L96 



V. A. Smith — Qrmae- Tloman influence 



[No. 3, 



a ready oar to the extravagant tales of the pandits, and were willing 

 to attribute tlie most venerable antiquity and almost absolute origi- 

 nality to the strange civilization and vast literature suddenly brought 

 ■within their ken. 



Modern historical and literary criticism has been steadily engaged 

 in the task of exposing the falsity of Brahmanical tradition or pseudo- 

 tradition, the " lying gabble of Brahmans," as it has been well called, 

 and of moving up, so to speak, all dates in the early history of India. 

 Panini, the grammarian, Manu, the lawgiver, KaKdasa, the poet and 

 dramatist, and many other names famed in Indian story, have already 

 been moved up from remote prehistoric, or pre-Christian, times to post- 

 Alexandrian, or post-Christian, dates.* 



This process still continues, and simultaneously with the demonstra- 

 tion of the comparatively modern date of all Sanskrit, other than Vedic, 

 literature, the conviction has forced itself upon scholars that the civiliza- 

 tion of ancient India was not so indigenous and self-contained as, at 

 first sight, it seemed to bo. 



India may, apparently, claim with justice to have given birth inde- 

 pendently to the mechanical process of coinage, but her weakly numis- 

 matic child never attained maturity, and was soon compelled to make 

 way for a stranger of more vigorous growth. The other products of 

 civilization claimed from time to time as independent Indian discoveries 

 are now either proved to be foreign importations, or shown to be, at the 

 best, of doubtful parentage. 



I do not know any historical jjroblem more startling at first sight 

 than that propounded by the sudden and simultaneous first appearance 

 in India during the third century B. C. of long documents in two 

 diverse highly developed alphabets, of stone architecture, stone sculpture, 

 chronological eras, inscribed coins, and a missionary state religion. 



The problem has not yet been completely solved, and perhaps never 

 can be, but it is certain that the phenomena referred to were largely due 

 to a rapid development of intercourse between India and Western 

 nations in the time of the Mauryan dynasty of Chandra Gupta and 

 Asoka (B. C. 315 to 22:2). A further development, or renewal, of that 

 intercourse in the first century before, and the four centuries following, 

 the Christian era, conducted through Bactrian, Alexandrian, and Pal- 

 myrene channels, produced new schools of architectural, plastic, and 

 pictorial art, introduced novel types and standards of coinage, taught 

 science in its exacter forms, and gave birth to a dramatic literature of 

 great variety and merit. 



* For a convenient summary of much of the recent discussion on the chronology 

 of Indian Literature, see Max Muller's " India, What can it Teach Us ?" 



