Онлайн книга «Словесность Индии и Ирана. Сакральный текст и смеховая культура»
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KEYWORDS: peacock, psychopomp, paradise, Indian mythology, comparative mythology. Pāṇini, Kātyāyana, Patañjali: Some Problems of their Chronology Alexey A. Vigasin Doctor of Sciences (History), Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Asian and African Studies, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: alexey.vigasin@gmail.com The article is devoted to the dating of the classical works of ancient Indian linguistics: Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī, Vārttikas of Kātyāyana and Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya. The author is inclined to date Pāṇini at the turn of the 4th–3rd centuries BC. by the evidence of the words yavana and yavanānī in the text as also by the degree of development of monetary circulation. Kātyāyana’s Vārttikas date back to the time between Pāṇini and Patañjali. But the arguments that are usually given for dating Kâtyâyana to the 3rd century BC, do not stand up to criticism. The word devānaṃpiya in the Aśoka’s edicts means “Sovereign”, but it was widely used to mean “lord”. It is impossible to see here the irony of Aśoka’s “pompous title”. Even less convincing is the reference to the word śākapārthiva, which allegedly contains a mockery of the vegetarianism of this king. The word śāka does not mean every kind of vegetarian food, but greens. We are talking about a certain contrast: instead of arranging royal feasts, the ruler eats most simple food. This humorous expression has nothing to do with the Mauryan Empire. The author of the Mahābhāṣya is usually considered a contemporary of King Puṣyamitra (2nd century BC). But the famous fragment about the Greek king’s campaign in India merely contains a contrast between a modern event and a mythical past when gods and heroes acted. In Sanskrit literature there are references to the Greeks along with the Scythians – and all of them, of course, arose during the period when Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian kingdoms existed in North-West India. The context in which the Mahābhāṣya speaks of ritually pure Greeks and Scythians allows us to attribute this text to the same epoch. KEYWORDS: Pāṇini, Kātyāyana, Patañjali, Sanskrit grammatical literature, Indian chronology. The Gathering of the Wicked – A Farce by Śaṅkhadhara Dmitrii A. Komissarov PhD (Philology), Associate Professor, Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, HSE University (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: dkomissarov@hse.ru The comedy play (prahasana) “The Gathering of the Wicked” (Laṭaka-melaka) was composed by Śaṅkhadhara. Śaṅkhadhara appears to have been a subject of King Govindacandra, who ruled central northern India in the 12th century. “The Gathering of the Wicked” is the only piece of this author that has come down to us. The genre of the play is “mixed prahasana” which, unlike “pure prahasana”, can consist of more than one act and implies a greater variety of characters. “The Gathering of the Wicked” tells about a tantra teacher, a kapālin hermit, a Jain monk and a Buddhist monk, a doctor, a small local ruler, and a philosopher who come to old bawd Danturā, the owner of a sporting house. They try their best to get a chance to amuse themselves with hetaera Madanamañjarī. However, the whole action ends with the solemn marriage of the old bawd and the Jain ascetic. |