M Mada-The juice which exudes from an elephant's temples in the season of rut. Wilson says it is rather extraordinary that this juice should have been unnoticed by modern writers on natural history until the time of Cuvier, although mention of it is made by Strabo from Megasthenes. The exudation and fragrance of this fluid is frequently alluded to in Sanskrit poetry. Its scent is commonly compared to the odour of the sweetest flowers, and is then supposed to deceive and attract the bees. On each side of the elephant's temples there is an aperture about the size of a pins head whence the juice exudes. In the. Megha-duta we read"Where the wild elephant delights to shed The juice exuding fragrant from his head."-I, 132. And the deep sound reverberates from above; Where sport the bees, and fragrant moisture flows."—II, 15. Madari (Madárí), a tribe of snake-charmers and jugglers. They rear both snakes and scorpions which they carry about the country for exhibition. In decoying snakes from holes, or from any places in which they may have secreted themselves, they are marvellously clever. They seem to accomplish the feat mainly by playing plaintive strains on a musical instrument. In tricks of jugglery they appear to be equally accomplished.-SHERRING. Madhavacharya-(Mádhavácharya). (Add at Page 364). Lived in the commencement of the fourteenth century. He was the minister of one of the earliest chiefs of Vijayanagar. His Digvijaya is a composition of high literary and polemical pretension, but not equally high biographical value.-WILSON, Works, I, p. 198. Madras-A people of the Panjab, whose capital was Sakala, the Sangala apparently destroyed by Alexander. Salya, one of the principal leaders and warriors of the party of Duryodhana, was a king of the Madras. Mahabharata—(Page 369). The Mahábhárata may be regarded under a three-fold aspect: as a work relating events of an historical character; as a record of mythological and legendary lore; and as the source whence especially the military caste was to obtain its instruction in all matters concerning their welfare in this, and their bliss in a future life. The Mahábhárata is a traditional record of an early period of Hindu history, compiled, however, by eminent men of the Brahmanical caste, and modelled by them to suit a special purpose of their own, that of imposing their own law on the Kshatriya, or military caste. The fabric of the great epos was not built up at once. Different times supplied different materials for it, and with the importance of the object the greatness of the task increased. Of all the traditions related in the Mahábhárata, there is, in the face of them none more opposed to the spirit of the Brahmanical religion than the marriage of Draupadí to five husbands. Polyandry never found any place in the Brahmanical Code, or in the habits of the Hindus, as we know them from their literature; and if, in spite of its thorough offensiveness, it nevertheless was imputed to the very heroes of the ancient epos, there seems to have been no alternative but to admit it is a real piece of history. But if this marriage of Draupadí is a real event it throws at once the life of the Pandavas into such a remote period of Hindu antiquity, as to leave behind not only Manu, the oldest representative of Hindu law, but even those vedic writings of Asvalayana and others, on which the ancient law of India is based. It remains to be seen whether there are not other facts recorded in the history of the war which likewise are at variance with this law, but were not, or could not, be suppressed by the compilers of the Mahábhárata. For if there are they would still more strongly corroborate the conclusion we have drawn, and indicate a standard by which to test the age and the historical reliability of the record itself. A few such facts may be mentioned. The institution of caste, as Mr. Muir, in his excellent work, has proved, did not exist at the earliest Vedic period. It was fully established, however, and circumscribed with stringent rules, at the time when the code of Manu was composed. At the Vedic period a warrior, like Visvámitra, for instance, could aspire to the occupation of a Brahman, and a Brahman, like Vașishta, or the son of Jamadagni, could be engaged in military pursuits. At the time of Manu such a confusion of occupations, as an orthodox Hindu would say, was no longer allowed; it recurs only at the latest period of Hinduism. Yet in the history of the great war we find the Brahman Drona not only as the military instructor of the Kauravas and Páṇḍavas, but actively engaged in a war against Drupada; we find him, too, as a king over half the kingdom of Pánchála; and finally as one of the commanders-in-chief of the Kauravas. Another fact, which, after the establishment of caste, must have been highly objectionable, but could not be eliminated from the epos, is the disguise of the Pánḍavas. "False boasting of a higher caste" is an offence which Manu considers so grave that he ranks it with the killing of a Brahman; and there could certainly be no greater danger to the preservation of caste than the possible success of false pretenders. We have seen, however, that the chief personages of the great epos, the Páṇḍavas, though Kshatriyas, assume the character