r- A CONCISE HISTORY OFCLASSICAL SANSKRIT

LITERATURE

GAURINATH SASTRI, M.A., D.Lrrr.Principal, Gooernment Sanskrit College, Calcutta

SECOND EDITION

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS1960

First published as An Introduction to Classical Sanshrit by ModernBook Agency .. lg43

Second edition-published as A,Concise History of Classical SanshritLiterature by the Oxford University pres :.. 196A

@ Gaurinath Sasrri, 1960

Er e. 6. Ray at sri "",.,llYIlrT,#?11, 5, chintamani Das Lane.calcutta and published by John Brown, oxford university press, calcutta

Oxford Uniaersity Press, Amen House, London 8.C.4GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTOIBOMBAY CALCUTTA J\4IADRAS KARACHI KUALA LUMPUR

CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA

GAURINATH SASTRI

PRtrFACE TO THtr SECOND EDITION'lrrr,; history of Sanskrit literature is by itself a fascinating subjectrrr uhich not only students of language but also the intelJigentsiarr seneral finds an abiding interest. This prompted rne tonrrrlcrtake the first edition bf the book under tii,e title, AnIttlrocl,uction to Classical Sanskrit, in a short compass in 1943.It is indeed a matter of gratification to me that the edition wasr,rlr;rusted in a rather short time, and there has been a persistentrlt'rrrand for a rrerv edition of it. But I have to admit that due tolor'es beyond my control it could not be brought out earlier.'l lrc prescnt edition, holvever, is not just a reprint of the former;rurrch new matter has been put into it and the whole book haslrt't n thoroughly revised and brought up-to-date. The scope oftlrr book has also been suitably widened which will be evidentliorn its rechristening A Concise History of Sanshrit Literature.I lrt'lieve it will satisfy its users much more than its predecessor.

In preparing this edition Dr Radha Govinda Basak, M.A.,.llr llenoy Chandra Sen, M.A., P.R.S., and a former pupil of mine,lrri l(ali Kurnar Dutta Shstrl, M.A., Kvya-Snkhyatlrtha havelrrrrlcred me much help, especially by drawing my attention tor,rrrc of the omissions that crept in the first edition of the book.I ;rrn also much indebted to my colleagues Dr Govindagopall\lrrhherjee, M.A., SAkhyatirtha, Dr Sisir Kumar Mitra, M.4.,l,l,.l)., and also to my former pupils Shri Kalidas Bhattacharyya,Nl,,\., Shri Gopikamohon Bhattacharyya, M.A., and Shri Bimall(r'ishna Motilal, M.A. for rendering me invaluable assistance in1rr','paring the present edition.

G. S"

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIONTnr impetus to the writing of the present work came from mystudents at Presidency Collge, C4lcutta. The paucity of suitabltext-books on rhe subiect in-tended. for degree'and riost-sraduatestudents of Indian universities was felt bv" mvself ii mv" colleEelife. and in writing this book I have alwys 'borne in rirrd tfiedifficulties which our studenrs experience i tackline the subiect.In the preparatio-n of the bok I have freely tonsulted'the .two monumental works of M. Winternitz and A. B. Keith. To.hem, thereforg I am under a deep debt of gratitude. I mustalso acknowledge my indebtedness fo all those"authorities whoseworks have ben m'entioned in the 'References'.^

In prepaling_- thq pryss copy, my former pupil, ProfessorSarojend-ranath Rhanja,- Slirya3str! -Kvya-Purltlrtha, M.A.,has rendered invaluable assistnce. Anothr pupil'of mine. ShriTaraknath Ghosal, M.A., prepared the major'prt of the fndex.My ex-colleagues, Professr -Upendranath "Ghsal, M.A., ph.D.,and Professor Subodhchandra Sengupta, M.A., P.R.S., ph.D., hadthe kindness, the former, to find ot-for me a few references, andthe latter, to read a considerable portion of the work while in thep-ress. My teachers, Mahmahofadhyaya }laranchandra ShastriProfessor' Sadanana Bhaduri,' M:., ph-D.,-;;J^ p;"il;;;Somnath Maitra, M.A., have helped me much by ofiering valuablesuggestions from time to time. I must also'acknowTedse rheadvice given so_ freely by my friend and colleague, prfessorT-araknaih Sen, X{.A. ' Laitly,'f must mention the"deep interestwlich was taken by my ousin, Pandit Ashokanath' Shastri,Vedantatlrtha, M.A.,'P.R.S., in seeing the work through.

The occasion makes me remem6er, with deep ari reverentgratitude, those of my reachers at whose feet I hd the orivileoeof srudying the subict-the late Professor Rakhaldas Bane.i&.Nf.A.. f "B"nar.. ftina, University, ,rd -F;;l;;;; Nih"-".iChakravarty, Nf.A., late Senior Profetsor .t Sr"rf..ir,-pr-.;i;;iCollege, Calcutta.

History of the Study of Sanskrit in the West-Originof'Indian writirig-Vedic and Classical SanskrYt:their relationshi5Prkrit-Was Sanskrit aspoken language?

CONTENTS

Pacrsr-23Introductory

Chapter I : The Great Epics

Chapter II : The Purnas

Chapter III : The Tantras

Rmyapa: Story-Origin and Source-CharacterjSprriors "1"-"rti-The influence of theRmyala on Indian life and literature-Anti-

quity-Relation to Buddhism--Greek influence-Allegorical interpretation-Mythological inter-pretatlon

Malibhrata: General character and story-Glt-Age of Gr-t-Christian influence in Git-TheHrivarh6a-Authorship-Three stages of theEpic-Age-Literary and inscriptional evidence-Which of the two Epics is earlier?

40-46

24-39

47-50

Introduction-Ag. and antiquity-Was there anoriginal PurTa-Character and value-Name andnumber of Purnas-Classification of Pur4as-The Bhgavata Purpa-Devlmhtmya-Nameand number of Upapurnas

lawary, 1943Calcutta

Meaning, contents and classification-Relation toVedic literature-Character-Antiquity-Home-Works

Chapter IV: Post-Epic Kvya ... 5l-53Chapter V : Kvya in inscrip'tions ...: 54-57

Renaissance Theory of Max Mller-Girnr, Nsik,Allahabad and Mandasor inscriptions-Conc{u-sions

vl

Chapter VI : Early tsuddhist r,r,orks in SanskritIntroduction-Works belonging to Mahyna and

Hinayna schools: (i; Pdedal; (ii) Phitsophical ;(iii) Avadna

Introduction-Growth and development of court-epics-Lesser epic poems

Chapter VIII : DramaOrigin of Sanskrit drama-Characreristics-Classi-

fication-Growth and development-Less impor-tant dramas

Chapter IX : Lyric Poetry .Introduction-Growth and development-Lesser lyric

poems and anthologies

vrl

Chapter X : . Historical writingsfntroduction-Growth and

historical works

Chapter XI :. Prose Literature

development-Minor

Chapter XV : MetricsIntroduction-Works on

Chapter XXII: Philosophy

Pecrs58-74

7 5-8+

85-118

tt9-125

t26-129

... 130-138tales

... 139-t40

t4l-148

Metrics

Pacnst56

157-158

165

t66-167

t74-202

Chapter XVI : LexicographyIntroduction-Major lexicons-Minor lexicons

Chapter XVII : Civil and Religious Law ... ... 159-16lGrowth and developmenr-Important legal works

Chapter XVil: Politics ... 162-16+fntroduction-Works on Politics

Chapter XIX : EroticsIntroduction-Works on

Chapter XX: MedicineHistory of medical literature-Earlier and later

medical works

Chapter XXI : Astronomy, Mathematics and Astrology 168-17lHistory of Astronomy-Works on Astronomv-

Wbrks on Mathemtics-Works on AstrologjChapter XXII : Miscellaneous Sciences t72-t7s

' Introduction-Romance-Fab1e-Lesser

Chapter XII: Camp literaturefntroduction-Important Camps

Chapter XIII : GrammarIntroduction-Pqrini school-Other

schools-Sectarian schools---;Somegrammatical works

Chapter XIV: Poetics and Dramaturgyfntroduction-Alankra school-Riti

school-Dhvani school-Works onDramaturgy

Erotics

i

Drose

Archery-Sciences of elephants and horses-Archi-tecture-Sciences oj - jewels, stealing, cooking,music, dancing and painting

lmportantrmDortant

school-RasaPoetics and

149-155

Orthodox sysrems: Nyya, Vaidesika, Srlkhva,Yoga, Nlimrhs an Vednta-Hetlrodox sys-tems: Buddhism, Jainism and Materialism-Miscellaneous works on philosophy

Index ... zo3--2zo

ABBREVIATION INTRODUCTORYA. HISTORY OF T}{E. STUDY OT-SANSKRIT IN THtr WEST

I'r u,as in the seventeenth century that the European people,l)articularly missionaries and travellers, came to trro* of iheIndian languages. fn a.. 16.51 Abraham Roger published al)ortuguese translation of Bhartr-hari's poems. In a.o. 1699 the.fesuit Father Johann Ernst rlanxleden came ro India and afterr:etting himself acquainted with the Sanskrit language wrotethe first Sanskrit grammar in a European language.- The book,however, was not printed but was consulted 6y Fru paolino deSt Bartholomes who wrote two Sanskrit grammars besides anumber of importanr works. It was during the administration,f warren Hastings that the work called viaadarnaaasetu wast:ompiled. Under the title ,4 Code of Gentoo Law it was;rublished in English in A.D. 1776. Nine years later, thel)hagauadgitd was translated into English by Charles wilkinsrvho also rendered into English t[e Hiiopadeia and theakuntal episode of the ]\,fahabhrata. It was, however, SirWilliap Jones who did mosr to arouse the interesr of Europeansin Indian literarure. In a.o. 1789 he published his Englisht'anslation of Kalidasa's sakuntala. The-English translati ofIialidsa's immortal drama was followed by u G.r-u, transla-rirn by Georg Forsrer,in a.o. 1791 which attracted the artentionol' men like }lerder and Goethe. It was again through the,'nthusiasm of. Jones that the Rtusam.hara of t

HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE INTRODUCTORY

ADigestof.Hind.uLauonContractsandsuccesslonsbasedon a composlrlon rn sanskrit by orthodox Indian scholars' Healso edite a number of Sanskrii works including t]ne An'tarahota,the Astad.hyayl, the Hitopadea- and tlne Kiratarjuniya'Another Englishman who

-studied sanskrit in India was

Alexander Hmilton who, while returning to England in a.o.1802, was imprisoned with other Englishrnen at Paris underord"r, of Napoleon Bonaparte. During- th-e leriod of his im-prisonment liamilton trained up

.a bpd of European scholars

'*ho took ro the study of sanskrit with earne st zeal. This iscommonly referred to as th. 'Discov_ery_ of sanskrit' in the west.one of Hamilton,s most distinguished students was the gleatGerman scholar and poet Frierich Sch1ege1,

