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Such passages may perhaps be comic exaggerations of provincial peculiarities. The Prak?'/ts have received careful study, and the Prakrita-prakasa, a Grammar by Yararuchi, translated by Professor Cowell, was probably written about the beginning of the Christian era. K^ee Katyayana. PRAKii/TI. Nature ; matter as opposed to spirit. The per- sonified will of the Supreme in the creation, and the prototype of the female sex, identified with Maya or illusion. The ^akti or female energy of any deity. PRALAMBA. An Asura killed by K?7'sh?2a, according to the Maha-bharata. His story as told in the Yislmu Purii/ia is, that he was an Asura and a dej^endant of Kansa. With the object of devouring the boys Krishna and Bala-rama, he joined them and their playmates in jumping. Pralamba was beaten by his opponent Bala-rama, and by the rules of the game had to carry the victor back on his shoulders to the starting-place. He took up Bala-riima and then exjoanded his form, and was making off with his rider when Bala-rama called U2X)n K?*ish7?a for assistance. Krz'sh?za made a long speech, and ended by tell- ing him to suspend aAvhile his mortal character and do what was right. Bala-rama laughed, squeezed Pralamba with his knees, and beat him on the head with his fists till his eves were knocked out and his brain forced through his skull, so that he fell to the ground and expired. PRALAYA. A dissolution of the world at the end of a kalpa. PRAMATHAS. A class of demi-gods or fiends attendant upon >Siva. PRAMLOCHA. A celestial nymj^h sent by Indra to beguile the sage Ka?if?u from his devotion and austerities. She lived with him for some hundreds of years, which were but as a day to the sage. AVhen he awoke from his delusion lie drove the nymph from his presence. The child with which she M^as pregnant by him came forth from her body in drops of perspiration, which she left upon the leaves of the trees. These drops congealed and became eventually the lovely nymjDh Marisha (q.v.). PRANA—PRA TI-SHTHANA. 241 PEAiVA. ' Breath or life. ' In the Atharva-veda it is per- sonified and a hymn is addressed to it. PRASANNA-RAGHAVA. A drama by Jaya-deva in seven acts. It has been printed at Benares. PRASEj^A. Son of Nighna and brother of Satra-jit or Sattriijita. He was killed by a lion. See, Syamantaka. PRAaS'ISTA. ISI^ame of an Upanishad (q.v.). PRASUTI. A daughter of Mann and wife of Daksha. PRATARDANA. Son of Divodasa, king of Kasi. The whole family of Divodasa was slain by a king named Yita-havya. The afflicted monarch through a sacrifice performed by Bh?7gii obtained a son, Pratardana, who became a mighty warrior, and avenged the family wrongs upon his father's foe. Yita-havya then flew to the sage Bh?'igu for protection, and w^as by him raised to the dignity of a Brahmarshi. PRATI/S'AKHYAS. Treatises on the jjlionetic laws of the language of the Yedas, dealing with the euphonic combination of letters and the peculiarities of their pronunciation as they prevailed in the different iS'akhas or Yedic schools. Tliese treatises are very ancient, but they are considerably later than the hymns, for the idiom of the hymns must have become obscure and obsolete before these treatises were necessary. Pour such treatises are known : — Eig-veda. — One which is considered to belong to the /STddiala- sakha of this Yeda, and is ascribed to >Saunaka, It has been edited and translated into German by Max Midler, and into French by ]M. Regnier. Yajur-veda. — Taittiriya-pratisakhj-a, belonging to the Black Yajur, jDrinted in the Bihliotheca Indica and also in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, with a translation by Professor AYhitney. Vdjasaneyi-prcdisdkhya. — Belonging to the White Yajur. It is attributed to Katyayana, and has been edited and translated by Weber. A tharva-veda.