of Brahmans, and even retain it at the tournament of Draupada; that Yudhishthira, too, resorts to the same "false boasting of a higher caste" a second time, when he offers his services to king Viráta. Had it been possible to suppress such a dangerous precedent, there is little doubt that the Brahmanical arrangers of the national tradition would not have held up their military heroes as successful violators of the law which they were bent on inculcating to the Kshatriyas. Those events which bear on the law of marriage and inheritance, form another class of passages in the Mahábhárata which forcibly prove that the incidents described must have been historical and anterior to the classical state of Hindu society. Nor is it possible to assume that the occurrences mentioned in those passages are innovations on Manu and the lawgivers; the contrary is the case. It is Manu who criticises them, and rejects their authoritativeness; as in the instance of Vichitravírya, and the mode adopted to raise children for a deceased relative. Manu admits that the practice existed, but strongly condemns it. A comparison between the marriage law as mentioned by Manu, and that alluded to in some passages of the Mahábhárata leads to an analogous inference. Manu limits the right of a girl to choose herself a husband to the condition that her father did not give her away in marriage at the proper time. In the epos a girl often chooses her husband before her father gives her away. This mode was called the Swayamvara or self-choice. We see it observed in the marriage of Páṇḍu with Pritha, Nala with Damayantí, &c., and we have a full description of it when Draupadí chooses Arjuna. This greater freedom of women is consonant with the position which, to judge from some vedic hymns, they must have held in society during the vedic time, but it is foreign to the period of Manu. No such privilege as the Swayamvara is mentioned in the code of Manu. Enough has been adduced to indicate that there are portions in the Mahabharata-occupying a considerable part of it—in which a state of Hindu society is pictured that is anterior to the code of Manu ; and an investigation of those portions would show that this society differs from the society mirrored by this ancient code not only in regard to positive laws, but also in customs and morality.* Mahapadma-One of the four elephants that support the earth; usually designated the magnanimous Mahápadma, at the Southern quarter. See VIRUPÁKSHA. Maharajas-A title assumed by the chiefs of the sect of Vallabhácháryas; besides this proud designation they have other distinctive titles, such as Vallabha Kula, Guru, &c. The members of the sect are widely diffused throughout Western and Central India. It has been remarked as a curious feature in the notions of this sect that the veneration in which the Gosains, or heads, are * Abridged from GOLDSTUCKER, on Hindu Epic Poetry, in the Westminster Review, April 1868. J held, is paid solely to their descent and unconnected with any idea of their sanctity or learning: and that though they are not unfrequently destitute of all pretentions to individual respectability, they nevertheless enjoy the unlimited homage of their followers. The doctrine that the Guru or Maháráj is the impersonation of Krishna himself, that God and the Guru are necessarily to be worshipped, and that the sectary is bound to bestow on him his body, organs of sense, life, heart, and other facilities, and wife, house, family, property, with his own self,' tended to much evil. The gross abuse which was made of this tenet, became apparent in a remarkable trial, the so-called Maháráj Libel case, which occurred in 1861, in the Supreme Court of Bombay, and revealed the licentiousness of some of the then Mahárájas of the sect at Bombay; the defendant sued for libel being a highly respected and distinguished member of the sect, Mr. Karsandas Mulji, who had the courage of calling, in a native newspaper, on the Mahárájas to reform, and to return to the ancient Hindu faith, Mahavanso-A work written in the Páli language, and which Professor Weber considers to have a resemblance to the Adventures of Odysseus and his companions on the island of Kirke. He furnishes the following epitome of the story. When Vijaya, sent into exile on account of his insolence by his father Sihabahu, king of Lála, landed in Lanka with 700 companions exhausted by the fatigues of the voyage, they immediately fell in with the tutelary divinity of the island, the god Uppalavanna, (Vishnu), who was sitting in the form of a devotee at the foot of a tree, for the purpose of receiving them and providing them with a countercharm against enchantment. In reply to their inquiry he told them the name of the island, he besprinkled them with water out of his pitcher, tied charmed threads round their arms, and vanished. Immediately thereafter there appeared to them a Yaksha female attendant in a canine form. Although the Prince warned him not to do so yet one of the men followed her, saying to himself, "Where you see dogs you may look for a village." And so by and bye he found himself in the presence of her mistress, the Yakshini Kuveni, who was sitting spinning under a tree near a tank. When he saw this tank and the anchoress sitting beside |