_who- wrote thatepoch-making work n the Language and Wisdom of theIhdionr. ThIs work introduced for the first time the compara-tive and the historical method. It also contained translationsin German of Tnany Passages from the Rarnayana,-ty2Bl'151""d-gtta, t}:e Manusmitind Jth.r early works. Friedrich SchlegelisBroth", August With"l* von Sch1egel, a student of Professor A.L. Ch6zy, fir" firrt French scholar in Sanskritt not only contri-buted Jrr.h to the study of Comparative Philology-but alsohelped the study of sanskrit by-editinS texts.and writingtranslations. OnL of Schlegel's students was Christian Lassenwho was deeply interested ln Indian culture' The science ofo*purr,ir"'ei.,ifoiojy was found'ed by Franz B,PP, a snrdentof piofessor Ch6zy"nd contcmporriy of August Wilhelm.Bopp ulr, rendered'great. service to the investigation.of Sanskrit[tture by incorporating in his work Coniugations-system'ffanslations from tile Raayo4a and t,ne Mahabharata' FIissanskrit Grammars consiclerably furthered the study of sanskritin Germany. The work of Bopp in the domain of comparativephilology rias developed in a-most comprehensive

.manner.byWihel von Humb^oldt whose interesi in the philosophical

ru'orks of the Indians was of an abiding character. Anotherrroted German, Friedrich Rckert, was also highly interested inlrrriian poetry. The Latin translations of the Upanisads in thelrcginning of the nineteenth century inspired German philo-sophers. Schelling, Kant, Schiller, and Schopenhauer werelrig'hly charmed to discover 'the production of the highestIrrrman wisdom'. The actual investigation of Vedic literaturew;rs first undertaken by Friedrich Rosen in a.o. lB38 and wassrrbsequently continued by a band of illustrious students ofthc great French orientalist Eug6ne Burnouf, including RudolphItoth and F. Max M1ler, who brought out his famous editioltrinceps of the Sgaeda with the commentary of Sayala in theycars lB49-75. One of Roth's distinguished students was II.(llassmann who published a complete translation of the gueda,'It was during this period that llorace }fayman Wilson who( rrre to Calcutta represented the orthodox interpretation of thetli1"ueda by translating it on the lines of Syalats commentary.Sirnilar work was done by Alfred Ludwig, who is looked upon;rs a forerunner of R. Pischel, and K. F. Geldner, thd joint;rrrthors of Vedic Studies. The name of Theodor Aufrecht is;rlso associated with Vedic investigations.

'lhe publication of the great ,Sl Petersburg Dictionary(,\trnslerit-Wrterbuch) in 1852 is an important event in the his-loly of progressirre studies in Sanskrit in the West. Therlictionary was compiled by Otto Bhtlingk and Rudolph Roth;rrrrt published by the Academy of Fine Arts and Sciences, Stl)r'tclsburg. The History of Indian Literature which was pub-lislrcd by Albrecht Weber in a.. 1852 and was edited for ther,,'r'ond time in e.o. 1875, is another important work. Ther',lition of the Satapathabrahmana by the same author is;rnollrer outstanding contribution. The Catalogus Catalogorunxlrrrlrlished by Theodor Aufrecht in the years 1891, 1896, andlr){}.}, forms a most comprehensive list of Sanskrit authors and

4 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

works and is a monumental work of its kind. Arthur AnthonyMacdonell's Vedic Gran'trnar and Vedic Mythology and the:vedic Index by N{acdonell and Arthur Berriedale Keith, have,all proved helpful works for the study of Sanskrit in Europe'Maurice Bloomfield's Vedic Concordance is another Sreatwork which has been of immense help to vedic studies in theWest. William L)wight Whitney's Sanshrit Grammar is yetanother important triatise. Edward Byle Cowell, who wasPrincipal, Gver.tmettt Sanskrit College, Calcutta, gave-a drstinctfillip io Sanskritic studies by his translations of the Sarxa-cJaiianasamgraha and many'other important Sanskrit works.Arthur V.nIs, Principal, Government Sanskrit Col1ege, Varanasi,'also did a lot to help Sanskritic studies. Amongst Europeanscholars who lived in india and took interest in Sanskrit learningand literatu're, mention may be made of J. f'. Fle-et,- VincentA. Smith, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Sir John H. Marshail,Sir M. A. Stein, Sir George Grierson and J. Ferguson.

Among western Indologists who have done invaluable serviceto the -cause of Sanskrit studies, the names of GeorgeBhler, J. Muir, Frank Kielhorn, E. Rer, H. Lders, HermannJacobi, b. S"t urt, Sylvain L6vi, Edward WashblT

-ggqki"t'-Errg"n Hultzsch, Aithur Coke Burnell, Monier M' Williams,Thlodor Goldstticker, Richard Garbe, Paul Deussen, JuliusEggeling, George Thibaut, Julius Jolly, Maurice Winternitz, F'W.- fnr"rr, t. f). Barnett, T. Tscherbatsky, Sten Konow,Va116e Poussin, Otto Strauss, C. R. Lanman and Giuseppe Tucciare known to all lovers of Sanskrit.

TNTRoDUC'r'oRY 5

B. ORIGIN OF INDIAN WRiTING'l'nr immemorial practice with students of Sanskrit Introduc-literature has been to commit to memory ths v2lisus tionstrbjects of their study, and this .practice of oral tradi-tion has preserved the ancient Vedic texts. This factlras led scholars to sulmise that writing was perchancerrnknown in the earliest period of Indian civilization;rnd that the later forms of the alphabet were not of;rure Indian growth.

The earliest references to writing in Sanskrit litera- Evidencelrrre are to be found in the Dharmastra of Vadis1lz, of Vedicrvhich, as Dr Bhler thinks, was composed. ut'out and Strarhe eighth century B.c. There ur", ho'*.u"r, ,o-. *o'*trit holars who would like to assign a much later dateto the woik, namely, the fourth century B.c. Theren c obtain clear evidence of the widely "spread use of , :ru,r'iting during the Vedic period, and in Ch. XVL l0,l4-15, mention is made of written documents as 1ega1cvidence. Further, the Astadhyayr ol Pnini containssrrch compounds as lipikara and libikara which evirk'ntly mean 'writer' [III. ii. 21]. .The date of Pnini,Irowever, is not fixed. Professor Goldstcker wants to;rl;rce him in the eighth century n.c., while the generallrr,ly of scholars hold that his age is the fourth(('r)tury B.c. In addition to the few references setl'rlth above, it may be said that the later Vedic worksr,1112jn some technical terms such as 'aksara', 'knda','lxrtala', 'grantha' and the like, r,vhich some scholarsrluote as evidence of the use of writing. But thereirrr' rthers who differ in their interpretations of theseI('t lIlS.

'l'he aforesaid references do not help us much

ri

6 rrrsroRy oF cLASSTcAL SANSKRTT LTTERATURE

in determining the genuine Indian growth of writing'inasmuch ,, ,on" f the works in which they are

There are two other facti which also suggest thesame thing. It is believed that the Aryans *"lt. tl,, adrrand- state of civilization-there was a highdevelopment of trade and monetary transactions, andthat tey carried on minute researches in

-grammar'phonetics and lexicography. Do not the above factspr"rrrppor" the knJwldge 9t the art of writing-""ig ancient Indiansi Nevertheless, one willhave Io adduce evidence, without which nothing can

fritakas know of proclamations. We are also told ofir game named aksarika in rvhich the Buddhist monkis lorbidden to particiPate. This game was in all pro-lxrbiiity one of guessing at letters. In the rules ofllinaya, it has been laid down that a criminal, whoserlrme has been written up in the King's porch, mustrrot be received into the monastic order. In the samervork, writing has been mentioned as a lucrative profes-sirn. Jataka No. 125 and the Mahauagga,I.49 bearwitness to the existence of elementary schools wherelhe manner of teaching was the same as in the indi-Hcnous schools of modern India. All these referencesprove the existence of the art of writing in pre-lluddhistic days.

The earliest written record is the Piprw vase piprwinscription which was discovered by Colonel Claxton vase.l'eppe. This inscription is written in Brhmr charac- rnscrrptlonlcr and is in a language which does not conform to;rny of the standard Prakrits. Some of the case-cndings tend towards Magadhr. No compound con-sonant has been written. They have been eithersimplified or divided by epenthesis. No long vowel,cxcepting two 'e's, have been used. The inscriptionIr:rs been differently interpreted. According to somesr:holars the relics that were enshrined were the relics,rl Buddha, while others maintain that the relics werethose of the Skyas, who were massacred by Virulaka,son of Prasenajit, King of Kodala. In any case theinscription belongs to the early part of the fifth( cntury B.C.

Next in order of antiquity comes the Sohgaurat opper-plate which, as Dr Smith thinks, may be

Evidenceof Brhma-r.rical works

Evidenceof Indianciviliza-tion

Evidenceof Bud-dhistwritings

found can be safely dated earlier than the period ofinscriptions. In the same waft evidences in the"Brhalical works such 4s the Epics, the Purnas"the Kvyas and the like, are of little or no help'Among ih"*, the Epics are by far the oldest, but itis diffiu1t to prove that every vrord of their text goesback to a high antiquity. One fact is, however, un-deniable, naely thal the Epics contain some archaicexpressions, .rr.h as, 'likh', 'lekha', 'lekhaka', 'lekhana'"but not 'lipi', which, as many scholars think, is afterall a foreign word. This may suggest that w-ritingwas known in India in the EPic age.

be taken for granted. So we turn to the Buddhistworks.

There are quite a large number of .

passages ithe Ceylon ese- Tipitaha, which bear witness to aacquaintance with rvriting and to its extensrve use athe' time when the Budhist canon was composed'Lekha' and 'lekhaka' are mentioned in the BhikhhPacittiya 2, and. in the Bhihkhunr. Pacittiy.a !9, liIn the former, writing has been highly praised'

-Irthe Jtakas, constant ention is made of letters' T

ItI

{

8 uTsToRY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

dated about half a century prior to A6oka.r Thecharacters of the document according to Dr Smithare those of the Brhmr of the Maurya period andhis statements, according to Dr Bhler, are incon-testable as everyone of them is traceable in theEdicts. About the proper import of the inscriptionnone is sure. Dr Smith says that he cannot find outany meaning from it. The value of the inscriptionrests on the fact that it is an evidence for the assump-tion that in the third century B.c., the use of writingwas common in royal offices and that the knowledgeof written chaructrs was widely spread u*org t[epeople.

The inscriptions of A6oka, are found almost allover India and are written in two difierent scripts,viz., .Brhmr and Kharostht. Two of these inscrip-tions-that of Shahbazgarhi and Mnsehr, arewritten in the latter. The rest are written in Brhmr.The language of early Indian inscriptions is notSanskrit, but vernacular, which is known as Prkrit.In the inscriptions of Aoka, local varieties are to be.found.

