The name of Vikramâditja is a household word in the epic mythology of
India; and freely it seems to have been adopted by or conferred upon
those who emulated the heroic acts of some first great bearer. But
as the legendary chroniclers are more occupied with extolling the
merits of their favourites, than with establishing their place in
the page of history, it becomes a well-nigh impossible task for the
modern investigator to trace out and fix the times and seasons of
all those who, either in fact or in fiction, have borne the name,
or even to distinguish with certainty how many there have been,
still less, what are the peculiar deeds and attributes of each.
A writer (1), who has examined painstakingly into the matter, tells
us that the popular mind is only conscious of one Vikramâditja,
so that without troubling itself to consider the insufficiency of
one life to embrace all the aggregate of wonderful works it has
to tell of him, it supposes him rather to have had a prolonged or
recurring existence as marvellous in itself as the events of which it
is composed. On the other hand, he found that native writers made out
the number variously from four to nine, though he could not find that
they determined with precision the existence of more than two. An
additional difficulty arises from this, that the very distinctive
super-appellations derived from their deeds by heroes bearing the
name seem to have passed over to others along with the name itself;
as, for instance, Gardabharâpa = "donkey-form," given to one of them
on account of his being temporarily transformed into a donkey by his
father; the name of Sakjaditja is similarly given indiscriminately
to others who lived at different periods, though the origin of the
word can only be found in an exploit of one of them, who with the
aid of Shêsa, the serpent-god, destroyed an oppressor named Sâkja
(2). While the name Vikramaâditja itself seems rather a descriptive
appellation than a name, being composed of the two Sanskrit words,
vikrama and âditja--the sun, or bright exposition of heroic virtue.
You may form some idea of the uncertainty thus created if you imagine
the Roman historians to have been silent, and suppose, that nothing
remained to us of the lives of the Emperors, for instance, but certain
panegyrics of bards and traditions of the people, eked out by a little
scanty assistance from inscriptions and coins, and unsystematic and
untrustworthy chronicles. You may then conceive, how with no fixed
dates marked out for determining the period of the reign of each,
and no literary criterion to distinguish incongruities, a fertile
imagination, aiming rather at exciting admiration than conveying
information, could run riot with the mass of the acts and adventures,
the victories and achievements of the whole number, because the names
or titles of "Augustus" and "Cæsar" could be applied to many or all.
There is also the further difficulty that the heroic myths of India
have travelled on from tribe to tribe, and from province to province
(3), the character of the hero and his exploits incurring many
transformations and fresh identifications under the process (4).
Not to go into the elaborate discussion which the intricate study
of the Indian dynasties has called forth, it may suffice in this
place to observe that, in the absence of more regular records, the
greatest aid we have in arriving at some fixed knowledge of the
events of a remote age in India is derived from inscriptions and
coins (5). And, as a specimen of the thought and care that has been
brought to bear on the matter, to specify the interesting circumstance
connected with this particular instance, that the nearest approach to
a satisfactory determination of the date of the chief bearer of the
name of Vikramâditja that is likely to be attained has been arrived at
from the observation of the influence of Greek art on the execution
of certain of the coins (6) which have been preserved and collected,
connecting them with the period succeeding Alexander's invasion. A
careful collation of these specimens with the most authentic list
of the kings has given tolerable authority for asserting that the
date of 57 B.C. may be assumed for the date of the first historic
(7) Vikramâditja, whose chief honour lies in having overcome and
superseded the descendants of the foreign race of rulers who had been
in possession of his native country before his time. In pursuing the
history of his dynasty, however, the help so far afforded by the coins
ceases, and the only written records of him are the collections of
popular fables of his deeds. Only one of these collections, and of
that the date is unknown, has any pretension to rank as history; and
even this is full of wonders and manifest exaggerations. Its author,
Ravipati Gurumûrti by name, informs the reader, however, that he had
brought together and compared many Sanskrit manuscripts, and sifted
much oral tradition in its compilation.
