English
Bana- bhatta's father was Chitrabhdnu, and his mother was Rljyadevi ; and Chitrabh&nu died when young Bdna • was only 14 years of age. Bhadran&riyana, Isdna and MayCira were among Bana's early friends. • Sec Tawocy's translation of Kaihd Sarit S&gara, Vol. II, p. 43, nctc. Digitized by Googl CRAP. XIII.] FICTION. The story of K&damvari is wild and weird, and too long to tell ; — the same couple of lovers go through more than one life, and still feel the same irresistible attraction for each other. Scenes of overwhelming passion, intense sorrow, irresistible love and austere penances in wild soli- tudes are depicted with power and with a wonderful command of language. There is little of character in the various personages. They are all carried away by the vicissitudes of fortune or by torrents of feeling which have the power of fate. It is this which Hindu writers delight in depicting ; of determined efforts of the will in supporting or combating the ordinary ills of life, there are few descriptions in Hindu works of ima- gination. For the rest, the style of composition, in spite of its wonderful power, is ornate and redundant laboured and extravagant, beyond all reasonable bounds ; and often the same verbose sentence with strings of adjectives and long compounds, with a profusion of similes and figures of speech, run through several pages ! Subandhu also lived in the same reign and wrote the Vasavadatti, a shorter tale. Prince Kandarpakatu and princess V£savadatt& fell in love on dreaming of each other ; and the prince went to Kusumapura (Pitaliputra), met the princess, and carried her away on an aereal steed to the Vindhya mountains. There he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found her not. On this Kandarpakatu was about to commit suicide when a voice from the sky prevented him and promised R. C. D., A. L — III. 29 Digitized by Google 450 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. him eventual reunion with his beloved bride. After long wanderings he found a stone figure resembling his long lost wife ; he touched it, and lo ! Vasavadatt& waked to life. A holy saint had turned her into stone, — with the merciful provision however that she would be restored to life on being touched by her husband. We have yet one or two other important works of fiction to speak of. The Brihat Katha is a collection of fables and tales which were long current among the people in the Paisachi dialect. In the 12th century A.D. Somadeva, a Kashmirian by birth, abridged it and put it into Sanscrit in order to console Queen Stiryavati of Kashmir, on the death of her grandson Harshadeva in 1 1 25 A. D. ; and this abridged compilation is known as the Katha Sarit Sagara. "The book," says the compiler, " is precisely on the model of that from which it is taken ; there is not even the slightest devia- tion ; only such language is selected as tends to abridge the prolixity of the work." * A divine origin must needs be given to this compi- lation, and its existence in the Paisachi dialect must needs be explained. This is done in the usual manner. Siva first told the tales to his consort, and an attendant Pushpadanta overheard them. He was therefore cursed and sent down to the earth as a mortal, and was born as Katyayana, the critic of Panini. He was a minister of Nanda, and a contemporary of Chandragupta and * C. H. Tawney's translation. Digitized by Google CHAP. XIII.] FICTION. 451 Ch£nakya, and we are also told that he had a dispu- tation with P&nini himself. This last story no doubt owes its origin to the fact of Katy&yana's having criti- cised P&nini ; the contemporaneous existence of the two grammarians need not be inferred from this story. Kcityiyana told the tales (which he had overheard as an attendant on Siva) to a Pisdcha K&nabhtiti (who was formerly a Yaksha,) and K&nabhtiti the Pis&cha told it in his Paisachi language to Gun&dhya, another attend- ant on Siva, but sent to earth as a mortal. Gunddhya gave the fables to S&tav&hana, king of Pratishthdna on the God&vari, once the capital of Southern India ; and Satav&hana published the great collection of fables. All that we can gather from this elaborate intro- ductory story is that the compilation of the Brihat Kath& was made in Southern India in the Pais&chi dialect, and that Gun&dhya was probably the com- piler. Somadeva's Sanscrit version, the Kathd Sarit Sigara is divided into 18 books and 124 chapters, and contains nearly everything in the way of folklore known in India ! We find in it occasional stones from the Mah&bhcirata and the R&m&yana, some tales from the Pur£nas, much of the fables of the Panchatantra ? the whole of the twenty-five tales of a demon known as the Betal Pachisi, some of the tales which we believe occur in the Sinhasan Batisi, and many adventures of the great Vikramaditya of Ujjayini. The tales throw