पृष्ठम्:मालविकाग्निमित्रम्.djvu/४३

xxxvi

MALAVIKAGNIMITRA.

is given to the widow who burns herself with the corpse of her husband, and the widow Sannyâsa' is enjoined only as an alternative when the woman, under peculiar circumstances, is prevented from sacrificing herself to the flames. Nor are such garments as the Parivrâjikâ of the play assumed enjoined by the Hindu Śâstra to be worn by widows. When to this we add that the Parivrâjikâ, as the word signifies, is a wandering or itinerant mendicant, while the Hindu widow in general is never a wandering medicant, it is perfectly clear that Kaus'ikî does not profess the Brahmanical her, wherever we meet with a Parivrâjikâ- it is a Buddhistic female mendicant belonging to one or other of the sects of that religion. And when we bear in mind that though there may have been female itinerant mendicants belonging to any other sect, they are nowhere stated to have been reverentially treated in the courts of kings, it is highly probable, nay, almost certain, that Kaus'ikì was a Buddhistic mendicant. And when the religion of Buddha had already been banished from India by the end of the eighth century, it is not very natural to suppose that an author who wrote, according to Professor Wilson, in the tenth or eleventh century, when the professors of the Brahmanical faith looked down upon the few lingerers, if these were left behind in any considerable number, from amongst their once powerful rivals, may have introduced a character in his drama professing the despised religion, and may have, moreover, made the whole court of a powerful prince pay her a most reverential homage.