54 . COSMOS. 



siaii literature does not go further back than the time of the 

 Sassanides ; the most ancient monuments of their poetry have 

 perished. It was not until the country had been subjugated 

 by the Arabs, and had lost its original characteristics, that it 

 again acquired a national literature among the Samanides, 

 Gaznevides, and Seldschukes. The flourishing period of their 

 poetry, extending from Firdusi to Hafiz and Dschami, scarce- 

 ly lasted more than four or five hundred years, and hardly 

 reaches to the time of the voyage of Vasco de Gama. We 

 must not forget, in seeking to trace the love of nature evinced 

 by the Indians and Persians, that these nations, if we judge 

 according to the amount of cultivation by M^hich they are re- 

 spectively characterized, appear to be separated alike by time 

 and space. Persian literature belongs to the Middle Ages, 

 Mobile the great literature of India appertains in the strictest 

 sense to antiquity. 



In the Iranian elevated plateaux nature has not the same 

 luxuriance of arborescent vegetation, or the remarkable divers- 

 ity of form and color, by which the soil of Hindostan is em- 

 bellished. The chain of the Vindhya, which long continued 

 to be the boundary line of the East Arian nations, falls with- 

 in the tropical region, while the whole of Persia is situated 

 beyond the tropics, and a portion of its poetry belongs even to 

 the northern districts of Balkh and Fergana. 



The four paradises celebrated by the Persian poets* were 

 the pleasant valley of Soghd near Samarcand, Maschanrud 

 near Hamadan, Scha'abi Bowan near Kal'eh Sofid in Fars, 

 and Ghute, the plain of Damascus. Both Iran and Turan 

 are wanting in woodland scenery, and also, therefore, in the 

 hermit hfe of the forest, which exercised so powerful an influ- 

 ence on the imagination of the Indian poets. Gardens re- 

 freshed by cool springs, and filled with roses and fruit-trees, 

 can form no substitute for the wild and grand natural scenery 

 of Hindostan. It is no wonder, then, that the descriptive 

 poetry of Persia was less fresh and animated, and that it was 



Gitagov'mda of Dschayadeva. (Riickert, in the Zeitschrift fur die 

 Kunde des Morgenlandes, bd. i., 1837, s. 129-173; Gitagovinda Jaya- 

 devce poetce indici drama lyricum, ed. Chr. Lassen, 1836.) We possess 

 a masterly rhythmical translation of this poem by Rtickert, which is 

 one of the most pleasing, and, at the same time, one of the most diffi- 

 cult in the whole literature of the Indians. The spirit of the original 

 IS rendered with admirable fidelity, while a vivid conception of nature 

 animates every part of this great composition." 



* Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of London, vol. x., 1841, p. 2, 3; 

 Riickert, Makamcn Hariri's, s. 261. 