According to this account, Vikramâditja was the son of a Brahman named
Kandrasarman, the fourth son of Vishnusarman, inhabiting a city called
Vedanârâjanapura, a name not found in any other writer. Dissatisfied
with the ordinary occupations on which he was kept employed by
his parents, he ran away from home and after many adventures came
to Uggajini, where he married the daughter of Dhvagakîrti, the
reigning sovereign of Malâva (8). His son Vikramâditja was the more
celebrated hero, and according to another MS. (quoted in W. Taylor's
Examination of the Mackenzie MSS.) the former of these two was not
called Vikramâditja at all, but Govinda.
Feeling an interior conviction of his great destiny, Vikramâditja
(the son) determined on obtaining supernatural aid in fulfilling it;
and, with this view, he devoted himself to prayer and retirement, until
he had obtained an apparition of the goddess Kali, the chosen wife of
Shiva, who gave him the solemn promise that he should be invulnerable
to all enemies with the exception of one who should be supernaturally
born; and that he should rejoice in a happy reign of a thousand years
(9). By the shrewd advice of his half-brother Bhatti, whom he made
his minister, he contrived to obtain out of this promise double the
length of years actually named, for he arranged to reign for only six
months at a time, spending six months in contemplation in the jungle,
so that it took two thousand years to make up a thousand years' reign
(10). In another account, he is made to reign 949 years; and, on the
other hand, in another (11) only a hundred and six years.
It might have been expected that a people who raised themselves at
so remote a period to a comparatively high degree of civilization,
and in other departments of mental exertion distinguished themselves
in so marked a manner, should of all things have possessed a copious
historical literature, but there are other things to take into account
which explain why the contrary is the case (12). A German writer
(13) has put the case very summarily. "Their religion," he says,
"has destroyed all history for the Hindus. They are taught to look
on life as a mere passing condition of probation and sorrow, and its
incidents, consequently, as unworthy to be recorded." But this is
a hardly fair statement, and only true to a certain extent. Benfey
(14) perhaps reaches nearer the mark when he says,--"The life of man
was for them but a small portion of the immense divine life pervading
the whole universe. It lay, so to speak, rolled up in a fold of the
mantle of the godhead. Viewed thus, history became a theme so vast that
the infinitesimal human element of it was lost to view. Theosophies,
idealisms, allegories, myths, filled up the place of the record of the
doings of mortals." Troyer (15) takes nearly the same view, but further
calls attention to the influence exercised by the religious teaching
concerning re-births and transmigration of souls in working against
history becoming a science. Historical characters lost their positive
identity, and the effect a man's acts under a previous existence
were taught to exercise on his fate diminished the responsibility
and merit of, and consequently the interest in, his actions.
To arrive at a more exact view, however, it is necessary to
distinguish between the parts which Brahman and Buddhist teaching
have respectively to bear in the matter. The Brahmanical castes
became subdivided into groups composed of many families, with no
common founder, the preservation of whose name and deeds would have
afforded an instigation to building up the materials of a national
history. Only at a comparatively late period some traditions were
kept up of the heads of these groups, but this in such a way as to
serve rather to throw back attention on to the past and restrain it
from the contemplation and record of contemporary events, Caste took
the place of country, and the interest of the individual was drawn
away from national to local interest.
Next, the history of the gods possessed a much higher importance in
their eyes than that of the kings of the earth, while at the same
time the humanistic conception of their character rendered the myths
concerning them of a nature to clash with and supersede the records of
earthly notabilities. Their wars and their loves and their undertakings
were indeed often superhuman in scale, but they were yet for the
most part no more exalted in nature, than the occupations of men. But
from this habit of making their divinities actors in gigantic human
incidents, their mind grew used to regard the marvellous and unreal as
possible and true, and was at no pains to fix any data with exactness.
Then their contemplative mode of life kept them out of actual contact
with what was going on in the world around them. Most Brahmans lived
engrossed by the service of the temple, or else occupied with their
families or their disciples. Very few are the examples of their acting
as ministers or judges, or taking any part in public life.
Further, many elements of history may be said to have scarcely
existed at all. All changes of manners and customs, all growth of
arts and sciences, were impeded by the appointment of fixed laws,
and remained pretty much the same for long periods.
