English
'is of the gods, the Barhishads of demons, the Somapas of Brahmans, the Havishmats of Ksha- triyas, the Ajyapas of Vaisyas, and the Su-kalins of the /Sudras ; T)ut one authority, the Hari-van.sa, makes the Somapas belong to the /S'udras, and the Su-kalins to the Brahmans, and there appears to be good reason for this. Other names are given by Dr. F. Hall from various authorities (Yish^m Pura?ia, iii. 339) : Ra-smipas, Phenapas, Sudhavats, Garhapatyas, Eka5?ingas, Cha- turvedas, and Kfdas. Besides these there are the Vyamas, ' fumes,' the Pitris of the barbarians. The i^/g-veda and Manu make two independent classes, the Agni-dagdlias and the An- agni-dagdhas, those ' who when alive kept up (or did not keep uj)) the household flame,' and presented (or did not present) oblations with fire. The Vish?m Purawa makes the liarhishads identical with the former, and the Agnishwiittas with the latter. Yama, god of the dead, is king of the Pitris, and Swadha, ' oblation,' is sometimes said to be their mother, at others tlieir wife. — WiUon, Vishnu Furdna, in. 157,339- /St'd Manu, iii. 192. PIT7i'/-L0KA. See Loka. PITA^/-PATL 'The lord of the Manes.' Yama, judge of the dead. PIYADASI—PRADYUMNA. 237 PIYADA6T. See Asoka. PRABHASA. A place of pilgrimage on the coast of Gujarat, near to Dwarakil, and also near to the temple of Soma-natha. PRABHAVATl Wife of Pradyumna (q.v.). PRABODHA-CHANDRODAYA. 'The rise of the moon of knowledge.' A philosophical drama by IvWsh?za Misra, who is supposed to have lived about the twelfth century. It has been translated into English by Dr. Taylor, and into German by Rosenkranz and by Hirzel. PRACHAA^i^A-PAA^DAYA. ' The incensed Pa7?^avas.' A drama in two acts by Raja ^Sekhara, the main incident in which is the outrage of Draupadi by the assembled Kaurava princes. PRACHETAS. i. One of the Prajapatis. 2. An ancient sage and law^giver. 3. The ten Prachetasas were sons of Prachina- barhis and great-grandsons of Prithu, and, according to the Yishmi Pura?2a, they passed ten thousand years in the great ocean, deep in meditation upon Yish?zu, and obtained from him the boon of becoming the progenitors of mankind. They took to wife Marisha, daughter of Kawc^u, and Daksha was their son. See Daksha. PRACHYAS. The people of the east; those east of the Ganges ; the Prasii of the Greeks. PRADHAXA. jMatter. Primary matter, or nature as opposed to spirit. PRADYUM^N'A. A son of Kn*sh?2a by Rukmim. "V^Hien a child only six days old, he was stolen by the demon >Sambara and thrown into the ocean. There he was swallowed by a fish, Avhich was afterwards caught and carried to the house of iS'ambara. When the fish M^as opened, a beautiful child was discovered, and Maya-devi or Maya-vati, the mistress of iS'ambara's household, took him under her care. The sage Narada informed her who the child was, and she reared him carefully. When he grew up she fell in love with him, and informed him who he was and how he had been carried ofi" by >S'ambara. He defied the demon to battle, and after a long conflict slew him. Then he flew through the air with Mayavati, and alighted in the inner apartments of his father's palace. Krishna presented him to his mother RukmiTzT. " with the virtuous Mayavati his wife," declaring her really to be the goddess Rati. Pradyumna also married Ivakudmati, the daughter of Rukmin, and had by her a son named Aniruddha. 238 PRAD YUMNA-VIJA YA—PRAHLADA. Pradyumna was killed at Dwiiraka in tlie presence of liis father during a di-unken brawL Though Pradyumna passed as the son of Krish?ia, he was, according to the legend, a revival or resuscitation of Kama, the god of love, w^ho was reduced to ashes by the fiery glance of >S'iva, and so the name Pradyumna is used for Kama. {See Kama.) The Yislimi PuraTza puts the follow- ing words into the mouth of JSTarada when he presented Prad- yumna to Rukmim : — " AA-lien Manmatha (the deity of love) had perished, the goddess of beauty (Rati), desirous to secure his revival, assumed a delusive form, and by her charms fascinated the demon /Skmbara, and exhibited herself to him in various illusory enjoyments. This thy son is the descended Kama ; and this is (the goddess) Rati, his wife. There is no occasion for any uncertainty ; this