



sv KUIT LANCl'A'iK AND LITERATI/HK. 



1:61 



nbatau the fint and third are more fully trotted than cilh. r in M.-nn 

 or YajnaTalkya. The laws of Dakxhaand Parftaara contain nothing 

 about ciril law at all, but o much the more about purification, penance, 

 Ac. Thee minor fimrilu, as they are aluo called (.Smri/i means imme- 

 morial luagv), are for the nuwt ]>art of small extent, and touch upon 

 an! law only incidentally ; they are, moreover, although received in 

 common by all the school*, uo longer final authorities, even where they 

 do tMat of law. For that pur|w r. course must be had to the Com- 

 mentaries and Digests. " Some of tho fonner are merely explanatory 

 of the txt. but others are regardod as final authorities ; and these 

 latter, together with the Digests, form the immediate groundwork for 

 the opinions of lawyers in the respective schools where the doctrines 

 they uphold may prevail. Many of the Commentaries on the Smritis 

 such, for instance, as those on Mann's institutes are not considered 



author, partake so far of thu nature of general Digests, are referred to 

 for the final decision of questions. The ' MitAksharA ' (printed at 

 Cale., 1812) is a remarkable instance of this ; since, though professedly 

 only a commentary on the Hiuriti of YAjnavalkya, it is consulted as a 

 finals " 

 alone. 



3-> ... 



in the Deccan the ' Smritichandrika ' by 

 authority with the ' MitAkshara ; ' whereas in Bengal the latter has 

 been entirely superseded by the ' DAya Bhaga ' (on the laws of inherit- 

 ance) by Jlmuta VAhana. For the modern law literature in Sanskrit, 

 which is very extensive, consult Wilson's preface to Macnaghten's 

 Principles of Hindu and Mohammedan Law,' London, 1860 ; fiorley, 

 'The Administration of Justice in Brit. India,' p. 213-36; .Sir A. 

 Steele, ' Summary of the Law and Custom of Hindu Castes,' Bombay, 

 1827, p. 1-29 ; Borradaile's Introduction to his translation of the 

 Vyavahara Mayttkha,' Surat. 1827. 



Puntxat. The Puranas, if we regard the form, must be classed 

 with the ancient epic. They are voluminous collections of legends and 

 traditions, written to elucidate the origin and history of some par- 

 ticular holy place or a certain sect, and to be read to the people for 

 their instruction at the great festivals. They all begin with a cosmo- 

 gony, to which they add the genealogy of the gods and the development 

 of the periods of the world, as well as unconnected historical traditions, 

 BO as to form a fabulous chronology ; and thus they come down to the 

 history of the sacred place to which they are especially dedicated ; they 

 then conclude with the miracles, and so forth, which have been per- 

 formed there. As they were intended to be read publicly, they are of 

 course used as vehicles for conveying such instruction as the people 

 might be presumed to require. They contain, therefore, not only 

 recommendations to devotion and faith, and copious representations of 

 the religious usages and customs, but also systems of the sciences 

 which were known to the natives of India, as astronomy, mensuration, 

 and jurisprudence, which are different in each PurAna, according as the 

 priesthood of a temple belonged to this or that sect, or to this or that 

 school of philosophy, astronomy, or law. In their present form, the 

 Puranas are decidedly very late compositions, but the elements out of 

 which they have been constructed belong to very different periods. 

 They themselves refer to still older sources, and all the circumstances 

 combined lead to the conclusion that there must have been another set 

 of Puranas, which are now lost, and of which the present are an altered 

 form or an imitation. Their great similarity, as well in their general 

 structure as in particular parts, shows that they must have been 

 formed upon one type, and that one very ancient, and that the differ- 

 ences which they present arise from the difference of object, according 

 as they emanated from this or that place, or this or that sect. The 

 older authorities actually give definitions of the Puranas which do not 

 apply to them as they exist at present, and which presume an older 

 form. It may even be asserted that entire portions of them must 

 originally have belonged to the Vedas. In their present shape, none 

 of the Puranas can be referred to an earlier date than the i'th century 

 A.D., and the greater part of them are much later, and closely connected 

 with the formation of the more recent sects. Though they are metrical 

 compositions, they have no pretensions to poetic merit, if we excepl 

 the ' BhAgavatapurana,' which was probably written by Vopadeva 

 They are arranged according to a certain canon, and are eighteen in 

 number, under the titles of Brahma, Padma, Brahmanda, Agni 

 Viahnu, Uaruda, Brahmavairarta, Siva, Linga, NAradlya, Skanda 

 XArkandeya, lihavishya, Mutsya, VArnha, Kurma, Vftmana, and Bhaga 

 TU. Derides these, there are said to be eighteen I'papurdnat, 01 

 eoondary I'urftnas, only a few of which, however, are known. There 

 arc many others, not included in thin canon, which are called Sthala- 

 fwrdmtu, or local Purana*, and are of little importance. Several ol 

 thene have been described by I'rof. WiNm, in the 'Catalogue oi 

 the Mackenzie Collection' (Talc., 1828). The Puranas have been 

 chiefly made known to UK l>y the analyses of Wilson, in tht 

 'Asiatic Journals' of Calcutta and London; by his translation o 

 the ' VishiiiipmniiA,' London, |S|n, 41. ,; ; ,nrl |,y linni..iii'.s edition 

 !: 'Bhagn ,-10-47, fol., a , 



oompht* edil red in India, our ut ( 



. and the other at Jtmnlmy, l&W, both \vit.li !: 



M-idliaraswamin. An edition of the ' Mfir': mdcyapurAna' was cora- 

 dcutta in 1855. 