Again, the subdivision of the country into multitudinous governments,
and the comparatively short duration of any large union of them
under one dynasty--as, for instance, the Maurja or the Gupta--further
weakened any tendency to the formation of a national spirit. The best
preserved attempts at history are those of Lankâ (Ceylon), Orissa,
Cashmere, the Dekhan, and other kingdoms or provinces which have
all along preserved their identity. Where one country fell under
the empire of another its history naturally lapsed in that of the
conquering state, or became altogether lost; and as such annexations
were mostly effected by violence, it is only to be expected that
the conqueror should discourage any thing that would keep up the
memory of the rulers he had superseded. The Chronicle of Cashmere,
called the Râga Taraginî, or "Stream of Kings," is perhaps the best
written. It was compiled by Kalhana Pandita, who lived, however, as
late as 1150 of our era, and is carried down to the year 1125. He
appears to have laboured to make it as complete and reliable as
the vague and scattered materials at his disposal admitted; yet so
little was even he capable of appreciating the value of accuracy,
that he ascribes to a reign (removed from his own date by no more
remote period than 600 years) a length of 300 years. And this is
but a small fable by comparison with others of his statements. This
Chronicle possesses the peculiarity of being almost the only work of
an historical nature compiled under Brahman influence.
The only work which has any pretension to universality in its scope
is the Karnâtaka Râgakula. But though it begins with an account of the
creation of the world and the incarnations of Vishnu, and narrates the
deeds of typical heroes like Pandarva and Vikramâditja, it yet only
contains the history of the Dekhan, and is, after all, a modern work
edited at the bidding of English rulers. The only earlier work of the
same character is one professing to give the general history of India
from Ashokja to Pratîtasena, written in the fourteenth century. This,
however, is believed not to have been compiled by a native Indian,
and is, at any rate, not the work of a Brahman, though possibly of
a Buddhist.
In the matter of historical compilation we have in general more to
thank Buddhism than Brahmanism for. The simple Sûtra, or colloquies
of Shâkjamuni with his disciples, written in masajja, a poetical
prose pleasingly broken into a sort of cadence, themselves form
a kind of history of the country contained in this sort of memoir
of its great religionist. The simple Sûtra are of two classes. The
first class consists of an account of Buddha's own wanderings and
personal dealings both with his disciples and others, and were probably
compiled (16) by the first great Sangha, or Synod, within 100 years
after his death (17), though bearing marks in many places of having
been reconstructed at a later period. The other class takes notice
of events and persons belonging to a subsequent period. Besides
these there are the Mâhajâna-Sûtra, a more detailed and developed
continuation of the same species of chronicle, but bearing marks of
having been compiled at a much more advanced date still, for they
introduce ideas which do not belong to the early teaching of Buddhism,
but to a very late development.
These writings possess great historical importance, but yet are by no
means free from the faults of inaccuracy of date and arrangement; of
idealizations of the persons treated of; the introduction of fabulous
incidents, transmigrations, and such like. The very desire of the
Buddhists to make their records more complete and useful than the
Brahmans', often led to additional complications, because it induced
all manner of interpolations--as for instance, whole series of kingly
personages, the account of whose lives is not even to be set down to
the exaggerations of ill-preserved tradition, but to pure fabrication
of the imagination.
More reliance on the whole is to be placed on the great epic poems,
and, chiefly, the Purâna and Mahâ Bhârata.
The works which we now find extant, with the title of Purâna
(ancient)--eighteen in number,--are, however, at best but the
reproduction of six older compilations, either collected from the
recitations of Sûtas (bards), or themselves reproductions of still
older compilations, which have probably perished for ever. They
contain pretty well all that is known concerning the origin, mode of
life, heroic deeds, and ways of theological thought, of those Indian
nations who acknowledged either Vishnu or Shiva for their highest god;
and traces are to be distinguished by which the statement of earlier
and purer belief has been distorted or biassed according to the tenets
of the later compiler.
