3. See a most extraordinary instance of this noticed in note 11 of
the Tale in this volume entitled "Vikramâditja makes the Silent Speak."
4. Thus Reinaud (Mémoire Géographique sur l'Inde, p. 80) speaks of a
king of this name who governed Cashmere A.D. 517, as if he were the
original Vikramâditja.
5. The honour of being the first to work this mine of information
belongs to H. Todd; see his "Account of Indian Medals," in Trans. of
As. Soc.
6. The art of coining at all was, in all probability, introduced
by the Greeks.--Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 403; also Prinsep, in
Journ. of As. Soc. i. 394.
7. In the list of kings given by Lassen, iv. 969, 970, there are
eight kings called Vikramâditja, either as a name or a surname,
between A.D. 500 and 1000.
8. The kingdom of Malâva answers to the present province of Malwa,
comprising the table-land enclosed between the Vindhja and Haravatî
ranges. The amenity of its climate made it the favourite residence of
the rulers of this part of India, and we find in it a number of former
capitals of great empires. It lay near the commercial coast of Guzerat,
and through it were highways from Northern India over the Vindhja
range into the Dekhan. It is also well watered; its chief river, the
Kharmanvati (now Kumbal), rises in the Vindhja mountains, and falls
into the Jumna. At its confluence with the Siprâ, a little tributary,
was situated Uggajini = "the Victorious," now called Uggeni, Ozene,
and Oojein, and still the first meridian of Indian astronomers. It
also bore the name of Avantî = "the Protecting," from the circumstance
of its having given refuge to this Vikramâditja in his infancy.
9. This length of reign is actually ascribed to him in the
Chronological Table out of the Kalijuga-Râgakaritra, given in Journ. of
the As. Soc. p. 496.
10. This resolution was quite in conformity with the prevailing
religious teaching. In the collection of laws and precepts called the
Manû, many rules are laid down for this kind of life, and were followed
to a prodigious extent both by solitaries and communities; e.g. "When
the grihastha = 'father of the house,' finds wrinkles and grey hairs
coming, and when children's children are begotten to him, then it is
time for him to forsake inhabited places for the jungle." It is further
prescribed that he should expose himself there to all kinds of perils,
privations, and hardships. He is not to shrink from encounters with
inimical tribes; he is to live on wild fruits, roots, and water. In
summer he is to expose himself to the heat of fierce fires, and in
the rainy season to the wet, without seeking shelter; in the coldest
winter he is to go clothed in damp raiment. By these, and such means,
he was to acquire indifference to all corporeal considerations, and
reach after union with the Highest Being. Manû, v. 29; vii. 1-30;
viii. 28; x. 5; xi. 48, 53; xvii. 5, 7, 24; xviii. 3-5, &c., &c. It is
impossible not to be struck, in studying such passages as these, with
a reflection of the inferiority which every other religious system,
even in its sublimest aims, presents to Christianity. If, indeed,
there were a first uniform limit appointed to the hand of death at the
age of threescore years and ten, then it might be a clever rule to
fix the appearance of wrinkles, grey hairs, and children's children
as the period for beginning to contemplate what is to come after it;
but, as the number of those who are summoned to actual acquaintance
with that futurity before that age is pretty nearly as great as
that of those who surpass it, the maxim carries on the face of it
that it is dictated by a very fallible, however well-intentioned,
guide. Christianity knows no such limit, but opens its perfect teaching
to the contemplation of "babes;" while, practically, experience shows
that those who are called early to a life of religion are far more
numerous than those in advanced years.