A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s5.17

c24.s5.17

In point of fact there is no general agreement in the Greek romances as regards form; it would have been strange if there had been, for Greek writers are usually successful in achieving originality. Heliodoros sometimes relates himself the tale, sometimes brings the actors before us in conversation to tell of their doings, just as does Homer; Xenophon is a simple narrator; Achilles Tatius puts his tale into the mouth of Kleitophon, but the latter relates it as if he were an outsider, recording what happened to himself and to the heroine impartially. It is only in Antonius Diogenes that we find anything more complex. There the story opened with a letter from the author to his sister, sending her a copy of a letter from Balagros to Phila, enclosing a note drawn up by one Erasinides of a conversation between Deinias and Kymbas. Deinias’s narrative consists largely of a story told to him by Derkyllis, in which are inserted reports to Derkyllis by Astraios and Mantinias, and again by Astraios to Derkyllis and Mantinias; at the close of Derkyllis' narrative Deinias reports what he heard from Azulis, and the close of Deinias's conversation with Kymbas is followed by the final note of Erasinides. This is complex, no doubt, but a perfectly natural development, just as the Indian Kathā in *Vāsavadattā* is a natural development from simpler forms. The further parallels drawn by Lacôte are invalid; the letter from the author to Faustinus, which seems clearly to have been in an appendix, is only remotely similar to the introductions to the *Vāsavadattā* and Bāṇa's works, while the statements at the head of each book of the work as to stories parallel to the marvels he relates have no real resemblance to the introductory verses prefixed to each chapter of the *Harṣacarita* only, which, it may be added, is not in the slightest degree in form like the work of Antonius. Nor, it must be admitted, is it altogether reasonable to ignore the fact that, while the Greek romances are silent as to India, the existence of Yavanas and their cunning, especially in the fabrication of aerial ships, is referred to in the Kashmirian *Bṛhatkathā*, which knows their skill in architecture, and Budhasvāmin attests the use of Greek beds, suggesting that even the original *Bṛhatkathā* may have known of the Greeks as cunning and skilled craftsmen.¹