Those in the north-western part of Indiaincline more towards Paidct, than those found in theeastern part. It is interesting to note that all theIndian inscriptions from the earliest times down tothe second century A.D., are in Prkrit. The earliestinscription in Sanskrit is the Nsik Cave No X'inscription of Nahapna, which was written, in a1l

l The English translation cf Dr Bhler's version -is -given- below:

'The.orde"r of the great officials of Srr'astr (issued) from (their campat) Mnavasitikata l"These two stol'e-houses with three partitions(rvhich are situated) even in famous Varhdagrma require the st-oragef loads (bhraka) of Black Panicum, parched gra_in, cummin-seed andAmba foi (times. of) urgent (need)' One should not take (anythingfrom the grain stor:ed)."-'*IA. Vol. xxV, p. 265.

INTRODUCTORY 9

lrrobability, in the year 41 of the Saka era, correspond-i,rg to a.o. 119. But there are scholars who do notlike to call this inscription the earliest in Sanskrit,;rnd in their opinion the well-known Jungadhinscription of Rudradaman, dated e.o. 150, heads thelist of Sanskrit inscriptions. Sanskrit gradually en- L'oached upon Prkrii in the field of epigraphy Tdit was from the fifth centur) A;D., that Prkrit dis-rppeared from the field of inscriptions

^ As for the history of the two scripts, Brhmr and KharosthiKharosthr, mentioned above, Dr Bhler thinks thatthe latter was derived from the Aramaic or Phoeniciant haracter used by the clerks of the Persian Empire.'l'he north-western parts of India came under theAchremenian or Persian rule about the sixth centuryu.c. And it is in those Parts of India that inscriptionsrrnd coins in Kharosthr character have been dis-r'overed. Dr Bhler has taken sufficient pains toshow how from some borrowed letters the full alpha-lret of the Sanskrit language came into being. Thereirre some scholars who have gone so far as to suggest;r meaning of the word Kharosthr. Thus it is heldtl-rat the ,rurn" Kharoslht has been derived frorn theshape of letters which generally resemble the 1ip ofiu) ass. Professor L6vi thinks that the word isrlcrived from the name of the inventor, Kharostha,rrn inhabitant of Central Asia.

There are several theories regarding the origin Brhmi:,rl' the Brhmr character. According to Ot Taylor So^u-thand;urd others, the Brhmr character *u, bortored fiom ilfil.:r Southern Arab tribe. This theorv has not gained 61;gi1rrny popularity. The theory started by Dr Webet,,,,d illustrated by Dr tshler is generally accepted.

SohgauraCopperplate

Inscrip-tions ofA6oka,Nahapnaand Rudra-drlan

Pre-Semiticorigin

IO HISTORY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Dr Weber was the first man to discover that someof the old Indian letters are practically identical withcertain Assyrian letters and several letters in someinscriptions of the ninth and the seventh centuries8.c., found in Assyria. About one-third of thetwenty-three letters of the North Semitic alphabet ofthat period is identical with the oldest forms of thecorreiponding Indian letters. Another one-third issomewhat similar, while the rest can with great diffi-culty be said to correspond to letters of the Indianalphabet. Dr Bh1er took advantage of this theor;rof Dr Weber, and he next proceeded to show thatas a result of the prolonged contact between Indianmerchants, mostly, Dravidians, and Babylonians inthe eighth and the seventh centuries 8.c., the formeravailed themselves of the opportunity to bring theAssyrian art of writing over to India, which later onwas enlarged to suit the requirements of the Indianpeople. Nearly a thousand years later, this form ofwriting came to be styled as Brhmr. It has beensaid that originally the letters were written from rightto left, as a single coin has been discovered in a placenamed Eran, on which the legend runs from right toleft. But as the Brhmins believed the right handdirection to be sacred, they changed the direction andbegan to write from left to right.

According to Professor Rhys Davids, the Indianletters were developed neither from the Northern norfrom the Southern Semitic alphabet, but from thepre-Semitic form current in the Euphrates valley.But this theory is not accepted on the ground thatthis supposed pre-Sernitic form of writing has yet tobe explored.

' TNTRoDUCToRY 11

Sir Alexander Cunningham had wanted to derive Hierogly:cach letter from the indi"genous hieroglyphic, but his phic origintheory was dtscardecl oi rhe ground that no suchhieroglyphic could te found in India' But the recent"*.uiir, at Mohen'io-Daro and Harappa.

havelrrought to light an oriinal Indian hieroglyphic.ando f.rith., .*irrutiot f th" theory once started bySir A. Cunningham may be undertaker'

Until the diovery of'the Indus ValLey civilization' Conclu-cxtant archaeologicai evidence relating- to. the use

,of, sions

writing in India iould not be carried far beyond theMurrry"u periocl. But the seals which have been re-.ou.rJd flom Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, althoughnot yet deciphered, il.arly

-show that some form of.ritiirg mustiave been in xistence at least two milien-niums" before the birth of Christ' Some attemptshave been mad.e to decipher the seals and trace theirorigin from or affinities wiith forms of writing current,inthe'ancient world' According to one vier'v, the Indusvailey inscriptions are composed of symbols' eachof #ni.h is n ideogt'am. Hto,tty tries to discoversimilarities between ihe Hittite script and the Indusialley script. Diringer on the other hand is convincedthat 'no ^r..ipt .xlrted f rom which the deriva-tion of the Indus script could be reasonably proved'He expresses the viw that the latter may ha1'eoriginaied from a yet unknown script which was thecommon ancestor'of the cuneiform and the earlylllamite writing. Hunter and Langdon tegard theMohenjo-Daro "script as the prototyPe of Brhmr butit is irpossible t exPect iny final or conclusivercsults fiom speculatins baied on a series ofunknown factors or mere probabilities, especially when

.12 HISToRY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT I,ITERATURE

the sound-values of the signs in the Indus Valleystill remain unascertained. Ancient Indian tradition.srecorded in a number of works, Brhmarlical, Jaina andBuddhist, ascribe the invention of writing to Brahm.A Chinese reference seems to indicate tliat the parri-cular writing meanr by this tadition was rhe Brahmi.Thus the Indians in ancient times believed that theirlystem of writing was national in character. indigenousin origin and of remore antiquiry. But if the nameBrhmr is to,be given to the s-ript used in the inscrip-tions of A6oka as well as the Pipraw Vase inscrip-tion and the Eran coin legend, that name cannot_consistently be applied to the script used by the IndusValley people, as no similarity ber.een the two hasyet been established.

Both on grounds of developed form of the Brhmi:script as indicated in the Adokan edicts and its:supposed oligin. from the North Semitic writing used1n certarn inscriptions of the ninth and eighth centu-ries-s.c., Bhler proposes to place the beginning of theBrhmr ar some date in the neighbourhood of 800 n.c.'This date according to his line of argument may bethe starting-point of the form of Brhmi whichpassed through cerrain fundamental changes, modi-fications and enlargements to reach the stage as.exhibited in the Adokan edicts and the orr. oi t*osupposedly earlier inscriptions. But it can no longerbe. regarded as the date marking the beginning"ofwriting in India in view of th discoveiies niadein the Indus Valley. Nor, as Bhler himself admitted,can his theory explain how without some kindof writing !..i"S cunrenr among the Vedic peoplethe technicalities and complexitiel of their liteiature,

INTRODUCTORY 13"

their phonetics, grammar, economic transactions,numerical calculations and the like assumed such apronounced form with the help of memory alone un-supported by written symbols. But as no specimen ofr,vriting or any hint about its form which may havebeen connected with the culture and civilization of theVedic people has been found, it is still impossible toframe an acceptable hypothesis about the course ofevolution of writing in India preceding the advent of'llrhmr in the form known to us and the nature of itsaffiliation to the earlier script the existence of which isnot considered unlikely.

The foreign origin of Brhmr, though advocatedby many, has not been definitely proved. In factmany eminent scholars maintain that writing in Indiawas of indigenous origin. No fina1 conclusion can be,alrived at in.the matter until the Indus Valley scripthas been correctly deciphered and fresh material dis-covered fil1ing in the long gap that separates the IndusVailey period from the Maurya period in the history ofnr-iting in India and aLso new light thrown on thesystem of writing that may have been quite possiblyrrsed by the Vedic people. The genius of the Indianpeople was responsible for an extraordinary develop*rnent of regional scripts out of the original Brhml.l,oca1 varieties which are not wanting in the A6okanllrhmr used throughout his empire in the North andthe South, gathered a momentum in the succeedingcenturies, and the numerous regional or provincialscripts which came into being and advanced towardsrrraturity can be traced to Brhml with scientific preci-sion. Two early Jain Sutras, tt,e Samauayairga Sutra;rrrd the Pannaaana Sutra firnish a list of eighteen

INTRODUCTORY

C. VEDIC AND CLASSICAL SANSI(RIT:THEIR RELATIONSHIP

INraN tradition knows Sanskrit as the language 6f Introduc-the gods, which has been the dominant language of t'"'India for a period covering over four thousand years.Viewed from its rich heritage of literature, its fascinat-ing charm of words, its flexitility of expression inrelation to thought, Sanskrit occupies a singular placein the literature of the world.

The Sanskrit language is generally divided into Vedic andVedic and Classicai in the" Vedic' languaqe *r, classical:written the entire sacred literature of ti. "Aryrr, ffT::?;'Indians. Within this Vedic language several stages and spirit.may be carefully distinguished, and in course of its

,

transition from the one'to the other it gradually grewmodern tiil it ultimately merged in Classical Sanskrit.ISut when we pass on from the Vedic lyrics to the lyricsof Classical Sanskrit, we seem to enter a 'new world'.Not only are the grammar, vocabulary, metre andstyle different, but there is also a marked distinctionin respect of matter and spirit. Thus the ClassicalSanskrit period is marked by a change of religious out-look and social conditions. Vedic literature is almosttntirely religious ; but Classical Sanskrit has a 'pro-['ane' aspect as well which is not in any way inferiorto the religious aspect. The religion in the Epicperiod has become different from what it was in theVedic age. The Vedic Nature-worship has been super-scded by the cult of Brahm, Vislu and Siva, and itis in the Epic period that we find for the first time theincarnations of Vis,,ru who has come to be looked upon;rs the Supreme Deity. New gods and goddesses

t514 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

varieties of writing including Brhmr and Kharosthl,Dmili (Dravidiai) and Javinaliya. The iast namedscript is'to be identified with Yavanni

.(i'e' the Gr.eekscript) mentioned by Panini. The Lalitaatara givesu liti of sixty foui scripts which include Brhmr,Kharosthr and foreigtt t.iipt, like Cinalipi, Hu4alipiancl regional scripti like Angalipi, V-angalipi, etc'Indian -scripts weie introduced into different coun-tries of Asia ; inscriptions and other valuable docu-ments have h,een disovered in widely separated areasin Asia written in Indian characters which alsobecame the basis of developments of national scripts insome countries with whic^h India had been in activecommunication for many centuries.in the Past'

REFERENCES

Baneriee, R. D.: The Origin of the Bengali ScriptBiihtei, G.: Indian PaleograPhY

The Origin of Brahmi Al|habetitr" orrtg;r, ii the Kharosih' Atpt'obet (IA' vol' xxIV)Indian Studies III.

