SANSKRIT 



151 



Geniianic and Vedic verb-systems, has almost 

 entirely disappeared from the classical Sanskrit ; 

 and alternative declensional and conjugational 

 forms have usually been reduced to a uniform 

 level. Indeed, levelling processes of this kind 

 are seen to have been at work from the earliest 

 times. Thus, a comparison of the language of 

 the older portions of the Kigveda with that of the 

 later hymns, and the closely allied Atharvaveda, 

 shows now, both in declension and conjugation, 

 vowel-stems gradually supersede the original radi- 

 cal and consonantal steins, which less readily adapt 

 themselves to case and personal affixes, and hence 

 are apt to produce anomalies and irregularities. 

 Snch modifications become still more marked in 

 the later Vedic prose-writings, the Brahmanas 

 and Sutras, which may be considered an inter- 

 mediate link between the two periods of the 

 language. Though the process of change was at 

 length arrested T>y rigid grammatical rules, to 

 which every cultivated writer had to conform, 

 it found all the more scope in the popular dialects, 

 which soon lost touch of the literary language 

 and became more and more removed from it. 



Literature. In accordance with the general de- 

 velopment of the language, the history of the 

 ancient literature of India may conveniently be 

 divided into two chief periods, the Vedic Literature 

 and the (Classical) Sanskrit Literature. It must 

 be understood, however, that the two periods 

 overlap each other to some extent, inasmuch as 

 certain classes of works, on account of their snb- 



i'ect-matter as well as the archaic character of their 

 anguage, have to be grouped along with the Vedic 

 literature, though they cannot have originated, in 

 their present form, till after the language had 

 become settled. The Vedic Literature forms the 

 subject of a separate article. See VEDA. 



Classical Sanskrit Literature. The dates of 

 many important Sanskrit works being still very 

 uncertain, it is not yet possible satisfactorily to 

 subdivide this period chronologically ; and the 

 usual practice of treating it under the different, 

 departments of literature is therefore adhered to. 



A. Poetic Literature. (\) Epic Poetry. The 

 Hindus possess two great national epics, the 

 MahdbhArata (q.v.) and the Ram&yana (q.v.). 

 Along with these may be classed the Purdnas 

 (q.v.), which, although in their present form 

 they were doubtless composed or recast for 

 sectarian purposes several centuries after Christ, 

 seem to contain a considerable amount of gen- 

 nine old legendary matter akin to larjje por- 

 tions of the Mahabharata. Though the final re- 

 daction of the two epics can scarcely be assigned 

 to an earlier period than about the beginning of 

 our era, it can hardly be doubted that the vast 

 mass of legendary lore and complete epic lays of 

 which the Mahabharata is composed, at all events, 

 must have required centuries to grow and assume 

 its present shape. At a subsequent period, from 

 about the 5th or 6th century A.D. onwards, there 

 arose a second crop of epic poems of an entirely 

 different character. Whilst the old poems are 

 composed in easy, natural language, such as might 

 well have formed the living though cultured 

 language of the people, these later works are 

 evidently the artificial product of an age when 

 the literary language had long lost touch of the 

 popular mind. Their subject-matter, such as there 

 is, is entirely derived from the old legends ; but 

 the form in which it is here presented has 

 nothing of the old popular ring about it elaborate 

 metres, long and complicated compounds, and 

 laboured figures of speech through which the epic 

 narrative hardly progresses at all being the char- 

 icteristic features of most of these productions, 

 milt up in accordance with a narrow code of 



rhetoric. They are nevertheless replete with poetic 

 thoughts and genuine artistic feeling, which only 

 require a less artificial form of presentment to 

 please even the western taste. Of such poems 

 ( kdvya ) there existed a considerable number; but 

 the native taste has singled out six of them as 

 mahdkdvyas or great poems viz. two by Kalidasa 

 (q.v.), by far the greatest poet of this period, the 

 Baghuvams'a and the Kumarasambltava ; further 

 the Kirdtdrjuniya by Bharavi (probably a con- 

 temporary of Kalidasa, ? c. 500-550 A.D.) ; theS'is'u- 

 pdlabadha by Magha, hence also called Mdgka- 

 Kdvya ; the Bavanabadha or Bhattikdvya, com- 

 posed by Bhatti with the view of illustrating 

 the less common grammatical forms of speech ; 

 and the NaishadMya of S'ri Harsha (12th cen- 

 tury). 



(2) Lyric, Descriptive, and Didactic Poetry. In 

 this class of poetic production the palm is usually 

 assigned to two poems by Kalidasa viz. the 

 Meghaduta, or cloud-messenger, where an exiled 

 demigod sends a message of love to his wife by a 

 cloud, to which he describes, in glowing verse- 

 pictures, the places and scenes it will have to 

 traverse ; and the Ritusarnltara, a description of 

 the seasons. Of high poetic merit, though of a 

 very sensuous character, is also the melodrama 

 Gitagovinda (12th century) of Jayadeva (q.v.), 

 which describes the love-making of the god Krishna 

 among the milkmaids, his separation from, and 

 ultimate reconciliation with, his wife Radhft ; and 

 which, like the biblical Song of Songs, is considered 

 capable of being explained in a mystic-allegorical 

 sense. Moreover, scattered over dramas and man- 

 uals of rhetoric, or collected in poetic anthologies, 

 there are extant thousands of single stanzas, com- 

 posed with the view of depicting some striking 

 local scene or emotional sensation. They may be 

 likened to our sonnets, being like them artificial 

 productions, though often composed with much 

 skill and neatness, and inspired by genuine poetic 

 sentiment. Didactic poetry, in Indian literature, 

 takes chiefly the form of moral maxims, or senten- 

 tious truths, expressed in single couplets or stanzas. 

 There are a number of collections of such stanzas, 

 intended to serve as manuals of ethical and social 

 science, the best known of which are the Rdjaniti- 

 samuchchaya, or 'collection on the conduct of 

 kings,' ascribed to Chanakya ; the Kdmandakiya- 

 Nltisdra, by Kamandaki ; and the Nitis'ataka, or 

 century (of stanzas) on ethic science, by Bhartrihari, 

 who also wrote two centuries of erotic and devo- 

 tional verses. To render moral instruction more 

 attractive to the youthful mind, sententious verses 

 of this kind were also combined with humorous 

 stories and fables ; the most famous reading-books 

 of this class being the well-known Panchatantra 

 (q.v.), or ' five books,' and the popular recast of it 

 called Hitopades'a( q.v.), or 'good counsel ;' further, 

 the Vetdlapanchaviifis'ati, or twenty-five (tales) of 

 the goblin ; the Simhdsanadvdtrims'ikd, or thirty- 

 two (stories) of the throne ; and the S'ukasaptati, or 

 seventy (tales) of the parrot. Two highly popular 

 collections of versified fairy-tales are Kshemendra's 

 Vrihatkathd, or great story (c. 1030 A.D.), and 

 Somadeva's Kathdsaritsdgara (trans, by C. H. 

 Tawney), or 'ocean of rivers of story '(c. 1120). 

 The Sanskrit novellistic prose literature, on the 

 other hand, is very scanty, and characterised by a 

 stilted, highly involved style, the few best-known 

 works of this class being Dandin's Das'akumdra- 

 charita (6th century), or adventures of the ten 

 princes (trans, by P. W. Jacob); Subandhu's 

 V&savadattd ; and Bana's Kddambari ( c. 620 A.D.). 



(3) Drama. Though dramatic performances of 

 some kind seem to go back to pretty early times, 

 none of the existing plays are probably older than 

 the 5th century of our era. The language is usually 



