Rome and (?

) Antioch in the Mahābhārata

Author(s): Franklin Edgerton
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society , Jun., 1938, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Jun.,
1938), pp. 262-265
Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/594812

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 ROME AND (?) ANTIOCH IN THE MAHABHARATA

FRANKLIN EDGERTON
YALE UNIVERSITY

IN EDITING the Sabhl-parvan (Book 2) for the first critical

edition of the Mahlihhrata, now being prepared at Poona under
the general editorship of Dr. V. S. Sukthankar, I have discovered
that the true version of the line ii. 1175cd Calc.=ii. 31. 72ab
Bomb. contains matter of unusual interest.
The Calc. and Bomb. editions agree on the following version:

atavirm ca purim, ramyam yavananarm purarm tatha.

But of the forty to fifty manuscripts collated, only seven have the
words ca purim ramyarm. And, what is more important, six of
these are very inferior manuscripts of the vulgate devanagarl recen-
sion, which my experience (confirming Sukthankar's) has shown to
have very minor value for the reconstruction. (The seventh is a Ms.
of the Kashmirian recension, K2, which here has obviously been con-
taminated from a vulgate source.)
I shall not in this article attempt a full statement of the mss.
readings, which will of course be presented when the edition appears.
Suffice it to say, first, that the Southern recension, S, has a reading
so different that it helps us little, beyond confirming the existence
of the line in the original:

aparamn rocamanam ca yatamanarm purottamam (v. 1. 'tame).

This is practically nonsense; there can be no doubt that the

Northern versions come much closer to the original at this point.
Except the seven referred to above, they all indicate that after the
first word (of three syllables; vulgate atavirm), there followed caiva,
then an accusative form of two syllables followed by ca.
The line occurs in a list of towns conquered by Sahadeva in his
digvijaya, and it is clear that it named three such towns, all be-
longing to the western (yavana) world: "(He conquered) [City A]
and [City B] and likewise the City of the Yavanas." As to the
last, there is no doubt of the reading, and equally little in my
opinion that the "City of the Yavanas " must mean the same
Yavanapura referred to in the BrhatsamhitA. In the introduction
to his edition of that work, p. 54, Kern conjectured that it meant
262

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 Rome and (?) Antioch in the Mahdbharata 263

Alexandria. This was based on computations of relative longit

and I do not find Kern's arguments at all compelling. However
the question is of relatively little interest for us here, and I s
not discuss it further.
Returning to the first pdda, let us examine the mss. readings
for City B. It contains, as stated, two syllables, placed between
caiva and the following ca. The most valuable testimony is that
of the Kashmirian recension, represented by one old SAradA ms.,
here called A, and four devanagarl mss. (K1, 2. 3. 4). Of the latter,
K2 has been contaminated by the vulgate reading at this point, as
I have said above. But A, K1, and K4 read romarm; K3 reads
romdmsy [ca], and the same is found in two (out of four) Nepalese
mss. One D(evandgarl, vulgate) ms. reads rama-m; ramarm is read
by two D, five B(engali), two Nepalese, and two Telugu mss.
(which belong not to the Southern but to the Northern group of
versions); and finally dasam is read by five D, three B, and one
Telugu (northern) ms. This completes the list, except for the
Southern recension and the vulgate, quoted above. It is obvious
that ramyam of the vulgate points to a form beginning with r-.
Note also rocamrnamn of S; absurd as it is, with its initial ro- I
think it is not rash to count it in support of the Kashmirian
reading. Since Sukthankar has proved that the latter is on the
whole probably the best Mbh. tradition, I do not hesitate to adopt
the reading romam. If this is the true reading, it obviously means
the city of Rome. The interesting thing is that we find here for
the first time in Indian literature the feminine form of the stem,
Roma, which is just what we should expect, but which has been
replaced in the late Indian texts where it has been heretofore found
by a neuter Ioma-(pura, etc.).
Incidentally, this is at present the only certain mention of either
Rome or the Romans in the Mbh., and is probably the oldest men-
tion of either in Indian literature. (The title of the Romaka-
jataka is of very doubtful significance; that Jataka itself does not
contain the name in its text, nor do its contents suggest any relation
to Rome or the Romans, or any reason for the traditional title.)
The only mention previously recorded in the Mbh. is the word
romakan of ii. 1837 Calc. = ii. 51. 17 Bomb.; but my edition will
show that this reading is found only in inferior vulgate mss. and
two Bengali mss., and is certainly to be rejected. (The most prob-
able original reading, as it seems to me at present, is bahukan,

