186 



V. A. Smith — Gmco-Boman influence 



[No. 3, 



but the vivifying foreign influence can be isolated, and subjected to 

 microscopic investigation. 



That foreign influence which gave India her noble dramatic litera- 

 ture is the same which bestowed upon her the arts of the painter, 

 sculptor, and engraver — the undying spirit of Hellas. India received 

 this, her spiritual guest, but for a little while and grudgingly. When he 

 took wing and fled to more congenial dwelling places the arts soon 

 followed in his train. 



Professor Weber was the first to suggest that the representation 

 of Greek dramas at the courts of the Hellenistic kings in Bactria, the 

 Panjab, and Gujarat awakened the Hindu faculty of imitation, and thus 

 led to the birth of the Indian drama ; but the suggestion was qualified, 

 and almost negatived, by the remarks appended to it that the hypo- 

 thesis does not admit of direct verification, and that no internal con- 

 nection between tlio Greek and Indian dramatic literature can be 

 proved. 



The Danish scholar, E. Brandes, accepted the hypothosis thus 

 doubtingly propounded, and, rejecting the limitations imposed by its 

 author, boldly undertook to prove the reality of an internal connection 

 between the ancient Indian plays and the New Attic Comedy, as chiefly 

 preserved in the Roman adaptations by Plautus and Terence. I have 

 not seen Dr. Brandes' treatise, nor could I read it if I had, but, fortu- 

 nately for that large class of persons wlio are ignorant of Danish, sub- 

 stantially the same thesis has been ably argued by Dr. Wiudisch in a 

 language more generally intelligible.* 



It would be impossible to do full justice to Dr. Windisch's argu- 

 ment otherwise than by a complete translation of his essay. T shall mere- 

 ly attempt to indicate in general terms the nature of some of the leading 

 proofs on which he relies in support of the proposition that the Sanskrit 

 drama is of Grreco-Roman parentage. 



The general probabilities in favour of the theory that the Indian 

 plays are derivatives of the New Attic Comedy of the school of Menander 

 rest chiefly on the evidence which proves an active and long-continued 

 intercourse between the east and west. Some of this evidence has 

 already been considered (ante, p. 157). A special agency for the diffu- 

 sion of knowledge of the forms of Greek drama among Oriental popu- 



opinion seems to be pnre conjecture, and is not shared by my learned friend Pro- 

 fessor Atkinson. Windisch also holds (p. 10) that opic recitation, and not a lyrical 

 performance associated with music and dancing, was tho germ of the Indian drama. 



* Der Griechiscfie Einfluss im Indischen Drama. Von Ernst Windisch. Aus 

 den Abhandlungen dos Berliner Orientalisten-Congresses. 8vo, pp. 106. Berlin, 

 A. Asher and Co., Weidmunnscho Buchhaudlnug, 1882. 



