A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s2.5

c14.s2.5

Poetic merit of a modest kind, however, may be found from time to time in the inscriptions which are the most substantial early contribution to Indian history. The most valuable in this regard are the encomia, Praçastis, of which we have already noted specimens of the Gupta age. The typical Praçasti¹ is simple in structure; after a benediction, it proceeds to describe the donor, and, when the two are not identical, the reigning prince, giving in either case some genealogical information, then it sets out the donation and enumerates any conditions or privileges accompanying it, such as freedom from interference by the royal officers or remission of taxation, invokes the favour of heaven for the maintenance of the memorial, utters imprecations on any person interfering with the donation, and sets out the name of the architect who constructed it, the priest who consecrated it, the poet, and the scribe who engraved the letters, with in many cases the date. The form, of course, varies with the nature of the object on which it is engraved, temple, public building, copper plate, memorial of the dead, &c., but the historically interesting part is normally the genealogy and account, if any, of the deeds of the dedicator, if a king. These Praçastis may be quite short, ten or twelve lines, or they may even exceed a hundred lines, and their value as history and poetry differs enormously. What is fairly certain is that the genealogies are frequently 'faked'; the kings for whom they were composed desired to be connected either with fabled heroes and royal lines of old, or, especially in the south, desired to make out that they were scions of the great royal houses of the north. As poetry they do not normally merit admiration, for they are decidedly elaborate in form, if at all pretentious, and we are not favourably impressed by the self-confidence of that Rāma who in the eighth century calls himself Kaviçvara, lord of poets, and asserts that the goddess of eloquence dwelt in his childish mouth ere he had forgotten the taste of his mother's milk. His skill is of the type admired in India but less attractive to western taste; he composes a Stotra, hymn of praise, in which each of the fourteen stanzas applies equally well to Pārvatī as to her consort Çiva, and he exhibits by his choice of recondite constructions and rare words that he had studied diligently both grammar and lexica. The same curious device of including a Stotra in an inscription is seen in the case of Lalitasuradeva in the ninth century.¹ It is fair to say that not rarely there is found a poetical idea happily expressed in a panegyric both early and late, but in the main they are rather dreary and hackneyed documents.² And, what is vital, they represent merely a first step towards history.