The Mahâ Bhârata concerns itself more exclusively with the deeds of the
gods and heroes, and is itself often referred to in the Purânas. Both
of them bear witness that it was the frequent custom, on occasions
of great gatherings of the people for public sacrifices and popular
festivals, and also in the places of retirement of religious teachers
round whom disciples gathered, that the stories of gods and heroes
should be sung or told, and eagerly listened to. Such stories were
collected into the Mahâ Bhârata by Vjâsa = "the Arranger" (who also
occupied himself with the recompilation of the Vêda), son of Satjavati
= "the truthful one," daughter to Vasu, king of Magadha. Vasu
had conferred great benefits on his subjects, and was held in
proportionate honour. His great work was the construction of a canal,
of which mythology has thus preserved the memory. The mountain-god,
Kôlâhola, fell in love with the stream-goddess, Shirktimatî. As she
sported past the tower of Kêdi, he barred her further progress by here
damming her course with a mountain. Vasu saw her distress, and came to
rescue her by striking the mountain with his foot, and thus delivering
her from her imprisonment. The goddess in gratitude devoted her twin
children to his service. He made her son the leader of his armies,
and married her daughter Girikâ, by whom he also had twins--a son,
whom he made king of Matsja; and a daughter, Satjavati, who, as we have
seen, married the father of Yjâsa. This was the Rishi Parâsara who
obtained for her the name of Gandha, and the corresponding character
of "sweet-scented," as heretofore, from the occupation to which she
had been devoted by her father of ferrying people across the Jamuna,
she had acquired a smell of fish. She is also called, Gandhahali =
"the sweet-scented dark one," which latter appellation is explained by
the story that she made Parâsara observe that the other Rishis were in
the habit of watching her from the other side of the river, on which
he constructed a mist to conceal her, or make her "dark" to them. Why
"the Arranger" of legends should have "the truthful one" ascribed
to him for his mother, is easy enough to see. Parâsra was reckoned
his father because he was the inventor of chronology, which ought to
precede any attempt to make chronicles out of traditions. The legend
further says that Parasâra made acquaintance with Satjavati while on
a pilgrimage, which may be taken as an embodiment of the fact that
it was such gatherings which afforded opportunity for collecting Sagas.
Of somewhat similar nature is the Râmâjana--a collection of Sagas
concerning Rama, sometimes called the brother, and sometimes an
incarnation of Vishnu, but also containing stories of other gods,
as well as a variety of quasi-religious episodes. While displaying
the usual exaggerations common to the Sagas of all nations, these
Indian Sagas have one leading peculiarity in the frequent Avatâra,
or incorporation of Vishnu or Rama in the persons of their heroes (18).
Lassen (19) reckons both the Mahâ Bhârata and the Râmâjana to have been
compiled about 300--50 B.C.; but it is impossible to fix the dates of
any of them with absolute certainty. One theory for arriving at it
is, that they possess strong inherent evidence of being Brahmanical
productions; and as they contain no allusion to so great an event as
the establishment of Buddhism, while they yet make allusions to certain
predictions of the wane of Brahmanism (seemingly suggested by details
of the mode of the sudden spread of the teaching of Shâkjamuni), it
may be inferred that the latest date for their compilation (which in
any case must have extended over a prolonged period) would be coeval
with the period of the greatest development in Central India of the
latter school.
It is evident, however, that none of these poems are of a nature
to supply any sound basis for the historiographer. The very lists
of the kings that they supply, carry with them inherent evidence of
untrustworthiness in the readiness with which recourse is had to the
introduction of supernatural means for supplying missing links in
the fabulous periods of their chronology.
In the tenth century and later, several Muhammedan writers undertook
the history of India; but they are very untrustworthy. For this
place, it may suffice to mention that, by the most important of them,
Vikramâditja is made out to be a grandson of Porus, and his name
transformed into that of Barkamaris (20).
I will now give you a specimen of what are considered the purely
legendary accounts of Vikramâditja's origin, and you will see that
they are barely more extravagant than the historical one I have
introduced above (21).
