60 



INDIA (PROFANE LITERATURE AND MYTHOLOGY.) 



Sir William Jones) a complete code of laws and 

 ratlflmt. containing a jux-tinil account of God and 

 the spirits, of the creation >f the world and of men 

 (SchlegeTs Hittory of Ancient and Modern Litera- 

 ture, I. 171). The Dertana the third class of the 



Upttngat are philosophical works, and are of three 



danes Kyaya (connected with Uie Greek Ni/f, 

 understanding, mind), which explains the sense of 

 separate passages of the J'eda, and is divided into 

 two [rts the work of Gotama and Cadana; Sank- 

 kya, which is twofold, either with or without Iswara, 

 and SanJchya; the first is also called Patanjala; lastly, 

 Mimanta, which is again attributed to Dwapajana, 

 humanied I'yasd, or the Compiler. Dow has pub- 

 \\-\\v<\ parts of the Dersanas. 



2. Profane Literature. We shall only touch upon 

 some of the principal works. Mugdhabodha, or the 

 Beauty of Knowledge, by Goswami, surnamed Fopa- 

 deva, is considered the best Sanscrit grammar. There 

 is another, by Kalapa, called Katantra P'riti, with 

 an etymological commentary, called Katantra J-'riti 

 Tika. Such commentaries are also Dourga Singha, 

 Tritatshandrasa. Another grammar, with the title 

 Sankhipta Sara, by Radjah Djoumoura Randi, has 

 been commented on by Gopi Tchandra. The best 

 dictionary, Amarasinha, has been already mentioned; 

 besides this, there are seventeen others, of great 

 reputation. The Hindoo poetry has, throughout, an 

 elegiac earnestness and sweetness, which owes its 

 origin to their oldest poet, Valmiki, who sang in 

 plaintive strains of the murder of a youth, who lived 

 happily with his mistress in a beautiful wilderness, 

 and was mourned by her in heart-rending lamenta- 

 tions. We have already spoken of Valmiki as the 

 author of the epic Ramayana, with which Vyasa's 

 Mahabharat alone can be compared. Another poet 

 is Djana Radjah, who has described the meeting of 

 Arjoun with Siva. Bhattu Bana, a third poet, is the 

 author of Kadambari. Bhartri Hera Pandita wrote 

 a popular epic Bhatii: Djaga Deva wrote the Gita 

 Govinda a hymn to Govinda (translated by Jones). 

 The dramas, called Nataks by the Indians, are nu- 

 merous. Among the dramatic poets, Calidas, a poet 

 at the court of Vicramaditya, about a century B. C., 

 is mentioned as a star of the first magnitude. He 

 has been called the Indian Shakspeare. His best 

 drama is Sacontala, or the Fatal King, an English 

 translation of which has been made by Jones, and a 

 German by Forster, and of which Herder says 

 "All the scenes are connected by flowery bands; 

 each grows out of the subject as naturally as a beau- 

 tiful plant. A multitude of sublime as well as tender 

 ideas are found in it, which we should look for in 

 vain in a Grecian drama." Koumava Samblava (the 

 Birth of Kumara, the Physician of the Gods) is one 

 of the productions of this poet, as likewise Ourvasi 

 VUerama (the Heroism of Urvasi), in five acts, and 

 Meeha Duta, or the Cloud of Message, published by 

 Wilkins. Among other Hindoo dramas are Ketria- 

 tali (the Pearl Necklace), by llersadeva; Prabodha 

 Tchandra Oudaya (or the Rising Moon of Know- 

 ledge), in six acts, by Krishna Misra; Hasiarnava 

 (or the Sea of Ridicule) a satirical drama, in San- 

 scrit and Pracrit, by Djayadeswara Bhaltatcharia ; 

 Maha Nataka, the great drama, also in Sanscrit and 

 Pracrit, by Madhusanada Misra Murari, in seven acts. 

