The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, 327338

In Search of Water of Life:

The Alexander Romance and Indian Mythology

ALEKSANDRA SZALC

University of Wrocaw

Water of Life is a popular motif in various mythologies and religions. In

mythology there are many stories about magical properties of water, includ-

ing the story of water which gives immortality to one who finds it. It can be

found also in some versions of the Alexander Romance, beginning with

recension of the fifth century AD. It is a late addition to the Romance since its oldest recension a, represented by the Greek A manuscript, Latin Iulius

Valerius and the Armenian version, does not contain this story. The story of

the Water of Life is known from recensions and , as well as from the Greek manuscript L and a sixth-century sermon of Jacob of Seroug, ap-

pended to the Syriac version of the Alexander Romance in Ernest A. Wallis

Budges edition.

The Byzantine recension contains a short, yet undeveloped story of the Water of Life (Bergson, II 39). Alexander, going through the land of Dark-

ness, orders his cook to take a dried fish and make a dinner of it. The cook

finds the stream, in a place less dark and with a pleasant fragrance in the air.

The water itself is very bright and shining. When the cook started washing

the dried fish in a spring of water, the fish suddenly came to life and slipped

away from the cooks hands. He did not reveal to Alexander what happened.

The eight-century L manuscript has the same story, albeit much expanded.

The cook, having seen what happened to the fish, drew some water from the

spring, drank it and did not tell Alexander about its supernatural qualities.

Then he approached Alexanders daughter, called Kal (Beautiful) and offered her the magical water to seduce her. When Alexander became aware

of what happened, he killed the cook and condemned his daughter to a soli-

tary life in the mountains. From that time on her name was Nereide. At this

point Alexander knew that he had reached the end of the world, so he or-

dered a great arch to be constructed in this place to inform anybody who

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 328

reached that place, that it was the end of the world and that he should turn

back. Mysterious birds with human faces and voices told Alexander to turn

back, because this place belonged to gods. As a reward they offered to him a

victory over the Indian king Poros.

In Jacob of Serougs sermon (sixth cent. AD), Alexander searches for the

Water of Life and he knows that it can be found somewhere in the East, be-

yond the Land of Darkness. An old man who talks to Alexander, instructs

him that this place is full of various springs and wells, and to find the magic

one, the fish has to be taken and immersed in every spring. Alexander then

orders his cook to take the fish and to check every source of water he comes

across. When the dead fish is restored to life in a spring and slips away from

the cooks hands, he jumps into the water to catch it. Alexander hears the

cook screaming but cannot find him anymore. Jacob explains that God did

not want Alexander to find the Water of Life which leaves Alexander sad

and disappointed until the end of his life. In Jacob of Serougs rendition of

this story, the Water of Life is to be found near the wall placed by God to

protect the world from Gog and Magog. This shows that the source of the

Water of Life was near the end of the world.

What begs for explanation is how the motif of the Water of Life found

its way to the Alexander Romance and what was its original source. The

scholars who had been searching for the source of this motif, pointed out that

a very similar story appears in the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh.1 The hero,

after the death of his dear friend Enkidu, searches for a medicine to cure

him. Gilgamesh finds the magical herb, which grows in the bottom of the

sea, but he looses it (tablets 9-11). Despite some apparent similarities, like

crossing the Land of Darkness and the very search for immortality, the hy-

pothesis does not hold.2 In the Romance Alexander is searching for water,

not for an herb of immortality and he, unlike Gilgamesh, does not set out on

this endeavour for sake of his dead friend, while the birds who guard this

land order Alexander to turn back and in most versions he never enters the

land of immortality.

Frequently, the motif of the Water of Life is connected with the journey

to the end of the world.3 D. Ogden in his paper Alexander in the Under-

1 B. Meissner, Alexander und Gilgamos, Leipzig, 1894, reprinted 1928. 2 I. Friedlaender Die Chadhirlegende und der Alexanderroman, Leipzig 1913, s. 37. K.