In a jungle (22) situated between the rivers Subhramatî and Mahi,
in Gurgâramandala, lived the Rishi Tâmralipta, who gave his daughter
Tamrasena for a wife to King Sadasvasena. They lived happily, and
had a family of six sons, but only one daughter, Madanrekhâ. One day,
when a servant of theirs named Devasarman was working in the forest,
he heard the voice of some invisible being speaking to him, and bidding
him go and demand for it the hand of Madanrekhâ in marriage. When
he hesitated, not daring to ask so great a matter of his master,
the voice threatened him with fearful penalties if he failed to obey
its behest. As the voice continued day after day to admonish him, he
at last begged his master to come and listen to it for himself; who,
recognizing it for that of King Gandharva, whom Indra had transformed
into an ass, he felt constrained to comply, and he accordingly bestowed
his daughter on him. Though proud of the alliance of so great a
king as Gandharva, Tâmrasena was nevertheless distressed that her
daughter's husband should wear so ungainly an appearance. What was
her joy when she one day discovered that, whenever he went to visit
her, he left his donkey's form outside the door, and appeared like
other men. She was not slow to take advantage of the circumstance
by burning the donkey's form: the spell was thus destroyed, and
Gandharva delivered from the operation of the curse. After a time
they had a son, whom Gandharva desired his wife to call Vikramâditja,
telling her at the same time that her handmaid would also have a son,
who was to be called Bhartrihari, and who should devote himself to
his service. Having uttered these counsels, he went up to the deva's
paradise. Meantime, Madanrekhâ, having heard that her father designed
to kill the infant, delivered it to the care of a gardener's wife, with
the charge to conceal it, and then put an end to her own life. The
gardener's wife fled with the young prince to Uggajini, where he
passed his youth. The incidents of the burning of a form temporarily
laid aside, of danger threatening the life of the infant, of a flight
from his birthplace, and of a half-brother, in some way inferior to
himself, yet devoted to him, pervade, not only both these accounts,
but also the more detailed legend which is to follow in the text.
While all this uncertainty surrounds the circumstances of
Vikramâditja's birth, his mode of attaining the throne, and the
extent and even the locality of his dominions, are narrated with
equal diversity; while, though an important era still in use is
dated from him, extending from 57 B.C. to 319 A.C. when commences the
Ballabhi-Gupta dynasty, the particular event by which he deserved so
distinguished a commemoration has been by no means determined with
certainty (23).
In a version of his story called Vikramakaritra, it is said simply,
that King Prasena of Uggajinî dying without heirs, Vikramâditja
was chosen king (24). According to another, the last king of the
Greco-Indian dynasty abdicated in his favour out of disgust with
life after the death of his wife. According to the legends a Vetâla
(25) obtained possession of the throne and every night strangled
the king, who had been raised to it in the course of the day by the
ministers, until Vikramâditja undertook to maintain himself in power,
and succeeded in propitiating the Vetâla. It is easy to read under
cover of this imagery the original fact of a hero delivering his
people from an oppressor.
What people or country it was that Vikramâditja delivered is difficult
to decide, as he is named in the sagas of many nations as belonging
to each (26). We have already seen him seated king in the capital
of Malwa. The more legendary accounts ascribe to him the widest
range of dominion. In the Ganamegaja-Râgavansâvali (27) we find him
in possession of Bengal, Hindostan, the Dekhan, and Western India;
and in the Bhogaprabandha (28) he is reckoned conqueror of the whole
of India; while in the Bhavishja-Purâna (29) it is told that he
had 800 kings tributaries under him, though whether the list could
be authentically made out is more than questionable. What can be
proved with some certainty is, that he reigned over Malwa, Cashmere,
and Orissa, from which it may perhaps be inferred that he was also
master of the intervening country--namely, the Punjaub and the eastern
portion of Rajputana (30).
