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A History of Indian Literature v1.c7: Introduction

A History of Indian Literature v1.c7

Language
English

Contents

Introduction

Extent and Significance of Indian Literature

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The history of Indian literature is the history of the mental activity of at least 3,000 years, as expressed in speech and writing. The home of this mental activity which has been almost uninterruptedly continuous through thousands of years, is a land which reaches from the Hindu-kush to Cape Comorin and covers an area of one and a half millions of square miles, equalling in extent the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia,—a land which stretches from 8° to 35° N. Lat., that is, from the hottest regions of the Equator to well within the temperate zone. But the influence which this literature, already in ancient times, exerted over the mental life of other nations, reaches far beyond the boundaries of India to Further India, to Tibet, as far as China, Japan and Korea, and in the South over Ceylon and the Malay Peninsula far away over the islands of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, while to the West the tracks of Indian mental life may be traced far into Central Asia to Eastern Turkestan, where, buried in the sands of the desert, Indian manuscripts have been found.

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As regards its contents, Indian literature embraces everything which the word "literature" comprises in its widest sense: religious and secular, epic, lyric, dramatic and didactic poetry, as well as narrative and scientific prose.

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In the foreground stands the religious literature. Not only the Brahmans in their Vedas and the Buddhists in their Tipiṭaka, but also many others of the numerous religious sects, which have sprung up in India, can produce an enormous number of literary works—hymns, sacrificial songs, incantations, myths and legends, sermons, theological treatises, polemical writings, manuals of instruction on ritual and religious discipline. In this literature there is an accumulation of absolutely priceless material, which no investigator of religion can afford to pass by. Besides this activity in the sphere of religious literature, which reaches back through thousands of years, and is still being continued at the present day, there have been in India since the oldest times also heroic songs, which in the course of centuries have become condensed into two great national epics—the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. The poets of the Indian Middle Ages during centuries drew upon the legends of these two epics, and epic poems arose, which in contradistinction to these popular epics, are designated as—ornate epics. But, while these poems, on account of their exaggerated artificiality, which often exceeds all bounds, do not by any means always suit our Western taste, Indian poets have bequeathed to us lyrical and dramatic works, which bear comparison for delicacy and intensity of feeling, and partly also for dramatic creative power, with the most beautiful productions of modern European literature. In one department of literature, that of the aphorism (gnomic poetry), the Indians have attained a mastery which has never been gained by any other nation. India is also the land of the fairy-tale and fable. The Indian collections of fairy-tales, fables and prose narratives have played no insignificant part in the history of world-literature. Indeed, fairy-tale research—that most attractive study of fairy-tales and fairy-tale motives and of their wanderings from people to people—has only become an independent branch of knowledge through Benfey's fundamental work on the famous Indian book of fables, the Pañcatantra.

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But one of the peculiarities of the Indian mind is that (it has never drawn a distinct line between purely artistic production and scientific work,) so that a division between "belles lettres" and didactic literature is not really possible in India. What appears to us a collection of fairy tales and fables is regarded by the Indians as a manual of political and moral instruction. On the other hand, history and biography have in India never been treated other than by poets and as a branch of epic poetry. Neither does a division between the forms of poetry and prose really exist in India. Every subject can be treated equally well in verses as in the prose form. We find novels which differ from the ornate epics in hardly anything except that the metrical form is wanting. Since the oldest times we find a special predilection for the mixture of prose and verse. For that which we call scientific literature, the prose form has been employed in India only for a small part, whereas verse has been used to a far greater extent. This is the case in works on philosophy and law, as also in those on medicine, astronomy, architecture, etc. Indeed, even grammars and dictionaries have been written by the Indians in metrical form. There is perhaps nothing more characteristic than that there exists a great classical epic in 22 Cantos, which pursues the definitely stated aim of illustrating and impressing the rules of grammar. Philosophy was very early a subject of literary activity in India, first in connection with the religious literature, but later also independently of the latter. Similarly, already in very early times, law and custom were,—also first in connection with religion,—made into subjects of a special law literature, written partly in verse and partly in prose. The importance of this law literature for the comparative study of law and social science is to-day appreciated to the full by prominent jurists and sociologists. Centuries before the birth of Christ, grammar was already studied in India, a science in which the Indians excel all the nations of antiquity. Lexicography, too, attains to a high age. The Indian court poets (Kavi) of later periods did not give utterance to that which a god revealed to them, but they studied the rules of grammar, and searched in dictionaries for rare and poetic expressions; they versified according to the teachings and rules which were laid down in scientific works on prosody and poetics. Since the earliest times the Indian mind had a particular predilection for detailed analysis and for the pedantic scientific treatment of all possible subjects. Therefore we find in India not only an abundant, and partly ancient, literature on politics and economics, medicine, astrology and astronomy, arithmetic and geometry; but also music, singing, dancing and dramatic art, magic and divination, and even erotics, are arranged in scientific systems and treated in special manuals of instruction.

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But in each single one of the above enumerated branches of literature there has accumulated, during the course of the centuries, a mass of literary productions which it is almost impossible to survey, largely through the fact that in nearly all departments of religious literature, as well as of poetry and science, the commentators developed a very eager activity. Thus especially some of the most important and most extensive works on grammar, philosophy and law are only commentaries on older works. Very frequently other commentaries were again written on these commentaries. Indeed, it is not a rare thing for an author in India to have added a commentary to his own work. Thus, it is no matter for wonder, that the sum total of Indian literature is almost overwhelming. And in spite of the fact that the catalogues of Indian MSS. which can be found in Indian and European libraries contain many thousands of book-titles and names of authors, innumerable works of Indian literature have been lost, and many names of older writers are known only through quotations by later writers, or have even completely disappeared.

