A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s3.1

c21.s3.1

It has been suggested² that the romance is really to be regarded as a didactic work, an attempt to teach the doctrines of the Nītiçāstra in narratives of attractive character. This we may fairly pronounce to be an exaggeration and an injustice to the author, whose real aim we may be sure was to give pleasure, however ready he might be to show himself an expert in the rules of polity as well as those of the Kāmaçāstra. His distinctive quality is the application to the simple tale of the grand manner of the Kāvya, though in a moderation which is utterly lost in the case of Subandhu and Bāṇa. Doubtless he had predecessors in the attempt, though they are lost to us and we cannot even say whether the Bhaṭṭāra Haricandra to whom Bāṇa refers in the introduction to his *Harṣacarita* as a fine author of prose was a predecessor of Daṇḍin. It may be conjectured that the application of the Kāvya style to prose had its origin in panegyrics such as are seen in the inscriptions of Rudradāman and Hariṣeṇa which we have already considered, and that it was only later that it was thought suitable to apply similar methods to tales. The application, of course, made the tale vitally different from its effect in its more simple form. The work of Guṇāḍhya, even through its changed forms, as it has come down to us gives the definite impression of swift and easy narrative, the poets not pausing to exercise their descriptive talents; Daṇḍin leads the way to the result that the narrative is a mere skeleton, the descriptions the essence.