.1 ,-iijirinl /Wry. Sanskrit poetry received a new character, and one 



essentially different from that which we have been just considering, in 



consequence of the revolution which took place in Sanskrit literature 



about the first century before Christ. Instead of the popular and 



lational character which appears in the two groat epic poems, it now 



assumed an artificial form, and became the poetry of courts and 



>rinces. How this was effected cannot be historically shown, for the 



arious steps of the transition are lost, and the new poetry appears at 



jnee in its perfect state. It is, however, quit.- ohvi.ms that the two 



great ei liad long been completed and wore in universal 



epute. The now poetry is poor in invention, and drew its materials 



rom the former. Its whole merit consists in what may be called 



ityle. Even the epic versification is for the most part neglected, and 



yric metres are substituted for it. This is not merely a difference in 



external form, but it is connected most intimately with the mode in 



vhich things are viewed by the Indians, who, being devoted to con- 



*mplation, delight to work up their poetical materials not so much 



nto a continuous action, as into a series of single situat it ms. I 



hese situations is exhibited in a single stanza or strophe, which i 



in independent whole, and is not connected with the others cither 



;i ically or metrically. This peculiarity is as obvious in the epic 



is in the lyric and dramatic poetry. 



The neu- Epic poetry begins with KAlidAsa, to whom two works of this 

 class have been ascribed, ' Kumarasambhava ' and ' Kaghuvansa.' f CALI- 

 . 1 >i v.] They are written in a style worthy of imitation, 

 and their whole character shows that they are older than the others, from 

 whose superfluities these early works are free. The materials belong 

 x> the mythic cycle of the ' llAmftyana.' The disposition to describe 

 rather than to narrate is exhibited as well in single passages as in the. 

 whole. Whenever an opportunity occurs, long descriptions are intro- 

 duced, such as pictures of natural objects, to which the old epic poetry 

 was also inclined, but more sparingly, and only incidentally : here, 

 however, they encumber the whole progress of the action. This is 

 much more the case in the two following poems, in which the descrip- 

 tions appear to the poet to be so important that he seems to have 

 undertaken the works only for the purpose of introducing them. These 

 works are the ' Kiratarjuniya,' or " the battle of Arjuua with the 

 Kirftta," by Bharavi, and ' BisupAlabadha,' or " the death of SisupAla," 

 by Mflgha, both founded on episodes of the ' Mahabharata.' They are 

 classical compositions, and elaborated with the utmost nicety; but the 

 art of the poet degenerates into a mere play upon words. There are 

 verses which may be read forwards and backwards, and upwards and 

 downwards; others in which only one and the same consonant is used 

 (as "Sis. 19, 114, 'dadado duddaduddadi dadado dudadidadoh dud- 

 dadan dadade dudde dadadadadado ' dada," which indeed is not very 

 clear, but still has a meaning), or two consonants or more are used. 

 These poems were printed at Calcutta, 1814, 1815, and again 1848, 

 with the commentary of Mallinatha. The ' Bhattikavya,' written in 

 \ he .1 li or (ith century, in Vallabhi, the chief town of Uu/erat, narrates 

 the history of Kama, but only for the purpose of elucidating the more 

 rare grammatical forms, every canto being written in a certain tense, 

 4c. (Published at Calcutta, 1828, with two grammatical commen- 

 taries.) The ' Nalodaya,' falsely ascribed to Kalidasa, gives the history 

 of Nala out of the Muhabharata, but only to show the skill of the poet 

 in an incessant play of words and rhymes. (Edited by F. Beuary, with 

 the commentary of Prajnakara, a Latin translation and notes, Berlin, 

 1830 ; and by W. Yates, with a metrical translation, grammatical 

 analysis, &c., Calc., 1844.) The most artificial of all these poems is the 

 Raghavapundaviya' of KavirAja. (Published at Calc., 1854, with a 

 commentary by Prcmachandra Tarkavagtsa.) It is written with such a 

 purposed double meaning, that the same words give us the histories of 

 Kama and also of the sons of Pandu, which is only possible in . 

 quence of most of the Sanskrit proper names having also a ] 

 appellative meaning, so that in the one history the proper names must 

 be dropped, and in the other the appellative meanings. We shall 

 mention in the last place the ' Naishadlya ' of Sriharsha, king of Cash- 

 mere in the 12th century. It treats of the marriage of Nala, and 

 nothing eke, in twenty-two long cantos, written throughout in a very 

 artificial manner, which however makes it a great favourite among 

 the Indians. The descriptions in this poem exceed in length and num- 

 ber all reasonable bounds, and there can hardly be said to be any action 

 at all. It was printed at Calcutta in two volumes, the first with the 

 commentary of Premachandra, 1836, and the second with that of 

 Narayana, 1855. 



Lyric poetry, in the proper sense of the term, did not exist among 

 the natives of India at this period, for even here their fondness for 

 description has taken the place of everything else, and, instead of lyric 

 poetry, we have the epigrammatic, didactic, and descriptive. Kveu 

 their amatory poetry appears to be not so much the expression and 

 effusion of feeling as a studied and laboured display of situations. An 

 agreeable work of this description, tho ' Amai usafiikam,' consists of 

 Inn single small poems, each of them being nothing IIKHV than a stan/,a 

 which represents an amatory scene, ;ui< ,n epi 



gram. (Publish, i! at Calcutta, 1808.) T.I 

 I lie ' Siin^iratilaka,' wliieli h,i - bMD ImprOp 

 daso. To these must. 