Digitized by Google 452 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. much light on the manners and customs and the domes, tic life of the people. With regard to Vikram&ditya of Ujjayini we are told that he was the son of Mahendr&ditya by the queen Saumyadarsani, and that he had a second name Vishama Sila (Siteditya ?) We are also told that he was sent to the earth, because the gods complained Oj- the oppression of the Mlechchhas in India, — and Vik. rama fulfilled his destiny and slew the Mlechchhas. The only other well-known work of fiction is the Hitopadesa, which is merely a compilation of a portion of the older Panchatantra. It is remarkable that all these works of fiction are in Sanscrit, although the Prakrits were the spoken tongues in India in the Pauranik Period. Vararachi, one of the " nine gems " of Vikramdditya $ court, is the oldest grammarian who treats of the Pra- krit dialects. He distinguishes four distinct dialects, viz., the Mah&r&shtrt or Prakrit properly so called ; the Sauraseni very similar to the Mah&r&shtri and like it derived from the Sanscrit; the Pmsdektwx d the MtigadM which last two are said to be derived from the Sauraseni. The?e Prakrit dialects gradually came into use in Northern India from the older Pali language which was the sacred language of the Buddhists, and had been the spoken tongue for a thousand years or more. Indeed, the political and religious causes which ushered in a new form of Hinduism in the place of declining of Digitized by Go CHAP. XIII.] FICTION. 453 Buddhism had undoubtedly some influence in establish- ing the newer Prakrit dialects in the place of the older -W-J A 1 • X dll. Political and religious changes have generally been attended in India and elsewhere, — not indeed with sudden changes in the spoken tongue, — but with such changes, ( slow and gradual in themselves ), being authoritatively and suddenly recognized. When the vigorous colonists on the banks of the Ganges and the Jumna left behind their old mother country, the Punjab, in learning and civilization, the Sanscrit of the Rig Veda was replaced by the Sanscrit of the BnMimanas. With the rise of Magadha and of Gautama Buddha, P&li replaced the Sanscrit of the Brahmanas. With the decline of Buddhism and the rise of Hinduism under Vikram&ditya the Prdkrits took the place of the Pdli. And lastly with the fall of ancient races and the rise of the Rajputs in the ioth century A. D. was witnessed the rise of the Hindi language which is still spoken in Northern India. All this is intelligible. But the readers of K&Hddsa and of Bhavabhuti will naturally enquire, Did those poets write in a dead language? Is it possible to compose a Sakuntal&, a Meghaduta or an Uttara Charita in a dead language ? Does the history of other nations furnish us with one single instance of such works of matchless beauty being composed in a dead language ? Those who have compared the Prakrits with Sanscrit will find no difficulty in answering these questions. Digitized by Google 454 PAURAN1K PERIOD. [BOOK V. Sanscrit was not a dead language in the Paur£nik Period in the sense in which Latin is now a dead language in Europe. The difference between Sanscrit and the Prakrits is far less than the difference between the Latin and even the Italian. When the Prikrits were commonly spoken, Sanscrit was still understood and even spoken in courts. Learned men carried on oral controversies in Sanscrit. All proclamations and state manifestoes were in Sanscrit. Pandits carried on conversation in the court as in the schoolroom in Sanscrit. Poems were recited and plays were rehearsed in Sanscrit. All men of education and culture under- stood Sanscrit and often spoke Sanscrit. Probably the common people in towns who spoke the Prakrits understood ordinary easy Sanscrit. The educated and the learned were certainly perfectly at home with Sanscrit. It was the language which they always read, which they often spoke, and in which they composed and thought, and even conversed. Sanscrit was not therefore a dead language in the Pauranik Period in the sense in which it is a dead language now. And K&lid&sa and Bhavabhuti did not compose in a dead language, properly so called, when they wrote the Sakuntaia or the Uttara Charita. Digitized by Google CHAPTER XIV. EARLY PAUFANIK CIVILIZATION. We will now close this rapid and imperfect History of Civilization in Ancient India. It was impossible within our limits to attempt anything like a compre- hensive or exhaustive account of this vast subject. We have rather tried to connect together only the leading facts of Indian History, and to present a con- nected series of outline sketches, illustrating Hindu Civilization in successive ages. If in these portraits our countrymen have recognised the features of our ancient forefathers, however indistinctly, our labour has not been thrown away.