 Mudra Rakyasa, and Malati, and Malheva, dramas 

 in ten acts, are by unknown authors. (See Wilson's 

 Hindoo Drama, Calcutta, 1827). The poetical trea- 

 sures of the literature have been not a little increased 

 or late by the establishment of a printing press 

 at Calcutta, for the purpose of publishing Oriental 

 vrorks. The 1 1 indoos liave two kinds of feet (padam 

 or charanam) in their verses the simple ganam and 

 Uie upaganam. Of the former, there are eight, 



called, in general, majaoasanarayala. They are the 

 following; maganam (molossus) , baganam (dactyle), 

 iaganam (amphibrachys), saganam (anapest), iiaga- 

 nam (tribrachys), raganam (creticus), yaganam (pa- 

 limbacchius), and Iaganam (bacchius). The vpaga- 

 nams, called yarahanagamanala,are gaganam (spon- 

 dee), haganam (trochee), vaganam (iambus), nalam 

 (proceleusmaticus), galam (pyrrichius), malagu (epi- 

 tritus quartus),waga> ( paeon quartus), latam (ionicus 

 minor). The Hindoos have also two kinds of rhyme: 

 the one falls on the first letter or first syllable of the 

 verse, and is called yety, or vadi; for example, ki in 

 kirti and kirtana makes a rhyme. The other falls 

 on the second letter or the second syllable from the 

 commencement, and is called prasam; for example, 

 pa in Capaguy and Dipantram. Of the verse, the 

 schlocken, a stanza or strophe, has already been men- 

 tioned. But there are also other kinds of verse 

 (padyams), as the cawdapadyam. There are five 

 writers on prosody, which is very difficult. The 

 oldest philosophical sect is considered to be that of 

 Capila. The philosophy called nyaya (see above) is 

 a kind of logic containing the doctrine of syllogisms, 

 which, according to a Persian account of Mohsani 

 Fani, is the foundation of that of Aristotle. A third 

 system is the mimansa (which reminds us of the 

 monkey and serpent god), invented by Vyasa (see 

 above), and improved by his scholar, Jaimini. Vyasa's 

 doctrine is called vedanta (the aim of the Vedas). 

 It teaches the dependence of matter on mind. The 

 disciples of Buddha, on the contrary, are materialists. 

 Thus we have three systems, the Vedanta, the Ny- 

 aya, and the Mimansa. mythologically developed, as 

 pantheism, in its noblest sense, with the correspond- 

 ing views of idealism and realism. The Sankhyas, 

 Jainas, and other sects, are unquestionably later fol- 

 lowers of one or the other of these systems. We will 

 only name some of the philosophical works. Among 

 them are Gangheswara Fatwa Schirtamani a trea- 

 tise on metaphysics; Pratikhya Tippani a commen- 

 tary on visible objects, by Gadadhera, who also wrote 

 on moral cases and moral power; Gouna Bhasia, or 

 concerning qualities of things; Anumaka Didhiti, or 

 a treatise on memory, by Siromini Battatcharia; 

 Smriti Tatwa, or an Abstract from the Laws, col- 

 lected by Ragunandaka Bhattatcharia (translated 

 into German by Raspe); Hitopadesa, Friendly In- 

 structions a Hindoo book of fables (published by 

 Wilkins), called also the Fables of Pilpay. Hindoo 

 literature first began to be extensively cultivated in 

 Europe, at the commencement of the present cen- 

 tury, and the study of it can as yet be considered 

 only in its infancy. The first great work published 

 in Europe, in the ancient Indian language, was 

 Hitopatesa (1810). In 1808 appeared Wilkins's 

 grammar, published with the types which have been 

 used by Bopp. See the papers of Jones, Wilkins, 

 Wilson, Ellis, Colebrooke, and others, in the Asiatic 

 Researches (15 vols., Calcutta, 17881828), and in 

 the Travis, of the Royal Asiatic Society, London. 



Indian Mythology. Divine rest, immersion or ab- 

 sorption in the Godhead, is considered by the Hin- 

 doos the highest perfection; and the way which leads 

 to it is the sacrifice of the individual self. The reli- 

 gious doctrines of the H indoos are contained in the 

 four Vedas, of which the six Angas are commen- 

 taries, by the Brahmins; the second commentary, 

 called the Augutorrah Shade Schusta, in eight 

 books, containing fables and allegories, and a ritual, 

 makes the number of holy books eighteen; there are 

 four Upavedas and four Upangas, which include the 

 eighteen Puranas, Nyaya, Mimansa, and Derma- 

 shastra. (See Indian Literature.) Thus the Vedas 

 are the Bible, the Puranas, the Mythology, the his- 

 torical poetry, Dhcrma Shastra, the ethics, and the 



