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A History of Indian Literature v1.c7.s3: The Chronology of Indian Literature

A History of Indian Literature v1.c7.s3

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English

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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¹ In the Introduction to his "Sanskrit Grammar," Leipzig, 1879 (second edition, 1889).

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In this ocean of uncertainty there are only a few fixed points, which, in order not to frighten the reader too much, I would like to mention here.

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There is above all the evidence of language, which proves that the hymns and songs, prayers and magic formulas of the Veda, are indisputably the oldest which we possess of Indian literature. Further, it is certain that Buddhism arose in India about 500 years before Christ, and that it presupposes the whole Vedic literature, as represented by its chief works, as practically finished, so that one can assert: The Vedic literature apart from its latest excrescences is on the whole pre-Buddhist, *i.e.* it was concluded before 500 B.C. Also, the chronology of the Buddhist and Jain literature is fortunately not quite so uncertain as that of the Brahmanical literature. The traditions of the Buddhists and the Jains with regard to the formation, or rather the collection, of their canonical works, have proved themselves fairly trustworthy, and inscriptions on the preserved ruins of temples and topes of these religious sects give us appreciable indications of the history of their literature.

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However, the safest dates of Indian history are those which we do not get from the Indians themselves. Thus, the invasion of Alexander the Great in India, in the year 326 B.C., is a certain date, which is of importance for Indian literary history, also, especially when it is the question whether, in any literary work or class of literature, Greek influence should be assumed. From the Greeks we also know that,

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[^1): The history of Indian literature encounters an additional difficulty in the frequent occurrence of the same name in different forms, and in the circumstance that one and the same author often has two or several different names, as name synonyms and abbreviations of names are very general in India; s. R. O. *Franke*, "Indische Genuslehren," pp. 57 ff. and GGA, 1892, pp. 482 ff.

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about 315 B.C. Candragupta, the Sandrakottos of the Greek writers, conducted successfully the revolt against the prefects of Alexander, took possession of the throne, and became the founder of the Maurya dynasty in Pāṭaliputra (the Palibothra of the Greeks, the present Patna). It was at about the same time, or a few years later, that the Greek Megasthenes was sent by Seleukos as ambassador to the court of Candragupta. The fragments which have been preserved of the description of India, written by him, give us a picture of the state of Indian culture at that time, and enable us to draw conclusions as to the dates of several Indian literary works. A grandson of Candragupta is the celebrated King Aśoka, who was crowned about 264 B.C.,¹ and from whom originate the oldest dateable Indian inscriptions which have been found up to the present. These inscriptions, partly on rocks, partly on pillars, are the oldest evidences of Indian script which we possess. They show us this powerful king as a patron and a protector of Buddhism, who made use of his sovereignty, which extended from the extreme north to the extreme south of India, for the purpose of spreading abroad everywhere the teaching of Buddha, and who, unlike other rulers, in his rock and pillar edicts, did not narrate his own conquests and glorious deeds, but exhorted the people to virtuous conduct, warned them against sin, and preached love and tolerance. These singular edicts of the King Aśoka are themselves precious literary monuments hewn in stone, but they are also of importance for the history of literature on account of their script and their language, as well as for evidences of religious history. In the year 178 B.C., 137 years after the coronation of Candragupta, the last scion of the Maurya dynasty was hurled from the throne by a king Puṣyamitra. The mention of this King Puṣyamitra, for instance, in a drama of Kālidāsa, is an important evidence for the determination of the date of several works of Indian literature. The same is true of the Græco-Bactrian King Menander, who reigned about 144 B.C. He appears under the name Milinda in the famous Buddhist book “Milindapañha.”

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¹ See *Fleet*, JRAS 1912, 239.

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Next to the Greeks it is the Chinese to whom we are indebted for some of the most important date-determinations of Indian literary history. Since the first century after Christ we hear of Buddhist missionaries who go to China and translate Buddhist works into Chinese, of Indian embassies in China and of Chinese pilgrims, who make pilgrimages to India in order to visit the holy places of Buddhism. Works of Indian literature are translated into Chinese, and the Chinese give us exact dates at which these translations were made. There are especially three Chinese pilgrims Fa-hien, who went to India in the year 399, Hsüan-Tsang, who made great journeys in India from 630 to 645, and I-tsing, who sojourned in India from 671 to 695, whose descriptions of their travels are preserved. These accounts give us many a valuable datum on Indian antiquity and works of literature. The chronological data of the Chinese are, contrary to those of the Indians, wonderfully exact and reliable. It is only too true of the Indians, what the Arabian traveller Albērūni, who in the year 1030 wrote a book on India, which is very important for us, said of them: “Unfortunately the Hindus do not pay much attention to the historical order of things, they are very careless in relating the chronological succession of their kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to romancing.”¹

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¹ See E. C. *Sachau*, Alberuni’s India, English Ed., II, pp. 10

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Nevertheless, one must not believe, as it has so often been asserted, that the historical sense is entirely lacking in the Indians. In India, too, there has been historical writing; and in any case we find in India numerous accurately dated inscriptions, which could hardly be the case if the Indians had had no sense of history at all. It is only true that the Indians, in their writing of history, never knew how to keep fact and fiction strictly apart, that to them the facts themselves were always more important than their chronological order, and that they attached no importance at all, especially in literary matters, to the question of what was earlier or later. Whatever seems good, true and right, to the Indian, that he raises to the greatest possible age; and if he wants to impart a special sanctity to any doctrine, or if he wishes that his work shall be as widespread as possible, and gain respect, then he veils his name in a modest incognito, and mentions some ancient sage as the author of the book. This still happens at the present day, and in past centuries it was no different. It is for this reason that so many quite modern works pass under the time-honoured name of "Upaniṣads" or "Purāṇas," new, sour wine put into old bottles. The intention to deceive, however, is as a rule out of the question in these cases. It is only that extreme indifference reigns with regard to the right of literary ownership and the desire of asserting it. Only in the later centuries does it happen that authors give their own names with full details, together with the names of their parents, grandparents, teachers, patrons, and scanty biographical notes about themselves. The authors of astronomical books generally also give the exact date of the day on which they completed their work. Since the fifth century after Christ, inscriptions too begin to give us information about the dates of many writers. In the deciphering of inscriptions great progress has been made during the last decades. Witness thereof are the "Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum," and the periodical "Epigraphia Indica." And it is the inscriptions to which we are not only indebted for the surest dates of Indian literary history, settled up to now, but from which we also hope to get the greater number of solutions of the chronological problems still unsolved at present.

Cites (7)