406 COSMOS. 



Indians, and the marked bent of their minds towards the 

 contemplation of the picturesque beauties of nature.* to the 

 West Arians or Persians, who had separated in different 

 parts of the Northern Zend, and who were originally disposed 



* In order to render more complete the small portion of the text 

 which belongs to Indian literature, and to enable me, (as I did before 

 with relation to Greek and Roman literature,) to indicate the different 

 works referred to, I will here introduce some notices on the more general 

 consideration of the love of nature evinced by Indian writers, and kindly 

 communicated to me in manuscript by Herr Theodor Goldstiicker, a dis- 

 tinguished and philosophical scholar thoroughly versed in Indian poetry : 



" Among all the influences affecting the intellectual development of 

 the Indian nation, the first and most important appears to me to have 

 been ihat which was exercised by the rich aspect of the country. A deep 

 sentiment for nature has at all times been a fundamental characteristic 

 of the Indian mind. Three successive epochs may be pointed out in which 

 this feeling has manifested itself. Each of these has its determined cha- 

 racter deeply implanted in the mode of life and tendencies of the 

 people. A few examples may therefore suffice to indicate the activity 

 of the Indian imagination, which has been evinced for nearly three 

 thousand years. The first epoch of the expression of a vivid feeling for 

 nature is manifested in the Vedas; and here we would refer in the 

 Rigveda to the sublime and simple descriptions of the dawn of day 

 (Rigveda-Sanhitd, ed. Rosen, 1838, Hymn xlvi. p. 88; Hymn xlviii. 

 p. 92; Hymn xcii. p. 184; Hymn cxiii. p. 233: see also Hofer, Ind. 

 Gedichte, 1841, Lese i. s. 3) and of 'the golden-handed sun,' (Rigveda- 

 Sanhitd, Hymn xxii. p. 31; Hymn xxxv. p. 65). The adoration of 

 nature which was connected here, as in other nations, with an early 

 stage of the religious belief, has in the Vedas a peculiar significance, and 

 is always brought into the most intimate connection with the external 

 and internal life of man. The second epoch is very different. In it a 

 popular mythology was formed, and its object was to mould the sagas 

 contained in the Vedas into a shape more easily comprehended by an 

 age far removed in character from that which had gone by, and to asso- 

 ciate them with historical events which were elevated to the domain 

 of mythology. The two great heroic poems, the Ramayana and the 

 Mahabharata, belong to this second epoch. The last-named poem had 

 also the additional object of rendering the Brahmins the most influen- 

 tial of the four ancient Indian castes. The Ramayana is therefore the 

 more beautiful poem of the two : it is richer in natural feeling, and has 

 kept within the domain of poetry, not having been obliged to take up 

 elements alien and almost hostile to it. In both poems, nature does 

 not, as in the Vedas, constitute the whole picture, but only a part of it. 

 Two points essentially distinguish the conception of nature at the period 

 of the heroic poems from that which the Vedas exhibit, without reference 

 to the difference which separates the language of adoration from that of 

 narrative. One of these points is the localisation of the description* 