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All these facts—the high age, the wide geographical distribution, the extent, and the wealth, the aesthetic value and still more the value from the point of view of the history of culture, of Indian literature—would fully suffice to justify our interest in this great, original, and ancient literature. But here is something else in addition to this, which gives, just to Indian literature, a quite particular interest. The Indo-Aryan languages, together with the Iranian, form the most easterly branch of that great family of languages, to which also our language and indeed most of the languages of Europe belong, and which is called Indo-European. It was indeed this very literature of India, the investigation of which led to the discovery of this affinity of languages, a discovery which was so truly epoch-making, because it threw such an astonishing new light upon the pre-historic relations between the peoples. For, from the affinity of languages, one was forced to conclude that there was a former unity of languages, and this again presupposed a closer tie between the peoples speaking these Indo-European languages. There certainly are widespread and considerable errors concerning this relationship of the Indo-European peoples prevailing even to-day. People speak of an Indo-European "race," which does not exist at all, and never has existed. One also hears at times that Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germanic peoples and Slavs are of the same blood, descendants of one and the same Indo-European "primitive stock." These were far too hasty conclusions. But though it is even more than doubtful whether the peoples which speak Indo-European languages are all descended from a common origin, still it must not be doubted that a common language, this most important instrument of all mental activity, implies a relationship of mind and a common culture. Though the Indians are not flesh of our flesh, or bone of our bone, we may yet discover mind of our mind in the world of Indian thought. In order, however, to attain to a knowledge of the "Indo-European mind," *i.e.* of that which may be called the Indo-European peculiarity in thought, reflection and poetry of these peoples, it is absolutely essential for the one-sided knowledge of the Indo-European character, which we have acquired by the study of European literatures, to be completed by an acquaintance with the Indo-European mind as evidenced in the distant East. It is for this reason that (Indian literature, more especially, forms a necessary complement to the classical literature of Ancient Greece and Rome for all who would guard themselves against a one-sided view of the Indo-European character.) Indian literature cannot, indeed, be compared with Greek literature in regard to artistic merit. The world of Indian thought has not, it is true, exercised by any means such an influence over modern European ideas as did Greek and Roman culture. (But if we wish to learn to understand the beginnings of our own culture, if we wish to understand the oldest Indo-European culture, we must go to India, where the oldest literature of an Indo-European people is preserved. For whatever view we may adopt on the problem of the antiquity of Indian literature, we can safely say that the oldest monument of the literature of the Indians is at the same time the oldest monument of Indo-European literature which we possess.)

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Moreover, the immediate influence which the literature of India has exercised over our own literature, too, should not be under-estimated. We shall see that the narrative literature of Europe is dependent on the Indian fable literature in no small degree. It is more especially German literature and German philosophy which, since the beginning of the 19th century, have been greatly influenced by Indian ideas, and it is quite probable that this influence is still on the increase, and that it will be augmented still further in the course of the present century.

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For that affinity of mind which is revealed to us in the unity of the Indo-European languages, is still clearly recognisable to-day, and nowhere so markedly as between Indians and Germans. The striking points of agreement between the German and Indian mind have often been pointed out.¹ "The Indians," says Leopold von Schroeder, "are the nation of romanticists of antiquity : the Germans are the romanticists of modern times." G. Brandes has already referred to the tendency towards contemplation and abstract speculation as well as to the inclination towards pantheism in the case of both Germans and Indians. Moreover, the German and the Indian character meet in many other respects, in a striking manner. It is not only German poets who have sung of "Weltschmerz" (world-sorrow). "Weltschmerz" is also the basic idea upon which the doctrine of Buddha is built up; and more than one Indian poet has lamented the suffering and woe of the world, the transitoriness and the vanity of all earthly things in words which remind us forcibly of our great poet of "Weltschmerz," Nikolaus Lenau. And when Heine says:

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¹ Thus especially by *G. Brandes*, "Hauptströmungen der Literatur des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," Berlin 1872, I, p. 270, and by *Leopold von Schroeder*, "Indiens Literatur und Cultur," Leipzig 1887, p. 6 f.

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"Sweet is sleep, but death is better,
Best of all is it never to be born,"

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he expresses the same idea as those Indian philosophers, who aspire to nothing more ardently than to that death after which there is no further re-birth. Again, sentimentality and feeling for Nature are the common property of German and Indian poetry, whilst they are foreign, say, to Hebrew or Greek poetry. Germans and Indians love descriptions of Nature; and both Indian and German poets delight in connecting the joys and sorrows of man with the Nature which surrounds him. There is yet another, quite different province, in which we encounter the similarity between Germans and Indians. Mention has already been made of the tendency of the Indians to work out scientific systems; and we are justified in saying that the Indians were the nation of scholars of antiquity, just as the Germans are the nation of scholars of to-day. (In the earliest ages the Indians already analysed their ancient sacred writings with a view to philology, classified the linguistic phenomena as a scientific system, and developed their grammar so highly that even to-day modern philology can use their attainments as a foundation;) likewise Germans of to-day are the undisputed leaders in all fields of philology and linguistic science.