Cunningham, A.: Tlte Coins of Ancienl lndia.;;;; n: N.;' -on the or}gin of'the tnctian Alphaber, JRAS' Vol' XVI(New series)Ilirinser. D.: The AlhhabetHuntr, C. R.: The Script of Mohenio-Zlro, etc'Ldvi. S.: Indian Writine (tA. Vol. XXXII)

Kharostrl lVrit-ing (IA. Vo1. XXXV)Kharoitra and tie Kharoslri lU riting

- .

.N{itra, P.: ' N"*'L;gt t from Pre-hisi.oric India-(lA' VoI' XLVIII)Oiha. C. H.: BhAlanva Pracina LipimalaPndev. R. R.: tndini Paleografhy, Part I;;;;;;;; 1,'R.:- ,4 Theor"tZ[ ini or;g;n of the Deuanagri Atfhahtt(rA. vol. xxx$Sivamrti, b.: Indian Epigraphy and South lndian' ScriptsTavlor. I.: Tlte AlFhabetThmas, E.: Princp's .Essays, Vol. IT

Differencein form:(i)accent

(ii)gram-mar

L6 I{ISTORY OF CLSSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATUR!:

unknown to the Vedas have arisen, and Vedic godshave either been forgotten or reduced to a subordinateposition. Indra is, indeed, the only god who

_

stillmaintains high status as the lord of heaven. Vedicliterature in its earlier phase was marked by a spirit of-robust optimism ; but Classical Sanskrit literature hasa note of pessimism or,ving probably to the influenceof the doctrine of karman and transmigration of souls-The naive simplicity of Vedic literature is strikinglyabsent in Classical Sanskrit where the introduction ofthe supernatural and the wonderful is full of exaggera-tion. So kings are described as visiting Indra in heavenand a sage creating a new world by means of his grearspiritual powers. The tribal organization of the statehas lessened much in importance in the Epic period-where we find the rise of many territorial kingdoms.

In respect of form also Classical Sanskrit differsconsideribly from Vedic. Thus the four Vedas andthe Brhmalas are marked with accents (udatta,anudatta and s'oarita) which only can help us in findingout the meaning of different rvords. Thus, forinstance, the word 'Indraatru' with one kind of accentwill mean 'Indra as enemy', and the same word witha different kind of accent will imply 'enemy of Indra'-But in Classical Sanskrit literature, accent has no partto play.

Phonetically Vedic and Classical languages ateidentical, but grammatically they differ. The changein grammar is not generally due to the introductionof new formations or inflexions, but to the loss offorms.l In respect of mood, the difference between

lCertain grammatical forms which occur in the-Vedic -languagedisappear in"the Classical. Thus in declension a number of forms has

TNTRoDUCToRy 17Classical and Vedic Sanskrit is specially very great.In the Vedas the present rense has besides its indicativeinflexion, a subjunctive (requisition), an optarive (wish)and an imperative (command). The same three moods1r. found, though with much less frequency, asbelonging to the perfect and they are also made fromthe aorist (luh) and the future has no moods. InClassical Sanskrit, rhe presenr rense adds to its indi-catiye an optative and an imperative. But the sub-junctive (let)is lost in Classical Sanskrit.' In the Vedicperiod no less than fifteen forms of infinitive wereused2 of which only one (tum) srrvives in the Classicalperiod. Vedic Sanskrit differs from Classical Sanskritin respect of the use of prefixes (upasargas). Thus inClassical Sanskrit lhe upasarga musr invariably precedethe root and should form a part of it. But ihe useof upasarga.r was unrestricted^ in Vedic Sanskrit. Itwas used before the root and after it and was alsosometimes separated from the root itself.3 Com-pounds of more than two words, which are rare inthe Vedas and the Brhmanas, are frequent in Classi-cal Sanskrit.

The aforesaid changes in respect of forms were (iii) Voca-mainly due to the efforts of grammarians yrfis bularycxercised considerable influence on the developmentof the language. The vocabulary also underwentmany changes. It was largely extended by derivation,:omposition and,compilation. Many old words thatlrcen dropped: (i) the nominative and accusative dual forms of'-a'

.

stems end.ing in a, e.g., narA, \ii) rhe nominative plur.al formof '-a' stems en-ding irr -A1ah, e.g.,'ciczsah, (iii) rhe i;srrumenrallrlnral form of '-a' srems ending in--ebftih e.g., etiebhih.

L adya jitno, iatdh iiaAti ;radah.'',4sl. IIl. iv- 93 a ' kysnena ri jas t:arlamAno.

2

18 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

could not be found in Vedic literature came to beadded in Classical Sanskrit and manv new words wereborror,ved.(iv)Metre Vedic language again differi from Classical withregard to th; ,t" of metres. Beside the pfincipalseven inetres of the Vedas (ayatrt, u;nih, anustubh,brhatt, pah.hti, tristubh and iagatl), Classical Sanskritpresents a limitless variety of metres.

REFER-ENCES

Ghate, V. S.: Lectures on the figt:eclaKielhorn, F,: A Grammar of Sanshrit LanguageMacdoner, A. A.: iyl",J::r"il;tr;:rit Literature

weber, A.: ,r" ,Y,1,*"0 !l'!X3!1ffrr,",,,u,"Whitney, W. D.: A Sanshrit GrammarWillianis, M.: A Practical Grammar of the Sanshrit I'anguageWinternitz, M.: A History of lndian Literature, Yol' I

D. PRAKRITAntiquity TrIn beginnings of the Prkrits go back to a period

of great antiquity. Even at the time when Verlichymns were composed, there existed a PoPularlanguage which difred from the literary dialect' Inthe-Vedic hymns, there are several words which can-not be phonetically other than Prkrit. Buddha andMahaviia preache their doctrines in the sixth century8.c., in the language f the people in order

-that allmight understand ih.t . The language of- the Bud'dhlst texts which were collected during the periodbetween 500 r.c. and 400 8.c., was Magadhi. Theextant Buddhist texts of Ceylon, Burma and Siam are

TNTRoDUCToRY 19in a form of popular language to which the name Plihas been given. There is difference of opinion amongstscholars regarding the place and origin of Pali. Theonly inscription, the language of which is akin to Pali,is the HatiGumpha inscription of Khravela, datedthe l60th year of the Maurya era.

Patafijali says that Sanskrit was a spoken language Relation ofbut it was confined to the cultured section of the Sanskritpeople. The popular dialect of India was known by to Prkritthe general name of Prkrit. From the distribution oflanguages in Sanskrit drmas it appears that the masseswhile speaking Prkrit, could understand Sanskrit. Ithas been said in Bharata's Natyaiastra that Prakritand Sanskrit are different branches of one and thesame language. In the earliest known forms of Prkrit,there are passages which can be easily transiated intoanskrit by the application of simple phonetic rules.

According to European scholars, Prkrit, which Europeanrepresents the Middle Indian period of the Indo-Aryan viewlanguages, may again be sub-divided into three stages:(1) Old Prkrit or P1i, (2) Middle Prkrit, and (3) latePrkrit or Apabhrarha. Thev would like to say thatif Prkrit had been a language derived from Sanskrit,Prkrit would have taken the name Sarhskrta. More-over, there are many words and forms in Prkritwhich cannot be traced in Classical Sanskrit. If,however, by the word Sanskrit is included the languageof the Vedas and all dialects bf the old Indian period,it will be correct to assume that Prkrit is derivedlrom Sanskrit. But the word Sanskrit is generally usedto refer ro rhe Palini-Patafljali language.

Indian grammarians, however, *orld say that the g11666s1name Prkrit is derived from the word prakrti, which view

, E. WAS SANSKRIT A SPOKEN LANGUAGE?European A srcrrox of European scholars believes that in spiteview - of the vast extent of Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit was

' never used in actual speech. It was a pureiy literary

TNTRoDUC-roRY 2l

and artificial language and the language that wasspoken even in ancient times was Prkrit.

But there are evidences to show that to all intents Orthodoxand purposes, Sanskrit was a living language and viewthat it was spoken by at last a large section of thepeople. Etymologists and grammarians like Yaskaand Palini describe Ciassical Sanskrit as Bhasa, thespeech, as distinguished from Vedic Sanskrit,r and itwill not probably be incorrect to suggest that this,description serves to draw out the special characterof Classical Sanskrit as a living speech. Moreover,there are many stras in the ,AuadhyayZ of Paliniwhich are meaningiess unless they have any reference,ro a living speech.2 Yska, Palini and evenKtyyana have discussed the peculiarities in theusages of Easterners and Northerners.s Local varia-tions are also noticed by Katyayana, while Patafljalihas collected words occurring in particular districts.aPatafijali again

.tel1s us that the words of Sanskrit areof ordinary life and describes an anecdote in which agrmmarian converses with a charioteer and thediscussion is carried on in Sanskrit.s

From all that has been said above, it is clear that ExtentofSanskrit was a living speeih in ancient India. 811 sanskrit asthe question

-which "stili remains to h"e discussed i. ir:I*",[

rvhether Sanskrit was the vernacular of all classes of opeople in the society or of any particular section orr.ciions. Patafijali. says that the language spoken inthe days of Palini could be mastered if it was heard

'Nir. l.iv. 5 & 7, II. ii. 6 & 7, Ast.III. ii. 108, etc.' ,4s1. VIII. iv. 48, etc. Also Gat.zastras, Nos. .18, 20, 29." Nir. II. ii. 8. ,4;{. IV. i. 157 & 160.a Cf. Vd.rtti.ha, sarae deid.ntara, referred to in the Paspaiahni,ha, MB-5 MB. under ,4sr. II. iv. 56.

Varietiesof Prkrit

20 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

means 'the basic form', viz., Sanskrit. 'Further, inPrkrit there are three classes of words, e'8", (4tatsama-words which are identical in form andmeaning in both Sanskrit and Prkrit, e.g',- dea(t,'harualal GI) tadbhaua-words that are derived fromSanskrit by the application' of phonetic rules, e'g',ajjautta l aryaputii, paricwmbia I paricumby.a, and_(r) dnin-*ot, thai are of indigenous origin andih" hiuto.y of which cannot be accurately tra-ced, e'3,'chollanti, cahga. A careful examination of Prkritvocabulary revieals the fact that the majority-of Prkritwords be1ng to the second class ; words belonging tothe other clsses are comparatively small in number:The derivatives are in moJt cases the result o{ phoneticdecay.

The foilowing are the more important literaryPrkrits: Mahaiastrl, Saurasenr and Magadhi are thedramatic Prkrits, while Ardha-Magadhi, Jaina-Mahrstrr and Jaina-Sauraseni are the Prkrits of theJaina canon. The last is the Apabhrarhda.

