A History of Sanskrit Literature c17.s1.1

c17.s1.1

INDIA has always delighted in the expression in verse of pithy observations on life and morals. We find the beginnings of such poetry in the *Ṛgveda*, moral stanzas are preserved incidentally in surprising number in an episode of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, such verses appear in the Upaniṣads and the Sūtras, while the *Mahābhārata* is only too rich both in gnomai and in didactic matter; philosophy, morals, practical advice for life, and rules of polity in the widest sense of that term, including the conduct of war, are flung at the reader in undigested masses. There is evidence from Patañjali that he knew such a literature, and in the *Dhammapada* of the Pāli canon we have the finest collection of *sententiae* known in India.