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In the field of Indian philology and in the research of Indian literature, too, the Germans have been the leaders and pioneers. Much as we are indebted to the English, who, as the rulers of India, took up the study of Indian language and literature as a result of practical needs, much as some prominent French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, American, Russian, and,—which should not be forgotten—native Indian scholars, have done for the investigation of Indian literature and culture,—the Germans have undoubtedly taken the lion’s share in publishing critical editions of texts, explaining and investigating them, and in compiling dictionaries and grammars. A brief survey of the history of Indological studies will show us this.

The Beginnings of the Study of Indian Literature in Europe

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¹ For this chapter see *E. Windisch*, "Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie und indischen Altertumskunde," I, II (Grundriss I, 1, 1917 and 1920).

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The enormous mass of Indian literary works, which to-day can hardly be surveyed by *one* investigator, has been made accessible for research only in the course of little more than a century.

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Certainly already in the seventeenth, and still more in the eighteenth century, isolated travellers and missionaries acquired a certain knowledge of Indian languages, and made themselves acquainted with one or another of the works of Indian literature. But their efforts did not fall on fruitful soil. Thus in the year 1651 the Dutchman Abraham Roger who had lived as a preacher in Paliacatta (Puliat) to the north of Madras, reported in his work "Open Door to the Hidden Heathendom"¹ on the ancient Brahmanical literature of the Indians, and published some of the Proverbs of Bhartṛhari, which had been translated into Portuguese for him by a Brahman, and which were drawn upon by Herder in later years for his "Stimmen der Völker in Liedern." In the year 1699 the Jesuit Father Johann Ernst Hanxleden went to India and worked there for over thirty years in the Malabar Mission. He was himself conversant with Indian languages, and his "Grammatica Granthamia seu Samscrdu-mica" was the first Sanskrit Grammar written by a European. It was never printed, but was used by Fra Paolino de St. Bartholomeo. This Fra Paolino—an Austrian Carmelite, whose real name was J. Ph. Wessdin—is undeniably the most important of the missionaries who worked at the earliest opening-up of Indian literature. He was a missionary on the coast of Malabar from 1776 till 1789 and died in Rome in the year 1805. He wrote two Sanskrit Grammars and several learned treatises and books. His "Systema Brahmanicum" (Rome, 1792) and his "Reise nach Ostindien" (German by J. R. Forster, Berlin, 1798) show a great knowledge of India and the Brahmanical literature, as well as a deep study of Indian languages and especially of Indian religious thought. But yet his work too has left only faint traces behind.

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¹ The book appeared in Dutch in 1651 ("Open-Deure tot het verborgen Heydendom," in 1915 newly edited by W. *Caland*), and in a German translation in Nürnberg in 1663.

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At the same time, however, the English too had begun to concern themselves about the language and literature of the Indians. It was no less a person than Warren Hastings, the actual founder of British rule in India, from whom emanated the first fruitful stimulus for the study of Indian literature, which has never since been interrupted. He had recognised, what the English since then have never forgotten, that the sovereignty of England in India would be secure only if the rulers understood how to treat the social and religious prejudices of the natives with all possible consideration. At his instigation therefore a resolution was incorporated in the law which was to regulate the Government of India, to the effect that native scholars should attend the legal proceedings in order to make it possible for the English judges in India to consider the statutes of Indian law-books at the formulation of the verdicts. And when, in the year 1773, Warren Hastings was nominated as the Governor-General of Bengal and entrusted with the highest powers over the whole of the English possessions in India, he had a work compiled by a number of Brahmans, versed in the law, out of the ancient Indian law books, under the title of "Vivādārṇavasetu" ("Bridge over the Ocean of Disputes") containing everything important about the Indian law of inheritance, family law, and such like. When the work was finished, no one could be found who was capable of translating it directly from Sanskrit into English. It therefore had to be translated from Sanskrit into Persian, from which it was translated into English by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed. This translation was printed at the expense of the East India Company in the year 1776 under the title "A Code of Gentoo¹ Law."

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¹ A German translation appeared in Hamburg in 1778. "Gentoo" is the Anglo-Indian form of the Portuguese "gentio," "heathen," and is used to designate the Indian "heathens," *i.e.* the Hindus, in contradistinction to the Mohammedans.

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The first Englishman who acquired a knowledge of Sanskrit was Charles Wilkins, who had been urged by Warren Hastings to take instruction from the Pandits in Benares, the chief seat of Indian learning. As the first-fruits of his Sanskrit studies he published in the year 1785 an English translation of the philosophical poem "Bhagavadgītā," which was the first time a Sanskrit book had been translated directly into a European language. Two years later there followed a translation of the book of fables, "Hitopadeśa," and in 1795 a translation of the Śakuntalā episode from the Mahābhārata. For his Sanskrit Grammar, which appeared in 1808, Sanskrit type was used for the first time in Europe, a type which he himself had carved and cast. He was also the first who occupied himself with Indian inscriptions and translated some of them into English.