Rnnow, Some remarks on Svetadvipa, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, Vol. 5

No. 2, 1929, p. 269 , C. Jouanno, Naissance et mtamorphoses du Roman dAlexandre,

Paris 2002, p. 269. 3 Hopkins, The Fountain of Youth, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 26

(1905), p.19, Rnnow, p. 264., Dawkins, M. R, Alexander and the Water of Life, Medi-

IN SEARCH OF WATER OF LIFE 329

world4 argues that Alexander came to the Underworld where, according to

Greek mythology, the souls of heroes dwell. Indeed, the description of the

place, where the water of life is, seems very similar to the Greek image of

makarn nsoi. However it is still possible that the water of life motif is of oriental origin, because, as far as I know, there is no reviving water in Greek

mythology, found by a hero or a human being (besides Glaukos, see below).

Moreover, there is no reviving water in the Underworld nor in the Greek

Islands of the Blessed. Waters of various properties, including those which

have the ability to revive the dead, can be found in India at the boundaries of

the human world. These two stories had become one, and have been inter-

preted together. The story of the Water of Life seems to be essential to the

latest recensions of the Alexander Romance (there is no Water of Life story

in ). Alexanders journey to India, where he hopes to find immortality, defines the principal idea of the Romance: Alexander wants to achieve more

than any other human being before him, rivaling heroes and divinities as

well. He draws inspiration from the exploits of Heracles, and, particularly in

the Syriac version, from Dionysus too. The Indian adventures of Heracles

and Dionysus are well known.5 Reaching the end of the world was Alexan-

ders next supernatural achievement, after the descend to the bottom of the

sea in diving bell or ascend into the air.

A seemingly obvious interpretation of the motif of Water of Life would

see it as a variation on the Greek rendering of marvels of India, something to

the tune of the magical springs mentioned by Herodotus (III 23) in the story

of the Ethiopians and their magical spring, or the well of liquid gold in

Ctesias Indica (Phot, 72, Ind. 3 and 14), or of water of truth (Phot, 72, Ind.

14) or of water which cures illness (Phot, 72, Ind. 30).

The motif of the Water of Life is not altogether alien to Greek

mythology. To the best of my knowledge there is one very similar incident

um Aevum, VI, no. 3, 1937, p. 173., Jouanno C, Naissance et metamorphoses du Roman

dAlexandre, CNRS Editions, 2002, p. 268.

In L, Syriac and , Alexander knows that the reaches the end of the world. 4 Ogden D., Alexander in the Underworld, in: Philip II and Alexander the Great. Father

and Son. Lives and Afterlives, ed. E. Carney and D. Ogden, Oxford University Press,

2010. 5 Lvque P, Dionysos dans lInde, Inde, Grce ancienne, Regards croises en

anthropologie de lespace, ed. Jean-Claude Carrire, Evelyne Geny, Marie-Madeleine

Mactoux, Franoise Paul-Lvy, 1995, p. 125 138., Stoneman, Alexander the Great. A

Life in Legend, Yale University Press, 2008, p. 68., Dreyer B., Heroes, Cults and Divini-

ty, p. 218-234, Alexander the Great. A New History, ed. W. Heckel and L., A. Tritle,

Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. pp. 219 -223., Nawotka, Alexander the Great, Cambridge Schol-

ars Publishing, 2010, chapter: Expedition to India, 295-331.

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 330

in the story of Glaucus, the son of Sisyphus, transmitted by the fifth-century

Scholia Vetera6 to Platos Republic. There, Glaukos one day encountered the

spring of immortality, immersed in it and when nobody believed him, he

jumped into the ocean to prove his point, and thereupon became a sea god.

The unique story of a spring of immortality appears in Greek mythology not

earlier than the fifth century, so there is no real evidence that the story of the

Water of Life in the Alexander Romance is of Greek origin. This story seems

to be very old and some scholars connect it with the old Indo-Iranian stories

from the gveda (created probably in the middle of 2nd millennium BC, and written down in the seventh or sixth century BC) and the Avesta (composed

no later than the seventh or sixth century BC, written down no earlier than

the sixth century AD) about the gods Yama (Yima) and Gandharva

(Gandarwa) who possessed the ancient water of immortality, the Vedic Soma (Haoma). It is curious to observe that the Gandharvas who guard the

Soma were pictured as birds with human heads, similarly to the birds with

human faces who order Alexander to turn back in the Romance. The story of

Glaukos immersion in the spring of immortality is certainly of eastern

origin.7 There are however some dissimilarities between this story and that

of the Water of Life in the Alexander Romance. The b recension and later

versions put the story of the Water of Life in the far East and not in Greece.

