The History of Indian Literature c9.83

c9.83

From the foregoing exposition it appears that the drama meets us in an already finished form, and with its best productions. In almost all the prologues, too, the several works are represented as new, in contradistinction to the pieces of former poets; but of these pieces, that is, of the early beginnings of dramatic poetry, not the smallest remnant has been preserved.²¹⁶ Consequently the conjecture that it may possibly have been the representation of Greek dramas at the courts of the Grecian kings in Bactria, in the Panjáb, and in Gujarát (for so far did Greek supremacy for a time extend), which awakened the Hindú faculty of imitation, and so gave birth to the Indian drama, does not in the meantime admit of direct verification. But its historical possibility, at any rate, is undeniable,²¹⁷ especially as the older dramas nearly all belong to the west of India. No internal connection, however, with the Greek drama exists.²¹⁸ The fact, again, that no dramas are found either in the literature of the Hindús, who emigrated to the island of Java about the year 500 A.D. (and thence subsequently to Bali), or among the Tibetan translations, is perhaps to be explained, in the former case, by the circumstance that the emigration took place from the east coast of India,∗ where dramatic literature may not as yet have been specially cultivated (?). But in the case of the Tibetans the fact is more surprising, as the Meghadúta of Kálidása and other similar works are found among their translations.