Bhandarkar, R. G.: ,;,,"I"'rlffl Lectures (Lecture rII)Cowell, E. B.: A Short Introduction to PrahritVararuci.: PrhftaprahAaWoolner, A. C.: An Introduction to Prd.hrit.

22 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

from the learned Brhmanas of the day (3lsza) whocould speak correct Sanskrit without any specialtuition.l-It is gathered from tlne Sundarahand.a of theRamyana thai the language spoken by the twice-bornqastes was Sanskrit.2 It is stated in the Kamastraof Vtsyyana that men of tate should speak both inSanskrit and the vernacular of the province, and thismeans that Sanskrit was not the spoken language ofeach and every section of the people in the society.3Hiuen Tsan, the Chinese traveller (seventh centuryA.D.), tqlls s that the language in which officialdebates were arranged, was Sanskrit and not any Pro-vincial dialect. The Pafi.catantra informs us that themedium of instruction for the young boys of theruling class was Sanskrit and not any vernacular.

Conclu- We may draw from this the conclusion thatsions Sanskrit was the vernacular of the educated people

but it was understood in still wider sections. Ourconclusions may find supPort from the evidence ofthe dramatic literature where we observe thatBrhmanas, kings and ministers speak Sanskrit whilewomen and all the common people use Prkrit, excePtthat nuns and courteturm o.crionally converse inSanskrit. Uneducated Brhmanas are introducedspeaking popular dialects. But it is highly signifi-cnt tht dialogues between Sanskrit-speaking andPrkrit-speaking persons are Yery frequent and thissuggests that in real life Sanskrit was understood bythose who would not speak it themselves. This state-ment may be further corroborated by the fact thar

TNTRoDUCToRY 23

common people would gather to hear the recital ofthe populr Epics in the palaces of kings and- intemples ; they wouid not attend such functions unlessth"l, .oilId .,nderrtand the content of the recital.

REFERENCES

Bhandarkar, R. G.: tlilson Philological Lectures (Lecture VII)Keith, A. B.: A History of Sanskrit LiteralureMacdonell, A. A.: A History of Sanskrit LiteraturePathak, . g., The Age "of' Pqryini and Sanskrit as a Spohen

Language (AtsORI. Vol. XI)Rapson, E. j.: JRAS. 1904

r MB. under ,4sr. VI. iii. 109.2 Rdm. Y. xxx. 18.'gKS. ir'. 20.

Story

0rigin andsource

CHAPTER I

THE GREAT. EPICSA. RAMAYANA

Tnr Indian tradition rnakes Valmtki, the author ofthe Ramayana, tlne first poet (adikaai) who is reportedto have been deeply moved by the piteous wailingsof the female curlew when her husband was killedby the dart of a forester. Valmlki's feelings foundan expression through the medium of metre,r and atthe tridding of the divine sage Nrada who broughtmessages from Brahm he composed the immortalRama-Epic which tells the story of Prince Rma, thedutiful and devoted son of King Daaratha ofAyodhy, banished from his kingdom for fourteenyears through the jealousy of his step-mother Kaikeyiwho secured possession of the throne for her ownson Bharata. So Rma and SIt, his beloved wife,accompanied by the third prince Laksmala went tothe forest. There the adventures of the banishedprince, Srt's abduction by Rvana, King of Lank,the help given to Rma by Hanumat, a chief of themonkeys, the destruction of Rvala and his part\,the fire-odeal of Srta to prove her chastity-these andmany other incidents have been described in all theglowing colours of poetry.

From a perusal of the Ramyar.ta itself we come toknow that the story of the Epic was recited by pro-

I Rm. L ii. 15.

l'HE GREAT EPrcs 25

{essional minstrels. The story was handed down byoral transmission from Valmiki to the twin brothers,Kuda and Lava, r,vho sang it in the royal court ofRma. The above facts have led scholars to surmisethat the exploits of the great heroes of the Iksvku raceinspired the bards of Ayodhy to compose narrativeballads. Such were utilized by Valmiki who turnedthem into a full-fledged Epic. In this connexion, itnray be remembered that Epics and Purnas arederived from a common ancient source which maybe traced in the Vedas. The famous dialogue hymnsof the Rgveda are but ancient ballads consisting ofsome narrative and some dramatic elements. Theseare believed to be the sources of epic poetry as wellas dramas. It is opined again that the Epics owetheir origin to the 'Songs in praise of men' known astiatha 1\arasamsr.

'the Rn'rayana which is essentialiy a Poetic Cre- Charactertion has influenced the thought and poetry of latercenturies in course of which new matters were addedto the original composition. The work, in its presentform and extent, comprises seven books and contains24,0A0 verses approximately. But it must be remem-bered that the text of the Epic has been preserved inthree recensions, the West Indian, the Bengal andthe Bomba), and curiously enough each recensionhas almost one third of the verses occurring in neitherof the other two. Of the three, the Bombay recensionis believed to have preserved the oldest form of theEpic, for here we find a large numtier of archaiccxpressions which are rare in the Bengal and the WestIndian recensions. According to Professor Jacobi,the Rma-Epic was first coposed in the Koa1a

Spuriouselement

26 HISToRY oF CTASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

country on the basis of the ballad poetry recited by,the rhapsodists. In course of time there naturallyarose difierence in the tradition of the recitationsmade by professional story-tellers, and this differenceadequately explains the variations in the three recen-sions when they had been assuming their definiteforms in the different parts of the 1and. But it mustbe borne in mind that inspite of the variations in thethree recensions it is not difficult to detect the spuriousand recognize the nucleus. As Jacobi rightly puts it:As on many of our old venerabie cathedrals everycoming generation 'has added something new andrepaired something old, without the original construc-tion being effaced, in spite of all' the added littlechapels and turrets, so also many generations of singershave been at work at the Ramyana; but the oldnucleus, around which so much has grown, is to thesearching eye of the student, not difficult to recognize,if not in every detail, yet in its principal features.l

Internal evidence proves almost co4clusively thatthe whole of the Ramayana as it is found today wasnot written at one time. It is said that of the sevenbooks in the Ramyana, the last one and portions ofthe first are interpolations. In the first place, thereare numerous passages in the genuine books whicheither make no reference to the incidents in the firstbook or contain statements which contradict those tobe found in the first book. Secondly, in the first andthird cantos of the first book we find two tables ofcontents, the first of which does not mention the firstand the seventh books. Thirdly, the style and

'a Das Rmyarya, p. 60,

. TrrE GREAT EPICS 27

language of the first book do not bear comparison withthat of the five genuine books (II-VD. Fourthly,the frequent interruption' of the narrative in the firstand the seventh books and the complete absence ofany such interruption in the other five books cannotbut suggest that the two books were composed bysubsequent poets of less eminence and talent thanthe author of the genuine books. Lastly, the characterof the hero as drawn in the first and the seventhbooks difiers from what we find in the remainingbooks. Thus in those two books Rama is not a mortalhero which he is in the other five books, but a divinebeing worthy of reverence to the nation.

The Ramayana is a highly popular epic which has Thebecome the property of. the

.entire. Indian gcople i"d if iil:"*it is not an exaggeration if it is said that -it hul rryno"

influenced more than any other poem the thought and 6l Inciianpoetry of a nation for thousands of years. People in life andiff"rrrt walks of iife are all quite iamiliar wi ,6" literaturecharacters and stories of the great EPic. In the eyesof Indians Rma is the ideal prince, the embodimentof all conceiva,ble virtue and Srta the ideal of conjugallove and fidelity, the highest yirtue of woman.Popular sayings and proverbs bear unmistakable testi-mony to the acquaintance of the Indian people withthe stories of the Epic. Preachers belonging todifferent sects draw upon the story of the trpic at thetime of religious discourses meant for the mass.Beginning with Advaghosa who composed tt-.e Buddha-carita on the model of the Ramyana and comingdown to such later writers as Bhatti and Bhavabhutiwe are amazed to observe the extent of influence ofthe Epic on them and their poetical creation. Even

Antiquity

28 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT- LITERATURE

the folklores and vernacular literature of the variousprovinces have been deeply influenced by the story ofthe Ramayana. And it would not be wrong to saythat even upto present times the life and literature inIndia are considerably moved by the great Epic. Theconception of Rmarjya (Kindom of Rma) owes itsorigin to the Rantayana

It has been already observed that the original workof Valmiki assumed different forms as with yearsrhapsodists introduced into it newer elements. It is,therefore, very difficult, if not absolutely impossible,to fix any specified age for the whole pom. DrWinternitz says that the transformation of Rmafrom a man to the Universal God through a semi-divine national hero, 'cannot but take a sufficientlength of time. It should be noted, however, that notonly the Rma-legend but the Ramayana of Vahnikialso was known to the Mahabharata which containsthe Ramophhyana in the Vanaparaan, of course, ina condensed form. On the other hand, the poet orthe poets of the Rmayana nowhere refer to theBhrata story. These facts have 1ed scholars likeProfessor Jacobi to presume a very early existence ofthe Rrna-Epicl though it still remains a disputedpoint whether it was earlier than the original story ofthe Mahbharata, the passage in the Vanaparuan con'taining the reference to the Ran'rayana, being absentin that very early form of the Bhrata Epic. DrWinternitz believes that 'if t]ne Mahbharata had on

I Scholars like Jacobi, Schlegel. M. Williams, Jolly and others pointout that tlae Ram.ayana is earlier than the MahdbhZrata, becausethe burning of widdws does not occur in it, but it is mentioned int}:,e Mahabharata.

lHE GREAT EPrcs 29

the whole its present form, in the fourth century A.D.,t}ae Ramayana rnsl. have received its final form atleast a century or two earliet".

From a study of lataka literature it would appear Relation tothat the stories of some of the Jatakas naturallY Buddhisrrremind us of the story of the Rdmayana though itmust be admitted that rve seldom observe any 'literalagreement' between the two. To cite an instance,the Daaratha-jamka relates the story of the Ramayanain a different way, where Rma and Slta are describedas brother and sister. But it is highly significant thatwhile the Jatakas give us innumerable stories of thedemon-world and the animals, they never mentionthe names of RvaTa and Ffanumat and the monkeys.It is not, therefore, improbable that prior to thefourtlr or the third centuries s.c. when the BuddhistTipitc:ka is believed to have come into existence, theRamayana in its Epic form was not available thoughballads dealing with Rama were known t-o exist.Traces of Buddhism cannot be found in the Ramayanaand the solitary instance where the Budd]ra is men-tioned is believed to be an interpolation.l Dr Weber,however, suggests that the Ramyana is based on anancient Buddhist legend of Prince Rma. He thinksthat the hero of the Ramayanq. is essentially a sagein spirii and not merely a hero of war and that inRma we observe the glorification of the ideal ofBuddhist equanimity. Dr Winternitz also approvesof the idea of explaining the extreme mildness andgentleness of Rma by 'Buddhistic undetcutrents'.But we must say that by thinking in this way

r Lassen on Weber's Rd.mayat.ta (IA. Vot. 'III)

30 HISToRY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Dr Weber has ignored the fact that a poet likeValmiki could easily draw his inspiration from hisown heritage. Our conclusion, therefore, is thatthere was no direct influence of Buddhism on theRamayana.

