Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN y ■n, r THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TWO CENTURIES OF BHARTRIHARI. TWO CENTURIES OF BHARTRIHARL TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY C. H. TAWNEY, M.A, [^Reprinted hy permission from the Indian AfUiquart/.^ CALCUTTA: THACKER, SPINK, AND CO. ISublisfjcrs to tf)E ^Inibcrsitg* 1877. PRINTED BY THACKEK, SPINK, AND CO. ?K 5?f/ :i^O -lA^v PREFACE. The first duty of a translator seems to be to give some account of the author whose work he attempts to translate. In the case of most Sanskrit writers we have to be content with brief legen- dary notices of doubtful authenticity. Bhartrihari is no exception to this rule. Few Orientalists admit the truth of the legend attached to his name, thouo-h it must be confessed that it harmonizes in a wonderful way with the character of some of the stanzas attributed to him. He is said to have been the brother of the celebrated Vikramaditya, who, reigned at Ujjayini, the capital of Avanti, or Malava, about the year 56 before Christ. On discovering the faithlessness of his wife, Anangasena, he be- came disgusted with the world, abdicated in favour of his younger brother Vikramaditya, and retired a2 1 ?)(>8<.f >5 \i PREFACE. to the forest. Kashinath Trimbak Telang, the latest editor of the Satakas^ of Bhartrihari, tells us that "a cave is still pointed out at Ujjayini as " Bhartrihari's, and is popularly called Bhartrihari's " Gumpha. Within this cave is shown a recess at " which he used to make his offerings. And it is " supposed that there is from this cave a subterra- " nean passage to Benares, which is, however, said " to be now blocked up. A beam-like block of " stone broken in twain appears in the roof of the " cave about to fall down, and its visible side has " some hollows and unevennesses which are inter- " preted to be the marks left by Bhartrihari's hand " held up to support the beam from falling." M. Regnaud, in the preface to his prose translation, con- tends that this legend cannot be accepted, as some of the stanzas attributed to Bhartrihari must be subsequent to the period of Sankara Acharya, the ' i. e., Centuries, or collections of one hundred stanzas. It must he remarked that most editions contain many more than one hundred. PREFACE. Vll great organiser of Vedaiitism, since they are deeply coloured with the doctrines of that sect. But it is argued, on the other hand, that a school holding doctrines coinciding with his existed before his time. " Sankara, " says the Bombay editor, " may " be deservedly regarded as the best expositor of " Vedantic doctrines, but he must not be regard- "ed as their first expositor." Accordingly he fixes the date of the writer of these poems about the close of the first or the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, and states it as his opinion that we " had better adhere to the "received tradition of King Bhartrihari's author- " ship until we are in possession of more positive " and cogent reasons for deserting it, than are at " present available." At the same time he gives up that part of the legend which connects Bhartrihari with the great Vikraraaditya, the conqueror of the Sakas, and founder of the Sam vat era. The theory that these Satakas are merelv a collection of Subhashitas or yyu/fxai, current in Vlll PREFACE. India, and published under the name of Bhartrihari, is worthy of some attention. Many of the stanzas occurring in them are found in other works still extant, as the Bombay editor observes. But they seem to be characterized by a certain similarity of tone and style which may perhaps justify us in looking upon them as the offspring of one mind. On the other hand, if the genuine productions of Bhartrihari's muse have not been interpolated^ they have enjoyed an immunity exceptional in Sanskrit literature. The late Professor Lassen places the date of our author at the end of the third century after Christ. He does not accept the tradition that he was Bhartrihari. In his opinion, " it probably " arose from the circumstance that, according to one " story, he is said to have retired to Benares after " he resigned the crown ; for the last hundred " stanzas in the collection of poems attributed to "him contain the praises of a contemplative life, "and the city of Benares is mentioned as one in PREFACE. IX " which such a life can be profitably spent. On the " other hand, as soon as Bhartrihari's authorship "became generally believed, a strophe, in which " the faithlessness of women is dwelt upon, and " a curse invoked on them and the God of Love, " may well have given rise to the notion, that he " became disgusted with life on discovering the " faithlessness of his wife Anangasena, and there- " upon retired to the forest." Considering the great uncertainty which attaches to Hindu literary history, we may, perhaps, con- sider ourselves fortunate that there is something like a consensus as to the date of these poems. A century more or less is after all of trifling moment in Indian chronology. The question of their author- ship we must be content to leave in the mist in which it has been involved by the traditions of Indian sages and the conjectures of Western critics. So much at any rate is certain that our author, if not himself a king, was thoroughly at home in the details of Indian court-life. S: PREFACE. It is interesting to find that the stanzas of Bhar- trihari have been known to the European world for more than two centuries. M. Regnaud tells us that " a protestant pastor, by name Abraham Roger, "who travelled to India in 1640, brought back tlie "materials of a work which he published in 1651, " under the title of ' A history of the religion of the " Brahmans,' in which were contained two hundred "proverbs of the sage Bhartrihari, translated "into Dutch from the version of the BrMiman Pad- " manaba. These were the stanzas on Niti which " Roger translated by ' the reasonable conduct "of men,' and those on Vairagya, which he ren- " dered by ' the road which leads to heaven.' " The Brahman Padmanaba was prevented by " motives of delicacy from explaining the Sringara " Satakam to Roger. The pastor's work was subse- " quently translated into French under the title " of ' Theatre de I'ldolatrie ou la porte ouverte pour " parvenir a la connaissance du paganisme cache " Amsterdam^ 1670. More than two centuries PEEFACE. XI "elapsed before our poet was introduced to the. " world in his native Sanskrit dress. Von Bohlen "published in 1833 at Berlin the first European " edition," The Centuries of Bhartrihari are also contained in the Sanskrit anthology of Haeberlin. M. Galanos translated the second and third Centu- ries into Greek under the title of IvdiKojv ixeracppaanDv UpolpofxoQ. They were included by professor Bohtlingk in his Indische Spriiche St. Petersburg, 1863-65. They were translated into French by M. Hippolyte Fauche in 1852, and M. Regnaud in 1875. An edition of the second and third Cen- turies was published in Bombay in 1874, forming No. XI of the admirable Bombay Sanskrit series edited under tbe superintendence of Drs. Biihler and Kielhorn. I have followed in my translation the arrangement of this edition, my obligations to which I take this opportunity of acknowledging.