1889.] 



on the Civilization of A nrirnt India. 



18S 



out of religious solemnities and spectacles (so-called ' mysteries '), and 

 also that dancing originally subserved religious purposes."* 



But this plausible theory has, unfortunately, very little historical 

 basis, and a rival theory that the dramatic literature of India is a direct 

 descendant of the epic seems not to rest on any more solid foundation.t 



It is not improbable that rude pantomimic representations of the 

 incidents of sacred stories, resembling the modern Ramlila, may have 

 been as popular in ancient times as they are now, but even if they were, 

 they could hardly be regarded as the parent of the Indian drama. Such 

 exhibitions in their modern form, of which alone anything is known, 

 remain unchanged from year to year, and appear quite incapable of 

 literary development. Their ancient predecessors, if any existed, can- 

 not be credited with any greater power of generating literature. The 

 Sanskrit drama includes pastorals, elaborate comedies of real life, com- 

 plex pictures of political intrigue, and other varieties of highly artificial 

 composition. The gap between such compositions and a clumsy ' mys- 

 tery ' like the Ramlila is vast and unbridged, and the interval between 

 them and displays of sacred dancing or formal recitations sf epHS episodes 

 is equally wide. 



The Indian drama, as Professor Weber remarks, " meets us in an 

 already finished form, and with its best productions." Whence came 

 this finished form ; was the ripe fruit not preceded by seed or flower ? 



It is impossible to believe that the " finished form " sprang, Minerva 

 like, from the head of Kalidasa. The dramatic literature of India, like 

 all other ripe productions of art in all countries and ages, must be 

 either the result of an independent, and therefore slow, process of 

 evolution worked out on native soil, or be the more sudden effect of the 

 fertilization of an indigenous germ by a potent foreign influence. 



The latter solution of the problem, is, I have no doubt, the true 

 one. It is not easy to disentangle the life history of the indigenous 

 germ, concerning the true affinities of which opinions may well differ,]: 



* Weber, History of Indian Literature. (Triibner), p. 197. This theory is well 

 expressed in the brilliant article on Sanskrit Poetry and the Hindu Drama by Dean 

 Milman, which appeared in the Quarterly Review for 1831. Dean Milman considered 

 that the Indian plays more closely resembled the Spanish than those of any other 

 European country. 



t Brockhaus, who denies all Greet influence on the Indian drama, maintains 

 the epic theory. I have not seen his writings. 



t Windisch himself (p. 6) admits that the Epics contain a dramatic element, 

 and that the Indian drama was indebted to some extent, as the Greek also was, to 

 the epos for help. He is of opinion (p. 8) that dramatic representations, based on 

 epic stories, existed in India before foreign influences were felt, such representations 

 being simply due to the natural desire to see, as well as hear, the stories. This 



