A History of Sanskrit Literature c22.s2.1

c22.s2.1

The romances contain here and there a few stanzas but they are normally and effectively in prose, and the literary compositions styled Campūs, a name of unknown sense, differ vitally from them in that they use prose or verse indifferently for the same purpose. In this Campūs differ from other forms of literature in which verse is mingled with prose; the verses in these cases are either gnomic, or they serve to summarize the context of the story, as do the title verses of the *Pañcatantra*, or occasionally they appear to lend greater effect to some point in the narrative as when a short speech is made in pointed form, or a specially important idea is thus underlined. But it was not surprising that the use of verse freely side by side with prose should occur, especially when works could be written in either indifferently, and we have in the *Jātakamālā*, on the one hand, and in the inscription of Hariṣeṇa on the other, clear cases of something which may be deemed fairly like the Campū, and Oldenberg² has adduced analogous cases in the Jātaka book. But it is only from a late period that we have works written in the full Kāvya style in which the poet shows now his ability in prose and now in verses, without seeking to reserve verses for any special end.