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However, still more important for the opening-up of large departments of Indian literature was the work of the famous English orientalist William Jones¹ (born 1746, died 1794), who went to India in the year 1783 in order to take up the post of Chief Justice at Fort William. Jones had already in his youth occupied himself with oriental poetry, and translated Arabic and Persian poems into English. No wonder that, when he arrived in India, he transferred his enthusiasm to the study of Sanskrit and Indian literature. Already a year after his arrival in India he became the founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which soon displayed an extraordinarily useful activity in the publication of periodicals, and especially in the printing of numerous editions of Indian texts. In the year 1789 he published his English translation of the celebrated drama "Śakuntalā" by Kālidāsa. This English translation was translated into German in the year 1791 by Georg Forster, and awakened in the highest degree the enthusiasm of men like Herder and Goethe. Another work of the same poet Kālidāsa, the lyric poem "Ṛtusaṃhāra," was published in the original text by Jones in Calcutta in the year 1792, and this was the first Sanskrit text which appeared in print. Of still greater importance was the fact that Jones translated into English the most famous and most reputed work of Indian legal literature, the law book of Manu. This translation appeared in Calcutta in 1794 under the title "Institutes of Hindu Law, or the Ordinance of Manu." A German translation of this book appeared in 1797 in Weimar. Finally Jones was also the first who affirmed the certain genealogical connection of Sanskrit with Greek and Latin and its hypothetical connection with German, Celtic and Persian. He had already also pointed out the similarities between the ancient Indian and the Graeco-Roman mythology.

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¹ William *Jones* was not only a learned and enthusiastic Orientalist, but also the first Anglo-Indian poet. He composed suggestive hymns to Brahman, Nārāyaṇa, Lakṣmī, etc.; s. E. F. *Oaten*, "A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Literature," London 1908, p. 19 ff.

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While the enthusiastic W. Jones, through the enthusiasm with which he brought to light Indian literary treasures, was primarily stimulating, the sober Henry Thomas Colebrooke, who continued the work of W. Jones, became the real founder of Indian philology and archaeology. Colebrooke had entered on his official career in Calcutta in 1782 as a youth of seventeen years, without troubling himself during the first eleven years of his sojourn in India about Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature. But when W. Jones died in 1794 Colebrooke had just learnt Sanskrit and had undertaken to translate from the Sanskrit into English, under Jones' guidance, a composition, prepared by native scholars, on the law of succession and contract, from the Indian law books. This translation appeared in 1797 and 1798 under the title "A Digest of Hindu Law on Contracts and Successions" in four folio volumes. From that time he devoted himself with untiring zeal to the investigation of Indian literature. His interest, contrary to that of Jones, lay not so much in the poetic as in the scientific literature. Therefore we are indebted to him not only for further works on Indian law, but also for pioneer essays on philosophy and religious life, on grammar, astronomy and the arithmetic of the Indians. Moreover it was he who, in the year 1805, in the now famous essay "On the Vedas," was the first to give definite and reliable information about the ancient sacred books of the Indians.¹ He was also the editor of the Amarkośa and other Indian dictionaries, of the famous grammar of Pāṇini, of the "Hitopadeśa," and of the epic poem "Kirātārjunīya." Further he is the author of a Sanskrit grammar, and edited and translated a number of inscriptions. Finally he amassed an exceedingly diversified collection of Indian manuscripts, which are supposed to have cost him about £10,000, and which, after his return to England, he presented to the East India Company. This collection of manuscripts is to-day one of the most valuable treasures of the library of the India Office in London.

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¹ The alleged translation of the Yajurveda which appeared in the year 1778 in French under the title "Ezour-vedam" and in 1779 also in German, is a falsification, a pious fraud, which used to be ascribed to the missionary *Roberto de' Nobili*. But *W. Caland, Th. Zachariæ* (GGA 1921, p. 157), and others deny, that he was the author of the fraud. Voltaire received this alleged translation from the hands of an official returning from Pondicherry and presented it to the Royal Library in Paris, in 1761. *Voltaire* regarded the book as an old commentary on the Veda, which had been translated by a venerable centenarian Brahman into French, and he frequently refers to the "Ezour-Veda" as an authority for Indian antiquities. Already in the year 1782 *Sonnerat* declared the book to be a falsification. (A. W. Schlegel, Indische Bibliothek, II, p. 50 ff.)

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Among the Englishmen who, like Jones and Colebrooke, learned Sanskrit at about the close of the eighteenth century, was Alexander Hamilton. The latter returned to Europe in 1802, travelling through France, and stayed for a short time in Paris. An event then happened, which, though unpleasant for himself, was extraordinarily favourable for Sanskrit learning. Just at that time the hostilities between France and England, which had been interrupted only for a short time by the Peace of Amiens, broke out anew and Napoleon issued a command that all English people who were in France when war broke out should be prevented from returning to their homes, and be detained in Paris. Alexander Hamilton was among these Englishmen. But, in the year 1802 the German poet Friedrich Schlegel² had also just come to Paris to stay there, except for a few intervals, till the year 1807, just during the time of A. Hamilton’s involuntary sojourn. In Germany attention had for a long time already been drawn to the efforts of English scholars. Especially the above-mentioned translation of “Śakuntalā” by W. Jones had attracted much attention, and had been immediately (1791) translated into German. In the years 1795-97 W. Jones’s treatises had already appeared in a German translation. Also Jones’s translation of Manu’s Law Book had been rendered into German already in the year 1797. The books of Fra Paolino de St. Bartholomeo too did certainly not remain unnoticed in Germany. Above all, however, it was the Romantic School, headed by the brothers Schlegel, for which Indian literature had a special attraction. It was indeed the time when people began to become enthusiastic about foreign literatures. Herder had already frequently directed the attention of the Germans to the Orient by means of his “Stimmen der Völker in Liedern” (1778) and his “Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit” (1784-91). It was the Romanticists, however, who threw themselves with the greatest enthusiasm into everything strange and distant, and who felt themselves most especially attracted by India. From India one expected, as Friedrich Schlegel said, nothing less than “the unfolding of the history of the primeval world which up till now is shrouded in darkness; and lovers of poetry hoped, especially since the appearance of the Sokuntola to glean thence many similar beautiful creations of the Asiatic spirit, animated, as in this case, by grace and love.” No wonder, therefore, that, when he made the acquaintance of Alexander Hamilton in Paris, Friedrich Schlegel at once seized the opportunity of learning Sanskrit from him. In the years 1803 and 1804 he had the advantage of his instruction and the remaining years of his stay in Paris he employed in study in the Paris Library, which already at that time contained about two hundred Indian manuscripts.¹ As the result of these studies there appeared in the year 1808 that book through which Friedrich Schlegel became the founder of Indian philology in Germany, namely, “Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Altertumskunde.” This book was written with enthusiasm and was suitable for awakening enthusiasm. It contained also translations of some passages from the Rāmāyaṇa, from Manu's Law Book, from the Bhagavadgītā, and from the Śakuntalā-episode of the Mahābhārata. These were the first direct translations from Sanskrit into German; for what had previously been known of Indian literature in Germany, had been translated from the English.

