A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s1.1

c14.s1.1

TO the old complaint that India has no historians and no historical sense it has recently been objected, doubtless with a measure of truth, that there is a certain amount of writing and a number of facts attesting a degree of sense for history. In view of the antiquity and the developed character of Indian civilization it would indeed be ridiculous to expect to find India destitute of historical sense, but what is really essential is the fact that, despite the abundance of its literature, history is so miserably represented, and that in the whole of the great period of Sanskrit literature there is not one writer who can be seriously regarded as a critical historian. We have as the nearest approach to a true historian a poet of no mean ability, much industry, and a desire to tell the truth, who had for recent history very fair sources of information, but the most ardent admirer of Kalhaṇa would not for a moment claim for him that he could be matched even with Herodotos, and it must be remembered that no other writer approaches even remotely the achievement of Kalhaṇa.