Then Alexander misses the opportunity to drink the magic water, because it

is forbidden for a human being to drink from the source of immortality. The

story of Glaukos does not contain this shade of meaning.

In contrast to Greek mythology, Indian mythology and the earliest Indian

literature abound in stories of miraculous water. The great Indian epic, the

Mahbhrata, also contains stories of the water of immortality. It is difficult to determine the period in which the epic was created. Most scholars date it

between the fourth century BC to the fourth century AD.8 But before it was

written down, its stories were passed on orally, thus originating in a far more

distant past. The Mahbhrata is a real treasury of Indian mythology, reli-gion and folklore with all stories are braided into the main story of a war

between Pandavas and Kauravas.

6 Scholia vetera, 611 D1. 7 Yama, Gandharva and Glaucus, L.D. Barnett, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies,

Vol. 4, nr 4, 1928, p. 716.

Glaukos can be identified with a Khir Green man . In Islamic tradition Khir is a companion of Alexander, and they find the Fountain of Life ( e.g. Southgate, M, S,

Iskandarnamah, A Persian Medieval Alexander Romance, New York, 1978, p. 55-59)

Khir is associated with waters, the same as Glaukus, who become a sea-god. 8 Hopkins, E. W., Epic mythology, Strassburg, 1915, p. 1.

IN SEARCH OF WATER OF LIFE 331

In order to find possible links with the Mahbhrata it is necessary to review the circumstances in which Alexander came across the Water of Life.

Going through the Land of Darkness, Alexander or rather his cook finds the

Water of Life. In all accounts (b, L, Jacob) the place where it happens is less

dark and has a pleasant and sweet smell in the air. This is the quality of mi-

raculous springs known already to Herodotus writing about a source in

which the Ethiopians bathed to render their bodies shiny and sweet smelling.

In fact, he was referring to the Indians here, since the eastern Ethiopians are

in his account inhabitants of India.9 In the later stories of Alexander this

whole place is described as very bright and almost white, but this light does

not come from the sun. For example: in the story of prophet Mahomets life

by Ibn Hishm of the ninth century Alexander finds a white land, inhabited by sinless people of white skin, similar to the Indian paradise Svietadvipa

(The White Island).10 Another important thing are birds with human faces

and voices, who order Alexander to turn back, because he entered to the land

of Gods, forbidden to human beings. As a reward the birds promise to Alex-

ander a victory over Poros.

The Mahbhrata has a story of Arjuna very similar to that of Alexan-der.

MBh. 3,25.7-16

uttara harivara tu samsdya sa pava iyea jetu ta dea pkasananandana tata ena mahky mahvry mahbal dvrapl samsdya h vacanam abruvan prtha neda tvay akya pura jetu katha cana upvartasva kalya paryptam idam acyuta ida pura ya pravied dhruva sa na bhaven nara prymahe tvay vra parypto vijayas tava

9 A miraculous fountain in India, K. Karttunen, Arctos XIX, 1985, 55-65. (eastern Ethiopi-

ans III 94, Ctesias calls Ethiopians the makrobioi and places them in India (Phot, 72,

Ind 15). 10 Rnnow, p. 266.

In Indian mythology Svetadvipa is an earthly paradise, not only white and shining but

also rich in various precious stones, gold and pearls, which are also considered (the same

as nowadays) to be an important element of peoples happiness and wealth.(Perry, J. W,

The Isles of the Blest, Folklore, vol. 3, 1921, p. 171.). It is curious to observe that, when

Alexander leaves the Land of Darkness, where the Water of Life was, and comes to the

light, he and his men discover that the stones they have picked up in the darkness turn in-

to fine gold (Bergson, II, 41).