- — The iS'aunakiya Chaturadliy ayika, i. e. , ^S'aunaka's treatise in four chapters. Edited and translated into Enghsli by Whitney. No Pratisiikhj^a of the Sama-veda has been discovered. PRATI-SHrHA:NrA. An ancient city, the capital of the early kings of the Lunar race ; " it was situated on the eastern Q 242 PRA UDHA-BRAHMANA—PRITHI. side of the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna," opposite to the modern Allahabad. The capital of ASalivahana on the Goda- vari, supposed to be the same as " Pattan " or " Pyetan." PRATJDHA-BRAHMAA'A. One of the eight BrahmaTias of the Sama-veda. It contains twenty-five sections, and is there- fore also called Pancha-vin^a. PRAYAGA. The modern Allahabad. The place where tlie Ganges, Jumna, and the fabled subterranean Saraswati unite, called also Tri-vem, 'the triple braid.' It has always been a celebrated place of j^ilgrimage. PRETA. A ghost ; an evil spirit animating a dead carcase, and haunting cemeteries and other places. Pi?/SHADHRA. A son of Manu Yaivaswata, who, accord- ing to the Hari-vansa and the Purawas, became a AS'ddra because he killed the cow of his religious preceptor. Pi^/SHATA. Drupada's father. PitJ/S'iS^I. In the Yedas and Pura?ias, the earth, tlie mother of the Maruts. The name is used in the Yedas also for a cow. There were several females of this name, and one of them is said to have been a new birth of Devaki. PRITHA. A name of Kunti. P7?/THI, Pi?/THU, PJ?/THI - YAIA^YA. Pr/thi or P?'ithi-vai7iya, ■i.e., Prithi, son of Yewa, is mentioned in the 7t/g-veda, and he is the declared i^/shi or author of one of the hymns. The Atharva-veda says, " She (Yh-ry) ascended : she came to men. Men called her to them, saying, 'Come, IriivatT.' Manu Yaivaswata was her calf, and the earth her vessel. Prithl- vainya milked her ; he milked from her agriculture and grain. Men subsist on agriculture and grain." The /Siitapatha P)rahma?ni refers to Prithi as "first of men who was installed as a king." These early allusions receive a consistent form in the Purawas, and we have the following legend : — P/ithi was son of Yewa, son of Anga. He was called the first king, and from him the earth received her name Prithivi. The Yislmu Purilwa says that the i(?/shis " inaugurated Yewa monarch of tin; eartli," but he was wicked by nature and prohibited worship and sacrifice. Incensed at the decay of religion, pious sages beat Ye/ia to death with blades of holy grass. In the absence of a king robbery and anarchy arose, and the Munis, after consultation, proceeded to rub the thigh of the dead king in order to produce a son. There came forth PRITHl—PRITHU. 243 " a man like a charred log, with flat face and extremely short." This man became a Nishada, and witli him came out the sins of the departed king. The Brahmans then rubbed the right arm of the corpse, " and from it sprang the majestic Prithu, Vewa's son, resplendent in body, glowing like the manifested Agni, . . . At his birth all creatures rejoiced, and through the birth of this virtuous son Ye?ia, delivered from the hell called Put, ascended to heaven." Pr/thu then became invested wdth universal dominion. His subjects, who had suffered from famine, be- sought him for the edible plants which the earth withheld. In anger he seized his boAv to compel her to yield the usual supply. She assumed the form of a cow and fled before him. Unable to escape, she implored him to spare her, and promised to restore all the needed fruits if a calf were given to her, through which she might be able to secrete milk. " He therefore, hav- ing made 5wayam-bhuva Manu the calf, milked the earth, and received the milk into his own hand for the benefit of mankind. Thence proceeded all kinds of corn and vegetables upon which people subsist now and perpetually. By granting life to the earth P^'ithu was as her father, and she thence derived the j)atronymic appellation P^'ithivi." This milking the earth has been made the subject of much allegory and symbolism. The Matsya Pura/za specifies a variety of milkers, gods, men, Nagas, Asuras, &c., in the follow style : — " The i?ishis milked the earth through B?'ihaspati ; their calf Avas Soma, the Vedas were the vessel, and the milk was devotion." Other Pura?ms ao;ree with only slight deviations. "These mystifications," says Wilson, "are all, probably, subsequent modifications of the original simple alle- gory which typified the earth as a cow, who yielded to every class of beings the milk they desired, or the object of their wishes." Pi^/THIVI. 'The broad.' The earth or wide world. In the Yedas the earth is jDersonified as the mother of all beings, and is invoked together with the sky.