It is certain that there is no'Greek influence on theRamayana as the genuine Ramayana betrays noacquaintance with the Greeks. Dr Weber, however,thinks that the Ramayana is based on the Greeklegend of Helen and the Trojan war. But an exami-nation of the contents of the poem shows thatthe expression yaaana occurs twice in the passagesof the Ramayana which are evidently interpolations.

Professor Lassen was the first scholar to give anallegorical interpretation of r.he Ramyana. In hisopinion the Epic represented the first attempt of theAryans to conquer Southern India. According toDr Weber it was meant to account for the spread ofAryan civilization to South India and Ceylon.

Professor Jacobi gives us a mythological interpreta-tion and says that there is no allegory in the Epic.Thus he points out that in the gaeda, Stt appearsas the field-furrow and invoked as the goddess ofagriculture. In some of the Grhyastras Slt is thegenuine daughter of the piough-field and is a wife ofParjanya or Indra. In the Ramayana also Srt isrepresented as emerging from the plough-field ofJanaka. Rma can be identified with Indra andIlanumat with the Maruts, the associates of Indra, inhis battle with demons. But we would only add thatto read allegory or mythology in a first rate work ofart is without any justification.

THE GREAT EPICS

REFERENCES

Davids, R.: Buddhist IndiaHopkins, E. W.: The Great Epics of India-|acobi, H.: Das Rimd1anaMacdonell, A. A.: A History of Sanshrit LiteratureSmith, V. A.: Oxford History of IndiaWeber, A.: On the Rfimyat.ta (IA. Vol. II!

The History of Indian LiteratureWilliams, W.: Indian lisdomWinternitz, M.: A History of Indian Literature, lttol.

3l

Greekinfluence

Ailegoricallnterpreta-tion of theEpic

Mythologi-cal inter-pretation

Generalcharacterand story

B. MAHABHARATADn WrNrBnxrrz describes the Mahabharata as awhole literature and does nqt look upon it as onepoetic production which dne Rmayana essentially is.The nucleus of the Mahabharan is tlne great war ofeighteen days fought between the Kauravas, thehundred sons of Dhrtarstra and the Pndavas, thefive sons of Pandu. The poet narrates all thecircumstances leading up to the war. In this greatKuruksetra battle were involved almost all the kingsof India joining either of the two parties. The resultof this war was the total annihilation of the Kauravasand their part|, and Yudhisthira, the head of thePndavas, became the sovereign monarch of Hastin-pura. But with the progress of years new matters andepisodes, relating to the various aspects of human life,.social, bconomic, political, moral and religious asalso fragments of other heroic legends and legendscontaining reference to famous kings, came to beadded to the aforesaid nucleus and this phenomenonprobably continued for centuries dll in the early partof the Christian era the Epic gathered its Presentshape which is said to contain a hundred thousandr,erses. It is, therefore, that the Mahabharatu hasbeen described not only as a heroic poem, but alsoas a 'repertory of the whole of the o1d bard poetry'.The Epic in its present form is divided into eighteenbooksr with a supplement called the Hariaarhia.

1 The eighteen books which are known as Partdn are the following:di, SabitA, Vana, Vir(a, Udyoga, Bhiqma, Drolta, Karrya, Salya,

The famous Bhagaita,dgrta is a chapter of the GrtaBhlsruaparaan and contains eighteen sections. TheGita is a simplification in verse of the general doc-trines in Hindu philosophy and is a book speciallymeant for trhe dwellers of the society rather than forone who has renounced it. The boot is no doubt oneof the finest fruits of Indian philosophy and hasgained world-wide recognition in the hands of philo-sophers. The theme of this book is the advice, givenby KrsT'a tor consoling depressed Arjuna, mainlydwelling on the doctrines of karman, jfrana andbhakti.

The Ctn has been widely read and admired lot An" o[many centuries past, ever since AIbernI spoke highly ci'taof it. According to Winternitz it is the sacred bookof the Bhgavatas, a Vaisnava sect which as early asthe beginning of the second century s.c. had foundadherence even among the Greeks in Gandhara.Indian scholars like Telang and Bhandarkar hold thattine Ga was composed not later than the fourthcentury B.c. Its language, style and metre provethat the poem is one of the earliest parts of theMahabharata.

There is a fantastic theory of Christian influence on Christianr.he Gxfi attempted by F. Lorinser. It is held that the influenceauthor of the^ Grta'not only knew and frequendy on Gitutilized the Scripture of the New Testament, but alsowove into his system the Christian ideas and views ingeneral. This view has been discarded on the ground

Sauftike, Strl, nti, Anu!sana, h-taruedhiha, lramaadsiha,M a i sa I y a, It[a h a p ra s I h a ni k a and Suo r g ro h an i k a.

It is not de{initely known whether this division into eighteen booksis purely traditional, there being a somewhat difierent form of divi-sion as surmised from the writings of Albernl

3

Hari-varhda

Author-ship

34 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

that the doctrine of bhakti in Indian literature isfound earlier than the Christian era and that 't]ne Gttawas composed at least two hundred years before thebirth of Christ.

The Harivatua is regarded as a suPplement orappendix (hhila) to the Mahabharatu b:ut the connex-ion b.t*een the two is purely external and is limitedessentially to the fact t6at the same Vaiamp1'a1a i1the speaker in both. Tlne Hariaarh.Sa wlnidn is a work of16,3'i4 verses does not appear to have beeh composedby a single author. It is, in fact, a jumbled mass oftexts. Itionsists of three sections, namely, Hariaamla-paruan containing geneology of Hari, Visnupar.uanealing almost exilusively with Krsla and Bhaaisya'paraan, a loose collection of Purpa texts." In spite of all the diverse elements of which theMahabharala consists, the poem is regarded by theIndians as a unified work complete in itself. Theauthor is the sage Krsfa Dvaipyana, also calledVysa. , The story runs that the sage imparted thework to his pupil Vaidampyana who recited thewhole poem irthe intervals of the great snake-sacrificeof King Janamejaya. On the occasion it was heardby Sut Ugradravas, son of sage T'omaharsala. Thepi"r.rrt text of the Mahabharata is r'vhat Suta lJgra-.(rurru, narrated in the assembly of sages at the tv;elve-yearly sacrifice of Saunaka in the forest of Nimisa.Thus Ugradravas is the reciter of the outline storyu,hile in th" po.* itself Vaiampyana is the speaker.Within the narrative of Vai6ampyana numerousinserted stories are Put in the mouth of differentpersons and it must be remembered that such inser-iion of stories within stories is a very common device

T'IIE GREAT EPICS 35in Indian literature. A carelul study of the above[acts will suggesr the gradual growth oi the Epic froma smaller poem to its present extent and thus convinceus of the truth of rhe conrention that the work is notfrom the pen of a single author or even a carefulcompiler. It is maintained by Winternitz that 'un-poetical theologicians and commentators and clumsycopyists have succeeded in conglomerating into aheterogenous mass parts which are really incompatibleand r,vhich date from different cenruries'. But thevery fact that the hlahabharata represents a wholeliterature and should not be looked upon as a singleunified poetic production has made it a valuablerecord enabling us to gain 'an insight into the deepestdepths of the soul of the Indian people'.

It is extremely difficult for us to separate at this Three,distant date the chaff from the rea1. llowever. in stages ofthe {irst book of the'Mahabharata there is , ,ru,"il"r., theEpicthat at one time the Epic contained 24,000 verseswhile in another conrexr we find that it consisted of8,800 verses. These statements may d^efinite1y leadone to conclude that the Epic had undergone threeprincipal stages of developrnent before it assumed itspresent form.

trt is impossible to give in one line the exact date Ageof the Mahabharata. To determine the date of theMqhabharaia we should determine the date of everypart of this Epic. In the Vedas there is no mentionof the incident of the great Kurukserra battle. Inthe Brhmanas, however, the holy Kuru-field is des-cribed as a place of pilgrimage where gods andmortals celebrated lrig sacrificial feasrs. We alsofind the names of Jaiamejaya and Bharata in the

36 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Brhmanas. So also the name of Panksit as a rulerof Kuru-land is found in the Atharuaueda. We findfrequent mention of the Kurus and the Pficlas inthe Yajuraeda. The Kathakasamhita mentions thename of Dhrtarstra, son of Vicitravrrya. In theSankhyayana-irautastra we find the mention of awar in Kuru-land which was fatal for the Kauravas.But the names of the Pldavas do not occur therein.Tlne Grhyastra of Avalyana gives the names ofBhrata and Mahabharata in a list of teachers andbooks. Pa+ini gives us the derivation of the wordsYudhisthira, Bhlma and Vidura and the accent ofthe compotnd l\.fahabharata. Patafijali is the first tomake definite allusions to the story of the battlebetween the Kauravas and the Pndavas. Althoughthe Buddhist Tipi,taka cloes not mention the name of

tance with it.Literary Moreover, it is proved by literary and inscriptionalandinscrip- evidence that already about e.n. 500, the Mahabhdratational r:'::,:- was no longer an actual Epic but a sacred book and

a religious discourse. It was on the whole essentiallydifferent from the trpic as it is found today,Kumrilabhatta quotes passages from the Maha-

, bharata and regards it as a Smrti work. BothSubandhu and Bla knew it as a great work of artland Bna alludes to a recital of the Mahbharata.zIt must be admitted on all hands that though an EpicMahabharata did not exist in the time of the Vedas,single myths, legends and poems included in theMakabharatu reach back to the Vedic period. The

1VAs. p. 37 &. Har. p. 2.'zKad. p. 104.

. THE GREAT EPICS 37

Mahabharatu lnas also drawn many moral narrativesand stories of saints from its contemporary 'ascetic-poetry'. An trpic Mahabharata, however, did notexist in the fourth century n.c., and the transforma'tion of the trpic Mahabharatu into our present com-pilation probably took place between the fourthcentury s.c. and the fourth century a.o. In the fourthaentury A.D., the work was available in its presentxtent, contents and character, though small altera-tions and additions might have continued even inlater centuries.