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 332

na cpi ki cij jetavyam arjuntra pradr yate uttar kuravo hy ete ntra yuddha pravartate pravia cpi kaunteya neha drakyasi ki cana na hi mnuadehena akyam atrbhivkitum atheha puruavyghra ki cid anyac cikrasi tad bravhi kariymo vacant tava bhrata tatas tn abravd rjann arjuna pkasani prthivatva cikrmi dharmarjasya dhmata na pravekymi vo dea bdhyatva yadi mnuai yudhihirya yat ki cit karavan na pradyatm tato divyni vastri divyny bharani ca mokjinni divyni tasmai te pradadu karam

At last the son of the player of Paka, arriving in the country of North

Harivarsa, desired to conquer it. Thereupon certain frontier-guards of

huge bodies and endued with great strength and energy, coming to him

with gallant hearts, said O son of Pritha, this country can be never con-

quered by thee! If thou seekest thy good, return hence! He that entereth

this region, if human, is sure to perish. We have been gratified with thee;

O hero, thy conquests have been enough. Nor is anything to be seen

here, O Arjuna, that may be conquered by thee! The Northern Kurus live

here. There cannot be war here. Even if thou enterest it, thou wilt not be

able to behold anything, for with human eyes nothing can be seen here.

If, however thou seekest anything else, O Bharata, tell us, O tiger among

men, so that we may do thy bidding! Thus addressed by them, Arjuna

smilingly addressing them, said: I desire the acquisition of the imperial

dignity by Yudhisthira the just, of great intelligence. If your land is shut

against human beings, I will not enter it. Let something be paid unto

Yudhisthira by ye as tribute! Hearing these words of Arjuna, they gave

him as tribute many cloths and ornaments of celestial make, silks of ce-

lestial texture, and skins of celestial origin.11

There is also a similar story of Bhma, who finds water of ambrosial taste and cool and light and clear and fresh,12 but he is denied to be in this place

with the words Men subject to death cannot sport here.13

11 Mahbhrata, ed. P. C. Roy, Calcutta, 1886-1890, vol. II, section XXVIII, p. 67. 12 MBh, Roy, vol. III, section CLII, p. 324-325. 13 Idem.

IN SEARCH OF WATER OF LIFE 333

MBh. 3,151.1-8

sa gatv nalin ramy rkasair abhirakitm kailsaikhare ramye dadara ubhaknane kuberabhavanbhye jt parvatanirjhare suramy vipulacchy nndrumalatvtm haritmbujasachann divy kanakapukarm pavitrabht lokasya ubhm adbhutadaranm tatrmtarasa ta laghu kuntsuta ubham dadara vimala toya iva bahu ca pava t tu pukari ramy padmasaugandhikyutm jtarpamayai padmai chann paramagandhibhi vairyavaranlai ca bahucitrair manoharai hasakraavoddhtai sjadbhir amala raja kra yakarjasya kuberasya mahtmana gandharvair apsarobhi ca devai ca paramrcitm

rkas cu kro ya kuberasya dayita puruarabha neha akya manuyea vihartu martyadharmi devarayas tath yak dev ctra vkodara mantrya yakapravara pibanti viharanti ca gandharvpsarasa caiva viharanty atra pava anyyeneha ya ka cid avamanya dhanevaram vihartum icched durvtta sa vinayed asaayam tam andtya padmni jihrasi bald ita dharmarjasya ctmna bravi bhrtara katham

Having reached that spot, Bhimasena saw in the vicinity of the Kailasa

cliff, that beautiful lotus lake surrounded by lovely woods, and guarded

by the Rakshasas. And it sprang from the cascades contiguous to the

abode of Kuvera. And it was beautiful to behold, and was furnished with

a wide-spreading shade and abounded in various trees and creepers and

was covered with green lilies. And this unearthly lake was filled with

golden lotuses, and swarmed with diverse species of birds. And its banks

were beautiful devoid of mud. And situated on the rocky elevation this

expanse of excellent water was axceedlingly fair. And it was the wonder

of the world and healthful and of romantic sight. In that lake the son of

Kunti saw the water of ambrosial taste and cool and light and clear and

fresh: and the Pandava drank of it profusely. And that unearthly recepta-

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 334

cle of waters was covered with celestial Saugandhika lotuses, and was

also spread over with beautiful variegated golden lotuses of excellent

fragrance having graceful stalks of lapis lazulis. And swayed by swans

and Karnadavas, these lotuses were scattering fresh farina.