is thy daughter-in-law." In the Hari- vansa he has a wife named Prabhavati, daughter of King Vajra- nabha. Wlien he went to see her for the first time, he changed himself into a bee and lived in a garland of flowers which had been prepared for her. According to the Maha-bharata, he was Sanat-kumara, the son of Brahma. PR AD YUMX A - YIJ AY A ' Pradyumna victorious. ' A drama in seven acts upon the victory of Pradyumna over the Daitya Yajra-nabha, Avritten by iSankara Dikshita about the middle of the last century. " The play is the work of a Pa7ic?it, not of a poet." — Wilson. PRAG-JYOTISHA. A city situated in the east, in Kama- riipa on the borders of Assam. See Naraka. PRAHLADA, PRAHRADA. A Daitya, son of Hirawya- kasipu and father of Bali. Hira?iya-ka5ij)u, in his wars with the gods, had wrested the sovereignty of heaven from Indra and dwelt there in luxury. His son Prahlada, while yet a boy, became an ardent devotee of Yisliwu, which so enraged his father that he ordered the boy to be killed ; but not the weapons of the Daityas, the fangs of the serpents, the tusks of the celestial elephants, nor the flames of fire took any efiect, and his father was constrained to send him back to his preceptor, where he continued so earnest in performing and promoting the wor- ship of YisliTiu that he eventually obtained final exemption from existence. According to some accounts, it was to avenge Prahlada, as well as to vindicate his own insulted majesty, that Yislmu became incarnate as the Nara-sinha, ' man-lion,' and slew PRAJA-P ATI-PRAKRIT A. 239 Hira7z.ya-ka.ipu. After the death of his father, Pralilada be- came king of tlie Daityas and dwelt in Patala ; but, according to the Padnia Pura/ia, he was raised to the rank of Indra for life, and finally united with Vish/iu. The Padma Pura?ia carries the story farther back to a previous birth. In this pre- vious existence Prahlada was a Brahman named Soma-^arman, fifth son of ^Siva-sarman. His four brothers died and ol)- tained union with Vish/iu, and he desired to follow^ them. To accomj)lish this he engaged in profound meditation, but he allowed himself to be disturbed by an alarm of the Daityas, and so was born again as one of them. He took the part of his race in the war between them and the gods, and was killed by the discus of Vislwiu, after that he was again born as son of Hira?2ya-kasipu. PKAJA-PATL 'Lord of creatures,' a progenitor, creator. In the A^eda the term is applied to Indra, Savit?'i, Soma, Hir- a/iya-garbha, and other deities. In Manu the term is applied to Brahma as the active creator and supporter of the universe ; so Brahma is the Praja-pati. It is also given to Manu Swayam- bhuva himself, as the son of Brahma and as the secondary creator of the ten ii/shis, or "mind-born sons" of Brahma, from whom mankind has descended. It is to these ten sages, as fathers of the human race, that the name Prajil-pati most com- monly is given. They are Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasish^ha, Prachetas or Daksha, Bh?/gu, and Narada. According to some authorities the Praja-patis are only seven in number, being identical with the seven great i^fshis. {See itishi.) The number and names of the Praja-patis vary in different authorities : the. Maha-bharata makes twenty- one. PKAKAaSAS. Messengers of Vislmu, also called Yish/iu- diitas. PRAKit/TA. The Prakrits are provincial dialects of the Sansk?'it, exhibiting more or less deterioration from the original language ; and they occupy an intermediate position between that language and the modern vernaculars of India, very similar to that of the Romance languages between the Tatin and the modern languages of Europe. They resemble the European languages also in another respect : they have in them a small proportion of words which have not been affiliated on the original classical language, and are apparently remnants of a different 240 PRAKRITl—PRAMLOCHA. tongiie and an older race. The Prak?7'ts are cliiefly known from the dramas in which kings and Brahmans speak Sansk^'/t, while characters of inferior position speak in different Prak?7ts. Sometimes these Prak?*it passages are so very debased that it hardly seems possible for them to be specimens of really spoken vernaculars.