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² *Cf. A. F. J. Remy*, "The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany,' New York, 1901, and P. Th. *Hoffmann*, “Der indische und der deutsche Geist von Herder bis zur Romantik” Diss., Tübingen, 1915.

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¹ A catalogue of these was published by *Alexander Hamilton* in Paris, 1807 (in con. junction with *L. Langlès*, who translated *Hamilton's* notes into French). .

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While Friedrich Schlegel's work was chiefly stimulating, it was his brother August Wilhelm von Schlegel who was the first in Germany to develop an extensive activity as a Sanskrit scholar by means of editions of texts, translations, and other philological works. He was also the first Professor of Sanskrit in Germany, in which capacity he was called to the newly-founded University of Bonn in the year 1818. Like his brother, he too had begun his Sanskrit studies in Paris, namely, in the year 1814. His teacher was a Frenchman, A. L. Chézy, the first French scholar to learn and teach Sanskrit; he was also the first Sanskrit Professor at the Collège de France, and has rendered valuable services as an editor and translator of Indian works. In the year 1823 appeared the first volume of the periodical “Indische Bibliothek,” founded and almost entirely written by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, containing numerous essays on Indian philology. In the same year he published also a good edition of the Bhagavadgītā with a Latin translation, while in the year 1829 appeared the first part of Schlegel's most important work, his unfinished edition of the Rāmāyaṇa.

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A contemporary of August Wilhelm von Schlegel was Franz Bopp, who was born in 1791, went to Paris in 1812, in order to devote himself to the study of Oriental languages, and there learned Sanskrit from Chézy, together with Schlegel. But while the brothers Schlegel, as romantic poets, were enthusiastic over India, and took up their work in Indian literature as a kind of adventure,¹ Bopp joined these studies as a thoroughly sober investigator, and it was he who became the founder of a new science, Comparative Philology, which was destined to so great a future,—and this by means of his book, published in 1816, "Ueber das Conjugations-system der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache." In the investigation of Indian literature, too, Bopp has rendered invaluable services. Already in his "Conjugations-system" he gave as an appendix some episodes from the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata in metrical translations from the original text, besides some extracts from the Vedas after Colebrooke's English translation. With rare skill he then singled out of the great epic Mahābhārata the wonderful story of King Nala and his faithful wife Damayantī, and made it universally accessible by means of a good critical edition with a Latin translation.² It is just this one, out of the countless episodes of the Mahābhārata, which most completely forms a separate whole, and not only is one of the most beautiful portions of the great epic, but also, as one of the most charming creations of Indian poetic art, is most peculiarly suitable for awakening enthusiasm for Indian literature, and love for the study of Sanskrit. It has, in fact, become almost traditional at all Western Universities where Sanskrit is taught, to select the Nala-episode as the first reading for the students, for which purpose it is especially suitable also on account of the simplicity of the language. A number of other episodes from the Mahābhārata, too, were published for the first time and translated into German by Bopp. His Sanskrit Grammars (1827, 1832 and 1834) and his "Glossarium Sanscritum" (Berlin 1830) have done very much to further the study of Sanskrit in Germany.

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¹ Thus *Friedrich Schlegel* writes in a letter to *Goethe* that he has set himself the task "of bringing to light that which has been forgotten and unappreciated," and therefore had turned from Dante to Shakespeare, to Petrarch and Calderon, to the old German heroic songs, "In this manner I had to a certain extent exhausted the European literature, and turned to Asia in order to seek a new adventure." (*A. Hillebrandt*, "Alt-Indien" Breslau, 1899, p. 37.) *Aug. Wilh. von Schlegel* also writes (Indische Bibliothek, p. 8) that he desires, by means of his essays, to point the way to a certain extent for those of his compatriots "who wish to taste the adventure (for an adventure it remains after all)."

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² Nalus, Carmen Sanskritum e Mahabharato, edidit, Latine vertit et adnotationibus illustravit *Franciscus Bopp*. London, 1819.

