A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s5.1

c24.s5.1

It is natural that efforts should have been made to prove the derivation from Greece of the Indian romance, as it appears seemingly full-fledged in the works of Subandhu, Bāṇa, and even in some degree Daṇḍin. Peterson's³ argument for Greek influence, strictly limited in scope, was based in part on the indubitable fact of Greek influence on astronomy and astrology, and in part on the new spirit which he discerned in the romances, which clothed with flesh and blood the dry bones of the simple tale with its rapid but monotonous stream of adventures. He quoted, however, in support of his view merely passages illustrating the affection of Achilles Tatius in his tale of Kleitophon and Leukippe for minute descriptions of the beauty of the beloved, the effect of love upon man, and the love which other things have for each other, citing the story of the affection of the male palm for the female palm, which is given fruition by the grafting of a shoot into the heart of the male. To this Reich⁴ has added merely a list of similarities; thus we find both in Indian and in Greek romance the conception of love at first sight, of lovers revealed to each other in a dream, the swift change of fortune from good to evil and then back to prosperity, adventure and shipwreck at sea, heroes as well as heroines of wonderful beauty, free use of detailed description both of love and of nature. All these things may be admitted, but clearly they do not prove borrowing, though they render it possible. The tale of the loves of the palms, it is clear, suggests Syria rather than either Greece or India; it is decidedly different from the Indian wedlock of the mango and the jasmine recorded in the Kāv Yas.