Besides his glories as a warrior and deliverer of his country, the
honour is also ascribed to him of being the patron of science and
art. There is reason to think he promoted the study of architecture,
though no monuments actually remain which can with certainty be
ascribed to his reign. He attracted to his court the most distinguished
poets and learned men of his epoch, and an obscure poem concerning
nine jewels said to have adorned his throne is generally understood
to represent the votaries of a certain cycle of the arts and sciences
whom he had under his protection. It is true some of those he is said
to have protected are found to have actually lived at a subsequent
period; but this is only one of the chronological inaccuracies to which
I have already adverted as so common--the fact remains that he did
actually promote the pursuit of letters, not only on the testimony
of these exaggerated accounts, but also in the improvement which
may be observed from his time forward in the condition of public
muniments. One of the most fantastic stories about him, in which
(31) Indra defers to him to decide between the respective claims to
perfection in dancing of two apsarasas, or nymphs, shows at least that
he was considered an authority in matters of taste. The oldest Sanskrit
dictionary extant is reckoned the work of Amarasinha, or Amaradeva,
his minister, and one of the six of the above-named nine jewels who are
believed to have had an historical existence (32); in this dictionary
the Ram and the Bull of the Zodiac are mentioned in such a way that it
may be inferred he was familiar with the present nomenclature of the
twelve signs, giving support to the theory that the Greeks received
that terminology from the Chaldees, and did not originate it, as was
long supposed (33). An inscription found at Buddha-Gaja, and copied
by Wilmot in the year 1783, is preserved in As. Res. i. 284, though
the original stone has since been lost, in which a curious legend
is told of him, showing that as early as A.D. 948 (fixed by experts
for the date of the inscription) an undisputed tradition taught that
the oldest Sanskrit dictionary was written by one of the nine jewels
of Vikramâditja's throne. This legend says, "This Amaradeva, one of
the nine jewels of Vikramâditja's throne, and his first minister,
was a man of great talent and learning. Once, when on a journey, this
famous man found in the uninhabited forest the place where Vishnu was
incarnate in the person of Buddha. Here, therefore, he determined to
remain in prayer till Buddha should show himself to him. At the end
of twelve years of austerities he heard a voice calling to him and
asking what he desired. On his reply that he desired the god should
appear to him, he was told that in the then degenerate condition of
the world such a favour was impossible; but that he might set up an
image of him, which would answer the same purpose as an apparition. In
consequence of this communication he erected a stately temple, which
he furnished with images of Vishnu and his avatars, or incarnations,
Pândava, Brahma, Buddha, and the rest.
One of the earliest dramatists of India, Kâlidâsa, many of whose
plays possess great literary merit,--though some ascribed to him are
manifestly by inferior hands,--may have been, it is thought, one of
those who wrote under Vikramâditja's protection. In a play called
Maghadûta, he describes his capital of Uggajini with an enthusiasm
which suggests it was his own favourite place of residence. His plays
contain valuable pictures of the manners of the times. And from
these, among other details, it appears it was not only considered
an indispensable qualification of a well-bred man, that he should be
conversant with the great heroic poems, but that they were commonly in
the mouth of the people also. Other details imply the attainment of a
degree of civilization and refinement, which it would probably surprise
most of us to find existing at this date. His two most meritorious
pieces are entitled Abhignana-Shukuntalâ ("The finding of Shukuntalâ"),
and Vikramorvashi-Urvashi ("Urvashi won by Heroism.") We have
also three hundred short poems by Vikramâditja's brother or by some
courtier poet who gave him the honour of the composition; these poems
display unusual powers of description and delicacy of sentiment. The
first shataka, or hundred poems, is entitled shringâra, containing
love-songs; the second, niti, on the government of the world; and the
third, vairâgja, the suppression of human passions. It is probable
that the writer of a justly celebrated drama named Mrikkhakatika,
whose name has been merged in that of King Shûdraka, King of Bidisha
(now Bhilsa), his patron to whose pen he modestly ascribed his work,
lived also not long after this time.
The length of Vikramâditja's reign is as difficult to fix as any other
circumstance of his history, and it is not clear whether the æra which
dates from him was originally reckoned from the commencement or the end
of his reign; we have already seen the duration which fable ascribes
to it; to this may be added the further fabled promise which, it is
told, the great gods Vishnu and Shiva made concerning him, that he
should come back to earth in the latter times to deliver his people
from the oppression of the Mussulman invaders, just as the Mongols
expect Ghengis Khan and Timour (34), and just as in Europe similar
promises of a future return as a deliverer linger round the memories
of King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Frederick Barbarossa.
The legend of the Wisdom of Vikramâditja being so mysteriously
connected with his throne, that whosoever sat on it was endowed with
some measure of his excellences; and that the figures with which it
was adorned guarded it from the approach of the unworthy, is brought
forward in the story of more than one Indian sovereign. Travelling
in the wake of Buddhist literature, the myth came to the far East,
where Mongolian bards have worked out of it a saga connected with
one of their own rulers (35), with such variations in the treatment
as might be expected at their hands.