To the strictly orthodox Indian mind, tk,e Ran+a-TwoEpics:yana appears to have been composed earlier than the which isMahabharata. Indians believe ihat bf the two incar- earlier?nations of the Lord, Rma and Krsla, the formetwas born earlier. Western critics do not attach anyimportance to this belief, for it is argued by themthat the hero of the genuine portion of the Ramd,yanawhich is older, does not appear as an incarnation butas an ordinary mortal hero.l Professor Jacobi alsothinks that of the two poems, thc Ramyana is tlneearlier production; and he bases his theory on thesupposition-that it is the influence of the Ramd.yanawhich has moulded the Mahabharatu into a poeticform.2

That the Ramayana is earlier than dne Maha-bhrata may be proved on the strength of the follow-ing points. The Vanalamsan of the Mahabharatacontains references to the Rma story while no such

1 There are a few passage in the genuine books, e.g.,. the one. inBk. VI. where Srt eiters-into the pyre, wherein Rm is describedas a clivine being. Critics feel no hitation in calling such passagesi n Lerpo'la tions.

'ccording to Mr Hopkins, the P'd,lr't|rand as an art-product islater than the Mahbhdrata. (Cambridge Histor!, I. p. 251)

38 HrsroRy oF cLASSrco" "ot"**rr LTTERATURE

reference to the lVlahabharatan storv is to be found inthe Ramayana. Again, the hlaiabharata containsreference to the burning of widows as evinced in thestory of Mdn's satidaha. But nothing akin to it isfound in the Ramyana. From the references ofMegasthenes we come to knw that the practice ofburning of widows was in vogue in the third centuryB,c. In the Vedic period such a sysrem was unknownin this country. Further, Pataliputra is mentionedas a city in the Mahabharata which according toh{egasthenes was founded by Kaladoka in the fourthcentury 8.c.. But it is interestin.to note that rhisrmportant city is not mentioned in tt-.e Ramayanathough many cities of lesser importance and some ofthem again very close to Pataliputra have been alludedto. Furthermore, the territories occupied by theAryans in the age of the Ramayana appear to bemuch more limited than the Aryan-occupied terri-tories in the Mahabharata. But Winternitz does notattach any real importance to this theory and criti-cizes it by saying that the Mahabharata) eyerr in itspresent form, retains several characteristics of olderpoetry while the poem of Valmiki reveals such pecu-liarities as would place him nearer to rhe age ofCourt-epics. Thus it is asserted by Winternitz thatthe Ramyana appeats to be an ornate poem havingserved as the patrern to which. later Indian poetsadmiringly aspired; What Winternitz means byornate poetry is that kind of poeric composition inwhich greater importance is attached to the formthan to the matter and contents of the poem and inwhich literary embellishmenrs are profusely used evento excess. The Ramayana is the first literary lvork in

THE GREAT EPICS 39

which the aforesaid peculiarities of ornate poetry arefound. These peculiarities, however, are not Presentin the Mahabharata which is, ther-efore, presumed tobe the earlier composition. Again, it has been pointedout that such expressions like 'Bhrsma spake,''Safijaya spake' which the poet of the Mah,abhararu,uses to introduce a character, are reminiscent ofancient ballad poetry.l But in the Rmayana tlnespeeches are introduced in verses and therefore in arnore polished form. The theory of Professor Jacobimay be further contested on the ground that from aperusal of the two Epics, the reader will unmistakablyarry the impression that while tine Mahabharatadescribes a more war-like age, the Ramayana depictsa comparatively refined civilization.

REFERENCES

Bhandarkar, R. G.: On the Mahdbhsrata (IA. Vol. I)Goldstcker, T.: The MahbhPrataHopkins, E. W.: The Great Epics of IndiaMf,cdonell, A. A.: A History of Sanskrit LiteratureTelang, K. T.: SBE. Vol. VIIIVaidy, C. Y.: Mahdbharata, a critical slurlyWebr, A.: The

.History of lndian LiteralureWilliams, M.: Indian WisdomWinternitz, M.: .4 History of lndian Literlzture, Yol. I

l The mixture of prose withbhdrata is a fact that provesOldenberg is not accepted by

noetrv which we notice in the MahZ'ir" airiouitv. This vierv of ProfessorDr Winiernitz.

Ag.

fntroduc-tion

Antiquity

CI]APTER IITHE PURAJAS

Tuu origin of the Purnas must'be traced to that timeof religious revolution when Buddhism was gainingground as a formidable foe of Brahmalic cukure.r.ut d.evotees of Brhmalic religion *"r" anxiousfor the preservation of the oid relicJ of Hindu cuhure,and Vysa, the great compiler, the greatest man of'his time, was born to meet the demand of the age.The most important point to be remembered in thisrconnexion, is that the entire Vedic culrure lies at thebackground of the age of Buddhism and the Purnas.

ft was at one time believed by European scholarsthat not one of the eighteen Purnas is earlier thanthe eleventh century a.o. But this belief has beendiscarded on the discovery of a manuscript of theSkandapurana in Nepal written in the sixth centuryA.D. Further, Baf abhatta in his Harsacarita mentionsthat he once attended a recitation of tine Vayupurana.Kumrila (a.n. 750) regards the Purnas as the sourcesof law. Sankara (ninth cenrury a.o.) and Ramanuja(eleventh century a.o.) refer to the Purnas as sacredtexts for their dependence on the Vedas. The famoustraveller Albcruni (a.o. 1030) also gives us a list ofthe eighteen Purnas.

The word Purna means 'old narrative'. In theAtharaatseda (xi. 7.24), the Brhma\as (Satapatha andGopatha), the Upanisads (e.g., Brhadaranyaka, li. 4.l0) and the Buddhist texts, the word is found to beused in connexion with Itihasa. Some scholars hold

that the Purnas mentioned in these places do notrefer to the works we have before us. But the refer-nces found in the Dharmastras of Gautama andApastamba (works belonging in all probability to thefifth or the fourth century n.c.) suggest that therewere at that early period works resembling ourPurlas. The close relationship between the Maha-,bharata and the Purnas is another point in supportof the antiquity of the la:ter. The Mahabharatamrhich calls itself a Purna, has the general characterof the latter, and it is not highly improbable thatsome integral parts of the Purnas are older than thepresent redaction of the Mahabharata. The Lalita-aistara not only calls itself a Purqa but has alsopuch in common with the Furnas. The Vayupuraryais quoted litera1ly by the HariuamSa. The genealogi-cal survey of all the Purnas reveals the fact that theygenerally stop with the accounts of the AndhraBhrtya and Gupta kings and that later kings likeHarsa are not mentioned. So it may be suggestedthat the Purnas were written during the rule of theGupta kings. On the other hand, the striking resem:"blance between the Buddhist Mahayana texts of thefirst century A.D. and the Purnas, suggests the factthat the latter were written early in the beginningsof the Christian era. The characteristics of thePurr,ras are also found in books like the Saddharma-pundarr.ha and the Mahauastu. Dr Winternitz has,however, concluded that the earlier Purnas musthave come into being before the seventh century A.D.But it may be pointed out that the worship of Sivaand Vislu referred to in quite a good number ofPurnas reach back to the pre-Christian era, if not the

trVas thereoneoriginalPurna?

Character

42 HISToRY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

pre-Buddhist age. The Purlas are by no means'quite modern'.

It is quite interesting to note that some of theimportant Purnas, e.g., the Vayu, dne Brahmor.rdo,the Visnu and others, speak

.of one original Purna.sarirhita which was compiled by Vysa and impartedby him to his disciple, Lomaharsana, rhe Sra. Thetheory of the existence of one original Purna which,was supported bv such scholars as A. N,I. T. Jackson,A. Blan and F. E. Pargiter, appears to point ro theearliest Vedic age when the Vedic Indians \,yere stillundivided and consequentiy the Paurr.:ic heritagewas the same. As time went on and the populationincreased, the Vedic Indians could no longer remainundivided and with their division into groups andtheir movement inro different territories scriptural,cultural, traditional and ritualistic unity could not bepreserved. Ilence in course of years the same PaurTicheritage was remodelled which ultimately resulted inthe emergence of different PurTas. With the pro-gress of time there were changes in ideas and beliefs,in the modes of living and thought as also in theenyironments and this explains *hy the Purla-Sarhhita \\ias recast from time to time. It is, there-fore, understandable that the Purnas do not possessa stable character.

Extreme paucity of information leaves us inabsolute darkness as to the character and contents ofthe ancient Paurrlic rvorks, none of which, it is pre-sumed, has come down to us in its original form"The noted Sanskrit lexicographer, Amarasirhha, givesus a definition of Purnas which has been repeatedin sorne of the extant Paurnic texts. According to

Amarasirhha, every;:i" ,i)lio 0,,.,,, o* ,*":1(i) s ar ga-creation, (it) pr atis ar ga-the periodical anni-hilation and renewal of the world, (tri') aama-genea-logy of gods and sages, (iv) manuantara-the Manu-periods of time i.e., the great periods each of whichhas a Manu (primal ancestor of the human race) asits ruler, and (v) aafitanucarita-the history of thedynasties the origin of r,vhich is traced ro the Sun andthe X4oon. But all these fi.lre characteristics are notpresent in every Purna, and though in some they arepartially present, we notice a wide diversity of topicsin them. Thus lve find many chapters dealing withthe duties of the four castes and of the four |ramas,sections on Brhmalical rites, on particular cere-monies and feasts and frequently also chapters onSankhya and Yoga philosophy. But rhe most strikingpeculiarity of ai1 the Purnas is their sectariancharacter as they are dedicated to the cult of somedeity who is treated as the principal God in the book.So we come across a Purna dedicated to Vislu,another to Siva and so on.

Unique is the importance of the Purnas from the Value.standpoint of history and religion. The genealogicalsurvey of the Purnas is immensely helpful for thestudy of political history in ancient India, and yet itis a task for the scholar to glean germs of Indianhistory, hidden in the Furnas. Dr Smith says thatthe Visnupurana gives us invaluable informationsabout the Maurya dynasty. The Matsyapurana ismost dependable in so far as the Andhra dynasty isconcerned, while the Vayupurana gives us detaileddescriptions about the reign of Candragupta I. Asthe object of the Purnas was to popularize the more

Name andnumber

Classifica-tion ofPurnas

4+ HISToRY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

difficult and highly philosophical preaching of theVedas through the medium of historical facts andtales, we naturally find in them Hinduism in a ful1ydeveloped form. So the student of religion cannotpass it by. The Purr,ras are not also wanting inliterary merit, and they abound'in numerous passageswhich speak of the highiy artistic taient of theirmakers.

The Purnas or the Mah-purnas, as we havethem todaf , are eighteen in number, and there arealso minor Pur4as (Upa-purlas) which a1l againnumber eighteen. The eighteen Maha-purqas are '.

-(l) Brahma, (2) Padma, (3) Visnu, (4) Siaa, (5)Bhagauata, (6) Naradryo, (7) Mrh.andeyo, (B) Agni,(9) Bhaaisya or Bhaaisyat, (10) Brahmaaaiuarta, (11)Linga, (12) Varaha, (13) Skanda, (14) Vamana, (15)Krma, (16) Matsya, (17) Garuda and (18) Brahmar.rda.