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It was fortunate for the young science of comparative philology and for the study of Sanskrit, which was then still for a long time connected with it, that the ingenious, versatile and influential Wilhelm von Humboldt showed enthusiasm for these studies. In the year 1821 he began to learn Sanskrit because, as he once wrote in a letter to Aug. Wilh. von Schlegel,¹ he had perceived "that without as thorough as possible a study of Sanskrit, very little can be accomplished either in philology or in that kind of history which is connected with it." And when Schlegel, in the year 1828, took a retrospect of Indian studies, he emphasized as particularly fortunate for the new science the fact that it "had found a warm friend and patron in Herrn Wilhelm von Humboldt." Schlegel's edition of the Bhagavadgītā had directed Humboldt's attention to this theosophical poem. He devoted special treatises to it, and at the time he wrote to Fr. von Gentz (1827): "It is perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show." Later, in 1828, when he sent to his friend his work on the Bhagavadgītā, which had in the meantime been criticized by Hegel, he wrote that, however indifferent he might be to Hegel's judgment, he greatly valued the Indian philosophical poem. "I read the Indian poem," he writes, "for the first time in the country in Silesia, and my constant feeling while doing so was gratitude to Fate for having permitted me to live long enough to become acquainted with this book."¹

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¹ Indische Bibliothek, 1, p. 433.

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¹ *Schriften von Friedrich von Gentz*. Herausgegeben von Gustav Schlesier, Mannheim, 1840, Vol. V, pp. 291 and 300.

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Yet another great hero of German literature remains to be mentioned, who fortunately for our science, had enthusiasm for Indian poetry. This is the German poet Friedrich Rückert, the incomparable master of the art of translation. Of the loveliest gems of Indian epics and lyrics there is indeed much which

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"Rustled thousands of years ago
In the tops of Indian palms,"

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and which, through him, has become the common property of the German people.²

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² *Rückert's* translations from Indian classical poetry have been re-edited by H. *von Glasenapp, Indische Liebeslyrik*, München, 1921.

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Till the year 1830 it was almost entirely the so-called classical Sanskrit literature which occupied the attention of European students. The drama "Śakuntalā," the philosophic poem "Bhagavadgītā," the Law-Book of Manu, the proverbs of Bhartṛhari, the fable-book "Hitopadeśa," and selected portions of the great epics: these were practically the chief works with which research was occupied, and which were regarded as the original stock of Indian literature. The great and all-important province of Indian literature, the Veda, was almost entirely unknown, and of the whole of the great Buddhist literature nothing at all was known as yet. The little that was known of the Vedas up till the year 1830 was limited to meagre and incomplete information from the older writers on India. The first reliable information was given by Colebrooke in his abovementioned treatise on the Vedas in 1805.[^1) Comparatively more was known about the Upaniṣads, the philosophic treatises belonging to the Vedas. These Upaniṣads had been translated in the 17th century into Persian by the brother of Aurangzeb, the unfortunate Prince Mohammed-Dara Shakoh,[^2) the son of the Great Mogul Shah Jehan. From the Persian they were translated into Latin at the beginning of the 19th century by the French scholar Anquetil du Perron[^3) under the title "Oupnek'hat."[^4) Imperfect and full of misinterpretations as the Latin translation was, it has become of importance for the history of learning, through the fact that the German philosophers Schelling, and especially Schopenhauer, became enthusiastic for Indian philosophy by means of this book. It was not the Upaniṣads as we know and explain them now with all the material of Indian philology now accessible to us and our more definite knowledge of the whole philosophy of the Indians, but the "Oupnek'hat," that

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[^1): *Miscellaneous Essays*, Madras, 1872, pp. 9 ff. A German translation was published in 1847. For the beginnings of Vedic research, see W. *Caland*, "De Ontdekkingsgeschiedenis van den Veda," Amsterdam 1918, and *Th. Zachariae*, *GGA.*, 1921, 148 ff. (English in the Journal of Indian History, May, 1923.) [^2): The fate of this prince forms the subject of a beautiful, unfortunately too little known tragedy by *L. von Schroeder*, "Dara oder Schah Dschehan und seine Söhne" (Mitau 1891). [^3): *Anquetil du Perron*, too, was among those who were inspired by the Upaniṣads, and was himself a kind of Indian ascetic. See *E. Windisch*, "Die altindischen Religionsurkunden und die christliche Mission," Leipzig, 1897, p. 15, and "Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie," pp. 48 ff. [^4): The complete title is: "Oupnek'hat *i.e.* secretum tegendum, opus ipsa in India rarissimum, continens antiquam et arcanam s. theologicam, et philosophicam doctrinam e quatuor sacris Indorum libris, Rak Beid, Djedir Beid, Sam Beid, Athrban Beid excerptam : ad verbum e persico idiomate, Sanscreticis vocabulis intermixto in latinum conversum... studio et opera *Anquetil du Perron*... Parisiis 1801-1802, 4, 2 Vol." Partly translated into German, Nürnberg, 1808. "Oupnek'hat" is a corruption of "Upaniṣad" and "Rak Beid" etc. are corruptions of "Ṛg-veda," "Yajur-veda," "Sāmaveda" and "Atharva-veda."

