Braj “was pasture and woodland” (Growse, , “Mathura,” p. 70). The area was formerly much larger (p. 75).Google Scholar

page 981 note 2 Wilson, : Vishṇu-Purāṇa, tr., p. 506, note 1.Google Scholar

page 982 note 1 See the bas-relief of the seven mothers at Ellora (Fergusson and Burgess, “Cave Temples of India,” pl. lxxii), and the inscription translated by Fleet, , “Gupta Inscriptions” (C.I.I., vol. iii), p. 78.Google Scholar

page 982 note 2 I can find no trace of Christian influence in the Lalitavistara. There are certain bits of folklore which it has in common with the Apocryphal Gospels, e.g., the sāl tree which bends down to Māyā Devī, the images falling down in the presence of the infant, the mysteries of the alphabet, and the tree which affords the meditative Buddha a shade despite the revolutions of the sun. The other resemblances to the Gospels are curious, but are sufficiently accounted for by the context. The birth of Buddha is announced in a dream, like that of many heroes, and explained to Śuddhodana by a Bráhman. Māyā Devī is an ascetic nun, and therefore a virgin; she remains intact after she is miraculously delivered of the infant; and everything is intended to enhance the idea of physical purity. The visit of the aged Rishi who takes the child to his bosom is followed by the visit of Maheśwara, who does the same thing; and Asita's discourse on the marks of greatness which the child bears has no resemblance with the song of Simeon. Asita weeps because he will not see the glory of Buddha; S. Simeon rejoices that he has seen “the light of the Gentiles.” The distress of the father and aunt is natural when Buddha makes his first meditation under the ‘jambu’ tree, and they know not where he is; and it is followed by attempts to restrain him within the palace. Thus the situation in each case can be rationally explained, and even if it were suggested, it is developed in purely Indian fashion. The birth of Buddha occurs at the full moon of Pausha (January), but that is because he was conceived in Vaiśākha, the first month of the year in Upper India. The number of these coincidences is certainly striking, but their working out is Indian.

page 983 note 1 Their clan villages can be traced back to the middle of the seventeenth century (Baden-Powell, , “Village Communities,” p. 283)Google Scholar. Elliott remarks generally that the Jāts of the United Provinces occupy the same Pergunnahs which they did in the time of Akbar (Glossary, Elliott's, ed. Beames, i, p. 134).Google Scholar The Jāts of Hansī were defeated by Kutbu-d-dīn in 1192 A.D. (Elliott, , History of India, etc., vol. ii, p. 217)Google Scholar, while the Jāts are said not to have entered the Sahāranpur district until about 1600 A.D. (Glossary, Elliott's, i, p. 295)Google Scholar. They were probably in Mathurā and the districts round Delhi before this time.

page 984 note 1 Crooke, W.: “Natives of Northern India,” p. 114.Google Scholar

page 984 note 2 On Gujar polyandry see Crooke's, Tribes and Castes,” etc., s.v. Gujar, vol. ii, pp. 444–5.Google Scholar

page 984 note 3 On the character, physique, and distribution of the Gujars in the Panjāb and the United Provinces see Elliott's Glossary (ed. Beames, ), vol. i, p. 99 ff.Google Scholar, also pp. 179 and 296; Ibbetson, “Outlines of Panjāb Ethnography” (Census of 1881), sections 480 and 481; and Crooke, W., “Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh,” s.v. Gujar; also Crooke, “Native Races of Northern India,” pp. 22 and 114 f.Google Scholar Every officer who has served in the Gujar districts can confirm from his own experience the accounts given by these authors. The Bombay Gazetteer deals very fully with the subject of the Gurjaras, but says little of their distribution or physique in the Bombay Presidency. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i, pt. 1, chapters viii-x, and Appendix iii;Google Scholar also vol. ix, pt. 1, App. B, is devoted to the Gurjjaras. For some further information see Cunningham, , Archæological Survey, vol. ii, pp. 7073Google Scholar, and Baden-Powell, , “Indian Village Community,’ p. 101.Google Scholar

page 985 note 1 Individuals strayed further east. A certain Gurjara was employed to engrave a copper-plate grant of Harshavardhana's, found in the Azimgarh District. E.I., vol. i, p. 72.Google Scholar

page 985 note 2 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i, pt. 1 (Gujarāt), p. 469.Google Scholar

page 986 note 1 Harshacharita, , trans. Cowell, and Thomas, , p. 101.Google Scholar

page 986 note 2 Rājataraṅgiṇī, v, sl. 149 ff.Google Scholar; Stein's, trans., i, p. 205Google Scholar and note. Cunningham, : Archælogical Survey, ii, p. 71.Google ScholarDuff, : “Chronology of India,” 883 A.D.Google Scholar

page 986 note 3 The history of Bhīnmāl is given in the Bombay Gazetteer (Gujarāt), vol. i, pt. 1, appendix iii, more especially p. 467Google Scholar ff. For the Broach kingdom v. ibid., chap, x, p. 113 ff. (also some remarks in chap. viii). In the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix, pt. 1, appendix B, p. 469 ff.,Google Scholar the whole subject of the Gujars is treated at length, with special regard to their early history. Cunningham and Bühler, relying on three copper-plate grants, traced back the Broach dynasty to 400 or 430 A.D., and connected them with the Kushans. But Pandit Bhagwanlal Indrīji and Dr. Fleet have shown that these grants are forgeries. The controversy is summed up in a note to the Gujarāt Gazetteer, vol. i, pt. 1, pp. 117118Google Scholar; and the compilers of the Gazetteer regard the arguments against the genuineness of the grants to be conclusive. Indeed, the genuine grant made by Nirihullaka, , the Forest King (Bombay Gazetteer, Gujarāt, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 114Google Scholar, and E.I. ii, 21),Google Scholar is sufficient in itself to decide the question against Cunningham and Bühler.

page 987 note 1 Bombay Gazetteer, Gujarāt, vol. i, pt. 1, p. 114.Google Scholar

page 987 note 2 Ibid., p. 116.

page 988 note 1 Ibid., p. 469, quoting Gazetteer, Khāndesh, xii, p. 39Google Scholar.

page 988 note 2 Bombay Gazetteer, Gujarāt, vol. ix, pt. 1, p. 500 ff.Google Scholar The Gazetteer identifies the Gujars with the White Huns, and certain of the existing Rājput tribes with the Gujars, and thus ascribes to the Gujars what is true of the Rājputs or of the Hūṇas.

page 988 note 3 “The Gujars, like the Jāts, all state that they came from the west country into these parts,” i.e. into the districts round Delhi and Mīrat (Glossary, Elliott's, ed. Beames, vol. i, p. 101).Google Scholar For some other details Crooke, V. (“Tribes and Castes,” etc., s.v. Gujar, pp. 443–4) and Ibbetson (“Panjāb Ethnography,” § 480). Some of the subdivisions claim to be connected with the Bhattis.Google Scholar

page 988 note 3 The Gujars “appear to have come into India in connection with the Huns,” says Dr. Hoernle (Hist, of India by Hoernle, & Stark, , p. 61).Google Scholar The Gujarāt. Gazetteer (vol. i, pt. 1, p. 468) speaks of the “great horde of Northern invaderswhom the Gurjaras led.”Google Scholar