JOURNAL 



OV THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



No. III. 1860. 



On a Passage in the tenth Book of the Sáhitya Darpana. — By 

 E. B. Cowell, M. A. 



The Sáhitya Darpana has been called " the standard of taste 

 among the learned Hindús." It was compiled by Vis'wanátha 

 Kavirája, who is said to have lived in the district of Dacca, and 

 his date may be conjecturally placed in the 15th century. His book 

 contains a complete system of Literary Criticism, from words and 

 sentences to dramas and epic poems. Its prevalent fault is a 

 proneness to minute subdivisión,* and many parts of it relate to 

 obscure trivialities ; but much of it displays an ingenuity and insight, 

 which only require to be understood to be appreciated. The tenth 

 book is devoted to the especial embellishments of style, — alankára 

 in its more technical sense ; and many keen observations are 

 scattered through its pages, which often touch on points left unno- 

 ticed by the more ambitious writers on Rhetoric in the West. As 

 an example, I have chosen the section on Simile, which seems to me a 

 very favourable specimen of the delicate analysis of the Hindú 

 "Rhetoric, while, at the same time, it will aíford an opportunity for 

 making an important correction to the text as it now stands in print. 



* At once the strength and weakness of the self-developed Hindú mind! 

 "Máximum et velut radicale discrimen ingeniorum, quoad philosophiam et 

 scientias, illud est ; quod alia ingenia sunt potiora et aptiora ad notandas 

 rerum differentias ; alia ad notandas rerum similitudines. Utrumque ingenium 

 facile labitur in excessum, prensando aut gradus rerum aut umbras." Noo. 

 Org. I. lv. 



No. CIV.— New Series, Vol. XXIX. 2 a 