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absolutely imperfect Perso-Latin translation of Anquetil du Perron, which Schopenhauer declared to be "the production of the highest human wisdom." At the same time as Schopenhauer in Germany was putting more of his own philosophical ideas into the Upaniṣads of the Indians than he gleaned from them, there lived in India one of the wisest and noblest men that this land has produced, Rāmmohun Roy, the founder of the "Brahmo Samāj" (a new religious community which sought to unite the best of the European religions with the faith of the Hindus), an Indian who, out of the same Upaniṣads, gleaned the purest faith in God, and out of them tried to prove to his countrymen that, although the idolatry of the present Indian religions is objectionable, yet the Indians therefore need not embrace Christianity, but could find a pure religion in their own sacred writings, in the old Vedas, if they only understood them. With the object of revealing this new teaching, new though already contained in the ancient scriptures, and causing it to be propagated by means of the religious community founded by him, the Brahmo Samāj, or the "Church of God," and also with the purpose of proving to the Christian theologians and missionaries whom he esteemed highly, that the best of that which they taught was already contained in the Upaniṣads,—he translated in the years 1816-1819, a considerable number of Upaniṣads into English, and published a few of these in the original.¹

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¹ Smaller fragments of the Upaniṣads appeared also in *Othmar Frank's* "Chrestomathia Sanscrita" (1820-1821) and in his "Vyāsa, über Philosophie, Mythologie, Literatur und Sprache der Hindu. (1826-1830).

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The actual philological investigation of the Vedas, however, began only in the year 1838, with the edition, published in London, of the first eighth of the Ṛgveda, by Friedrich Rosen, who was only prevented by his premature death from completing his edition. But above all it was the great French orientalist Eugène Burnouf, who taught at the Collège de France in the early forties of the nineteenth century, and who, by gathering around him a circle of pupils who afterwards became prominent Vedic scholars, laid the foundation of the study of the Vedas in Europe. One of these pupils was Rudolph Roth, who originated the study of the Vedas in Germany by his book "Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda" (On the literature and history of the Veda) published in 1846. Roth himself and a goodly number of his pupils devoted themselves in the following years and decades with a burning zeal to the investigation of the various branches of this, India's oldest literature. Another celebrated pupil of Burnouf was F. Max Müller, who had been initiated into the study of the Vedas by Burnouf at the same time as Roth. Stimulated by Burnouf, Max Müller formed the project of publishing the hymns of the Ṛgveda with the great commentary of Sāyaṇa. This edition, essential for all further research, appeared in the years 1849-1875.¹ Before this was yet completed, Th. Aufrecht had rendered invaluable services to these investigations, by his handy edition of the complete text of the hymns of the Ṛgveda (1861-1863).²

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¹ A second improved edition was published in 1890-1892.

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² A second edition of *Aufrecht's* text of the hymns of the Ṛg-veda was published in Bonn, 1877.

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The same Eugène Burnouf who had stood by the cradle of Veda study, had also, by the "Essai sur le Pali" published in 1826 in conjunction with Lassen, and by his "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme Indien" laid the foundation of the study of Pali, and the investigation of Buddhist literature.

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With the conquest of this great department of Veda literature, and with the opening-up of the literature of Buddhism, the history of the infancy of Indology has reached its end. It has grown into a great department of learning, in which the number of collaborators increases year by year. Now rapidly, one after the other, appear critical editions of the most important texts, and scholars of all countries strive in noble emulation to interpret them.¹ What has been done in the last decades in the different provinces of Indian literature, will have to be mentioned for the most part in the separate chapters of this history of literature. Here only the principal stages on the path of Indology, the most important events in its history can be briefly mentioned.

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¹ As early as 1823 A. W. *v.* Schlegel said very pertinently: "Will the English perhaps claim a monopoly of Indian literature? It would be too late. Cinnamon and cloves they may keep; but these mental treasures are the common property of the educated world." (Ind. Bibl. I, 15.)

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Above all, mention must be made of a pupil of A. Wilh. v. Schlegel, Christian Lassen, who tried to gather together the whole of the contemporary knowledge about India, in his "Indische Alterthumskunde" which, planned on a large scale, began to appear in the year 1843 and comprised four thick volumes, the last of which appeared in 1862. The fact that this book is obsolete already to-day is not the fault of the author, but a brilliant proof of the colossal progress which our science has made in the second half of the nineteenth century.

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The most powerful lever, however, for this progress, and perhaps the chief event in the history of Sanskrit research was the appearance of the "Sanskrit-Wörterbuch" (Sanskrit Dictionary) compiled by Otto Böhtlingk and Rudolph Roth, published by the Academy of Arts and Sciences in St. Petersburg. The first part of this appeared in the year 1852, and in the year 1875 the work was complete in seven folio volumes—a brilliant monument to German industry.

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In the same year 1852, in which the great St. Petersburg Dictionary began to appear, Albrecht Weber made an attempt for the first time to write a complete history of Indian literature. The work appeared under the title "Akademische Vorlesungen über indische Literaturgeschichte." A second edition appeared in 1876,¹ and it indicates not only a milestone in the history of Indology, but it has remained, in spite of its defects in style, which make it unpalatable for the general reader, for decades the most reliable and most complete handbook of Indian Literature.

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¹ An English translation of Weber's "History of Indian Literature" appeared in *Trübner's Oriental Series*.