^ It varies considerably from that of M. Regnaud. ' The commentary is copious and instructive. Xll PREFACE. Though the word 'Niti' is usually translated policy, most of the stanzas arranged under this head are rather of an ethical and social character. They inculcate maxims of worldly prudence, and seem designed to teach knowledge of men as indi- viduals, rather than as members of political com- munities. The truth seems to be that, under the personal governments of the East, Achitophel and Chanakya have always been the types of a success* ful politician. The art of the model Indian states- man, if we may trust the testimony of the Niti S'astras, consists in the power of managing the king's wives and astrologers, of conciliating the feudal chiefs, and above all of humouring the caprices of the sovereign himself, and using them for the advantage of his subjects and the prosperity of his rule. The word ' Vairagya ' means literally disgust with the world. The particular cause assigned in the legend for Bhartrihari's disgust with the world was the faithlessness of his wife. There is nothing to PREFACE. XlU our eyes very meritorious in a king who has felt the " sad satiety " of pleasure, and is as weary of the joys as of the cares of empire, exchanging them for grass and the fruits of the jungle. But such retirements seem frequently to have taken place in India. Some princes appear, even in early youth, to have become penetrated with a deep sense of the uncertainty of all worldly pleasures and the misery of human life, and to have sought refuge in the solitudes of the forest.^ No European philosopher has expressed the spirit of Hindu asceticism better than Arthur Schopenhauer. The pessimism of the following passage^ is entirely in accordance with the Vairagya of Bhartrihari : " If the awful pains and miseries to which our " life is perpetually exposed were displayed before " the eyes of any individual, he would be seized " with horror, and if we were to take the most ' Cf . the Story of Buddha. ' Lichtetrahlen aus Schopenhauer's Werken, p. 190 and ff. B xiv PREFACE. "hardened optimist through the hospitals, lazar "houses, and operation rooms; through the prisons,' " torture-chambers, and slave dungeons ; over the " battle-fields and Calvaries of the world, and then " were to lay open to him the dingy dens of misery " into which it creeps to avoid the gaze of cold curi- " osity, and at last were to reveal to him the " hunger-tower of Ugolino, even he would at last "perceive the real character of this best of all "possible worlds. * * * There is one and only " one error innate in every man — that we are born " to be happy. Whoever is emancipated from this " will find the world in accordance with his under- " standing, if not with his wishes. Misfortunes of "every kind and degree, though they may still " afflict, will no longer perplex him, for he will see " that all pain and misery tend towards the real "object of life, the estrangement of the will from it. " This will produce in him a wonderful feeling of " eqiftinimity under all that may befall, resembling "the satisfaction with which a patient who is PREFACE. XV " undergoing some long and painful surgical treat- " ment looks upon his sufferings as a token of its " efficacy." Schopenhauer declares the great object of life to be the elimination of Maya/ or the 'prin- cipium individuationis, with the result of identi- fying oneself with the universe, and so attaining resignation, equanimity, and utter freedom from will. This principle seems to him to lie at the root of all religion. " Quietism, that is to say, the aban- " donment of all volition, and Askesis, i. e., the deli- " berate mortification of self-will, and mysticism, " i. e., the consciousness of the identity of one's " own essence with that of all things, are most " intimately connected, so that whoever adopts one " principle will find himself insensibly led on to " adopt the others, even though contrary to his " preconceived purpose. Nothing is more surpris- " ing than the absolute harmony that prevails " among the writers who set forth these views, in * Here he is using the terminology of Indian philosophy. XVI PREFACE. "spite of the greatest difference of epoch, nation- " ality, and religion, as well as the unshaken assur- "ance and heartfelt confidence with which they " proclaim the facts of their spiritual experience." Schopenhauer exults in the thought that even Goethe, Greek as he was, felt the charm of this " best side of human nature " which he has des- cribed in his Bekenntnisse einer schonen Seele. But after all, the quietism of the modern European differs in its outward details from that of the Hindu. The latter resembles more nearly the asceticism of those mediaeval hermits, who are popu- larly supposed to have abandoned all care of their vile bodies. Indeed, though Schopenhauer opposes the Greek ideal to the Hindu, the Hindu saintly mendicant has much in common with the Greek cynic. Many expressions in Bhartrihari's stanzas on Asceticisn will remind the classical scholar of the habits of Diogenes thus described by M. Lewis : " Diogenes ate little, and what he ate was of the PREFACE. XVll " coarsest. He tried to live upon raw meat and "unboiled vegetables, but failed. His dress con- " sisted solely of a cloak. When he asked Antis- " thenes for a shirt, he was told to fold his cloak in " two ; he did so. A wallet and a large stick com- " pleted his accoutrements. Seeing a little boy " drinking water out of his hand, he threw away "his cup, declaring it superfluous.^ He slept "under the marble porticos or in his celebrated " tub. Decency of every kind he studiously out- " raged." This fierce disgust with life has been described by Goethe in the famous passage begin- ning— Wenn aus dem schrecklichen Gewiihle,