[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c30.52 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.52 The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.52 - **Language:** English ### [c30.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30.52) The greatest ornament of the literary circle at Harsha's court was the Brahman Bāṇa, author of the historical romance devoted to a panegyrical account of the deeds of his patron, which is an amazingly clever, though irritating, performance; executed in the worst possible taste, and yet containing passages of admirable and vivid description. The man who attributes to the commander-in-chief, Skandagupta, ‘a nose as long as his sovereign’s pedigree,’ may be fairly accused of having perpetrated the most grotesque simile in all literature. But the same man could do better, and shows no lack of power when depicting the death-agony of the king. ‘Helplessness had taken him in hand: pain had made him its province, wasting its domain, lassitude its lair.... He was on the confines of doom, on the verge of the last gasp, at the outset of the Great Undertaking, at the portal of the Long Sleep, on the tip of death’s tongue; broken in utterance, unhinged in mind, tortured in body, waning in life, babbling in speech, ceaseless in sighs; vanquished by yawning, swayed by suffering, in the bondage of wracking pains.’ Such writing, although not in perfect good taste, unmistakably bears the stamp of power.¹ - [Previous: c30.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30.51) - [Next: c30.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30.53) - [Up: c30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c30.52) · Pramāṇa