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However, if one desires to get an idea of the truly astonishing progress which the investigation of Indian literature has made in the comparatively short duration of its existence, then one should read A. Wilh. v. Schlegel's essay, written in the year 1819, "Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Indischen Philologie" (On the present condition of Indian philology), in which not many more than a dozen Sanskrit books are enumerated as having been made known through editions or translations. Next one should glance at Friedrich Adelung's book, which appeared in the year 1830 in St. Petersburg, "Versuch einer Literatur der Sanskrit-Sprache" (A Study on the literature of the Sanskrit language²) in which already the titles of over 350 Sanskrit books are mentioned. One should then compare with it Weber's "Indische Literaturgeschichte" which in the year 1852 (according to an approximate estimate), discusses close on 500 works of Indian literature. Then one should look at the "Catalogus Catalogorum" published by Theodor Aufrecht in the years 1891, 1896 and 1903, which contains an alphabetical list of all Sanskrit works and authors, based on the investigation of all the available catalogues of manuscripts. In this monumental work, at which Aufrecht worked for over forty years, all the catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts of all the important libraries of India and Europe are incorporated, and the number of available Sanskrit books in this "Catalogus Catalogorum" runs into many thousands. Yet this catalogue does not include the whole of the Buddhist literature, and all the literary works which were written in other Indian languages and not in Sanskrit. And how many new works have been discovered since 1903!

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² This is rather a bibliography than a history of literature. About 230 edited texts are mentioned by J. *Gildemeister*, Bibliothecae Sanskritae sive recensus librorum Sanskritorum......Specimen Bonnae ad Rh. 1847.

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The investigation of Buddhist literature has been greatly furthered by the "Pali Text Society" founded in the year 1882 by T. W. Rhys Davids. Albrecht Weber, again, with his great treatise "Ueber die heiligen Schriften der Jaina"¹ (1883-1885) (on the sacred writings of the Jains) has opened up for science another great branch of literature, the writings of the Jains, a sect equal in antiquity to Buddhism.

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¹ "Indische Studien," Vols. 16 and 17.

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So much indeed has the amount of Indian Literature, which has become known, gradually increased, that now-a-days it is hardly possible any more for *one* scholar to master all the provinces of the same, and that the necessity arose for giving in one work an encyclopaedic view of everything which has, up till now, been done in the separate branches of Indology. For this work which has been appearing since the year 1897² under the title "Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde" (Encyclopaedia of Indo-aryan Philology and Archaeology) the plan was drawn up by Georg Bühler, the greatest and most versatile Sanskrit scholar of the last decades. Thirty scholars from Germany, Austria, England, Holland, India and America banded themselves together, in order to compile the separate parts of this work, first under the editorship of Bühler—afterwards under that of Franz Kielhorn and now under that of H. Lüders and J. Wackernagel. The publication of this, "Grundriss" is at one and the same time the latest and most welcome, as well as most important, event in the history of the development of Indology. If we wish to compare the knowledge of India and its literature as laid down in the volumes of this "Grundriss" which have appeared up till now, with that which Lassen was able to record in his "Indische Altertumskunde" only a few decades before, then we can look with just pride at the progress which science has made in a comparatively short period of time.

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² Published by Karl J. Trübner in Strassburg, now Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin and Leipzig.

The Chronology of Indian Literature

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Much as has been done with regard to the opening-up of Indian literature, yet its actual history is still to a great extent wrapped in darkness and unexplored. Above all, the chronology of the history of Indian literature is shrouded in truly terrifying darkness, and most of the riddles still remain to be solved by research. (It would be so pleasant, so convenient, and, especially for a handbook, so desirable, if one could divide Indian literature into three or four periods, separated by definite dates, and place the different literary productions in one or the other of these periods. But every attempt of such a kind is bound to fail in the present state of knowledge, and the use of hypothetical dates would only be a delusion, which would do more harm than good. It is much better to recognise clearly the fact that for the oldest period of Indian literary history we can give no certain dates, and for the later periods only a few.) Years ago the celebrated American Sanskrit scholar W. D. Whitney¹ gave utterance to these words which since then have often been repeated: "All dates given in Indian literary history are pins set up to be bowled down again." For the most part this is still the case to-day. (Even to-day the views of the most important investigators with regard to the age of the most important Indian literary works, differ, not indeed by years and decades, but by whole centuries, if not even by one or two thousands of years. What can be determined with some certainty, is at most only a kind of relative chronology. We can often say : this or that book, this or that class of literature is older than a certain other; however, with regard to its real age it is only possible to offer hypotheses. The surest mark of differentiation for this relative chronology still lies in the language. Less reliable are peculiarities of style; for it has often happened in India that later works have imitated the style of an older class of literature, in order to assume an appearance of antiquity. Often, indeed, also the relative chronology is spoiled, because many works of Indian literature, and just those which were the most popular, and therefore are the most important for us, have suffered manifold revisions, and have come to us in various modifications. If we find, for example, the Rāmāyaṇa or the Mahābhārata quoted in a book, the date of which can even only approximately be fixed, then the question always arises first, whether this quotation refers to the epics as we have them at present, or to the older versions of the same. Still greater does the uncertainty become through the fact that, of the majority of the works of the older literature, the authors’ names are as good as unknown to us. They are handed down to us as the works of families, of schools, or monastic communities, or a mythical seer of primitive times is named as the author. When at last, we come to a time where we have to deal with the works of quite definite individual writers, then these are, as a rule, only mentioned by their family names with which the literary historian of India knows as little what to do, as probably a German literary historian with the names Meier, Schultze or Müller, when these are given without a first name. If, for example, a book under the name of Kālidāsa, or the name of Kālidāsa is mentioned anywhere, then it is by no means certain that the great poet of this name is meant, it can equally well be another Kālidāsa.[^1)

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