Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.3

c12.3

**Need of simplified Literature.** There was, however, a natural limit to this exuberant growth of literature in particular directions. The mass of matter became too vast; there appeared the risk of the substance of religion, the tenor and spirit of the whole, being lost in the details. Diffuse discussion of details had to be replaced by their concise collective summaries. The result was the creation of a new type of literature, the *Sūtras*, which were all thus written with a practical object. The Sūtra-kāras claim no inspiration for themselves. They made a scientific study of the literature handed down to them from previous times and they wanted to make the contents of that literature more easily accessible through the results of their own studies. Thus the style of composition which they necessarily adopted for that purpose was businesslike in the extreme. The utmost brevity was required in comprising within the smallest compass the vast mass of literary material that had to be handled in order that the memory might not be overburdened. Brevity was the soul of this new literary style and there is a proverbial saying (taken from the *Mahābhāshya*) that "an author rejoiceth in the economizing of half a short vowel as much as in the birth of a son". Thus arose in pursuit of this ideal of brevity a remarkably condensed and enigmatical style which was more and more cultivated as the literature of the Sūtras became more independent and popular with the growing appreciation of its advantages.