Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/618

SANSKRIT LITEHATURE. 552 SANSKRIT LITERATURE. traits of all peoples: hence genuine historical connection iu such matters requires the most exacting; proof. The chief drannitic writer of India is Kalidasa, nin.ster at the same time also of epic and lyric (ioetry. Three dramas are ascrilxnl to him: the tiiikiiiiltiU'i. the Cnaxi, anil the MtiUifikuynimi- liti. or Malavika and Afrnlniitra. From a time .somewhat earlier than that of Kalidasa comes the drama Miivvhtihulil.O, the Toy Cart, said to have Ikhmi written hy a kinj; by the name of .'^iidraka. who is praised ecstatically in the prolo-nie to the play. It is altogether likely that some poet at Sndraka's court, perhaps Uandin (q.v. ), wrote the phiy. and out of gratitude for hcnelits received, endowed the King with the glory of its authorsliip. Similarly during the seventh century a king named Harslia l<i.v.) is said to have coinjiosed three dramas: Uutiiunili. or the 8tring of Pearls: the XfiffaiKinila, whose hero is a Buddhist, and whose prologue is in praise of liuddha : and the I'lii/adiirsilcu. From tlie eighth century date the dramas of Bhavabhuti (q.v.), a South Indian poet, who is, next to Kalidasa and Sudraka (l)andin). the most distinguished of the Hindu dramiitists. His most celebrated drama is the Miiliitlmiidliarn, or ilalati and Madhava; and the two dramas Maliuriracarita and L ttiirurumuaiiilii, Ijoth of which deal with Kama, the hero of the Hi'niiui/aiw. Finally may be mentioned Vis'akliadatta, the author of the hfudraraksnsd, the Seal of the Minister Rak- shasa, a drama of political intrigues, who.se com- position also dates from the eiglitli century. It is not possible within a short space to char:icterize the great variety of all these themes, the dill'erent talents of their authors, and the style and literary quality of these compositions. "Action is the body of the drama," such is the dictum of the Hindu theorists. Precisely what we should call dramatic action is not the promi- nent quality of the compositions of the greatest poet of them all. Kalidasa. His dramas are distinguished rather by tenderness of feeling and delicacy of touch. They are lyric rather than dramatic. The action is slow, the passions are profound rather than elemental. The deepest feelings are portrayed in delicate forms which never broach upon violence or coarseness, but, on tile contrary, are almost over-nice. At the height of their sentiments, in profound misery, the hero and the heroine still find time to institute comparisons between their own feelings and the phenomena of nature. There is, indeed, a plethora in them all of mango trees and p((<«/a-blossoms, of creejiers and lotus, of bimba-lips, of gazelles, flamingoes, and multicolored parrots. Yet they are always artistic and finished, especially when the climate and life of India is borne in mind, and their beauty suggests strongly the genius of (Jocthe. Xo department of Indian literature is more in- teresting to the student of comparative litera- ture than that of the Fable.s and Fairy Tales. There is scarcely a single motive of the European fable collections that does not appear in some Hindu collection : and there is. indeed, good rea- son for believing that the bulk of this kind of literature originated in India. The earliest and most important collection of Hindu fables is Buddhistic, and is written in Pali; it seems to reach back to the fourth century B.C. This collection is known as the Jatakas (q.v.), or Hirth Stories. Buddha himself is made to appear in every one of tluin in the guise of the wise or successful animal of the fable, and he himself points the moral of the fable in the usual didac- tic proverb stanza. This feature is, of course, secondary, but the tables themselves are verj' old. The two most important Sanskrit collections, the I'll I'l cat an 1 1(1 and the Bitopadeia, are based upon Buddhist sources, A noteworthy feature of the Sanskrit collections of fables and fairy tales is the insertion of a number of different stories within the frame of a single narrative, a style of narration which was borrowed by other Oriental peoples, the most familiar instance being the Arahian Niglits. The Paiicatantra, or Five Books, the most celebrated Sanskrit collection, existed at least as early as the first half of the sixth century a.d„ since it was translated by order of King Khosru Anushirvan (531-579) into Pahlavi (q.v.), the literary language of Persia at that time. It passed from the Pahlavi into Arabic, Greek, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and German ; and from German into other European languages. The Buddhistic origin of the Puiicalantra was effaced as much as possible by the Brahman redactors by means of omissions and clianges. The name I'aficatinitra is probably not original, having perhaps displaced Karataka and Damanaka. or some similar title derived from the names of two jackals in the first book. This may be surmised because the title of the Syriac version is Kalilug and Damnak, of the Arabic version Kalilan and Dimnah. Both the Panca- lantra and the Hitopadesa, or Salutary Instruc- tion, were originally intended as manuals for the instruction of princes in domestic and foreign pol- icy. The Hitopadria, said to have been composed by Naraj'ana, professes to be an excerpt from the Paficatantra and other books. The most famous collection of fairy tales is the very extensive Kathasaritsagara, or Ocean of Rivers of Stories, composed by the Kashmirian poet Somadeva (q.v.) about a.d. 1070. Three much shorter collections are in prose. The Huka- saptati (q.v.), or Seventy Stories of the Parrot, in which a wife whose husband is abroad, and who is inclined to solace herself with other men, is for seventy nights cleverly entertained and de- terred by the story-telling parrot until her hus- band returns, is one of the best. The Vetala-pan- cnmMati, or Twenty-five Tales of the Vampire, is known to English readers under the title oiVikram and the Vampire. The third collection is the Siin- h-asan^-dvatriiniika, or Thirty-two Stories of the Lion-seat (throne), in which the throne of King Vikrama tells the stories. All these collections have an outer frame story, within which a cer- tain part of the common Hindu stock of tales is inserted. A few Pecse Rom.'VNC'ES of more inde- pendent character, dating from the sixth and seventh centuries, may be mentioned in this con- nection. The Hindu theorists class them as poems (kavi/a), but they are much more like our o«-n earlier novels. The Dasa-kumiSra-carita . or Adventures of the Ten Princes, a story of com- mon life and a very corrupt society, reminds one of the ftinipliciisimtis of Grimmelshausen. Its aiithor is Dandin (q.v.), and it probably dates from the sixth century a.d. Vasai-adattd. by Subandhu (q.v), of somewhat later date, is a highly artificial romance, which formed the stylistic basis of the Kadamhari. by Bana (q.v.) ; the latter narrates, in stilted language and long