()

Rakshasas said: O foremost of men, this spot is dear unto Kuvera, and

it is his sporting region. Men subject to death cannot sport here. O

Vrikodara, the celestial sages, and the gods taking the permission of the

chief of the Yakshas, drink of this lake, and sport herein. And, O

Pandava, the Gandharvas and the Apsaras also divert themselves in this

lake. That wicked person who, disregarding the lord of treasures, unlaw-

fully attempteth to sport here, without doubt, meeteth with destruction.

Disregarding him, thou seekest to take away the lotuses from this place

by main force.14

Both Alexander and Arjuna are denied entrance to the land of Gods always

placed in the north. Then there are quite numerous stories about healing wa-

ter and water of eternal youth or eternal life. A wise man, Cyavana, gained

eternal youth and immortality by immersion in the magical water.

MBh. 3,123.11-17

tv abrt punas tv enm v devabhiagvarau yuvna rpasapanna kariyva pati tava tatas tasyvayo caiva patim ekatama vru etena samayenainam mantraya varnane s tayor vacand rjann upasagamya bhrgavam uvca vkya yat tbhym ukta bhr gusuta prati tac chrutv cyavano bhrym uvca kriyatm iti bhartr s samanujt kriyatm ity athbravt rutv tad avinau vkya tat tasy kriyatm iti cat rjaputr t patis tava viatv apa tato mbha cyavana ghra rprth pravivea ha avinv api tad rjan sara praviat prabho tato muhrtd uttr sarve te sarasas tata divyarpadhar sarve yuvno makual tulyarpadhar caiva manasa prtivardhan

14 Idem.

IN SEARCH OF WATER OF LIFE 335

They again spoke unto her: We two are celestial physicians of note.

We will make thy lord young and graceful. Do thou select one of us, viz.

ourselves and thy husband, - for thy partner. Promising this do thou, O

auspicious one, bring hither thy husband O king greeably to their

words she went to Bhrigus son and communicated to him what the two

celestials had said. Hearing her message, Chyavana said unto his wife

Do thou so having received the permission of her lord, (she returned to

the celestials) and said Do ye so Then hearing her words viz. Do ye

so, they spoke unto the kings daughter Let thy husband enter into wa-

ter. Thereat Chyavana desirous of obtaining beauty, quickly entered into

water. The twin Aswins also, O king, sank into the sheet of water. And

the next moment they all came out of the tank in surpassingly beautiful

forms, and young and wearing burnished ear-rings.15

This story appears in the part of the Mahbhrata called Trtha-yatra Parva (MBh, III, section LXXXII - CLV), the great catalogue of various holy and

magical springs and wells, in that of those who give immortality and eternal

youth to one who bathed in it. The same motif is well attested in later Indian

literature as well, e.g. the Kathsaritsgara, a collections of Indian fairy tales, probably of the ninth century AD, contains the story of the bodhisattva

Vintimat, whose dead body sprinkled with magical water comes to life.16 There is also another aspect of magical water in India. Indians believed

that the whole world was surrounded by waters of magical properties. If

Alexander reached the end of the world he may have come across the

boundary river. In the Upaniads, the oldest philosophical texts of India composed around the mid-first millenium BC, we find the Vijar river (San-skrit vi-jar without old age, ageless, deprived of old age). After cross-ing this river the souls of men gained immortality.17 Similarly the river

Vaitara marked the boundary between the human world and the land of the dead.

MBh. 3,114.14-15

yudhihira uvca upaspr yaiva bhagavann asy nady tapodhana

15 MBh, Roy, vol. III, section CXXIII and CXXIV. 16 Kathsaritsgara, 72. The Ocean of Story, transl. C. H. Tawney, 1924, vol. VI, p. 98.

from: E. Washburn Hopkins, The fountain of youth, Journal of the American Oriental So-

ciety, vol. 26 (1905), pp. 1-67. 17 Kautaki Upaniad, I 4a. ed. P. Olivelle, The Early Upanisads. Annotated Text and

translation, Oxford, 1998, p. 328-329.