The above-mentioned eighteen Purnas are classifiedfrom the standpoint of the three cosmic qualities(guryo), viz., sattaa, rajas and tamas. Th. Purr.rasgenerally exalting Vis,,ru are called sattaika, thoseexalting Brahm are called rdjasa, while those exaltingSiva are called tamasa. The Purlas so classified areas follows :

(o) Sattvika Purnas : Visnu, Bhugaaata, I'l'ara'dlya, Garuda, Padma and Varaha.

(b) Rajasa Purnas: Brahma, Brahmanda,Brahmauaiaarta, IVlarh,andeya, Bhaui.syaand Vamona.

(c) Tmasa Pur4as: Siaa, Linga, Skanda, Agni,Matsya and Krma.

rss punNas 45The Bhagavata Purrla is unquestionably the most The

famous work of Fur?a literature. Innumerabls Bhgavatarnanuscripts and prints of the text itself as well u. of P"lumany cornmentaries thereon in addition to the manytlanslations into Indian ianguages bear eloquenttestimony to rhe popularity and reputation of thework. It is regarded by the adherents of the Vaislavacult as the 'fifth Veda'. Its artistic excellence is widelyadmired and it is believed by Indians that real scholar-ship is tested by one's proficiency in this Purna.

The Purla which bears the stamp of a unifiedcomposition consists of 18,000 stanzas divided intotwelve books (sbandhas). l-he tenth book concernsitself with an account of the various activities ofLord KrsTa including the exquisire love-scenes withthe milk-maids. It is quite interesting to note herethat the name Radha, so popular among the Vaisrlavasof Bengal in particular, does nor appear in the Bhaga-vata Purna.

According to Pargiter the PurTa was writren some-time in the ninth century A.D.

The DeaVmahatmya which is popularly known as Devr-the 'CaryQr' or the 'saptaiati', is a section of the mhtmyaMarkaryQeyapurana. According to Dr Winternitz, itsdate is not later than the sixth century A.D. Thebook which contains thirteen chapters and sevenhundred mantras, is a glorification of the PrimalEnergy (dya Sahti) who descends amongsr allcreated beings from time ro time to rid the worlds oftheir pestilence and killed in the past rhe demonsMadhu-Kaitabha, Mahissura, Sumbha and Nidum-bha

-among others. The book is recited in manyreligious functions of the Hindus.

46 HISToRY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Name & The eighteen Upa-purlas r,vhich have been toldllTbtt of by diflerent sages are :;J". {) Sanatkrinoro, (2) Narasimha, (3) Veyu, (+) Siaa-

dharma, (5) carya, (6) Narada, (7) the two Nandi-keiaaras, (B) Uianas, (9) Kapila, (10) Vo.runa, (ll)Samba, (121 Kaliha, (i3) Mahe'|uara, (14) Kalbi, (15)Devt, (16) Paraiara, (17) Maruci and (18) Bhashara orS rya.l

REFERENCES

Bhandarkar, R. G.: ,4 Peep into the Early History of lndia (JBRAS,VoI. XX, 1900)

Pargiter, F. E.: ERE., Vol. X, 1918Rapson, E. J.: Cambridge History, Yol. IWilson, H, H.: .Essa)s on Sanskrit Literature'Winternitz, M.: ,4 History of Indian Literature, Yot. I

1 The above list of Upa-purnas given by R.aghunandana is takenfrom the Sabdahalpadruma. Hemdri gives a different list.

CHAPTER IIITHE TANTRAS

THn expression Tantra which is a generic name for 1,4gnnir*,works belonging to 'Agama', 'Tantra' and 'samhit', contentsrefers to theological tratises discussing the codes of :l1ilt.i-discipline and riorship among differen? sects of ,.li- n""ot.gion along with their metaphysical and mysticalpoints of view. A complete Tanrra generally consisrsof four parts, the themes treated of being (i) know-ledge (jana), (ii) meditation (yoga), (iii) action (kriya)and (iv) conducr (carya). Though it is not possibleto draw any special line of demarcation amongAgama, Tantra .and Sarhhit, still it is usual to referto the sacred books of the Saivas by the expressionAgama,l while Tantra stands for the sacred iiteratureof the Saktas and Sarhhit for that of the Vais?avas.The Sakta-Tantras are mainly monistic in characrer,r,vhile the Vaislava-Tanrras generally advocate du-alism, or qualified monism. The Saiva-Tantras aredivided into three schools of monism, qualifiedmonism and dualism. It is descrii,-ed that underinstruction fro,n iva, the sage Durvsas divided a1lthe Saiva-Tantras into three classes and charged histhree mind-born sons, Tryambaka, Amardaka andSr-rntha with the mission of spreading the knowledgeof the Agamas he taught rh. It ?u, Tryambaf,awho propagated monism.

1A distinction is made between Agama and Nigama-in the former,goddess_ Prvatr asks questions like a disciple-while siva answerstirem like a precepror ; in the latter the reveise is the case.

Relation toVedicliterature

Character

Antiquity

IIome

48 HISTORY oF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE.

The Tantras came to replace the Vedas when inlater times it was found that performance of a sacrificeaccording to Vedic rites was practically impossibleowing to their rigid orthodoxy. Thus the Tantrasprescribe easier and less complicated methods whichwould suit not only the higher classes but also theSdras and the feminine folk of the society who hadno access to Vedic ceremonies. It would, therefore"not be wise to think that Tantric literature is oppgsedto Vedic literature, and this point would be madeabundantly clear when it is found that the rigidlyorthodox Vedic scholars write original works andcommentaries on Tantras.The Tantras have been classified into Vedic and

non-Vedic in so far as the authority of the Vedas isrecognized or denied in them. The Saiva, Sakta andVaislava Tantras are regarded as Vedic while the,Buddhist and Jain Tantras are regarded as non-Vedic. In some of the Tantras there is full-throatedi,ilification of the Vedas. Some affinity of the Tanrraswith the Purnas is discernible in so far as the con-tents are concerned.

The earliest manuscripts of Tantras date from theseventh to the ninth century a.o., and it is probablethat the literature dates back to the fifth or the sixthcentury a.o., if not earlier. We do not find anyreference to a Tantra in dne Mahqbharata. TheChinese pilgrims also do nor mention it. It ir"indeed, certain that Tantric doctrine peneffated into,Buddhisrn in the seventh and eighth centuries a.o.The worship oI Durg may be traced back even tothe Vedic period.

The home of Agamic literature seems to be

THE TANTRAS 49Kshmir, while that of Tantric lirerarure is Bengal.Sarirhita literature, as it is known, originated'indifferent parts of India, in Bengal, Southlndia andthe Siamese countrv.

Am.ong works b6longing to Agamic lirerature rhe Works onmgs! Pportant are the following:- AgamaM ?l.i?uv ii a y a, S u ac c han d a, V ij fr ana b h air aa a, (J c c h u_smabhairaua, na.ndabhairatsa, Mrgenclra, i,[atanga,N e !ry, N ai 3v a s a, Sa ay a m b hua a and." Ru d.r ay a rm al a.'.

-

Closely associated with Agamic literatur. i, prutyr_ Works onbhijfi literature which 999upies an importarrt pri.. i;;,y"-in the history of Indian nfrllosoptry. The pratyuUllrra bhijfl-school is based on the Monistic Saiva Tantras. " Agood account of the teachers of this school is to befound in the closing chapter of the Siaadrsti of Som_nandantha, rhe great-grnd-reacher of Abinavagupraand nineteenth descendant of Tryambaka," ih"founder of the Advaita Saiva school. Somnandanthabelonged ro rhe ninth century a.o. (a.o. 850_900). His::1.ill p.ypil, U-tpaia (a.o. 900-950) wrote tine fratya-bhijnakarileas. The most o,rtrturrirrg writer of ih.school was rhe grear Abhinavagupta (o.o. 993_1015)whose magnum opus was the Tiniraloia. Abhinavawas a most prolific writer and some of his otherrmporrant works are the MalinVuijayottaraaarttika,PratyabhijauimariinV, Tantralol?a, Tantrasara andParamarthasara. Another important work of thist..h?:l.is the Protyabhijnahrctaya of Ksemarja, pupilof Abhinavagupra.

Among works belorrging to Sarhhita literature the y,r61p. o1most imporrant is the hirbudhnyasafiihita which so.iriritawas composed in Kashmir in the hfth ..rrtrry A.D.fSuarasari,thita, Pauskarasarhhin, poro*orokhitA,

+

'Works onTantra

50 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Sattaatasamhita, Brhad,brahmasamkitA and land'mrtasarasanhita are other weli-known works of thisbranch of Sanskrit literature.

Among works belonging to Tantra literature, men-tion may be made of the following:

-Mahaniruana, Kularnaaa, Kulacdamani, Prapafr''casara (ascribed to the phiiosopher Sankara), T.antra-raja, K'alnailasa, ! anarnaua, Saradaillaha, V ariaasya-,ihoryo (of Bhaskara), Tantrasd'ra (of Krslnanda)and Pranatosirli..

REFERENCES

Avalon, A.: Tantrih TextsCharterii, [. C.: Kashmir Shaiuisntwi"i.iiiirl M.: A History of Indian Literaturc., Yol' IP;;;;;-f.' C.',' ain;i"inglptoz An Historicat and Phitosophicat

Stud Y.

CHAPTER IV

POST-EPIC KAVYA

bharata, are undoubtedly the pi".or.o., o{ SanskritKavya lirerature and it is futile ro trace back theorigin of the latter to the distant Vedic hy*r. ,rrddiscover. its prbtotype in the Nrdarhsl and Dnastutipanegyncs, in the fiTl?d, !y-.rr, in the magni-ficent description-s of Vedic god, ,rrj goddesses oro inthe

-

legends and g"o-*i. sranzas ocurring in theBrhma?as. Some scholars have suggested"that thePpi.r or rhe Kavyas -were origiruliy" .omposed inPr.krit and subsequenrly rend.rd inio Sankrit andther_suggestion is based on the fact that all inscrip_tionai writing. i1th.e period preceding the Christijne1'a was done in Prakrii. But-it ha, nt been possiblefor these scholars to furnish any reTiable evidince inlrpport of the existence of ctua1 prakrit wbrksduring the period. And even if it be assumed for thesake of argument that prkrit works were in exisrenceat that time, the co-existence of a Sanskrit literaturein sorne form can never be denied. Further, it isextremely difficult to prove that the Sanskrit litera_ture was derived from the prkrit lirerature, if indeedthe latter preceded, ir. It rnay be quite possiblerfat

^a-popular secular literature in prkrit, rch ,,the folk-tale, existed, but we have every reason tollelieve that there existed a more aristocraiic literaturein Sanskrit which might nor have been in the Bhasa of

52 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Plini but was certainly close to it and current amongthe rhapsodes and theii patrons' and of this literaturethe two Great Epics are-the most outstanding.t"ott:ments. The tw Epics possess such linguistic andliterary peculiaritie. ,t ^ preclude the theory ofPrakrii riginals and may be ^traced' in un-broken tradiiion to certain as