A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.165

v1.c8.s2.165

Of late, however, the theory has also met with a great deal of opposition. Many years back Max Müller and Sylvain Lévi¹ had already suggested that the dialogue poems of the Ṛgveda might be a kind of dramas. This idea has been taken up by Joh. Hertel² and L. von Schroeder,³ who tried to prove that these Saṃvāda hymns are really speeches belonging to some dramatic performances connected with the religious cult. We have only, they say, to supply dramatic action, and the difficulties which these hymns offer to interpretation will disappear. What kind of action has to be supplied can of course only be guessed from the dialogues themselves.