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 336

mnud asmi viayd apeta paya lomaa sarvml lokn prapaymi prasdt tava suvrata vaikhnasn japatm ea abdo mahtmanm

Yudhisthira said O Lomasa! How great must be the force of a pious

deed! Having taken my bath at this spot in a proper form, I seem to touch

no more the region inhabited by mortal men! O saint of a virtuous life, I

am beholding all the regions!18

Then the mysterious river Silles, in which nothing can float, mentioned by

Ctesias19 and Megasthenes20 which is also the boundary river. According to

the Indian tradition the river Silles flowed in the land of the Uttarakurus,21 a

people famed for longevity. The Silles was difficult to cross, because it

turned into stone everything it touched. It is described as very shiny and

bright, in a very similar way to the source of immortality in the Romance. It

seems to me that the Water of Life motif has something in common with

Indian beliefs of magical boundary rivers. Alexander reaches the end of the

world and near to that place he finds the magical spring which can revive the

dead or enable one to pass into the other world, the dwellings of the gods. It

must be some kind of interpretation of old Indian beliefs.

Although there is not, to the best my knowledge, an exact earlier Greek

match for the story of the Water of Life known from the Alexander Ro-

mance, I have been trying to point out striking parallel motifs in the earliest

Indian literature. It abounds in stories of magical waters, including those of

water of immortality and eternal youth. Beginning from the oldest Indo-

Iranian stock, through the epics and fable up to present times, water has

played a tremendous role in culture, religion and legends of India. Such ele-

ments as shining bright water, guardians who defend the access to the water

or to the dwellings of the gods even against heroes and demigods, the pres-

ence of the water of life at the border of the world, are distinctive for Indian

legends. Having in mind that these motifs are far less common in Greek

mythology and some of them entirely absent, the Indian origin of the story of

water of life in the Alexander Romance seems likely. I do not intend to wan-

18 Mahbharata, III, CXIV, p. 249. 19 Phot. 72, Ind. 30 (Jacoby). 20 Sachse J., Le mythe de il, fleuve indien, Eos, Comentarii Societas Philologae

Polonorum, vol. LXX, 1982, fasc. 2, 238. 21 Ibidem, p. 239.

IN SEARCH OF WATER OF LIFE 337

der into the speculative, but a question as to the ways in which the story of

the Water of Life made it into the Romance needs to be asked.

It is generally accepted that the Alexander Romance evolved from the

semi-factual account of the recension to the more and more marvelous story telling of later versions, beginning with the recension . Its author, in search of making the narrative richer and more interesting, added the motif

of the Water of Life borrowed from the stock of legends of India, the land

famed for its marvels. There was certainly more than one route of transmis-

sion of stories about wonders of India to the Western world and the ex-

change of ideas paralleled the trade in goods. Besides Indian merchants call-

ing at Alexandria, we know of intellectuals on both sides claiming to have

visited India and the Mediterranean. An early example of the flow of Alex-

ander the Great stories in opposite direction is the Indian poem

Haracarita22 of Ba. This is a story of life of king Hara, written in 630 AD. There is an episode in which Hara is visited by a young princess, and they speak about great heroes who managed to conquer the whole world.

One of them is alesaanda, which is the Sanskrit rendition of Alexander.23 In addition they mention that this king was near the kingdom of women, but

did not enter it. It is surely a reflection of one of Alexander the Greats ad-

ventures portrayed in the Romance. In the recension, opposite to the tradi-tion of Alexander historians, Alexander exchanges letters with leaders of the

Amazons but does not go into their country. Hence the Alexander Romance

was known, directly or indirectly, in India of the seventh century AD and

possibly earlier. In all probability related stories flew both ways.

Bibliography

Editions and translations

Bergson, L., Der grieschische Alexanderroman rezension Beta, Stockholm 1965.

Haracarita of Ba, translated by E. B. Cowell and F. W. Thomas, London, 1897. Olivelle, P., The Early Upanisads. Annotated Text and translation, Oxford, 1998.

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22 Haracarita of Ba, translated by E .B. Cowell and F. W. Thomas, London, 1897, p. 210. 23 S. Levi, Alexander and Alexandrias in Indian literature, 1936, p. 414.

ALEKSANDRA SZALC 338

The Mahbhrata for the First Time Critically Edited, 19 vols, ed. Sukthankar, Vishnu S., Bevalkar, Sripad Krishna, Vaidya, Parashuram Lakshman et al. (eds), (1933-1966) Poo-

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