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264 Franklin Edgerton

with S and most of B; but certainly it was not romakan in any

event.) Another possible occurrence is in ii. 1850 Calc. = ii. 51. 30
Bomb., where the vulgate has romas'a-h (srhgino narah); this
reading appears from the collation-sheets to be supported by 5
and K., and may well be original, although all Bengali and some
Southern mss. read romakah. Final decision must await a restudy
of the original mss. which I expect to make during my approaching
visit to India. If romasah is the true reading, of course it means
"hairy" and has no bearing on our subject.
Coming to " City A" of the line I am discussing, I have to
confess that a solution of its original form is far more difficult. In
fact, I offer the following suggestion only with the utmost diffidence,
and claim for it no more than that it might, possibly, turn out to
be a lucky guess.
Most northern mss. read either atavim with the Calc. and Bombay
editions, or atavitm with short initial a. The latter is a Sanskrit
word for "forest," and seems clearly a popular mouthing-over of
an older form which seemed barbaric to copyists. The form with
a- is indeed much commoner among the mss. than that with a-.
It is read in two K, seven D, five B, and two Telugi (but northern)
mss.; at- is read only in one K, three B, four D, and one Telugu
Ms., besides the two editions. Corrupt readings of little value
occur as follows: aramba, one D ms.; astavi1n, two D mss.;
surabhirms (intending ara.0 ?), one K ms.; aravizn, changed to dta
one D ms. As stated above, all Southern mss. read apararn, followed
by rocamanam ca.
However, the one Aradd ms. reads avarim; and the four Nepalese
mss. read aravmrn, which looks as if based on the 9 reading with
metathesis (were the scribes thinking of the Arabs?). The ms. A,
as I said above, is a very valuable text. Note that aparam of S
looks as if it might go back to something of the same sort.
The proximity of yavananard puram, not to mention romam,
naturally led me to look to western geography for a possible original
form of this word. I could not help thinking of Antioch-Avr-o'xeta
on the Orontes; Arabic Antakiyah. I find no record in any Indic
language of any form of this name, which has been recognized as
such. However, Aufrecht, in Cat. cod. mss. Bodl. (Oxf.) 338b,
reports the city name Antakis, among barbarian (western) city
names; three lines below occurs Roma (with short a), and on the
next page Romalca. It seems to me fairly obvious that Antakdsi

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 Rome and (?) Antioch in the Mahabhdrata 265

must intend Antakhi (or the like), and that this must mean
Antioch. For Greek X, Indic kh is normal. It is perhaps not too
bold to suggest that the corrupt forms of the Mbh. mss. may go
back to a form somewhat resembling Antakhi. It is even possible
that the ending -vi(m) may contain a graphic corruption for -kh1
(possibly also -ri of A? since both r and v are easy graphic cor-
ruptions for kh).
Antioch was founded about 300 B. C. by Seleucus I and named
for his father Antiochus. It became the capital and most important
city of the Syrian kingdom, and remained, commercially and cul-
turally, the most important city of western Asia down to the time
of its destruction by the Persians in 540 A. D. No other city of
western Asia would be so likely to have reached the ears of Indians.
If by any chance Kern should turn out to have been right in
his guess that Yavanapura (to which our yavandndm puram ob-
viously corresponds) indicates Alexandria, and if my conjecture as
to Antioch should prove to be a good guess, then this single line of
the Mbh. would claim for Sahadeva the conquest of the three most
important cities of the iellenistic-Roman world: Antioch, Rome,
and Alexandria.
With the first three syllables doubtful, the line in question is to
be reconstructed:

anta7chirm (?) caiva romam ca yavanindm puram tatha.

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