A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.15

c6.15

Other historians, however, thought they could do what Niebuhr had left undone; and after perusing some poems of Kâlidâsa, some fables of the Hitopadeśa, some verses of the Ânanda-lahari, or the mystic poetry of the Bhagavadgîtâ, they gave, with the aid of Megasthenes and Apollonius of Tyana, a so-called historical account of the Indian nation, without being aware that they were using as contemporary witnesses, authors as distant from each other as Dante and Virgil. No nation has, in this respect, been more unjustly treated than the Indian. Not only have general conclusions been drawn from the most scanty materials, but the most questionable and spurious authorities have been employed without the least historical investigation or the exercise of that critical ingenuity, which, from its peculiar character, Indian literature requires more than any other.¹