38 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY 



ments of intellect and disposition, the germ of all that the 

 nations of India have achieved of great or noble, early 

 rendered the spectacle of the external world productive of a 

 profound meditation on the forces of nature, which is the 

 groundwork of that contemplative tendency which we find 

 intimately interwoven with the earliest Indian poetry. This 

 prevailing impression on the mental disposition of the 

 people, has embodied itself most distinctly in their funda- 

 mental religious tenets, in the recognition of the divine in 

 nature. The careless ease of outward life likewise favoured 

 the indulgence of the contemplative tendency. Who could 

 have less to disturb their meditations on earthly life, the 

 condition of man after death, and on the divine essence, : 

 than the Indian anchorites, the Brahmins dwelling in the 

 forest ( 59 ), whose ancient schools constituted one of the 

 most peculiar phsenomena of Indian life, and materially 

 influenced the mental development of the whole race ?" 



In referring new, as I did in my public lectures under the 

 guidance of my brother and of others conversant with 

 Sanscrit literature, to particular instances of the vivid sense 

 of natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in the 

 descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I begin with the 

 Yedas, or sacred writings, which are the earliest monuments- 

 of the civilisation of the East Arianic nations, and are princi- 

 pally occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. The 

 hymns of the Rig-Yeda contain beautiful descriptions of the 

 blush of early dawn, and the appearance of the " golden- 

 handed" sun. The great heroic poems of Bamayana and 

 Mahabharata are later than the Yedas, and earlier than the 

 Puranas; and in them the praises of nature are connected 

 with a narrative, agreeably to the essential character of epic 



