A History of Sanskrit Literature c23.s2.5

c23.s2.5

It is not, of course, given to many poets to excel in epic, and we have many fine lyric stanzas from poets who failed to produce anything distinguished on a larger scale. The highest merit belongs also to the expression in verse of maxims on life; deeply original they seldom are, but the power of giving impressive utterance to the essential facts of human life belonged to men like Bhartṛhari in the highest degree, and many others have recorded impressions with complete adequacy of language. It is in the romances of Subandhu and Bāṇa that we feel most the serious defects of Sanskrit prose style, and even with these drawbacks Bāṇa deserves his reputation both for the depth of his feeling of the nature of love and for the vigour and fire of his pictures of the court of Harṣa, of the death of Prabhākaravardhana, and the martial preparations of the king.