A History of Sanskrit Literature c16.s1.1

c16.s1.1

NONE of the other secular lyrics which have come down to us is necessarily older than Bhartṛhari, certainly none need be as old as Kālidāsa. Of the many poems which must have existed in the time of Patañjali we have the merest hints, although from the *Theragāthās* and *Therīgāthās* of the Pāli canon, which may be about the same period as Patañjali, we can conclude that poetic art was steadily developing in refinement from the earlier stage of which hints are preserved in the *Ṛgveda* itself and in the *Atharvaveda* on the one hand, and in fragments of ballads, and even of a drinking song, found incidentally in Pāli texts.¹ But these earlier efforts doubtless in many cases deservedly have passed into oblivion, though we may suspect that our taste would have found pleasure in poems whose simplicity would have seemed to us rather a commendation than a cause of censure.